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Ep. 114 – In Heaven, We’ll All Be Pumpin’ P.O.D. in Plymouth Prowlers w/ Andy Prince of Manchester Orchestra
100 Plays2 years ago
Our guest this week is musician Andy Prince of the phenomenal band, Manchester Orchestra! Andy Grew up in the Florida panhandle, and spent his early years immersed in an Evangelical movement known as the Brownsville Revival. He cut his teeth as a musician in the church praise band. However, as he grew older, he found himself yearning for a little more out of life, and a little less out of the big church. We had a blast chatting with Andy and hearing his story! Follow Andy (@andyprince) and Manchester Orchestra (@manchesterorchestra) on Instagram, and stream their latest single “No Rule” out now!
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Transcript
Musicians and Payment Issues
00:00:00
Speaker
months roll by and then we get time in time to to play and we were all prepared and practiced and through the grapevine I hear there wasn't enough tickets sold at the conference they had to strike some of the different things because of the budget and one of those things was paying the musicians and stiffed at the door yeah and no one was no one was telling me that I just heard it
00:00:21
Speaker
So, I did kind of a- They weren't forced right about the financial situation. I know, right? So simple, but I just went- I love the idea of them sitting you guys down though and being like, look kids, money doesn't grow on trees. It shows up in bowls once a week by the thousands and we can't give you any. Yeah. It's all for us. No.
Introduction of Hosts
00:01:05
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Growing Up Christian. I'm Casey. I'm Sam. I'm Jeremiah. And Sam, I thought about you this week. I was driving through Dallas. It was actually, it was this morning, really. But we're on our way out of town and I noticed there was a billboard with like a scantily clad lady on it from a gentleman's club. And he said, unlicensed therapists on duty. And I thought, I wonder if they're hiring.
00:01:35
Speaker
I have to move to Dallas, but it's totally worth it. Yeah. We have, anytime I drive south of where I live, there's like a bunch of billboards for a place called Electric Blue and it's all like nude silhouettes of ladies.
Humorous Observations on Everyday Life
00:01:50
Speaker
Is it like a club or like a jerk off theater? It's a club. I mean, I'm guessing. I don't know if you can, if those are like a mix and match kind of deal where you could maybe do both for the right amount of money, but
00:02:02
Speaker
Could be. I mean, they seem to play into each other pretty well. I've never been to one of those types of establishments, actually. So we might all be in the same boat there. You know, our our good Christian boy personas prevented us from getting in any trouble like that when we were young. And then we were also married. And that would be a relationship ender. Probably for the best. Yes. Oh, I'm not. There's no regret here. Like, I think the only regret would be going to one and being like, oh,
00:02:33
Speaker
Why did I do that? I feel sad. I was talking about the regret of like, oh man, I just never got to try smoking when I was 16. I'll go to the theater, but I'm bringing a flashlight. Does anyone regret not trying that? Sit in the front row and then periodically stand up, turn around and shine the flashlight. Oh my God. Casey really wants to get stabbed, I can see.
00:02:59
Speaker
just like get hit with mayonnaise. Oh, yeah. All right. So a couple of things happened this week, school related, uh, that I feel like I need to get off my chest. So one of the, all right. So live in new England and it's a,
00:03:16
Speaker
winter weather climate in January. So last week was leaving work and a snow storm was coming in and almost every other school in the area had just called it. They're like just preemptively. It's a snow day. We woke up. No snow on the ground. But the snow storm was coming in.
00:03:37
Speaker
And dealing with snow in this area is kind of a paradox because it's like if you call it, if you if you call a snow day, you probably will have not needed to. But if you don't call the snow day, there's going to be like six feet of snow by 10 a.m. So it's very like it's tough because a lot of the districts, some kids, like especially in the city, like kids have to walk to school if they live within a certain distance, not my school because it's an elementary school, but like
00:04:05
Speaker
It's just, it's tough. There's plenty of drop offs too. So like if there is snow and parents don't want to drive or there's just a lot of things to consider when calling a snow day at the school. But my school didn't call one. So by like, I, my day ends at like three 30 and by two o'clock, the snow starts coming in pretty heavy and everyone's looking out the windows being like, Oh my God, like it's going to be a nightmare driving home.
00:04:31
Speaker
So, 330 hits, there's a little bit of snow on the ground, the roads are slick, everyone's driving real slow.
00:04:38
Speaker
And I see a guy jogging with shorts in no shirt on. There's always that covered in tattoos. I, I drive home at three 30 all the time and I never see that. And I was just like, no, that guy, there's always the guy that's like, this is the time to show everybody that I'm not just about this life. The sunshine. I'm about this life all the time. Yup.
Unexpected Encounters and Awkward Moments
00:04:59
Speaker
And it's just cold. It's just the worst kind of flex and seeing him like, and he was in good shape.
00:05:05
Speaker
I don't know if tattoos may or may not have sucked. I don't know. I wasn't able to see them, but I'm like shorts. If it's shorts, no shirt in a blizzard. You, your tattoos suck. I know they're dumb. I know they're going to be awful. He just says Jaco Wilnek face on one shoulder on the other. I would imagine never takes a day off, bro.
00:05:28
Speaker
Yeah, it was pathetic. Uh, you just see that and you're like, you, that it's just a strange mentality, right? Because that guy's going out thinking, Oh yeah. Like people are going to be like, this guy fucks. He's cool. And no one thinks no one, no one thinks that people who make those types of decisions are just
00:05:47
Speaker
strange breed because in their head it looks it's like the person who's singing with headphones on you're basically the running equivalent of that right like you have your headphones in and you're just singing in the public it's like there was someone in my school one of the so now I'm gonna roll into two janitor stories one of them was unintended but it's the running equivalent of this guy because I'm walking down the hall and there is this guy with just
00:06:14
Speaker
Rapping. I hear rapping down the hallway. I don't hear music. I just hear white boy vocals rapping hard and I turn the corner.
00:06:24
Speaker
And he's like in the middle of the hallway and I make eye contact with the teacher at the end of the hallway. And she looks at me with this, like, is he having a mental breakdown face? And I look at him and then immediately look away. Cause you don't make eye contact with people who are doing that. And this is another, this is a student, right? No, no, this is a full grown man who is one of the janitors who is wrapping his way down the hall and he's wrapping hard.
00:06:50
Speaker
Rapping while he works or jolly works looking for an audience. Okay, really? Yeah, so yeah, it was and it's a real yeah rapping while he works a real snow white in the seven dwarves situation and The lady looks at me. She mouths to me like is he rapping and it's like I just like Winston nodded and she just her eyes rolled to the back of her head and we're like what I
00:07:14
Speaker
Why is this happening? So he is the, the guy running is kind of, it's like, it's at that same type of mentality. He's the equivalent of the person wrapping in the hallway. And then lastly, I've, I feel like I've just come to terms with this, but there's something about my face that says, please tell me everything I don't want to know about you.
00:07:35
Speaker
And one of the janitors comes in. He's a great guy. I like him. You know, people can have a problem with me for liking someone who has bad opinions about stuff. That's fine. But always cordial, super nice. The kids always talk to him. Seems like a great guy.
00:07:55
Speaker
Somehow he thought I was the right person to talk to about the covid vaccine. We're past that, right? We're not talking about that anymore. I think we're at large, right? Yeah, we're definitely past talking it up as a random conversation topic with people we don't know. Well, it'd be nice. Last thing in the world, I want to hear somebody's opinion on. Yeah, it really is. And he just goes into it. And I don't even remember how we got there. It was just, oh, something about people being sick. Yeah, people getting sick again.
00:08:25
Speaker
He's like, I don't know all that worried about it. Like everyone was always worried about COVID. I wasn't, I didn't even get the vaccine. You don't even know what's in that stuff. And I'm like, why are we here? You came in here to take out the trash. So please like, let's do that. Let's let's do that. I'm doing my job, which is like typing up some notes. You're doing your job. Why are we here?
00:08:46
Speaker
I don't know how we got here. I didn't ask for any of this. And I, I don't know. I'm not interested in a conversation about it. And then that you, you end up in that, that panic of like, do I accurately represent my feelings around this? Or do I figure out the best way to get out of this? Oh, always get out. That would have been better. Uh, but I was just like, yeah, you know, like I got it and I'm still alive. So I guess it's fine, but.
00:09:15
Speaker
The guy that strikes up that conversation did not do so because he's like, I wonder what Sam thinks about it.
00:09:23
Speaker
Exactly. It's a performance. I wonder if Sam knows how I think about this. Maybe I give off a vibe that's just like, oh, this guy's anti-vax. For sure. I mean, I can understand if you still have your dreads, like that would make sense. I think you would have people wanting to tell you their opinion on stuff, but you'd probably tell about them because you wouldn't look as trustworthy. But then definitely guys who want to talk about the vaccine uninhibited would be like, that guy will get it.
00:09:48
Speaker
yeah sure you would give off a this what type of courts fights germs yeah this guy likes essential oils he's he's got a strain of marijuana to solve this problem
00:10:04
Speaker
I don't know, but I feel like that's something that happens to me frequently where I, I think, I don't know, maybe that's why I got into the new, the career that I'm in now. Maybe I just have a face that says, please tell me everything you're thinking. And I just opted into the right career for that to work out for me now. But I don't know. I just didn't feel like the right time to get into that kind of a conversation. I know what you mean.
00:10:28
Speaker
Someone tried to witness to me at the coffee shop the other day. Oh my God. I think you're one of those experiences and they never happened to me. I think this is the first time it's ever happened. So like when I walked in, there was definitely like, there was, you know, a lot of college age kids there or whatever. And I saw like these two girls and this guy praying together, but it wouldn't be like out of the ordinary to see somebody doing a Bible study at the coffee shop or whatever. Right.
00:10:52
Speaker
No, the way this coffee shop is laid out, there's a lot of couches around the outside and then some tables in the middle and everything. So you can definitely find this spot and just park yourself on it and chill. And so that's how I was doing this right after I got my haircut. This is right after I'd hurt my back though. So I was leaning forward at just the right angle where it didn't hurt that bad and hunched over and just doing some work emails on my phone while I drank my coffee. Just minding my own business.
00:11:15
Speaker
They mistook that as passive interest in their conversation. I think they may have mistook it as like I'm hunched over with my sadness and my troubles or whatever. And they came up and they're like, excuse me, can we offer you this fruit? And they're holding a banana and an apple. And like, no matter how friendly I am, somebody walks up to you holding like,
00:11:34
Speaker
Unlike non-packaged food and you've never met these people before like instantly i'm like, this is probably fine But i'm not to be fair, but it is they're technically packaged. That's true. That's true But they were like, you know, we just felt and as soon as they said we felt led to come over I was like, oh i'm in the trap Like my mom's not here to check it for razor blade Does it have uh
00:11:57
Speaker
Oh, man, it just slipped my mind. What's the what's everyone worried about? It's a heroin or whatever. Oh, fentanyl. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It didn't look like a fentanyl apple. Like, I don't know what a fentanyl apple looks like, but I was pretty sure this one. OK, like, you know, everyone likes a daydream about what would you do in like a bad situation? Like, would you spring into action or something? I was not ready
Navigating Awkward Conversations
00:12:18
Speaker
for this. I just sat there like an idiot staring at them for a second that I was like,
00:12:22
Speaker
Uh, no, thank you. I don't like fruit. And I, and then instantly back behind, I was like, they're trying to be nice. Be like smile a little bit. Please don't freak them out in this interaction. And I was like, yeah. And they're like, Oh, well, is there anything you'd like prayer for? And I was like, no, thank you. I'm good. And I was just trying to like move along. You didn't decide to tell him about your erectile dysfunction at that point.
00:12:46
Speaker
No, it just did not seem like the moment to have a conversation with them. But I felt bad after they left because I probably was like a little bit rude and a jerk. No, they were rude. You didn't have to feel bad. No, no, they they definitely they came over and like, excuse me. I mean, they didn't like just barge in there. They were as polite as you can be walking up to someone in public, which is a terrible thing you should try to avoid doing. But yeah, I was not polite. That's what you're saying. That's just not polite. Yeah, I didn't see it coming. And I don't know if I need to look at myself in the mirror and like, what about me?
00:13:14
Speaker
made them think that I was a good target today. I don't know. Just like waved your hands around the fruit and be like, I don't feel any attached strings. Yeah, they were probably very nice. And I'm sure they were just, you know, trying to be kind. So it was all good. But yeah, it was very uncomfortable.
00:13:38
Speaker
I feel like I never get witness to, but I do get a lot of political conversations that start up with me. That's a religion of itself. It is for sure. I'd rather dodge those. Those are harder for me. I would love to be witness to. Mormon's knock on your door. It's like, come on in, brother. Let's do this. Come on in.
