Transcript
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: Oh, you started did the podcast for us. Nice job, Cal. We are back with another episode of Growing Up Christian. I'm Sam. I'm Casey. And I've already introduced Cal. Welcome back to the podcast, Calvin.
Speaker: i was going to wave, but it doesn't matter. No, it doesn't. And we are also joined by Ant, also of Loud Sounds. We had Cal on a good bit back after you guys put out some music. And now we're here with Cal and Ant.
Speaker: and Happy to have you guys with us. Thanks for having me. great to meet you. Yeah. ah we're We're excited because, ah well, first of all, I'm excited because you guys got some new music coming out. and Yeah. You may have heard it. It goes, I am rectangular. Yes. That is it. a Big fan of him. oh my God. That is a Cal original. You know what's crazy is I had. Rock me-headed fuck. i I, fell asleep on my couch by accident and woke up at two 45 in the morning. ah
Speaker: Let my dogs out when actually, no, I let my dogs out and then fell asleep on the couch and they were stuck outside for two hours. So whoops. Nice. um And then when I went to bed, you know, when you go to bed unsettled and you just kind of have these, like every time you close your eyes, you start to dream again. It's like these lucid dreams. You don't get a good night's sleep.
Speaker: I had a dream about that song. last night and I had in my dream I learned that that guy had ripped it and it was actually like a famous I don't even remember who it was but a famous artist wrote that song and didn't get the credit for it or something like that and it was disappointing Ed Sheeran it could have been probably it sheron's last I mean He is a big ah big Canadian CEO, so he is sounds like a a piece of shit thing who do since he is a CEO. Didn't he get held at gunpoint or something? What? The green-haired guy?
Speaker: Yeah. He posted about like how him and his – he had to pay a ransom to get his wife back or something, and I don't know if it was clickbait or – because he never it again. He wrote a song about it. Oh, the song didn't do well. Was it I'm Rectangular? I mean, I feel like that's his only song.
Speaker: I think it was I Got Kidman. Oh, he has others. He has others and they're somehow worse. He like went to like some country. Yeah, he got – kidnapped by like poachers or something yeah he wrote a song about it i am kidnapped or something was that really his guts he tried to do like uh like a slack guitar like uh low tuning where you like do percussive stuff on the yeah yeah like yeah dude i mean he's not as good as andy mckee no god no he's trying
Speaker: Like a version of rectangular. you think He's like one of those guys that you search on YouTube like once every four years. And he's like one of those rare videos that pops up and it says uploaded 17 years ago. Yeah.
Speaker: He's still going. He's a good good guy. he hasn't been canceled yet. So no, he hasn't. He's helps that he has ah instrumental music and has never revealed his personality. It seems, I don't know. I don't know anything about him. That's a good thing. i miss I want, yeah. or venis And that's great to date on behind his giant polygonal guitar. I wouldn't mind going back in time to a a place where we didn't know as much about our artists. That would be, that'd be refreshing.
Speaker: but Unless it's you guys. Do you want to go back to the sixties? In that case, we're going to learn a little bit about you tonight. Um, But okay yeah, like I want to I want to kick it off ah with Ant because you're new here, man.
Speaker: And thank you for thank you for coming into our territory to talk about your past and your future and your present. Even ah all the time zones. um Time is just a – It's a construct. It's a flat circle, right? You're fascinating character already because i don't think there's anyone alive who owns a Flying V guitar and has your hairline. Yeah. I that's synonymous with male pattern baldness. Yeah, that's actually, that's my first guitar. No one listening can see it, but my first guitar was ah that Flying V. It's an Epiphone ah Gothic series because I listened to like Korn and Deftones and Disturbed way back. Nice. Yeah. That's my jam.
Speaker: yeah pick class that's why i think um i think otep also had the same ohep that's oh yeah like a band but they're made of girls yeah we got to the um we got to the music store which i actually ended up like working at that same music store for like almost 10 years um but i got there and i saw like a les paul i was like oh dad i want the les paul he's like no we're getting the flying v it was on discount it was like like i can't believe no one was buying it it was like a halloween discount i remember um and then the deal yeah yeah like The guy I bought it from who became a friend when I started working there, he's he's like ah a long hometown regular, but um he worked for Xtreme years and years back. His name's Tom. He's a great dude. But he's like, you seem like you like Alice in Chains and then proceeded to tell me about how Xtreme toured with Alice in Chains.
Speaker: i i love people who have old timey stories about people that who toured with people. Yeah. yeah as i just did yeah yeah no i feel like you could walk into any guitar center if there's a guy over 50 working there he will tell you about all of his friends that almost made it what's that uh that um uh what's it um a the armison show what's his portlandia oh that's from pet sounds like that whole bit and he's like this microphone was used on pet sounds bu vi that
Speaker: Guys that work at guitar stores have a lot in common with guys who work at gun stores. It's like one fantasizes about like the the the closest he came to being a musician. The other fantasizes about like stopping a school shooter.
Speaker: They are birds of a feather. There's a parallel there for sure. yeah The weird thing about the gun store guy is it's like, why are you strapped hanging outside of an elementary school all the time? You know, I dare a Muslim to walk into this church waiting for a Zimmerman moment.
Speaker: piece a shit it was you summed it up for perfect
Speaker: looking for a kid in the dude i zimmerman went on to try to have a political career i think dude he toured gun shows his wife yeah He toured gun shows with a fucking bag of Skittles that he would have people sign and stuff. And like that dude that deserves the worst thing. sociopath at that point. Wow.
Speaker: That's like Rittenhouse shit. like He kind of tried to make a name for him. How do you go through life with no remorse? like like I guess people blow – if you're just in that circle and everyone's blowing smoke up your ass consistently, you just – they make you feel like a hero and you start to just believe that lie. ah It turns into ah an even bigger bag of dicks after a while. But yeah, Jerry Seinfeld's really on his Zimmerman. Oh my God. Right now. yeah I just saw the clip from him tonight of him ah at a com. He was doing some, i don't know. He, someone,
Speaker: heckled about getting heckled relentlessly. And he was like, he's like, ah je someone says something about Israel committing a genocide. And he's like, I'm glad they did it. And tried to like make that funny. And it's like,
Speaker: because that works so well for Kramer. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Now he lost everyone. grateful Christ. you love is like This might be if if Kramer came out as like pro-Palestine, that might be his way back to stardom.
Speaker: like yeah It might be the thing that finally undoes it. God. He's the worst part of that show. No, Kramer. out Seinfeld. Oh, yeah, he is. But like, yeah it's hard to go back and watch it knowing how much of a piece of shit both of them are.
Speaker: Yeah, like the Cosmic show. It sucks. It really sucks because I love that show. i love that show. And it's, yeah, it really takes the magic out of it for sure. Elaine's the best part of that show.
Speaker: She's my first. ah Her and Xena were my first two childhood crushes. Oh, dude. Yeah. Zena. Zena is definitely one of my interests. What's she do now?
Speaker: What's she do? She's in Ash vs. Evil Dead. She's probably just Comic-Cons. I bet. She did a TV show called Salem on Netflix several years ago. Yeah, was pretty good.
Speaker: Yeah, about witches and shit, obviously. oh yeah i have to say that I didn't have to say that. She was on Parks and Rec. She was on Asher's Evil Dead. so artist Good for her. feel she should be advertising some sort of as-seen-on-TV exercise equipment.
Speaker: That was the route. 20 years ago, she would be on that Thighmaster game. She still looks great. Yeah. Well, anyway, and let's talk about you a little bit, man. I know I've I've heard you've had ah you you had some parallel interactions with ah Christianity in your childhood, and I want to hear about it.
Speaker: Yeah, um I grew up and from a heavily Catholic and Christian upbringing. Yeah. So like my – when I made the jump since this is about Christianity, I'll skip over the Catholicism. but No, Catholicism is the one true faith. Are you kidding me? Catholicism rocks, dude.
Speaker: No, but it is so funny how evangelicals like – they there's like in Catholics, they have this line where they like that. They draw between themselves like that. It's about like how you look at Mary and and Jesus and stuff. And like, it's, it's weird. It's all the same, you know, like, but they hate each other. i know. And I grew up, but I grew up being taught that like, well, some Catholics are probably real Christians, but there's a lot that just aren't. And they talk about it. Like it's this predominant, like,
Speaker: a false religion almost cause they believe. Yeah. Cause mostly cause the Mary shit, they love talking about how they worship Mary and, and the other things. Yeah. The baptism issue is don't get me started.
Speaker: um But so I, I want to, I, I would, I want to take a quick stop on the the Catholic thing. Cause I think Catholicism grow. like There's such a difference in your introduction to Christianity.
Speaker: when you grow up Catholic versus evangelical. Um, and, I think that i think the the Catholic the conception of or iteration of Christianity is um it's it's it's not as different as people or evangelicals make it out to be. I think there's so much overlap. um And it ah of course, it depends on the level of buy-in because they're there's so many kids who grew up Catholic that just like, this is just the shit we do.
