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Ep. 97 - 3 Bros, a Van, and a Non-Christian Family Rock Band w/ Dawson Scholtz of The Ongoing Concept
79 Plays3 years ago
This week, we’re joined by musician and vocalist, Dawson Scholtz! The Ongoing Concept is one of the most interesting bands on Solid State Records, and a personal favorite of Sam’s. In this episode, Dawson talks life in a family gospel band, writing music and touring with his brothers in TOC while they were still very young, and some of the weird things about being perceived as a Christian band. The Ongoing Concept is currently working on a new album, and they’re gearing up for a west coast tour in November! For more information, follow them on Instagram and TikTok (@theongoingconcept).
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Transcript
Introduction and Adam Levine Controversy
00:00:00
Speaker
I went and got coffee with, I think I got Taco Bell with like the youth pastor guy. And he told me that if I started doing the band and doing touring stuff, like God would make us fail, like because we didn't come to small group anymore.
00:00:18
Speaker
That's some confidence. Wow. And, uh, I just remember, cause I, yeah, I didn't, hadn't come to a small group for like a month, two months or something. And I was focusing on my band and yeah, I was like, yeah, if you keep doing that, your, your band will fail because you're not coming to small group. And I'm just like, okay, well, I don't even know what to say. Like, yeah, just, okay, cool, dude. Well, now I'm never coming to small group ever again, but like, how could you possibly maintain your spiritual connection to God without me?
00:00:47
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know, dude. It was just one of those things, man. Ultimatives usually work super well, too. I'm surprised that didn't sink in a little better. Especially with teenagers.
00:01:17
Speaker
We're back with another episode of Growing Up Christian. I'm Sam. And I'm Casey. And Casey, I should have brought this up last week, dude. But I was rolling over the whole Adam Levine text message leak. Did you pay any attention to that at all? I saw some of the memes, but I don't know what the whole story is on it. So, I mean, it's basically Adam Levine's been like cheating on his wife.
00:01:48
Speaker
his text got leaked and everybody knows about it now. So like the text is like, holy fuck, holy fucking fuck, your ass is amazing or something like that. I have to look up this. So everybody, it was like a picture above it. So everyone in the world just kept like, yeah, look it up right now while I'm talking. Everyone in the world was just,
00:02:13
Speaker
Photoshopping in pictures of just people who looked ridiculous. I saw one of that shirtless photo of Elon Musk. And then people would change the words. Some bands would put a picture of their album, and then it would be like, that album of yours is amazing instead of that ass of yours is amazing. So people were just having a field day with it, and it was hilarious.
00:02:40
Speaker
Because he types like a 12-year-old? Yeah. Like his sexting totally matches his tattoos? Yes. It's like a one-for-one exchange right there. I saw a meme like long before this where it said something along the lines of, Adam Levine looks like he went to a tattoo parlor and said, I'd like tattoos, please. Yeah.
00:03:08
Speaker
Well, Jesse or Fred, Jesse was like, dude, I'm just glad that the internet is finally giving Adam Levine the hate that he's deserved all these years. And absolutely the guy, he's always sucked and people have liked him and he's just. Yeah. Was he have a California tattoo over his California on his belly? Dude, he looks like a junior hire sneaker. Yeah. Someone who just got that new pair of vans and they want to draw a checker
00:03:35
Speaker
patterned all over their white vans or some shit. It's like you remember those little the little chucks it was when they would do like they'd scribble all over their chucks and shit. Yeah, you get the Sharpies out. You remember when remember in every grocery store used to have those like quarter sticker machines that you'd put the quarters in the slot and then jam them in? Yeah, yeah. He looks like somebody
00:03:59
Speaker
He looks like the worst designer at Ed Hardy, like quit and went to designing stickers for those machines. Those temporary tattoos. It looks like he's just full of temporary tattoos. Yeah. These are, these are amazing. Yeah. The tech message, dude, it's just, it's literally just like a text chain of him, like ripping dick to
00:04:26
Speaker
Triple C thick fat ass is all he's about like it's go gross it is The texts they're just they're so cringe it is it's very middle school it's very like
00:04:42
Speaker
I, but what was particularly amazing about it was he, God, I, it sounded like he hired like some evangelical pastors PR team to write his apology. Oh, man. Oh my God. My family's the most important thing in the world to me. I can't believe I ever would have done anything like that. Stepping back for a time of healing. Yeah. For real, dude.
00:05:08
Speaker
Well, he's not going to do the voice anymore. Blue who? Sorry, bro. No one cares. Yeah. What did Krista Leah write this for you? Yeah. I think, uh, the little bit that I saw about this, they were, they showed like some of the text messages and then, I guess, uh, so is it just one woman that he was texting or was he texting a whole bunch of women?
00:05:37
Speaker
Yeah, I think you just said one legit side piece. Because she issued an apology or an explanation or something like that too, right? Oh, maybe. I saw something where she was like, first off, I was new to LA. It was like you were new to LA. Yeah. I was new to LA. No one outside of LA knows who Adam Levine is. You got those letters flipped.
00:06:07
Speaker
Adam's with me. Okay, yeah, we get it. I love this now where people get caught. And then like, it just becomes like a blame game trying to like, trying to like dodge responsibility for what happened. And some of them are like so pathetic. I think you don't really get more pathetic than Jerry Falwell juniors where he's just like, yeah, my wife cheated on me.
00:06:36
Speaker
So he went through the evangelical route and threw her under the bus, dude. That's the equivalent, that's the modern day equivalent of cutting off your wife's wrist. Oh, man. He's accidentally grabbing the balls of another man. Here's his apology. He goes, a lot is being said about me right now and I want to clear the air.
00:07:01
Speaker
I used poor judgment in speaking with anyone other than my wife in any kind of flirtatious manner. I did not have an affair. Nevertheless, I crossed the line that during, I crossed the line during a regrettable period in my life. In certain instances, it became inappropriate. I would say the holy fucking fuck part was pretty inappropriate. I'm talking about another thing that happened.
00:07:26
Speaker
I have addressed that and taken proactive steps to remedy this with my family. My wife and my family is all I care about in this world. To be this naive and stupid enough to risk the only things in life that truly matter? Well, I've ruined that. The only thing that truly matters to me was the greatest mistake I could have ever made. I will never make it again. I take full responsibility. Sounds like it.
00:07:54
Speaker
We will get through it and we will get through it as a family. I like, I like when people say I take full responsibility because those are just words you can say that mean I'm doing absolutely nothing and I'm sorry I got caught.
00:08:08
Speaker
It's like when somebody's telling you, like a car salesman's telling you something that doesn't add up and they're like, bro, I'll tell you what, I just got too much integrity to sell people stuff that they don't need. I mean, you know, I got to go home and sleep at night. I got to be able to look myself in the mirror. And for me, like, it's just not worth it, man. I just, you know, I'm honest and integrity is a big part of, you know, it's very important to me. Like, stop saying those things.
00:08:34
Speaker
Like you don't say those things about yourself. People say those about you. If you use the word integrity 10 times in five minutes, you're a lying piece of shit is what that means.
00:08:45
Speaker
There's a lot of diminishing returns on self-targeted platitudes. You can maybe get away with one. Two is starting to get annoying. By four, everyone hates you. My favorite for sales shit is like the, all right, hey man, listen.
00:09:04
Speaker
I want to help you out. So I'm going to go out and call my boss and I'm going to try to work something out. I want to be able to cut you a deal. I want to be able to help you out. It's like, bitch, you work on commission. You're not trying to help me out. You want to walk away with a sale.
Deceptive Sales Tactics Experiences
00:09:17
Speaker
I get it. And you're not calling your boss and you don't need approval to give me this deal. You just want me to be on your side.
00:09:25
Speaker
I'm going for you here, bud. I'm going to take this in a different direction. Have I talked about the time that someone tried to sell me gutter covers? Gutter covers? No. Okay. Dude, I've never been more angry in my life. That's not true. I get angry all the time. Very angry. But this was a particularly frustrating time. I had reached out to a couple companies because I wanted gutter covers. Here's why those are a scam if you're hiring a company to do it for you.
00:09:57
Speaker
generally if you're looking to do anything you like gutters even getting gutters it's like it's basically unless they have to climb like three stories up or four stories up i could get some pretty general quotes of like it's going to roughly be x amount of dollars per square foot as long as we don't need a certain length ladder then obviously that
00:10:23
Speaker
and there's more, there could be some safety issues, whatever. But I got some pretty general responses about what it costs per square foot or per linear foot, sorry, it's gutters, to do, yeah, to hang those. And then when I got sick of cleaning out my gutters, I tried to find a company to put the cleanup, basically just clean it out, put the gutter covers on it. There's apparently a lot of different kinds
00:10:52
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, most of it is just really is just a match that goes over it. I could buy some at Costco and clip it on myself. I just didn't want to I wanted to I'm more than happy to like hire somebody to do that because I don't like doing things. And the reason I work is to not do things on top of work. So each sleeves. The I swear I'm listening to what you're saying. Okay, so the first guy comes out.
00:11:18
Speaker
and gives me a quote, and I'm like, I don't think I can do that. No, I didn't even say I don't think I can do that. It wasn't super unreasonable. I was just like, I have another guy coming to quote me later. I'm not interested in just sealing the deal today. He goes, well, this offer expires after today. I was like, oh, OK, get the fuck off my fucking property.
00:11:41
Speaker
No, I didn't say that. I was like, look, man, I understand that. That's fine. I guess I'll just not go with you guys and maybe or maybe call you guys like a year from now if I change my mind. And he's like, well, hold on a second. Let me go outside. Let me make a couple of calls. And then he comes back and he's like, all right, listen, man. We just did a commercial job and we have all this leftover product.
00:12:04
Speaker
Now, I can rate this as a commercial job and we can use that, but I actually need to check today. And he cut the price a good bit.
00:12:15
Speaker
a good bit. I was like, look, dude, I literally just moved into this house. I have no more savings. I like cleaned myself out moving in here. I don't have that on me. Oh, I'm sorry, man. I hate to leave, but as soon as I drive down the road, man, I mean, the offer is gone. It's like, I get it. Just fucking leave. So the next guy comes a couple of weeks later. I had freshly cleaned out my gutters.
00:12:42
Speaker
because I knew people were going to be looking at them and I didn't want to look like a total loser. So this guy comes with a drone to my house and he flies his drone all around my house, takes pictures, comes in. It's supposed to be like 20, 30 minute meeting. It's post dinner. It's time for my kids to go to bed.
00:13:02
Speaker
He's at my table. My kids are like driving me now. They're going crazy. My kids are like, it's too late. They should be asleep. And he keeps pausing. He goes, listen, man, I'll let you take care of your family. This is the most important thing right now. Family. Family's the most important thing. Yeah. It's like cringy, dude. And I'm like, if family's the most important thing right now, you just wrap your pitch up, tell me how much it fucking cost and get the fuck out of my house. But no, he doesn't do that.
00:13:28
Speaker
He just keeps pausing, crossing his arms, waiting for me to do it like this. I'm like, this shit's not gonna stop. Kids are relentless, a lot like sales people. So just wrap this shit up. And after going through this large spiel, he goes, so how much do you think these things cost? I'm like, I hate that question. And I low ball the fuck out of it on purpose, dude. I was like, probably like.
00:13:54
Speaker
I was like, I don't know, maybe like 1500 bucks. And he goes, his eyes, dude, his eyes, that was, that was the pinnacle of it for me. I was like, maybe this was worth it. Cause his eyes kind of rolled back. He's like, Oh, uh, no, it was, it was like five grand, dude. Like, look, this is a teachable moment. You just lost control of the pitch, bud.
00:14:22
Speaker
You've been building momentum this whole time and now you've gone flaccid. Now what? I got the full history of gutter covers from like the year they finally started until now. So he told me he's trying to sell me these like space age gutter covers. So then after I'm like I reject his pitch, he takes me outside. He goes, well, I want to show you. He shows me the pictures as drone type.
00:14:44
Speaker
He's like, well, listen, man, you got some real issues going on here. And he, he, he immediately goes to scare tactics. So he's like, your gutters are full and the water is going behind your gutters and it's getting, it could be getting inside your house at this point. And I'm like.
00:15:01
Speaker
No, dude, I literally cleaned them four days ago, like, or whatever, probably three weeks ago. But those things were completely clean, dude. There wasn't anything in them at all. Total full of shit. And then he takes me out to my backyard, the gutter going along my daughter's bedroom. He goes, if water water is getting behind there, the person who did this house, they didn't even put the right size gutters on it.