00:14:06
Speaker
No, I, I think, yeah, someone talking to you about their political opinions is easier. Cause you can just, if someone like is unbidden talking to you about their political opinion, they are not looking for you to do anything other than just, Oh yeah. Like you can just nod your way through it. People sit down in front of you and they're like, here's an apple. What can we pray about for you? Like that just, that just feels awkward. And again, they were trying to be nice. Like it wasn't, they were not being weird about it at all, other than it's weird just to walk up to people in public.
00:14:35
Speaker
Very weird. It starts there and 30 seconds later they're asking if you'd like to commit your entire life to Christ. But there's no good way out of that conversation. That's not something you just go, oh yeah, and just nod your way along and exit the conversation. This is like you're going to have to directly engage them. So Casey, what's your normal tactic when you get into these conversations?
00:14:59
Speaker
Just like, oh, man, it's crazy. It's almost always with people that I can't like be rude to or. Oh, like guys at the shops and stuff that you're going
Challenges in Buying a House
00:15:09
Speaker
to. Yeah, it's like if I get saved, you buy this fucking carburetor.
00:15:15
Speaker
That's what you sell, right? You sell carburetors? Yeah. I'm close enough. Yeah. Yeah. Even like this week, it was with the, it was with a person that, that I know through work and there's, I mean, it's just the situation where like, I can't say much. And he was going off on how the liberals are purposely ruining the economy for the great reset or something. They're going to destroy the dollar and blah, blah, blah. They're just kind of like, yeah, I mean, I don't know.
00:15:44
Speaker
I don't know, maybe, who knows. And then at one point he goes, he goes, you know, and he's an older guy. He's like, you know, I think that I think that I might've grown up in.
00:16:00
Speaker
America's best days You definitely grew up in like the peak years of you know, post-war United States like busting economy Especially for like I'm guessing this was a white dude, right? Yeah, maybe boomer white dude. Oh, yeah, there was never a better time for white dudes like top of the heap
00:16:25
Speaker
Like Boomer's head is so good. And all they've done the entire time is just like whine about how people are trying to take their little piece of it.
00:16:35
Speaker
I know. The only thing trying to take your little piece is father time. Hurry up. Move it along. Meanwhile, my wife and I have recently started talking about potentially like moving not far to selling your house and moving to like 30 minutes and basically into the city into Worcester. And we're like houses. They're not nice. They're not nice. Then I I see the ones that pop up and I don't want to live there and you have to spend
00:17:03
Speaker
almost half a million dollars at fucking 8% interest right now. It's just like, I can't. I'm never moving. I will never move. Right now is the worst time to buy. It's just not good because the interest rates have gone up and the market is still like... Way too high. It's way too high for what it is. The sales are starting to drop and the housing prices are going to come down and we'll get a little bit better equilibrium.
00:17:29
Speaker
Yeah, right now it's like the worst of both. Yeah, it's hard to imagine. I mean, I think in my lifetime, this is absolutely the worst time to buy, but it sucks. Like, you know, I have family who was like, just recently talking to them and they're like, yeah, we're trying to find an apartment. And they found like a one bedroom apartment for $2,000 a month.
00:17:54
Speaker
And it's like that's in the same city and Worcher near it. Yeah. And that's it's a city outside of it. But it's like that's I have a four bedroom house and that's a good bit more than my mortgage. And that that's like I mean it's unbelievable. But but they'll get denied like they're never going to.
00:18:15
Speaker
with the market, the way it is, there's no chance of buying because you're going to spend almost half a million dollars. And even if they were even like a few years ago before everything shot up, like if they bought when interest rates were completely plummeted, like because of their like technical income, they it's like, no, you have to spend at that point, it probably been like you have to spend eighteen hundred dollars a month on an apartment because you can't afford a sixteen hundred dollar a month mortgage is how the bank would look at that.
00:18:43
Speaker
And it's the fucking Wild West, dude, for trying to figure out how to like not be homeless.
00:18:51
Speaker
Like, I don't know, man. I feel like up until like three years ago, it was like prime time. Like in that time period, if you couldn't, if you couldn't find your way into that situation, I don't know. I might just, you know, might just not be in the cards, I guess. But yeah, right now it's, it's pretty tough. You're boxed out. You're pretty boxed out. You're.
00:19:15
Speaker
In your mid-30s, both of you work full-time plus and you can't afford to buy anything.
00:19:22
Speaker
Yeah. I like us without moving to a much lower cost of living area, which they exist, but you don't want to live there. Yeah. I mean, you personally. In your entire life. Daisy does. I spent like the last five days in Dallas and I don't I don't understand how people can live in like these these heavily urban areas. It's just like so many people is so inconvenient to get anywhere, to park anywhere.
00:19:50
Speaker
Like there's always a wreck. There's always construction. It's like, you know, it was fine. We did some fun stuff in the city or whatever, but after like three days, I'm like, I just want to go back out into the, uh, the barren Prairie and not see any other people for some time. Yep. But yeah. So.
Trade Shows and Male Models
00:20:09
Speaker
Oh, so at this conference thing, it was kind of, it's kind of like a trade show, right? And it's like everything, anything that's related to car dealerships in any sort of way, they have booths and stuff set up there. It's a lot of like software companies. And then, you know, it'll be like, oh, this company makes like car washes. And so they'll have like a whole car wash set up inside the convention center showing how it runs or, you know, lifts or tools, all of that.
00:20:39
Speaker
And so I think like back in the day, it was pretty common for these booth people to like hire young women in very little clothing to work at their booths. Right. Okay. And that's kind of gone out.
00:20:55
Speaker
And now it's more like, you know, people, they hire people to man the booth. Some of these companies do, but everybody's pretty like normally dressed. There's nothing like out of the ordinary and stuff. But there was one company and it was, uh, God, it was a software company. I can't remember what the name of it was. It was like triarch or try on a cracker that video game company Treyarch. Yeah, something like that. But it wasn't that, but, uh,
00:21:25
Speaker
We were stopped because they had like some people on stage in their booth and they were talking over a loudspeaker and stuff. So my partner and I stop and we're listening to these people talk and I'm looking around and there's like a whole bunch of dudes dressed the same. And like you could tell that they were kind of like in a uniform and they were working the booth at this thing, but like they must've held auditions because every one of these dudes is jacked, like just.
00:21:52
Speaker
ripped i mean and they got their uniform is like this super tight tiny t-shirt that barely like tucks into their pants and then they're wearing like these stretchy spandexy white dress pants i mean and they're like the shirt and pants are just painted onto these guys and they're all like in great shape and stuff you know but
00:22:13
Speaker
Dude, they're walking around and you could just see like full fledged hog. This guy comes walking towards us, you know, and I'm like, Oh my God, that's either the narrowest cell phone I've ever seen. Were they jeggings? Were they wearing jeggings? I think that, yeah, I think they were white jeggings. What type of software was it that they're selling?
00:22:39
Speaker
Oh, it's some sort of dealer garbage where like you plug in a thing and it tells you like the, the VIN number and all that stuff for the car. So why do they need a bunch of Kyle's to help them like sell this? I don't know. You got to hang a little rope out there. I mean, did they like, were any of them pitching or were they just hanging around the booth? Oh, they're all pitching. They're doing a lot of like, plenty pitching.
00:23:04
Speaker
You know when dudes, they do that, like those muscly dudes do that thing where they clap, but they flex while they do it? So it's kind of like there. They're pretending like, oh man, I can't clap normally. Yeah, look at that monkey clapping in the cymbals. That's exactly what it is. The whole like, I can't clap normally because my arms are just too big. Yeah, they're all kind of walking around there. They're doing a lot of like, yeah, yeah. And then doing the monkey cymbal clap and then
00:23:31
Speaker
I don't know, shouting like, you know, let's hear it for software solutions. And I guess that's what, you know, in the past, they had women in similar circumstances doing that. But, you know, yeah, they seem to be like, assistant, my other turntables. But now women are actually allowed in the workforce. So they're like, well, maybe we should try to cater to
00:23:57
Speaker
to the women who are working. I mean, Casey, you're talking a lot more about this company than the other products there. I'm not arguing against the strategy. I mean, it clearly works. It's the only one I remember. There it is. So mission accomplished. Yeah. That'd been George Bush of a lot in common, apparently. Just waiting to hear where this is going.
00:24:22
Speaker
No, that's it. George Bush just declared mission accomplished when it clearly wasn't. Oh, OK. There's no more to that joke. OK. Oh,
Guest Appearance: Andy Prince
00:24:34
Speaker
man. Well, well, I guess we should introduce our guest this week. We've been kind of sitting on this episode for a little while. Yeah. Our our guest is Andy Prince from the band Manchester Orchestra. And if you've never listened to them, you are sorely missing out. Manchester is
00:24:52
Speaker
God, they're fantastic. So I don't really know.
00:25:00
Speaker
how I start I got like connected with Andy Prince I just I saw his Instagram was just like I think what social media is a weird space right where you're just like you could follow people and never really see what they're doing or just like all right that's a picture of food that's this Andy is one of those people who you're just like god damn it he is fucking cool some people are just cool
00:25:23
Speaker
And I've never aired that person, but maybe I'm just not in general, but my social media presence certainly doesn't live up to that. But following Andy, it's like skateboarding videos. He fishes all the time and just finds like, I don't know, it's not like... He's a guy that clearly like has found the things that he loves and he just does them to the fullest, you know? Because I don't give a shit about fishing. Growing up on Cape Cod, it was like, you fished for bass. And it was like,
00:25:52
Speaker
That's a boring, ugly fish and I didn't give a shit. And then watching all of his videos, I'm like, that's cool, that's cool, that's cool. It all just seems like a, like actually for the first time in my life made sense why fishing is a sport and not just like something you do to catch something to eat that night. It was like, oh shit, there's like a lot of cool looking fish that you can catch and just kind of throw back in. It started clicking and I was just like,
00:26:19
Speaker
fascinated by his Instagram page for a while. So then also I've just been a big fan of the band Manchester Orchestra for quite some time. So just getting a chance to talk to him about his life, his upbringing. He's a tried and true Florida man and it was a blast. He was an amazing guest and the conversation was a ton of fun.
00:26:42
Speaker
Yeah, so if uh, if you're enjoying the show leave us a review wherever you listen to it Thanks to everybody who has done that don't forget We did recently did a guest episode with boys bible study on their podcast where we talked about uh left behind to tribulation force Which is amazing talked about the beautiful courtship of buck and cloe which uh, you know
00:27:10
Speaker
It really like sets the standard for what courtship should look like. It does. It does. It makes me reevaluate. It's amazing. Yeah. It's beautiful. It's like you're watching God's plan unfold. It was amazing. I thought it was kind of depressing because I thought, God, my marriage is broken. You know? I was like, when's the last time we made silly faces in a photo booth? I can't even remember. It's been a few years for me. We were at a wedding once that
00:27:40
Speaker
that had the photo booth to do the silly faces. And I think that was the strongest my marriage has ever been personally. Oh, I love orchestrated fun. But yeah, it was a it was a great episode. Ton of fun. Lots of laughing. So, you know, they're they're
00:28:07
Speaker
The podcast is great. So if you haven't listened to boys Bible study before, if you, if you like our show, you'll like theirs. They kind of go over like Christian cinema, which you thought was just a, you know, Prince of Egypt and the 10 commandments. But it turns out there's like an infinite number of horrible movies that shouldn't have been made.
00:28:27
Speaker
They talk about those and it's a blast. So check that out. And if you want to get in on the conversation, we have a discord server where you can talk back and forth with a lot of cool people who grew up in similar circumstances. We trade music and memes and, uh, stories from the week and all sorts of things. It's a good time. So you can find the link on our social media. Uh, we're with link tree up and running now.
00:28:54
Speaker
Uh, it will be by the time this comes out. So yeah, that's a day or two late, but this week within the week, I know it's a
Guest Episode on Boys Bible Study
00:29:04
Speaker
huge project. I had to like copy and paste links and put them in and I'm, it's taken me about a year to do it. So, but we're, but we're here. We're here. Yeah. So get in on that. And without further ado, enjoy our conversation with Andy Prince.
00:29:24
Speaker
everybody we are back with our guest Andy Prince what's up Andy what is up yo so I think before we get started on anything man I just want to point out that there are some people in this world who are just they just seem all around cool
00:29:42
Speaker
And that's how I feel about following you on Instagram. It's like you skate, you're always fishing, you're touring. You just seem to have a pretty fucking cool life. And it's one of those ones that you look at and you're like, hmm, maybe if I made a few other choices in my life, I could spend my free time out on the water and living it up like that. What kind of fishing do you do?