Speaker: And they don't really, it's not like forced Like, it's not like they go home and their parents are like, have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior? Like, they don't, they're just like, we do this and we hope it sticks and we hope it works and everything's okay. It's more of like a a chillness about it in some ways. Of course, there are strict Catholics, but I want to know where what what what type you came from.
Speaker: I came from the type that shamed anything sexual, any swearing, any violence, any action. Like I i grew up um like my mom is like half Irish and half Italian. My dad's half Italian and then a bunch of other stuff. But um so I it's very Irish and Italian. Yeah. in In Boston, South Shore, Mass area. So I grew up from like this, like heavy guilt. Like if I swore I had to confess, if I, you know, stole anything I had to confess. Um, if I found something attractive or erotic, I had to confess like crazy ah shit like that, which I, I'm not, uh, not, I mean, I guess I have, I've renounced it. Um, but yeah,
Speaker: I like there's things about it that I like still. Like I i think there is a good foundation there somewhere, but it totally gets lost and looked over. But to this day, I still have like issues with like, like not sexual stuff, but like just there's a guilt there. There's like, it it won't go away. There's always like a shame or something that is kind of fucked up. You shouldn't have that. Like sex is such a great thing. um So it's weird that,
Speaker: you know, like a lot of anti, uh, my family was very anti gay, but this was also in like the early nineties. So like a lot of people were, and it was very cool to be in like, even the Simpsons like punched down a lot back then, like, and like everything there was a, but the butt of the joke was always gay. So like stuff like that. Um, but with Catholicism, um,
Speaker: I remember the, I don't remember, but I found out when we switched over Christianity, um, apparently the preach of the priest that I received communion from, uh, was one of the priests that was caught, uh, diddling kids from the Boston globe damn article. Yeah. He was like one of the main, I guess, did that have an impact on the main ones? I don't, that's what I heard. So someone was in Hingham because that's where i I grew up was Hingham mass. Um,
Speaker: So then it was him. And then like around the same time, like we moved to Pembroke and that's where I kind of like middle school, high school, uh, post college and stuff was there. But, uh, I was about to receive conf, uh, is it confirmation? that the, okay. It's like you do CCD and then you have your confirmation. Yeah. Yep. So I did CCD with all that stuff. And, uh, And whoever my ah priest was at that church in Pembroke also got caught. So my parents were like, fuck this religion. You're going to join your grandmother who's a born-again Christian, and you're going to go to youth group with your uncle. Like my uncle is a couple years older than me, so he he oh we call him my bruncle because he was more like my brother than my brother. But he's like, yeah, three, four years older than me. went to the same high school. Like he was a senior when I was a freshman. So it was kind of weird. Like, well that's your uncle. So you're like neo dodging pedophiles. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pretty good intuition. And like, I can read a room well, probably because of that. Like, oh, that guy's weird. Stay away from him. He's a pedophile.
Speaker: It's weird how far back he puts the Eucharist on my tongue. Yeah. um I never did this before.
Speaker: That's fucked. i Why do you that you say that? like My grandma, ah or my great grandma is like trying to move past it, but that was really funny. I love it.
Speaker: This is my favorite part of this whole thing. is you You don't know. You don't know what's going to hit Casey like that. You don't. Sometimes. Sometimes.
Speaker: Sometimes I feel like drop a total banger in case he rolls past it. Other times it's a throwaway and he just absolutely loses it. And that's, that's fun. me
Speaker: like I don't know if I never heard that before. That's so funny.
Speaker: Anyway, if you haven't lost your train of thought, where were you going? Anyways, I don't, um, I don't even fully remember. My grand my great grandma, um my mom was 18 when she had me. So like as heavily Catholic as they were, you know, my mom was 18. My dad was 20. I graduated high school twice. So they ah they weren't that Catholic, I guess. um Not married either. and I'm a ah little bastard Yeah. oh Yep. the The irony. I know, right? i mean, it fits the the Irish part, I think. Yeah, they were they were making up for some stuff. That's why they went that hard into it.
Speaker: oh Yeah. Oh, you had mentioned... um This is a long confirmation. Is that an age thing? Do you do confirmation when you hit a certain age? Yeah, I think it's like like around freshman or a freshman or a sophomore in high school. No, that's older than puberty. 14, 15 maybe.
Speaker: Okay. So I was on the last year and I know we ah we were going to sign up for it. And then that happened and my mom gave me the... the question like, do you want to do this and receive your confirmation because you're so close or do you want to go hang out with your uncle? Like a boy scout badge. Yeah, I want to fucking hang with my uncle. You kidding me? Like were inseparable.
Speaker: And I was just getting into like guitar and music and stuff. So like they had a like a youth group band, which I didn't play in, but I did like bring my guitar there and like we would work on stuff. But the thing that's funny, you're you're wearing your Creed shirt. um My favorite band growing up was Creed. Yeah, like Bar none, like I had all my, good I think going on the, what I was saying earlier about like the strict Catholic background. um I was listening to the like Blink-182 and stuff and like The Offspring and they swore. So I burnt a CD of like just just the swear parts from the Mark, Tom and Travis show. i don't know if you guys are familiar with Blink-182.
Speaker: Yes. So yeah yeah it's a live album that Blink-182 put out and I was like third or fourth grade maybe. And um it's like just them swearing and doing bits and the bits are like them just saying it like cunt like over and over again, like stuff like that. And I put that on a CD, just the skits and my stepdad found it.
Speaker: and took away every CD I had that had parental advisory stickers on it. So like my Disturbed was gone. Everything was gone except for Creed. So when I was learning guitar and getting into music, Creed was what I had. Nice. So I went to youth group like knowing how to play human clay front to but front to back in my own prison. like I know ah it's still in here you know that early, the formative years. But ah they were like, you can't play that. That's not Christian. Like, motherfucker, I'm getting made fun of in school because it's Christian rock and people are saying it's Christian and I can't play it in church. That's crazy. I'm getting it from both ends. Are you kidding me?
Speaker: Creed was all always got a pass. My parents ah would vet any music that we would buy. Yeah. when And Creed always got the pass. Yeah. Yeah, because Scott Stapp was heavily Christian. Like, they weren't a Christian band. And, like, he has, like, a sex tape with Kid Rock and stuff. And, like, yeah. Or, like, he's getting, like, a a blowjob or something. I i don't know. By Kid Rock? With Kid Rock? With Kid Rock. Like, hanging out at, like... my dad's going to throw away his T-shirt. Yeah. you That's going to resurface when chris kid when Kid Rock's Christian album comes out. That's not going to go great. Eminem has a feature on that. You guys been seeing that? Are you serious? Eminem's being featured on... Makes me not like him that much more now. Are doing bit? Yeah.
Speaker: Yes, you're doing a bit or yes, it's real. I swear to God, I've been seeing, and Kid Rock said this whole thing of like, you know, we but they've been friends for like 30 years or some dumb shit and they're both from Detroit and they're like, we we agreed a long time ago not to let politics get in the way of friendship and blah, blah. I hope this shows people that through Christ we can come together. It's really bad and hokey. Read the room.
Speaker: Yeah. Someone wants that. But Eminem did it. And that's nuts. It is funny to treat those two as like similar politically. Like, oh, they're just opposite sides of the same coin. It's like.
Speaker: Eminem did like a feature at a Kamala Harris rally or whatever and Kid Rocks like making like just vile like anti-immigrant songs or whatever. Didn't he do the, um ah Eminem did like a, ah was it something in a parking lot? I thought it was to Trump. Maybe it was to a different politician. Yeah, Eminem's been slightly vocal on politics over the past couple years. Only when, like, asked. You know, TMZ probably asked him some dumb question, and he responded. I think he's made a few posts here and there. But it's just weird at this point. Like, you know, back when, I feel like back in, like, the 90s, you're like, it was different to, it it was ah it was a different world to be politics.
Speaker: different political sides, you know? You're like... yeah the gap wasn't so large and, now and now where we're at now, it really comes down to just values. What are your values about how you should live and what matters and who matters.
Speaker: And so like, to be like, to keep throwing out this, like it's, we don't want politics to get between us. Like, Oh, we don't want your belief that some people have less value to get between us. Like, ah it's just not working that way. Like I think, yeah,
Speaker: I think this makes you inherently kind of a bad person when you, when you just buy. it And I know there's a lot of sheep that are just like, I've always been a Republican. They don't think about any of it until the gas prices get too high and make them rethink some things because everything comes down to how it personally affects them and they don't consider the world around them.
Speaker: And I think that's not a good value to have, but like you're just kind of being a lot sheep. yeah You're just kind of fu you pretentious douche.
Speaker: I mean, what is it? you can go along with it, like, I know don't know. I know a truth. And then all sudden, Diesel gets a dollar too high for you, and you have this passionate, like, you just all become passionate that Trump's let you down. It's like, dude, he, i don't know, he's bombed a dozen countries,
Speaker: You know, I think he's bombed Somalia like 80 times his second term. Like where no one's no one cares about any of this shit until their diesel prices get too high. and That bothers me. um it's I love watching Republicans should switch teams, but I also don't have a ton of respect for people who only switch teams when like they wake up one morning and realize things got a little less convenient for them.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, even like it's, beve which is kind of weird that Trump recently just was enough to make it too political, I guess, but I'm going to make it political. Um, continue down that path. He was just talking at a rally in,
Speaker: joked about getting San Fran or it was at LA and Chicago, diego San Diego. a little du And people cheered and laughed. Like it was a joke. and That's because they're lefty cities. So his people are like, it's still American. Like we always hated them.