00:15:23
Speaker
So like that's going to cause problems because the gutters are, it's, I don't even remember what he said. I think it was just, they weren't wide enough. So it's splashing out the back. It was all like horse shit stuff. He goes that, oh, that that's your daughter's bedroom. Right? I'm like, yes. And he goes, well, water, it's probably, it's getting up under the roof. And I mean, you, there could be mold in the wall of her room right now. Like you need gutter covers.
00:15:50
Speaker
I was like, I think it's time for you to leave. I don't think we're doing this anymore. Like you're trying to scare me. But the best part about it was like a few weeks later, someone from that company called and they were like, I just want to like follow up on the sales and like the salesman and see if you were interested in getting these gutters covers. And I was like, no, not at all. They're too expensive. Uh, but also I have a lot of complaints to make.
00:16:17
Speaker
And I fucking ripped him apart. I was just like, he tried to scare me into buying gutters because he told me that, uh, the work that was done was shoddy and mold was in my daughter's walls and that she'll be getting sick from it. So he was one of the worst salesman I've ever talked to. And it was the worst sales pitch I've ever heard. It went on longer than you told me it would. And it was one of the worst sales experiences I'll probably ever have. And she was like, it was, it was like five seconds of silence on the other line. And she was just like.
00:16:46
Speaker
Oh my God. I'm so sorry. Anyway, I don't know how we got here, but I, that's my gutter cover story. Yeah. We, we did one of those, uh, nobody tells, it should be by square. I've been made by linear foot, right? How much does it cost per foot? Yeah. No, they should be able to like, they should be able to like come to your house with a little pamphlet and it's like good, better, best.
00:17:15
Speaker
which one of these makes sense to you, I will price them out once you pick the one that you want. Or before. 60 feet. 60 feet of gutters, maybe less, whatever. Like, it should be so simple. And the fact that all of them just highball you and then look try to bring you down when you deny their service. It's like, this is bullshit. The second you're saying you're not you're the costs are transparent. And then you try to like,
00:17:43
Speaker
Pretend like we're buds and make calls or you try to scare, it's like, I know the whole thing's a scam. What I'm going to do now is go buy the shittier version at Costco and find someone on like Angie's List to throw that shit on there for me because I don't want to. Yeah, so one time we were,
Vacation Scam and Timeshare Troubles
00:18:11
Speaker
It was, boy, it was like pretty soon after we got married. Maybe like a year or two after we got married. And we were like walking through Bass Pro Shop and they always have like the vacation. That's your church, right? It's as close as I'm gonna get. Yeah, you know, sometimes I just take a lunch break at Bass Pro Shop and I just
00:18:38
Speaker
you know, sit in front of the large fish tank full of carp and just really do some thinking, you know? Meditate. Transcendent. I imagine you have a lot of- Have you heard about mindfulness? You should totally try it. I've never heard of this. It's quintessential part of Bass Pro Shop culture though. Okay. I see the hats everywhere and the shirts, but I've never been to one. Yeah. What is with the youth group kid wearing the
00:19:06
Speaker
like single color Bass Pro Shop hat now. That seems to be like a- I don't hang out with as many youth group kids as you do. I'm just saying like Christian influencers on TikTok. It seems like that's their look right now. Bass Pro, it's like, I feel like that's Carhartt adjacent, you know? Yeah. Which I consider myself Carhartt adjacent. It makes me angry.
00:19:34
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not here to shit on Carhartt. It's legit. One of my favorite hoodies is a Carhartt hoodie. I'm not here to shit on Carhartt. I'm sorry. I brought this to a place that it didn't deserve to go. Yeah. Apologies, everyone. Sam takes full responsibility. This podcast is also brought to you by Carhartt.
00:19:57
Speaker
So we're walking through Bass Pro Shop and there's always like this little stand somewhere in the store. It's somewhere where you can't avoid it usually.
00:20:08
Speaker
And there's two people and it's never the same person twice. Like if you go to Bass Pro Shop twice in two weeks, there's no way that the same person is still working there at this stage. It's like Amazon warehouse. Yeah. And it's blue green vacations. And I don't know if they're a division of the same company or if they've just got like a deal worked out or they can set up their little pagoda in there.
00:20:32
Speaker
But they flag you down and they're like, hey, are you interested in a three day weekend getaway for two, for, you know, it's something ridiculous, like 60 bucks or something like that.
00:20:47
Speaker
And we're like, um, okay. Yeah. Well, you know, tell us, tell us more about that. And they're like, okay, well you can pick from these places and oh yeah, it's only 60 bucks. And, uh, you know, it's three nights in a hotel in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. And, uh, you know, all you gotta do is, is you're going to go through a presentation while you're there.
00:21:10
Speaker
And, but it's, it's simple. It's an hour, hour and a half tops. You know, it's just a really great time. Are you interested in going? And we're like, Oh, okay. Yeah, sure. We're interested in going. So we booked this like weekend getaway to, to Gatlinburg drive down. Um, it's about, I want to say it was probably about a seven or eight hour drive. It's not close, you know, Tennessee to Michigan. So we get down there.
00:21:39
Speaker
And we've got directions to the place, and it was supposed to be in Gatlinburg. They show you this resort spot that's off the beaten path in the mountains in Gatlinburg. And you've never been there, have you? No.
00:21:54
Speaker
Okay. So Gatlinburg is like in the mountains, like you kind of drive back into the mountains and then boom, there it is. It's like kind of tucked in between them in the smoky mountains there. Okay. And then there's Pigeon Forge, which is kind of like the, uh, the ugly cousin of Gatlinburg. It's like sort of a ratty, dirty tourist town that's not quite in the mountains. It's still kind of in the like crappy suburbs of the mountains.
00:22:24
Speaker
Oh, mountain suburbs. So we, we go to go to this place and check, check in and get our package and schedule our tour time and stuff. And then they'll give us directions and stuff to the hotel. Right. So in this place, we go to this place and they're like, okay, so we have you at the such and such hotel. It's here in Pigeon Forge. And I'm like, well,
00:22:43
Speaker
Oh, I thought this was in Gatlinburg and they're like, Oh no, we're, we're, you'll be staying at one of our properties here in, uh, in pigeon forest. So it's like this old, old hotel that they like slapped a coat of paint on. And it's not even on the like main strip. It's on the backside. So it's kind of a dump. It's old and dirty.
00:23:04
Speaker
like well okay whatever you know we're not super prissy about hotels so we we got all checked in and stuff we're supposed to be that you know we scheduled our appointment for the morning so we could just go and get it done so we picked like an 8 30 time slot so we go to this thing and it starts out in this like classroom setting with probably like
00:23:28
Speaker
I'll bet you there's 20 other couples in there. And we're by far the youngest. And we look like senior hires anyways at the time. I still had like the swoop there. You thought you were a little publicly straightened emo swoop. Yeah. I look like the Lego version of the guy from Fall Out Boy or something. So we're in this classroom with a bunch of boomers and they start in on this presentation and it's like,
00:23:57
Speaker
you know, guys, I want to talk to you today about memories. It sounds so much like I want to talk to you. It's so much it's so it's very similar. Very similar.
00:24:11
Speaker
It was like, you know, warming you up for the altar call. And they talk about like, you know, the precious moments that you and your family have. And like, how many of you know, they start talking to the crowd, how many vacations do you take a year, you know, one bit two weeks of vacation a year, and one week that I spent doing yard work.
00:24:32
Speaker
Well, they just, I mean, lay it on thick, you know, and we're trying to be, we're just excited to be away. So we're like- Do you play music in the end? Yeah, they're like, oh, we're going to have you, we're going to match you up with one of our specialists for the tour. And then just as I am starts playing by Morgan. Just as I am.
00:24:58
Speaker
So you missed your office. And you know, they start with that and then they go into like all the amazing things about Blue Green Vacation Club. Right. It's like showing you like these amazing resorts in like Aruba and Thailand. And oh, and then we know for for any of the any got any outdoorsman in the in the in the audience. Oh, great. You'll be love to hear about our
00:25:25
Speaker
fishing resort that we have in southern Alabama. It's the biggest pass fishing lake in the blah, blah, blah, hunting village in south Texas, just on and on and on. And they had told us an hour and a half tops, right? So we're like an hour in before we make it out of this presentation. It's around this time that you realize that they're advertising a swingers event. That would have at least made it more interesting.
00:25:55
Speaker
But they're like, okay, so we're gonna we're gonna take you guys on a tour and just give you an idea what the facilities look like. So they have like a mock hotel set up on the site of this place. It's just it's a timeshare thing. And it's like a very elaborate, you know, one how they schedule it.
00:26:12
Speaker
And so they'd take you through this tour and you're like, Oh yeah, this is really nice. And that's pretty cool. And like the salespeople are like real friendly and they're talking to you and getting to know you and stuff. And then they sit you down at the end. And now we're like two hours in two and a half. Is this when you realized you wanted to get into sales where you're just like, this is the best. Oh no, I was, I was trapped. I love this people. Like I wanted you like you watching them. You're like, this is an art form. I want to do that.
00:26:41
Speaker
It really is, I mean, you can't help but admire like how good they are at it. It's not art, it's your skill, Pathy. I mean, you just convince people that that's what they want to do. You sound like a date rapist.
00:27:09
Speaker
I sound like a high school career guidance counselor, if yes. You sound like Captain of the football team, more like Dave Rapist.
00:27:28
Speaker
So we're like two and a half hours into this thing. And I'm starting to like look at my watch and go, oh, man, we only have like two days in this place. You know, we drove an entire day to get there. We have two days to actually spend that in in the resort area. Yeah. So it's approaching like 11 o'clock and we sit down in the little like office area to to really talk out, you know, what what makes sense for us.
00:27:56
Speaker
And so they start in again, they like go through the pitch again and talk about how great it is, all the trading, you know, you can trade your points for this over here and for that over there. And if you don't use your points, you can store them in the points locker and the points locker rolls over at a 10% interest rate and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then there's maintenance fees and blah, just like it's so elaborate. And then did they come out and do we're like 23.
00:28:24
Speaker
23 have our first house. You have to simplify that. You have to simplify that shit. Well, and they they they come to the end and literally like at this point, I mean, I'm not as I'm not a smart seasoned individual at this point. And I'm like, well, I mean, it sounds pretty cool, right? And so they they come back to us and they're like, OK, so we told you all about this. We talked about this, the point structure, the blah, blah, blah, you can get to
00:28:53
Speaker
complete weeks in any of our loyal resorts all over the world. And all of that for the monthly fee of $900. And I'm like, $900 a month for two weeks of vacation? Like, you got to be kidding. I'm like, that's more than my mortgage.
00:29:16
Speaker
And they're like, well, but you got to think about it. I mean, just the opportunity to trade for different resorts and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, guys, there's no way. So they do that whole thing where they're like, look, let me go look at some other options for you. Can I get you something to drink? Are you hungry? Can I get you anything? Blah, blah, blah. So another person steps in while that person steps away and they come back and they're like, OK, so what we've got is we got one week plus two weekends.
00:29:46
Speaker
in any in any of our American resorts, and occasionally you can do this and that and the other blah, blah, blah, and all of that for $650 a month. And I'm like, dude, you don't understand.
00:30:01
Speaker
That's like only a little less than my mortgage. Like, this guy, this is not going to happen. Like, I can't do this. We can't do this. We cannot afford this. Like, I gave you my income numbers because I'm an idiot. We can't do this. And they knew. They're like, everyone who gives their income numbers gets a different number on how much it's going to cost. And it's probably a percentage of their total. They just start there.
00:30:27
Speaker
Yeah, I mean what's fucking wild is it's just like if you're trying to get a mortgage They'll just be like I'm sorry like I think what is it your mortgage
00:30:43
Speaker
shouldn't be more than a third of your income or something like that. And that's high. That's high these days. It used to be less. But if the mortgage you're applying for is higher than a third of your income, there's a lot of probably won't get it from the bank. And then you have these companies come in and be like,
00:31:05
Speaker
Numbers, they're all made up, right? It's just pretend. I mean, what is money? I mean, there's paper and then there's just like numbers. There's numbers on the internet. That's all it is. How about $900 a month? And you're like, sounds good. Like who are they? They're literally, they must be just looking at your income and saying, I bet they can afford 30% of their income to spend two weeks. They don't care what your income is. Cause if you sign the dotted line,
00:31:34
Speaker
Oh, you get hit with all sorts. I mean, it's like I'm sure they'll levy your year. Yeah, they'll fucking put it to collections and everything else.
00:31:43
Speaker
And selling one of those things after the fact, you're going to lose your butt on one of those. And they came back to us three or four times. And the final one was like, OK, so guys, we looked at a lot of different options here. So what we've got for you is every two years, you can spend four nights in one of our B-level hotels in one of 25 cities in the US.