00:30:07
Speaker
Gosh, I have a lot of hobbies. I mean, thanks for saying that. First of all, I just I really try to make it that way. Yeah. And I've worked a lot of crappy jobs throughout my life and done a lot of stuff. I spent a lot of time doing stuff I didn't want to do and.
00:30:23
Speaker
Uh, now, and, and plus, you know, most of the people I know, they do things they don't want to do to pay the bills or whatever it is to get by and Jen generally seem somewhat unhappy. And I'm not saying there's not tough times in life or times and you get depressed or down, but I try to mitigate that in any way I can. And.
00:30:47
Speaker
Try to do active things mainly outside while I'm young because I just know the amount of drinking I do, I'm not going to last very long. They're going to be able to just grow you a replacement liver on the side of a rat. I'm hoping for that. I'm actually banking on that. It'll be prototype so that one's going to live outside of your body and it'll make people around you feel uncomfortable.
00:31:12
Speaker
It's just going to look like an aquarium filter. It's going to have that slow trickle noise of blood. I could spend this entire podcast talking about fishing mainly because it's something I grew up doing where I'm at in Pensacola, but I moved away for 10 years. I lived in Nashville and traveled there with a band to try to
00:31:37
Speaker
try to do everything I could in the music industry. And finally kind of just, I got to the place after COVID where it was time to move, that city changed a lot. My wife actually loves it here where I'm from and I miss my family. But down here is the Gulf Coast. So you have
00:31:55
Speaker
all this incredible outdoor, you have, you know, the Gulf Coast itself is like, it has so many species of not only fish, but you can go out even a mile offshore and just see every type of insane wildlife. There's just dolphins jumping everywhere and sharks and manorrhaves. And so I like spending my time out there. And, but secondly, I've really nerded out on older guys
00:32:25
Speaker
and ladies that have become like legendary fishermen, particularly fly fishermen. And this has led me down a pretty wild road. Actually, there's a great podcast called Mill House that I got into from this famous guy named Andy Mill. And he's this Olympic skier turned fly fisherman and won all these tournaments.
00:32:45
Speaker
but he's the type of guy that along his journey and all these tournaments he just he's just one of those personalities that met every single person and remember their name somehow and then created this kind of you know i think i think he realized all these people aren't going to be around forever
00:33:01
Speaker
they're all getting older. And so his podcast is interviewing all those people. And it's the stories are unreal. Like, it's just an hour long. But it's all these people that are, you know, we're in the keys, the Florida keys and like the 60s and 70s when that was just coming up. And there was also a lot of drug trafficking and wild partying and all these things. And it's just kind of a cool lifestyle that was, you know, is never going to happen again. So I'm to shorten it up.
00:33:28
Speaker
I'm fascinated with all of that and I can kind of see myself being an older gentleman, hopefully doing, not drug trafficking, but fly fishing and enjoying outdoors.
00:33:39
Speaker
Fly fishing is just such a specific community of people. It is. There's lots of people that drive a Toyota Tacoma and have a fish bumper sticker or something like that. I got a Tacoma. If they have more than four, they're a fly fisherman. Yeah, yeah.
00:33:59
Speaker
It's cool if they have a salt life sticker. Oh Yeah, they're not a real fisherman. Okay, that's such a Florida thing. It is the salt life thing. This is how deeply ingrained the that Christian upbringing is in me where I saw salt life stickers and thought that it was a Christian thing that was my default guess was like I
00:34:22
Speaker
Salt of the earth kind of but you eventually peel yours off or Yeah, it was awkward when people started asking me about you know
00:34:32
Speaker
Ocean things and I'm like, yeah, I don't know but let me tell you about I don't believe in the ocean anymore Yeah, let me just tell you about I don't know a lot about the ocean but I can tell you about a well that will never run dry and I Had a Calvary dry land it was throughout that I yeah, you had a what I'm sorry
Exploring Unique Lifestyles
00:34:55
Speaker
A little Calvin peeing on dry land. Oh. So I stick it to the terrestrial people. Nice. I feel like fishing. So I grew up on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. And when I like up until I was 13 and that was like, I mean, everyone fished around there. I would go with my dad occasionally, but didn't stick with me. But then it's like when I I feel like nothing stuck with me as a kid. And that's why I don't have any real hobbies now. But
00:35:24
Speaker
There's a lot like that, like outdoorsy ones where I'm like, I don't know, I missed it. It didn't stick out to me at the time. But then when I see people doing it in a way that's like, I don't know, like I see the pictures of all the fishy posts and I'm like, that is it's cool. Some of them are gigantic for one. And that's the idea of reeling one of those things in sounds like a fucking sport. You know, it's like it's not just like catching like a little bass, like that's right, you know, six inches long or something like that and throwing it back like
00:35:53
Speaker
feeling like there's a variety of fish that you could pull in. Especially when they're like, some of them are just gorgeous instead of all just gray with dead eyes and you're like, I don't know. If you're in Cape Cod, you're probably
00:36:11
Speaker
closer to like scooping oily discharge out of a pilot whale's chest cavity or something. Yeah. I mean, or just like hooking a seagull on your, after you cast, just making your hook with a French fry. I've caught just on accident, just about every bird species down here, pelicans, which are huge and terrifying. Herons and seagulls, of course, just sometimes you can't help it. And when you're casting out, they'll get, they'll like,
00:36:39
Speaker
just having your line going through the air at the same time. There's just, you know, doing thousands of casts a day and then a bird flies into it.
00:36:47
Speaker
and you gotta wrangle them in and grab their feet. And they're kind of terrifying, like when you really see one up close and feel it. They're like pterodactyls. Yes, it's very dinosaur-like. And I don't know, we respect them too, though, because you realize they're not joking around. They could hurt you really bad if they wanted to. So, I don't know. You gotta respect the nature down here. It's a little terrifying sometimes.
00:37:12
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot that's there's a lot more things that could just kill you around there and they won't think about it like I've always liked living in an area that doesn't have any I don't think there's anything around me apparently we have rattlesnakes sometimes I guess I don't know people make stuff up I think but I'm out in line was seen around here every once in a while but now it's like
00:37:37
Speaker
You don't have to worry about pretty much anything. Are you still in Cape Cod? No, I'm in central Massachusetts. Oh, OK. All right. Still in that area, but. Right on. Black bears, right? Yeah, they don't really fuck with people. They just, I don't know. But there's nothing dangerous. It's really not very dangerous around here. And I've always liked that. So I remember when I was in Montana visiting, it was like I swam across the river. And when I was like halfway across it, someone yells like, watch out for rattlesnakes. And you're just like.
00:38:06
Speaker
That's a really bad time to tell somebody to watch out for snakes and then you get to the other end and it's like all plants and reeds and stuff and you're just like Everything feels like a snake at that point. It was awful I actually felt like I was like that was probably the closest I've ever been to having like a real panic attack like terror came over me Yeah Pensacola, which is right almost to Alabama I mean, I don't know if you ever been down here, but there's a
00:38:34
Speaker
It's interesting, especially from touring, I can't go anywhere without someone that doesn't have a cousin or a grandma or something that's affiliated or they have a tie to this place, which I love that because there's just either, yeah, they used to vacation here when they were a kid. Everyone knows that name somehow.
00:38:57
Speaker
It's kind of that place. Everyone down here, the web just goes so far as far as people being connected. I think that's what kind of drew me back in. The people down here are really excellent. They're the real friend type that you have for life. It's hard to find that everywhere.
00:39:18
Speaker
A lot of people growing up here, they complained about it a lot. There's like, oh, there's nothing to do. It's, it's little Pensacola. And I understood that too. I was even, you know, when I got a little older, I got out at a certain point, you know, and, but if you didn't, if you just stayed here, you kind of had that feeling of like, well, maybe I'm trapped here. But once you're gone for 10 years, you're like, I want to go back there so bad. It's so simple. It's so easy. It's pretty. It's, uh, I don't know.
00:39:45
Speaker
I'm not trying to like retire or anything yet. I might, I might eventually go somewhere else, but for right now it was the right move. So yeah. That's like, uh, I someday I'm going to end up down that region somewhere. I want to live somewhere where I can grow like any type of plant anytime a year. Yeah. That would be like the dream. This, this is the place for that for sure. It's, it's very humid in the summer and very hot and miserable. But, um, if you're outside on the water.
00:40:15
Speaker
It's not bad at all. It just depends on what you want to do. Winners are awesome though. Like November through even January, most, not most of the days, but there'll be periods of time where it's 72 and clear and, and that's, you know, the water's really clear. It looks like the Bahamas, white beaches. It's, it's pretty sweet. I got pretty lucky, you know, growing up here and, and just happened to, you know, be where my parents were at the time. And, you know, my dad, my dad's parents were,
00:40:45
Speaker
military and there's a big base here and that's why they're here. And then my mom's parents were always from the south and, you know, I've had a lot of history here. They used to have a bait and tackle shop downtown and it's pretty wild. Yeah. But they all is the building still there? No, no, the same. Well, the same series of buildings are, but it's changed so much. That's actually the old downtown or whatever the main drag here was called is in the area called Brownsville. And
00:41:16
Speaker
Right adjacent to that is Brownsville Church where I grew up going partially where the revival was. And that's when me and my brother were mainly starting in like middle school age, started in the band there. And my brother's a drummer. I play bass. And that was like the majority of hours playing music in a really wild, culty, fun, extreme church.
00:41:46
Speaker
So can you okay, can you give us a rundown on like the Brownsville revival because it sounds like it's a little more of an institution than I realized Yeah, I mean obviously it is for me I do mention it, you know to people though and for a lot of them know what it is, you know, just because during this was like it started in 95 and There was just like this what they you know an outbreak or whatever is God fell on 95 and all of a sudden
The Brownsville Revival's Influence
00:42:15
Speaker
All these kind of spiritual movements were happening in the service, and people started hearing about it and moving here, or at least visiting here by the thousands. It's unreal. It was crazy. The church itself probably held 1,500, 2,000 people in the main building.
00:42:33
Speaker
But then they started having like tents and, you know, all these it turned into every single night of the week there was church, which was pretty crazy. And there's it got to the point where, you know, it was exciting. The music was really good. Thankfully, there's, you know, all these people came down from Nashville and they started making a lot of money. And so they could afford to.
00:42:57
Speaker
to pay the top musicians. I mean, that was one really great takeaway. But the worship in those types of churches would just go on for hours and hours, kind of at the beginning of the service all the way through. It could be a four to six hour service and you never really know what's going to happen. They're having people come up and getting delivered and the preacher's laying hands on them and it's the classic shaken and fallen on the ground type of thing.
00:43:24
Speaker
and screaming and, you know, it gets weird really quick. But to me, I'd seen so much of that growing up, it was like, it really felt normal. And not until, you know, much later, I realized that is not normal.
00:43:42
Speaker
So were you going there frequently? Like, so, okay, 95 when it started around, how old were you? You said? Let's see. Well, I mean, let's, let's go back for a second. Yeah, let's go.
Childhood Religious Experiences
00:43:55
Speaker
At that time, I was actually going to a different church on Sundays and visiting Brownsville once a week because I was in the Royal Rangers, which is basically the church for the Scouts.
00:44:07
Speaker
Yeah, I've only heard about those. I've heard about them a couple of times now, but I didn't realize that it was like, after doing this and talking to people who went through it, I'm like, oh God, that was like a bigger, it was a bigger organization than I had originally thought when I first heard about it and made fun of it. It's like the Boy Scouts, but you get an anti-masturbation badge. Pretty much, yeah.
00:44:34
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I actually had a good time doing that. We'd take camping trips and all that stuff. But that was when I was a lot younger, like in elementary school and when we started getting into middle school age. My family is musical, starting out. And so at the time, my parents were actually going to this place down here called New Dimensions, which was
00:44:59
Speaker
is predominantly a black church. We were, you know, among just a few of the white families that went there. And it was like pretty hardcore black gospel, which was really, really good music. And my brother, being a drummer, he got good at a young age and was even playing in church. He was like better when he was 11, 11 years old than the grown man drummer that was there, which would always
00:45:25
Speaker
pissed this guy off because everyone would want Matt to play. And my mom played organ. My dad played guitar. So they're in the band and they had a full choir and just this badass choir director that they were really strict about being sounding perfect. That's cool. It was good. It wasn't that all our welcome kind of choir like the ones I had growing up. It's like you had to actually be good. Yeah, we've met for talent here.