Speaker: Yeah. We hate them. we did The, the, the congregants still going to Trump rallies at this point are not people. No, like, no, these are, this is like a,
Speaker: A Congress of Slugs. Yeah. Some of them paid actors. It's real bleak. Anyway, so you went to you went to an evangelical church and you joined a youth group.
Speaker: Yeah, it was a um Calvary Chapel. Good old Calvary. Yeah, I remember Calvary. he died. yeah that's... It was bid box, huh? Well, it used to be a Target. I remember when I was... ah Not a Target. It used to be a Fuck, was it a Kmart? i think it was a Kmart.
Speaker: Because ah my dad lived up the street because he grew up in Rockland. That sounds about right. That's probably around the time Kmart started to disappear. Yeah. yeah ah That and like Caldors. Caldors, Bradleys, Ames. Bradleys, dude. I remember Bradleys. Phil Ames.
Speaker: there was a ben later Wasn't there Benny's? ye any yes be on rho island Yeah, Island. Nice. And and andon Hope is another Rhode Island thing, too. That's the true decline of America, right? It's just the park stores disappear. Yeah. Poor box stores. Building 19. Second City. Spags. Oh, my God. Spags, dude. I love Spags. When we lost Spags, that was just... that was just That was the end. i mean, we knew things were going to only get worse from there. Yeah. I don't know there's any of these that you just mentioned. It's all local. Was Spags Worcester?
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. It was looking back at it now. Spags is certainly like one of those building 19 like slop house like. Yeah. Brick and mortar stores that like had some sort of more.
Speaker: it was cool then. It would a Halloween city. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Now it's probably a parking lot. I don't know. No, I think it turned into the Whole Foods. Oh, okay. Well, are there a parking lot or a Whole Foods, one or the other? Holy foods. Thank you, Bezos. Thank you, Bezos, for revitalizing Worcester.
Speaker: Yeah. Thank you for the gentrification. ah all right. So in youth group, and I want to hear some, something salient that really sticks out to you about your experience there. Like, was there a culture shock?
Speaker: Was it like switching from a Catholic church to a Calvary chapel? Were you like, Oh, this is kind of more hip. This is kind of more cool. It was like, it's weird. It,
Speaker: Yes and no, because I was there and like i was like I was partially – I had a half full glass of Kool-Aid. I drank some of it, but I didn't finish it all. you know like I was there and I was still asking questions. like If something was goofy, I didn't – whatever.
Speaker: People would wear band shirts and stuff. I wore a Megadeth shirt to youth group and I got like yelled at. oh like loudly, but like negative, like David Mustaine is a Christian. Yeah. He's a huge Christian. like that's Slayer. the The singer from Slayer is a Christian, which is funny that he really, like, yeah, he doesn't like Carrie King, I believe I may be wrong, but Carrie King, I believe wrote most of the lyrics for that stuff. And like, was kind of the attitude for Slayer, but um I never really got into Slayer. so I don't, I'm not just, just through the grapevine stuff, but yeah,
Speaker: um yeah i just remember being like what makes this music worse than any other music because there is a bunch of fake christians that make music that claim to be about god and then go and fuck kids or go and like do whatever that's not great i don't know ah yeah i started high i couldn't top that one with something okay right yeah you gotta try to keep that going eat children i think that's probably worse fondle kids cheat on their taxes yeah The old the Christian music escalation ladder. Yeah. yeah um So that I remember that being strange. And like I dated someone from that actually met at the the youth group and meeting her parents was that was probably the biggest like, whoa, kind of thing.
Speaker: I remember I went to like her house, like to watch a movie. It Anchorman and like Anchorman was big at the time. Yeah, I bought it from Hollywood Video and I was excited to watch it dating myself again. And you know how like there's like a blue screen with the R or PG-13 rating and it says what it is when you put ah a DVD in back then or a tape before a film. ah And it said nudity.
Speaker: I've seen Anchorman dozens of times. I don't remember any nudity in the movie. Yeah. But apparently there's nudity in the PG-13 rating. So maybe. it Is it, do they classify nudity even with a man has a shirt off? Maybe.
Speaker: He had boner in a scene with, ah so maybe the. The insinuation of that. Yeah, maybe that was it But she saw that and freaked out and ripped the DVD out of the thing and said nothing like that will play in her house.
Speaker: um And then at dinner, she like asked about when I became born again and I never became born again. I just went to this place. So like I had to like come up with it something, but then I'm lying to this lady. So I'm feeling guilty cause i'm lying to this lady. um but also like I'm making out with her daughter, like in the other room. Like, you know, um, what was your cover story?
Speaker: I don't even fucking remember. I was just like, Oh yeah. I think I said, I don't remember. I was like, it was so long ago. Like, I'm not sure. Like that we we did it at the church. And I think I told like a story of someone else that I saw doing. Yeah. dude that's the go Because, ah because i like anything to get in the pants. Oh yeah. When you're, when we were raised in it too, was like,
Speaker: And I remember, like, I remember my my dad being, like, I was probably, like, seven, eight, maybe. Maybe, ah probably not even that old. my Like, I was, me and my brother were in our bunk beds, and he came and talked to us about having to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and he, like,
Speaker: had us repeat after him with a prayer and stuff like that. And was like, so as far as I knew, like I was always just, yeah, I did that when I was a kid. I was a Christian yeah my whole life. And then like you're in high school and people are like, have you been baptized? And you're like, I don't ah know. am might Yeah, I guess I should do that. And like becomes a big thing. But like you just do it because you think I just did because I was like, I mean, I believed in it, but I also was like,
Speaker: didn't i don't know kind of felt like pageantry yeah oh for sure for sure even like it was yeah yeah i guess that's what it is it's an outward symbol of an inward decision that's what that was that's how was pitched to us like the bands even i that's a form of pageantry too and like they do like i remember there was like at my church there was like live theater that they would do but it was all like hallmark shit like like a yeah with seventh heaven kind of story some line yeah it all wraps up nice and everyone's name oh yeah Yeah.
Speaker: It's a great example. Another example. Yeah. yeah but of all Yeah. None of you have lived until you got into puppet ministry as a teenager. That'll that's great for your social life.
Speaker: Never saw that. So thankfully I ministry. I was in jesus the high school kids. I spent a little time in there. I did. I went to a a puppetry convention, a Christian puppetry convention. Were you the puppeteer or you were just a viewer?
Speaker: Oh, I was a puppeteer. my dad Wow. Wow. You controlled it. did you Did you control Jesus? Yeah, I made him get nailed to the cross super good. How about like a Nerf gun and just like nail his hands, puppet hands?
Speaker: ah talking Speaking of getting nailed on the cross, when I was in I think I don't know if we're all around the same age. I think. I think we are. Okay, I'm 36. Okay. Yeah, okay. 39. Okay, yes. but bold Old!
Speaker: It's like, but once you get past 21, it's all the same. Everybody's old. Not me, I'm young. ah cal Your beard? Dude, your beard's still very dark. that's I respect that. Because I'm young.
Speaker: I dye it. Mine's graying up real bad. I plucked a couple grays tonight. We'll some grays in there right now and then. It's just character. I'm like George Clooney, you know? oh Oh. Go like Rollins. looked like George Clooney, everything would be different. Sure would.
Speaker: yeah My wife would be sexually satisfied. My wife would want to fuck me.
Speaker: a what what I was getting at with that, ah the Passion movie came out when I was going to youth group. yeah That was a big thing. They were also very anti-Da Vinci Code, which came out around that time. great movie so Wasn't allowed to see that movie. I saw the s sequel.
Speaker: but I remember hating the Da Vinci Code. That was fun. Yeah. Love that movie. um My youth group leader would hang out at the Kingston Mall on Fridays and I would bump into him with, because I went to Pembroke, so like the Kingston Mall was the hangout spot when everyone did that back in high school. That's how Bibles was he? Me and my metalhead friends would like walk around and I would like see him and go the opposite direction because he was trying to convert people.
Speaker: And like you would get into my metalhead friends were atheists. So he'd get into arguments with them and I would just leave and go do something else. Yes. Like go get Taco Bell and then catch up with them after.
Speaker: i can, I can connect with that cringe really good. I look back on a lot of, com I did a lot of, ah I had a lot of attempts to convert people and it, I mean, I'm, I'm,
Speaker: Oh, for 40, probably, when it comes to my attempts at converting people. So I wasn't good at it, I guess. I felt like a persuasive person, but... The data shows otherwise. i mean, it's hard to sell a religion to a person, right? like Unless you have like this bad history that you're trying to cover up, usually people don't switch into bad religion. you just You just summed up so much of evangelical culture. Yeah, Joe Rogan's a Christian now. It's kind of like the Russell Brand approach. Yeah, exactly. exactly.