00:32:10
Speaker
With the option to upgrade, should you feel that that's not enough, all for $200 a month. And I'm like, guys, there is no way that I'm walking out of here with a monthly payment. And they're like, OK, well, we get this one week stay for $700. Do you want to do that? It's like a one time thing. And I was like, OK, yeah, I'll do that. So we bought this $700 package where we could go stay in any of the resorts for a week.
00:32:38
Speaker
but it's the same thing like we didn't know it at the time but you had to sit through another presentation and they did the exact same thing to us we went to oh my god and this one they didn't have i mean it wasn't the big elaborate resort and stuff like we were at this time right so they've only got like two guys working they actually say you do like an internment camp and they're like you have to dig holes
00:33:01
Speaker
happy vacation. It was like a crappy old hotel that they bought and remodeled in the like in the middle of the Florida Keys. So it's not close to anything. You got to drive an hour in any direction to get to it. I should have never bought it. It's some knockoff Looney Tunes hotel where it's just like all like
00:33:22
Speaker
Just ridiculous looking knockoff versions of Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd and shit like that. Right. It's like the Gatorland Resort. The Pirates Cove. This is the Pirates Cove Hotel. Free mini golf all week though.
00:33:49
Speaker
I had Mad Pirate's Cove on the Cape when I was a kid. I used to go to Pirate's Cove a lot. Oh, man, that was exciting. That's how you knew you were someplace fun, is like you saw that fake mountain with the weird blue water. The water was so wild. Oh, dang, mini golf. You have to play about maybe six holes of mini golf before you're like, this isn't as fun as I remembered it. Every time.
00:34:20
Speaker
this isn't that fun and everybody cheats everybody cheats no one's looking they just like give it a couple of taps or they stop it before it goes into the water dude mini golf is I mean it's I guess I haven't been since I took my kids a couple years ago but it's
00:34:40
Speaker
a great first date when you're 14. Don't say that. That's like most of the clientele. The most depressing mini golf is like we had one in our little town where I went to school and they didn't even bother to build like a mound or anything like that. It was just flat. It's like a flat surface with like 15 holes of like made of landscaping timbers.
00:35:09
Speaker
But yeah, that's one of the few places where I've ever gotten nasty with a salesperson was at that place in Florida. Because we scheduled a snorkeling tour at noon, purposely, because I'm like, we have to get out of here. I'm not doing this. Because we were at the one in Tennessee, we were there for almost five hours by the time it was all said and done. Oh my god, dude, that's so long. It was a quarter of our total vacation there. All right.
00:35:37
Speaker
I left it so that there was an hour for this presentation because that's what they said it was going to take. And then we would have an hour to get to the place where we had to leave for the snorkeling thing, right? When you originally thought you were staying. Yeah. And so we get down there. There's only two guys working in this office and they got another couple in there that they're working over. And so we sit and we sit and it's 10, 15.
00:36:04
Speaker
And we sit and we sit and we sit and they're in the middle of a big pitch and they're not paying attention to us, you know, like they get, they're trying to land the fish that's in front of them. So then it's 10, 10 30, no, nothing yet. And I'm sitting there thinking like, we are out of here at 11. I don't care what happens.
00:36:21
Speaker
1045 rolls around and they finally like move that couple out and they bring us in and they're like, all right guys So, uh, you know, welcome to the resort Happy to show you around and stuff and I'm like look we got to leave in 15 minutes for a snorkeling tour and he's like Yeah, we're gonna have to carve out a little more time than that. So, you know, we're gonna have to have you for a little while longer and I'm like No, we're leaving in 15 minutes. Okay
00:36:48
Speaker
I scheduled my appointment for 10 o'clock and he's like, look, uh, you know, here's the deal. I mean, with the package that you guys bought, I mean, you're, you're obligated to go through a presentation and if you don't, then you can get charged back for the full cost retail cost of your stay here. And I'm like.
00:37:07
Speaker
Well, you should have thought about that when my appointment time came up at 10. So go through your spiel in 10 minutes because I'm leaving at 11 o'clock and Hey, spoiler alert. There is zero chance that we are buying any of your packages. Absolute zero. And he looks at me and he looks at his partner and he's like, all right, then, um,
00:37:34
Speaker
Yeah, you guys need like restaurant suggestions or something. I'm like, no. It's like one of the only times I've ever been rude to a salesperson because I have salesperson empathy, I guess. He just knew. He knew immediately. There's no commission on these motherfuckers. Move them on. We'll waste the other people's time. Make them miss their storkeling event.
00:38:01
Speaker
Yeah. As soon as they know that someone has a backbone, they're like, Oh, that's isn't, we didn't get in this industry to talk to people with a backbone. No, it's not fun. It's always everybody's time. Talk to people like me.
Interview with Dawson Schultz
00:38:22
Speaker
All right, okay, so let's introduce our guest. Our guest is Dawson Schultz. He is the frontman for a wonderful band called The Ongoing Concept.
00:38:36
Speaker
They were originally signed, actually, I think they, I already forget. I think they've been on solid state. They did like an independent EP and then they did three albums on solid state, if I remember correctly. Yeah. And then they kind of fizzled out. We get into why they had some complications. It's a band of brothers, not the HBO show, though they would have looked great in that too. I would have watched it if they were in it.
00:39:00
Speaker
Or if they did the soundtrack, I don't, come on HBO. But yeah, so it was really cool. I was super excited to talk to them because they had broken up and they are coming back. They're recording a new album. Their Instagram has a lot of videos of them kind of putting it together. What's cool about them, they've always been a super DIY band.
00:39:28
Speaker
They do everything. They do their own recordings. I want to say that even on their homemade album, they've made some of their instruments. I might be projecting here, but I believe I heard that as well. I'll spread that rumor if it's not true or that fact if it is. Should do my research before introducing our guests, I guess. Fashioned adult swimmer from trash around his house like Tony Stark in the cave.
00:39:53
Speaker
I'm looking forward to Dawson listening back to this and being like, oh, these are the guys that I did this with. We wasted your time. How's it feel? But anyway, they're, I don't know. I don't really know. I think I tried to explain the genre when we talked to them, but it's, you knew who they were if you came up in the middle of a hardcore scene.
00:40:20
Speaker
They're a ton of fun. I'm very stoked on their new album. I imagine it's going to be amazing. Looking forward to them touring. And Dawson's just a fun person to talk to. He gets into the ins and outs of the band, the struggle with
00:40:36
Speaker
you know, being on Solid State but not really actually being a Christian band or ever really feeling like one. And some of the difficulties that come with being in a band with your family members. His two brothers were in the band with him and they started together and it's like they were young, they hit the road. It got tough and eventually just
00:41:02
Speaker
led to the band ultimately breaking up. So years later, them coming back together, working on a new album. It's exciting for me. So I'm so pumped to hear what they got coming down the road. I think you'll really enjoy this conversation with Dawson. If you like the show, share it with a friend, leave us a review on iTunes or
00:41:28
Speaker
Google Podcast, wherever you listen to it, Spotify, you name it. And remember that we've got a Discord server full of cool people. If you want to get in on the conversation, you can find a link on our social medias. So with that being said, enjoy our conversation with Dawson Schultz. Hey, everybody, we are back with our guest Dawson Schultz. What's up, Dawson?
00:41:54
Speaker
Hey guys, doing good. Had a couple hiccups with the video and audio stuff, but doing good. How are you guys doing? Really good, man. I'm super impressed with the way you were able to get this whole thing together.
00:42:11
Speaker
I mean, I know, I, I, you know, I, we had to use this camera for my wedding because, um, a lot of my family's from Canada and when COVID hit, uh, we got married last year. So it was like kind of on the cusp of it kind of going away, but not.
00:42:27
Speaker
And Canada has been really strict and so like 80% of my Canadian family can come. So we did the, we shot the wedding over zoom so that my Canadian family could see it. And we use this setup that I'm using right now. And I, on the wedding day, I was like.
00:42:45
Speaker
probably four hours I was sitting there trying to figure out what was going on and because it worked the night before and I the night before that I was doing all these tests and all of a sudden it didn't work anymore come to find out all I had to do is take this SD card out and that's all you have to do it's the weirdest thing but I've done it enough now that I knew I just had to do a couple
00:43:05
Speaker
You know, trial and error things. So I'm glad it worked out. That's stressful though. On your wedding day, not that you like, you don't have enough to think about, uh, and you don't have enough going on that you have to like figure out how to make it so everyone can watch it. It was a little annoying, but like, I also, it was in our backyard and so it was like pretty, pretty chill. And, uh, we only had like 30 people, 40 people and you know.
00:43:27
Speaker
Um, we're not one to have all this extravagant stuff, but I still wanted my Canadian family to see it. And I was like, worst case scenario, I'll just have someone with their iPhone do the zoom and people can just see it through that. So it wasn't like this is the end all, but it was definitely a learning experience. So I'm glad I got it working today, but yes, I'm very versed with stupid to stream situation.
00:43:53
Speaker
Judging by your, I don't know if this is an appropriate association to make, but I feel like when you live in a log cabin, you also probably have a lot of land.
00:44:04
Speaker
Um, we have an acre. It's actually not as big as you would assume. Like this house is actually pretty small. Um, the wide angle lens that I'm using right now is, is making it seem huge, but, uh, it's a, basically a one bedroom. Um, we have a loft upstairs over here and, uh, yeah. Um, we have like an acre and it's pretty cool. Pretty, pretty cool. We have a garden. We have chickens. We have, um, two rabbits. Um, hell yeah.
00:44:33
Speaker
So yeah, they're those like fun giant floppy aired ones We have a what's it called a lot of
00:44:43
Speaker
a lop mixed with something else. So he's a bigger breed, but he's supposed to have the floppy ears as well. Oh, it's a giant Flemish and a lop. That's what it is, is the breed. And then he doesn't have the floppy ears, but we got another one, Juniper. She is a full lop. And so she has the cute little like drooping ears. And so they're like best friends and they just hang out all day long.
00:45:09
Speaker
Wait, did I just walk around your house like cats? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, we did tried that one time when we first got our first bunny, Clem. He's the the lop slash giant Flemish. We tried that, but they just eat everything like. Oh, yeah. Like all of our like over here, I have all my cords for everything. He bit through some stuff and.
00:45:37
Speaker
I decided very quickly on that there's just no way in hell that this bunny is going to stay here. Him and Juniper, they live in our garage, which is separate to this house. You have to walk 20 feet to the garage. They stay in there in their own little section that we built for them. Nice. Yeah, it's a good time. My pets are slowly destroying everything that I own.
00:46:02
Speaker
Like my walls look like crap covered in like cat boogers and dog dander and all of my furniture scratched. It's just like slowly tearing the house down.
00:46:14
Speaker
Yeah, that is why I don't have dogs or cats because I'm allergic to dogs, which kind of sucks, but cats can be a bit of a pain. And our landlords actually have requested that we don't have cats in here. So we're honoring that. So. Yeah, I was thinking about it. What was it? Who did I just mention that lives in Coeur d'Alene?
00:46:41
Speaker
Dan Cummins. Oh, dude, okay. That's like the third time in the past week I've heard of Dan Cummins because I totally know who Dan Cummins is, not personally, but Joe Paisley is a guy that works for Dan Cummins and I think he has his own podcast now. I've done a music video for Joe Paisley's band Moretta, which is kind of, they're kind of like in the same similar style as us. Okay.
00:47:06
Speaker
But my old coworker at my job, Tyler, he just left his job to go work at Dan Cummins podcast place too. Yeah. Very small world. They mentioned that. Yeah. Small town stuff. That's a great podcast though. I think he and Joe pays. It's pretty big, isn't it?
00:47:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's huge actually. Yeah, I don't really, I didn't know Joe Paisley split off. I need to chat with him now. His name's come up too many times in the past week for me not to reach out after this podcast. Podcast is called TimeSuck for anybody who's interested and it's a really fun show.
00:47:46
Speaker
Yeah, their studio is literally like three miles from here. Oh, no way. Yeah. It's super close right down the road. How funny. Interesting. Yeah.
00:47:59
Speaker
No, sorry. I don't know if you were going to say something important. I will let you finish. I was going to say I was going to say I don't really know you guys very well. Like what brought you to reaching out to me? And that could just be a lack of me doing my research. I've been so busy with getting this album done.
00:48:25
Speaker
Hardly done anything. I actually, there's a podcast I was supposed to do last night and I forgot about it completely.
00:48:33
Speaker
I'm glad it wasn't ours. Well, the only reason why I thought about yours was because I think I saw something on Instagram or Facebook this morning and it had your guys's podcast name. And I was like, Oh, when is that? Oh, that's today. Oh shit. I forgot the one I was supposed to do last night because I booked them next to each other so that I wouldn't forget them. That was the whole purpose was that if I do them all at once, then I won't have reason to forget. And, um.
