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Ep. 159 – The Hot Topic Half Stack Hangout w/ From A Second Story Window
459 Plays11 months ago
This week we’re joined by Rob Hileman, Paul Misko, and Joe Sudrovic from a band near and dear to our hearts, From A Second Story Window! Sam has talked at length about how huge of an influence FASSW’s music and live performances were to him, and we were thrilled to sit down with three of the founding members to discuss their origins, the highs and lows of being a signed ban living on the road, the things that eventually led them to step away from music, and their recent reunion and future plans. Follow From A Second Story Window on Instagram (@fromasecondstorywindow), TikTok (@fromasecondstorywindowband), and Facebook, and keep an eye open for a show near you!
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Transcript
Life on Tour: Challenges and Humorous Anecdotes
00:00:00
Speaker
I was going to say, on top of being stuck up there, we had show shirts. You wear the same shirt every night when you play the show to keep your laundry as clean as possible. So what we would do is we would take the shirts and close them in the van windows to dry out in between shows. So if you're laying back there by the window, you just hear,
00:00:21
Speaker
like non-stop the whole time and i don't know how many shirts i lost doing that but that was our way of not doing laundry so you keep your other clothes clean because we never stopped and did laundry like ever we could have but we didn't no i don't think and so you just and if you don't have the time either because it's like six people go do laundry it's going to take a few hours like we never had a few hours to do anything you drive right to the show soundcheck eat then play
00:00:50
Speaker
then you either have to drive to the next city or go stay somewhere and the laundromats are closed. But yeah, it's a hell of a life, that's for sure.
00:01:18
Speaker
Everybody, we are back with another episode of Growing Up Christian. I'm Sam. I'm Casey. I'm Jeremiah. And I'm extraordinarily angry this evening. I, okay. I think on this, I did talk about buying a ticket to when we were young fast and you know, we all know that those were overpriced and
00:01:41
Speaker
But I got suckered I'm going now so I immediately start thinking of ways I can offset that cost And one of the ways I was gonna do that was I bought the so sleep token who we've talked about a bunch You know made it into my top five on my Spotify wrapped same with Casey actually most of my friends I don't know they had a great year there
00:02:06
Speaker
They really like and they also have like a massive like cult following at this point. So they've been doing like little drops of like Three-day window to pre-order something and then and then that's it. So I signed up for one
00:02:22
Speaker
They did a little crossover with this company called Shabori, I think is what it is. They kind of do like a two-tone thing. I don't know. It looked cool when I saw it, and then I got it. I'm like, why did I buy this? I probably won't really wear it. It definitely didn't feel like it was for me, and it was like a hoodie, but they also did like a pair of joggers, and I was like, I'll probably never wear those, but I knew buying it immediately that if I didn't want to keep it, I could sell it no problem.
00:02:48
Speaker
So that's what I ended up doing. I got them both, never wore them, tried them on, would go, this is not me. I don't know who I think I am. I'm not bold enough to do this. This is not also like, you know, then my friends pointed out that it had a hot topic vibe and then that ruined it for me completely. So.
00:03:06
Speaker
That was it. It sat in a drawer nice and folded from day one for a couple of weeks before I was gonna sell it. And a friend of mine, I don't have an eBay seller account. I don't have an eBay account. Well, I bought something on eBay once, so I do have an account, but I don't use it. So I have no reviews, no history, no nothing. But I have a friend that sells a lot of stuff on eBay. So I'm like, do you mind listing it for me?
00:03:36
Speaker
He said, not at all. This is a scenario I would hear my, like, I can imagine my mom doing this exact scenario.
00:03:45
Speaker
And so it's like, I, I, I did make a listing and then was just like, this isn't, I don't think it's going to move. Like I don't have, I have zero stars and no seller history. And I'm selling something at an exceptionally high price. I spent, I think it was like 75 bucks on the hoodie and I listed it for two 50. Um, and that's because other people, let me get away
00:04:11
Speaker
That's because some of the other people sold that same item for 250 bucks. So I just listed it what other people were listing it at. So this guy, he goes, I'm interested, but I just want to get a better idea of the measurements and how it fits and stuff.
00:04:29
Speaker
I take all the measurements he asked for he wants to see what it looks like on so like to get an idea of like the the actual fit so I'm like I'm 165 pounds I'm 510 this is what a lot this is what it looks like on me so we send them that picture straight to the spank bank
00:04:49
Speaker
And he goes, okay, he talks me down. He goes, you know, I'll do it for 230. I out the most I'll do is 230 and free shipping. So I was doing 250 and having them pay for shipping. Obviously only spent 75 bucks on it. I do want to move this. I don't want to sit around forever. So I go, all right, no problem. I'll meet you there. I still walking away with a good bit of money. So.
00:05:13
Speaker
Kid gets it and has been relentlessly harassing my buddy who sold it for me about how it smells used. Shit's not used. I don't know how it could smell used unless it smells like I wiped my ass with it or didn't wear deodorant or a t-shirt and just swept my tits off in it. I don't know what smelling used would look like or would smell like, but it hadn't been. And so... Did you use the bikini like...
00:05:43
Speaker
Rules of operation because you're supposed to leave your underwear on when you try on a swimsuit Yeah, so I did put my underwear Over my body before I put the sweatshirt on if that's what you're wondering just to be safe Good so your naked torso was not rubbing against this sweatshirt because I can see how a couple seconds of that would probably taint it
00:06:02
Speaker
could ruin everything, but I did not. I absolutely- Were you porky-piggin' it in the picture that you sent him? Yeah, yeah. You could just see, like, my dick hanging at the bottom of the hoodie. Yeah, it hangs pretty low. I mean, it's fine, as long as he doesn't stretch up, get something out of the cabinets, you know? It's like, just a little bit. Who's our boy who takes all the side profile nudes that drives a truck and lives in the sex dungeon?
00:06:32
Speaker
What's his name again? Oh, man, what is his name? Uh, got under my body like a body my same size. Yeah. Like me going into you. Are you floating into me? Yeah. Well, I can't. What the fuck is his name? Something or other. Oh, yeah. It's Bob. It's Bob something. Yeah. Fuck. Well, either way, uh, he's got a fascinating Instagram. Actually, Google that phrase.
00:06:53
Speaker
He's got several Instagram pages and that's what's cool. I think he's like lost plenty. Maybe he gets them back, but he definitely has like at least five. Um, I'm trying to look him up as we speak, but I can't. So moving on. Uh, so it's like, it's that he says it smells like cigars. It was in a, I mean, I have a wooden dresser. It was sat folded in a wooden dresser forever. It's like, okay. Like, but it,
00:07:22
Speaker
So it might have taken, but it's still, you know, it's still brand new. It's still not used. It's like, I don't really know what to tell you. If you think it smells like that a little bit, then like wash it. Uh, but then, so we look up as like seller profile and, um, all he does is buy sleep token, merch and resell it. It's just shirt, shirt, shirt, tons of it.
00:07:47
Speaker
For $400, $500, this dude is listing it for exorbitant. Ooh, that's a hard word. Exorbitant? Exorbitant? Did he have one of those exact ones up on his site or no? No, he had a lot of just t-shirts. So he didn't have this exact hoodie.
00:08:05
Speaker
So what does he want? Is he asking for a refund? He hasn't asked for anything yet, which is strange. We're expecting him to ask for a refund. But look, at the end of the day, if he wants to pay for shipping and send it back to me, fuck it. I'll take it back. I don't give a shit. I don't mean I'll just sell it again.
00:08:22
Speaker
It doesn't, it will move and I don't care. But I just like his, my buddy who's just like at the point where he's like, I'm just going to report him. Like he's, he's not asking for anything. He's just like relentlessly harassing me about it. Like he wants, like he wants me to go. He wants to like break me down to the point where I just say, okay, you can have it for free. Like I don't know what he wants. He won't ask for anything.
00:08:43
Speaker
There's nothing on the negotiating table. He's trying to pay chicken with your buddy to where he'll try to offer him something so then he can just get a better profit margin or something when he turns around and resell it. He's trying to get $20 off or something. I'll credit you back $100 since it's...
00:08:58
Speaker
since you think it stinks. What a jerk. Yeah, it smells like my backboard. So yeah, fuck this guy. I do have his address, his name, his phone number. Doxing isn't actually illegal. It's just wildly unethical. But I'm willing to cross that boundary if things get too crazy out there. So if he's listening to the podcast, he's like, wait a second. That sounds like that could be me.
00:09:21
Speaker
So first of all, come to the Discord, explain why it stinks. Yeah, explain why it stinks. Maybe something happened to it in transit. Maybe got dipped into some sewage water or something. We don't know. Who knows what happened in transit and my buddy got it. And it's like he's like.
00:09:36
Speaker
He packed it up, he shipped it out, he made sure it looked great. He put it all, he put it in a bag and he put it, had all the tissue paper. It all was fine. There's no legitimacy to the complaint. It's not about being used. He's gonna shake you down for something. He wants a portion of his money back or something like that. And then he's just gonna turn around and sell it. There's no used smell for clothing.
00:10:04
Speaker
It's just it's literally never been washed. It had that like new clothing smell when I got it.
00:10:12
Speaker
I don't know man, I'm just like, it's so fucked up. He's just a jerk off. And I feel bad because my buddy was just trying to help me out and now he has to fucking feel this guy's nonsense. And I feel like an asshole for that. This is exactly what happens when like, because I used to, you know, buy and sell motorcycles a decent amount. Yeah. And motorcycles are similar in that like, they're not a thing that people need.
00:10:37
Speaker
Nobody needs this motorcycle. They're buying it for fun. It's extra money. They probably think to themselves that they shouldn't spend money on it, but they're here looking at it anyways. People do the same thing every time. You give them all these photos, you give them a really detailed explanation of
00:10:56
Speaker
You know the pros and cons and all that stuff and then they come out and they're like They start walking around it and they're like, yeah, man, you know I didn't see that dent in the fender and you know, the chrome is like kind of dull like that's gonna take a lot of work to shine up
00:11:14
Speaker
You know, I'd probably give you a quarter of what you're asking for. You know, how are you wasting my time? Like, I'm not negotiating with you now to principle because you're you're just here to like tug my chain. Dude, that shit happens all the time. My foster son was selling his car and the guy who came out to look at it, it was like as soon as he got out here and started going around, he goes, oh, see, I couldn't see that scratch. He did the exact same moves. And he goes, look, I'll give you this much on the spot right now. I have the cash on me.
00:11:44
Speaker
But I'm not going to give you a penny over that. So what do you want to do? That sounds like something Jeremiah has probably done a bunch of times. No, not at all. I want to get rid of this car, and I have another car lined up. So I guess I'll just take the $400 hit, I guess. You just get put into a weird spot when you're already lined up to buy another car, and you have the one that you want ready to go the next day. And you need to get rid of this so you have the cash for the next one.
00:12:12
Speaker
It was just like, it's so manipulative and frustrating. And then you immediately don't trust that person at all. So you're like, what kind of person are we dealing with here? I don't know. You just wonder if they're going to come back at some point and find a way to hold you accountable for something that
Buying and Selling: Cars, Merch, and Other Frustrations
00:12:32
Speaker
didn't work. I don't know. I got immediately in my head about it. And you're like, now this person knows where I live. And you just get all stressed about it in your head. It's fucking aggravating.
00:12:42
Speaker
Definitely see Jeremiah walking around the outside of a 96-vet, and he's like, in the ad, I thought you mentioned that these were the factory option floor mats, and these are clearly aftermarket. Actually, there's a little bit of a serger fray on the side of the seat piping, and I just wasn't expecting that is all. I will say, okay, so I feel like I got to defend myself, and then I'll throw myself onto the bus.
00:13:10
Speaker
I am a delight to deal with when I'm going to buy a car because if I negotiate, I'm very upfront about like, hey, I think it's overpriced for these reasons. I would happily offer you somewhere around this. If you aren't interested, that's totally fine. I don't play hardball with people. I always give them an easy out of like, hey,
00:13:27
Speaker
If you think you can sell it for more, that is totally fine. No pressure for me. I think this is what it's worth to me. If you change your mind later, let me know. If not, cool. Like I pride myself on being if they decide to sell it to me, they will have the absolute easiest transaction ever. Like I show up on time, I communicate. I am a delight to work with.
