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Ep. 37 - The Brumen Abridged Bible for Compulsory Catholic School Kids w/ Nikki Brumen of Blood Command
71 Plays4 years ago
Man, do we have an exciting guest, this week! Nikki Brumen (formerly of “Pagan”) is the supremely talented and newly acquired vocalist for Norwegian “deathpop” band, Blood Command. You might be asking yourself, “What in the world is deathpop?” Well, it’s Blood Command, and it’s fantastic. Nikki was nice enough to join us from her home in Australia to talk about her years as a reluctant student at a Catholic high school, and her journey into a career as a frontwoman in the Australian heavy music scene. We had such a great time hanging out with her, and we think you’re going to, as well!
Check out Blood Command’s new single “A Villain’s Monologue” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNt-m2GqgYY
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Transcript
Mischievous Kids and Defaced Statues
00:00:00
Speaker
and I'm still weaved up there. And there was this religious stuff everywhere, big statues of Mary, but people would always throw her all over her face.
00:00:13
Speaker
Wow. The only love about kids is that no matter where you go, they're the same. And if you just put something important in front of them, they're gonna fuck with it. And I think that's so funny. And everywhere you go, their reaction's the same from the establishment. It's like, I can't believe these kids would be so disrespectful. Oh my god. They gave Mary a Hitler mustache. Of course they did. You shouldn't have put it here.
00:00:39
Speaker
Yeah, I remember she was holding her hands out like that and people would always like snap their hands off and stuff. Oh my god.
Introduction to Growing Up Christian
00:01:13
Speaker
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Growing Up Christian. I'm Sam. I'm Casey. And Casey, do you want to start with a silly story or a serious question?
00:01:26
Speaker
It's a silly story for sure. Okay. I thought about this today because Facebook memories. So my foster son, as I've referred to him as, but never mentioned his name, he's 18 now. So, you know, the issues of me mentioning his name and putting them out on like, I'm always super hesitant to that.
00:01:48
Speaker
Anyway, just for the sake of making the story easier, his name is Byron. Technically, we're not his foster parents anymore. We're just his arrangement, his living arrangement while he finishes out high school since he is 18. Just nag on him unofficially now. My Facebook memories brought up an old picture of him from when he was 12 or 13 or something like that.
Byron's Winning Guess
00:02:11
Speaker
It was from around the time that this story takes place, which is what made me think of it.
00:02:16
Speaker
I have a friend, Jake, who's visiting me from Virginia. This is the first time that we had Byron living with us. He's lived with us a couple of times over the years. He was like 12, 13. I think he was 12 the first time he lived with us, or he turned 12.
00:02:36
Speaker
So at that time, I was working in Boston, but I lived in Worcester. And for those who don't know Massachusetts geography, that's about an hour drive. And because I'm working in Boston and I knew Byron from Boston when he first went into care.
00:02:53
Speaker
Um, I got the call to basically, like I got, my name came up in court and as a possible person for him to live with. So, you know, when we worked the whole thing out, it's because I was driving to work in Boston five days a week. So I would leave the house early. I would bring him to school and then.
00:03:10
Speaker
I would he would do the after school program. And on my way home from work, I would like pick him up and then we go home. So it was a lot of like driving and added time. And it was a weird
Retelling Childhood Stories
00:03:22
Speaker
time. But so when that because that was the arrangement, I had a friend who came to visit me from Virginia, he came for a long weekend. And I took so I took a long weekend. Basically, I took like a just a Friday or Monday off or something like that. But
00:03:38
Speaker
We figured we'd just go into Boston and check out the city the day that he was in school. The morning we were leaving to go, I was like, all right, Byron, you're going to sit in the back seat. He's like, come on. He's making a big deal out of it. He's 12 years old. He's making a huge deal out of having to sit in the back seat because he always would
00:04:02
Speaker
And then my friend Jake is like, all right, I'll tell you what, if you can guess my middle name, you can have the front seat. He's like, you have one try, but if you guess it right, you get the front seat on our way into Boston. And Byron's just like,
00:04:18
Speaker
Robert and Jake's like, did you fucking tell him my last name of my middle name, dude? And I was like, no, this is he's like, how the heck did you guess my name? I was like, I don't know. I just kind of guessed like a generic white person middle name. I keep saying last name. He's like, I guess I guess the generic like white person middle name. And I was like, out of all the names in the world to guess as a person, he pretty much just met. He literally guessed his middle name. And my friend Jake was like,
00:04:46
Speaker
I guess I'm sitting in the back. So he sat in the back the entire drive in. He's like, I can't take that back. So he literally guessed his name. It wasn't he wasn't just messing with him. Like, yeah, no, that was he actually on the first try actually guessed my friend's middle name. I was so I mean, I still talk about it to this day. And that was almost I was like six years ago. It's like I think it's so funny. One try first try was just like
00:05:13
Speaker
Isn't it funny when you're
Adventurous Family Tales
00:05:16
Speaker
a kid? Thought I was aligned. That's the sort of thing. He probably told all of his friends that he guessed this dude's middle name and stuff. We talked about it all weekend. I always remember feeling like when I was growing up, my dad would tell me all these stories about from when he was a kid and all this stuff that they did. I used to just stew about the fact that I felt like I didn't have any good stories yet.
00:05:43
Speaker
And then, you know, you get older and all this stuff happens and everything. But now I've told all of my growing up stories like 30 times to April. Like guys roll back in her head when I started talking. One time I pooped my pants. Yeah. Dude, when you get to that point in your life, when you realize like, because when you're young and you hear like older people retell the same stories, you're like, yeah, I know you told me, how do you not remember this? And now I'm at that age where I'm like,
00:06:13
Speaker
I'll start telling a story. I'm like, shit, I'm almost positive I've said this about five times. And everyone's just like, Oh, really? Like, I've caught myself pretending, like, that's the first time I ever heard a story to somebody because I don't want to hurt their feelings. It's still, and they're like my peers. And I'm just like, Oh, oh, yeah, no, I haven't heard this one. This is great. I know I'm doing that now too. So I'm not excited for what that's gonna look like. And like,
Managing Swearing Around Kids
00:06:40
Speaker
20 years, it's going to be pretty bad. I think it's going to be awesome. When you were a kid, did you like hearing people like adults tell stories? Because I always used to, I mean, that was something I loved. Like when we had family gatherings and stuff, sitting around listening to like my grandpa talk about whatever, like my grandpa on my mom's side had like every weird
00:07:01
Speaker
odd job you can think of like lumberjack and he drove cattle and he worked at every sort of manufacturing place and probably got fired from a lot of those. The funniest dude ever, you know, hard worker and everything, but he was kind of haphazard. He'd always have like accidents and stuff like that. And I don't know, I just I just just love sitting around listening to people talk about whatever, just talking about telling stories and things like that.
00:07:30
Speaker
Yeah, my, I have an uncle who like on my mom's side when we go out there for like holidays and stuff like listening to them like talk about stories from there because they were always the kind of kids that were like getting into stuff. So like listening to stories about like when you're younger and you listen to stories about like uncles telling you about all the trouble they got into and how awful they were.
00:07:52
Speaker
that's all that was always fun for me I think probably because like I wouldn't have imagined ever doing anything close to that because I was such like a goody two shoes but same yeah so like hearing like these adventure stories about like doing this and like that crazy thing and basically whether or not it was illegal or getting in fights and all this shit you're like
00:08:13
Speaker
people. It's like this shit's not just on TV. People really did this. Hearing those stories was always so fun for me. I remember when I got older, my mom used to even mention, and I don't remember it from when I was younger, but I remember her mentioning when we were younger and he would
00:08:30
Speaker
talk about those stories or he would say things like he never he didn't have much of a filter and her
Humor in the Workplace
00:08:36
Speaker
being like okay like that's tough like doing family dinners there because he would just say his piece and it's like hope we didn't remember it afterwards but it's funny now that I'm getting older and I have kids that are younger and I hang out with my family and you realize like kids probably mostly just don't hear grown-ups swear all that much
00:08:59
Speaker
like if it's not part of your common vernacular like when I'm talking to my kids I don't swear sometimes they're around and something happens and you drop something or my dog is just a pain in the ass and like you say shit to the dog or whatever but like so they occasionally hear you swear but for the most part like kids are insulated from it so
00:09:19
Speaker
I'm like, I probably heard it all the time when I was younger and my mom was probably like, oh, I don't want my kids hearing this. And we just missed it all. And the only reason I think that is because that's what happens generally with my kids too, because if they repeated all the words they hear, we'd be having more conversations about what words they're allowed to use at this point.
00:09:39
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure that's tough ground to navigate. Yeah, it's weird trying to figure it out. Because I don't want my kids to like, I don't really care. Like, like in high school, I had friends that would swear all the time we were at their house and stuff. And I'm like, the parents didn't care. And then they would but they what they went to school and they didn't say those words in class or at their teachers because they learned appropriate boundaries for things like that. Like,
00:10:03
Speaker
And that's more healthy to me. It's like at home, x, y, z. All life is is learning how to navigate different situations and what you can do in certain ones versus others instead of pretending like it's just this homogenous world we live in where everyone's supposed to act one way all the time.
00:10:23
Speaker
I don't feel like I learned that new ones until a little bit later. I probably am still trying to navigate it. I'm like, I'll test it out in places and say something inappropriate and be like, Nope, still trying to figure this one out. It's almost like I'm like an on an autism spectrum. I'm not, but I'm just, that's what it's like growing up Christian, I guess is it defaults you on some level of the spectrum.
00:10:44
Speaker
Yeah,
Debate on Mandatory Vaccines
00:10:45
Speaker
speaking of which, I have gotten in trouble. I've kind of trouble twice now in the past couple of months over that sort of thing. Yeah, like through work, I teach some classes occasionally. And I used to do a lot more of it. I'm kind of on the downward slope of that that whole segment. But
00:11:10
Speaker
There's a guy that i that i do these classes with and he's kind of the ringleader of the class you know and he's a. He was an actor for a lot of years and he's just this really like big personality funny guy everybody loves him and you know it's.
00:11:29
Speaker
It's when you're talking about having a group of grown men in a room for an entire week that haven't sat in a class in years. And you're going to sit them in a class for an entire week and talk about like,
00:11:46
Speaker
transmission fluid and cooling. That sounds riveting. It can be dry, right? So like the sales training side of it can be more fun and it's interactive and stuff. But if you want to keep the class, if you want to hold their attention and keep it interesting and make sure that they have a good experience, like there's an element of performance to it.
00:12:10
Speaker
Whether that's your forte or not, you're trying to keep it engaging and how you do that is with jokes and things like that. The problem is that every room of grown men and women have a different point at which they start to get antsy or offended about things.
00:12:33
Speaker
And so, like, you know, I mean, I'm, I'm a, I'm pretty good at minding my P's and Q's, but once in a while, somebody just takes something I said and just takes it in the worst possible interpretation, you know? Yeah. I mean, I've, I've made jokes that didn't flop or, you know, that flopped and stuff. Usually it's just cause it's like, it's an obscure reference or something goes right over everybody's head. And, and, you know, I can understand that. Okay, I'll be doing the podcast all the time. Yep. Yeah, right. Exactly.
00:13:03
Speaker
But yeah, I've recently gotten like a couple of complaints on the exit surveys for the class saying that they thought I was a jerk or that they were offended because I Whatever made fun of their name or something like that like you made fun of a name way to cross the line Yeah, I know I know right
00:13:28
Speaker
And I don't know why but like, that like, I don't get angry about much, like to the point of like, actually being physically angry over something. But that to me, oh, it just makes my blood boil, especially when it's like, we're all grown men.