00:49:00
Speaker
I think they might've forgot too because I messaged them and I said, sorry. Uh, and they're like, it's all good. We're all busy. So I don't know if that's good or bad, but I never got like any sort of like follow up, like, Hey, you still good to go? Or like when the time came, I got, didn't get a text saying, Hey, where are you? So maybe they forgot.
00:49:20
Speaker
it's weird you it's funny doing this because sometimes you're like should I follow up is that gonna just seem like annoying if then you just like coin toss it and sometimes you make the wrong move but I will say as
00:49:35
Speaker
I will always go on the side of always reconnect, always double check because we are so busy these days. And the worst thing that can happen is someone goes, this guy's a little bit needy. That's it. That's it. That's the worst thing that can happen. But, um, I, I definitely appreciate when people reach out because I'm a very punctual person most of the time, but man, these, these podcasts, this, this, this one that I miss. And I think I had to skip out on your guys's last time cause I was busy.
00:50:05
Speaker
I feel bad, because normally I'm very punctual with everything I do. Yeah, no, you're fine. You were in the middle of trying to finish up an album, and I imagine that gets away from you and always takes up more time than you allot for it. It does. And you know, a podcast, I kind of have to set aside at least two hours. And sometimes two hours is a lot of time. It can suck up your night. And most of the time, all of our stuff with the band really kind of happened when we all got together and started writing.
00:50:35
Speaker
It would happen maybe two times a week, maybe three times a week, sometimes only one time a week, but it was all dependent on how our weeks were going with work, how my brother was doing with trying to remodel his house, how TJ, our bass player was doing with his health because he had brain surgery in January and that was really rough. And so there was a lot of like, um,
00:50:57
Speaker
there was a lot of ups and downs with his health. And so there was times where like, we just didn't know if he was going to be okay this week or, um, this and that. So it's just really hard to actually plan things other than like in the moment. It's kind of like, yeah, I can do a podcast as of right now because I'm not busy as of now, but I can't book it two weeks from now. Cause I have no idea what's going to happen. So that's how it was. Yeah, dude, to answer your question. Uh, so I actually,
00:51:25
Speaker
started listening to your band for our listeners, uh, the ongoing concept, uh, when saloon came out. So just, you know, I came up on solid state music and was aware of that one when it dropped just being in that world. So, uh, just, yeah, so just being a fan through saloon and, and then I remember one handmade came out.
00:52:07
Speaker
It was a friend of mine who reached out and was like, holy shit, dude, ongoing concepts working on a new album. I guess they're kind of getting their shit back together. And so I was like, oh, that's sick. And then I kind of remembered Solid State, that connection. I was like, oh, fuck, I should totally reach out to those guys and see.
00:52:13
Speaker
getting pretty into that.
00:52:23
Speaker
If we can, uh, work something out. So that's cool. That's awesome. Yeah. Saloon will be turning 10 years old here next year. So that would be a fun 10 year, um, thing. That's cool. You've been listening to us for that long. That's awesome. Yeah, dude. So why don't we hear it? Let's go. Let's talk about you before then. I definitely want to talk about what the heck's been going on with the ongoing concept and over the years and stuff like that. And then.
00:52:50
Speaker
kind of hear a little bit about what's when we, I don't know if there's any information on when we can expect the new album, that'd be sick too, but yeah, so about you dude, you, why don't you go ahead and just tell us a little bit about your background. I mean, it's hard to, you had mentioned before we started recording that, you know, it's hard for me to, based on some of the things you said, it's hard for me to gauge where you might've been in Christianity or anything like that, but- Yeah, yeah, yeah. Start us off with you. Sure. I,
00:53:18
Speaker
I was born in Canada, grew up here close to the border of Canada. Do you have dual citizenship? I do, yep. So I can live wherever and I can go to a lot of places that a lot of people can't because I think if you have a Canadian passport like I do, I have both passports but I could just use my Canadian one.
00:53:42
Speaker
when I want to fly internationally and people not only like me more because most people overseas hate Americans, but they love Canadians. So they'll assume I'm Canadian and live in Canada when I don't. But I think I can go to Cuba. I think I can go to a couple other places that a lot of Americans can't. So that's cool. Yes. Dual citizen is pretty sick. Very fortunate to have that. My parents are Canadian and they were able to get citizenship through my grandpa who is American.
00:54:06
Speaker
Kind of a long story of how that all happened, but when I turned 18 because of them turning or getting dual citizenship, we got grandfathered in. So all three of us, all three, me and my two brothers. That's dope. Yeah. But yeah, I grew up here close to the border. Like we literally lived so close when I was like growing up, like up until like seven years old. We lived so close to the border that you could like straight up throw a rock to the other side of Canada because like,
00:54:34
Speaker
There was a road in our driveway and on the other side of the road was Canada. That's how close you were. My grandpa owned the general store and the gas station and the bar that was on the border. It was a thing. You come across the border and a lot of Canadians would come over and get gas at the gas station.
00:54:55
Speaker
Um, because it was cheaper. That was the thing. And that's, that was the business he ran. So for a long, long time, I was back and forth between Canada and the U S all the time, but I never actually lived in Canada. Um, but going to the Christianity thing, um, grew up in the church, uh,
00:55:12
Speaker
basically all my childhood my parents are very religious and very musical and so music and worship and church kind of all came hand in hand so yeah you know my mom would play and play a piano for the worship team or whatever or play like or sing or whatever my grandma was also a piano player and would
00:55:35
Speaker
play as well so I grew up in that and there's a very What do you want to call it mostly hymns like is that Baptist like very like
00:55:46
Speaker
It wasn't like guitars or drums. It was all piano, organ, and hymns. And that was it. And we would go into Canada to that church because we live so close. That church was in Canada. So I did that for the first eight years of my life. And then we moved here to Coeur d'Alene.
00:56:05
Speaker
And then I started getting involved with just more like modern style churches. So, um, we went to a few and like, um, that's when I was getting a little older and a little better at musician stuff. So I think I'm, I'm trying to rack my brain on some of this stuff. Um, started playing worship music at a couple churches that we went to, uh, played guitar base, I think, um, what else?
00:56:33
Speaker
Yeah. And then my brother Kyle, who's only like a year and a half younger than I am, he started playing piano and stuff too. Um, and then Parker, my youngest brother who plays drums in the ongoing concept, he, uh, started kind of playing percussion and stuff. So it was like this weird little, like, we're like a family band. And then my dad was my dad's a drummer. So he played drums. There was one time where it was literally just our whole family was the worship team. It was.
00:56:58
Speaker
Not fun. I will tell you that just in the sense that like it's not fun to practice worship music with your whole entire family like There you hear about these family bands from the 70s and 80s. Yeah, well, you know what I mean? This never a good dynamic. It's toxic. It's no one is getting along. It's not a good vibe But we did that for like two years and it it sucks, but it was cool It's a good learning experience for sure. But yeah, I was like I
00:57:23
Speaker
I don't know. I was like 13 years old. My brother was like 12. Parker's like six years younger than me. So he was like freaking six or seven years old playing shit. Like our family was just very, very musical and young and like doing this shit. And, uh, I just grew up literally like not really thinking for myself, just kind of going through the motions. Cause that's kind of what I was so used to. It's like drinking water. You kind of just do it without really realizing what is water and what is it doing to your body? Like you just do it because you're told to.
00:57:53
Speaker
Um, so yeah, that was that. And then as I got older into high school years, I started playing worship for another church that was much more like modern new age. I guess you could say like, instead of playing go tell on the mountain or like some of these like older classic songs, you still play with the band, but they were just a little bit more traditional. But they were playing more like Hillsong stuff and, and that more modern style of worship. And I started playing.
00:58:20
Speaker
Um, base for them for a couple of years. Was there tension when you decided to like, was your family still doing a different church and you kind of the family band.
00:58:33
Speaker
Not really because, um, the church that we did that for was very small. It was like maybe like 60 people. So, um, that church actually start like kind of had to disband in general. Like I can't really remember the reason why. I think the pastor just didn't have the drive and there wasn't enough money being made for it to really keep going. And this area is very, lots of churches, like lots of churches, which means
00:58:59
Speaker
Unfortunately for a lot of places competition, it's like a coffee shop. You can't keep a church going if you don't have enough people. But if you have three churches on each corner next to each other, like it's just, there's too many people to spread too thin. And so churches have to kind of call it quits after a while. So, um, there's always someone who thinks it's a good idea to start a new church in those areas too. Like someone who's young and they're like, yeah, all these other churches, they're fine.
00:59:27
Speaker
But there's a lot that just aren't good. And I think I really, I feel God calling me to do this again here. I think it, I think it comes down to, um, a fundamental desire to talk and hear your own voice is what I think it comes down to. It's pretty much sums it up. Yes.
00:59:49
Speaker
Yeah. And you can see it in podcasts, right? Cause we don't like to hear our voice. Um, it's a, I like to hear my own voice. I talk a lot. I talk on the phone a lot. Um, but we all like to talk. I think when people say that they're, they don't like to talk to people. I think that's completely bullshit. So, um, because if you get someone, anyone's going to talk.
01:00:11
Speaker
There's nobody that that means I'm uncomfortable talking to people because of some sort of social anxiety But anyone if you get anyone comfortable enough to start speaking. Yeah, well, of course different Yeah The person that says they don't like to talk might not like to talk to to more than we're just one person You get that one person in the room to the right audience that one right audience. They will they'll all they all like to talk so That was a little side tangent there, but
01:00:37
Speaker
No, yeah, the church had to disband and then I started doing worship for this other band or this other church. Anyways, so when that's when that started happening, I started to get more involved with the church. Like I started going to small groups. I was much more
01:00:57
Speaker
I was young, I was in 10th grade, so I was like 16. 10th and 11th grade was when I did that. And that church was great and cool and there's a lot of good people I still talk to that came from that church. But as I was getting older, as I was starting to see the world for what it is,
01:01:15
Speaker
I started to realize that this thing seemed a little more fake and a little more not as they are and a little bit just not what I expected church to be but then that's not the right way to put it because I didn't even know what church was supposed to be at the beginning because I had been growing up in it for so long that I literally didn't know what it was that I was even having confrontation with because it's like
01:01:43
Speaker
Like I said, it's like drinking water. You never really understand the point of drinking water until you actually sit down and go, what is it doing to my body? And you might find that out 20 years later when someone goes, have you heard of perfect pH balanced water? And you're like, what? I thought it's just water. I didn't realize it mattered. I'm like, no, no, no.
01:02:07
Speaker
it does and then that's when you start to realize but anyways up until that point you don't even know what it is that you're it's just it's just breathing it's like breathing air yeah i started going what what is what is about these people and what is what is it about this thing this church that just makes me feel a little bit not right and i just started to realize that people just seemed a little fake and this was a point in my life where i was very judgmental
01:02:33
Speaker
If someone smoked cigarettes or smoked weed or drank alcohol, I judged them as if they were all shitty, just horrible people. I don't know why that was a thing for me, but it was at that time. And I noticed that I felt like some of those people were, even if you swore I got pissed off, I just felt like I was holier than thou sometimes. And I think that could have been from my upbringing. And the fact that my parents raised us so well,
01:03:00
Speaker
that we just never got in trouble. Like all of our teachers loved us. We were just good kids. My parents never grounded us. My parents never had to worry about us coming home late or doing anything stupid. We just always did good. We were just good, perfect kids. I guess you could say in people's eyes, they could consider us the perfect three kids, three boys to have. So I think that might've been it. And I just assumed that I'm just great.
01:03:26
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I relate to that because similar situation for me, me and my siblings, you know, good Christian kids never got in trouble always pretty much listen to our parents like and you do get like that because you do that and
01:03:45
Speaker
You don't even have the inner conflict of thinking maybe you won't. It didn't really cross my mind to be different than that. I didn't actively choose to be a good kid. I think my nature and the nurture lined up well. And it made me feel like people who weren't doing
01:04:04
Speaker
the things that I was or towing the line, it makes you feel kind of like you're just choosing to be that person. And you don't really factor in the other, you don't factor in the, maybe just like the
01:04:19
Speaker
I don't even know like the different family aspects or they're, you know, the different cognitive developments. Yeah. Like you can't factor that. And you don't even understand human psychology well enough to know that like, we're not always choosing the things that we do. We're just kind of on autopilot. So like,
01:04:35
Speaker
I hear that. I looked at those things like, you're choosing to do that. Just choose to do the right thing. That's obviously wrong. Just don't do it. And it would aggravate me a bit when I would see people going in that direction. So I hear what you're saying. Yeah. And I think it comes from like, I got very lucky with a stable parent situation. My parents, you know, they didn't get divorced.