00:13:45
Speaker
And a number of people have said that in those words. Now tell us about the scenario where you were not. However, well, the thing that you were just describing when people tried, like when people either intentionally or unintentionally mischaracterize parts about the car, like it's an amazing shape needs absolutely nothing. I will point out, I'm like, Hey, these tires are seven years old or like it's leaking. Like.
00:14:09
Speaker
or options packages, even when I test drive new cars, like if I don't go test drive a car, unless I already know everything, the salesman's going to tell me probably that point. Like I obsess about it online and I read reviews and like, I learned a bunch of stuff. So if I'm on the drive and they're like, yeah, it comes with this option, this option, this option. I'm like, wait a second. Those two option packages don't come on this trim level. What trim is this? And we'll talk about it. I'm still very nice about it, but that's how I kind of decide like, oh, I'm not giving this person any more of my time. Like if they're,
00:14:37
Speaker
they're trying to pull one over on me or they don't understand their product or something and that's I won't like give them a hard time but that's just when I'm out like as soon as someone tries to say their cars like a mint one of one cream puff and you show up and it has half a dozen things wrong with it like I'm not gonna waste their time but I also don't mind letting them know like hey
00:14:56
Speaker
you know, you mentioned you were really frustrated because a lot of people like have ghosted on the car. This might be why like this is this is not in the condition that you're describing it as and I'll be nice about it. And I've gotten like some good I mean, people have worked with me a few times on that. But I'm not shy about it because it really irritates me when people do that.
00:15:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, just list it like just be honest and upfront about what you're moving. It's fine. Right. And if people if they give you a hard time and they're like, it's obvious they're just trying to find like a sucker to sell it to. Like, I'm not going to try to be the morality police and try to change their mind or something. Like, I'll just piece out of the situation at that point. But if it's someone who genuinely doesn't understand or seems like they may have just misunderstood or whatever, like I try to at least be courteous about it. Otherwise, they're probably going to run into more people who are frustrated.
00:15:41
Speaker
Well, next time I buy a car, maybe that's my retelling of it. You're coming with me next time I buy a car, because that is something I'm quite terrible at. I am fantastic at it. I bought way too many. I'm very bad at it. I'm bad. I can't negotiate very well, because if I'm talking to you about the thing, like I'm going to buy the thing, like you could be like very unreasonable about it. And I'm probably I probably want it bad enough that I'm just going to buy it, even if you don't like
00:16:13
Speaker
I'm definitely biased towards wanting to buy it because I just love cars and not even like exotic cars. If I just like it when I get there, I want to make it work no matter what. And that is like when I'm looking at like a Camry or something, that's not the best trait. Like there's definitely more fish in that sea, but I'm like, but this one, they seem cool. This seems nice.
00:16:32
Speaker
the worst for me the last vehicle I bought was my minivan several years ago and it was like it was after it was yeah I guess it was a little over four years ago it was right around the time my foster son moved in with us and we needed the extra space and I was like
00:16:50
Speaker
We found the vehicle that we wanted and it told us the price and we were like, that's pretty much the best we're gonna get right now. And so we go and then of course the sticker price is higher than the advertised price. So that was like problem number one where you had to talk about that and they, cause they go, yeah, it's this much like, well, when we looked at online, it said this much and they're like, well, and you go, this is what it said online. Can we get it for this price or do I have to leave right now? I'm not, I'm not starting out on the wrong foot this bad.
00:17:19
Speaker
And then they go, no, no, yeah, that's the price. It's fine. But the thing I'm so bad at is, as soon as we buy it, I realize, oh, we're going to need new tires soon.
00:17:30
Speaker
I should have been like, I want, I want to give you something or knock. If I'm going to, if I'm buying a vehicle and I have to put new tires on at least knock something off. And then they go like, well, how much do you want to spend a month? And like, I don't want to have this conversation with you. I want to buy it. And I want you to tell me what your interest rate is. And you just go in that run around and they refuse to tell you under any circumstance and you just have to buy it and refinance later. You're like, this is such a nightmare.
00:17:56
Speaker
going through a dealership. You buy from places that won't tell you the interest rate. That feels like- Oh, they avoid telling you. They try not to talk about that at all. Yeah. Unless it's really good. They try to just go, what do you want your payment to be? You're like, yeah, that's not how we're going to- Yeah, and then they decide how long your loan's going to be to get you the payment that you want. It's really dumb. We just ended up rolling- Okay, I would like to go with you next time.
00:18:21
Speaker
Yeah, we're having very different experiences when we go to buy these things. Yeah, yeah. Sam's fans, 16%. It was a really high interest rate when we bought it, but we just, we kind of knew, um, and we had already like, we had financed our previous car through a credit union that we really liked working with and their interest rates were like,
00:18:41
Speaker
really low. So, I mean, we bought it and then the next week we refinanced. So like they, they did, they got nothing out of not being honest with us. We refinanced immediately and it didn't cost us anything. Uh, or if it did, it was minimal. So like, whatever. It's just such buy a cars. No, it doesn't seem right. I know refinancing was a very fast for us.
00:19:07
Speaker
Look, if they, if they try to jerk you around, you just got to play the ultimate Jeremiah checkmate card and you do a burnout and flip the bird at the same time. Just, I would say I'm not that much of a Corvette driver, but I would definitely think about it. I got my Dale shirt. Did I tell you that?
00:19:25
Speaker
Oh, you did. Yeah. Oh yeah. I've got my, I got my Dale Earnhardt shirt. I've already wanted a couple times unironically. Like I was like, actually kind of like this as a shirt. So was it not ironically? Uh, yes, it's for my cars and coffee cosplay outfit. I've not bought the new balances or the pit vipers yet, but those are coming before the weather warms up. Okay. So it's a, it's a shirt Dale Earnhardt would wear or a shirt with Dale Earnhardt on it.
00:19:51
Speaker
You are such a Yankee. It is. It is a 1990s Dale Earnhardt NASCAR shirt of like when he was in his heyday, like the Intimidator. You know, it's black. It's got Dale Earnhardt's branding and his face on it wearing sunglasses looking cool. It's a cool, you know, looking a shirt that Dale Earnhardt would wear would have to be like a light blue denim button down, right? Probably. Yeah. I'm dressing up as Dale Earnhardt. Why the fuck would I know that?
00:20:20
Speaker
Oh, that's fair. That's fair. Because you're a liberal wimp.
00:20:27
Speaker
I wasn't even that big of a Dale Earnhardt fan, to be honest. I was a Jeff Gordon fan, but dressing like one of the rainbow warriors. The name of his pit crew was the rainbow warriors, which I really feel like he just missed the best branding opportunities on that by like a decade and a half. He could have brought in so many gays to the sport if he owned that right. Ten thousand percent increase in the number of gay people watching NASCAR go up to like six or seven people.
00:20:52
Speaker
Oh yeah, that would have been such a sick move. Dude, okay, so real quick. Last night it's deer season here, which, you know, is something that will, uh, April and I do every year.
The Art of Hunting: Stories and Experiences
00:21:05
Speaker
Essentially a religious holiday. Yeah. Pretty much. Yeah. It's as close as we get. Do they close the schools for opening day? Not here. I think they did in Michigan in some places. Michigan, it was a real big deal.
00:21:17
Speaker
But, uh, I mean, if they don't go out there on day one and get all the deer they can, they don't eat all winter out in Michigan. Yeah. Are you just run them down with your car the rest of the year? There's more, there's more deer crossings than there are like pedestrians crossings. There's actually a ton of those. Yeah. We have a bunch of those around here. So I'm out last night.
00:21:45
Speaker
April wasn't with me. She was at a birthday party. I'm sitting in the blind. Big buck comes in. It's kind of raining and drizzling out. I ended up shooting this big buck. He went down and it was dark out. My dad and my grandpa were off hunting on a different place. Call them and tell them that I got one. They come down and they're
00:22:14
Speaker
UTV and so like field dressing a deer is not a fun thing to do. Sounds awful. And it's one of the worst experiences imaginable for me. It's very gross and confusing at times, but it's like, that's what you need to do. Like if you were going to shoot one, you need to take care of it. Like that's part of the responsibility of, you know, confusing how what.
00:22:44
Speaker
Well, just because like usually I have to go out there with an iPad and watch like 14 videos while I'm doing it because you're basically trying to like.
00:22:54
Speaker
You basically open it up and you try to get all the internal organs and stuff out of it, and you want to do it quick because it's hot in there and things spoil and stuff like that. You basically have to open the whole thing up and you're trying to do it very carefully so you don't
00:23:14
Speaker
puncture anything and stuff, you know, and, uh, I made a, I made kind of a crappy shot on it. So the, the stomach was punctured. So there's just like, all this like, just mushed up salad stuff in there and whatnot. And my grandpa and my dad are like standing over my shoulder, giving directions while I'm doing all the cutting and everything.
00:23:37
Speaker
Which is nerve wracking to begin with, right? So my grip is like laughing at me as I'm doing all this stuff and I'm just covered in crap. And we get to the very end and like, I've got everything disconnected up top, like the esophagus and all this internal organs and stuff. And then like the last, one of the last things you do is you have to like.
00:23:59
Speaker
where the pelvis comes to a V, you have to like split it and spread it so that you can pull out like the intestine and all that stuff, right? I'm telling you, it's, it's gross. It's not a fun thing. Yeah, it doesn't sound fun at all. I don't, I wouldn't like doing that. So my grandpa's like,
00:24:18
Speaker
All right. Now, now, now reach in there. You got it disconnected. Yeah. Did you cut all this? Okay. Yeah. No, no. Just reach in there and you got to like pull it out. You just got to pull out the butthole and I'm like, okay. So and I didn't get it like cut well enough. So there was still like, you know, like fibers and stuff, like holding things in place. So it was like pulling on it.
00:24:44
Speaker
Yeah like a fleshy warm rubber band full of turd it's like he's like just just pull it pull it so i pull on it and it like breaks and i just like toothpaste tube everything in its colon like out into my hand.
00:25:04
Speaker
Were you wearing gloves? Wait, wait, were you wearing gloves? No. What? Oh, this is my bare hand full of, full of deer crap. And I've just standing there looking at him and I'm like, like that. And he's like, no, not like that. Oh my God. Your ancestors are literally staring at you like, what was wrong with you? You should just go to Walmart and buy some beef.
00:25:31
Speaker
So yeah, that was fun. It sounds like an absolute nightmare. I feel like occasionally that's an appealing idea is like, you know, hunting your own food and whatever. But then I think of the aftermath and I hear your stories, Casey. And I go, I'm just not. I'm not built for that. I'm not. Yeah, I think I'm back on your side now on this one. I'm like, I don't think that's gonna.
00:25:59
Speaker
Yeah. It's gross. I mean, somebody has to do it for every hamburger you eat. You know, somebody did it to a cow. Yeah. Uh, not quite. I think we've got, we've developed better ways of doing that than kneeling out in the woods trying to rip out, rip out the cow's butthole with your bare hands. Well, they're definitely better at it for sure. And it's in a warehouse. Yeah. It's not even better for the animals.
Rising Costs and Blame: A Humorous Take
00:26:22
Speaker
Yeah. So it's not really any better for the animal, but at least it's a little more dignified for the workers.
00:26:27
Speaker
An undocumented child laborer is doing it in a, in a Tyson warehouse somewhere in Dodge city, Kansas. And that's the way we like it. That's, I mean, how much for my meat at two 99 a pound. I don't, I mean, fair's fair.
00:26:47
Speaker
Can you believe it? An entire meal at McDonald's costs $9 now. It's ridiculous. Thanks Biden. Yeah. Fast food is getting expensive though. Come on. It is. Yeah. It is very, very much. No, the funny thing is if you get like meals, it's always like, wow, that's a lot now, but there's always a cheap way to go with fast food where you can, you can work it out. You get their apps, you use the deals, you get the right things. You're in and out under $3 all the time.