00:13:46
Speaker
Like just call me if you, you know, everybody's got my contact. Anybody can get in contact with me. So just call me and say, Hey, what did you mean by this? Because I'm not going to lie that came off really rude or I didn't like the way that you talked about this or that or something like that. Instead, you know, you got to go through the whole hierarchy.
00:14:08
Speaker
of the company, and like four people down from there, someone says, Hey, I just wanted to let you know that someone didn't like the way that you said this or that or the other. No one is going to tell you to your face that they had a problem what you said or ask a question about what that is not how anybody operates. All right, that's fair. But
00:14:28
Speaker
You know, it's it's a I can't help but think that it's a lot of the same people that that get upset about things like this are the same people who would make comments about like well kids today are a bunch of snowflakes The minute it's anything they don't like it's it's like I gotta climb the ladder and let everyone know I don't want to speculate but I'm going to and I'm Going on all in here
00:14:57
Speaker
A lot of people in the automotive industry or your industry might be more, I feel like there's probably more than 50% of the time they might be likely to call people too sensitive or snow
Polarization of COVID-19 Opinions
00:15:12
Speaker
bikes. I don't know if that's a fair assessment. You're being so generous.
00:15:19
Speaker
I don't want to step on any toes here, but it just seems like an industry that the people involved in it are more likely to have definitely called, maybe some of them had one of those banners that said, make liberals cry 2020 or something like that. I don't know, just a- Yeah, got a coffee mug that says liberal tears.
00:15:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, something like that. There's some of that sentiment around. I'm sure some of those are the people who had a complaint about their feelings being hurt that couldn't just say it to your face. So I don't, I'm sure some of them were very reasonable people who have never called anybody a name or anything. But it was just just brainstorming here. Are you ready for the Aldiina shift us? You ready for the serious question? I'm as ready as I'm gonna get.
00:16:06
Speaker
Let's see if this is probably a terrible idea to go into this direction, but how do you feel about mandatory vaccines? Like as a as a whole or for like certain occupations or what?
00:16:22
Speaker
I don't know, just take your pick. It's coming up so much lately and I feel like it's been the talk of the town and by the town I mean the United States of America. And it's coming up a lot and like, because of back to school shit, which I know isn't really anything for you, but when I have kids and my wife's a teacher, like it's a very common thing right now. It's like, what are we gonna do? Require masks, require vaccines, can we do this? People's rights, blah, blah, blah.
00:16:50
Speaker
I would say I, I don't know if I have a fully developed opinion on this, but I mean, my knee jerk reaction is to say that I'm not for it. Hmm. That's fine. I mean, I don't, I feel like it's such a, it's really difficult. Is it really fine or are you going to complain to my boss? I'm complaining to your boss. Uh, I feel like it's, it's weird because no one's,
00:17:18
Speaker
not I shouldn't say no one, but for the most part, like thinking about it from a school setting, right? Like I couldn't I was homeschooled. So I didn't have all my vaccines that I would have had if I went to high school. But in high school, you have to get them. And then in then when I'm
00:17:37
Speaker
ready to go to college and I want to live on a dorm, you have to have all those same vaccines that you would have if you were in high school. So I had to get like a couple. And I didn't think anything about the time. Nobody said anything about it. Like it was just like, Oh, yeah, you're going to college, you have to get these vaccines, you have to go ahead and get these shots, blah, blah, blah. Did it, went to school.
00:17:58
Speaker
Haven't thought about it again until now that people are flipping the fuck out about making people in school settings get vaccines. And they're like, what about my rights? Or if it's a work, it's like, have a violation to ask. Like all these conversations are coming out about it.
Ethics of Vaccine Mandates
00:18:12
Speaker
And it's so strange because I think it really shows you how politicized COVID got as opposed to like anything else. Like no one gives a shit that you had to have a measles vaccine in high school except for
00:18:24
Speaker
like the really staunch like anti-vax community. Which is a tiny percentage of people. Yeah, and those people just often choose to homeschool and they don't like try to tear down the entire education system because they feel like that's not, like if you feel like you shouldn't, if you feel like you shouldn't have to get your kid vaccinated, like you're not forced into it, you just have to homeschool your kid. Like, and they'll take that and they'll say,
00:18:49
Speaker
Okay. And that's not infringing upon their rights because they also have the right to homeschool up to. So I'm like, I'm kind of feeling like this is just a clear instance of how polarized everything is now. It's really annoying because like, this wouldn't have been, this wasn't an issue 10 years ago, 15 years ago when I was like,
00:19:11
Speaker
going to college. I don't think I really knew that people were anti-vaxx even at that point in my life. I hadn't heard it from any of the most conservative people in my religious setting. Yeah. I feel like I only heard about anti-vaxx stuff. I don't know, maybe like the early 2010s somewhere in there. I don't think that was really much of a movement until social media.
00:19:37
Speaker
Yeah, social media had a lot to do in kind of pushing that agenda and that movement. And the people that pushed it, if you follow the money, they made a lot of money off of it. They made a lot of like donate to this to help stop that. And then like there were people at the top of that making, I'm not citing sources here. I could be full of shit, but I don't know, whatever. You can look it up if you want to really.
00:20:00
Speaker
What about companies? If you want to continue to work here and be in sales and visit people and go to this place and that, you are now required to get the vaccine because of public safety. If a company took a stance like that, how do you think that would go over? Do you think companies would lose people? You have probably a better sense of it in some way as someone who would have to manage his sales team and things like that.
00:20:29
Speaker
Yeah, that would be bad. It wouldn't go over well at my company. I know. Yeah. I got vaccinated and I don't know. I have a hard time with this deal because it is like super politicized. Yeah. And I don't think that that's one side or the other's fault. I mean, I feel like it's bad behavior on both because it was definitely used as a tool against the Trump reelection effort. COVID as a whole.
00:20:59
Speaker
you know, and I'm fine with the result. So I'm not gonna complain too much about that. But it's, I don't know, both sides played a role in it. I think as far as companies go polarizing is that what you're saying?
00:21:15
Speaker
Yeah, politicizing and therefore polarizing. I think from a company standpoint, it comes down to like, can you do your job and work in the capacity that your company needs you to without infringing on other people's rights?
00:21:34
Speaker
you know, like, because I've seen a lot of like back and forth about nurses being forced to get vaccinated on Facebook and stuff. Yeah, some people that I know, or used to know, you know, are talking about it. And they're, you know, in large part, very
00:21:49
Speaker
opposed to forcing nurses and medical staff to get vaccinated. But how can you as a medical practitioner, how can you do your job in close proximity with people who may not want to be
00:22:05
Speaker
you know, I mean, without like, upsetting or endangering people that, that feel that that's a really important thing and that you should have gotten vaccinated and stuff. And I don't know, man, I it's a it's a hard question to answer. Yeah. Sorry, no, keep going. I do think you're right, though, that like, I don't know where
00:22:28
Speaker
Like, why is this now such a point of contention?
Social Responsibility and Vaccination
00:22:33
Speaker
You know, when obviously like, like, okay, so my dad and his family were in a big flood when he was a kid. And it was like, it was in Rapid City, South Dakota, I think in the early late seventies. But basically like it was catastrophic and took out a bunch of homes and really, you know, destroyed, you know, a large portion of that community and stuff like that.
00:22:58
Speaker
And afterwards, I mean, you know, the army or the National Guard came in to help manage it and help people and rescue people and dig, dig corpses out of mud and stuff like that. And they all had to line up and they had those big air gun. You know, you walk like they use in, in military settings where they just like, and you get, you know, six different inoculations at once because you're literally standing in sewage water. Oh my God.
00:23:28
Speaker
And that's awful. That's just a matter of fact. I mean, that was what was done at that point. And the extreme circumstances that they were living in warranted that level of response.
00:23:43
Speaker
You know, and so, I mean, I can, I can definitely see people making a case for that with COVID. My only concern about it is like, are the, if we mandate that people get a Johnson and Johnson shot or something like that, you know, one.
00:24:00
Speaker
A private company is going to benefit from that in a huge way. A private company with a lot of lobbying power and stuff like that is going to make a killing off of that sort of a decision. Several, I mean three for sure, right? Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson and Johnson. So that's a little weird. It doesn't mean that it's not a good practice or anything, but it's weird. Sure, yeah. I get that.
00:24:24
Speaker
What's the, I might say it wrong, but there's like a phrase saying that's like, your right to swing your arms stops at my nose or something like that. That's been thrown around a lot. And it's like, so I think it's like, if there was a guy who was like, look, I'm a doctor, I have a PhD, I'm a medical doctor. And, you know, based on some things that I've seen, and what I think, I think bloodletting is actually a practice that wasn't as bad as we thought, and that maybe we should go back to doing it.
00:24:53
Speaker
He's not going to be allowed to do that because he's just wrong. So like when the science says like something like something is good and something is safe and something Medicare is not going to pay for it. But I'm sure there are idiots in the country who are paying people to let their blood out. I mean, I'm sure he would just, you know, become a chiropractor and get away with whatever the fuck you want. Foot massage and bloodletting.
00:25:24
Speaker
Oh my God. Hey, we should do an intro about how much I hate chiropractors sometime. I wonder if we have any listening. Send us an email if you're a chiropractor and tell me why you're not a fraud. Jeez, heavy handed. Wow.
00:25:40
Speaker
Okay, I'm gonna regret that. I'm probably gonna wish we edited that out. But I don't know where I was going. Oh, it's just like when if like with the I guess what's first what I find like difficult is like, I get weary of saying like, anything's forced, because then, you know, if things take a turn for the worse, and you end up with more like fascist government,
00:26:02
Speaker
forcing people to do certain things. That's just the language around being forced into anything is uncomfortable to me. But it's funny because generally the people who are more likely to say that it's against their rights to be forced into something like that are also the people of a problem with private businesses making decisions to not serve people unless they have a
00:26:32
Speaker
a proof of vaccination card or something like that. It's not really working out the way they wanted it to, and it feels like they want to just be able to do whatever they want and have no repercussions for it, and that's just not the world we live in. If we live in a world where people are saying, you should be vaccinated, that's what the safest thing to do is, and you are not welcome to shop or eat here without proof of vaccination. That is entirely within a
00:27:01
Speaker
businesses rights. And of course, now in New York, you have the government like the governor saying, what you can't eat, or do anything anywhere without proof of vaccination. So, right? It's not mandating vaccination, though. And the intent there is supposedly to help businesses, right? Because if this gets, I mean, New York shut down for fucking ever, dude, New York was in shambles over this. And like, the last thing on earth they want, New York City, like, the last thing on earth they really want is
00:27:31
Speaker
to have to like go to deal with what they already dealt with for round two. And so are they helping businesses or hurting businesses? I mean, I guess that's for fate, like the future to show us, but. Well, yeah.
00:27:45
Speaker
I mean, point two that I was going to make, one was these pharmaceutical companies are going to make a killing off of this thing, which whatever. All right. Point two would be, are we certain that those vaccines are effective against what we're dealing with
Pandemic Frustrations
00:28:03
Speaker
now? Because it seems like people with vaccines are still getting sick now. Yeah, but it has more to do with the hospitalization rate and things like that.