Speaker: He did a couple rapes and now he's ah a God-fearing man. oh yeah. one is ka convenient and then the Only God can judge chaus
Speaker: um him.
Speaker: God, I lost my thought. I had a question. for Oh, Cal's leaving. i had a No, I got to turn my AC off. Welp.
Speaker: I can hear you the whole time. I don't can't. If I can't see you, you're not there. mean, I can hear you. okay I know. I also forgot my question. So you created dead air, Cal. you're i I forgot my question. So I was hoping you go to any Christian camps.
Speaker: I did. i did. Yes. That's another i point where I was like, I think I'm in too deep and I need to reevaluate some things. Yeah. The same guy. It's also funny, like my now wife, I started dating around the time I stopped going to youth group. So like this girl that I was seeing when I was going to youth group was very toxic and had her own issues. And also it's fucking 20 years ago now. So like, who cares? But yeah.
Speaker: Who knows what baggage she was dealing with from that purity culture world. I guarantee you I didn't know. And it was probably something because like I had my – we all have our stuff. But the purity part of that was way worse for women for sure. sure yeah um I can't imagine what that felt like. But – our youth group leader lived up the street from my now wife. So like he was ah when we got a room, it was me, my uncle, our buddy Matt, and then this this youth group leader. And it was the four of us in a like a cabin. We went to Camp Berea.
Speaker: I don't know where. Yeah, dude, I went there. you went to yeah i don't know where it is because I didn't drive. So like, I don't know where the fuck Berea is. Yeah, Camp Berea. I know I went there. i know I went there.
Speaker: I'm trying to remember like what I did. Is it, um, was it a winter camp? Kinda. Yeah. It was like end winter, early spring. I remember it rained the whole time. So it was just like miserable outside.
Speaker: like pissing rain. Um, and it was like kind of cold. Did they have a tubing hill? oh i don't remember I might be thinking of a different place. I know I went to Camp Berea one time though.
Speaker: This is the thing I honestly, I forgot about until you asked. So like this is buried information that is coming out. But I remember there was a really good guitar player there and he was like in the worship stuff and like he's gone to do other stuff. I don't remember what his name is, but he's been in like some other bands that have toured.
Speaker: I don't know if they quite blew up, but yeah. He was there, and I remember just like hanging out watching them and being like a Punisher, like asking him about pedals, what type of picks he used, strings. He's a great player. Just feeling like, I need to know like what you're doing, being like 14. Nothing matters.
Speaker: But ah yeah, it was a weird place because when I was in this room with my uncle ah and my like one of my best friends, um he's asking me like if my girlfriend is Christian.
Speaker: And if she believes, and he was asking me if she was, if she was pure and he oh then followed it up followed it up with, am I going to keep it that way? Which is like, I'm fucking 14, dude. This guy was 17, 18, maybe 19. he's older than me, but not by a lot, but enough for it to be weird. That's a strange question. You're going keep it way? Because I'd like to deflower her. Jesus.
Speaker: Fucked up, man. That's crazy. Odd questions. like That's just like borderline just harassment. For sure. i mean yes but Yeah. Yeah. But it goes into – There's always one of those around. Jesus Christ. Yeah, and that goes into – like it explains – I mean some of – again, I'm talking like cry me a river stuff. Like it's nothing.
Speaker: Like what I had to deal with is – I got off very easy. um So I'm not trying to claim like it was bad by any means. It was just weird, and I remember feeling uncomfortable. it just ah It's just part of the culture of like – the preoccupation with other people's sexual lives. Yes. Activity. It's, um, it, it goes that well past like, like, look, if I'm a parent, right.
Speaker: I'm going to have concerns, like protective concerns about my kids, sexual activity as they get older, as ah you should, as a parent, but it goes well past like, like reasonable concerns into,
Speaker: other Like in ah as a parent, like I'm the parent that's I can I can have a like if other people in their life that are like ah under 20 years old are pretending to be concerned about it.
Speaker: I will have you arrested. That's, yeah I know there's something weird going on there and I, the cops should check your hard drive immediately. yeah Yeah. It's, yeah it's really hard to imagine that like, it's always done under the guise of like concern about, you know, someone's spiritual wellbeing and stuff, but it's hard to imagine it being anything, but just like a perverse, like desire to pry into other people's like sexual, uh,
Speaker: you know, and lives and like turning that into grooming. Like, yeah, yeah, sure it's something that like, it's a ripe environment for grooming. You're exactly right, Cal. And it happens all the time.
Speaker: It's forcing like, I'm that cool guy. I'm your friend. You can talk to me about this stuff. And like, yeah, really, I don't know anything about you. And you try to convert my friends into Christianity at the mall. And now you're asking about my girlfriend and the things that we do or have done.
Speaker: it was just weird. It's also easy to get away with it too because like we were like we were so awkward about those subjects yeah that like I probably would not have gone home and told my dad that this guy is asking me all these prying questions about like you know do you jerk off or whatever. Exactly. like There was people like that around all the time and it it is strange. It is strange to think that it's okay to ask teenagers about that kind of stuff.
Speaker: There was a, uh, at the same church, there was a preacher, I guess there, I don't know if if it's a preacher. don't even know what the correct term is. It's been so fucking long. Um, but he would, i remember he was like an older dude, like white hair, gray hair with a belly, like older guy, uh, asking and like talking about how blowjobs are, are you're, you're a technical virgin if you give or receive a blowjob.
Speaker: What? he's inviting a abuse inviing that Yeah. That's disgusting. But he was saying like – was saying it's bad. So like you're still a virgin. You're you're not you're not a virgin anymore. Like you're technically – theha was yeah so ah Maybe I pitched that wrong. But um yeah, that's how he said that.
Speaker: They need to be mere clear because, look, you're a pussy virgin, but you're not a mouth virgin. And I think they need to delineate that more precisely. Yeah, but to even talk to 13, 14-year-old kids, maybe younger, I don't know. i just That was my age there. There were definitely people older and younger than me. It's just kind of weird.
Speaker: like It's super weird. does that have to come up at all? and It's also the crowd that like acts super just – upset that there's like sex ed at school. Yes. And they're the same people that push abstinence only, like the only way to to learn about professionals. Yes. Yeah. right Well, if you're pushing abstinence only, you need to get into the weeds of what counts and doesn't count to protect everybody. It's for protection. Yeah. Right. Not condoms. It is definitely.
Speaker: We called it at at our college, it was called, ah anal was called the poop hole loophole. ah Wow. Cool. Wow.
Speaker: The greatest Christian college in the world, of course, Liberty University. I'm Christian college. Oh yeah. oh Have you seen the documentary on Hulu called God forbid?
Speaker: No, it's about the president of, it's about the president of Liberty university getting caught in a sex scandal where he liked to sit in the cuck chair while his wife fucked the pool boy. It's odd that, um, these, um, these scenarios happen within religious, you know, factions. And then it, it's, it's so linear with a cult like that.
Speaker: cults, I would say 95% of the time turn into this sexual um exploration of of power. And it's like those two are are separated, but like the cult and religion, it's it's the same thing.
Speaker: Oh, yeah. It's like because it it just like goes into that. The only the only caveat I'd put on that and I think you're like almost completely right is I think that evangelicalism writ large has this like When people get caught with stuff like that, there's a shame. It's shameful. Oh, we need to.
Speaker: And they might they'll do they'll politicize. They'll try to like find a way to maneuver out of the spotlight. They want to pretend they'll they'll use the vocabulary to pretend like they're taking care of it.
Speaker: But evangelicalism has no guardrails. ah You know, Catholicism is high church. Anything high church has a hierarchy of reporting. And of course, it didn't work out great for Catholics with the whole pedophile bullshit. But like.
Speaker: in In general, the idea is like evangelicalism is completely unregulated. Every evangelical church is its own thing for the most part. Like you went to a Calvary Chapel and and they do have like a board, an overarching board, but the churches operate fairly independently. And then there's like non-denominational churches, which is where where a lot of the problems come from, where They operate 100% independently of any sort of oversight board at all.
Speaker: And it's like that stuff, as it gets bigger, can turn into like these offshoots pop up. Is that like the... Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. No, go ahead. Is that like the righteous gemstones, like throw $100,000 in this box for God? Yep, no oversight at all. There's no...
Speaker: church leaders, oh, hierarchical church leadership that goes all the way up to the top, like a Pope like thing. Uh, but, It's like the non-denominational stuff where it's like people will, they start a church and then it it can get, it can just go off into like right field real quick. um And so like when, when the shit happened with Liberty and their, their president had to, they had to, they had to do damage control.
Speaker: Cults just remove themselves from the public eyes best they can. And then the cult leader tries to fuck everybody's wife. Like it always ends up that way. ah They always try to be like, well, you know, I'm in charge and it's important for me to spread my seed or whatever. like They come up with weird reasons. But the connection you made to the power dynamic and the control is like, what what more control is there than just telling everybody you get to fuck their wives? And if they say, OK, you're in charge now. like no yeah you're not I mean, would anyone yeah, the religion, there's regulation within that. There's a system there. So like it gets away with it, but it's literally.