01:04:59
Speaker
And so I never really understood that like other people have different struggles than me. I was very blessed, very lucky to have childhood that I had. Um, so when I saw someone doing something that was different and not the norm to me, I was like, just don't do that. It's not that hard not to just don't do that. Like it's just, that's such an arrogant, stupid thing to say, but that's what it was. I mean, we didn't know any better. Right. And so, um, anyways, so I just started feeling like, what, what is up with this church? Like I don't get it.
01:05:27
Speaker
I feel like these people are a little bit fake. And so I kind of left and I think the final nail in the coffin for that shirt. This is when I was starting to do our music. This was when the ongoing concept was kind of forming. And we'd always, you know, my brothers
01:05:45
Speaker
We were always writing music, but we weren't like called the ongoing concept. We weren't doing shows really, but we were still writing. But we were considering doing shows and trying to do a tour. And I think we'd just done our first EP at the time. And I think the one thing that just totally made me not want to go back to this church and made me start to like think about church and God and religion altogether was
01:06:09
Speaker
The small group that I was in, there was a few hints here and there. There was one that was annoying. That one was they told me, I think they told me or they told my friend who went. They were like, I need to go home. I need to go home and study for my final.
01:06:23
Speaker
And they were like, well, if you just pray and come to like small group, God will get you an A or something like that. Like that type of shit. And I'm like, and I just remember being like, that's not logically, that doesn't make any sense. Like, does that mean that I can just do anything I want? Like it doesn't make any sense. And then the last one that was super annoying and like, I'm not trying to bash on these people and I'm not even going to name names because it's not important.
01:06:45
Speaker
But I don't I don't mean anything against them because they're all great people and I've still talked to them and they're great but I Went and got coffee with I think I got Taco Bell with like the youth pastor guy and he told me that if I started doing the band and doing touring stuff like God would Make us fail like because we didn't come to small group anymore
01:07:08
Speaker
That's some confidence. Wow. And, uh, I just remember, cause I, yeah, I didn't, hadn't come to a small group for like a month, two months or something. And I was focusing on my band and yeah, I was like, yeah, if you keep doing that, your, your band will fail because you're not coming to small group. And I'm just like, okay, well, I don't even know what to say. Like, yeah, just, okay, cool, dude. Well, now I'm never coming to small group ever again, but like, how could you possibly maintain your spiritual connection to God without me? Yeah.
01:07:38
Speaker
I don't know, dude. It was just one of those things, man. Ultimatives usually work super well, too. I'm surprised I didn't sink in a little better. Especially with teenagers. Yeah, I love those.
01:07:49
Speaker
No, no, because I'm very logical and I was like, God isn't going to ruin us. Like that's not how it works. Like if that was the case and you said that, that could literally mean that you could use that on any sort of circumstance. And then you're basically a magician or you're God at that point. If you're telling people that something's going to happen, if you don't do this, like you don't have the power to tell me.
01:08:14
Speaker
And I'm smart enough to know that, but I was kind of defiant. Like I almost felt like all of the resent or the rebelliousness that I never showed my parents, showed my teachers, showed, I don't know, all went into the church at that point. And so I was actually like, it's like all that time was like,
01:08:32
Speaker
built up here and I use it against the youth group more so than I use it against my parents. You know, like in that sense, I was just like, fuck you guys, all of you guys, not in that way. But I kind of was just like, I'm just going to be a dick from this point on because you guys suck. Yeah. And it makes sense. I mean, if you, if you've.
01:08:52
Speaker
encountered little resistance at school and with family and you've always just got along well and performed well for this to be the first time that some when you're when you're chasing a dream and an ambition for the first time someone tells you they tell you that you're going to fail because you're not doing what I want you to do it's like that doesn't line up with any of the experiences it sounds like you had throughout your entire life like of course that's going to rub you the wrong way
01:09:20
Speaker
Yeah, and it was the first time where I felt I was becoming my own individual. I was able to drive. I was almost graduated. I think I had one more year left or maybe it was my last year. I was more independent. I could do things more on my side of things. I was almost an adult. I don't think I was 18 yet, but I was close.
01:09:43
Speaker
It's so you're in that spot where you're starting to think for yourself and maybe that was the first time that I actually was thinking for myself and I don't know. I'm trying to think of all of these events because I really haven't talked about it in this setting before so I think I'm doing okay, but yeah, there's a lot of things that led to that, but okay, so that all happened and then
01:10:04
Speaker
That was kind of it. Like I was done with worship music. I was done with mostly all things to do with religion and church because it just, I got too busy. Like the band, I graduated. The band started doing stuff. We did our first EP. We did our second EP. We started doing music videos. We do everything DIY as you guys probably know. Um, so I was very involved with everything, the ongoing concept and it was like a full time job. And then we got signed, um, in like 2013, no, 2012.
01:10:33
Speaker
Wait, when was it? No, we recorded Saloon in 2012, and then we got signed in 2013. That's right. Okay, so... You guys recorded that all on your own and that... Kind of. I mean, there's a bit... We did go to a studio. We went to the same place that we did Aeros for Bullets and our first EP, What is My Destiny. We recorded almost the whole thing at this other studio.
01:10:58
Speaker
with a guy named John Velasquez. He's a cool guy, but we ended up coming back home and redoing a lot of stuff. We did all the vocals at my house. I had never actually mixed or mastered or even really recorded anything myself, but I was not digging the studio vibe there because I felt like I needed
01:11:18
Speaker
to do it myself. And so we did all the drums there. We did a bunch of guitars and bass, but then I ended up saying, Hey, we're going to actually go home and do the rest because I just don't think that this is the right vibe. And so then I learned Pro Tools and learned how to mix and master. And it was pretty much my first attempt to do any of that, but it was a long process. Like I said, we recorded in 2012. The album actually didn't get done until
01:11:45
Speaker
like June of 2013. So it was like almost a full year of just starting and learning how to mix and master everything myself. Oh wait, no, we had someone else master that, Troy Glass. Yeah, it was like one of those things where like do or die, right? Like it was like, if you want to learn how to run a marathon, like you literally train for a full year.
01:12:04
Speaker
That's what I did. Every day, I'd wake up and watch YouTube tutorials on how to mix a record or just learn new plugins or AB records that were sounding really good at the time until I got it. It was just like nine to five every day going nowhere, learning and learning and learning and learning. But yeah, that was a long time ago. That was literally 10 years ago. Did you guys ever experience any pushback for
01:12:33
Speaker
style of music. I know in some churches, people don't take kindly to the heavier styles of music and they associate it with Satanism and shit like that.
01:12:46
Speaker
No, no, never that, um, if I had, I know that we would probably laugh in the faces of whoever thought that and would probably never speak to them again. And I could see my parents laughing in their faces too, because like they know who we are. They know, and these people, it only takes a minute to see our character and see who we are as people.
01:13:09
Speaker
So if they're going to think that our music is somehow demonic or something, that's just a laughing stock. And we would probably never associate with those people to begin with, to even get far enough to be in their facilities to play that type of music. We have played in a few churches. They've all been great though. They've all wanted us to play there. Yeah. We used to go to church shows all the time. Casey and I talk about that a bunch. When we were at Liberty University in Virginia,
01:13:36
Speaker
for college. And that was like, there was a couple of churches that I mean, they brought in the some of the bigger names in that genre. It's like, yeah, I mean, seven bucks to go. Like, I mean, if it wasn't for those churches, like, I don't even know what I would have done. Like, it's a great one, you know, if you're not under any obligation to pay the artists, you know,
01:14:02
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think I ever got paid from a church to play. I'm trying to think maybe maybe we have. It's been so long since we've played a church or played even like a religious style venue because there are some venues that are like Christian ran. We did play the one I can think of the most, but it's not really Christian is is it the rocket rocket town in Nashville, which is Michael W. Smith is like
01:14:27
Speaker
Oh, I think I've heard a bunch of stories about Rocket Town because they'll do like you can't swear on stage You can't like they have a bunch of rules about how you're allowed to conduct yourself on maybe in certain maybe there's like multiple buildings and the one that we always play it's like a Five five hundred cap room. It's not super big but not small either and we've never had any problems but we don't typically swear on stage, but we've played with a lot of
01:14:54
Speaker
secular bands that do, and they've never said anything. So it just depends, I think. But Rocket Town's cool. They were all very nice. But that's like the last... There was one place that we did play. I don't know where it's at. I can't remember. But they were very, very, very strict on everything. In fact,
01:15:15
Speaker
I remember they were telling, who was it? Oh, this is when we had our tour drummer Cody drumming. They like actually stopped him after the set to tell him to put his shirt on because he took it off during our set and they asked him to put his shirt back on. And he was like, fuck you guys. No, I'm sweaty and hot. I'm not putting my shirt back on.
01:15:38
Speaker
It's like we talked to Aaron Lunsford. It was Aaron a couple months ago. We talked to you from as cities burn and they did some sort of like a week long stint at a church in Costa Rica, not Costa Rica, Puerto Rico.
01:15:56
Speaker
and got there, it all sounded great, they were gonna give them a place to stay, they were gonna be able to hang out on the beach and stuff, and a couple of the guys took their girlfriends, and the church, I guess, just freaked out and made a huge deal out of it.
Band Identity and Genre Labels
01:16:13
Speaker
That they brought their girlfriends? Yeah, because they weren't married, so it was very scandalous, but I guess it was just a bad experience all the way around.
01:16:27
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing. Like we, uh, I was talking to Chris from fall star. You heard of that band. Oh yeah. We follow each other on Instagram. Okay. I only just, I only just recently learned to them.
01:16:40
Speaker
Yeah, Chris, Chris is a great guy. You love him on the show. You should definitely bring him on. He's cool. Him and I, him and I chat a lot. I don't, I try to, I try to keep friends with people in bands throughout the years, but like it's hard. Um, but he's one of the, one of the ones that I would say I've stuck with closest. Um, he's just a guy, but they're going on that, uh, tour with you guys, right?
01:17:05
Speaker
Oh yeah, they are. Okay. Yeah. I guess that's a plug. Um, we're going on tour with them, fall star, the undertaking and Meadows, uh, November sixth, I think through like the 12th. It's not a super long run, but it'll be our first run since 2017. So it'll be like five, six years. Yeah.
01:17:24
Speaker
I know. But anyways, Chris is telling me that he was dealing with all his drama like a month ago from a Christian festival that they're potentially doing. I think it might be overseas.
01:17:39
Speaker
they were getting all this flack from somebody doing the festival because they needed a confirmation or something that they were Christian. Like they needed some sort of like legitimate statement and Chris just wouldn't do it. Or maybe it was something that like he might have said in a post or something that was a little bit not Christian like swearing or something and he had to like apologize or do something like really stupid
01:18:07
Speaker
uh to like redeem the christianity of his band fall star or something like that i i don't know logistic i don't want to put i don't want to make up the story but i just remember him dealing with a bunch of stuff that was very petty and it's a toxic um community in a lot of ways the christian and that's the thing is that i've never ever once claimed to be a christian band and i hope that maybe i can use this podcast to
01:18:32
Speaker
um to have it have it be a reference for wikipedia because motherfucking wikipedia i've spent so many times trying to change our genre from christian metalcore which we aren't both of those things we're not either we're not metalcore and we're not christian um and i've always just wanted to change it to like rock music because i'm we're a rock band like we don't really i would say we're just a musical band
01:18:58
Speaker
But I feel like rock fits us best because we have so many different genres in our stuff. Like there's not really any way to describe us. Definitely isn't metalcore. Like we're not August Burns Red. I think Southern rock, like heavy Southern rock. But that's the thing is Southern, Southern rock, like the only time we have Southern rock riffs is maybe like one or two songs on an album. So I would say 80% of our, um, discography is, um, whatever else. I don't know.
01:19:25
Speaker
But yeah, I've been trying to trying to get Wikipedia to change that. And I used to I used to just change it. And within two, three, four minutes every single time someone else would change it back to Christian Metalcore. Just diehards have alerts set up. I don't know. I don't think so. Not this time, Dawson.
01:19:44
Speaker
I remember messaging, um, I remember messaging the guy, I think that kept changing it. And I'm like, I am literally the vocalist. And the three references that you're using to say that were Christian medical are not even factual and they're not legit. They can't even be used as references. And I'm the actual vocalist.
01:20:01
Speaker
Please stop." He's like, you need references. I'm like, well, the ones you're using aren't even real. So what the heck? So anyways, maybe I can use this link when you guys release it as a reference for Wikipedia to showcase that we're not a Christian man.
01:20:17
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I've never wanted to be a Christian because the concept of a Christian band makes no sense. Like it doesn't, you never hear of a Catholic metal core band. You've never heard of a Jehovah witness metal core band. If, if, if I became a vegan.