00:28:14
Speaker
people who have the vaccine are like, it's like 90% of deaths and hospitalizations are people who are unvaccinated, you know, so yeah, I mean, people can still get it. But the problem also, you could argue that the problem is so many people didn't get vaccinated that the transmission rate increased so much. And we weren't able to quell it in any way. And it's through multiple
00:28:39
Speaker
it's through it transmitting that it evolves into variants that the vaccine now isn't going to be as effective against. So right. Yeah, we're fucked. Basically, we're fucked. I've heard that. Yeah. I don't know, man. I mean, it's not a hill I'm going to die on. And I'm already vaccinated. I do think that you're right, though, in that, like, people really need to be careful what they're advocating for policy wise, because
00:29:09
Speaker
This level of emergency, we're going to deal with it. This is like, it's going to be, I think it has the potential to be like the war on terror where it was like, this is special circumstances where we have to extend our reach a little bit because we're trying to keep everybody safe. But then it just perpetually goes on forever. And I mean.
00:29:30
Speaker
We got Biden in the office right now and I don't know that anybody's super thrilled about Biden, but he's a, he's a calm, you know, like he's a, he's a, uh, just, uh, he's keeping things calm. But to think that there will never have another person like, like Trump in office, I think is a mistake. I mean, I think when, when Obama got elected, I think there was a lot of people that thought, man, finally we'll never have another George W. Bush.
00:29:59
Speaker
And, you know, by comparison, he looks pretty mild compared to the amount of people who have like shifted since Trump. Like, I guess Bush wasn't that bad. It's like funny when you have like something terrible to compare it to, you can brain it in a little bit. I mean, he did start the war on terror as we already addressed. Now, wait, are you saying the war on terror wasn't great? I don't know. I'm a fan. Okay. I mean, I went to, I went to his rallies. I held a sign upside down, as we've talked about. Yeah.
00:30:29
Speaker
10-year-old me? Yeah. Dude, I remember after 9-11 having very serious convictions about what the United States needed to do when it came to our war efforts. I don't understand, even trying to think back on what I was thinking and how I felt. I staunchly believed it. When I look at 11, 12-year-olds and stuff like that, you look at those people now and you're like,
00:30:58
Speaker
You don't have your own opinions yet. But I remember how fervently I believed in the things I did when I was that age. And that's so weird to think about. Because when you look back on your life, it never feels much different than the way you feel now. When I think of college me and the way I felt about things, it doesn't feel that removed. And then in high school.
00:31:23
Speaker
whatever your convictions are like at the time you fervently believe them and man nothing has made me hold opinions and an open hand like being wrong about everything at every single point in my life all the time entirely up until now God damn it I was wrong about everything all for so long and I tried to convert people to my wrongness something
00:31:44
Speaker
And now I'm like, I don't know, I mean, with friends and behind closed doors, I might say some really pigheaded things about like, dig my heels in and tell everyone they're wrong about everything except for what they agree with me on, but mostly ingest. But man, it is, it throws you through a loop. It makes it hard to be completely sure of anything when you've gone through that. I feel that.
00:32:11
Speaker
I feel like we should conclude this discussion by just saying like, Hey man, I know you're
00:32:18
Speaker
getting a lot of excitement and probably some encouragement from the people around you by saying that, you know, whatever, that you're not getting your vaccine. I feel like you should just go get your vaccine. Yeah, let me share that with that. Just go do it. Please get vaccinated, everyone. Just fucking please do it. You're not gonna die. No one's gonna die from getting it. Just go get it and be done with it and then we can move on and hopefully this'll be over.
00:32:43
Speaker
i don't have to worry about my kids at school who can't get it because they're dumb parents said masks are dumb and vaccines aren't real and then they're sitting there kid i mean kids are just like even like masks look i get it these you send kids to school with masks on my kids are four and five
00:32:58
Speaker
Under their masks, they're picking their nose, they're eating their boogers, they're pissing on their hands when they go to the bathroom, they're not washing good. Like, masks are fine. And my kids are, you know, luckily kids are actually pretty good at wearing them better than most adults who don't want to wear them. They're just like, that's fine. But kids are gross. They're super gross. They flick boogers. Adults are gross. I was in Costco this week. And in the little cafe section, I saw a middle aged couple like aggressively mouth open flossing.
00:33:28
Speaker
Oh, my God. Are you fucking serious? That's disgusting. I'm serious. I almost I was like, I can't. You should have seen a picture of this and post it. But like, this is so gross. I just want people to know that this is happening. You should have. You ethically can take a picture of that when they're being that publicly unethical. That is horrifying. You can see they're pretty gross. Like wherever they're standing next to looking at, you can find like their plaques sprayed on it afterwards.
00:33:58
Speaker
Anyway, get your fucking vaccines, people. It's not hard. It's free. It's easy. And you feel fine afterwards for the most part. So, I mean, mine is like magnets sticking to your skin and shit. So, our guest this week is, this was kind of like a shot in the dark messaging her.
00:34:21
Speaker
So there's a band that I really like called blood command and there are Norwegian it's a it's a strange band. They're kind of like this weird mix of like punk post hardcore pop. Yeah, like it's it's a that's a good description. I think that that levels
00:34:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's fun music. It's a little on the heavy side. And it's always had like a female vocalist, which, you know, heavy music has been predominantly a male dominated space. And all of a sudden now there's got like, you get like all of these
00:34:57
Speaker
great female vocalists and musicians and stuff that are kind of like coming up through the ranks of bands like Spirit Box and stuff like that. And Nikki Brumman was the head lead vocals for a band called Pagan. It was an Australian band, which is where she's from just recently.
00:35:17
Speaker
became the vocalist for Blood Command. You only have like one single out with her on it too, right? It's only the one so far? Yeah, exactly. So they've done this all from, you know, between Australia and Norway. They've managed to like digitally record a single. It's called a Villains Monologue. And I love it. I think it's great. And she's got voice that'll just like melt butter.
00:35:45
Speaker
It's got some power to it. It's awesome. But Nikki has been pretty vocally anti-established religion. And she just seemed hilarious from some of the stuff that we looked at on Instagram and everything. So we messaged her to see if she was willing to do an episode and she was all about it. So we sat and talked with her about her
00:36:13
Speaker
She grew up in Australia, where you have limited choice on schools. And her parents, to give her a better education, they put her into a Catholic school. But she wasn't a Catholic and not religious at all. And she just had to force herself through the motions and stuff. She's just a really interesting person and making great music. And we had a lot of fun talking to her.
00:36:40
Speaker
That being said, if you want to hang out with us and the rest of the Grown Up Christian gang, we're on Discord. You can find a link in any of our social media pages. And we've got some cool stuff coming up. Sam and I were just looking at some artwork and things like that for some potential merch coming up. I mean, yeah, things are going great and we're happy you're here. And I hope you enjoy our conversation with Nikki Broughman.
00:37:09
Speaker
All right, we are back with our guest Nikki Brumman of Blood Command. How are you doing, Nikki? I'm good. I'm good. In lockdown in Melbourne, but other than that, I'm great. How are you doing? We are, you know, like my closest neighbor is like two miles away. So even if we were in lockdown, I don't feel like it would affect me.
00:37:33
Speaker
Casey pretty much lives in lockdown anyway, just generally. Yeah, so you'd be totally fine doing this then. For me, I go insane. I just want to go see live bands. I'm like, get out of the house. Yeah, I mean, it's been forever since we've seen live... I mean, I haven't been to a show obviously in well over a year now.
00:37:54
Speaker
And I don't, I think October is like the first one. Wow, really? Yeah. We've been lucky in a way because it kind of like we were in really strict lockdown and then things got better in Australia. And so I was able to sort of see bands in that, you know, when it got better period.
00:38:13
Speaker
But they kind of started doing it where they'd have like tables and chairs. So you have to like sit down and watch them. Which was a really... It's like a youth group concert. Yeah. It's a really weird situation, like having to just like...
00:38:27
Speaker
sit down and watch a heavy band play. Yeah, I mean, that works if you're going to see Coldplay or something, but I feel like when you're at a punk show, going to like a metal show, it's not exactly ideal to just sit there at a table. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely some some concerts scheduled here now. I think like Gojira is coming to Wichita. Oh, that's a couple months.
00:38:51
Speaker
Yeah. I'd never really listened to Gojira. And then, uh, you know, when I saw they were coming, I kind of dove in on their latest album and it's, it's great. Yeah. I see it. That'd be awesome. I hope that they can do it. Like, you know, it's been so disappointing. So many bands have been like going to do it and then things get canceled. Just last minute I'm under their feet, but.
00:39:11
Speaker
Yeah, I felt so bad every band that like dropped an album and then were like scheduled their album tour and only to have it canceled and just kind of eat shit on that album really. Yeah, totally. I've experienced that from a whole different way of being
00:39:29
Speaker
like joining a band and then because they're in Norway, which I don't think you can get further from Australia than Norway. And then COVID happened like a week later and we were like, Oh no, we're now in a band together. And this is really exciting, but we can't like, how do we meet each other? And how do we like do anything? Like how do we record? How do we like,
00:39:56
Speaker
move things forward. So it's just been like the most bizarre experience. It's got to be. Yeah. So okay, so let's hit on that for a second. So you were in a band called pagan. Yes. I learned about through the when I saw that you were joining blood command, which so blood command is such a cool band. I don't even know really how to describe them. Like, we're kind of self described death pod.
00:40:24
Speaker
I think that song set up pretty good. I like that. I like that. But, you know, very unique, female lead vocals, just a really cool, different sort of band. And, you know, lead singers step down, I think. And yeah, and there's like no more perfect person to fill that role than you. So that was great. Thank you. It was it's kind of like,
00:40:50
Speaker
I do agree that I probably am not in an arrogant way or anything, but I feel like I am the perfect fit to have been the new singer. Because when I first heard Blood Command, I always thought they sound like pagan, but like a pop version. Because my band, Pagan, for people who sing, were like a heavy, sort of, we thought ourselves black and drop and roll, really, really heavy, hardcore.
00:41:17
Speaker
We kind of sound maybe a bit like Cabela Tack or a band like that. And we were touring Europe a lot at the time and I came across Blood Command. And the first time I heard them, I was like, yeah, this band sounds like Pagan and they do a similar vibe to Pagan.
00:41:36
Speaker
like just even aesthetically. And so when I got asked to join the band, I was like, this is amazing. I really feel like I will do them justice because I can, I can scream. Um, but like singing is not something that becomes as naturally to me. I feel a little bit self-conscious about it. So I just like started getting singing lessons like every week, turn into the biggest geek would like rehearse like literally five days a week.
00:42:02
Speaker
like, vocal training constantly to get to a point where I, like, recorded the album and felt really good about all my playing vocals. It's been a plus. Have you ever been much of a singer before? I, like, I've always been a vocalist, but like a heavy vocalist. Yeah. So like somebody who just mainly screams all my vocals.
00:42:22
Speaker
Yeah. Now, when you're doing something like that, do you find a vocal coach that specializes in that type of vocals? I mean, there can't be too many of those around. Yeah, it's a good question. As a screaming vocalist, I'm completely self-taught.
00:42:39
Speaker
So I one day was just like, I want to be able to scream. I want to be a girl in the heavy bands because there just weren't enough girls doing it back when I started. That's my old band. Before Pagan, I was in like a, we sounded a bit like a riot girl band, like bands from the riot girl movement era. We weren't trying to do riot girl, we just kind of sounded like that. We were just like a punk band.