Speaker: yeah and is this' And they'll try to like cover the dirty, you know, they'll try to be like, Oh, we knew. And we we, dealt with it inside. Like they, they, they have their way of like trying to pretend they dealt with it, but it's, it's money. never enough. Yeah. It's, it's, it's still bad. Yeah. um What, and when were you like kind of got to this point where you were like,
Speaker: i don't I don't actually know about this. I don't know if this is for me. Um, I think when I try, so my girlfriend and I at the time broke up and, um, I think probably because of, because of like difference in whatever religious trauma or religious like pressure, whatever from becoming too serious or something. Um, and I started dating Michelle, my wife and, uh,
Speaker: I remember trying to bring her with me and her parents were like, oh, that's that weird place. And then that kind of put like, like, she was like, wait, where do you want to go? The place? Cause they lived like kind of close by out of there too. And they're like oh that's the strange place. You're not going to bring our daughter there. i was like, oh, it is kind of strange. right yeah Yeah. And then I talked to them about it and like, that was, that was it. And I, I didn't go back. I'd rather like my free time go to bands and friends and my, you know, my girlfriend and,
Speaker: whatever family members, like anything was better than that. um And like, I think ah the thought that following year, like my uncle and like my friends that were his age stopped going because they had graduated it or whatever. So i was on like my last or second to last year there. It's like, this isn't fun anymore. My friends aren't here. And it just seemed right. And then like, the more I was away from it, the more I realized it was kind of weird. Yeah. And like, there's obviously like, there were great people that went there, I'm sure. Just obviously, I'm kind of speaking with like a a blanket term.
Speaker: But yeah, the longer I was out of it, the more I realized it was fucked. And then I saw like certain family members that were like completely hypocritical. um I'm just, I'm not going to get into all of that stuff, but yeah like the hypocrisy is a really eyeopening experience. Yeah. Like this person thinks that they're going to heaven and they're like that great.
Speaker: And like they did this or that they're doing this thing to their family member someone they love or, and I just, I, I tuned out and then I got more into metal music and followed Satan.
Speaker: Did anybody try to talk to you about your oh yeah wayward... ah Yeah. So I would bump into that same youth group leader at ah the mall on Friday. It's like that continued. Why'd you keep going to the mall on Fridays, dude? Well, that was ah even, I know I should just, that's the day when all my friends went on you, right? It's on me. I didn't get my hot topic band shirt and my dollar chalupa or whatever. $1.99 grilled stuff burrito.
Speaker: but Yeah, when I wore my Megadeth shirt, that was a big thing. And then we went to that camp. I remember forgetting my Bible, but I remembered my guitar and being spoken to big about that. Like it was a big to do where they almost sent me home because I had my guitar and not the even though I paid my god my grandma paid money for all this stuff. And they were like, you can't be here if you forgot your Bible. there's bunch of have like spares. Yeah, there's so many extra bibles and Bible. yeah There's Bibles here, right?
Speaker: um yeah and that was another thing too like the version of the bible was big like it had to be the new king james edition that's a while new king james yeah which all of those were i'm pretty sure written by slave or translated by slaves and retold and who knows if they're even accurate i feel like
Speaker: it God, i feel I used to know so much more about the King James Bible. um The King James Bible is a... is like an updated version of a previous version called the... I'm blanking on what it's called, but they basically... Snyder Cut.
Speaker: Yeah. They updated it with the... with like that that it old English language that wasn't even like the way that it's written, the way that it sounds doth thou, whatever, like that's not even how people were speaking at the time. It was intentionally written to have an old feel at the time to lend it some sort of credibility. they should rewrite it again and just make it, you know, like have zoomers write it, you know, actually have a lot of slang in it. So we actually,
Speaker: That's all they'll get You know, it's true. Like make a pathway back. The chat have people use words like raise.
Speaker: Yeah. And. Narrated by Kaisenet. Chet Hanks. I want a Chet Hanks version. Yeah. Come on. it i the ah King James Bible is a revision of the Bishop's Bible.
Speaker: Okay. ah You could say anything and I'd i'd believe you. Yeah. I never even heard of the Bishop's Bible. Unplugged. I don't believe bishops. I think the Bishop's Bible was like early 1600s. Okay.
Speaker: okay I don't know when the KJ was. A little outdated. Yeah. It's just, yeah, it's ah it's the reboot. it's like ah It's like the Harry Potter series versus the movies, you know?
Speaker: I just remembered another thing that was like, Calvary Baptist is kind of kind of fuck fucking wrong. When, um what was that? I'm awful because I can't remember. Was it New Orleans that had the big flood?
Speaker: Yeah. So they blamed that on them because they're a party city and they blamed it on Mardi Gras. and yeah that was worked i love that i love when bad things happen to the people who aren't there like i bet there's a cavalry chapel they're just like really bummed out yeah you know yeah they weren't enough to stop it what if that worked what if there was some sort of like ah you know ritualistic practice where like exposed nipples led to excessive rain
Speaker: Like Saudi Arabia will never figure it out. I know. That's the reason they're just suffering from drought is because everyone's in burqas and they can't show their nipples. Yeah. I think you're onto to something, Casey.
Speaker: Yeah. That's why there are as nipples to show. Don't hide them under a bushel. Uh, I want to talk about you guys' music coming out, but I also want to see if you guys have some really good advice for someone who has some serious questions on Reddit.
Speaker: Okay. Okay. Go go on. Okay. i mean... i didn't I didn't vet this ahead of time, but we like to spend our time on Christian Reddit ah to see what types of struggles people are having. Oh, no.
Speaker: And see if we can, you know, if we have words of wisdom for them that we can gather together. And this one's a little bit long. Oh, it's actually way longer than I thought.
Speaker: But it's really, i think there's a lot of interesting material here, and I'm wondering
Speaker: how you guys feel about it. And I'd like to this with you. So, so
Speaker: Hello, it is my first post on Reddit and I'm here because I would really appreciate some good advice on what to do about this situation. I'm 19, 19 male, 19 year old male. And five days ago, I was helping my dad with an issue in his laptop.
Speaker: In a moment, I was in doubt about how to resolve the problem and open the Google to search for it. Then in recent searches, there were two searches, which seemed a title of adult content videos.
Speaker: My primary thought was this could be a hacker. But then I checked out his history and was shocked. I found adult content websites there. No one knows that before me. Both my parents were in the room, but none of them were looking at the laptop at that moment.
Speaker: I just left the room with some kind of excuse that I would fix the problem later. I went to my room and I cried and I prayed. In the first minutes, I was extremely confused because I have a good relationship with both of my parents.
Speaker: But what my father did is completely wrong. And I, being the one who knows, had the responsibility to do something about it. Here's where things get even weirder.
Speaker: Just for context, all of my family is Christian. Thank God I was born in a Christian home. I actually, that one that line stuck out to me a lot because it just shows you
Speaker: the there's an unwillingness to recognize that what you believe is entirely because of the circumstances you were born into. Like, yeah I was, I would have said something similar to that, but I remember the first time someone's like, so if you were born in another country,
Speaker: And another really like you would just be that. And I'm like, ah fuck, you're right. Like, I don't actually I didn't have any control over this, did I? Thank God I was born in a Christian home. Otherwise, how would I know how to drop a flashbang into my parents' marriage?
Speaker: ah But with a certain frequency, my parents have had some conflicts on their marriage of their marriage, almost always motivated because of my father's jealousy of my mother, a woman.
Speaker: some of the but Some people are really bad at typing on Reddit, as you guys probably know. ah My father's jealousy of my mother, a woman i without a doubt, can guarantee never would give him motives to do that.
Speaker: Now, it feels right to assure that the damage of porn in his mind and spirit is what caused the jealousy towards my mother. So in case you guys weren't sure, his his jealousy issues stem from looking at porn. Otherwise, everything would be perfect in their marriage.
Speaker: Yeah, it's the rot at the center.
Speaker: The battles she has to front in this area, she confides in me sometimes. telling me what happened, why he behaved that way, why he had that attitude, etc.
Speaker: But it's really complicated. It's not like he is a disgusting monster. He is, in fact, an example of hard work, responsibility, discipline, providence, and any other man of a family's duties.
Speaker: But he has this episode throughout the years. Sometimes the episodes are more intense slash frequent. Sometimes not. It was really strange. From the absolute nothing, from a simple talk or whatever else, he would find motive to argue for jealousy with her.
Speaker: My mother is really strong and a faithful Christian woman who always confides in me. Well, that's a good practice. I'm getting uncomfortable as soon as he starts talking about this. Is this a boy or a girl? This is a boy who has a really close relationship with his mother who confides in him about her father' his father's shortcomings.
Speaker: My mother is a really strong and faithful Christian woman who always confides in me that, but in the same time, she has always told me not to disrespect him or be against him. I should respect him because despite all of that, he's my father and has the authority given by God in my life.
Speaker: And I like that I do.
Speaker: All that said, I really have a good relationship with both of him, with both of them and would not like to take sides on this situation. An aggravating factor is that my mother is in recovery after a recent surgery, a plastic surgery she always wanted.