01:20:32
Speaker
or vegetarian or one of my band members did. Does that mean that we're a vegan metalcore band now too? Like what the hell defines- I feel like vegan hardcore bands might have been like people- I mean, I know straight edge is a thing. I know straight edge is like a thing, but um, vegan stuff. Yeah, I guess I could see that. It's just,
01:20:51
Speaker
I just don't understand why music has to be brought into what maybe just one person in the band is doing. We are just three brothers, TJ, our bass player, and Andy, our other guitar player. That's it. We just make music and we hope people like it. We happen to be signed to a label that has
01:21:12
Speaker
people that run it, that some of them are religious. That's the only thing that separates solid state, I feel like. And maybe they did a little bit more promoting of their Christianity back in the day, but I've never felt solid state is very religious. They just never come across as religious. They just happen to sign bans.
01:21:34
Speaker
And they have their side label and they have their worship label, BEC, I forget about that. But like, I don't really ever feel like they've pigeonholed solid state that much. I feel like they're just a label. Yeah. That one's tough because it's so for, for me and you know, I guess most of the people I know from growing up in a Christian environment, like my introduction to heavy music was through solid state. And part of that had to do with the fact that it was a,
01:22:04
Speaker
Christian label doing air quotes, because obviously as time goes on, most of the bands, I feel like at least a good portion of them have done interviews where they're like, yeah, maybe some people are still, but it's just not a defining characteristic of us. Like maybe the vocalist is, or maybe the drummer is, but it's just like it's, it's neither here nor there for a lot of bands anymore. But at the time, and for me,
01:22:32
Speaker
and a lot of my peers getting into heavy music, it was like, we know we can go here. We know this is a safe place. We know that we can say this is a Christian label and then our parents will sign off on it. It was such a huge deal for us to have this full lineup with this label to know that we could just go down the rabbit hole and pick up all these different bands through that.
01:22:58
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I get why the association is there. It's weird that someone keeps changing it back no matter what you say, but I get why like that. Yeah. I don't know that that association holds as much anymore either, but.
01:23:13
Speaker
Earlier on, I think at the heyday, it felt very much like that was the association you would make. Yeah. And it was during a time where things were changing a lot in the Christian community. Yeah. We were all dealing with
01:23:32
Speaker
Different like Hollywood like Harry Potter and all these different kind of like things that the church was kind of unsure about and there was a lot of like I don't know what the word is, but basically just Making people fear some of the things and I think heavier music just like every generation there's always the new thing that's parents are always like a little bit nervous about when it comes to music stuff and
01:23:56
Speaker
And I feel like that was kind of the thing. But if you attached Christianity to that, then it's a good marketing tactic is guess what I'm trying to say. That solid state definitely played into.
01:24:16
Speaker
Um, but I think it kind of could have put them in a bad spot too. But like, like I said, Matt, they always treat us as like, there's nothing religious about the way that they run or work or anything like that. And they never happen. And I don't know. I don't really know.
01:24:32
Speaker
I don't even know what I'm trying to say. I'm just, I just don't get it. Like I never grew up listening to solid state bands either. And that's probably part of it. Like I didn't really get into heavier music until I started writing it. I heard a couple, I heard a couple bands. Like I heard August Burns read, um, and bring me the rise in and yeah. Attack attack. I think we're like the three first bands that I attack attack.
01:24:56
Speaker
They're coming back, aren't they? They're doing, uh, yeah, but like, are they though? Cause like, there's like, there's like three members of the band that are still in the band or two members. I don't want to, I don't want to say anything bad about bands. Cause who knows down the road. I'm sure they're great guys. I just saw as I lay dying and there's only two people left in that one.
01:25:18
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Oh man. There's a story about that. I, we toured with Osleeper. No, it's not a long story. I just, we toured with Osleeper back in 2016, I think. And, um, I just remember Shane Blay, who is the vocalist of Woven War.
01:25:37
Speaker
which is basically was all of Azaela dying, right? Yeah. So he basically was Azaela dying, but there was a different band. And I just remember him being like, Tim's getting out of prison soon. I feel like he's going to hunt me down and kill me.
01:25:53
Speaker
Cuz like he just felt like he stole every member of as they lay dying, you know, and so It's it's pretty it's pretty funny that like they're losing it's not funny if they're losing members but I could see where the heart might not be it anymore because there's a lot of there's a lot of controversy around that whole situation and I could see being a member of a band and not having anything to do with that and being in that band and having to hear it probably every single day and
01:26:19
Speaker
from fans, signing stuff. You probably have a hard time because all you want to do at the end of the day is make music. You don't want to be dealing with some legacy of your frontman all the time because you weren't a part of that. That was his own thing. It's probably annoying as hell, so I'm not surprised that they lost a few guys.
01:26:38
Speaker
Anyways, yeah, but like I was saying I didn't really listen to a lot of heavy music up until Like 2008 and then from there was when we started writing the music that we liked So, you know, I heard like messengers by August Burns read and stuff and I was like, this is sick and I started writing music similar to that But we have so many roots and so many different genres of music that like when we were writing music we weren't trying to sound like really anything but what we like to hear and so
01:27:07
Speaker
And that sounds a little pretentious to say, but I don't listen to heavy music when I'm not listening to anything. I don't listen to music really ever to begin with, but I've never really been one to listen to heavy music on my time off. I listen to a lot of different stuff like jazz or something, that kind of thing. But we have all these rooted
01:27:28
Speaker
genres that we were seated in from growing up in not only just the Christian music realm of Christian Christian music, which I would say is like Michael W. Smith or Amy Grant or these types of things that like they're actually talking about worshiping God. That is to me a Christian thing. Um, we grew up with that and those are great musicians. There's a lot of great musicians in the Christian world grew up listening to that and then grew up listening to like classic rock.
01:27:51
Speaker
Um, but yeah, the metal thing just kind of came out of nowhere and then we started playing it and there wasn't like this huge time of just like fascinated and fantasizing about playing heavy music. It just kind of like morphed into us all of a sudden screaming and doing breakdowns. It was just the weirdest, uh, development, I guess. Yeah. I mean, as just a listener, I think that.
01:28:15
Speaker
You know, the hearing saloon for the first time I was like, Oh, the shit stands out is very different. You know, it doesn't feel like it was, it wasn't ripping on the metalcore industry industrial complex as it like, I mean, metalcore band.
01:28:30
Speaker
I loved it. I'm not even throwing shade at it. But metalcore bands were getting just like pumped out like they're on an assembly line. Oh, it was like you throw 300 darts at a dartboard and hope one sticks. And that was the formula between like Rise Records and Sumerian and all these up and coming labels. I shouldn't say up and coming, but labels that saw that marketing tactic work well and made it into a science. Or it's like, we're just going to make
01:28:58
Speaker
asking Alexandria 2.0 over and over and over again until something happens. Another thing too that I didn't mention is that one of our favorite bands was Dream Theater. That was our favorite band.
01:29:14
Speaker
up until we started listening to August Burns Red and stuff. And Dream Theater really set a precedent for how we viewed music, which was conceptually. If you listen to a whole full Dream Theater record, a lot of times every song will connect. Some of their albums will even connect. The last part of the last song will fade out with the same sound that fades into the next album. They have all these conceptual things. If you take a part
01:29:42
Speaker
Their CDs or their vinyls and like look through the artwork a lot of its conceptual. It's very very cool How they do a lot of stuff and so we were like obsessed with dream theater along with all the other stuff we grew up listening to And so that provided a catalyst of just it kind of was the base of why? We were so like all over the place with our music especially in saloon I would say saloon is probably our most chaotic and random album that we've done and
01:30:07
Speaker
And that's because we're so inspired by just the fact that Dream Theater will have all these different genres of music inside of their songs. They might be 14 minutes long, but you'll have country, you'll have metal, you'll have a ballad all in one song. And so we brought that all together along with heavy metal, metalcore stuff. And yeah, that's the story of how that all came to be.
01:30:36
Speaker
How old were you when you guys like actually hit the road and started touring a lot? Um, we were, I think I was 21. Um, so that was, I think 2013 was the first year I was 21. Kyle was 19. TJ was 19 and Parker was, I think 15 or 16. Like he was young. Parker was really young.
01:31:03
Speaker
And that was rough for him because he had a hard time doing online school. I think he wanted to just be in school. I don't think he enjoyed playing in front of people and talking to people all the time. I feel like he thought his teenage years were kind of being thrown away at the, I don't know. I think it was a rough time for him. He enjoyed it. He didn't hate it, but
01:31:29
Speaker
I don't think anyone that age should be touring, honestly. I think every single person should go through the years of socializing with friends that are your age and going through school and learning life, whether through natural consequences or whatever else. I think being torn away from that is very detrimental to
01:31:50
Speaker
one of the most developmental years of your life. So that's a big reason why the band actually kind of quit in 2015 was because of that along with Kyle getting married and just the fact that touring with your brothers can be very tough. You've already lived with them in the same house for your entire life. Let's make the thing.
01:32:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's the family guy thing, man. It doesn't work. You need to be like the Osmonds. The thing that holds a good family man together is incest. Is that a thing with them? I don't know enough about the Osmonds. It might be. That was a thing. That's an amazing story. They hang out with Branson a lot. I feel like Branson is an incest town.
01:32:45
Speaker
Huh, interesting. What's the other one? Is it like, what's the other like family bands? There's a bunch of them, obviously the Jackson Five, but there's like another one. Hanson definitely banks. I've, I've yet to find anyone who knows who I'm talking about when I say this.
Lifestyle Changes and Technology Impact
01:33:04
Speaker
This is like, I was a homeschooled kid. So, you know, there's certain things that come with being homeschooled, which is
01:33:12
Speaker
homeschool conventions and knowing about things that the rest of the world doesn't know about through that. There was this family band, and I think it's mostly known to homeschool families, but they were called the Hoffman Family Band.
01:33:31
Speaker
It doesn't sound familiar to you either. Okay, every time I feel like there's a chance that someone might know it, I'll throw it out. It's yet to land. No one knows who they are. It's just typical like, I want to say like homemade, like floor length dresses. And there's a lot of them, they probably had like seven, eight kids and everyone is definitely forced to play a
01:33:54
Speaker
instrument and I just remember. Wait, no. I think I do. I'm going to say the name sounds familiar.
01:34:05
Speaker
I was dragged to go see that my parents wanted to go see them and they dragged me and my siblings along with them and we just sat there like, I cannot believe we're sitting here. I remember watching something about a family band that had like eight or nine kids and they all played and it just made me cringe as hard as possible because it reminded me of when we did it with my whole family in the church.
01:34:30
Speaker
It was not fun. Um, and of course, yeah, they had like the, the, the dresses and they all looked like they were like one, just one rough manufactured family, manufactured family, but like one rough night and a cigarette away from just going from cigarette straight to meth. You know what I mean? Like just, just going so fast off the deep end.
01:34:56
Speaker
like You can hear about that shit all the time with the Mormon like like Salt Lake's. Oh my gosh the more you hear about all these stories of just Mormon kids just going crazy like all at once because they've been so sheltered and so like put in this environment where they can't do anything bad they and then you just oh Man, it just breaks them because when they actually get out into the real world. It's like what the hell is this? You know, so
01:35:24
Speaker
Yeah, the rum Springer of it's like with the Mormon rum Springer. Yeah, it's like, how did you not go so hard? And that I love the funny thing about that is like,
01:35:37
Speaker
with the Amish, it's like, you go out and you do that. And it's like, you go, it's almost like a, no questions asks, like, don't ask, don't tell kind of policy or like, you go do this, taste the world for a little bit. You'll see how bad it is. And you come back like, Oh, yeah. No, no one goes back. Press your teeth.
01:35:58
Speaker
I don't know what keeps, I do not know what keeps some of these people so sheltered. Like they're, you know, you see the cases of people that grow up and never done a single wrong thing in their life, other than maybe like steal sugar out of the pantry in the middle of the night. Like that's like the worst thing they've ever done. And they grow up.
01:36:18
Speaker
Yeah, they grow up and they get married just like the Bible told them to and have kids and grow up and get old and die. And that's it. They literally lived like, like my grandma was like that. She, I don't think ever drank alcohol once, like never smoked, never did anything wrong, raised my mom and all of her siblings great and then died.
01:36:45
Speaker
Peacefully like you know what I mean like it was just it's just it's just weird to me like but she's the type of person that like if you said a swear around here it was like hell had just risen up you know what I mean like it was just so abrasive for her and so hard for her to take anything outside of this like small little bubble that she had put around herself for
01:37:07
Speaker
85 years, you know, and it's impressive, honestly, that people like everybody did up until like, you know, 60 years ago.