00:43:07
Speaker
And, um, we like just formed, it was just like a group of girls who just like wanted to do it. And I just started screaming and like totally fucking my voice, like blowing my voice out all the time, just to like, like learn it because how else do you learn to do something like that? It's pretty unique thing to learn. And I, as I practice and as I like,
00:43:31
Speaker
you know, stuffed up, I like would learn the things that I needed to be able to do it. And then when I got to the time that I was playing Pagan,
00:43:41
Speaker
And we like kind of got thrown in the deep end a lot of times. Like we got a lot of festival slots really early on. And then we went on tours pretty early on as a band. And we just like, I just had to learn how to do it. And I, yeah, I used a combination of like me just trial and error. And then also like, I used to study acting for a few years, just cause I love live performance. And I use a lot of the vocal techniques from my acting training.
00:44:10
Speaker
for to learn how to scream. And then, yeah, so when it came to singing, I went to a vocal coach who has trained a lot of heavier vocalists, but he hasn't taught me any of the screaming stuff. That's all self-taught. Yeah. It does seem like I was in a band in college and I was the vocalist, you know, metal band screaming and stuff. Ew, I love that. What we called.
00:44:38
Speaker
Oh, we had a terrible name. The Poison Ritten. I love hearing, like, high school band names. It's hilarious. There were so many good ones. My high school, I did the same thing, high school band, and ours was, it was called Astraeus. And everyone was just like, cool, what does that mean? We're like, fuck to find out. I just told them that.
00:45:03
Speaker
I remember when that stuff was like, I remember the last time I looked for it, and it had finally been wiped clean from pure volume. So it's not, I mean, I can't find it anymore. And that's a good thing. I'm happy with that. I love that. And there's all these like punk bands in Australia. And for some reason, everyone always uses the name damaged goods. Like it's not so standing. The worst name ever.
00:45:30
Speaker
I've tried to think of some of the ones. I remember our first show, we played with a band called The Bullet That Killed Kennedy. At the time, we were like, that's different.
00:45:46
Speaker
That scene was always trying to come up with, I feel like that metal scene over in the US at least, they were always trying to come up with long and just strange names. Totally. That was a theme in the early 2000s. Yeah, exactly. Sorry, you were saying before I interrupted you to ask you the irrelevant question of what was your band's name, what were you saying about being your band?
00:46:12
Speaker
I just remember like, you know, it's when you're thinking about and you're in a controlled environment, like, you can you can kind of keep your composure and scream in a way that's like not so rough on your throat, but like 100%. If you did shows and stuff, it just sounded like by the end, it sounded like you were just like squeezing a bag of gravel.
00:46:33
Speaker
Yeah. I actually really agree with that. Live, there is a technique I use so that I'm not actually screaming at full volume. But when I'm recording, I have to actually scream properly. Otherwise, it sounds so shit. You can hear it when a vocalist is faking it or when a vocalist actually is screaming properly. And it just sounds so much better when you do it properly.
00:46:57
Speaker
But still, somehow I never lose my voice. I've never lost my voice from screaming. That's great. Just got strong chords. Yeah, it's like just slucky, I guess.
00:47:08
Speaker
What got you into heavier music? I feel like everyone has like those, I mean, I probably won't, I don't know if it was like local or like, I know how the scene was working in the US as far as like when metal started taking on a more, it kind of hit a mainstream. Like you went from being like a kid who was different for liking it to feeling like, like, I mean, every band was just like you buy them at like a Hot Topic or something like that.
00:47:34
Speaker
I 100% agree with that and I had a similar experience. I grew up in a place in Victoria in Australia called Mornington. And Mornington is like a smallish town and it's like a coastal town. So it's like really beautiful. It's like known for like its beaches. So I grew up right near the beach and growing up there, it was like really like middle class, whitewash.
00:48:04
Speaker
like everyone there was just into like surfing and like being exactly the same. Like everyone had like, you know, long blonde hair and like going out, like hanging out on the beach. And I have an identical twin sister and we, me and my twin, we were just always the outcasts. We were outcasts of like our family. We were a bit of outcasts in school. We, like we had friends, but like we were always just different to them.
00:48:33
Speaker
You know, when you get to like your teen years and people want to like go to beach parties and drink and like experience all that, you know, I wanted to do that, but I always wanted to like listen to like different music. And I, with, with her, like me and her, we just, when we were about 13, we just discovered punk music and we just like had, um, we had to share a bedroom because my family didn't have much money and they, we didn't pay them for rooms in the house. So my twin sister and I always shared a room.
00:49:01
Speaker
And we would just lock ourselves in our room and listen to so many different punk records. We slowly got into really heavy metal. It was so great because we would share music with each other. And yeah, just having that and having her and having our own little world, it just really started to make us question
00:49:27
Speaker
Definitely religion because I was going to a religious high school, like Catholic high school. Catholicism is very vegan, Australia.
00:49:36
Speaker
the Irish convicts way back when. So it's like definitely the most exciting sect of Christianity. Do you think? No, it's so boring. It's the most boring. It's so boring. The weirdest thing about it is my mom and dad, like my dad was baptized when he was young because my dad was Slovenian. So Slovenian is like small Eastern European.
00:50:07
Speaker
place, but not many people know it for some reason. Actually, you guys didn't know what Slovenia is because Melania Trump is Slovenia, which is like the worst famous person to be Slovenian. It's a shame. We love her. Sorry. She's the best. Some people thought so.
00:50:30
Speaker
I hate her. Oh, my God. You know, it's so nice to be able to look towards the White House and see just like this picture of a biblical happy marriage. You know, that's that's what I love about them. Such great role models. Yeah. Yeah. No, just a happy, normal, healthy, functioning relationship. Exactly. I mean, you know, just the president is so great. Nobody's trapped. Nobody's crying for help to get out.
00:51:02
Speaker
Wait, I mean, our Prime Minister in Australia is like, no better than Trump. Yeah, we've heard some stories. Why not? But it's hard to know. Like, I feel like one of the things that's tough to know about, I mean, I guess every country, it's kind of hard to really know what's going on in the country. You're not living there, you're just hearing
00:51:24
Speaker
what's going on with their government from various news sources. But it seems like there are some similarities between what's going on over in Australia in the government and with the prime minister as we've kind of been experiencing over here the past five, six years. Yeah. It's just, I mean, it just from a personal viewpoint, it's just super frustrating in our country.
00:51:51
Speaker
that like the only thing that they care about is sport. So like the hypocrisy of like having like an AFL match with like 50,000 people being able to attend, like literally two weeks ago and someone in the crowd had COVID and then like, so it started like this whole thing again, whereas they're not allowing any live venues to like, you know, have any kind of music.
00:52:19
Speaker
Right. Why are they allowing football? Like we have like the AFL, which is like massive football thing in Australia. Why are they allowing the AFL to go ahead and not like a Metallica concert? Like what's the difference? Seriously. Right. That's crazy. They had the Australian Open, which is like the tennis tournament. It's like a really world famous tennis tournament that happens in Melbourne.
00:52:44
Speaker
They were like flying Serena Williams over, or like, you know, Nadal or any of those big players. Why are they flying them over? Why not? Like, honestly, like, like, why couldn't they fly over a band to play a big arena show? It's literally no difference. Yeah, that's why they just favor that. And like, yeah, as well as that, our minister is also like an evangelical Christian psychopath.
00:53:14
Speaker
That's our kin. That's the cloth we're cut from. Yeah, that's an X word. And you're welcome. Yeah, oh my god. So did you walk in like a cult? So that's a fun word. And it's not. Sorry, I'm sorry. No, no, it's not. OK, I mean, you take this wherever you want and you say whatever you want. We're not worried about that. But I'm also aged to their own with just saying,
00:53:43
Speaker
as a precursor, whatever people want to believe in, you believe in it. And I will never ever judge them before they believe it. It's just when they try to force their belief on other people. Yeah, which is also part of what is the, you know, the force to
00:53:59
Speaker
aspect of it. I mean, I wouldn't say it was a cult. It's really not a cult in the way that I grew up in it. Because everyone I know who's left it, their families didn't, well, some people did, but that's an individual problem. As a whole, people aren't excommunicated. Relationships aren't
00:54:17
Speaker
too damaged sometimes is like that level of disappointment. But overall, like, it's hard to call it a cult because you can at least in my I'm not if some people within evangelicalism are part of something that's more cult like my personal experience in it was not like that it was most of the time no one talks about it like everyone and my family and my in my in laws and everyone that I know who's still deeply part of it. I mean, they know that I'm even doing this, which was to
00:54:47
Speaker
just talk about what my experience with it was like and how I look at it now. And it just doesn't even come up in conversation. Everyone just kind of pretends like this doesn't exist and we don't even broach the subject. We mostly ignore religious sentiments in conversation. How is evangelical Christianity different from regular Christian? Well, it's regular Christian. That's a good question.
00:55:14
Speaker
pardon what's regular christianity are you talking like like catholicism like the catholic church yeah i guess so but i feel like you can be catholic and you can be christian yeah but i don't even understand the difference between that i just feel like maybe catholic has like the more like
00:55:30
Speaker
foreign church services. It's like here like so evangelicalism here is probably a little different than it is other places like here it takes on a really weird like nationalistic flavor
00:55:45
Speaker
where it's like God, guns and Donald Trump. That's kind of what evangelicalism has become here. I mean, it wasn't when we were kids, you know, Fox News and all of that stuff really fed that beast.
00:56:00
Speaker
But yeah, it's weird here. It's very tied into right-wing political views here. Yeah. And like Sam said, it's not something that people, even people who are deep in it, it's not something that they talk about a lot. They leave it to the institutions to communicate or to speak to the religious and faith aspects of things.
00:56:27
Speaker
political stuff is constant. It's just always a talking point. Yeah. And it does come hand in hand though, like especially like even with Catholicism, the way I was brought up, like obviously I wasn't anywhere near as like, you know, invested in the church is what you two have to be by the sounds of things. But my parents, because of where I grew up in Mornington,
00:56:51
Speaker
You either went to like the sort of, I don't know if I'm saying this in like an on the PC way, but there was sort of like the state school, which was kind of the like lower socioeconomic school, or there was the really private schools, or there was the middle school, which was like, you know, that's a good education, but it's Catholic. So we have to get our kids baptized so they can get into those schools. So my mom and dad only got, they only had me baptized so that they could send me to the middle school.
00:57:19
Speaker
My dad, as I was saying, he was Slovenian, so he was Catholic, as I think there's quite a big Catholic community there. But my mum wasn't really just at all. She's just like Aussie. She wasn't really just whatsoever. But as a part of going to school, you had to go to church, you had to go to mass, you had to say prayers and all of this. And even from a really young age,
00:57:46
Speaker
I remember just being like, I just don't, I don't believe this. And they'd be like, you have to go pray. And I'd just sit there and be in my head, I'd be like, I'm not praying. I'm not praying. We all did. Not me, not Sam. Sam was the kid who meant it.
00:58:05
Speaker
Yeah, depending on who you ask. It's hard for me to parse out, honestly. They don't want him. Not really. But I'm standing here with open arms. Like, come on out, bud.
00:58:18
Speaker
But again, each to their own, whatever floats your boat. I think there's something nice about having something to believe in. I was super invested. I went to college to get a Bible degree and stuff. What? Through my mid-20s, I was heavily invested. Jesus Christ. No pun intended. Literally.