00:45:51
Speaker
Yes. If you can't sing, you can't be a part of this. Don't even try. They took it very seriously. It was really cool, but it was classic. It was the same thing. Very charismatic. They would get shout music going. It's just a supercharged service where people, ladies are coming down the aisle.
00:46:14
Speaker
and shaking all their jewelry off and like having something, you know, it's kind of beautiful and terrifying at the same time. Cause you realize like, you know, I was watching, I was just a little kid, but I was like, damn, like these people need a release. Like their lives, you know, when people get stressed out and like have a lot of, you know, there was a lot of families there that didn't have much money and
00:46:37
Speaker
probably worked really hard jobs and and they would get to church on Sunday and that was time to like let it go and then you get this shout music going and and the preacher gets going and it was cool cuz my mom would accent the preacher on the on the organ if you ever seen that you know and God's gonna bring you into prosperity
00:47:03
Speaker
like you have to time it perfectly and so that was what my mom's job was and she's this little white lady up there you know what I mean and so it was kind of it was kind of cool. She's kind of like the hype man for a rapper. It's exactly right and then you know my brother got to figure out how to how to follow that on drums too and the way they would pump it up and I mean he'll get you pumped up the way that they would
00:47:27
Speaker
the way that they would get going about stuff. And like, I bet, man, it's time to turn your life around. You're like, yeah, I'm eight. Yeah. I think that's cool. And it's like a, I mean, it's just like a general, like, I don't know, I guess you could put it in the same category as something like, um, your,
00:47:49
Speaker
What are your Tony Robbins types, right? Like it's totally yeah, like if you motivational as a force for good and you're like hyping people up to actually take control of the things they have control over like I like you could see it being a force for good and then I think what we've seen
00:48:06
Speaker
And what gets a lot more of the, a lot more airtime is like when it goes poorly. And it's when it goes poorly, it's like very bad. But people have been using that forever. And I think, especially, I mean, I didn't grow up charismatic, but like, just from the conversations I've had with the people I've met along the way, like,
00:48:29
Speaker
that charismatic spirit has been in the black church forever. And then it seems like it's just one of those things that I don't know, some of these white mega churches go a little they take it a different direction maybe but
00:48:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it kind of happens everywhere. And, you know, there was there's some weird stuff that happened there, too. I think my parents finally left because there was a speaker there that had come in and they had like a big conference and.
00:49:02
Speaker
Which I was really proud of them for this because we didn't have much money coming up and my parents were really hard. Both had full-time jobs and were hard workers and they provided for us great. But it wasn't like we weren't wealthy. One of the speakers at the church was her main point. She was bringing up, she's like, God wants to get you out of that station wagon and end a BMW. Everyone's like, yeah.
00:49:29
Speaker
And my mom was just put out by that. She was just like, I don't, I don't, this is not why I go to church. I don't want to hear like, what if, what if I, you know, what if the station wagon is like what I need to have my family in? And it just got, you know, it felt icky. So, um, which that was a standing impression from, from when I was a kid, cause I didn't know what to think about all that stuff. You know, I was pretty young. Um,
00:49:51
Speaker
So we're kind of moving around here. Let me let me recap real quick. Basically, that was like the middle stage of my church life, if that makes sense. But when I was really young, my so my mom's parents are really southern and my dad's parents are off in the north. And so you've got super southern kind of like sweet
00:50:18
Speaker
the side of the family. They lived in Alabama at the time, like right north of Pensacola in the country. Grandpa loves fishing and hunting and bought his like dream cabin and built it right there and on the, you know,
00:50:30
Speaker
on 60 acres of land that the family had inherited after hundreds of years of working. And it was just a paradise for me and my brother, you know, because we could go out there and my parents would leave us there for like a week at a time. And they would take us to these old country churches. And my grandpa played bass and sang.
00:50:55
Speaker
And my grandma played piano and sang and they always were a big part of the church band. And this was like super old school southern gospel. And that, you know, that was like the opposite end of the spectrum from my dad's parents were really shrewd northern
00:51:18
Speaker
And they got into like heavy religion. And to be honest, my grandma eventually had some like kind of mental illness problems that when we were younger and even at the time, we didn't just we didn't think about it that way. It's not as like people didn't talk about it as much like they do now. It's so prevalent that which is good. But she got heavy into this guy named Peter Ruckman, which was this like Bible Baptist old school
00:51:47
Speaker
pretty racist, like, um, like he would say pretty wild jokes, like things on stage that would pertain to that. And he had this thing called drawing men to Christ. And he was this, he was actually excellent artist and would work with chalk and he would draw, you know, an illustration while he was preaching. But he would just be up there talking about all this. He is just this old curmudgeon kind of guy. And at the time my parents, uh, way early on,
00:52:16
Speaker
had gone to Brownsville when they were kids as well. And it was kind of a different church at the time. Oh, wow. So I didn't realize it had been that. It was around, it was just coasting as like a normal last church for totally wild. Yeah, before all that happened, my parents got married there. And then me and my brother, when we were really little, my grandma decided that that church was of the devil. And she got really into this ruckman guy. And it was like,
00:52:43
Speaker
Really specific stuff, like if it ain't King James, it ain't Bible. Now we're talking my language. And she had tracks taped all over her bathroom wall. She just got really obsessive about all of it. And when me and my brother would come over, my brother's 15 months older than me, so we're just really close in age, did everything together.
00:53:06
Speaker
We, I love my grandparents. We had some good times with them too. You know, sometimes they'd take us to go, you know, feed seagulls or whatever the beach, but most of the time they would take us over there and sit us in front of some type of like prerecorded program. Another thing is she would, she would tape everything off of TV. So there's just hundreds and hundreds of self labeled VHS is everywhere, like a full library.
00:53:32
Speaker
I did that with Pokemon episodes because I was that homeschool co-op when Pokemon was on, so I needed to take care of business. Well, kudos to you for doing that at an early age. I'm going to make my library. Do you still have them? No. God, no. They probably taped over at my parents' house somewhere, but... That's awesome.
00:53:56
Speaker
the great memory and then the times that like you know maybe the power went out while you were gone or like it just like fucked up the timer that you had set on your VCR oh no
00:54:06
Speaker
Devastating. Yeah. My grandma was like the tape wizard. So like we had several different things. Like we had the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. But it was always like she had taped over the same VHS so many times that it was kind of like peers pieces of it were sort of spliced with like an episode of Maura Tovitch that she recorded or something like that.
00:54:31
Speaker
It was not a precise art form. That's what the kids say they don't understand. It was like everything is terrible super cuts before they were, everything is terrible super cuts. That is exactly what it was like. There's still tons of those VHSs at her house that she's passed on. My grandpa's still alive, but we're going to have to go through all of that later on when we clean that place up. It's going to be very interesting.
00:55:00
Speaker
Was it full of the, you know, 70s and 80s? Like, here's what happens when you play Van Halen backwards. Yes, yes, exactly. That's exactly the vein of everything she had. It was like, you know, she'd talk about Cobain and, you know, all these like super obvious people, because that's what she was getting. She was feeding herself that stuff. She also was obsessed with the National Enquirer tabloid.
00:55:28
Speaker
Oh, no way. And that was she was a bat boy aficionado. Yes, exactly. Which is a total like red flag thing. It's like, wait, so you believe that stuff, too. I don't know if she fully believed it, but that was her source of entertainment. And it was all very strange because, you know, me and my brother would go over there to see Grandma and Grandpa and they would put us in front of the TV screen and basically.
00:55:53
Speaker
show us like one of those crazy videos like heavens or heavens gates hells flames or there's like all these old like really hardcore terrifying things for a kid to watch
00:56:04
Speaker
And basically they were trying to indoctrinate us and make sure that we as kids were sent on the right path because my parents weren't doing it right. We're going to the wrong church. We're reading the wrong Bible. So it actually, once my parents, we'd come home and be like, yeah, they made us watch this video. And of course that pissed my parents off and they just want to drop their kids off at grandma and grandpa's and have a night off.
00:56:28
Speaker
and wherever they're getting indoctrinated with wild shit. This is what 60-something people did before they had InfoWars. It's the same energy. That was exactly what I was thinking. It's so funny you mentioned the grandparents indoctrinating. My kids are young. My kids are five and seven. Oh, wow.
00:56:49
Speaker
well, like, both my parents and my wife's parents are very, and they're like, super conservative, evangelical mindset. And it's like, we're nothing overly alarming. I don't know if it'll ever require a conversation. But there's definitely moments where like, they, my kids will say something. And I'm just like, Yeah, I know. I know where you
00:57:16
Speaker
heard that and you're not getting that here. It bubbles in me a little bit. You're like, we need to have a conversation. My wife is more even killed. She's like, it's fine. They hear this occasionally and they live with us. My grandmother was a Democrat and we grew up very staunchly Republican. I remember hearing my grandmother say things and telling my parents,
Impact of Fundamentalist Teachings
00:57:42
Speaker
And it's like nothing my grandmother ever said influenced the way that I thought because of the home that I grew up in. So I don't know. You strayed from the path eventually. Eventually. But it's like, I don't know. Kids definitely respond more. They'll obviously respond more than the things you do, but it does. Like you feel that like bubble up inside you.
00:57:59
Speaker
when you hear about people telling you, but I feel the same fucking way when my kids have to say the pledge of allegiance in school too. So it's not just related to Christianity. It's related to just being a parent, I guess, and wanting your kids to not be indoctrinated by certain things. Do you remember if they... Go ahead. Did they have any videos of Mike Warnke? I don't remember that name, but probably all of the above.
00:58:29
Speaker
Yeah, I was just curious. He was like a big satanic panic guy that I, I didn't see any videos when I was a kid, but like I've learned more recently and oddball. He had like kind of a curly Kenny Powers mullet, wore some weird clothes, but... That'd be a fun... Oh yeah, it's so fun.
00:58:53
Speaker
Yeah, y'all interviewed Christian nightmares a while back. Yeah. That's one of my favorite pages. I mean, I have, you know, it's like what you're talking about, stuff bubbling up in you, especially when it affects your kids. We all have it like.
00:59:07
Speaker
Deep down, if we come from the type of, you know, weird background, but it's got to be interesting what you guys are doing. Cause you got to be getting a lot of feedback, right? Or the, especially, you know, Christian nightmares too. Cause when I started seeing pages like this or, or like that one, some of it's kind of funny and whatever and just entertainment, but sometimes it hits a note and it's like, you know, pretty heal. It can be very healing in a way. Cause I was just most of my life, it was like, it was not a joke.
00:59:36
Speaker
You know, it was very, I didn't know it at the time, but it was just drenched in guilt and fear for most of my childhood, for stuff that is like pretty normal human stuff. And when I got older, it made me angry because it's like I came online and I
00:59:58
Speaker
you know, kind of like realize everything I believe or have spent time, you know, believing in and working in has basically just been told to me by an older person that acted like they knew what they were, they had it together or like figured something out or had the answer. And I'm like, I'm a grown ass man now, I'm gonna ask questions and try to figure this thing out on my own and
01:00:25
Speaker
It's not that I'm against one thing or the other, I just want to know what's true. So how do I do that? I think the part of that that like really got to me, you know, as I started to come out all that stuff is like learning that some of the things that I were taught as like, you know, fact, of course, but just like solid Christian doctrine passed down through millennia, you know, were kind of new.
01:00:51
Speaker
I mean, like, uh, since, you know, we've been doing this, I, I mean, I never knew that the rapture was like something that really started, you know, that it was like a, an interpretation that started like a couple hundred years ago. I thought that the apostles were talking about the rapture, you know, I mean, stuff like that, or, or like the emphasis on like sexual purity that wasn't there like 50 years ago. I mean.
01:01:15
Speaker
It's just weird to find out that the things that were like such a central part of the Christianity that you were, you know, spoon fed. It's like, this isn't even, this hasn't even been around that long. Like people would, people didn't care about this a hundred years ago. That's amazing. Yeah. Not yeah. Like two lifetimes ago or something like that. And you're right. That was those two things you just mentioned, like.
01:01:39
Speaker
Two of the heaviest things, you know, having to deal with growing up. Cause that was, I mean, going through puberty was a nightmare. It's like having a first, you know, any type of interaction with a girl was like, I just was so written with guilt. And so was she like my first real girlfriend that we were of age to.
01:02:01
Speaker
It's like, I just want to touch your boob, but I don't want to burn in hell. Did you have the heartfelt come to Jesus moments afterwards where you promised each other, never again will I touch your boob. Not once, not ever. Like God's will, we're going to be strong and then that night. Six hours later, there we are fooling around.
01:02:30
Speaker
I hated that though. This will be part of our testimony when we're older and married and have 12 children.