00:27:14
Speaker
order a water and then fill it with Dr. Pepper or whatever. You're still walking into these establishments? Classic move. I had some classic move. Oh, no, no. I just go through the drive-through. You order water and you get there and you're like, can you actually put Dr. Pepper in there and the person getting paid minimum wage is just like, yeah, I guess that's fine. I don't care. It doesn't come out of my paycheck.
00:27:37
Speaker
back up and everybody has to like back their car up in the line. And I'm like, excuse me, this was supposed to be a Dodge, but it's like we only put water in these cups. He ordered a water. And I'm like, I, I think I know what I ordered. By the way, I need to discount on this sleep token hoodie.
00:28:01
Speaker
he does and hopefully I have an update for you guys next week on whether or not I've I hope eBay just I think eBay has like a they have hit men employed for people who just get like too bad and they just guard you're done like
00:28:18
Speaker
so that's the hope is that ebay they don't kill captain c i hope they do a better job at finishing him off than uh timlin beases did his wife but we'll see actually he comes up in this in this interview too we make a joke about that we'll never not make jokes about it and we'll probably never get him on the podcast at this point but
00:28:41
Speaker
That's fine. I'll go ahead and introduce our
Meet the Guests: From a Second Story Window
00:28:44
Speaker
guests. This is the most guests we've ever had, I think. Sam was beaming. Yeah, this was a lot of fun for me. He was very excited about this one.
00:28:56
Speaker
Yeah, we had on Rob and Paul and Joe from a little band called From a Second Story Window. I've brought them up a couple of times throughout the longevity of this podcast because when we have talked about some of our best show experiences, they always make the list for me and I've talked about it before.
00:29:15
Speaker
They they put out an incredible album called conversations in 2008 and then they broke up before they technically before the album even came out and Recently, they decided to get things going again They played their first show maybe a week or two ago and they get some some new music coming down the road but
00:29:41
Speaker
I was really excited to have them on. Like I said, I've been a big fan of this band for a long time. Conversations has to be one of my most listened to albums. They were really kind of like picking up speed before they just, as we'll hear on this interview, they threw a series of just rough tours. They just got sick of the grind of touring. And so you'll
00:30:06
Speaker
Honestly, it was just such a fun conversation to hear the full story. I've always been curious as to what happened and why they just, from my perspective as a fan, just called it quits when they really seemed like they were like right there. Things were moving forward for them. It felt like as a fan, so I was shocked when that happened.
00:30:30
Speaker
I had such a great time talking to them. It was really fun for me to be able to talk to them in person about their experiences, how they felt during their time as a band, how they grew, their musical
00:30:49
Speaker
style shifts, things like that. And I'm more than excited that they're back together. And I can't wait for them to put out some new music. So I mean, that's, that's pretty much it. I think this is just a great interview. If you're interested in bands and band history and where things start and where they end, I think Casey does most of the listening back to interviews and does all of the editing work. But I listened back to this one today and I was like,
00:31:17
Speaker
i feel like i got the full picture i listened again i didn't have any follow-up so i was really happy with the way this one came out and i hope everybody really enjoys our conversation with the guys uh the guy's in from a second store window we also uh had some audio some slight audio issues when we were doing this it was a joe had a delay on his end so there was some
00:31:39
Speaker
Um, it took a little bit of facilitating at times to, to hear from everybody. And then we did lose Joe jumped in late and we did lose him before the end of the podcast, but it all went pretty seamless, uh, regardless. So despite a couple of little hiccups, uh, in having our first ever podcast with three guests on at once, I think it went remarkably well.
00:32:05
Speaker
Yeah, so if you like the show, give us a review wherever you listen to it. It takes three minutes and it's very impactful, so we would really appreciate it if you would do that. Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen to the show. Keep an eye on our YouTube channel because we are posting video.
00:32:24
Speaker
of most of the episodes now not all of them but the ones where we have solid video that comes out of it we're uh we're putting that up there if you'd prefer to watch the pond and then uh if you are not in our discord yet
00:32:40
Speaker
You should join. Join and send us the articles that your dad sends from, you know, bitch shoot or info wars or whatever, because we do really enjoy seeing those and talking about them. I have a tradition that I want to start here. Speaking of which, I have this wonderful book. We're not going to do it today because we're out of time, but you guys know who David Ike is? Yes.
00:33:10
Speaker
So I have this book called The Biggest Secret, the book that will change the world. That book, dude. He is not short on words. He does like 10 hour conferences that people like pay to go to. But I thought it might be fun to occasionally pull it, pull an article out of here so we can talk about like what breed of reptilian, you know,
00:33:35
Speaker
I don't know, Bill Clinton is, and there's a lot of that in there. Nice. That sounds exciting. I'm looking forward to that. All right. Well, enjoy our conversation with From a Second Story Window. Hey, everybody. We are back with our guests, Paul and Rob from From a Second Story Window. Guys, I'm so excited to have you. I really, really appreciate you guys
Band Origins and MySpace Memories
00:34:02
Speaker
joining us today. How are you guys doing?
00:34:03
Speaker
excited to be here, man. Thank you. Yeah. Oh, first of all, let's like, okay. For anyone who's just listening, that video does go up, but we have two guests, so we need to delineate between voices and that can get confusing. So Rob, how are you doing? I'm doing good, man. Thank you.
00:34:19
Speaker
Excellent. And Paul, how are you doing? I'm doing great. Thank you for having us on. Now, hopefully everyone who's listening can delineate between Rob and Paul. We'll see. Yeah, guys. So it's super exciting. I've been a big from a second story window fan since Delinda. So 2006, I guess. Is that when that came out, right?
00:34:44
Speaker
Yeah, 17 years ago. That's gnarly. Yeah. And before we get into anything, I just want to point out one of the most memorable things for me is, um, uh, going to one of your shows at the Worcester Palladium and looking at your merch and seeing the, uh, the booty shorts with the F A S S W across the bot. And, uh, I look, sometimes people hold onto things for a long time. And I'm curious as to whether or not any of you guys have any of those hanging around still.
00:35:14
Speaker
There's a couple pairs out there. I think Joe has one. Yeah. I was going to say, he used to wear them on stage. He played in them for a couple of tours. Yeah, like every night you would wear those. So yeah, I don't think that a ton of them were made initially anyway. But there's got to be a couple out there. I'm disappointed I didn't buy a pair. It was like definitely short sighted in my part. Yeah, you guys were the first ones that I ever saw.
00:35:44
Speaker
do that, I feel like. And then after that, I saw him left and right, like all the beds did them. Right. Yeah, I forget where they're at. It really works, because ass is in the name, if ASS does that. That's the best part. I don't know if I'm creating a memory. Did you guys change the colors on the letters for ass, or is that the same? Yeah, I think that the ASS was pink, and then the other letters were white, I think.
00:36:07
Speaker
That's what it was. I can't remember. That's what I felt too. I don't know. Sometimes you create memories. Maybe they were just black and pink shorts with the white letters, but you never know which memories you're creating after 17 years. Was that a, was that a metal fest? Yeah, dude. I believe it was. And I, this is another question of creating memories. Cause I think it was metal fest and you guys, I want to say you went back to back with, or at least maybe there's a band in between, but with a suicide silence.
00:36:36
Speaker
OK. And that's a lot. So I don't know if you remember that but I bet I mean metal fasted the play team was a big deal and I know that you guys played it the same year suicide silence and that was one of my more memorable show experiences because you guys had like some seriously good energy and it was palpable man. Yeah I know. I remember doing like a little bit of like a run with them. I don't think we did a whole tour but it might have been like a small run up to metal fest. I can't remember. It was you know kind of blurs together a little bit but
00:37:06
Speaker
We always loved playing those. Those were always like just amazing shows. Yeah, they had a solid turnout all the time. And they stopped doing it. I wouldn't say they stopped doing it for a while and then ended up bringing them back. Unless I just stopped paying attention, but they did it last year. Just came back this year, right? Last year, but they're doing it outdoors now.
00:37:24
Speaker
Yeah, outdoor shows at the Palladium are so good. Are they? Yeah. They only started doing that several years ago. They just closed out that parking lot behind the building, which doesn't seem that big. When I first heard about outdoor shows, I was like, there's no way that that's... I was hard to believe that that even held more than indoors. But when you see the closed off parking lot with
00:37:50
Speaker
And then that whole area full of people. It's, it's pretty crazy how many people. That's cool.
00:37:57
Speaker
I think I got in some trouble for going to two of your guys' shows. So we went to Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, which is like big Christian college. And even though you're a 20 something adult, you have a curfew and they get really upset if all of a sudden you're not there when it's, it's time to feel the beds to make sure there's feet under the covers.
00:38:24
Speaker
It's not pillows and fruit stuffed under there. Paper mache Clint Eastwood head. There was a so we I remember a group of us like we drove like two hours to see you guys in like Harrisonburg or something like that or Harrisburg. I can't remember the town. And then the next night we drove two hours in the other direction to Richmond.
00:38:54
Speaker
and saw you guys again the second night. And we lied on the checkout sheet both nights, but I remember the RA coming to us after the second night and being like, hey, you can't do this.
00:39:09
Speaker
Oh, that's so funny, man. What year was that? Thank you. That's pretty cool. That would have been probably 2007. Yeah. I'm trying to remember who all was on the tour. I know Nights Like These was on the tour. Okay. And then, God, I can't remember who was like the headliner. Okay. Yeah, it was fun, though. Yeah. Our college- Is that the one with Devil Wears Prada? See you next Tuesday? I think, see you next Tuesday for sure. Maybe, man.
00:39:39
Speaker
Dude, I can't remember who all was on it. That would have been devilish product. I feel like I saw you guys and see you next Tuesday a whole bunch for a while. You guys put in some serious road time. Yeah.
00:39:54
Speaker
You guys did. Yeah, we did. You guys popped off during it's so funny to think like, uh, you know, we talked about this a good bit. Anytime we have people who've been in the music world with longevity and it's like, uh, I mean, there wasn't, I don't think Instagram was even a thing by the time you guys, uh, ended or it wasn't big or popular. You guys were like a mice. Maybe Twitter came out.
00:40:19
Speaker
Yeah. You guys are like a MySpace generation kind of band for sure. And like Rob I think it was maybe before he would record. But Rob why don't you just kind of give a little backstory because you've been in the band or you said there is a band name change but since 99. So like yeah let's just get a little bit of a snapshot there. All right. Yeah. So our bass player Joe.
00:40:45
Speaker
was trying to join this. He's trying his best in the green room again. So you guys might hear Joe pop into this. He might come in. Well, we used to live about 20 minutes apart when we were kids, like 16 years old. Joe was 15 when I met him. I think I was 16 and we would just, you know,
00:41:08
Speaker
we would just all converge it at Hot Topic in the mall and we'd be like, yeah, I've been playing guitar for six weeks, you know? And so we, one day the guy that I was playing with, who was a singer at the time, met Joe at Hot Topic and Joe asked if, you know, if he was a singer and of course, you know, there he is, there's Joe right there.
00:41:45
Speaker
You're paying you used to pay room and board a hot topic How we met you met you met Jeff and yeah Paul stole a memory never CD from hot topic He I did
00:42:02
Speaker
Yeah. That's, I mean, that's how we heard a little more out there. He said you were at the, at the register complaining because the clerk wouldn't cut the sleeves off your disturbed shirt. That's incorrect information. No, no, no, no, no. So I'll make this really quick and short. I had to work at the haunted house. We're having a lot of audio issues.
00:42:31
Speaker
Can you hear? You're real choppy, Joe. Do you have bad internet there? Do I? Yeah. No, I'm on an island. I'm next to Tom Hanks over here discovering fire. Yeah, OK. Tom. I don't know how much closer I can fucking beat it. Castaway. Is that a Castaway reference? Is that what we're doing? You've got to write it. I mean.