00:58:44
Speaker
That's crazy. Don't you read the bylaw and say this is a lot of shit, though? Not back in the day, that's for sure. It's so boring as well. You could not pay me to read that shit now. In a way, I am happy, though, that I did study Catholicism because it's made me realize why I'm not that.
00:59:11
Speaker
and why I think it's going to shit it. Cause otherwise I like, you know, for me to sit here and just be like, Oh fuck, we're really drunk blah, blah, blah. Like I've been educated and therefore I have my reasons why I really don't like it. And a big, big, big reason for me is like how number one, it's really, really sexist church. Like even just going to mass clearly like women are just like, you know, seeing that I'm fucking heard.
00:59:42
Speaker
And second, like the homophobia surrounding the church. And that's just absolutely no-no for me. Any kind of prejudice or bigotry is just absolutely no-no in my books. And third, in Australia, there's a really dark undercurrent of priests and pedophilia. And there's been a lot of stuff that's come forward lately that's just really
01:00:10
Speaker
scary and disgusting and that, you know, everyone's like the church money, like people are being paid off to not say things. So that's a global Catholic policy. I think so. I mean, you know, I wouldn't know in America, but I would guess it would be. Oh, yeah. It blew up here a number of years ago. I mean, we were talking about like priests being like, oh, relocated to New
01:00:37
Speaker
churches just because it's been a problem and of course now within Catholicism you have a you have like this hierarchy right it's a high church so that I mean everything really is built up from like where wherever you go you could I mean I could go to some local Catholic Church in my town and that person's reporting to someone who's reporting to someone and you take that up the chain and eventually that person's reporting to Rome and then to the bishop I mean to that
01:01:04
Speaker
the Pope. So like, they do have like a structure set in place. So it's pretty, I think that's what's particularly scary and off putting is like, it has to float up to so many levels as like, but what we're seeing now is like in the evangelical church, evangelical, like Protestantism is basically like,
01:01:23
Speaker
they're all like self-run, self-managed in a lot of ways. You have a lot of non-denominational churches, but you have a lot of like denominations that report up. And unfortunately, we're starting to see a lot of shit like that come out within those churches too, where it's like sexual abuse, abuse of power. I mean, it's all the same fucking thing when you're dealing with institutions that are
01:01:49
Speaker
trying to disseminate a message where the stakes are really high. And that message simultaneously is telling you that if you're a Christian, it's going to change your life and make you a better person. So when you have the people at the top fucking up and fucking people, it's like you they want to like they cover it up for the sake of not letting one person's mistakes ruin it for everybody. But it just makes it so much worse. It's awesome. It makes me loath.
01:02:17
Speaker
the Catholic Church, like I hate it. Just keep your fingers out of people, you know? Exactly, though. It's actually, okay, so we talked to a guy from Australia. I don't remember what city he was from. He's Brisbane. Oh, yeah, yeah, Brisbane, yeah. So there's this guy named Brad Harker that's like a gay rights activist that grew up in the Mormon Church.
01:02:44
Speaker
That's crazy, wife and kids and everything. He sounds amazing. He's a cool guy. Okay, so that's what I was gonna ask you. Have you been to, the big thing that he did was Mardi Gras? Have you been to that? Yeah, I've never been to Mardi Gras but I have a lot, a lot, a lot of queer friends and we always, always go to gay bars every other weekend. I'm always with my bottle of ammo at a gay bar.
01:03:13
Speaker
Do you know what apple is? Or do you call it poppers? I don't call it that either. So let's keep going. I'm not sure what we're talking about. It's DVD cleaner. DVD cleaner? I haven't let that play enough.
01:03:29
Speaker
Anyway. What do they call that here? Is that like Whippets or something like that here? It's like a little bottle of Jungle Juice. You don't know what it is. Jungle Juice here is when you like mix a bunch of different like liquors and fucking shoot guns together. Don't drink this stuff. You die. But you sniff it and you get high for like two seconds.
01:03:49
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, so it's like it's a high and also something to do continually throughout the night. It's like keeps your hands busy at the bar. Yeah, I've never been to Mardi Gras, but I would love to go because I'm always partying out at gay bars with my friends all the time. Well, if you go, Brad's the one in feathers. He's got amazing outfits.
01:04:17
Speaker
I mean, they go to Mardi Gras all over the, well, not so much this year, but they would just go to Mardi Gras parties all over the world. And like, I mean, their outfits, him and his husband would create and like, there's always themes that they would pick. They're really cool. You got to Google them, like look them up after this. It's really awesome. I will. I will for sure.
01:04:37
Speaker
So for in your situation, it was probably a little unique in that like you weren't necessarily getting much of the faith push at home. But then you're in this institution where you're forced to. Exactly right. It was like, so at home, my mom and dad like my mom used to like
01:04:57
Speaker
laugh at me for having to go to church. She'd be like, oh, you go to church. And I'm like, you're the one who got me baptized. What are you talking about? How cool is your baptism? Do they do false immersion? They do. Imagine your little baby in a white, big, flowing dress, and they pour a cup of water on your hand?
01:05:18
Speaker
So it's like, so baptisms are like, it's like a Christian wet t-shirt contest is all. Yeah, exactly. But even though, why the fuck are you making a baby be baptized? You're not giving somebody an option.
01:05:36
Speaker
Okay, you are a baby. I thought you were saying it was when you were older. In that middle school, they were like, we'll get you in this school, so we'll just pour some water on you. Yeah, they had this planned strategically. Being in Mornington, they were like, we wanted to go to that school. So yeah, we were like little babies. There's a photo of a priest holding me and finding a thing of water on my head.
01:05:58
Speaker
And then I would, yeah, like have to go to maths all the time. And like at school, we had to like learn like religion as a subject. So again, like maths, English. I mean, you had RE, religious education, I think it was called. And I remember distinctly in high school, me and my twin sister and my best friend, we were like,
01:06:22
Speaker
the rebels who wanted to like slack off and like do a really easy religious class just to like get like our end to school you know like your final school just but we wanted just like a subject that was like super cruisy and like everyone in our year level did this religious class which was like
01:06:42
Speaker
kind of learning about religion in pop culture and watching movies and stuff. And the teachers really wanted more people to join this class called texts and traditions. And we were like, oh, we're fucking going to do texts and traditions because no one's doing it, so we're going to slap off. And we'll be cool and we'll do it. And when we got into the class, it was literally that. It was super gnarly, learning all this shit about the Bible. And I remember there was this test that we had to do. And I asked something along the lines,
01:07:12
Speaker
Can science prove that, you know, Jesus never existed or something? Like some question about like science versus religion. And I literally wrote my answer. I remember I was like, absolutely science can prove that that wasn't true. Like, you know, the world wasn't created by God. You know, all that shit about how they don't believe there was dinosaurs or whatever.
01:07:39
Speaker
And I'm guessing you got some points for that answer. Yeah. And I got into so much trouble and they're like, how dare you say that? Like God was real and God created the earth and there's proof and this and that. And I was like, what the fuck is going on? Like I was, even then I was like, this is so ridiculous. Like I'm not, I don't understand this. Like I don't believe it. And then how can you force that opinion on somebody if they're questioning it?
01:08:09
Speaker
And also, I was right, and they were wrong. Went to the college that Casey and I went to, Christian College, that's where we met. And that's where I got my Bible degree that is utterly worthless in the real world, in case anyone was wondering. What would you do? Did you want to get raised?
01:08:30
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't even want to. The only reason I stuck with it was because I was very immersed and I was very like, this is what I want to do. Like, this is what's interesting to me. And I'll just do that. And I had like on my like my first year in the dorms, I had this whole like, like breakdown on my dorm about like, what am I doing? Like, there's no chance that this is going to do anything for me. I can't
01:08:54
Speaker
But fear of failure and trying something new kicked in and I just doubled down on my religion degree and have not used it since. I didn't really have a lot of intentions with it, which is also interesting that I wasn't checked on that more. So what are your plans?
01:09:16
Speaker
If they asked, I was probably like, I don't know. God will provide is probably something a lot of people like other people who studied with you. What did they do with it? Most of them were trying to be pastors and yeah, okay is a pastor is like a priest kind of yeah, but for not Catholics, it's like it it's like yeah, I mean you could I mean really I could just be like I want to be a pastor and I could just go start a church.
01:09:44
Speaker
And if I made it trendy and cool enough, I could probably sucker some people into doing it. Whoa. I go to your church. Provided there's snacks.
01:09:55
Speaker
So you finished it, and then you just did nothing with the Bible degree. Yeah, nothing. I mean- Did you learn a lot from the Bible? So this is what I was going to get at. No, not at our school. Our school was shit. Look it up. It's called Liberty University, and they are getting raked over the coals right now because they are, I mean, Title IX violations, covering up sexual abuse, like, I mean, the shit that they've done- There's a whole podcast about it. Yeah. I mean, the shit that's going on, the president-
01:10:23
Speaker
The president who's like, oh, I'm a good Christian guy was like, you know, he had like him and his wife had this relationship with some pool boy where he would just videotape her hand, fucking her wife, his wife. And it just got like, I mean, shady business deals profiting off of a nonprofit. It's really fucked up. So that's what's going on there. And that's where we graduated from. And it's really embarrassing to put that on a resume. But he was tied at the hip to Trump.
01:10:48
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Oh, so of course it ended that way then. Yeah. But so the school we went to just kind of going back to what you were saying about what you were taught, we're talking a college, right? We had to take a class called creation studies. And it was all about how the world was created. Yeah. Yeah. You would have loved it. Six literal days. Six literal in college.
01:11:13
Speaker
They say that there's no Darwin dinosaurs. Are my true friends? There's segments that believe that. Our school didn't endorse that, but there's some wacky theories. My school growing up, because I went to a Christian school like most of my undergrad,
01:11:31
Speaker
And, uh, or whatever you call it elementary, junior high high school. And my school taught that the earth was like 6,000 years old and that, uh, it was originally, uh, surrounded by a canopy of water that kept, kept it at a, like a perfect temperature for things growing and stuff. And that's how dinosaurs could exist. And then when we were.
01:11:55
Speaker
Yeah. When Noah's Ark happened, the water canopy fell and flooded the earth and killed all the dinosaurs. This was in my school. I actually told you that. Yes. You said like yours was a religion class. Like mine, the religion part was in every class. It was everything. Everything was based around it. Your science class, your social studies, your history. Your history in English. Oh, yeah. That is a box. We had a
01:12:24
Speaker
We had a similar vibe, not so religious, but with like the way that they explained that like Australia started, because, you know, like we're obviously when like the first fleet came to Australia, they were from like, you know, Europe, like the UK, and they came and they
01:12:50
Speaker
completely like took over Australia, which already had our indigenous people who were on the land. But like Europeans are pretty good at that. Yeah, and it's absolutely disgusting what they did to our First Nations people.
01:13:10
Speaker
And it's just horrific and not okay the way that First Nations people were treated in our country. This is their land. I'm speaking right now on stolen land. And in school, they just watched over that so much and just spoke about how Captain Cook was this great person who founded Australia. And there was very little indigenous education. It's so wrong when you think about
01:13:39
Speaker
You're teaching these little kids that, but they don't grow up to think, hang on, wait a minute. We live on stolen land. We should acknowledge this. There is more acknowledgement now, which is great. It's really coming to the forefront now, but growing up, it was not like that. They were just teaching little kids.