01:02:37
Speaker
Well, I mean, I guess it's funny now, but it's so frustrating to think about for real because it really ruined a lot of just times that it could have just been a kid and not had to have so much of that, like put on guilt between me and just like someone that I wanted to have a first experience with without that. And I envied the kids that got to have that. They're like, is, you know, a lot of kids I went to school with or ended up, I was skateboarding a lot back in the day and like those kids,
01:03:06
Speaker
Not a lot of them went to church and they just kind of had either broken families or someone that didn't you know teach them religion and they like Cussing and making out with girls and doing whatever and they just seemed so happy Man you can't be doing that, you know, and they're like why what are you talking about and
01:03:28
Speaker
It's just so weird because I was so steeped in it that I, I couldn't see outside of that, you know, my life, I had it together. I had the answer and all these kids are, I'm just trying to save them from burning in hell forever. Right. And you don't have a good reason for why, like, why, what, who cares? And you're like, well, it's wrong. Like why? It's in the Bible.
01:03:49
Speaker
It's like you don't, you don't really know. You just know that it's, it's like, you know that it's wrong in the same way that you like know that grass is green. Like you don't know. You're just like, this just is something you say and you believe it's true. And you're suspicious of anyone who says otherwise, like you have to guard your heart, you know? So like, you always are on edge and like not a hundred percent comfortable around people who aren't of the exact same persuasion, you know? Yeah.
01:04:19
Speaker
I remember how much of that was like deeply entrenched in me when I have a foster son. He's 19 now. He's been living with me on and off since he was 11. Oh, that's cool. He moved in like on a permanent basis when he was 16. And, you know, he wanted to hang out with girls, have girls over and all this stuff.
01:04:40
Speaker
That's when I realized like how much I, you think you like think you escape it more than you really do in some ways. Cause all of a sudden now that I have to think about this stuff. And of course you want to like, you know, you have, I had uncomfortable conversations about consent and protection and shit like that. And I wanted to kill myself afterwards, but it was like, it's like,
01:05:05
Speaker
I just did like oh my god I don't I don't even know if like what the right way to do this is I don't I still feel uncomfortable the idea that this could be happening under my roof and it's like right he's really just holding hands with a classmate and you think you're like living an episode of euphoria
01:05:23
Speaker
But it's like it's like it really like kind of held a mirror up to myself in a way where I'm like, oh, this is still a big part of me, even though like, maybe for myself, if I was like, I mean, I've been married for
01:05:39
Speaker
going on 14 years at this point so it's like I didn't deal with that but you know even some of my friends who grew up in it who ended up divorced or left like the faith later on in their 30s they're like
01:05:55
Speaker
in having relationships with people or just having consensual sex with people that they don't plan on seeing again. And you're just like, they're like, that felt like awful for like, Oh my God, like I thought I was done with this. Like I thought I moved past it. And then, you know, the adage that we had was like,
01:06:12
Speaker
the reason you're becoming more comfortable with it is because God's just turning you over to your lusty desires and you're actually just like that's just confirmation that you're going down a dark path and then those thoughts come back in oh my god yeah so circular and it's like really hard to escape
01:06:28
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great example of like, no matter, at least for me, I can't say this for everybody, but it never leaves you. You know, like, I think just from it being ingrained when you're so young, it's that guilt and all on all those weird feelings on every pretty much every step in life. It's not that I haven't conquered it in my mind and kind of realize that that wasn't, that's not the right way to think about that.
01:06:57
Speaker
You have to, you know, you have to move forward. You have to test things. And yes, I don't know the exact answer, but at least I'm willing to admit that now. But it still never leaves you. And that's kind of the scary part of it. And I don't, you know, I would just never want to put that type of thing on anyone else. And, you know, I don't know. It's it's it's it's really strange to think about and talk talk to other people that haven't gone through that as well.
01:07:27
Speaker
because they don't totally understand it. But then there's probably more people at least around my circle of friends that have, especially musicians. It's funny, most musicians I know that are in bands now and that tour, all of them played in church and a lot of them went to-
01:07:45
Speaker
really, you know, kind of like heavy culty churches like I did. So at least we can bond on that. It is bonding, man. It brings people together at this point in life. You're like, oh, it's so nice to know that someone understands the first 20 years of my life and the turmoil that it went through. Yeah, talking about like those videos and stuff like that. Is there any is there anything that like immediately replays in your head when you when you think about watching those?
Recollections of Christian Media
01:08:14
Speaker
watching which ones, which videos? Like the ones that your grandma showed you or just any of that like apocalyptic sort of fire and brimstone Christian media stuff. Yeah, there's there's like little snippets of it, you know, that because they were so cheesy now that I think about them. I mean, it was like super low budget, like 80s looking. But there is actually something terrifying about that. You know, the way like a really bad horror movie
01:08:43
Speaker
it's like 80s born without the porn yeah it's like so bad that it's actually scary for more i don't know it's hard to explain but as a kid it just scared the shit out of me you know what i mean and i didn't want to feel that way and but it it it held on because i for most of my life i was like actually scared of doing bad things because i was going to burn forever in this terrible place and
01:09:08
Speaker
You know, the other option was I had to admit that Jesus was the Son of God embodied and that he died for us. And if I did that, and then I get to go to this like golden palace with all the good people.
01:09:23
Speaker
And I just, as time went on, I just kept thinking through that and because I was just sold out for it. I was like, yep, that's that's the way things are, you know. And then when I finally, you know, me and my brother left the church probably like early, like early high school, late middle school. And we had been doing these big church conferences called branded by fire and branded by fire. Yeah.
01:09:53
Speaker
I haven't heard of those ones. We, I went to acquire the fire or two. Okay. That sounds familiar. Where was that? New England. I don't know if they were, but I think they were all, they might've been all over the place. I think acquire the fire was like a,
01:10:08
Speaker
linked to some other national ministry. But was it the same though? Because this was like, you know, just a ton of different youth groups traveling to spend like a week in Pensacola and go to church every day. And there's oh, this was in Pensacola. No, it wasn't. So it's different. But it's probably a very, I mean, I can't imagine it being much different, something about the way these things are run. Then it never. No one was like re-inventing the way this was done. It was like
01:10:37
Speaker
Yeah. It's a bunch of youth groups travel to a place and they sit around and they watch someone tell them why, you know, they need to get rid of their. A bunch of tweens cry during a Cutlass set. Yeah. Get rid of your non-Christian t-shirts. Get rid of your non-Christian music. By our Christian music. By our t-shirts. Oh man. Yeah. We were the band for every year we'd have it every summer here.
01:11:03
Speaker
I probably did it for five years and it was excellent for us because there'd be a couple thousand kids showing up to these things and we were like, we're rock stars, dude, we're so cool. This is late middle school, early high school.
01:11:20
Speaker
Okay, because I want to just clarify because you said you left the church early high school. Did you leave it as like a we're done with this or you left the church you're in to go do this thing now what happened is is this this conference that went on for years we actually left officially
01:11:41
Speaker
kind of because of one. It was the last one that we played at and we had, you know, a really bad interaction with the staff at our church, which we'd been playing in the youth group for years and years. And basically we were getting to the point where we were coming of age and we were able to, my brother was 16 at the time, I think.
01:12:04
Speaker
So we had to drive and we had to pay for gas and we needed jobs and like we were spending all of our time at church. It was Monday night. We had cell group, which is a smaller, you know, they'd break apart the entire youth group into little cells and you'd pick someone's house and we'd go there and.
01:12:21
Speaker
eat brownies and Doritos and pray. It was fun, but it took a lot of time. It was every week. Tuesday was rehearsal for Wednesday night church. It was band practice because our worship team was actually really good. It was really well practiced.
01:12:38
Speaker
I'm thankful for that because I got so many hours in Wednesday night service that would go on forever. And then of course, you know, you've got Sunday as well, which we did like a youth ministry in the early morning and then the second service. And it was like my whole life was just centered around church. And I'm like, yeah, I kind of need a job. I kind of need to get paid at some point. And so we had talked to the staff at our church and months before this conference and we're like, look, we've been doing this for free for the past couple of years. So.
01:13:06
Speaker
I was just seeing if there's something in the budget to supplement our time. And they were like, absolutely, we're going to get you guys squared away, taken care of. And months roll by and then we get time in time to play and we're all prepared and practiced.
01:13:23
Speaker
through the grapevine, I hear there wasn't enough tickets sold at the conference. They had to strike some of the different things because of the budget. And one of those things was paying the musicians and stiffed at the door. Yeah. And no one was no one was telling me that. I just heard it. So I did kind of a right about the financial situation. I know. Right. So simple. But I just want the idea of them sitting you guys down now and being like, look, kids,
01:13:52
Speaker
Money doesn't grow on trees. It shows up in bulls once a week by the thousands and we can't give you any. Yeah. It's all for us. No. Well, what's funny is I at the time I was pissed. So I called the staff and was like, before there's any other talk about this, I would like to just sit down with you guys and figure out what's going on.
01:14:16
Speaker
And we went to breakfast with them with some, you know, a bunch of staff members we'd, we'd worked with for years and they're our friends and kind of got into the gritty of the conversation. And it's like a couple of them just like turned on us basically. And we're like, you guys are.
01:14:32
Speaker
not doing this for the right reason and blah, blah, blah. All their asses were getting paid, dude. Yeah. I mean, it was just kind of gross. And, you know, I forgive those people at this point. They were just so stuck in that world. And, you know, it was just sad because I was like, well, based on principle, you know, you told us you're going to do something and now you're pulling out. And then on top of that, you're basically making me feel bad.
01:14:59
Speaker
for asking for something you told me you're gonna give me because I'm not spiritually in the right place and I'm not doing it for the right reason for the kingdom or whatever. So it just became apparent. We eventually had to go to the head pastor. It was gross. I was like, asked him and figured it out. Cause then my mom was involved and she's like, you can't, you know, she's, they're not going to do this to my kids. And he ended up paying us like partial, like just based on principle.
01:15:29
Speaker
What we needed to get covered. It was not do we're talking like, I think we may have made $400 on this entire week. Like it was that it was like that. So that's why I was even more like shitty. So yeah, we just wanted to be there and do it, but we just were broke. So, um, so that really put us out. And then we finally.
01:15:49
Speaker
We were trying to turn our worship band into an actual rock band at the time anyways, and we were growing up a little bit, so we wanted to get out of the church and go do other things and still be a quote Christian band or whatever, but not confined to the youth group band.
01:16:09
Speaker
And that turned into a big thing as well. It just got nasty by the end of the conference where the new youth pastor, which is another story came in and this is at like the last service. He goes, he called everybody that's musicians into the room and he goes, he goes, all right, guys, uh, next Tuesday, we're going to have auditions for the church band.
01:16:30
Speaker
And yeah, and we're sitting we're all sitting there looking at each other. We're like, we are the church band. What are you talking
Changes in Church Band Dynamics
01:16:37
Speaker
about? We've been here for years. But he was, you know, we knew what he was saying. He's basically like.
01:16:41
Speaker
We're going to now open it up to anybody else that, that wants to be in this band. And so we need more people who don't want to get paid. Exactly. So we just all looked at each other. We're like, I peace. So we talked about it some afterwards, the guys, but you know, that we're in the band and spend a lot of time together, but we just kind of fizzled out and I never went back to church after that. Um.
Youth Pastor Anecdotes
01:17:06
Speaker
The new youth pastor at any given church, the new youth pastor comes into it like a high school basketball coach that thinks that he's going to turn the team around and eventually there's going to be a Disney movie about him. The new youth pastor comes in and he's like, I'm about to shake this place up. Yes.
01:17:26
Speaker
And usually it's a person with zero life experience that's fresh out of college that basically drank their way through final exams and stuff like that. And now it's time to get serious and spiritual with a bunch of teenagers. Yeah. Yep. Go ahead. So my older brother, sorry, man. My older brother is 15 months older than I am too. I worked real close growing up.
01:17:56
Speaker
Dude, he was driving, he was still living at home at the time. This is when I think I was like in college, but.
01:18:03
Speaker
the youth group. I was part of had a new youth pastor. And my brother fizzled out on the whole Christian thing, like the evangelical go to church stuff than before I did. And like, it was like, I might be getting some of the story a little bit mixed. But basically, like, he was driving behind this youth pastor, like, so my parents, my family, very active in it, my sister was part of the youth group.