Speaker: And he gave her as a present. Oops. In this situation, i would have guessed this was no this is uh such a weird yeah it's not all full of this one was full of red drums i'm not i know yeah but i fucking wish this person put this through like some kind of filter because there's so many run-ons and thoughts that yeah aren't i would love to know what the question is uh there are it actually i'll give you i'll i'll
Speaker: The end of it, they mentioned that their first language is in English and they put it through AI to clean it up. um So okay that's part of the problem with some of like the syntax issues.
Speaker: Part of this stems from my mother's recent surgery, which has led to a decline in sexual activity between her and my father. She has confided in me that that has been very difficult for the both of them. he's mad because of his jealousy too that that's going to be something that's mistranslated to unless i have be i don't i think i think i what i think they're getting at is that the dad freaks out because he thinks the mom's fucking other people all the time with fake boobs yeah right boobs so the solution is get her massive bolt-ons Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: And look, if she was having an affair, she would have told me. She confides in me a lot. It's also very problematic on that stuff. but I know. I'm 19 and my mom tells me everything about what's going on. Mommy needs to go to therapy. I'm 19 and I think my mom's hot is what this is the subject here.
Speaker: I love how it's a plastic surgery she's always wanted. yeah And dad got her as a gift. What other, what it would be when, you know, like longer legs, it wouldn't be anything.
Speaker: That's a thing too. I know, but it wouldn't be that. They got a real Buster Bluth thing going on. yeah yeah that' It's a mother boy situation.
Speaker: ah Where was I? Oh, yeah. Got the plastic surgery a week ago. In this situation, when she's already weakened by the recovery, I don't think it's a good move to put that on the table.
Speaker: Also, talk directly with her would look like taking her side and not giving him the opportunity to change. Despite I heard in the... fuck Okay, I'm skipping this paragraph.
Speaker: None of it makes any sense. It sounds like he was caught looking at porn early on in the marriage and they dealt with it and addressed it. That's the sum. Why does he know this? Right. she Because mom is really close to him and wants to let him know.
Speaker: ah So that way he won't fall into the same failures as her husband. And for more context, which is exactly what we need for this, I've been through this problem of masturbation and porn myself.
Speaker: From 12 to 16. But for honor and glory of the Lord next week in my 20th birthday, I will be four years since I truly repent and was free of that terrible sin. So we're looking at most unbelievable part of the story. We're looking at at four years free from lust and masturbation. That's nice. And my mother helped me out immensely during that time. Right.
Speaker: and Help me out has a different connotation when used that way too. she caught him She taught him how to look at her new bolt-ons while doing a hands-free jack so it doesn't count.
Speaker: This is Chris Chan writing this. He's like, oh well, I didn't touch myself. I just, my jeans made me come. It's not my fault. It's soaking, you know? It is. It's it's denim soaking.
Speaker: Excuse me. ah And the one principle thought I had this time is the woman who God separates to be my wife and me, her husband, don't deserve someone bringing that meaning porn and masturbation for our marriage for the rest her life.
Speaker: We're rounding the end, guys. I've been wondering if the right move could be talking with my father in private. Show him the Bible where it stands on why that should be a pleasure restricted to a man with his wife and vice versa.
Speaker: I'm single, by the way. Of course. But I truly... Why is that... Sorry to talk about it. What is this? Yeah. What is the question? What is going on? where're We're getting there. Last question. Can I fuck my mom? That's.
Speaker: and Mother is a beautiful woman and she deserves more respect than this. i could Treat her better. is where theto I can see that her needs aren't being fulfilled and I just want to please mother.
Speaker: Father, you must honor your marriage bed. ah All right.
Speaker: I'll skip ahead. ah Dad, he can confess and ask for forgiveness. I'll confront him on my own. Feels risky. With all that explained, I really would appreciate if you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, could give me some advice, some guidance, some verse or chapter I could read to meditate in.
Speaker: I have been praying almost all my day thinking on that, and in one moment of the day asking here crossed my mind because to I could ask for direction.
Speaker: Thanks for reading my event and God bless you all. So he's looking for advice on how to deal with his father and address this situation and mediate it between mom and dad. Yeah. Cue all the, the R slash Christianity.
Speaker: 20 something women with very strong opinions about masturbation. Yeah. oh I've got advice for him. Yes. Let's hear it. How about mind your fucking business, dude? Go outside and ride your bike, dork. Yeah. Go do something fun and mind your fucking business. Why do you care about your father and his masturbation habits? Like, go be a kid.
Speaker: Yeah. I think the real issue is that this boy is jealous of his dad. He's jealous that his dad looks at porn and bought big bolt-ons for mom. And he's just like, how am I ever going to afford something that cool for my future wife?
Speaker: I feel guilty looking at porn. i I love how my dad can just live his own life and be. Oh, you know what? Here's some advice. Go to a vocational school. I'll go learn a trade. I wish I had done that.
Speaker: And you have some money. i just, I don't have any money. yeah Go be an electrician. Yeah, I should have picked that. That would have been great. And find a boyfriend.
Speaker: Yeah. A boyfriend. Yeah. yeah Not a girlfriend? oh well I think he's going to be more interested in a boyfriend. Yeah, based on his relationship with his mother.
Speaker: I would like to save him years of torment and just say, just just try it out just lean in now. Try it out. Lean in. We would be so happy for you.
Speaker: Yep. That's so. Yeah, that's ah I think what we learned here is that despite some of our struggles, we've never been in this guy's shoes.
Speaker: And i think we, I think, look, you could just say no one needs to worry about stuff like this. And this is a giant waste of time. But on the other hand, you could really reflect on how lucky we are to...
Speaker: have not found our father's porn interests. And I think that's the most debilitating part of all it. Cause he didn't get into specifics, but he saw the searches and that's, that's when you start viewing people differently.
Speaker: Cause everybody knows. Yeah. Everybody knows that like there's, there's a thing going on that people are into. But when you, when you read the detailed descriptions of what they're searching is when things get wildly uncomfortable.
Speaker: This is the advice. Don't kink shame. That's it. Don't kink shame your father. If he's also looking up, I want to know if he found like a ah hyperlink because they put titles on stuff that has nothing to do with the actual video.
Speaker: Like everything tends to be about like a stepbrother now. yeah What is that? have no idea. i think there is... Because it's forbidden?
Speaker: i don't know. I think there was a thing about like... That was something with hackers or not hackers, but like ah Russian intelligence or something like getting in with like AI. I i can't remember. that That would be actually wild to learn. Trying to force a kink on the American people. Yeah, so they can blackmail political leaders when they're in their 30s. They're like, all right, we need to get these kids. We need to get these kids into their step siblings now so we can blackmail them in 20 years. That would be the greatest Russian psyop of all time.
Speaker: more believable than MKUltra, and that was real. Oh, yeah. Good work. Good work. This is true this is such a repulsive post. I hate it. It makes me angry. yeah I have regrets of coming on now. Dude, your mom needs to find friends. like no She should not be talking to you about this. No, he's so That is a thing, though. It's such a bad thing for parents to like get their kids involved in like their marital disputes. It's gross. It's yeah it's ugly, disgusting. I hate it. I hate it. Anytime I've ever heard someone say, like my mom or my is my best friend, I'm always like, that's not
Speaker: That shouldn't you should be your mom. Yeah. You can have a close relationship with your mom. Like, and as you turn into like a 30 something year old, that can, that relationship can change. But like 19, 19 is too young to have a friendly relationship with your mom like that. And I don't care how old you are.
Speaker: Parents, that those are off limit topics for your children, no matter how old you are. At 19, my mom threw a bed at me. So like, you know, different relationship with your parents, you know? Threw a bed?
Speaker: Is your mom a Wonder Woman? Oh, yeah. Small, angry Italian woman. Just tossed it. That's nuts. ah Look, I i know we're we're into this, but I really – we got to pause real quick. I'm about to pee my pants, guys.
Speaker: Ad break. All right. P breaks over. Sorry for the inconvenience. um let's ah Let's shift. Let's shift a little bit. I want to talk about loud sounds. You got you guys have actually been pretty busy. You've done some ah some little cover EPs. You've got a new you got your first full length coming out, correct?
Speaker: Yes. Yes, sir. First one. So, Cal, since you just took a bite of ice cream, why don't you tell us how how things are going? What's the what's the deal, man?
Speaker: What kind of ice cream are you eating first? That's a good question. That's a great question. Van Lewin's pumpkin cheesecake with graham cracker crust. God, that sounds terrible. It's amazing. It sounds like potpourri. it's amazing. It's good. He's just eating some of those spiky pine cones. He's just eating a Yankee candle. on dry Dry the niece. It's so good. Dry the I'm going to eat this whole container. Just chewing on a starfish.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: What's the brand? What is it? Van Lewin's. Van Lewin's? That's a type of like like a jean. That's like a jean company. Yeah, they also make ice cream. They do dress shirts. They make and ice cream. Yeah. It's really good. It's like they're from New York. It's like it's called French ice cream, and it's like triple cream. They're from New York, but it's French. It's called French ice cream because they use i'm like egg yolks or something. them i don't know. It's so good.