01:14:01
Speaker
like, oh, this is how Australia started. And they didn't talk about the massacres and the stolen land and the stolen generation of children being stolen from their parents. Like it is a horrific issue. Australian history is disgusting. It's an embarrassment. And we live, I'm talking on stolen land right now and I acknowledge
01:14:24
Speaker
my hours past present and emerging and that's how we all should be because the way these people are being treated is disgraceful and they need to teach us in schools just like they need to stop teaching that the world was whatever they were telling you that it was in the
01:14:40
Speaker
In a warm water or something. In a water bubble. A poor living in a bubble. In my school books, we actually did the Native Americans a service by bringing them the gospel. They actually owe us a debt of gratitude. That's how my school was framed.
01:15:04
Speaker
You know, correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't the native population of Madagascar, weren't they completely wiped out? Oh, my God. I don't know. I was just saying I was just listening to a podcast, but I shouldn't. I should talk to it. I mean, I'm secondhand information, but so.
01:15:24
Speaker
Your school was it was there a high percentage of the kids at your school that were like you, they were just there because their parents wanted them there. Or did you have a lot of true believers? Um, a bit of a mixed bag, not knowing when you're as hardcore as your school by the sounds of it, but, um, 20 people in it. So yeah, 40, really? Oh my God, kindergarten through 12th grade.
01:15:54
Speaker
Oh my God, that's so cute. That's tiny. Feels cute now. Yeah, I was on a mixed bag of people who either believed in or didn't, but everyone was to some extent brainwashed to be like, oh yeah, God is real. Like we go to, like we said during school, sometimes we had to go to the church because the school had like a church or like a chapel connected to it. And we go to the chapel.
01:16:23
Speaker
they'd be a priest then you don't have to wait your turn and you'll have to go into the confession booth with the priest and they'd be like so what have you done wrong lately and you don't have to like sit there and be like sorry father yeah there's a whole speech and you're like
01:16:39
Speaker
Forgive me father for I've seen. Not even Catholic. It shows up in a lot of our movies. If there's a movie based in Boston, it's gonna have Catholic ties like The Departed or some shit like that. Usually if you're dealing with something like The Departed, you probably go into the confessional and then shoot the priest in the head to the other side.
01:17:03
Speaker
Some element of violence going on if it's a Boston-based movie. What he's talking about is, like, Catholicism is so boring. The only upside is that they get all of the horror movies. Yeah. They're all, like, Catholic-tied. Totally. They got boot-bocks, things. There were nuns and shit as well in my, like, primary school. Like, nuns are sort of, like, in the building, kind of. And, yeah, we'd have to, like, say these, like, confessionals to the priest.
01:17:33
Speaker
And then I literally like would not be able to think of things I'd done wrong because I was kind of a good kid. And so I'd just make shit up and I'd be like, oh, I got into a fight with my mom. And then they'd be so mean. And they'd be like, how dare you do that? And you get like, like totally chastised for like admitting like it was a lie anyway, but like saying that like you did something remotely wrong. And then you have to sit there like an hour on your knees and pray.
01:18:02
Speaker
And I was like, what the fuck? So they were like, so they literally just laid into you in the confessional. Yeah. I thought like the confessional was so like, I thought you could walk into a confessional and be like, I cheated on my wife. I beat my kids. I went to the strip club and then they'd be like, all right, say, uh, this is a safe space. Yeah. It was like, that's so bad. And depending how bad.
01:18:31
Speaker
you were that determined how many Hail Marys you had to say after your confession. So you'd have to sit there and say like 20 Hail Marys if you stole something from the canteen or whatever. How much was it for fighting with your mom? I reckon I got like 40. I didn't even need to made up five.
01:18:53
Speaker
How much do you get for making shit up? You probably at least got 10 for making shit up. Did you ever try to get a line? I'm just kidding. I take it back. That was a lie. The next week you go in, you're like, I lied about getting in a fight with my mom. I'll just come clean on that. To be fair, you probably lied about how many Hail Marys you did too, didn't you? 100%.
01:19:19
Speaker
And they made us do, I don't know if it's the same with Christianity, but you had your reconciliation and your communion, and you had steps that you had to go through to eat that bread that tastes like ice cream cones. It does taste like ice cream cones.
Childhood Religious Rituals
01:19:43
Speaker
But that really is a big part of my upbringing, like, oh my God, have you done your communion?
01:19:48
Speaker
growing up in Mornington was a really, really big part of being a kid. They made it a really big thing. So at that stage, in my younger years, not many people were questioning what was going on, because you just thought this was a part of becoming an adult, I suppose.
01:20:04
Speaker
Right. Yeah. It's almost like a bar mitzvah or something. If you're Jewish, like, even if you're not, don't particularly care that much about it. A lot of my family was Catholic and we would go to like, I remember going to my cousin's first communion or before that you have your confirmation or something like that. I think confirmation. That's the other one. That's the one.
01:20:21
Speaker
I went to a couple of family confirmation parties and then they would have their first communion. Yeah, it's like a whole big thing. But I always felt cheated because it was like, I didn't get that. And my family would bring a card with money in it. And it's like, I would have liked that. I would have liked the first communion. So you didn't have the English school, you didn't have none of that stuff.
Feeling Left Out at Family Events
01:20:45
Speaker
Well, no, because I was homeschooled. Do you guys do homeschooling in Australia? Some people do, but... Yeah.
01:20:52
Speaker
Oh, so you were homeschooled. Yeah. And that's because the alternative was public school and they would teach about evolution and not our Christian history, which isn't real. That's the pretend history that you get when you're Christian.
Homeschooling and Controversial Teachings
01:21:11
Speaker
the dinosaurs. No, it's it's more like it's a lot like what you were talking about when the way that like like the history will get us. Our forefathers came here to establish a Christian nation and they came here to seek religious freedom. And they'll basically state that the whole purpose of this entire American experiment was to create something Christian. And the Holocaust didn't happen. Yeah, there are some Holocaust. I think I
01:21:41
Speaker
I had never met a Holocaust denier. I don't think I have either. Is that not a thing there? You guys don't have Holocaust deniers?
01:21:51
Speaker
There's like a growing group of people here that think that the Holocaust didn't happen. Oh, my God, that is in the seat. It's all propaganda. It's like you can sell any dumb viewpoint to a willing group of people right now. Yeah. Like the flat earthers. Yep. There's another good one. That's another fascinating one. I think those groups are very related. I feel like if you're in one, chances are you're in another.
01:22:18
Speaker
We can put the anti-vaxxers in there too, shall we? I'm okay
Questioning Religious Norms
01:22:25
Speaker
with that. We might drop a listener or two, but after that.
01:22:30
Speaker
Was the were the were the nuns like were they not because I feel like I hear these stories about Catholic school and the nuns just being so like some of them being awful were they they I never had a personal experience with any of the nuns I read the priests for me were the really bad ones they're really nasty um and I also just that whole thing like being a nun or a priest like again you know each to their own but come on like
01:22:58
Speaker
You can't ever have sex with anybody again. Yeah, nobody wants that. That's... I don't buy that. That's like, feels like why we deal with so much shit. It's like... That's the thing, I was like, I'm so nasty to everyone. Give them a pass. At least hire them like a sex worker once a year. Exactly. I just don't like masturbating.
01:23:21
Speaker
It's easier to repent from having sex with a sex worker once a year than it is from sexually assaulting somebody. I agree with you completely. Forget about something. Do that. The nuns weren't really there. That was always up in these convents, like the school that I went to, the primary school that I went to was like an old convents, non-convents, and the nuns still weaved up there.
01:23:46
Speaker
And there was this like religious stuff everywhere, like big statues of like Mary, but like people would always draw all over her face.
01:23:59
Speaker
Wow. The only love about kids is that no matter where you go, they're the same. And if you just put something important in front of them, they're gonna fuck with it. And they think it's so funny. And everywhere you go, their reaction's the same from the establishment. It's like, I can't believe these kids would be so disrespectful. It's like, oh my God, they gave Mary a Hitler mustache.
01:24:21
Speaker
Of course they did. You shouldn't have put it here. Yeah, I remember she was holding her hands out like that. And people would always like snap their hands off and stuff. Oh my God.
Diverse Bible Perspectives
01:24:36
Speaker
And I just remember hating reading the Bible. Like it was the most boring thing I've ever read in my life. And all of it, I was like, this is a load of shit.
01:24:48
Speaker
I read it. I read it. I love this. This is fun for me, because I read it intentionally. Like, I would go on. I would sit in my bed at night. It's the same Bible. Like, would we have read the same Bible? The Catholic Bible has, like, the Apocrypha, which is, like, a few different books that are added into it. But otherwise, you're dealing with- You guys get the bonus director's cut. Yeah, it's the director's cut.
01:25:12
Speaker
But it's basically like a lot of the rings that I spent five hours of rest of three hours. Exactly. That's exactly that. But it's still like the Hebrew Bible and then like the new the Christian New Testament and then the Catholic Bible had the Apocrypha, which was like Maccabees and the Book of Wisdom and a bunch of others that I don't know because I wasn't required. It wasn't required reading for us Protestants. I haven't read it in years. But is it like
01:25:40
Speaker
One bloke tells his side of the story, and then the other dude tells his side of the story. Some of it. I hear descriptions of it. Luke will be like, this happened. And then David will be like, this actually happened. And then they kind of tell their sides of the story.
01:25:59
Speaker
Sure. It's a lot. It's weird. I mean, it's hard to because it's hard to explain because every almost every book was written by different people. And then there were like editors and redactors that put together stories that were told. Like, it's not like they just wrote these. Really? Yeah, no one just wrote these down. They were like, they were stories that were told for generations that eventually got written down.
01:26:24
Speaker
And then after they were written down by various people, then you would have editors and redactors bring multiple traditions and stories together and squish them in. It's not like the cut and dry piece of literature that were in their eye. It sounds like you too. They didn't teach us that.
01:26:47
Speaker
That's what I actually still pay attention to is because I actually find it very interesting in the way that you look at. It's almost like a 3,000 year old history of the way that people have perceived God, their place in the world, and how they interpret their relationship to others over 3,000 years. And I think that's interesting. And I think that if you approach it that way, there's something you can
01:27:13
Speaker
I think there's like, it's something you can glean from it. I don't think it's required in that it that should have that that that needs to matter to anybody that does like in the same way as like reading The Odyssey. Yeah, yeah. In some ways. No, I hear I hear I get that. And like, you know, as I've said, like, if people believe in God, then cool, they can believe in God.
Religion and Colonialism Critique
01:27:36
Speaker
Not depending on me. It's just like,
01:27:38
Speaker
Don't fucking try and tell me it's legal. It's not cool to use that as an excuse to take a boat to a new country and kill everybody who lived there before you. Exactly. Maybe not. We always have to do it in primary school. We have to do reenactments of Jesus being on the cross. When I think about it, that's really weird. That's a whack.
01:28:06
Speaker
getting little kids to dress up as Jesus and carry a giant cross. And then tell him he was murdered for their sons. Yeah. This is because of you. You're talking to a six-year-old and you're like, do you see what you did? You did this. Christian cosplay is so weird. Christian cosplay. That's exactly what it was. Little kids literally pretending to be the Virgin Mary.
Purity Culture and Marriage Experiences
01:28:33
Speaker
And come on. The Virgin Mary.
01:28:38
Speaker
I was unintentionally the Virgin Mary for most of my life. We were both the Virgin.
01:28:45
Speaker
Oh my God. Yeah. I didn't think of that. I get to be the virgin. We thought about it a lot. Are you both married? Can I ask you both married? And still virgins. And still virgins. Yeah. No, you're not. As the Lord decreed. We get to jerk off once a month. So you're both married. So when you got married, that was the best time you ever had sex? For both. Yeah.