00:42:59
Speaker
I can walk around my house all day. He's rocking the Pentium one. Is it really bad? It's a little better now. I mean, at least I understood those four words put together. All right. If it's bad, just let me know, and I'll just go somewhere. But I don't know if it's upstairs. Sounds all right. All right. My kid's upstairs. You don't want that. That'll suck. Anyways.
00:43:29
Speaker
Yeah, I was waiting to go. I was in Hot Topic and I was waiting to work at the haunted house that night and I saw some dude that looked like he might like the same kind of shit that I liked. And I was like, do you sing? He's like, yeah. So what was he wearing that queued you in? I think a Slipknot shirt, to be honest with you. I was really into the cold chamber gear. I was really into the cold chamber gear at the time, like fish.
00:43:59
Speaker
Oversized fishnet shirts and that kind of stuff I don't even know what the fuck I was wearing to be honest, you know, but he was wearing definitely a slipknot shirt and Only thing that he said that I fucking heard was our guitar player has a half stack and all we had were practicing All right, well, I guess it's both you guys I
00:44:28
Speaker
You didn't tell you that I've only been playing guitar for eight weeks. It didn't matter, man. That's the most perfect way for a band to form a hot topic. Yeah. And so I went to a haunted house that night, and I was more juiced up than ever. And then towards the end of the season, they all came in, and we were like,
00:44:59
Speaker
I don't know, man. It was pretty rad. Yeah. That half stack was definitely like a status symbol at the time. Cause I definitely remember like going and playing with some guys at college. And, and when they had one of them had a, he didn't even have a half stack. He had a head unit and then he was playing it through like one of those wedge PA speakers. And I was like, well, I mean, it's something.
00:45:29
Speaker
Got to start somewhere. I begged my mom for my half stack. I was like, if this could be a Christmas present for the next two years, that's fine. I think I got it in the summer. It never worked like that for me or anything like that. We went to a show in the Toronto Heights, PA. It was called Planet of the Apes. The first show we saw there was
00:45:56
Speaker
It was Hope's Fall, and they were playing through a crate bass amp as the PA system. We saw My Chemical Romance there, and the way they got their power in this place, it was a two-car garage, was an extension cord ran from the Chinese restaurant up the street. The last show they had there- That's right.
00:46:18
Speaker
Yeah, we played we played with breather resist their scarlet we played The last show that was there was um as hope dies under oath bleeding through and Someone else and like but it was crazy because like we were handing out like paper wires
00:46:37
Speaker
It was a two car garage. It was no heat in the winter time. It was called, yeah, a guy named AJ ran it. It was awesome. It was fucking awesome. I don't know where that tangent came from, but yeah, it was really sweet.
00:46:52
Speaker
That DIY venue stage was just the best. I remember friends in college, they had this old, it was like a Victorian style, old ass house. And there was probably 20 dudes who lived in it. They were dudes squatting in the attic. It was a shithole. And they would put on basement shows
00:47:18
Speaker
all the time and you could just pack out their basement. It's crazy. The cops were never called like there was just just go and you would see cool bands come through like people that would have connections like and yeah, it was just like to watch like cool bands that you would listen to that you own the CDs for play these like shit ass basement shows that were packed out that were almost enough to just take the whole building down. It was so cool. I miss them.
00:47:45
Speaker
Yeah, or not even packed out like it was like like you see Yeah Like Are you fucking kidding me? There's nobody here. It's like wow this is you know, you you want to buy like every shirt even if you don't even have the money for it and But yeah, like I know you mean I mean that that was kind of what it was like it was like, you know, I
00:48:10
Speaker
And then now sometimes like you think that you're gonna go to a show and you're gonna be the only one there there's like 5,000 people there you're like Playing for the other bands girlfriends
00:48:33
Speaker
But Rob you were so alright so you guys met at hot topic and then just like hit it off so you decided to start the guy that I was playing with at the time and then we all ended up meeting, you know after that
00:48:46
Speaker
And that was like the earliest, like, pieces of the band, you know, playing locally and things like that around where we lived. Lots of small shows and, you know, just writing terrible songs and until, you know, we we started to kind of get into bands that
00:49:05
Speaker
changed our taste and things like that. Like Joe was saying, seeing shows like that, bands like Hope's Fall and Poison the Well, and there was a lot of early influences and stuff, but that was the beginning. And then we- Was that aphasia? Yeah, it was. How do you say it? It was. I found a flyer the other day for the
00:49:29
Speaker
Camira Aphasia Christmas show. Yeah. We were handing out that. Yeah. Yeah. Camira Christmas because they're from Cleveland. So, we're we're not far from them and you know that was that was actually another I mean I the this present darkness EP is like it's still one of my favorites like it's such a it's such a great such a great great album. I love that that was a that was a big game changer for us as well.
00:49:57
Speaker
we all like wanted to play with them you know whatever and we finally got on a show and it was like you know at this big venue this thing that they did every year we got a chance to play with them kind of before they got like you know got like enormous you know um but i think at that time we were still kind of like we're like hey it wasn't from a second story window it wasn't uh you know we were still
00:50:20
Speaker
playing some of our funny older stuff you know funny like uh like horse the band funny or were you guys was it funny like you were going for funny or was it i don't know i don't know how to describe that older stuff yeah well yeah
00:50:37
Speaker
The way new metal is coming out nowadays, maybe we'd be cool again. Maybe we should just go back to aphasia. New metal resurgence is unbelievable. Yeah, I know. I'm so happy about it. I watched Limp Bizkit's entire concert, wherever that was, an aftershock or whatever, where he was dressed up as a cowboy and had the big American flag.
00:51:03
Speaker
It's so much fun. Like, they're having a blast. They are. The self-awareness makes it really enjoyable. It's so funny to see that shift. I mean, I think I'm 35. And I think if you're my age or around my age, and you were in middle school, and if you're going to act like you never liked Limb Bizkit, I'm probably going to call bullshit on that. I think everybody likes Limb Bizkit. Oh, yeah.
00:51:32
Speaker
with Biscuit, Korn, like Wes and like Head and Monkey were like my idols when I first started playing guitar. Yeah. I just watched the, did it all for the Nookie. I watched some of the music video the other day for some unknown reasons. And there's a, it's so funny because they did take themselves seriously. So to see them come back with full recognition of what was happening at that time and just having fun with it is,
00:52:00
Speaker
It's fun. It's fun to watch it unfold that way to see them just really honestly, they're suckering millennials for the most part like There's a research. I feel like there's a lot of bands getting back together. I think the internet error has made that possible, right?
00:52:15
Speaker
I'd be curious to know how you guys kind of decided to make that work. Was there like, did you notice the demand online? I remember watching, so I started following your Instagram page a while back. And I don't remember even what made me go to follow it, but I think it was a Facebook post where Paul, were you managing the Facebook and stuff too?
00:52:39
Speaker
Uh, we had someone else doing it before me and then when we decided to start being active, he was like, here you go. And just gave it to me. So then I created us Instagram and all that. I just started seeing like old clips of you guys of like shows from you guys and was like, I wonder if they have an Instagram, followed that and then
00:52:56
Speaker
started seeing it pick up more and more. I'm like, I said it to some friends. I'm like, there's no way they're not, they got to be moving towards doing something. Right? Like I keep seeing them post these clips. You guys did, did you do a re-release of a reissue of something before you even announced being active? I feel like it was a vinyl of all the records that wax vessel put out. And that's what kind of got us all talking again and talking on a like a weekly basis.
00:53:21
Speaker
Yeah, but it was we they the thing happened outside of you guys talking and that got you guys talking
00:53:28
Speaker
Yes. We knew it was happening. We were working with him on stuff, but sorry. Go ahead, Joe. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry about that. There was so much pushback from us. I personally was like, oh, fuck no. I don't want anything to be like, we're done. It's it, whatever.
00:53:52
Speaker
His name's Nick from WAC Festival. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He would message me and then I think make his rounds, if I'm correct, you know what I mean? But I know that he would message me and then I'd be 100% against it. And then, because I remember being outside at a barbecue and I'm like, fuck no, fuck no, we're not doing this. Absolutely not. I'm not into it. And then one day he just caught my attention.
00:54:16
Speaker
And like none of us are trying to beat a dead horse like we weren't ever like oh, we're now we're in our fucking You know late 30s. We want to redo this and revisit this because we are unhappy with our lives No, it's nothing like that when he said that this whole vinyl thing could do well. I'm like, all right
00:54:35
Speaker
let's let's let's let's figure it out let's try to do this and when when we went through everything and you know what back and forth it ended up being really awesome and I was like this many people give a flying fuck about us I'm like okay well I guess you know we're not beating a dead horse it could be cool and
Reunion and New Beginnings
00:55:02
Speaker
while the iron's hot, while we have the opportunity, let's do it. Because my biggest thing was never wanting to try to shove shit back into people's throats so they don't care. But if people do care, well then fuck it, who cares? Then we care again, too. Because we only care if people care. I don't know. I mean, we've always done stuff for ourselves, but at the same time, if people aren't interested, we're not gonna jump in a van and drive cross country back in the day.
00:55:32
Speaker
you know, not play muck. We're not gonna play to nobody. We could do that in our basement, but I don't know. So long story short.
00:55:41
Speaker
They they were the ones that definitely threw fucking fire on or through gasoline on any kind of spark that could have been anything and brought us all back together like hanging out wise talking and you know all that fun stuff and Paul's been writing a bunch of awesome stuff and throwing it back to Nick and Rob and
00:56:04
Speaker
I don't know. It's been, it's been awesome. I'm so happy that it happened. And I really do think it was, was wax vessel that really started all this shit. For sure. He said, I think he said like, we were the most requested band and like, we were like, yeah, right. And it like sold out so fast and it got us all, it got us all talking every day. And then, uh, yeah, like, so here we are, like working on new music and playing a show next week, which was so hard to believe.
00:56:34
Speaker
which is incredible. I listened to Conversations. Your album Conversations came out in 2008. I listened to that a lot regularly. It's been on my rotation since it came out in 2008. But I threw on Delinda today. I revisited that one pretty, you know, a couple times a year. And I threw it on today. And every time I listen to it, I'm always
00:57:02
Speaker
like really blown away by it in how it holds up and I feel like you guys put that out around the same time like I don't know I feel like it bridges some gaps so you guys had the EP not one word shall be omitted that was two thousand but when was that I think one 2001 okay and then it got four oh three
00:57:27
Speaker
For is when the black market really is happening because we just talked about this. Oh, yeah, that's right Yeah, cuz you guys put that on your own and then it got picked you guys got picked up by What's what's labeled you black market activities black market? Okay, and they they put they reissued that for you guys, right? Yeah, it was called something else before that. Okay, we had previously doing different kind of self-releasing Scott Hall from pig destroyer. He mastered it
00:57:57
Speaker
And it sounded better. Yeah, it sounded better. But that was pretty much it. So really, the first release for Black Market was kind of like, he probably just gave a friendly smile on Handshake and had it mastered. But I mean, we paid for everything. It was already done. They just had to kind of make it sound a little bit better. And there was new artwork and stuff too. And I'm not saying that in a shitty way.
00:58:27
Speaker
under playing what black market did for us it was it was it was awesome I fucking love black market but we didn't they didn't have to put us in a studio and us record and all that stuff like really it was like our recording and then it was just remastered
00:58:43
Speaker
and then artwork and stuff, but yeah. Okay. It's the difference in the sound and vibe of that EP and Delinda's. The EP has a very raw sound to it, which is still fun. It kind of reminded me.
00:59:04
Speaker
in your head. Like if you listen to old albums that got like I feel like there's plenty of out for you. Go back and listen to it. You're like, oh, I forgot how raw that sounded. I want to say like even some like one of the ones that comes to mind is I want to. God, I'm free in the album. There's an old under oath album that was before their own safety. There's the changing of which one? Is it the changing of times? It's something like this. I don't know. Either way. Very raw sound. And then like this.
00:59:34
Speaker
Oh.