Speaker: yeah Do they use cream? Or is it just, is it like the mayo version of ice cream? It's like gelato. Haagen-Dazs is the same idea where it's like expensive and smaller. It's great. work What's the Haagen-Dazs idea? I missed that. Haagen-Dazs is like same thing. There's like very small, unless you're getting like crazy flavors with it, like chocolate, like truffle in there or whatever. But like the vanilla and the coffee ones are just like three ingredients and that's it.
Speaker: Oh, I was always wondering why I never liked it. I love hagen dows. They're great. oh that's german right uh maybe that sounds it yeah hagen das sounds very great all right what was your question sounds reiki i don't know let's just hear the lowdown on what loud sounds has been up to you guys just record your first full length i want to hear uh well we recorded that full length probably four years ago five i think we started right pre-production yeah
Speaker: What? Yeah. That's a while. So we've done the the singles and covers that we've released. We did way after. Yeah. Why? Okay. That's, that's interesting. Why, why such a long timeframe for it to come out? What's.
Speaker: Um, we're, we work with particular people and, um, just also we're, we're broke. So like when we did it, we kind of paced, uh, spaced it out. We would do like a couple songs a weekend or we would do like one instrumental weekend. Um, and then it takes a while to get stuff. Perfect. We're all yeah picky boys.
Speaker: Okay, no no, that makes sense. So when I heard it it, sounded like you recorded it like four years ago and it was done four years ago, but you started this process. No, yeah. And then like we also, our producer is very, very busy. Like he's in two, one touring band right now.
Speaker: Yeah, in and then he's also touring with... the other his oh right cra sharon yeah right after the palestine stuff we yeah yeah of course of course his second string now he's in his prime right now i think yeah he's making some great decisions yeah these these songs are like ah probably some of them are six years old, pretty old.
Speaker: Are you sick of it? wild Oh yeah, dude. Oh yeah. I feel like that always happens. That always happens with everyone who makes music. They're like, I can't believe I'm still playing these, but it's fresh for everyone else. So yeah, that's the other, that's the thing you have to like, remember is like, as much as you're sick of it is that people have never even heard this. So you kind of need to, you need to balance that.
Speaker: I mean, It's this record will be out on November 12th. um I'll be on vinyl. um You can preorder the vinyl. Well, you can preorder the vinyl on Mind Over Matter records.
Speaker: We get a couple of cool variants of it. Yeah, it looks very pretty. Took a long time to get that set up perfect, too. yeah So like, it's nice. Not really that long, actually.
Speaker: But that's great. Yeah, Austin is great. Mind Over Matter. um Yeah, we put that out and then we'll do some more of the cover records.
Speaker: I'd like to do them like kind of quarterly because that's sort of the thing with being in a band nowadays is keeping is trying to find ways to be relevant. beautiful Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And if you're not releasing stuff like regularly, you kind of get penalized for it by streaming platforms and like social media posts. Yeah, everything. You just get penalized for everything. Oh, yeah. You do like a post trying to share a song or trying to share a music video or like it seems like the hype post always does way better than the actual like, hey, it's here.
Speaker: uh you know yeah you get a ton of interactions and people like stoked and hyped to hear it until it's actually time to hear it feel yeah the social media game is really fucking rough um because the algorithm doesn't make sense to normal people uh i mean i've never figured it out i haven't really tried that hard i guess but like it doesn' it it It really feels like it doesn't make sense. Like you can make a post and it's just like something pops off and you're like, oh, wow, that's the most engagement we've had in for a while over almost nothing. And then you're like ah the next day you post and they're like.
Speaker: It's time of day. Any engagement. It's so weird. It's also now I believe Instagram is more focused on how long someone stays on your video for.
Speaker: um Whereas before it more about engagement. I mean, I think it still is about that. but That's weird. That's the opposite. YouTube just changed their whole approach recently, which is ah even if you want, even if like when you're, if you have your YouTube set up to show the preview of so like to start playing the video before you click on it,
Speaker: They count that as a view in an engagement now. Okay. Which is really stupid. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. No, it's not helpful. It's just there, you're scrolling past it.
Speaker: Right. You can't really gauge how much interest there is. yeah You just are seeing how many people lost numbers. buy it Who who watched it and decided it wasn't for them. Now you have that.
Speaker: Yeah. Super unhelpful. Yeah. Yeah. It's also the social media platforms don't really help with music either. Like Instagram is supposed to be like a ah picture. ah program. yeah it Even at its initial iteration, it wasn't for music. So it's weird that that's like kind of what you have to use now. So you guys just need to post cleavage with all of your music posts and you'll do a lot better. That'll probably get Shadowban, though, because of nudity. No. if It might summon rain, though. Actually, what we should do is the breastfeed. Me and Calyp have some pretty good cleavage. We could kind of you push it together. You can...
Speaker: I've got a hair nice hairy chest. Yeah. That's good. Oh, hairy cleavage. That's nice. But yeah, this record's like, it'll come out and like our second record's pretty much already been written and ready to be recorded.
Speaker: Yeah? Yeah. Are you guys trying to figure out what the, i if you guys are trying to lock in a time span between the first and second, are you trying to boost the first, like the second one are you trying to,
Speaker: get it all done so it's less time between the releases versus, you know, how long it took you to get your first one out. I mean, that certainly is the goal, but it all depends on factors of, you know, how the recording process goes, how it turns out um sounding.
Speaker: But like we've been in our own bubble, the five of us, well, I guess six now, but. um just pre like pre pro and like doing the finishing touches for things, but that's going to be all more so dependent on us because we're going to go the route of just recording.
Speaker: say 80% it ourselves and then doing some of it in the studio. So it, that just depends on our work ethic and our, our schedules and time, but we've found that it,
Speaker: I mean, we nowadays you can do a lot of things yourself. um Yeah. And then. i mean, the idea is to record everything like that isn't drums ourselves, essentially. And then are drums more. comp they They're just more complicated to record on your own.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, that's all about like finding a space and setting it up. It's it's a lot more convoluted than and like with guitar. we'll do like You'll just do line-in of recording on a computer and get a dry signal and then just essentially have someone else re-amp it.
Speaker: you know else Cal usually does all the the demos and everything himself and on Shape of Your Ghost, the record we're releasing next month. ah He actually did a lot of like additional engineering with Greg, our producer at Silver Bullet.
Speaker: So um Cal's demos, i and all of us in the band, things sound great. So it just kind of makes sense to kind of, he's been working on that and you know honing that that blade, I guess, if you want to be trite.
Speaker: But he's working on that. Cal's been doing a great job since we recorded our first EP in his attic when we were 16 years old. Yeah. Have you considered asking if you can use the attic of your mom's old house? Have you considered that? Because the nostalgia factor might lock you in to just get this shit done.
Speaker: I know that it's all finished now up there. I would love to walk around in that house. Can you rent it? Ask if you can rent that. should just drive down the driveway and knock on the door. i're Like used to live here.
Speaker: um goes over well. Yeah. When you're attic for an whole week. Yeah. Can we just rent it? Yeah. Rent it. You know, you guys leave for, you know, six hours a Rent it during work hours. And turn the turn the heat off up there and let me get a torpedo heater in there. And that's how i I'll deal with it. Yeah. Actually, can we strip everything that you guys finished? Can we bring it back down to like plywood and insulation? That'd be perfect. yeah Please.
Speaker: You know, I really need to lock into my childhood to make this great. Yeah. But yeah, that's. that's the route going to go for this next record. I mean, I'm, so I am, I want to record that so badly just because I, I like, we just said, we're like sick of these songs and, and just, well, also just the fact of the idea that releasing things nowadays needs to be done on a, yeah,
Speaker: More frequentbased frequent basis. Frequent basis. So, and that's why we do the cover. Yeah. yeah I'd love this to be up. Yeah, in your current schedule, the Earth's ambient temperature will be up another one and a half degrees by the time problem two drops. Yeah.
Speaker: We only have a finite amount of time, really. Why I suggest, Cal, doing an EP every six months? I know how much you like when bands do that. Oh, God. It's more or less this yeah the single... The bands that just do singles and singles, they don't have full records.
Speaker: Drives me up the fucking wall and they're... they're They get blown up. like I mean, a lot of them are just plants like President and... Oh my God, dude. President pisses me off. Yeah. What's up with that one? We could spend 20 minutes talking about how much I fucking hate president. Spotify really wants me to like it, but you'll hear the people that stand them because they all know like the true identity of who it is. Like, Oh, that person's worked really hard. Did you know? And it's like, yeah, but this band that this person's in their first show was download fast.
Speaker: Like, yeah. Where's the grind? It's like, congratulations. You just made it onto the mask singer. Yeah, fuck off. And the the gimmick is so just like, I can't imagine what that band's going to look like on their third record and they're still doing the president. Like, you're going to change the president mask so he's going to look like I don't know, like Bill Clinton, like, are, are they going to do that?