01:29:15
Speaker
We made it. We did it. It would have been pretty bad the first time then. There was a lot of buildup, that's for sure. It lasted about two seconds is what I'm getting. Oh yeah, for sure. We call that being a one pump jump. Yeah. That's so interesting.
01:29:41
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's a big thing. I was 20. Yeah, you ask whatever you want. I was 22. 21. Oh my god. It was three days after I turned 21. And so 12 years later, still married two kids. Well, both of us. Yeah, I mean, it worked out for us. But we have plenty of friends that got divorced a year and a half later when they realized they were because some people like that's the thing as well. Like some people you might
01:30:10
Speaker
find attractive and then there's no sexual compatibility.
01:30:14
Speaker
Yeah. That's a big thing where we came, like the world that we came from has, it's called purity culture. And it just, it kind of like trashes a woman's sexuality for, you know, their entire life. So it's like, don't have sex if you do your trash. If you do your, that's, it's funny when you mentioned a band, like bands using the name damaged goods. That's what we called women who had sex before they were married.
01:30:41
Speaker
Oh my God. Yeah, it's a very sexist construct. It messed up a lot of people. So then you're like, okay, you can't have sex and you can't be sexual. And then, uh, then you get married and now you just have to like open, like just spread your legs for an animal to just attack. And then you're like, that's really terrible. Can I ask, are you allowed to use contraception?
01:31:09
Speaker
Yeah, Protestants don't have an issue with that. Catholics have an issue with that. Yeah. Catholics are very anti, you know. I used to date a guy years ago and he was from a very Catholic family. He grew up in like the country, like about three hours out of like the main city in Melbourne.
01:31:28
Speaker
And his family was super, super Catholic and he was the youngest of 10 kids. Jesus. His parents didn't use what he called them rubbers. I think pulling out's a sin too. What's a sin? I think pulling out's a sin too. I don't know. There's some groups that take it a long ways.
01:31:52
Speaker
Is it like bad to like, do like, gnarly sex positions and stuff? Or is that like, probably I don't even know if they acknowledge that those exist. There was no talk of like, sorry for people like, come on. That's a workout very good for most people. No, there's a lot of where the might be the exception. We very much like, Sam and I both only
01:32:16
Speaker
dated one person too. We married the first person that we were in a relationship with. That's so cute. How long was it together before you got married?
01:32:26
Speaker
Uh, so I think we started day when I was 17. Yeah. Yeah. 17 to 20. So yeah. That's a good amount of time. Yeah. I mean, it is, you know, if you were like 30 and you married somebody at 34, it's definitely strange when you're getting married three days after you turn 21, people are like, you sure you want to do that? You're like, yeah, I know. Yeah. I mean, again, it worked out. But a lot of people who knew really didn't.
01:32:55
Speaker
Um, was the weddings really religious? Oh yeah. Uh, my look back on mine with a heavy degree of embarrassment. It was like, no drinking, no dancing, no drinking. I love that. You would have made it as an evangelical. I don't think I can tell you one thing. I would have been the most damaged goods of all.
01:33:25
Speaker
I do like the idea though of like putting together some sort of a Kickstarter and sponsoring like a Nikki Brumman abridged Bible.
Education Systems Compared
01:33:35
Speaker
You read a chapter and then you sum it up in one sentence, however you feel, and then we'll put out like the new Brumman standard edition. I love that. I go straight to fucking hell where I belong.
01:33:52
Speaker
I have one more question about your school system. You said you have like, it sounds like your state school is like what are our equivalent to public school. And then you said like, you have your middles, like other road, which is like your Catholic school. And then you have like a tier above that. The private schools. Do you have to pay for the Catholic school or you just have to be Catholic?
01:34:18
Speaker
No, you have to pay. But I don't know how it's different the way the private schools are like.
01:34:27
Speaker
the non-religious ones, but they're so expensive, like the rich people. That's how the Catholics get you. They're like, we know most people can't afford that. We'll just compete, but at a lower cost, and then we'll just get all the middle class. That must be it. That must be the draw card. Yeah, because my parents still paid school fees, but it wasn't like,
01:34:53
Speaker
super expensive to go there. But it was still a nice school. It looked really nice. What's the appeal? In the US, the appeal of a religious institution as far as school goes is for religious parents, but your parents really weren't, and it wasn't that important to them. As your state schools, do they really consider that a poor education? Yeah, and just a bit more rough as well, which is just really judgmental and stupid because
01:35:22
Speaker
I have peeps of friends who went to public schools and they're fine. Interesting. But yeah, I think the draw card for them was like, oh, it's a nice school and they have to wear a uniform and they'll, you know, get the best kind of education. And yeah, they'll have to go to church all the time. And that's fine. Yeah, that'll make you a better person. Yeah. Someday, if they study hard, they'll be a deathpop vocalist. Yeah.
01:35:54
Speaker
Hey, when did you like hit the road with music? As in like when did I start my own tour?
Nikki's Early Music Career
01:36:04
Speaker
Were you in like a bunch of different bands before you joined Pagan? Yeah, so before Pagan I was in one band that I spoke about briefly before that we were called Little Lamb and the Rose Marys and we were like a riot girl kind of band.
01:36:18
Speaker
And we would play a lot of shows, but we never went on proper tour. And then sort of an overlap Kagan started. And at the start, I was like, I really want to do like acting stuff still and band stuff, like just any kind of performance.
01:36:36
Speaker
Pagan slowly started taking over my life that I actually didn't have time to really commit to acting stuff anymore. I'll still do a little bit, like I just do like some TV commercials and stuff sometimes. But I was like, oh my God, this is becoming really busy. And we started maybe about two years into playing Pagan, we started touring really, really regularly. So we just started doing Australian tours. And Australian tours are hilarious because Australia is so big, but all of the major cities are so spread out.
01:37:06
Speaker
So you'll be like, oh yeah, we're going on tour, and we should just do three places. It's like a massive tour. But yeah, so we started doing mainly the East Coast in Australia, and then we got an offer to go to the UK and Europe, and things really started picking up. And we did really well over there. Even our first tour was fucking amazing.
01:37:33
Speaker
We were selling out shows and people really enjoyed it and we'd make heaps on merch. We'd never seen people go that crazy before. Seen Australia people, they're cool. It takes a lot for them to really get into the band. Whereas in Europe, you just step on stage and people are going nuts, jumping off the stage, buying
01:37:58
Speaker
thousands of euros worth of merch. It's so fun. Wow. And even the tour life in Europe is the best. Like the venues, they get funding for like to like look after bands when they come to their venue. So they, they like meals for you. They like give you like, so like you rock up, you've got like a fridge of like the best fucking German beers and then your rider.
01:38:27
Speaker
So like we'd always have like red wine and like, you know, some kind of like spirit, like whiskey or something. And then you've got like, I'm talking like lights and plates full of like salads and like vegan meat or real meat and cheeses and stuff like that.
01:38:43
Speaker
And then you see me and they're going, cool, this is what we're gonna eat tonight. And then they're like, oh, dinner's coming. And then they make you a whole hot meal as well. God damn. They're so hospitable. I mean, playing in the UK is exactly like playing in Australia. They're like, here's two drink cards. Enjoy. But playing in Europe is so amazing. And as well, just the experience from living in Australia, you get in the car, you're in the car for a couple of hours and you're in a new country.
01:39:12
Speaker
Like it's just mind blowing like all, you know? Yeah. And so like we went back to Europe a couple of times and then sadly the guys in my band, they just weren't feeling it anymore.
Band Breakup and Personal Loss
01:39:23
Speaker
They kind of wanted to commit to other things in their life and they split up.
01:39:27
Speaker
And it was just a really bad time to break up because we were kind of on the cusp of doing bigger things. And everyone was super shocked. I mean, in hindsight, I'm stoked we broke up. But at the time I was absolutely devastated because it had kind of become my identity as well, being in that event. I was really, which is kind of a dangerous game to play, I always say now.
01:39:56
Speaker
Everything I did, even like everything I post on social media, my whole identity was being in a band, like everything I had to look forward to. And then when I lost the band, I felt like I had nothing. Just rudderless. Yeah, two weeks after Pagan broke up, nobody knew we'd broken up. We broke up probably like September 2019 and we didn't make the announcement until January 2020.
01:40:22
Speaker
like two, oh sorry, it would have been August 2009, two weeks later, my dad died. And so like, I just lost the band. And then I lost my dad and my mum was terminally ill with ovarian cancer. And then a few months later,
Joining Blood Command
01:40:41
Speaker
I got the offer to join blood command. And while it was amazing, I was just like going through like all these big changes in my life. And, um, my mum died a few months after that. So my mum really freaked me. My mum died one day short of my dad's one year anniversary of his death. Oh my God. Wow. Yeah. And my ex, my boyfriend who I was living at the time broke up with me about three months before my mum died.
01:41:11
Speaker
really nice guy um and yeah so i just like all this like trauma and loss and the one and it sounds really cheesy but like it really is true the one with them was blood command and like it's just so beautiful like i say to Ingva the guitarist who um like poached me i say to him i'm like you literally saved my life like without without him i would have
01:41:40
Speaker
very, very, very likely being incredibly depressed. I mean, who knows what? I was incredibly suicidal. And then with Blood Command, like it gave me hope again, it gave me something to look forward to. I guess, like going full circle, maybe that's how some people are about religion, you know? Gives them hope, gives them something to believe in, whatever. That saved me with Blood Command, like it gave me that, it gave me something to live for.
01:42:05
Speaker
And it's just a beautiful thing.
Music's Hope and Religion
01:42:08
Speaker
And we always say that we saved each other because he was also really depressed at the time and really unhappy with the band and stuff. And then we've found this new thing to help each other. And it's really awesome. Wow. And neither of you considered accepting Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?
01:42:27
Speaker
Fuck no. I'm sorry. I know. He's always in there with open arms. That's like sensory overload though. That's so many things all at once. Sorry. I feel like I just like blurted that out at both of you like, holy shit. No, that's huge. I can't imagine. Yeah. It was really, really, really the worst time of my entire life. I can say that with
01:42:55
Speaker
with certainty, but it's given me this resilience I never thought I had. And it also made me realize what I wanted out of life. So the minute that Ingva, like he tried messaging me on Instagram, but I'm really terrible at checking that out box on Instagram, which is probably where you guys messaged me
Passion with Blood Command
01:43:18
Speaker
originally. And I probably took days to get back to you because I never check it.
01:43:22
Speaker
Just because I get like people writing random shit in there and I just can't be bothered with it sometimes. And he'd messaged me on there. I never replied to him. So he like found me on Facebook and was like, Hey, I've been trying to get in touch with you, but you're impossible to get in touch with. I have a proposition. And the minute he was like, will you be the new singer? And I was like, yes. Like I didn't even pause. I was like, yes.
01:43:45
Speaker
This is what I want. And then it made me so driven to learn all the songs and make the album the best fucking thing it can possibly be. I'm so proud that I used that grief to make something really good for myself. So I was like, I'm going to turn my life around. I'm going to make it fucking good. And I'm going to be stoked with life. I have my bad days. Don't get me wrong. But Vlog Command, it showed me what I really, really want.