00:59:37
Speaker
That one. And I think so. Yeah. And it's just fun. I mean, I love hearing that, like that difference, especially, but we're throwing on to Linda today. I was like, you guys, I feel like you guys did this neat thing where, and I'm curious as to where the direction for you guys came from and why you kind of went the direction did or what your influences were. Cause death core, I feel like blew up. You had your job for a cowboy suicide. Silence was getting real big at around that time, I think.
01:00:06
Speaker
But I feel like you guys had elements of that, but we weren't quite that and still kind of hit a broader, maybe a, I want to say broader audience, which is maybe why you guys were in such high demand for a vinyl issue. So when you guys started writing Delinda, what was going on at that time musically for you guys and what was kind of your thought process and the direction of that?
01:00:29
Speaker
I feel like we just liked so much different stuff. There was just tons and tons of influences. And I think as individuals, we all individually liked a lot of different things. So we tried to just pull in elements from everywhere. And then we had a singer that could sing. So we wanted a little bit of singing. We wanted to showcase that a little bit. We liked grind. We liked stuff with a lot of melody, big.
01:00:58
Speaker
What do they call that stuff now? Like the explosions in the sky type stuff. Trap core. We like that stuff. We like death metal. We like black metal. We liked everything. So I feel like there was just a lot of different influences. And we tried to pull in as much of it as we could. Was there a point where you guys felt like, where you noticed like, go ahead, John. No, definitely.
01:01:24
Speaker
Oh no, I'm sorry. There's a delay. It's one syllable word, man. It's all good. You put your name as J-O-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H-H and then I just read it as though there'd be an N following that because that would just be the logical conclusion. I thought it to be a soft J, like a yaw. Yaw. Yawging.
01:01:57
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I don't know. And I, I think like we, we, I think it was five dudes trying to play. Okay. So for me personally, I was really into, um, all of the, I know we all were, but like, I was really, really into it, but like all of the 2000, like.
01:02:18
Speaker
Screamy shit page 99 orchid You know Seisha Jerome's dream that kind of thing But with a bunch of other stuff too a lot of heavy stuff, too Some the other guys were in the more metal stuff. Some of the other guys were listening a lot of Pink Floyd It was like we were it was like five dudes trying to play five different things and
01:02:42
Speaker
But it always worked, and it was always cohesive, and we always came to an agreement to where we always liked this. But I don't think we ever really could have been the whole death core thing. It was getting big. We played a lot of shows with
01:02:59
Speaker
You know mitch from suicide silence. We were good friends with him The first time we ever went to fucking europe. Um, this fucking shaggy haired dude comes up on stage when we're in fucking england and it was the singer of you know, it was ollie from uh, uh Broom into horizon i've never heard of them before right? Yeah, i've never heard of them in my entire life and like this kid's singing a breakdown with us to five kids in the room and like I was like, oh that was cool and um
01:03:30
Speaker
Like, they're one of the biggest bands ever, you know? Like, I never really understood what was going on with everything. Like what everybody else said, we were just a bunch of dudes just trying to play what we liked and trying to appease everybody else's hunger for certain things. You know what I mean? Like, in different, you know, whether it was Conversations or Delenda or whatever, the album before that, some of us were still in high school. So, I don't know.
01:04:00
Speaker
That one I don't really consider too much thinking about, but the other ones I definitely have, I think we had, we're trying to do. What do you do, okay, when you're writing songs and stuff and you got multiple people putting in pieces, what do you do when somebody shows up with an idea that just blows? Like, do you have a group veto system? Is there like a separation of powers sort of thing?
01:04:31
Speaker
There's never really happened that much. Joe, you ever been vetoed? Oh, yeah. I mean, like, you know, sometimes people have these grandiose, I mean, who's, who's fondest layer sometimes. And, uh, you know, at a respect, you know,
01:04:57
Speaker
You wanna go through, you wanna give them benefit of the doubt and just completely exhaust it. And like, hopefully it sucks so bad and surfaces really quick so that everybody understands that. Okay, we'll try really to.
01:05:12
Speaker
And then and that's it, you know, but it is a democracy. I think we were always very good about that kind of thing. Yeah. I mean, I thought I thought we were always very considerate of each other in that way. And like we always came to we were like I remember being on tour with bands like they'd punch each other in the face every night.
01:05:32
Speaker
You know what I mean? And somebody would get wasted and drive their van off of a fucking cliff. You know what I mean? We had a good relationship where we were pretty diplomatic in a lot of ways. And I think that we respected each other and we took care of each other.
01:05:50
Speaker
I think that's very important. I think when you have that kind of relationship, you can talk about something not being that good and the rest of the people will respect that opinion. I don't remember ever being super pissed about anything like that.
01:06:06
Speaker
So when you guys start like notice, okay, I'm always curious about this, especially before you know spot like okay, you're a Spotify generation band. And all of a sudden you have 400,000 plays on a song that's like that you know, like you just know that like you hit
01:06:25
Speaker
even if it's with one song you know it hit and you know there's someone who wants to market you because they saw the numbers ahead of time um you guys you do an ep it gets noticed you're like you must have been like fuck yeah like that's the dream i was in a high school metalcore band and i'm like oh that's all you ever fucking talked about every practice you fucking talked about how you're going to get together your fucking press kit and
01:06:48
Speaker
whatever the fuck that you don't know what you're talking about and you're like we could put in a cool shirt and they say like our shirt they'll be like you guys are really good graphics designers even though you don't know shit and it's like you just have all these ideas and you're like you have all these dreams and then you eventually you just stop because it's but it started getting that momentum for you in that pre internet era like you so
01:07:14
Speaker
What, I mean, what's the, what's the momentum? How do you know? And now you're doing good. I remember like Joe and I, you know, before not one word was released by black market, we had it. It was called the Cassandra complex and we paid to just, you know, burn like a million of these things. And we would just go on lamb goat and we would just post in there.
01:07:34
Speaker
And say like if you want free music, just give us your address. And most people- Rob, Rob, Rob. And you showed up and robbed them. But- Rob, remember we had the two song demo with Jeff singing on it first. Yes, yes. So- That's not- Yes, we continuously did this. Right. And we would sit there and eat eggs and tacos and we would
01:08:00
Speaker
We would burn CDs and we would just, every address that was given to us, we would put a CD in a package and we would send it. And after a couple months of doing that, we just started getting emails from all over the country. Like, Hey, you guys should play in Washington. Hey, come to Florida. Like, Hey, you should, you know, and that's, that's essentially how we.
01:08:20
Speaker
did our first tour like we just made those connections you know and then we you know we had a we went out on the road with a binder you know this thick of map quest directions and we would get lost and like you know and back then if you got lost it was just over somebody just eventually finds a skeleton in a van at the back of like a a Walgreens parking lot
01:08:50
Speaker
But that is how we created our first, the ability to actually travel. And we were like, wow, people somewhere else, not in our town, would like to hear us play music. And we eventually were able to buy a piece of shit van and try to go and do that. So that's how the momentum started for us.
01:09:13
Speaker
You just sitting around in a small room eating eggs and packing jewel cases. How bad did it smell in there? Oh, it was bad. We don't eat like that. That's fart food. Always scrambled. I still have the same egg salad sandwiches. I have the same food that we would duplicate these things on.
01:09:40
Speaker
We would like put this like, you know, label on top of it. And like, I mean, we spent so much money sending these things out because, you know, but like, so I remember hearing a Dillinger escape plan, um, uh, interview where they would like work at this gas station and use the long distance from the phone at the gas station to call.
01:10:05
Speaker
venues and and Book book their tour and I remember they drove 11 hours to a show that didn't even happen and I was like, all right We don't have to drive 11 hours to a show that doesn't happen then we're doing pretty good so like I would base my base my experiences off of what I would hear other bands that have done and It was just so
01:10:31
Speaker
cool to eat shit. I mean, eating shit is a part of being on tour. And I think you really got to do it when you're young and don't have any responsibilities because I know guys that are our age, late 30s, that are like, we're going to jump in a van and go on the road. And I'm like, you sure about that?
01:10:54
Speaker
Like, why? Yeah, it's a young man's game to do that grind for certain. Yeah. Like, you know, it was hard as a young man. Even if you have a ton of money and you can do it and fund this hobby, it's like, why? Like, don't, don't, you know,
01:11:16
Speaker
It's fun to not sleep in hotels or think that a hotel when you do get one is like, you're so lucky to have it. You know, um, I don't know. I just, it is a young man's game. That's where all the experiences come from. Yes. And that's, and that's where all the stories come from. How many nights would will be like, we need a place to stay tonight. We don't have anywhere to go. And then like five people will come up afterwards. Like you can stay at my mom's house and we're like, sweet.
01:11:43
Speaker
You had to have ended up in some weird situations because of that. Oh yeah. Let's stop on some of those. Let's talk about when you throw them. I feel like if you're going to announce to a group of teenagers that you need a place to stay.
01:12:03
Speaker
Everyone I know who's ever done that has definitely found some weird places to stay. Five guys stacked on top of each other in a race car bed? There's gotta be something that sticks out, right? Someone's mom tried to fuck you guys, for sure, right? Nah, never. Wow! You guys should have played close to Liberty University, maybe with Trey Falwell.
01:12:34
Speaker
What was the tour with sworn enemy and I forget who else was on it. We stayed in like this chick's house and she like played the piano and it was like something really weird happened. I can't remember what it was.
01:12:46
Speaker
It's just the first thing that came to mind. Who else was on that tour? Whoever else is on it, were you guys on tour with other people that were making the same plea? Please let us know. Yeah, I think they stayed in the house with us, and she hooked up with one of them. But there's something in my mind I can't remember specifically, but I remember there was a giant piano in the middle of her living room. The house was weird and dirty. And we were trying to find places to sleep. I can't remember what happened. There was something, but that's just the first thing that came to mind.
01:13:16
Speaker
I think the closest I ever came to experiencing what it's like to sleep at random people's houses when you're in a band traveling was the one year that I went to a LAN party in Pennsylvania with 45 other people. And it was like a free for all for carpet space. That's the closest I ever come to that feeling. The smell in that room would be interesting. Oh, God. Yeah, LAN parties have a distinctive odor.
01:13:42
Speaker
yeah especially because when we were in between sessions as we would call them we uh walked over to sheets and just ate a bunch of whatever the fuck we bought from sheets before we went back so i love sheets it does hold i don't have it up in new england uh but i did recently take a last summer i took a trip down to
01:14:04
Speaker
North Carolina, uh, for a show. Uh, and I got sheets several times along the way. Also my first time trying, um, what's the one that everyone read? Is it cookout or internet? What am I, which one am I thinking of? What's the one that people talk about? Okay. In and out. It was in and out. It cookouts on the West coast, I think perhaps. Um, yeah, my first time trying in and out and
01:14:30
Speaker
Yeah, mostly on the West Coast, but it's starting to spread. We have some here in Texas now. Oh, you're getting everything in Texas, Paul. Yeah. Comedy in. I thought you were frozen. Am I? He might be. Yeah, you're you're super choppy again. We lost a joke.
01:14:50
Speaker
Paul, I'm going to shift to you for a second. Because things are moving along from a second store window. And you hop on just after Delinda comes out. So what's going on? What's the story there? Well, I was in another band at the time. I've been friends with these guys for years. So I was around for aphasia. I was going to their shows. And so was Nick, our drummer. They had a different drummer at the time named Jeremy.
01:15:16
Speaker
And so from an outsider perspective, they were like the cool band in the town. We were in ninth grade. I think Rob was a senior. Joe was like a junior. And so we thought they were the coolest and Nick and I would go see their shows at little VFWs or whatever. And we basically looked up to them. And
01:15:35
Speaker
Nick and I were in a band at the time, like just a high school nu metal band. And after we became friends with them, they came over to our practice once or twice. At least Rob did. I remember who else was there. But Nick has always been a really good drummer. Were you there? Yeah.