01:18:31
Speaker
Everyone knew my family even though my my brother wasn't going to church anymore and he was driving behind this guy and he felt like my brother was driving behind him like too close so he pulled over and then let my brother pass and then he didn't realize it was my brother at the time but he
01:18:50
Speaker
he did when he passed, so he followed him. He followed my brother home. And like followed him up the driveway, got out and like tried to lecture him about like my wife and baby are in the car and you were driving way too close. My brother was probably one of the least reckless drivers I've ever met. Like pretty cautious guy.
01:19:10
Speaker
Not really going out of his way to do anything crazy. So That's the only story I remember about the guy who replaced my youth pastor there was just like what a weird thing to do Yeah, like intimidate a child In their own driveway follow you home because you drove too close. Yeah. Yeah, it's weird, man They're all people and that's it took a long time to figure that out, you know, yeah We you know, we saw a lot of
01:19:40
Speaker
It got kind of extreme and I use that word because when I was in the heat of all of this, we got one of those new youth pastors like you're talking about that's going to come in and shake everything up. It's not the same guy that told us that we have an open audition next week. But at the time he was like super flashy and came in and it was, it was seriously like Kenny Powers or something coming in there. Like they had these motocross videos and fireworks and all this stuff.
01:20:10
Speaker
Like here's the new era. And and to be honest, it was fun because it was exciting. There was as just as not spiritually, but like as just being a part of something like that, like they were giving away Xboxes for how many whoever brought the most people to church next week and throw an Xbox is out like no big deal. And that's right. It was like the coolest thing that had ever come out.
01:20:38
Speaker
Incidentally, an Xbox cost as much as they paid you when they couldn't afford it. Let's save more souls. Can I have one of those so I can sell it at a pawn shop and make gas money?
01:20:53
Speaker
But um, but it worked that was the crazy thing and then hundreds of kids started coming to this youth group and they were it was was They must have been paying this guy so much money from like the head church. He drew He drove a Plymouth prowler. Do you know what that is? I don't know. Yeah, please one of the most it's like an automotive abomination Yeah, Google it Google a yellow one. He had a yellow one and
01:21:21
Speaker
and I remember one of the like prizes. It's like for dudes who do vape tricks.
01:21:31
Speaker
It looks like a vape on wheels. If they made a Prowler vape, I would buy it just as a joke and smoke it all the time. You got to be rolling up on the hookah lounge in that thing. This guy was ultimate cool guy, leather jacket, youth pastor. He drove that thing around
Bizarre Church Camp Games
01:21:54
Speaker
town. He was so extreme. He shouldn't have been a youth pastor because he was
01:22:00
Speaker
You know, that world was, I think, easier for him to kind of get into, but he should have been some type of like... He's like a sale manager. He's like an entertainer or comedian or something. He was like a mixture of, yeah, like... Chris Angel and Ricky Bobby or something. It's really weird. It's like a whole... Andrew Tate in a Plymouth Brown. Yeah. Yeah. I've never seen a... I can't get that out of my mind. God.
01:22:30
Speaker
Yeah, I'll send you a poster of driving this. It's insane. It's an insane vehicle. It looks ridiculous. Yeah. It's like a bullet car. It's like a PT cruiser sport.
01:22:44
Speaker
Yes, exactly. So that was him and you know, I really, I still like that guy. Like, you know, if I saw him tomorrow, it's not like he ever really did anything bad. He was just, he was in a position to make a lot of money. Uh, I think the church offered him a ton of money, like a salary position and
01:23:05
Speaker
He took it and blew the youth group up as big as he could and it actually worked. So it was fun at the time because we were doing all these crazy church camps in the summertime and there's tons of kids coming and pretty girls everywhere so all the guys would show up too and we had this huge youth group. Like cover charge. We talk about this like
01:23:30
Speaker
Especially with, I have a few friends or at least, you know, my buddy, Brandon, I go fishing with all the time. We'll like be out on the kayaks and that kind of start talking about the old days of what actually happened there. It's just like dying, laughing. Like it doesn't seem real and you couldn't really write it. It's kind of like.
01:23:46
Speaker
Like we were talking about the youth camps we had. One of the games that we had at this youth camp was called, they called it Amazon Woman. And like where this is going, they basically, it started out where there's all these different teams. So each,
Questioning Faith through Experiences
01:24:04
Speaker
you know, we're broken into different colored teams.
01:24:06
Speaker
I'm not kidding. They put down a tarp in the middle of a field and put baby oil all over it and had all the girls cluster up together in the middle of the tarp and lock arms like a giant pile of girls. And then they would have the other team of either girls or guys tried to pull them off of each other until there's only one person left.
01:24:35
Speaker
And there was, I guess there was a time limit or something, but you can, they're all, you know, pulling each other's clothes off. Basically they're, they're lathered up in baby oil and all of the other dudes are just standing around like this, just like, Oh,
01:24:49
Speaker
My God, this is the greatest summer camp of my life. It's just a circle of guys with obvious erections in their bathing suits. Yes, exactly. Oh my God. It was about weirdly, oddly horny youth group games a few times where you got to pop a balloon without using your hands with a partner.
01:25:16
Speaker
It got really strange. It was one extreme or the other. Either it was overtly sexual, weird games like that, or it's like you're wearing a suit and tie as you jump off a platform onto the blob. It's like two kinds of church camps out there. There really is. There's certain types of horny too.
01:25:41
Speaker
Horny church camp kids are a whole different level. It's next level. Like what is it? It's a lot of wet dreams simultaneously happening. I think, you know how like, they talk about how like music aligns people. And when you're at a show, your heart beat syncs up with the people around you. I think at youth camp, your wet dreams all happen at the same time.
01:26:09
Speaker
You just deposit your sleeping bag on the way out, you know? It's like one of those crinkle tunnels that you give your cat. You're like,
Transitioning Beyond Evangelical Teachings
01:26:26
Speaker
I'm not peeling that thing apart, it's going on the dumpster.
01:26:30
Speaker
Okay. You have to shake it off your hand because it's just completely stuck to it. God, yeah. That changed my life forever. How sold are you throughout this whole thing? Are you still devout throughout this whole process? When did your personal commitment to Christianity change?
01:26:54
Speaker
Did it take a second after when you were like when you left and never went back? I assume it took a second for you to be like your beliefs, like your beliefs didn't change when you made your break from the church. No, yeah, that's a good question. I it was definitely a really slow process of once I got out of the church band, you know, I was in Pensacola at the time and me and my brother still wanted to to play in a band of some sort.
01:27:25
Speaker
Because we are the rhythm section and, you know, we could have put some guys together or whatever. And we still wanted our like youth group band to turn into a rock band. But dude, it was like we it was not good. It was like, but very, you know, I think we played one show and our singer luckily quit the band before the show. And so we played it instrumentally.
01:27:50
Speaker
And I'm so glad that he didn't sing because it was just, I love the guy, but it was, it was, it was radio butt rock, like with Christian lyrics. It was just the nightmare. So, um, just for a point of reference, like when did you graduate high school? 2006.
01:28:10
Speaker
Oh, okay. So you're right in there with us then. Yeah. Were you, uh, were you into Christian music at all, like growing up? Hell yeah. That's one thing that I am very grateful for is DC talk is that band changed my life. And I still listen to those records and love them. I do too. Everyone still has easy talk. Yeah. Yes. Good. They should take away that I've gotten cause I didn't get into them. Uh,
01:28:39
Speaker
I just didn't, I guess I just didn't get into music. I didn't start trying to listen to music until I was in high school. Yeah. Um, so I, I missed it and, and the amount of people I've talked to who are like, it's like DC talk. I would love to talk to one of those people. Actually, we haven't really even tried to reach out to them, but we talked to, uh, what, um, Kevin max for a minute. Oh, nice.
01:29:04
Speaker
That's right. Yeah. How was that? Well, well, we went back for a while and then he just decided he hadn't done any. He kind of was like, I just don't I don't feel like doing any podcasts and he hasn't hadn't really done any. Yeah. He did a couple. I don't know. It was kind of weird. It just went back and forth for a while when he left the faith, like officially, apparently.
01:29:25
Speaker
Yeah, so but I just the amount of people who still talk about them who have also like I think that's what's cool about them is like it was obviously like kind of cheesy Christian lyrics on a lot of levels but then everyone who listened to them who who isn't Christian anymore is still still talks about them and the influence they had and yeah it's cool I mean I don't I don't think you'd get that with a lot of other Christian bands you know
01:30:00
Speaker
I only did Christian Rock growing up, so I liked all of them. Yeah, there used to be a festival down here called Grace Fest that we'd go to every year on the fairgrounds that had every single one of those bands. It was like Skillet and Audio Adrenaline and Newsboys and DC Talk and, I mean, you name it, all of them. Very familiar with all that, but DC Talk was the best. It was kind of cool.
01:30:18
Speaker
No way. I don't know, bro. Can you talk about skillet?
01:30:27
Speaker
I realize like all the guys in Manchester, they had us kind of, kind of a similar upbringing, but, um, we could at least connect on DC talk and we all found out we love that together. We're like,
01:30:40
Speaker
This is going to work out. But then we've talked to other bands that didn't have the church background before. And you try to try to bring that up. And like if you have any outsider in the room and someone starts like rapping Jesus freak or whatever, like singing any music lyrics and then everyone joins in and then there's one guy that never heard of them before. They're like, what the hell is going on? Like, yeah, they just have never heard of that. You know what I mean? It's so I think we got lucky to to know what that band is because
01:31:09
Speaker
Apparently half the world doesn't. Yeah, I guess that's a share. And so is that, is like a Christian background, a shared, like, it was just a coincidence that you shared with a lot of those guys. Yeah. Yeah. The drummer Tim is actually, I mean, he was born in Rhode Island, but he actually grew up in Pensacola as well.
01:31:31
Speaker
Um, his dad's still down here and we just had a lot of mutual friends. Those guys are, or at least Tim was a little bit older than me, but as I came up playing, you know, in different indie bands and we just kind of all reconnected later. So I've been with those guys for 10 years, which is pretty crazy. Um, but we just, we just clicked, you know, it just worked out and certainly has, uh, a huge, you know, weight to it that we all have that.
01:32:01
Speaker
background to share, and a lot of those guys are still in the faith. It was really nice meeting them because after being out of the church for so long, I found out that they're Christian guys, but they were so nice and so normal and so not hyper religious and crazy about it or forcing it or judgmental. I was like,
01:32:24
Speaker
That's what I missed out on. I almost got to the point where I had seen so many bad examples. I was just like, I don't want to be a part of this. But, you know, I also appreciate the people that are in the faith that are like still good people and that it does good things in their life. And if that's the way they want to live it, then then I support that as a journey, you know, 100 percent. Yeah, it's it's like when you realize that there's there's a different way to do it. That's less intrusive. Yeah. It provides a level of meaning.
01:32:55
Speaker
It's something that you don't see growing up in the evangelical sphere, really. So let's jump back to the beginnings of your exit, as far as belief goes. Do you have an idea of where that was?
01:33:15
Speaker
Yeah, I would say when after the whole, you know, we left the church as far as playing music, we started a band or it was already an established band, but me and my brother started playing for this guy named Jesse that had started a band called the Gills. And it was like kind of it was like super heavy Beatles influence, but it was it was like really happy
01:33:40
Speaker
kind of hokey music but then when we started playing it we would just play really loud like we always did and turn it into kind of more of a rock and roll band and the mixture of those two things were great and then we started playing bars and clubs around Pensacola and it was like one of the most freeing experiences because from one of the first shows people just latched on to it it was something fun to do um and I hadn't played a
01:34:07
Speaker
a real rock show before. I was always playing in worship bands and trying to understand what that experience is like, but you're always playing original music, you're playing worship songs and trying to make them rock songs and that's not a good mix. Not quite the same.
01:34:25
Speaker
Yeah so I just was like I was sold on it from the beginning we played one show in this old place called Sluggos down here which every band ever has played. It's like this cool little hub here and little crusty room full of sweaty kids and they're all hopping around and stoked and I was like this is the greatest thing I've ever done.
01:34:47
Speaker
Then we eventually started playing more and more and then we needed money and we found out we could play bar gigs and play cover songs as well for like three or four hours.
01:35:00
Speaker
and save up our money and go on tour with it. And that was like a hack that we use for years. But when we started going to the bars and stuff, we were actually, I was under age, I was like 20, 19 and 20. So I couldn't legally drink, but the bars we went to wouldn't check because we were the band. And
01:35:18
Speaker
That was great. And I was just, I had never partied, you know what I mean? And then, and I'd never smoked weed. I had never really drank. I'd think I'd tried it, but never got real drunk. And there was just a big part of me that was like, I have to go taste what is out there and know, and I'm going to feel bad about it. I'm going to feel guilty about it. You know, I'll, I'll pray for forgiveness, but like, I'm going to go taste the world for a while and
01:35:48
Speaker
And that kind of brought me down a journey of just meeting tons of people and with different perspectives. And I was, I realized how much of a bubble I was in for most of my life. And it, it totally, it just changed everything. And, um, you know, basically I had, I've been on that type of journey since, um, and it's, it's, it's just slowly taken layer and layer off of all of that, like.