01:44:13
Speaker
Yeah, I'm so stoked and so privileged to be able to be doing it too and that my life has been able to be turned around. That's amazing. By the time you're able to actually get together with them in person, hit the road, you guys are going to be ready to stomp on the gas, I'm sure too. I know. Exactly, exactly. Have you been able to physically connect with them? You haven't been together
01:44:37
Speaker
all of you have once at all. Wow. We've done like, just like, you know, Zoom or Skype calls like that, but we've never met. Wow. So was he a fan of Pagan?
Serendipitous Band Connection
01:44:51
Speaker
Is that how- Yeah, he was a really big fan of Pagan. Weirdly, I was interviewed for, I don't know if you guys know, it's called Karan. It's like a heavy music magazine.
01:45:00
Speaker
So we'll interview for Karang. I was interviewed for Karang when I was in Pagan and they asked me my top five songs of 2018, I think. And Casey, I think you said you love cult drugs. Love cult drugs. Yeah, Blood Command's album from 2017. So I was listening to cult drugs at the moment and I put the title track Cult Drugs. I put that as one of the top five songs in his Karang article.
01:45:30
Speaker
And I wrote and I went, you know, it's funny, we're kind of like a heavy version of Blood Command. I love this band, blah, blah, blah. And Invo read the article and he was like, who's Pagan from Melbourne, Australia? What the fuck? And he checked us out and he's told me that the day he checked us out, he goes, why isn't this girl singing for Blood Command? She's the voice I want. So the minute he heard the cake and it split up, he's like, we want you.
01:45:59
Speaker
And like, luckily, their previous singer was she just found out she was pregnant, she was going to be leaving the band anyway. And, you know, I think there are a few band issues that I won't go into. But I think all worked out really well timing wise for both of us. That's that's awesome. Is there a more Norwegian name than Ingvar? Um,
01:46:21
Speaker
That's a good question. I don't, I feel like probably not. That's what I conjure in my head. Like if I hear Ingvar, I'm like, Oh, I imagine him eating some sort of pickled fish on a boat.
Norwegian Black Metal Journey
01:46:32
Speaker
A side note about the, um, them being from Norway as well, which I always tell people. I am obsessed with Norway and I have been for many, many years. When I, you know, in my early twenties, twenties, I got very, very heavily into knowledge and black metal.
01:46:51
Speaker
And when I was, I think 22 or 23, so pretty much to this day, 10 years ago, like maybe give or take three or four weeks. So 10 years ago, in 2011, I went to Norway and I did my own like black metal tour. I went and saw all of like the sites where like mayhem started. I'm like, I went to Helvetia Records where the building was. And I went to like, see like Euronimus' grave and all this stuff.
01:47:20
Speaker
And I went to Bergen as a part of my trip. And I said to my sister who I was traveling with, I said to her, I am one day gonna live in Bergen. I love this place. It's my favorite place I've ever been. Fast forward 10 years, I'm after drawing a fucking Norwegian band. Are you gonna move to Bergen? I won't.
01:47:46
Speaker
I could definitely see you torch in a church too. Yeah! That's why I love Norwegian Black Metal Zone because of the, you know, like anti-religious stuff, but it's just cool. Although, having gone to Norway and seeing how beautiful the churches are just because of how old they are, it did actually make me feel sad. There's a lot of them though. Yeah, true. Yeah, that's the way. Just don't do too many. Just don't burn down too many in a little bit, okay.
01:48:13
Speaker
Speaking of the anti-religious sentiment, one of the things that stuck out to me is you like upside-down crosses in your visual aids.
Anti-Religious Band Aesthetics
01:48:26
Speaker
Obviously, your experience is with Catholicism. But the anti-religious sentiments are mostly related to that, obviously. Was that something that was
01:48:42
Speaker
I'm trying to think of the right way to what I'm trying to even ask but like what sparked that is like as opposed to just like not even giving a shit. What was it was like I really want to move into this type of iconography for our shows and bring this into a part of it.
01:49:00
Speaker
It's annoying because it's not really like an interesting story. I think we just aesthetically really like the look of it. And even with the name pagan, it's just a great name and it is a bit anti-religious, but we're not Satanists or anything like that. But it also goes hand in hand with heavy metal and it just looks great, like the hot pink neon cross on stage. It's fucking dope.
01:49:21
Speaker
Yeah. When you had the neon one, that was pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. We used to like love the better. I had it. It hasn't like road case, but it was. But yeah, we, we never, none of us were super like into Satanism or anything. We just were anti-religious and we were just like, it's really good logo to have. And it just creates a place for people who
01:49:49
Speaker
feel like they're out past, they can calm and feel safe here and you know.
01:49:54
Speaker
It's just, yeah, it was very much just like an aesthetic thing we've taken for sure. Yeah. I think by like the obvious, uh, like, um, things that you drop, it's almost more like an anti-establishment sort of thing, like, uh, that punk mentality for sure. Overturning sacred institutions. Exactly. But also like having some knowledge in Catholicism, I also think it's fucking stupid. So I do like to take the peers.
01:50:23
Speaker
It's fun to like, erk. It's fun to just flip symbols and use them to erk the people that use them. Especially that punk mentality of like, just burn it all down, burn everything down. Exactly. Even being a woman in a band. Yeah, like even being a woman in a band, that's fucking punk as fuck. Like really when I was doing it, there weren't a lot of women in Melbourne doing it.
01:50:52
Speaker
And it was that even created such a safe space for a lot of women and queer people to come and feel like I'm feeling somewhere.
Women in Heavy Music
01:51:04
Speaker
There's still not a lot of women doing it. I mean, when you look at heavy music across the, well, I mean, it's even given the style when you're dealing with music that's screaming, just men having the deeper voices, they dominate the field. But even outside of vocalists, you don't see a lot of women
01:51:24
Speaker
It's getting more diverse though. There's like some, some big names now, like Courtney LaPlant and Book of Niles. Book of Niles, Australian. Yeah. Yeah. She's, um, I know Booker. Yeah. She was on this like reality TV show called Maps. Married to her site. Yeah. So she's become like a reality TV star.
01:51:46
Speaker
She's a very lovely guy. She's very beautiful. So good on her. But still, I was like, what the hell? Yeah, it's crazy. So do you guys you got a full album recorded and we recorded. Yeah. So we figured out, you know, I couldn't get over there, even though like I'm most likely going to be there at the end of the year, but I couldn't get over that at the time. So we.
01:52:11
Speaker
recorded with an engineer here, Colin, or he does a lot of medical kind of bands, but he has also worked with bands in Europe. So I thought he would be the perfect person to work with. So basically I was in his studio with him and then we set up a Skype session with Ingva who was producing
01:52:35
Speaker
And, you know, I'm wearing headphones like what I'm wearing now. And I can hear Callan in my, in one ear and in the other. And then we were able to record an album literally on the other sides of the world. The only hurdle was that Callan only works 10 to 6, like 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
01:52:56
Speaker
So Ingva had to do 2 a.m. till 10 a.m. sessions. That's rough. That's the only really difficult thing about it. Everything else, it was so fucking seamless and we're all stoked with it. Like, yeah, I think it's going to be it's going to be a really great thing for Blonde Command. And it's a bit nerve wracking for me because people haven't seen the more pop side of my vocals.
01:53:24
Speaker
I'm a little bit scared, but it's like good scared. I put in a lot of work, so I don't have anything to feel regretful about or I feel really proud with what we did. We first single is awesome. I've listened to it a bunch of times. Thank you. Thank you so much. Very excited to hear more. Do you guys have a release date yet for the album?
01:53:46
Speaker
Uh, we do as just not being announced yet, but yeah, it will be coming soon. Gotcha. Okay.
Nikki's Current Music Interests
01:53:53
Speaker
I, I'm always curious to know like kind of on a closing note here. Um, I feel like what's your favorite this or that of the other is kind of like a.
01:54:04
Speaker
is kind of lame because it's hard to conjure and stuff. If you're going to look at your Spotify or whatever, what are you listening to the most right now? What's some stuff that comes to mind, like bands that you love at the moment? Yeah. Weirdly, I've been listening to quite a bit of pop music, which I always love a bit of pop. One of my favorite pop artists at the moment is Lil Nas X. Oh, my God. Oh, yeah. Make him wave. He's a dream guest here.
01:54:34
Speaker
I love him. We're not honest right now. That's fine. Have you guys seen his video that he dropped like this week? Yeah. Like fucking bad ass. He's incredible. Like how amazing. And even how he came out when he's single, like didn't he come out when he's like EP or single or something, he got to number one and he's just like, Hey everyone, I'm gay. Sit on this.
01:54:58
Speaker
Yeah. That guy fucking is great. I mean, everything he does is such a fuck you to everything in, but not in just like a, it's, it's always, it's not just in like a basic or done before. It's always such an incredible showy way of saying fuck you guys.
01:55:20
Speaker
Yeah, like his music videos, everything about it is like, it's really incredible. And then you watch the shitstorm over I don't know if you guys deal with like, if you see similar things over in Australia. But over here, like you have
01:55:33
Speaker
a large group of your Christian community being like, so bad a fucking shape about this guy. Like clasping their pearls, you know? Yeah. Like when Montero came out, because it's like he's dancing with the devil. It's like everything he's doing is literally just going right over their heads and the things that they're complaining about are the things that he's making fun of them for complaining about. That he's warning exactly. He just missed it. Even having nothing about putting the blood in the monkeys or something. Oh my god, yes. That's like it's so fucking smart.
01:56:03
Speaker
to me like yeah he's a pop singer but that is so punk like that is the most punk mentality
01:56:11
Speaker
Like literally be like, I don't give a fuck what people are gonna say about me. You know, I'm an ugly gay man, a black man about doing these like fucking bad ass. That's brave. And that's punk ass. Yeah. Well, yeah. And like, that's just a part of being like, that's part of being a super successful musician is like, people like, people want good music, but they also like crave
Future of Blood Command
01:56:38
Speaker
Like rock stars, you know and whatever form they come it's like these big personalities that that like challenge the status quo and that kind of like upset the apple cart with things like that like that's What's missing especially in like rock music and stuff today like we just don't have a lot of those and and so like these other people from other genres are filling those roles, you know people like him and
01:57:04
Speaker
Machine Gun Kelly and some of these other guys that I feel like rock and heavy music really is craving some big personality. Yeah, I agree. I actually love that Machine Gun Kelly album that you want to do because it reminds me of old Blink-182. Yeah, it's definitely got that flavor to it. I was like Machine Gun really sucks and then I listened to it and I was like, this is actually really nostalgic.
01:57:31
Speaker
That's why I vocal text in music as well. Maybe you can fill that role, Nikki. Yeah, you are the big personality that they're craving right now. Yeah, exactly. Damn straight. Do something crazy. Get everyone's attention. And it all starts with the Brumman abridge scriptures. Yeah. That's what's going to get us there. That's your bloody Nikes. Yeah. Do it. I love that.
01:58:00
Speaker
Well, it's been great talking to you. Thank you so much for doing this. It's kind of like a shot in the dark. Thanks so much for having me. It's been so awesome to meet you both. Yeah, it was great meeting you. Thanks. Excited to see what Blood Command's got coming. Can you give everybody an idea where they can find your music or where they can follow you on social media? Yeah, of course. On Instagram, just Blood Command, same with Facebook, otherwise Spotify, Blood Command.
01:58:28
Speaker
Definitely check it out. And if you want to jump on YouTube, a villain's monologue is there. And we've got some new music coming out very soon, which I'm very excited for everybody to hear. Awesome. Yeah. Thanks for listening, everybody. And we will catch you next time.