01:15:51
Speaker
So Jeremy didn't want to play the type of music they were playing, their drummer at the time. And he wanted to leave, I guess. Or you guys, I don't know what was happening. But they came over and saw how good Nick was. And they were like, oh, maybe we'll just take this guy. So they asked
Band Dynamics and Musical Influences
01:16:07
Speaker
him to join. And of course, he's ecstatic. And he joins. And he tells me, I'll still do the band with you. And I was all bummed, even though I was happy for him at the same time.
01:16:17
Speaker
and of course you know that band is fizzled out because it was whatever and then so he left with them and Jeremy ended up making friends with our other friend Greg and they started a band and then I got introduced to them through Joe maybe or someone and so I joined that band and we called ourselves a good day to die and eventually became Robinson um so we we were all playing shows together like so we were all around each other throughout this whole thing and did the member swap thing
01:16:44
Speaker
And then so Robinson was touring at the same time as from a second story window. And then so Derek, the guy I replaced in this band, he left the band and then Joe called me like that night and was like,
01:16:58
Speaker
So Derek left, we don't want to steal you from your band, but would you want to fill in? We have some tours coming up this fall or whatever. And I was like, absolutely, that would be great. And so we had nothing planned. So I did that, jumped in the vein with them right after Delinde came out. I think it was like the week that it came out. So I remember you guys waiting to get the first week numbers of sales and stuff.
01:17:20
Speaker
And then you're on tour with Darkest Hour, so I had just hopped in the band to hang out for the last week of that tour, and I started learning songs with Rob just on the road. And the very last show, I played one song with them. And then after that, we went back and I started learning the rest and eventually just became a full-time member and decided to just stick with that and leave the other band. So that's where we kind of crossed paths.
01:17:43
Speaker
was Rob Robinson sounds like craze. I don't know that I know them, but I feel like it sounds crazy familiar. It was Robinson.
01:17:51
Speaker
making i feel like i know that band name was it would that be what i know or am i just mistaking it perhaps i mean maybe like it was like super crazy grind yeah yeah you know who they are just blast beats non-stop um we toured with c tuesday i like that i that's how i met the guys to see next tuesday was with that band first
01:18:14
Speaker
And then wax vessel put our stuff out before the fast one. Okay. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, the whole. Yeah. I remember Robinson. No, it was dude. I had a flashback right there. I had a, I had a friend in high school who was like a huge grind core kid. So like he's who would have introduced me to that. That's so fun. He's in jail now. No, he's not. Oh, no. The funny thing is like,
01:18:39
Speaker
Another reason I like joining this band was we saw eye-to-eye on everything more and especially music-wise. I never really liked Grind. I still don't. I think it's cool and I appreciate it and whatever, but I always liked more melodic, still fast and heavy stuff, but just what they were doing was more appealing to me with Delinda. We got a long grinder. We've known each other for years anyway, so it was easy. It just fell right into place. Yeah.
01:19:08
Speaker
And we started writing almost instantly, like on the road, like just started piecing this together here and there and sitting in our trailer. I remember with Rob, like writing our first parts of our songs, just like.
01:19:19
Speaker
He's like, what kind of stuff do you want to do? And I was like, I don't know. What do you want to do? And he's like, whatever we want. It's like the same thing. It's just like everyone's got their own taste. But like when it comes down to, we all loved like the deaf tones. We all loved, you know, we all grew up listening to the same band, Slipknot, Korn, whatever. And then like had those new influences, Poison the Well, you know, every time I die, Norma Jean, you know, grew up listening to that stuff.
01:19:43
Speaker
And that kind of evolves, but we all like the same thing. And it just like, I don't know, it fell right into place and we just went for it. And yeah, so we started writing conversations and recorded the next year. I think it was probably 2007. I feel like the guys that are really into grind core kind of give off like maybe like a night mode version of the same vibes as the dudes that are really into like eight bit music. Yeah. Like it's not fun to listen to.
01:20:12
Speaker
It's impressive and it's cool, but I don't just sit down and go, I feel like listening to Grind today. It's like appreciating an art form. Yeah, it's heavy overlap with people who own a copy of the Satanic Bible too.
01:20:28
Speaker
I had that in a chessboard at my mom's house, and my mom's not super religious, but she's afraid of Satan. I think she threw it away when I moved out, because I don't know. It was silly though. If you ever read it before, it's just a fucking weird book of some guy.
01:20:47
Speaker
But yeah, I agree with you, Paul. I had that. Grindcore is really not. The shit that I did like and I did listen to a whole lot that I still am in the mood for is like Orchid, Page 99, because there's a lot of melodies and stuff. Yeah, a lot of stuff is what I was into, if anything. Yeah, but some of the stuff where it's just
01:21:14
Speaker
I don't want to sound like a dad where but it's like 30 seconds All right, I can't You shit on the Robinson records But I was trying to put all kinds of like melodic stuff and death tones chords in there just strummed really fast over blast beats I don't want it. I don't want it's a good way to ruin a first date That was a good fucking album. Yeah, that was awesome. Yeah, it was good. It was good. Thank you
01:21:43
Speaker
Yeah. Juice my cock. It's been juiced. I gotta wash these pants twice. Yeah. I gotta like, okay, here's a...
01:22:02
Speaker
This is maybe like a put your hand on the Bible and swear to tell the truth sort of thing. You guys need to buckle up. Did any of you guys. We're weird ass wild cards. So did you guys or did you guys not ever use a MySpace friend at her? No, we never did. I don't know. I don't I can't even remember. I'm not even sure what that is, but I don't think so. No, we we. Oh, man. We too much integrity in this room.
01:22:34
Speaker
I'm not joking. And I'll say this because I think that, and I don't think we were smart enough, but we also wanted, we wanted sustainability. I agree. It never made sense for us to have fake friends. So we have a million people that follow us, but... Were those fake friends?
01:23:01
Speaker
Yeah, like we never so it was like original bot type stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I remember the first time we ever went on tour with Job for a Cowboy. They had like two million views or some shit like that. We're like, we have to play after them. Job for a cowboy.
01:23:21
Speaker
Okay, I'm not gonna say this in a weird way, but their first tour was with us and they opened the whole fucking show and it was fucking insane. They should have not have opened, but it was their first tour. It was the same with fucking Devil Wears Prada. And I'm quoting out Devil Wears Prada merch right now. I'm trying to get them to fucking come with my company to do shirts.
Touring Realities: Success, Struggles, and Endings
01:23:46
Speaker
But it was Devil Wears Prada's first tour too with us. And it was just all these new up and coming bands because they were so big on MySpace and whatever. And I just was like, if we do any of these bot things, it's not going to make sense because it's going to show when we play shows. Like, you know, if, like I said, we play a show and 20 people are there.
01:24:10
Speaker
it doesn't matter if we have one million fucking followers or whatever the fuck it was at the time.
01:24:25
Speaker
that tour with Job for Kyle. I remember the first night the room just was completely filled and just erupted for them like it was just everybody was there for them and it was just like wow like this is crazy you know like these guys they like came out of nowhere you know and I felt like I felt stupid playing after them yeah you know everyone's here to stand and we're gonna we're headlining and it was just weird you know
01:24:48
Speaker
they were honestly like crazy how that just happens for something yeah it was like before viral was a job for a cowboy went viral it was insane i remember hearing that song was like that yeah blood curdling scream from that chick and that like reverse snare drum
01:25:04
Speaker
Yeah, like goes in I was like what yeah, it was great. It was catchy song like it was all good Yes, it just happens for some bands for some reason like everything aligns and like they just blow up Yeah, we never see you guys
01:25:20
Speaker
No, it's funny. You made a good point, Joe. I was like, uh, like at this point in time, getting, you know, all right, as someone who runs a public podcast page that
01:25:35
Speaker
would like to get, you know, um, of course I would prefer to have as many followers as I can with it. So like what I, I do this thing that I hate where it's like, what I know, I pay attention when we get new followers, I check it out and I go, is this part, should I follow this person back? Like, and if they have like 30,000 followers without a doubt, I'm probably going to follow them back. If they have three,
01:26:00
Speaker
I might look at it and see if this page aligns with what I'm doing. Like you play this dumb fucking social media game when at the end of the day, it like doesn't cost me anything to follow anyone back, which is also what makes me question my entire, everything I am as a person. But you play this game. So, but what you'd see now, you monetize your followers now. Like if you have a hundred thousand followers on a social media page, you're getting paid.
01:26:29
Speaker
at the time that you guys and shit it didn't matter how many friends you had on my space or what your facebook likes were that wasn't being monetized the monetization was what you got it shows so there there was a time where having as many followers it perhaps it would have like that might even been before like
01:26:48
Speaker
you got the algorithm bump where it would be advertised to people who might like similar things. So much has changed in the way that works, where it's like having those followers, having those likes, they didn't necessarily translate to people showing up to a venue and paying for a ticket and buying fucking merchandise. And there wasn't even a feed or an algorithm back in the day. You just went to someone's page and you were their friend or not.
01:27:15
Speaker
I remember when we were on MySpace, there was no home feed where you would just see posts. It was just like, you had your page and that was it. And we put our song up. I remember that was our website. We didn't even have a website anymore.
01:27:28
Speaker
We dropped our first song from Conversations. It was Leaving the Earth. I remember I was at our friend's house and I remember we decided we were going to upload it tonight as the first single and put it up. I sat there all night refreshing, seeing how many views and what people were saying. I think we hit 7,000 views the first night and I was like, yes. I was sitting there drinking with our friends, refreshing on this old ass computer. It's like terrible internet.
01:27:51
Speaker
yeah i love that what um all right so i i've uh this has been like the burning question in my mind you guys i feel this is i'll tell you what it felt like for me uh and you tell me what it was for you uh conversations comes out and i remember i first heard it and it was a big i at that point in my life it was just like heavy brutal i want heavy and brutal music um
01:28:14
Speaker
And I first heard a song, and I was like, oh, this is a big shift. And I didn't know how I felt about it. And it didn't take me long to be like, and this has been something I've done my whole life, which is the problem. I listen to something, and it's not like what I knew before. And I go, it's OK. And then I revisit it later. And I go, actually, I love that. So now at this point, I know, give something a chance. I've always listened to it several times. Give something a chance. But when I first heard it, I was like, it's shift.
01:28:42
Speaker
It shifted. There was more there was more singing. It was less on like the quote unquote brutal side. But then it like, it pulled me in big and I fucking fell in love with the album conversations. And I felt it felt like you guys maybe began to tour it and then all sudden, from a second story window was over.
01:29:04
Speaker
Uh, and I didn't get, I was like, I was, it was a major. I was like, Oh, I'm so bummed. I didn't get to, I saw you guys play your stuff from Delinda. I was like really pumped on a conversations tour in the U S maybe I missed a show near me because, uh, Spotify didn't tell me what I should or shouldn't go to. But.
01:29:21
Speaker
It just felt like it ended kind of abruptly, like conversations came out in 2008 and you guys kind of ended, I think, in 2008. So what was like- Yeah, we ended before it came out. Yeah. All right. So, okay, I'm on- That's how well things were going. What was going on? How'd you put this album out but end it before it even released? What happened? Let's just say that Joe's the original Tim Lambessus.
01:29:51
Speaker
I didn't try to kill my wife. You're talking about the shotgun as late dying, right? Yeah. Yeah. I prefer Austrian death machine, but okay.
01:30:07
Speaker
if i can say this we we got kind of pushed into doing a bunch of shitty tours um tours that didn't make sense for us tours with bands that are doing good now but weren't doing good at the time um and we just i don't know it was it was kind of fucked like i remember being
01:30:30
Speaker
We were playing The Creepy Crawl in St. Louis, Missouri, and I was on the phone with Brian from Metal Blade, and he was like, yeah, we want to put out your next record. I'm like, dude, we're not going to even be a band. We're not going to fucking make it. We're pretty much done.
01:30:48
Speaker
And like, you know, we have Metal Blade basically saying they want to put out our next record. And I was like, don't even don't even fucking bother, dude. We're we're we're done. Like we were on tour with like, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to call out who we thought we didn't expect anything. It wasn't bad, like wars. It was bad tours for us. You know. Yeah. Yeah. It just the hearing was wrong.