01:36:14
Speaker
you know preconceived notions about other people and what their spirituality is and the fact that they're doing the wrong thing or gonna go to hell and all this. It's amazing how long it took and luckily I'm alive at this age and I can more comfortably just be like look at someone and go, I don't know. I don't have the answer.
01:36:39
Speaker
I don't need to have the answer right now. I've had the answer my whole life and it didn't make me happy and I'm okay with that. You can't look at me and tell me that you know what happens when we die. I don't care which religion you're in or how much theology and all of these things, how much knowledge you have. I understand that's your faith. I get that. If you can't look at me and say, I don't know, then there might be something wrong with you.
01:37:07
Speaker
Yeah. There's no reason to trust that. Yeah. Even to preface like, this is what I believe, but I don't know that. Exactly. There's not even that level of comfortability. Dude, I remember having conversations with people being like, no, I know. They're like, no, you don't. Like, no, I do. That's how I was. And they're like, well, I know that that's not true. And then your brain starts fucking short circuiting. You're like,
01:37:33
Speaker
Well, I know that what you think you know, you know, you think, you know, I know. And then it's like, what are we doing? It's like conviction, like conviction is to like insist in the face of resistance that you did know for sure.
01:37:50
Speaker
And it was kind of a fake it till you make it sort of thing, you know, because I don't know that I ever really Felt it in my bones that it was true But I wanted so bad to feel that way that I I mean I would have said it to anybody, you know, yeah Yeah, that's a that's a good point is I I really Wanted it to I well I like back in the day
01:38:12
Speaker
When people were speaking in tongues and people were going through all the spiritual motions and doing all this stuff, I was like, I want that. I want to be sold out. I want to be, I want to feel whatever they're feeling. And I would go down and I would try to receive the.
01:38:27
Speaker
the quote gift of tongues and I'd have people lay their hands on me and I would just be 100% in like, and I didn't feel anything and it never happened.
Evolving Faith and Spirituality
01:38:38
Speaker
And then I thought maybe God, you know, didn't choose me. I'm not, I'm not chosen in that way. So I kind of felt bad about myself.
01:38:46
Speaker
And I kept trying and kept trying and I at least know I exhausted that. I was like, I was fully 100% willing to just give up everything and live that life.
01:39:01
Speaker
And, and then, you know, looking back on that now, it's, it's just interesting. At least I can say that. Like I, I, I witnessed some very interesting things, you know, I fucking love the way you just phrased that, like that, that you exhausted it, like that you didn't not, like, cause people will be like, well, maybe you didn't just didn't try a lot. Like you just know, like, yeah.
01:39:24
Speaker
Especially with what we're told we were told that like all you have to do is give yourself like they made it sound so simple like if you just give your heart over this and Everything will be great and God will save you and God will give you God wants to give you these gifts He's just waiting for you to be able to receive them and it's like Bitch, I tried to fucking receive these forever my entire life like I know that I
01:39:49
Speaker
was up until mid 20s even late 20s like still like I'm here I'm still trying like maybe some things are changing but like I'm here and I'm trying and like there's this uh it's like a story I'll probably butcher a little bit but it's like the story um it's called the invisible gardener
01:40:11
Speaker
And just the idea is that like, these two people walk into, I've told this on the podcast before, but it's, it's, uh, these two people are walking through the woods and they come to this clearing and it's like a perfect garden and they stake it out for like over and over again. And they can't, there's no gardener and they're like, well, maybe the guard. So then someone's like, their hat, because this garden looks perfect, like there has to be a gardener.
01:40:35
Speaker
And someone's like, I just, I just don't think there is, we've seen no evidence of a gardener. I just think maybe this happened. And well, maybe the gardener is invisible. So they set traps. And it's like, well, maybe the gardener is this. And it's like, the idea, the point of the story is basically like, that you just keep qualifying this gardener. And it's like, they equate that to God. Like,
01:40:54
Speaker
let's just keep qualified. God's perfect and designed everything. Well, God didn't respond here because such and such. And then, well, this didn't happen because such and such. And you just, you qualify this God until it's essentially unaffected in your life. And, but you still get to like, hold on to this idea that it's true. You just keep coming up with reasons with why it's not working for you. And
01:41:17
Speaker
I just, that story spoke to my life a lot as I got older, where it's just like, I think that's what I've been doing. Like I keep trying to make this concept of God that I have fit.
01:41:28
Speaker
into my life. And then when things change, I'm like, well, maybe God's more like this. And then I change, maybe God's more like this. And I'm, I mean, I still, I, I don't think I've abandoned this concept, like a concept completely in some ways. And I still have like a connection to, uh, the Christian tradition and my personal life. But I'm like, that story has really changed the way that I've explained or thought of and kind of released me from feeling like I need
01:41:57
Speaker
to make this work for or make sense to anybody else. It's just... Yeah. That's good, man. I know you guys know this too, but the way Church felt, it's still this way. I hear a lot of like, you know, sermons online and then clips and different things.
01:42:17
Speaker
And one thing that kind of set me back in life, I felt like was the mentality of everything that you do here on earth is really just for what is going to be in the afterlife. It's like store up your treasures in heaven or however you want to put it. And that gave me a weird mindset about my life as if it wasn't actually that important because
01:42:42
Speaker
I remember a guy explaining it to me one time. He's like, eternity is a circle and it keeps going round like this forever and ever. And your life is a tiny blip on that circle and that's it. And I was like, Oh, so it's, you know, and me, I was like, that's, so it's not actually that important. It's just this little flash in the pan kind of thing. And really it's all about eternity. So I'm going to act.
01:43:05
Speaker
minded in that way and it diminished all like the importance of what is happening second by second in my life and the people around me and stepping away from the church as well helped me realize like I don't know what's going to happen and so that means there's a possibility that this is the only thing. I've never wanted to admit that because it's a scary thing to admit. It's a scary thing to think
01:43:30
Speaker
when you die, the lights are out and that's it. You know what I mean? And that's, to me, even saying it now, it gives me the chills because my entire life, I could never admit that and say something like that without being blasphemous towards God.
01:43:50
Speaker
Yeah. Anyways, I'm willing to admit it's a possibility. You know what I mean? Because I don't know. It's not because that's what I want to happen. And I don't live my life in the way that that is the definite truth, but I do live my life in a way that that's a possibility. So my point is, is getting, looking around and seeing like, I have a very, very short life. We all do. And when it comes down to it.
01:44:16
Speaker
It's going to happen really quickly. I've had friends pass away. I know that that's a possibility at an early age as well. So I really want to take my time here and be careful with what I do and the relationships that I have and try to be a really good person and do the right things in life while I'm here and not do it just because I'm trying to like
01:44:39
Speaker
score points elsewhere. It's not why I'm doing it. You know, and, and that was very, it was at least helpful for me as a, you know, growing up a little bit. Cause I'm like, I need to focus on my wife and be a good husband and listen to what she's saying and like, stop trying to score points with, with God. You know what I mean? Like.
01:45:00
Speaker
That can all happen at the same time if you have faith and that you can do it your own way. But I've just seen a lot of people that everything that they have in their life, they attach it so hard to their religion and to God.
01:45:13
Speaker
And God is saying this right now and God is doing that. And it's like, I think you're not, I think you're actually getting off track of what's right in front of you. I'm not saying you can't do both of those things and give the honor to God and everything that you do, but it just gets, at least for me, it was, it was getting to a scary place to where I was not thinking about my, I was thinking about heaven is more of a reality than my actual life.
01:45:35
Speaker
And that's all my goal was to not burn forever and to go to this crazy palace in the sky and get in and and then I'll be good and like just totally an insane way to live as a wheel. Yeah, it's
Music Career Journey
01:45:49
Speaker
like it's almost less of it's like it's yeah, it's about that. It's about wanting having the palace in the sky. But
01:45:55
Speaker
you're not even you're not motivated by good things you're motivated by more or less the fear of the alternative totally cuz when you think about heaven you're like i don't know how to even make this sound like it could be fun to anybody yeah there's no way to communicate this concept in a way that sounds cool yeah you just live there forever right
01:46:15
Speaker
and god's there and you're like that's cool and you're like yeah god worship him our god is an awesome god as around forever forever and ever it's like it's almost it's like only it's like one level above hell like hell is like constant pain heaven is just eternal discomfort because you have to sing the same stupid fucking song for the rest of your goddamn eternity
01:46:41
Speaker
It is funny how people go two different directions on that you know it like as you get older you see those manifest in like your friends and stuff cuz you've hit I mean even aside from spirituality like you have the friend
01:46:56
Speaker
That saves every penny he makes like he doesn't leave town. He doesn't buy anything. I mean, literally just like banks money forever. Yes. You know, and and then I guess I don't know maybe as a kid and that's where it goes when he's when he's dead, you know, or you have the other friend who like is always in like financial peril because
01:47:18
Speaker
They got a tax return and they financed a dog for three times the amount of the tax return. That's a very specific story. I'm not calling anyone out. Obviously not. I know we've had you for a minute. Do you have a little bit more time to shift into... I want to ask you some Manchester questions. Go for it.
01:47:45
Speaker
are just like just generally when your life started shifting towards like career musician because that must have been such a, I know it's always like a slow burn when like for musicians, you like just chasing and chasing and it's like a constant grind and then
01:48:02
Speaker
I almost want to imagine things start probably going in that direction before they even settle in. You don't get too comfortable, right? You're just like, holy shit, I'm actually moving towards this. What was that like? I guess around when was that? Because sometimes you can also get this idea... Sorry to keep prefacing. You can get this idea in your mind.
01:48:25
Speaker
Like, oh, that they totally made like, it feels like the bands you love made it. But like, sometimes they really are like, still struggling and it just doesn't appear that way too. Yeah, man, that's all that is so good because not a lot of people have a deeper understanding of kind of the way that it can or cannot work. I mean, just for me, to be honest, for years and years, like when I
01:48:52
Speaker
I always wanted to play music and that's why I did it in the church, but I always in the back of my head, I was like, I would love to make this a career. It's all I ever want. I loved it so much. I loved performing. My brother played as well and I had this big dream in my head about me and him being in a band together and making it our career.
01:49:12
Speaker
and being successful and people knowing who we were and having money and all this stuff. And these are kid dreams, you know what I mean? That's what I wanted. And we had a band. We moved out of the city together. We moved to the big city, which was Nashville, which was seven hours north and pushed really, really hard for years to go somewhere with it. I even remember I told my parents, I was like,
01:49:35
Speaker
We both, we had this great plan. We were like, mom, dad, we're going to move to Nashville. And when we, but when we turn, when I turned 25, if our band hasn't made it yet, I'm going to go back to school. And I said, it was like a complete lie, complete fabrication. Cause you know, 25 came around and, but at the same time, it was a disappointment to myself as like anything else. When you're a kid, you have all these big dreams. Things just do not go the way that you plan them.
01:50:05
Speaker
For anything you do in life, year by year, if you haven't figured that out by now, you need to wake up as a human being. Stop dreaming so much and get to work and do, you know, whatever it takes. But it's easier to say that it was really hard at the time because as that band was failing and other things weren't going right, I just, I struggled with so much fear of failure.
01:50:28
Speaker
Cause I was like, you know, I was like selling security systems on, you know, at a call center for a long time in Nashville. And like, it was like the most soul sucking job. And it was, I was probably, you know, 26 at the time.
01:50:45
Speaker
like telemarketing kind of yeah like cold calls like cold calling and doing all that I did that in college and it was like it's truly soul sucking yeah and and I had it though because it was like I could work inside during the winter I had a friend there that was a drummer he said you can make pretty good money if you know how to sell stuff
01:51:04
Speaker
I absolutely hated talking to people on the phone about, especially about that. I felt bad for calling them. I just went through this very depressive episode of like, this isn't going to work out. Um, and I'm, I'm not saying that's unique. That's, that's any entertainment business or whatever, but at the same time I stuck with it and stuck through that period of time. I started playing with a lot of different people. Um, and I watched a lot of other people fall off and other
01:51:34
Speaker
really good musicians I grew up with that got to a point in their life where they're just like,
01:51:39
Speaker
I remember that it's like they would like post something on either Facebook or whatever it be like, I'm actually quitting now and I'm moving on. And it was just always weird to me to make a real statement like that in life, like a public statement of like, I'm done. Cause even when our band quote ended, you know, we never said anything about it. I was like, I just don't want to make this announcement. You know, it's like, we could get back together in a year from now and do more records. I don't want to be that band.