01:37:16
Speaker
Like the vast majority of people lived and died in the same sort of place. They kind of like took up the mantle of the family farm or- Yeah, 100%. Because like- Business. Yeah. I know that my grandma went through a couple of things like back in the Great Depression years, but I don't know how bad it was. She wrote a couple of books about it. I don't know how-
01:37:40
Speaker
Yeah that's my my family is awesome like my grandma was she was awesome she wrote two books she wrote tons of poems like all the time like there i have a i don't know where it is i have a book of just all the poems that she wrote.
01:37:55
Speaker
Like a small small amount but a big chunk of poems in this big book that all of our extended family made Just to kind of glorify her life because she passed away like three years ago and it was like a big thing and She was a great writer and she also wrote music. She was a piano player. So I think I get some of my I genetic Straits of musicianship and creativity through that side of the family. But um, yeah, she's kind of went through like the Dust Bowl
01:38:25
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. She has one about the Dust Bowl that happened in Canada during the Great Depression, I think. I don't know much about it. But anyways, yeah, but yeah, like you said, people will grow up and die in the same town that they were born in.
01:38:43
Speaker
and never really ever leave and just get very absorbed into a community that all do the same thing. And before you know it, you know nothing else but this small little 20 mile radius of land that you have decided to live your whole life on. And yeah. Yeah, it's a self protected thing. I feel like the answer the internet in
01:39:04
Speaker
globalization, you know, all the stats, scary word, but it's like now you're just exposed to these things before it was like, even if you wanted to get out of it, even if you're like, I don't think I really buy into this, but I understand that this is a necessary means to my survival socially. You just have to like, you just participate in it and how much you actually believe it is the least important thing at that time. And now there's been the shift of like,
01:39:33
Speaker
your belief and your sincerity of belief is of the utmost importance. You can't just like, I can't just go along with this if I'm not buying in. And that's been, I think that's been one of the biggest shifts that we've seen starting really with like millennials. It's like, it just made sense. Like, yeah, this is my community. These are my friends. Yeah, you know, you might not be able to like have that extra drink or smoke that cigarette or swear, but like maybe sometimes you can at the right time
01:40:03
Speaker
with the right people, but you just kind of like, you just go along with that, those motions and there's too much at stake to, to risk that. But now I think that, that, that shift of like, you just are exposed to different ideas. More people started going to college.
01:40:21
Speaker
that had a lot to do with like exposing people to different yeah it's like i think it's painted as like 100 positive but i think there's some negative aspects of that too you know when you literally like tear down every you know fundamental structure of you know your family life or your community or whatever i mean
01:40:44
Speaker
Regardless of how sincere you were about Catholicism, like having that local community where all your neighbors are there and you participate in something that's a collective each week and stuff like there was value in that. And I don't know, I think it's hard for people nowadays to find that middle ground where like, yeah, I don't.
01:41:04
Speaker
Really take this that seriously, but I don't care. I'm here for like the community part of it I'm here to you know Make sure my kids know other kids their age and have fun in a safe environment and blah blah blah blah Like there's some value that gets left behind Yeah, and
01:41:25
Speaker
Yeah. And now you can just go to a church service over zoom or online now, you know, so it's like, um, a lot more reasons to, uh, not be held accountable. Um, so that's kind of a, it's kind of a weird time. I think, I think there's pros and cons to all of it, but that is definitely a con to that because I think having that organic, um, group of people in that community is, uh,
01:41:52
Speaker
is important and it's pretty cool. But if you go camping and you're out of service and you're with a bunch of people, do you ever feel like because no one else has service and you don't have service, do you ever notice how quickly you go back to those roots of just being a community because that's all you have? You don't have an outside world, you just have what you're in right now.
01:42:17
Speaker
But I find that no matter how hard you try, like you could ask everybody, hey, turn all your phones off for the next weekend. That's never going to happen. You can't do that. The only way it can happen is if legitimately the elements allow you or don't allow you to use the technology anymore. So I've noticed like when I go camping or when I'm in a spot with no service and everyone else has no service, like we bond.
01:42:39
Speaker
way differently and way cooler because we have nothing else. Nothing else will distract us other than us. And it's pretty cool. But you never realize it until you're in it. And then you come back and you start looking at your phone again and you go back into the rhythm. And then you start to realize, wow, it was crazy that we just spent two days without any service. And here I am back on my phone again. Like it's so weird. It is strange because like you value it in that time period, right? You think like,
01:43:06
Speaker
This is actually kind of nice. Like I'm not bothered. I've kind of like forgot that instinctive, like pick up and check my phone every 30 seconds that I do all day. But then it's hard to make yourself do that willingly where like you're going, you know, you're looking at places to go for vacation and you're like.
01:43:25
Speaker
There's no service up there. There's no internet. There's no streaming like It's it's like reason enough to pick a different spot to go But if you end up there by happenstance, you know, this is actually pretty cool Yeah, yeah, we did we shot. I think it was a cool just Coincidence, but when we did our saloon music video We shot in this like Wild West Ghost town in Montana
01:43:55
Speaker
And I had, I didn't even think about there not being service there. I just, we, we rented the location. Um, we brought all of our trailers with all of the props and all the things and we ended up there. We were there for three days.
01:44:11
Speaker
And we get there and we're like, oh, there's no service. And I'm like, I didn't really think about it, but it was the most productive music video I've ever done because there was no distraction. All we could do was just work on the video because there's nothing else. There's literally nothing else to do. And, you know, when my friends came and stuff, they didn't know that there was no service. And so when they came to be like extras in the video and stuff, like they just sat around while we filmed.
01:44:37
Speaker
But it was very productive and it was like the coolest thing. And I've heard stories of like certain directors and stuff. Um, I think Quentin Tarantino does it where he, you, you, if you, if he catches you like on your phone while shooting, like he'll fricking throw fit. Like no, no phones are allowed. Like no technology outside of shooting is allowed. Um, because you really lose your stride in your step when you're focusing between two things all at once. Your phone, what's going on here? Phone, what's going on here? It's like, it's not great at all.
01:45:08
Speaker
Yeah, I think about that all the time as a parent where like my kids are six and five and they're like talking to me and I realized I'm just staring at my phone while they're talking to me. That's something I never saw my parents do.
01:45:20
Speaker
I fucking hate it. I hate that so much. Trying to fight that and push against that. I mean, dude, I key into it a lot. You go out and you go to a fucking playground and all the kids are just running around. You look around, every single parent is just sitting on a bench on their phones and playing Pokemon Go. This is shit. I don't want this to be the world that
01:45:41
Speaker
it's going to be the world my kids grow up in but it makes me like it being out in public and seeing other people do it too like really holds the mirror up to you and you're like yeah I'm not better than that I'm not like shitting on these people like I'm not better than that I just like but it's something that I have to think about constantly like you get yeah you're like oh well I got all these messages especially doing this right you're constantly reaching out to people trying to figure out how to book shit
01:46:06
Speaker
and get people like scheduled. And like, it feels like it's important to me, but it's like it can also wait till eight when my kids are in bed. Like, it doesn't have to happen right now. And so, yeah, man, it's it's such a different world at this point. And we have to like fight something so specific that's very, very new to this generation. And yeah, the younger ones. What's that like from a man perspective? Like, do you run the social media and
01:46:33
Speaker
I feel like there's definitely bands that blew up on socials. So is there like a lot of pressure to try to figure out some sort of strategy for making content for it and all that? I'm struggling with that right now a little bit because I didn't do anything for a few years when we're kind of like dipped out. Yeah, I mean, you're kind of expected to create content all the time. And a lot of these platforms like TikTok and stuff,
01:47:02
Speaker
I believe in their algorithm, they won't even give you the time of day to show up on people's feed unless you post a certain amount. You have to post every day or twice a day for a certain amount of time to even be green lit to be shown up to gain more followers, which is pretty fucked up, honestly. It's not very fair. It used to just be the Wild West back 10 years ago with social media.
01:47:31
Speaker
no matter what you did it just showed up on everybody's timeline like now it's so filtered and so specific on how things work that it's just not a free for all and i miss the free for all stages i miss i miss the days where people had to think outside the box like.
01:47:47
Speaker
You know, like that was a thing, like, uh, downloading apps that mass spammed people's accounts and followed 3000 Instagram pages in a day. Like I missed the days where you were like fighting all of these different things. And now everything is so like, there's just no way to do that anymore. But I miss those days. I miss my space days. I miss just, I just miss the Wild West of the internet, honestly, or social media. I used to do the MySpace friend adder too, for our band. Oh yeah.
01:48:18
Speaker
Yeah, or you would like, um, I think the MySpace player itself, um, didn't have like a cap on, um, on your IP address. And so you could literally just refresh, uh, your MySpace page like a billion times and it would bring up your song count, like one.
01:48:36
Speaker
So I remember there was a time like where I would have our whole band with all of our computers and we just push refresh refresh refresh refresh refresh for like an hour and that was the thing I would be like hey guys we're doing the refresh thing today come over after school or I'm gonna sit down we're gonna refresh on all five computers at the same time.
01:48:55
Speaker
That was the thing, to make you seem bigger than you were. And of course, you know, Facebook came around. Yeah. What if you could go back in time to like 2008 and just be like the first one to hire like a bot farm in Bangladesh to just spam your account into the billions. And now you'd just be open for Metallica or something, corn or whatever.
01:49:24
Speaker
If only, yeah, it's like so many things. Like I, oh man, I'm trying to think of a story. My friend, he, this is different than that, but it's similar. My friend went to college with a guy that was super rich.
01:49:44
Speaker
because he bought a bunch of website domains back in like the early 2000s. And he was the same age as my friend, who's younger than me, 28, 29. And he just happened to do it when he was like really young, like 13, 14 years old. He just bought a bunch of domains and then sold them for a ton of money. And that's something I wish I could go back in time and do. Like who would have thought buying, you know, uh, BuffaloWildlings.com.
01:50:13
Speaker
Yeah, offloadwowlinks.com or like buying TikTok. Onlyfans, oh my god. Onlyfans.com. Yeah, dude, like think about that. It's so crazy. Let's talk about some of the time we have left. I want to kind of get into some band history stuff because I don't know much about it. And I think it seems interesting because you mentioned
01:50:34
Speaker
You know, some of the things that led to you guys breaking up in 2015, was it? You said 2015. Yes. Um, was just, I mean, that grind, your, uh, the complications with touring with siblings and your, your youngest brother being so much younger. Yeah. That was off of, so you guys did saloon in 2013 and then you guys may did the album handmade in 2015.
01:51:03
Speaker
But in 2017, you guys, you had the album Places. So where does that fit into things?
Band Challenges and Personal Growth
01:51:08
Speaker
Because if you guys broke up in 2015, I think my understanding is that maybe not everyone was involved in the album that came out in 2017. It's kind of like the timeline of everything there. Yeah. So with Saloon and Handmade, that was with Parker, Kyle, TJ, Parker and Kyle being my brothers.
01:51:32
Speaker
And yeah, we did handmade, I think we started recording handmade the beginning of 2015 and then we finished it up in like May of 2015. We did a few tours and then our last tour was with Norma Jean, 68 and Sleepwave.
01:51:50
Speaker
And then they yeah, that was like that was like the coolest that was like the coolest tour that I had ever been on It was what 68 part some of normal gene. It's Josh 68 Okay. Yeah and that was a cool that was a cool tour because they would do an encore of That normal gene song I can't remember the name. It's like Memphis or something. Yeah. Yeah, I
01:52:16
Speaker
And then they would bring Josh Goggin on out and it was like the most insane. Like everyone was like freaking out. Like it was such a cool tour to see. Cause I mean, like I was a huge chariot fan. Just like we adopted a lot of like our.
01:52:33
Speaker
on stage style going kind of crazy and stuff through the chariot because we just love their live show. I wasn't necessarily a fan of the music, but I love the energy. And so touring with them and just kind of getting to chat with Josh here and there throughout the tour and getting to know him and seeing how he worked. And then on top of that, you know, Spencer from Underoath Sleepwave, that was before Underoath came back. So
01:53:01
Speaker
Okay, so I got pretty close to to those guys Because I don't know we just clicked really well and then when the band quit Spencer was a person that I talked to a little bit about it because he He had gone through the breakup of under oath and he felt a lot of the pain I guess you could say that I was feeling at the time. But yeah, so after that tour ended I
01:53:34
Speaker
Just brothers touring is just not a fun time. Honestly, like I was saying earlier, you lived in the same house for most of your life and then let's condense that space to a van and do that. Like, no, it doesn't work. You're already, oh man. So they quit. And TJ just, honestly, a big part of it was just like my personality was a little too controlling at the time.