01:31:14
Speaker
Yeah, it was not. We weren't on tours where people were coming out to see us. It was like.
01:31:20
Speaker
just the wrong mixes of bands. It just wasn't really discouraging and really frustrating and the morale. And it was the wrong crowd. If it was a new crowd for us, they weren't going to like us anyway. We wanted to be out with under oath and bands like that that sounded more along the lines of us. It's heavy, but it's still melodic and lots of singing and stuff like that.
01:31:46
Speaker
And we were like, where are those tours? We just kept getting thrown on death metal tours or, you know, it was just the wrong stuff. And so that's very demoralizing when it's just over and over and over. And, uh, we all got tired. We were burnt out. We were making money and it just got sort of.
01:32:03
Speaker
I mean, we're on tour with some silly metal bands. That's kind of what it was. It wasn't even death metal. Or it was like with Acacia Strain, who we loved, and we're our friends, but that audience isn't going to like what we're doing. What's an audience... I don't think anyone will be offended here. What's an audience that wasn't... Because you guys did have this...
01:32:24
Speaker
you're working on conversations you're writing conversations you're probably playing some of those songs maybe before the album comes out you're you're wanting to you with delinda you could have kind of bridged that gap you could have been here you could have been you could have been with
01:32:40
Speaker
With under oath post post the They're only chasing safety you could but it's like I feel like when you're starting to get into the singing the death metal kids don't want singing Of course, we know that so I understand why that wouldn't be a good match What are some bands that you feel like weren't a good fit that you were putting on the you're on these tours? You're trying to
01:33:01
Speaker
do this new thing with conversations and get a little bit more melodic. What's some of the specific, what are some of the tours that weren't working, that you didn't feel were working out for you, despite the fact that the bands were great? What was the one that we ended on? Divine Heresy? Divine Heresy, and I don't even remember who else, that was it. That was it, sworn enemy, Divine Heresy, us. Yeah. And it was just not our audience at all. And some nights, there just weren't many people there.
01:33:30
Speaker
period and like we had already been like fed up at that point. I think that was just like the final nail in the coffin. Like we didn't even, did we not finish that tour, right? Cause we skipped. Yeah. Cause we, we were coming through home, like, like Toledo. We were going to go home that night.
01:33:50
Speaker
and stay and then we had to go to like New England Metal Fest or something and we had like an MTV2 interview lined up and all this stuff because the new record was coming out and like that's how bad it was we just never left home. We had this like big like not like a fight like it wasn't anything between members but like like I remember who that was might have been Joe the first person says like I'm just done and I was like
01:34:13
Speaker
I remember standing on our trailer door open and I just said, all right, well, I'm going to move to California. And then, like, everyone was just like, done. Like, what happened that quick? And we had spent all that time, months writing, a month in the studio, staying up there in Syracuse and all that. And we put everything into that record. We were so happy with it. And that tells you how bad things were for us to just go, yeah, that's it. And not do any of that, like, what we had lined up.
01:34:40
Speaker
It would have been a part of you guys afterwards that felt like a few months in or whatever. Three, four months later, we were just like, fuck, should we have seen what would have happened if we put this album out and kept going? For sure. Definitely, yeah. All right, to be honest. I never regretted it that much. To be honest, dude, I never looked back. I thought we got a delay. Go ahead, Joe. I never looked back. I didn't look back because
01:35:09
Speaker
We didn't have a lot of support, and it wasn't so much being on tours that people didn't give a shit about us. I just kind of felt like we were beating a dead horse before the horse was even dead at that point.
01:35:30
Speaker
It just, you know, when like, I don't know, we, we kind of blew up kind of fast when we were younger. And I don't think that's ever good for any person because you're kind of like, Oh shit, we played here last year and there was 20 people here. Now there's 200, now there's 500 and they're jumping on stage. Now we're selling out of merch. And then you go back there a year later and you're like, Oh fuck yeah. And then people don't give a shit or something like that. You know, that, that can happen.
01:35:59
Speaker
Um, I'm not saying that was like our normal thing, but it was, it was so hard to gauge and, uh, you know, um, so some of the tours we were going on were kind of pushed by our label and they, they just didn't make any sense. So it was tour after tour and kind of got to the point where we're just like, fuck this. I mean.
01:36:27
Speaker
You know, some of the shows we'd have to drive 28 hours to Halifax, Nova Scotia to start the tour. Or we drove from Ohio to Albuquerque, New Mexico to start the tour. You know, and it was like, for fucking what? Like, we toured with Darkest Hour, Misery Signals and Versus the Mirror in
01:36:53
Speaker
Canada and started one part of Canada went all the way the other part of Canada making $100 a night and that's when you know gas was a dollar something per Court so it's like five dollars a gallon But we sold enough in merch and it made made sense to do it. It was never a money thing It was just like
01:37:15
Speaker
what makes more sense for us to do. And some of these tours that we did were just like, even if it was financially, I guess, sustainable, it was still just like killed our fucking drive to be stoked. Yeah.
Life After Touring: Survival and Reflection
01:37:30
Speaker
Probably would have been smart to just say no to some things. And it's like we don't have to be on the road constantly burning ourselves out, wait until something comes along.
01:37:38
Speaker
especially because like I'm like going through our old footage and like putting together our show trailer and stuff and I Like came across one in California Will was like I know we were here just seven times but like thanks for coming out and it's like oh we were just beating them to death with like just coming through coming through coming through like if there's no demand for you anymore also doesn't matter if you're on the right tour so very true, but that's what you did back in the day and
01:38:03
Speaker
Yeah, I guess like it's just tour your ass off and you didn't know when to take breaks and work on new material and then like wait for the right things because I don't know. We never really thought about that. It was just like that's what we do. So we just go back out.
01:38:16
Speaker
kind of like I'm in sales and you know cold calling is just a part of sales that you have to do and like sometimes it's fun sometimes it sucks but like you can only do so much of it because it's like very demoralizing and like you're gonna get
01:38:34
Speaker
You know, for every one decent call that you do, I mean, you're going to end up getting kicked out of like six places and you can only handle so much before you're like, I can't, I don't care anymore. And I do not want to do this. I did a lot of that because it was like the only places that would hire me between tours was like call centers. Uh, that sounds familiar. Yeah. I think I did for like two weeks and then like.
01:39:03
Speaker
I think I left on my own. Yeah, you did too. Oh, my God. Did you guys watch the documentary on HBO about it? No. Oh, you have to. It's the life. Oh, yeah, I did. I saw the first episode. Oh, my God. It changed my life. It was the most validated thing I've ever seen in my life. I worked in civic development. The whole thing was a scam. Yes. Oh, my. Calling people on behalf of some bullshit firefighter thing, some bullshit cop teddy bear drive.
01:39:30
Speaker
some bullshit veterans fund that wasn't even an actual, an actual nonprofit. At least the other ones were like nonprofits that barely got money. One of them wasn't even a real nonprofit. It was, anyway, I just, telemarketing is the worst thing you could ever do. And Casey mentioned sales. And that's the most demoralizing thing I've ever done. If you could, if you put touring in terms of what it's like to do telemarketing, I would have fucking, you only have so much in you when it's not going right.
01:40:00
Speaker
We would come back and only be home for like what, like three or four weeks. And so it's like, I need to make money because we're not making enough on the road where I can afford to just like get an apartment or whatever. So I would like, who's going to hire you for three weeks? Then you leave again.
01:40:14
Speaker
But telemarketers will hire, oh yeah, sure, come on back, sit next to the drug addict. I went through every single place, just kept circling around, TNS and research. Then I went and did tech support, whatever.
01:40:30
Speaker
weather i could find for 12 bucks an hour or whatever it was. $12 my ass back then. Yeah. The top guys were making it. Yeah, it was like $6. That's a win. Yeah, I was gonna say I know for a fact when because I can think of what I can
01:40:48
Speaker
this is i i remember being at work and i remember the first i remember the first time i listened to conversations from beginning to end i was at work and it was a job that paid me $5.55 an hour and i only worked there 20 hours a week and i made rent somehow there was a it's i feel like such an old piece of shit now when i say stuff like that because it's like you sound like your dad who's just like oh my oh it's kid and you're just like god damn that's me now i made
01:41:16
Speaker
I love telling people I made $5.55 an hour for 20 hours a week. That's my favorite thing to tell young people. I think the highest I ever made it to was like nine bucks or nine and a quarter and I was like, I'm rich. Yeah. No commission. Pulling out asbestos by hand for $9.25 an hour. I'm always curious for guys like you that have been all over the place.
01:41:45
Speaker
Is there like a particular city that you just were like, man, this place has no redeeming qualities. It sucks.
01:42:07
Speaker
No, oh my God. I honestly don't even remember. It's weird because a lot of the times you'd fly in and out so quick. You know what I mean? You'd get into a city, you'd play at that venue, and then sometimes you have to leave that night and drive overnight.
01:42:30
Speaker
Uh, we would try to explore and like eat somewhere good or whatever as much as we could, but a lot of times like you would only see like one little piece of a city, you know, like you'd be there for 12 hours. What was the shithole in Italy? We got robbed. Oh, that was a Milan. Oh, fuck. You guys got robbed in Italy? Yeah. We didn't get robbed. I mean, the guys stole merch and ran straight. Yeah. I'm just, I'm, I'm joking. But yeah, he chased, Joe chased him down the street and tried to take our stuff. Yeah.
01:42:58
Speaker
Yeah, but yeah, it was just like not what you expect just like we get to italy and you expect it to be like Hey, it's italy and it was just like dirt It was also it was raining it was a shitty day Yeah, i'm just joking because like I can't think of a city. I really hate that much but I I had a blast over there. I was drinking wine under a uh, a Street light with some guy named paul's l
01:43:29
Speaker
It was very romantic. You're like, how did I get here and why do I have a $30 glass of wine? Oh no, it wasn't me. Was that the burglar? You chased him down, you guys made out, you had to get a glass of wine.
01:43:48
Speaker
No, I don't know he was there for the show I think he just was like passing by and like he wants someone I just like put on a hoodie out of our merch bin and what started walking away No, that was one of the help I'm confusing it with something else in
01:44:10
Speaker
I don't know. I don't care. Nothing sticks out as like I despise the city, you know? Like I don't... You must have never been to Sioux City, Iowa. Oh yeah, we played there. No, we played in Cedar Falls, Iowa. We played in Des Moines. Sioux City? I feel like maybe we did. I'm not sure. That's just always the one that sticks out to me from when I was traveling.
01:44:34
Speaker
I tell you what though, maybe not that city, but driving in that part of the country was like just absolute torture. You would just drive through corn for six hours.
01:44:46
Speaker
Like it never ended. It was just like hypnotizing. I just remember being like, I couldn't be any more bored than I am right now. It's hours of corn. That's a, I'm tired of laying. I'm tired of looking at things. I just want to jump out the window. Yeah. Those were the drives. We had a loft in the back of our van that they built and like you could fit two people and Joe was my bunk mate. So we had this rotation.
01:45:14
Speaker
to make sure, when it's your turn to drive, you have to drive. And it's just diplomatic. And like Rob was talking about earlier, everything was organized and fair. So it was your night to drive. You couldn't drink. That's just what it was. If you wanted to swap with someone and make a deal, you could. But we had this van rotation that you'd go to this seat, then to the front bench, and then the shotgun, and then back to this one, and then back to the driver's seat. Like migrating these. Yes.
01:45:39
Speaker
And like, I remember like, depending on how big spoon little spoon flying, we just rotate through the van until it was your turn to drive. Then you go to the back and it starts over. And when you're in the loft, it's like really nice. If it's a short drive, you get to lay down and relax. But like, if you're laying down for like six hours or more and you're just like ceilings right here.