01:52:07
Speaker
And it would have just closed the casket on something that I didn't want to admit didn't work out after years And so I guess my point is is getting finally meeting the right people and you know Slow slow process of meeting Manchester riding with them We did the cope record together first and I really got along with them But of course it still wasn't like you know
01:52:33
Speaker
Like everyone had it cocked up to be as far as like you're now you've made it. So you're good and you're set for life. It was like, no, it was like still struggling big time for years. Um, it was an interesting time in the band's life. They're off of a label, did it independently. You know, I was like barely making enough for through touring to get by and was putting money on credit cards. And like, it's just funny the perspective because everyone else is like, dude, you're a rock star now, all this bullshit. And.
01:53:03
Speaker
I'm like, I'm grateful. I'm doing exactly what I want to do, but there's still a really long ways to go. So, um, it's taken a long time of working really hard with those guys. And, and now like we're doing well, we're very busy. And I, I just, I can't, I know that I can't listen to any like haters try to diminish what I've done or who, or what my journey is.
01:53:29
Speaker
and
Touring Experiences with Bands
01:53:30
Speaker
I don't try to ever brag about it or say anything that would come off that way. I'm just super grateful because I have a dream that is realized and not a lot of people get to do that. Even the people that are doing that, they just party their ass off sometimes and don't really appreciate it, I don't think. A lot of the musicians I meet,
01:53:51
Speaker
Kind of burned out and and I try to do everything I can not not to be that person because I realized it could be gone tomorrow I'm just gonna try to make as as as good of music as I possibly can with these guys for as long as I can and That's the goal. So that's what we love that man. Yeah, I mean, I think it comes out like just follow you on Instagram It's only so much but like a lot that's most people's perception of anything you follow the bands you like you follow the people you like And then you see what they post and I think
01:54:20
Speaker
that's something that comes across is that you have there's definitely an air of gratitude and thankfulness for where you're at that you truly seem to love it and enjoy it. It's not just like a job that you phone in because you made it. It's like something you work hard at and really love.
01:54:38
Speaker
And I think that's super obvious. And then dude, it must be sick to play like just some of these festivals. Like, I feel like festivals are really fucking coming back in a way that's meaningful. Like between like the one we were young or Furnace Fest or whatever. Totally. Those are super fun and you get different.
01:54:56
Speaker
People still love it, man. It's amazing, especially after the pandemic and everything that that changed everything for a while and and it came back really strong and it's just it's just incredible to me, you know, the way that it doesn't none of it seems real when it's happening, you know, the fact that these people want to keep
01:55:16
Speaker
buying tickets to come see us play a time and over and over again. And that they want to stick around for years. And it's it hasn't been like we wrote this big pop song and got huge all of a sudden. It's just been this really slow uphill growth. And hopefully those people stick around. And we seem to have just like this eclectic fan base of every age. And yeah, people are bringing their kids to the shows, which is the coolest thing. Get really stoked about that.
01:55:45
Speaker
Um, we're just trying to maintain and maintain the happiness within our band. You know, that's a hard thing to do, but everyone puts in the effort to do that. Uh, I think at least at this point, we all talk about this stuff all the time. Um, if there's an issue, we go to write, write to each other and, you know, we're brothers at this point. And I'm super grateful for that experience too, cause not, you know, it's, it's not playing on a sports team.
01:56:11
Speaker
But it's still a team thing that you have this like really close camaraderie with other people in a unique way. And especially when you're stuck on the road together. And a lot of people don't get that experience. They have close friends and they hang out a lot. But when you're really stuck together and like at your career is, is, you know, leaning on the fact that you guys, you know, aren't gonna, if one person's a bad egg or, or is being an asshole, like,
01:56:40
Speaker
you can really ruin the whole vibe of the camp. So you don't want to be that guy. And I learned a lot from being around those guys. They've taught me a lot, been very gracious. I kind of came in and a little hot and thinking I was tough shit and I knew a lot. And and it's I've just I'm totally different person than I was when I started. And I'm grateful for that. That's awesome. It seems like in order to keep that that
01:57:07
Speaker
good chemistry with a bunch of other adults that you're around that much. Like, it's got to be like an active effort to do that. Is there like, okay, like, like, let's say you're on tour. Is there like rules that kind of govern some of the interactions that you guys have with each other? Like you mentioned, if there's a problem, you go straight to the person and talk it out and stuff. Like, is there other things like that that keep, that keep the tensions low and the fun high?
01:57:37
Speaker
Definitely. I, there's not really a set list of rules. It's just, if you're around us enough, you kind of understand the vibe. Um, cause we love to, we just love to laugh our asses off as much as the day as we can. And then when it comes to playing, you know, we'll, we'll, we'll go out there and play the best show we can.
01:57:56
Speaker
But the thing is, it's funny is we get along really well as a band, but you also have to maintain, we have crew with us and there's usually, and there's five people that are on tour in the band. There's five crew members. And it's really hard to keep the same people, especially touring these days. It's like impossible to find a bus, impossible to find a bus driver, impossible to find a tour manager, a merch guy, a stage manager, blah, blah, blah. But once you find those good people, you kind of learn how to keep them around.
01:58:25
Speaker
and develop relationships with them. And if one of those people have a problem, then it has to be addressed as well. And we've had, we have less issues between the BAM members than we do with other people. So it kind of reaffirms the fact that like, we're good, you know, there'll be some other drama going on. We're like, we're, we're happy. So.
01:58:45
Speaker
As long as we can put the show on and give people that paid a lot of money to be here a good experience, then we're good. That's the whole point. It's actually pretty simple. So if someone's being what we call a special boy,
01:59:01
Speaker
Which is anyone on tour that you know is entitled and needs something special other that other people don't get. That term helps a lot. I think there's a lot of terms that you know there's like punisher that's a great term. Don't be a punisher. Don't get in someone's space and like you know when they just read the room and and try to figure out how not to kill the vibe. You know that's called a vibe assassin.
01:59:30
Speaker
Yeah, man. All this stuff comes from touring and being around people constantly. After tours, you've been around so many people as far as people at the shows, but you've also been in a cramped space with 10 other people, whatever it is, constantly every day. And if you're introverted, it sucks all the energy out of you. And it's fun and it's worth it. But then when you get home, you just realize,
01:59:58
Speaker
Oh my God, I don't want to see anyone forever. It's like being back in the Christian camp days. Yeah. I feel bad for my wife because I want to hang out with her and see her, but I'm also like, I need space for a minute just as far as anyone because people take energy from you and you want to show up and not be a grumpy,
02:00:21
Speaker
Asshole to people that's what happens when they meet their when people meet the heroes or their you know band they like and the guys just It's cuz he's probably really worn out of seeing people and you know, or he just is a dick. I'm not excusing everybody but Give him some grace All right softball question before we get out of here what's one of the like doesn't have to be the favorite but like one of your favorite bands you've toured with I
02:00:49
Speaker
There's just two is fucking awesome as a whole. Let's see. The last tour we just had, man, we've had some good ones like we have been blessed with because that's another thing is if the other band on tour is if there's one bad apple and one bad vibe. Let's do that. Let's say who is the worst band you've ever toured? Yeah. Specifically in the band. Did you fucking hate? Oh, man.
02:01:14
Speaker
Just kidding. Any tours with a mirror? Drop names on this. We recently just did a tour with a guy named Petey and his band. He's all over Instagram. He does all these funny videos online and I think he got really big on TikTok. You know what I'm talking about? Tall, skinny guy with long hair. Looks like Jesus. I love that dude. He is the best man and his band is so sweet.
02:01:42
Speaker
they have a you know he does all the online stuff but he does never talks about it he never acts like a online superstar is just this really chill dude that loves playing music and we watch their band get better while they're on tour with us like every show we we'd watch that's awesome the next level it was really cool
02:01:59
Speaker
Lunar Vacation was another band that toured with us, which were Atlanta-based band that was just the sweetest people. They're so good. Our band got obsessed with them. We've done a lot of touring. There's a band called Foxing we really love. Yes. Dude, I fucking love Foxing. They aren't the coolest. Did you know the band The Hotel Year? I know of them, but I don't know them.
02:02:20
Speaker
So a buddy that I had in high school was in that band and I would see that. They did a tour with Foxing years ago and I saw them in Boston and I was like, that was my first time seeing Foxing and I was like, holy fucking shit, this band is amazing. They're so cool.
02:02:37
Speaker
That had to have been like seven, six or seven years ago. Yeah. Um, and there, uh, is it something, the moon, what's the, I forgot their newest album is, but it's amazing. Like they see that really, yeah, I draw down the moon. Uh, and I mean, I didn't get to, when I was the night I was with them, they mostly played magic, the gathering in the back of their head. So I don't really, I don't, I don't know them at all. Um, but.
02:03:03
Speaker
but they seem like cool dude. They seem like cool guys. They definitely are. Yeah, I could kind of go on and on, but we've been blessed with, you know, we kind of, when it comes down to it, we, it's our decision who's going on tour. Which is cool. We do get offers though that sometimes, you know, make sense in certain markets and, but we still have to check out who it is and hopefully we get along.
02:03:27
Speaker
But yeah, there's a band called tiger's jaw. We adore as well. It's like, yeah, we did a tour with them and Foxing. It was like a party every night. It was just so good. And then they, you know, they're just consistently good every night too. So we like watching them getting inspired. Um, yeah. Anyways, there's just some good toured with pod dude. I was really into pod and I forgot. Remember the youth pastor. I said that had the prowler, the vape car.
02:03:57
Speaker
Oh, he ripped POD from the Prowler, didn't he? One of the things that was like a prize, you know, you can win for bringing friends or whatever. It's a ride in his Prowler. It's a ride in his Prowler. No, fuck, are you serious? Yeah. And you can only guess which band he played as soon as I got in the car. You were pounding Youth of the Nation in there, for sure.
02:04:18
Speaker
Dude, he was so stoked too. He just clicked it on and started turning it up and was looking over at me. I'm like, all right, this is going to be super weird. When I was younger, I was in the POD though. I know almost every lyric to the Southtown record. You could probably still sing it. Well, they are the greatest band alive or dead. I got a big respect for POD.
02:04:48
Speaker
What's anything new coming out from or what are you guys up to in Manchester? You got anything on the horizon? Yeah We're always working on something Monthly, we're always busy. We have a podcast as well. Just the band members. You're not gonna learn anything from it as far as Well, that's not true. You'll learn you'll learn a lot of things that are happening within the band. I
02:05:09
Speaker
And that has helped us survive. We started it right when the pandemic happened and it gave us a reason to do something every month. We do a studio performance and it kept us playing because otherwise I think we would have just chilled hard and not done nothing. Such a good idea. That saved us and we're still doing it though. People still want to pay, which is really a huge blessing.
02:05:35
Speaker
We try to make it worth their time. So there's that, but we're going into writing at the beginning of this year. We're not touring for a while. I don't think until next summer, early next summer is what we're talking about right now. And it's the biggest break we've had for a long time, which is needed. This year was crazy.
02:05:52
Speaker
But we're going to use that time to write. We're just always writing and looking for the next project. And we're kind of functioning on all cylinders at this point. We're really happy with each other. So I'm excited to see what happens. At the beginning of this year, it's like, I can't wait to see what we're able to come up with next. And making a record can be stressful and terrible sometimes. But I think we can actually really enjoy this process. So we're going to try to. Well, I can't wait to catch you guys next time you run through the
02:06:21
Speaker
Massachusetts area. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hit me up, please. If you guys want to ever come to a show or in Wichita, I would love to come out there again. I don't know how close we'll get to that, but you know, next year will just message me or whatever. And, uh, find you a place with indoor plumbing around here. That would be nice. A real dream. It's been great to meet you, man. Thanks for, uh, thanks for doing this and spending some time with us.
02:06:50
Speaker
Yeah. Thank you guys for doing this. You know, it's important. You're taken out of your, your precious time. I know you have busy lives, but, um, I think it needs to be talked about. I was nervous. You know, I was going to talk about this because I haven't been a long time, other than maybe like getting drunk with a friend that used to go to church. And then, you know, you start talking about some heavy stuff sometimes. And, um, anyways, I just appreciate it. So.
02:07:14
Speaker
Yeah, man. This was awesome. It was really cool getting to meet you. Yeah, man. Likewise. I'll be in touch. Well, thanks for listening and we will see you next time.