01:53:52
Speaker
everybody quit TJ Parker Kyle they left because
01:54:02
Speaker
I I think I just needed I think I needed a bit of a wake-up call I think they needed to also live life normally like I was saying with Parker He was a teenager Young teenager and I think he just needed to deal with going back to school and learning how to have friends and get a job and kind of
01:54:25
Speaker
learn how to be a young adult and so when they quit obviously it was really rough for me because I felt like the world was against me and I felt like a victim in the whole situation I think they felt like they were victims too so it was a very Burned bridges for sure like I didn't really talk to any of them for like a year
01:54:45
Speaker
I was so pissed off at the whole thing. So I got three new guys. Ian is the one that's been in a lot of our music videos and helped me direct a lot of our music videos. He started playing bass for us and he is awesome. He's one of my closest friends at that point. And then Andy, who had known for a long time,
01:55:10
Speaker
great vocalist, great guitar player. I brought him on and then Cody was a guy that we had brought on to do tours with when Parker just couldn't do it because there's a couple of tours that we just couldn't do with Parker because my mom was like, no, he needs to go to school for this. You can't, he can't come. So we were like, hey, let's find a tour drummer. So
01:55:32
Speaker
I brought all those guys on and we wrote places without Parker, Kyle and TJ, obviously, cause they were gone. So it was mostly like just me writing most of it. Um, with a little bit of help, obviously from Andy and Ian and Cody, but yeah, it was totally different, totally different thing. Um, and we toured obviously still, I had to switch from playing guitar.
01:55:56
Speaker
And singing to front manning and also doing all the screaming too. So it was a huge transition for me to learn how to scream off Kyle's parts and have enough breath and energy to do my singing. Yeah. So that was a whole different thing. Yeah. And just being a front man is a whole different thing too. Like.
01:56:15
Speaker
I felt very comfortable with my guitar in front of me. You know, it's like a safety net. As soon as you don't have a guitar in your hands, you feel very naked, I guess, in front of the audience. So it was a learning curve for me to kind of gain confidence in front of people doing front man shit. So.
01:56:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's kind of the history. And then we released Places, and that was like – we didn't really tour on it. We did one tour prior to the release. It was with a band called Idola.
01:56:48
Speaker
Oh, hell yeah. We liked them. Yeah, they're sick. Yeah. Yeah, they're awesome. Um, and it was kind of funny because Andrew, the vocalist who now is basically just keeping dance Kevin dance together right now. Um, yeah.
01:57:05
Speaker
Yeah. He, uh, him and I got really close because he felt similar to me that this was probably going to be the last tour that they do because it just, he, I think we just both felt this band is going nowhere. Like it's going somewhere, but it's not worth the amount of money we're losing on each show. It's not worth the amount of anxiety that we're having from just the fact that our, we're not gaining popularity. Like.
01:57:32
Speaker
They were big, but they weren't getting bigger, I guess. And we were kind of big, but not getting any bigger either. And I had so much against me in the fact that everyone came to the show wanting to see Kyle Parker and DJ. Like that was part of it. And now that they're not there, that sense of coming to the show just isn't there. Like, so I knew that our popularity was dwindling because of that fact and.
01:57:54
Speaker
It sucked to kind of know it deep down. Yeah. Um, and Andrew, I kind of felt like, I think he, he doesn't know what he wanted to do with the band. I think there's a little bit of tension with some band members. I could be wrong with that. It just, we both would just sit in the van doing our vocal warmups together and just like, it's almost like we just both knew that we probably won't be touring after this tour ever again. Kind of thing. Um, I think I Dola is doing stuff again though. Yeah, they're doing.
01:58:22
Speaker
They came out with a new album maybe a year ago and it was fantastic. That's great.
01:58:27
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like they've been on the road and shit lately. So yeah, they I don't I didn't I only just learned of them because of their most recent album. So like I was I'm a newcomer to them. OK, cool. Yeah. And I don't really listen to their music, so I don't really know. I know that they came with a new album, like, but I didn't. I haven't listened to it or anything. I've just been kind of passively seen everything with Andrew and Dance Given Dance and just
01:58:55
Speaker
Rooting for him on the sidelines because he's been he's been a tour member of that band for so long and it's just so cool to see him progress and now be like a permanent member and and It's just really cool. But um anyways, I guess what I was saying is
01:59:11
Speaker
After that tour, I pretty much was like, I just can't do this anymore. I don't have enough money, too much credit card debt. It just costs a lot to tour. And unless you're making enough guarantee and unless people are coming to buy your merch, it is not worth the time. And I just felt like for my own sanity, it was just better to call it quits.
01:59:34
Speaker
And I had a lot of debt to pay off anyways, so call the quits Yeah, and then I started working at a mental health company called integrated interventions, which is what I've been doing since Where I started out being a mentor to young adults that deal with
01:59:58
Speaker
autism, schizophrenia, bipolar, eating disorders, some are transitioning, like all these different types of people that just need an extra helping hand to integrate them into society because they're over the age of 18 and they have struggled their whole life. But once you turn 18, you're an adult. So how, what do you do now? You know, you either go, some of them either are going to go to like,
02:00:27
Speaker
a general hospital where they'll be basically in straight jackets and shit, heavily medicated, or they can go through our program and hopefully gain enough stability that they can get jobs and
02:00:42
Speaker
be an active member in society. So that's what I've been doing since then. And I think through that, also meeting my now wife, who is amazing. And I feel like she really changed the way that I view life. And I think I was a much more negative person before I met her. And she's brought out all that negativity and thrown it out the window. And I feel like I'm a lot
02:01:06
Speaker
more positive. After kind of all of that, I started hanging out with my brothers a little bit more and built a pretty good friendship with them that doesn't involve the band. And that was the biggest flaw with being a band with brothers is that
02:01:22
Speaker
we were never brothers or really friends beyond the band. The band was always a thing that kept us even talking because we had to talk because it was the band. But we didn't really ever become friends through any of that. At least I didn't. I wasn't close with my brothers on anything but the band forever.
02:01:47
Speaker
Um, after they quit and I started rekindling our friendship, it was our brotherhood, I should say. Um, we just started hanging out and had nothing to talk about that was band related. We did that for like a year, two years. And after that, we had gained such a good, um, relationship through that, that, uh, it was kind of like brought on casually, like, Hey, what if we started writing music again?
02:02:12
Speaker
And I thought that they would totally be not into that at all. And they were actually pretty stoked about it. That's cool. Did they stay close while you were kind of off doing your own thing? Yeah, that was partly because of the fact that I was very controlling. And I think I just kind of came across as the big bad leader dad, band dad, that they didn't want to have to talk to.
02:02:36
Speaker
So they were all really close. And then once they left, Parker and TJ kind of did their own little music thing. And I think Kyle, they also did their, they had a podcast as well that they kind of did the three of them. Oh, okay. But yeah, so they stay close. So now with the addition of me,
02:02:55
Speaker
coming back into them into their lives again, I guess it just kind of all worked out. And it's been a cool couple of years just getting to hang out with them and write new music and just be excited organically for something. And it kind of felt like it kind of felt similar to when we started the band.
02:03:14
Speaker
Which is we've been out of the game for so long. I'm a little bit out of touch with social media. I'm a little bit out of touch with how touring works these days. We have this tour in November and I am like a little bit nervous because things have changed. You know, um, I don't know. I don't know the ropes. I mean, I know them how I knew them five years ago, but.
02:03:34
Speaker
You know, people don't even use amps anymore half the time. Everyone's using neural DSP and all these different types of amp simulators on stage. And there's just different way of doing things. Everything is, you know, it's analog sound boards aren't a thing. Like I think even on the last tour, like you'd still play these venues with old, I don't know. I don't know. It's just everything's more new age now. So we'll see how that works.
02:03:59
Speaker
Well, it's sick, dude. I mean, I'm excited. I think I, of course, I've only seen the little brief teasers that you guys have put out on. Yeah. And that's the thing is that I don't really reveal. I don't like revealing too much of anything. I also don't know how much I really should be revealing because.
02:04:18
Speaker
This album isn't technically gonna be coming out this year. We're gonna put out a single, maybe two singles by the end of the year, but it's just too late in the year. Labels usually close up shop around the beginning of November. So they've already, Solid State's already got, I think they just put out fit for King's new record this week, or maybe this upcoming week is coming out. And then, you know. So back to Solid State for this one then.
02:04:46
Speaker
Oh, yep. Yes. We are back with solid state. Um, so that's been cool. It's been cool chatting with those guys again, cause it's been a while. Um, and then we went with a different approach on this too. We got it mixed. I flew out to Michigan like three weeks ago and got it mixed with Josh Schrader. Schrader Schrader. I always forget spell this name is do his last name wrong, but, um,
02:05:13
Speaker
I've never had someone really mix our records before. It's always been me. Oh really? Anyways, he's the guy that did the newest Lauren Ashore stuff. Okay. I've been hearing a lot about them lately. Yeah, yeah. No, they blew up for sure.
02:05:31
Speaker
I saw his nail the mix. I don't know if you heard what nail the mix is, but it's basically this website subscription thing where they'll bring on a new producer like every month and you can download all the stems of a song that they've done and then you mix it yourself.
02:05:49
Speaker
And they'll actually like, if you're like first place, like they'll, they'll give like a top first, second, third place, like best mixes. And then you can get like a, like a free microphone or I can't remember the prizes, but, um, and then at the end of the month, they'll do a live stream where they actually mix that themselves. They'll remix the whole song again.
02:06:10
Speaker
So you get to see all of their little tricks and stuff and all the plugins they use. And so I watched the Lorna Shore one with Josh and he seemed like a sarcastic piece of shit in such a good way. I was so stoked. I was like, this guy is exactly
02:06:27
Speaker
what I want in someone to mix a record. And I'd known him for a while in the sense that he mixed and mastered and produced that, that amazing ahead of its time record by plea for purging called life and death of plea for purging. Oh, hell yeah.
02:06:42
Speaker
which is so good. 2010 or 2011, it was so ahead of its time. He did that, so I knew who he was and he had done the Dayseeker stuff too. I've known Dayseeker for a long time. We've toured with them and gotten close with them and their record sounded awesome. I was just like, you know what?
02:07:02
Speaker
I'm gonna go with this guy and see what happens and the album sounds great. I'm so excited to show people what it sounds like. But it was different because I'd never worked with another producer before. So sitting in someone else's studio, seeing how they do stuff, going, whoa, this is not how I would do it, but it sounds great. It was just such a cool learning experience for me because now if I do anything with him in the future, which I'm assuming we probably will,
02:07:29
Speaker
I know what to do better. And he learned a lot of stuff from me, too. So it was just a great, great time to have a new record after six years of basically not doing anything.
New Music and Closing Remarks
02:07:40
Speaker
Yeah. You know, going with someone else and kind of going out of my comfort zone because I've always been so DIY, doing everything myself. And so it was a cool, cool experience for sure. That's awesome, dude. Well, I mean, it sounds, again, exciting. I cannot wait to hear what you guys have.
02:07:58
Speaker
coming out next. I wish I didn't have to wait so long. I know. I'm sure some people will be bummed to hear about that. But like I said, it's the end of the year is always rough because labels really just everyone goes on vacation around the beginning of November. And most people don't come back from vacation till after like January, like 15th. Sure.
02:08:21
Speaker
I'm assuming we're going to be doing something in February or March probably, but we'll have some new music by the end of the year for sure. Awesome. Well, Dawson, man, thanks so much again for hanging out. It was awesome getting to talk to you and looking forward to hearing some new tunes when they hit the.
02:08:40
Speaker
the spotify world i don't know what yes well yeah yeah keep keep on the lookout um and then we're also touring in november i believe it's uh november 6 through the 12th i believe um and uh
02:08:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's a West Coast tour. Unfortunately, it's not full US. But if you are on the West Coast, definitely come see us. It's with False Star, The Undertaking, and Meadows, all great bands. Awesome. And social media, where can people find you guys?
02:09:14
Speaker
just the ongoing concept I think on every platform I've been able to snag that URL so we just started we just started tick-tock like last week so that's a new thing yeah we're struggling I'm struggling through trying to use tick-tock
02:09:29
Speaker
myself here. And so all your complaints about it, I hear you. Yeah. So we have that. We have that now. So join us because a lot of people don't know, even have it. It's hard to get people to cross over sometimes. So check us out there. Instagram, we're not on Twitter because I don't see the point.
02:09:51
Speaker
And yeah, I think I'm gonna redesign our new website. Our website's been down for like five years, but I've gotten pretty good at Webflow past year for my company or for the place I work at. So yeah, maybe the ongoing concept.com will be a thing because that is a thing. It just says that it doesn't exist.
02:10:08
Speaker
I don't know. I'm just listening up things we could find us. I guess I just google it everyone good. Yes, you'll figure it out cool Well, all right. Well, thanks everyone for listening and we will see you next time