01:46:01
Speaker
Then you start to get so crazy and you have to go sit down in the bench with the next guy and hope he's laying down like, can I sit next to you for a while? It's like you're just in a bed like this for eight hours and you can't do anything. It's like being in a coffin. Basically, UPS yourself to the middle of the country. Also, we'd have show shirts. Sorry, go ahead, Joe.
01:46:27
Speaker
There is a delay for me. I miss delays. Yeah. It is pretty cool though, like how diplomatic we were, because we really tried to alleviate any kind of argument or fight. So keeping everything systematic and fair was, I think, beyond some of the other bands' comprehensions. Like when we tell people, like,
01:46:51
Speaker
Yeah, so you start back there, you go, you know, and you make your way up to the front and then you drive and then you go to the back and they're like, what? Like, this guy just wants to drive all the time. Or, or this guy's drunk to drive all the time. And I'm just like, how the fuck do you guys not kill each other? Like, you know, so anyway, like an employee handbook.
01:47:15
Speaker
Yeah, I was going to say on top of being stuck that up there like we had show shirts. You wear the same shirt every night when you play the show to keep your laundry as clean as possible. Hope we lost them. We lost Joe. So what we would do is we would take the shirts and close them in the van windows to dry out in between shows. So if you're laying back there by the window, you just hear.
01:47:40
Speaker
Like non-stop the whole time and I don't know how many shirts I lost doing that But that was our way of not doing laundry So you keep your other clothes clean cuz we never stopped and did laundry like ever we could have but we didn't know and so you just know if you don't have a quarter because it's like Six people go do laundry. It's gonna take a few hours. Like we never had a few hours to do anything You drive right to the show soundcheck eat then play
01:48:09
Speaker
Then you're like either have to drive to the next city or go stay somewhere in the laundromats or clothes But yeah, it was just it's a hell of a life. That's for sure Yeah, is there like a is there a stated like written in stone policy on like farting in the van?
01:48:25
Speaker
No, not for a minute. Anything goes with that. You can't. It's unbearable to hold it. As someone who in- We had a lot of fun with those. Yeah. Holding in farts is one of the worst, after like, you can do it a couple of times, but then you just, it becomes unbearable. And it's, you only do that in professional settings where you don't want everyone to hate you and laugh at you.
01:48:54
Speaker
maybe gas was kind of the glue that helped your guys' familial bond together. Oh, I mean, when you spend that much time with someone in an enclosed space, like you can identify the person by the smell. Oh, for sure. Like, Oh, that was Nick. Really proud of it.
01:49:12
Speaker
I'm really proud of it. So it was the vinyl re-release that kind of got things moving again. You got your show coming up.
Reunion Plans and Future Music
01:49:29
Speaker
I tried factoring out several times whether or not I could with a family and children and a full-time job and being in school.
01:49:38
Speaker
on top of that i tried to figure out if i could make my way out to ohio for you guys's show it's not working out for me uh but what i mean thanks for trying ah god man it's a real i'm it's a very so that'll lead into my next question of whether or not you guys are gonna plan on doing more shows but i know you guys are working on some new music what is what are things looking like for you guys are you guys putting going to release
01:50:03
Speaker
some new music or is it just for live? What's the what's the thought process on what's next for from a second story window that you guys are kind of get the gears turning again? Go ahead, Paul.
01:50:13
Speaker
Um, yeah, definitely more shows, uh, but not like touring full-time, you know, we can't do that. So it just be like weekend warrior stuff when we can, any kind of like fest that makes sense that we can make it to, uh, I'm the only one without kids. So it's like, it's tough for everybody that, you know, they running businesses, families, all that stuff, but we want to do what we can as much as we can, um, without being full-time, you know, so, and.
01:50:40
Speaker
As far as music, so to give you the long story short, after Wax Festival put out the record and we were talking every day again. We also had the original singer Sean from the EP, like in this group chat with all of us and just shooting the shit, being stupid, you know, every day, whatever. And Sean said one day, he's like, I had a dream last night that we wrote a new song and it was like 18 minutes long.
01:51:06
Speaker
And then so like someone or me or whoever was like, well, why don't we just write a song? And it was like, ha ha ha. Like maybe we should, and maybe we should play a show. And this was before anything was planned. This is just like shooting the shit.
01:51:18
Speaker
And so I was like, what if I start writing a song and just not tell them and see if it's any good. So I'm not also embarrassed because I have first thing, I expected everyone to say no immediately. Like no time for this. It was, we already did it, you know, whatever. So I started writing like half a song and then Sean texts me on the side and he's like, what if you can like program drums, right? Like what if you start writing something and just put it in the chat? I was like, I'm already on it.
01:51:46
Speaker
So I just dropped it in the chat one day and I go so here's what I made After we had that talk and just didn't know if they'd like it or want to be like do it anything at all And they liked it and we're stoked and immediately that just to kind of sparked everything off and we're like well Let's let's start talking for real here. Like what can we do? So we planned the return show which we're doing next week and
01:52:09
Speaker
And we were like, let's write an EP. So now we're like multiple songs into that. And we're planning to record next spring and put it out by next summer, hopefully. But nothing's concrete at the moment. But yeah, a lot of new songs in the works. God, that makes me so happy to hear. Man, too, when he sent that song, it was like,
01:52:37
Speaker
I don't know. It was just like one of those moments for me where I was like, holy shit. Like it was very, uh, I don't know, man. It was just like super inspiring and it just like, wow, this is like something I've been missing for so many years, you know? And, uh, it really, really lit a fire, I think for all of us. And it's just like, it feels good. You know, it's like really just even reconnecting with everybody again, you know, not just the music, but, you know, you know, talking to each other, you know, daily and just, you know, cause these are,
01:53:04
Speaker
These are friends that were, you know, we were shoulder to shoulder for a decade, you know, like just all the time, you know, so it's like, uh, the connection is really cool. And to be, to, to be able to be creative again, you know, in that sense, you know, with music and stuff is a really good feeling, you know, so it's, it's been really good for all of us. I'm an only child. So they're like, literally my brothers, like.
01:53:28
Speaker
Like closer bandmates in this aspect can be closer than siblings. It's crazy. It's cool to hear that you got like the grind in demoralization is what kind of killed it. Like some people just have a big infight and they're like, fuck this. And then they call it and they're done.
01:53:44
Speaker
Uh, it's nice. Like that's cool to hear that. Like you guys kind of all stayed in touch. Yeah. Cause it was nothing between members. It just like, it wasn't going well. And then, you know, you're, you're starting to get in your mid to late twenties and like, like some people are like, I want to have kids. I want to have a family like, and we're not making any fucking money. Like what are we going to do here?
01:54:07
Speaker
And on top of that, it just wasn't going well. If it was on track to something more, then there's more hope. And we're like, oh, we're getting on a bigger label. We're getting on the right tours. You could see the light in the tunnel, but it was just getting darker. And I think everyone was just ready for a break because they'd been touring forever before I joined. And so was I in my other band. So I'd been doing it the same amount of time.
01:54:30
Speaker
and just hopped in with them. And then we did this record and it's nonstop, nonstop going to the studio for a month, go back out on tour. And then we broke up for the drop. So like, I think we were all fine with it being done at the time. So it wasn't like there was ever this big regret, like what could have happened? But now that we can revisit and kind of do this last run, whatever we do with this new record.
01:54:53
Speaker
and kind of end it how we want, which we never thought we were able to do. And I never thought in a million years we'd be doing this, ever. There was no ending. This band never got the ending that it deserved. And now we're able to do that. And we're going to do it
Personal Growth and Post-Band Pursuits
01:55:12
Speaker
right. So I'm stoked about it. Me too. Did anyone do music with anything else afterwards? Or did you guys all just kind of move on to different things?
01:55:23
Speaker
I just, the only thing I did with Paul in a, in a, like a local band, like we played bars and stuff like that. Um, did that for a little bit. And then Paul did some, some of the other guys did some stuff too. Um, but yeah, Joe's in a few bands, right. Um, little league and I forget the name of the other one horses have people teeth.
01:55:43
Speaker
That was like a grind band. That's the most grindcore band name. I mean, I couldn't guess the genre based on the band name. I remember, I said that in the van one day when we were on tour, I don't know why. I saw a picture of a horse and I just go, horses have people teeth. And then he, like, being Joe, he asked me if it was okay if he used that for the band name. I was like, of course, why would it not be okay? Like, yeah, no. No, I had hoped to have praise.
01:56:15
Speaker
Yeah, Robin and Nick was also in that with us too. We did like a heavy Southern rock thing called Thunder Rider and we played bars around town and did a record with that. And then I moved to LA for eight years and I was in like a Day to Remember type heavy pop-pump band.
01:56:33
Speaker
And like I did a solo EP. Yeah. I never heard that term either. So I got in the room and he's like, so I want this to be kind of like an easy core band. And I was like, what the fuck are you talking about?
01:56:43
Speaker
I've never heard that. He's like put on all these bands for me and it was like, oh, this is cool. So that was cool. We did that for like a year and a half or two. And then did a solo thing that I put out, kind of just like trying to rehash what we never got to do with this band, like that kind of style. And started rewriting. Is that available anywhere? Yeah, it's on everything. It's called Phoenix Lights. It's just me by myself. I wrote everything and tried to learn how to sing for the first time.
01:57:13
Speaker
Just because I couldn't do this, I think I was trying to fill a hole that we're doing now, you know? Like, I have to always be creating something or I'm just not happy, no matter how good everything else is going. So I think, like Rob said, it kind of fills a hole that is always going to be there if you're a creative person or, you know, music was such a big part of our lives growing up. Like, it's all I thought about when I was young because I didn't have any other responsibility.
01:57:38
Speaker
Yeah. So now being able to like be a member of a team again and like talk every day and like shoot them like, what about this idea? And we're talking about merch designs and this and that. And like, it's just like, it brings you back to life. Yeah. Yeah. I got it. Okay. Unrelated from music. Rob, I, I, I peeped your Instagram. It looks like you're pretty big into martial arts. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, uh, I own a jujitsu school. Okay. Oh, nice.
01:58:05
Speaker
Has that been something you've done your whole life? I was curious about that. I always did like martial arts when I was a kid, and then I wrestled through high school and all that stuff. And then obviously during the band, it was like a big break from it. But when we were done, that's kind of what brought me out of my sort of depression and all the stuff that I felt after not being in a band anymore.
01:58:32
Speaker
And I started training jiu-jitsu. And eventually opened my own school. And so October, it was 10 years that we've been open. That's awesome, man. Good for you. So if anyone tries to rob your merch when you guys play shows again, you'll fuck them up. For sure, yeah. I didn't realize Steven Italian just fit in cheating. Yeah, it was 10 years October 15. Shit, congrats. Yeah, that's awesome, dude. Yeah. Yeah, so that's what I do.
01:59:02
Speaker
Well, where's the best place for people to keep up with, uh, news and, you know, updates, new music, that kind of thing. Uh, well we have a website again, even though like nobody does that anymore. It's, uh, fastwellmusic.com, just F-A-S-S-W music.com. The best place probably our Instagram. Yeah. And we have a Facebook and, uh, those are the only two things we're on. We'll get a YouTube started eventually, start putting some old stuff on there and then new stuff as that comes out.
01:59:32
Speaker
But yeah, Instagram is probably our best place. Or like Spotify, Apple Music, all that stuff. Yeah, yeah, that's on everything. Nice. Well, man, it's been great talking to you guys. Thanks so much for joining us. It's a pleasure, guys, for sure. Yeah, thank you, guys. This was so much fun. It was great to hear from you guys, hear your story. I'm really looking forward to what you guys are going on. I'm desperately hoping that you're one of your weekend warrior trips brings you out to the Northeast.
01:59:58
Speaker
I would like that. I would like that. You can even stay at my house if you're still in that. You need a couch? You still in that mode? He is. He is pet ferret, so, you know, expect a smell. No, my house is actually really small and there is no room here. I am sorry, but. That's perfect.
02:00:21
Speaker
You got a bed, right? I got too many pets, too many kids, too. It's not, it's not a, it's a lot. Got you, man. All right. Well, thanks everybody for listening. See you next time.