Speaker: I think they need to do a new record every four years and have a new president. That's what I think they need to do, which is so lame, but made most sons after a couple albums, I think they need to have the old president fighting to stay in term and not concede the election results. I think that would be really bringing the drama, the lore, you know, get that lore going.
Speaker: Oh, Maybe try to create like a a shadow docket or whatever to overturn the election. I don't know. There's a lot of there's a lot of options. I would give them more credit if they would lean into that idea. I would. But the idea is only the mask, right? That's it. Yeah, it's just mask. So it's like it's not a cool idea. Like president.
Speaker: Like, i don't know. At least with like bands like Sleep Token, as much as I don't care for them, they have like a a mystique to it that it looks cool like with Slipknot <unk>s there's an image and for Sleep Token I like Sleep Token I i understand the criticisms and i understand how the direction it's gone is gets a little played out but at least with Sleep Token, they started that idea and that image when they were nobodies and they were playing shows for 15 people.
Speaker: Yeah, there's some... There's something to it at that point where they developed a lore, they developed a thing, and it turned into something big. And I think...
Speaker: i you know When all the goth baddies who like to shop at Hot Topic were like, this is my new favorite band, and it it turned into like Hot Topic core.
Speaker: like I get that like that's annoying, um but overall, I think... that they earned their status. They worked towards it for years and years and years and it finally took off and they got lucky it took off because a lot of bands don't. um But for president to just be like, we do the same tone, we have the same shtick, we have, and then to just open download fast. I mean, I hate every president.
Speaker: I hate every president. It's not a good theme for a band. That's what I'm saying. It doesn't make any sense. Presidents of the United States of America is great, well though. That is a good band. They played a two-string bass and a three-string guitar. That's sick. eat Peaches fucks. That's a great song.
Speaker: Peaches, peaches, peaches, peaches, peaches? No. i know No, no. want that's ah That's what the the Gen Z kids know. Jack Black, yeah. yeah Peaches, Jack Black, yeah. Billions of Peaches. Peaches for me. that's a for Yeah, good song. I don't know what anybody's talking about.
Speaker: After this, go listen to Presidents the United States. Did that song get titty? He just meows a lot. Good lore.
Speaker: That's good lore. Just meowing. That's the best lore. Yeah. Great lore. Dog's crying. Well.
Speaker: who would you okay just for like Who would you say ah okay your your band is for fans of fill in the blank? like who Who do you think is that is the audience for your band? Target audience.
Speaker: Oz Gags.
Speaker: Creed Creed. Oh, yeah. OK, really, Dan. All right. Perfect. yeah ah mean, yeah, I don't know. Just I do you love Steely Dan.
Speaker: It's hard to say that because of like the there's the genre that we play, but like knowing this, the influences that we put into the music, you would hope that those people that appreciate those different genres that aren't like your atypical metalcore metal would hear and and enjoy, like whether it's Radiohead or or frickin, I don't know, I would say Phoebe Bridgers, but we don't really have any Phoebe Bridgers songs, but like, you know.
Speaker: Ben, so we cover. Yeah, bands that we cover. i mean, we're working on like the the new that the second EP of of covers, we're we're doing a Tears for Fears cover, and we're doing like an As Tall as Lines cover, like those bands that an artist that shaped us, not necessarily metal or metalcore, but or alternative metal, like your deftones and whatnot. But like, that's what I would hope that people understand.
Speaker: That was not like We're just listening to that. I mean, I guess that it's true for any musician is listening to a lot of other things, but. Yeah, like ah like Loathe, I guess, is popular right now, too. that There's some of that in there.
Speaker: um Kind of... i hate to say metal, because it's not really metal. It's not hard rock. It's not it's like alternative shoegaze. Post-metal, kind of.
Speaker: exactly. Rodney Radke. Yeah. Yeah. yeah exactly hey right just go toney radke yeah royal brides yeah yeah did dawkin yeah Yeah, this this record is definitely more shoegaze. I think that the next record is like a completely different thing too, though. So it's um we're trying to do our own thing at the same time, I guess, which is kind of also trite to say. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. No, I think that when you said shoegaze, that immediately hit. It's like an alternative metal variant with shoegaze influence. like that hits pretty We were saying post-metal for a while. As close to it you can get. We play with a lot of hardcore bands, and we're the softer band on the bill. And then we've played with some indie rock bands, and we were way too heavy. So it's trying to find that in between.
Speaker: um But it it ranges from that, because you mentioned As Tall as Lines and Tears for Fear. So it goes from stuff like that to Meshuggah and Lamb God for Jamie. Yeah.
Speaker: There are no bounds. Well, you guys have a single out that people can check out. again The Shape of Your Ghost, it's the self, not self-title, but it's sort of the album title.
Speaker: um It's out now. We have a video out everywhere you stream streams. There's a Ouija board in the music video, so you know it's pretty cool. Oh, actually, ah sorry. A lot of our listeners can't actually watch it now. so sorry yeah that's enough Generational curses and whatnot. Yeah, you know, we're really worried about... Kind dark and twisted like that. Yeah, you got like, it makes me, are you guys like, I
Speaker: ah i was like Marilyn Manson where he removed some ribs to blow himself or like that kind of thing. We're going for that. except Dark evil. though Right. Yes. But I will say that one Hollywood, that record is pretty fun.
Speaker: Never got into him. Too weird for me. Pretty good record, but he is piece shit. You're a little goth boy, though. I was a little bit of a goth boy. i wore trip pants. Like Cradle of Filth. That was before I met you. My long hair, trip pants.
Speaker: I liked Hot Topic. Yeah. I never did the trip pants. You ever see IT Crowd? ever see it t crowd IT crowd. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, the dude from mighty boosh, they find him and he's like this goth guy in the, wait, which one from mighty boosh is in it. Um, the one Joel, is that his name? The one with the, he's in that. Yeah. Yeah. I love mighty boosh. British bake off. Yeah.
Speaker: He's on it t crowd. He plays a goth and, uh, loves cradle of filth. And that was, you ah dude, I love cradle of filth. That was soft spot for them. That's funny. Yeah. like Well, I hope you can maintain that soft spot when the Cradle of Filth Ed Sheeran collab comes Oh, I can't wait for that.
Speaker: Can't. Waiting. I think it's all about how much this it's not actually a genocide in Palestine. I think that's the whole point the song. but Yeah, exactly. How both sides need to come together in love because love wins.
Speaker: It's like the Michael Jackson live video where he where he pushes the gun down. yeah He's getting pointed a gun at him. He goes, no. Black or white? no that What's that? Is it black or white?
Speaker: Yeah, I think so. And yeah, the gun's pointed at him. He just pushes it down. Sort of like a Kylie Jenner Pepsi commercial sort of thing. Oh, God. Exactly.
Speaker: Do you see that ah ah Hetfield at one of the Metallica shows was saying that like musicians need to put their politics aside? Metallica wrote in Justice for All. Yeah.
Speaker: What did he say? Justice for all? oh they no they're there. They put the record out in justice for all. That's very political at the time. oh yeah. Thrash is also famously, but it's punk rock except metal. know, it's like, he's worse than Lars now. What the hell?
Speaker: Yeah. That's a high bar. Yeah. Lars sucks, man. All right. I don't want to be this guy at the end of an episode, but ah Metallica just... I hate Metallica so much. I have a soft spot for them just because of like they're one of the... I have a flying V on my wall behind me, but yeah they're one of the gateway bands.
Speaker: Jump in the fire changed my life. Yeah, I get why people like them. I just... I'll i'll never... I'll never understand it. I'll never hear it and be like, this makes sense to me.
Speaker: I just can't lock into that. get it. I don't want to be disrespectful to towards a legendary band that influenced so many people, but I just... ever Anytime we've ever like I've ever listened to it, I'm just like, what the fuck am I missing?
Speaker: Well, you listen to rock dude if you listen other metal and rock before you got into them too, like a lot of... This one's polarizing, but I'm that way with the Beatles. Like I like Eleanor. Not polarizing. I feel i hate listening to the Beatles. more Yeah. It does nothing for me. I went, I did ah a deep dive to just to like finally sit down and give it a shot. And it's, I got to say like what they did in what seven years is crazy.
Speaker: And like so much genre bending. I'm a big like frog rock, frog metal guy. It's really cool that they jumped genres and basically like, i don't know. stole a bunch of music from other people so that white people could hear it and then also like did a bunch SA stuff too. But John Lennon's a piece of shit.
Speaker: You can rest and piss. um And it's fine. and don't get it. i like Paul McCartney. Yeah. Outside of the Beatles.
Speaker: he like up He's the most talented. I love Ram. That's for Tim. Ramstein? Do you like Ramstein? also like them. Also an SA guy, though. Are they? Didn't they release dildo molds with like a box set or something?
Speaker: yeah i feel that's like that That's something that you're not surprised at. Well, yeah. yeah like Have you ever been to their show? like yeah i know that one song that's Dewhast Milk or something like that. Dewhast Meech.
Speaker: Mountain Dew Milk. but All right. Well, this has been fun, guys. Thanks so much for hanging out. Thanks for having us. so We pushed away every person who's a fan of any band. Yeah, I know. Oh, let's shoot on the Beatles. I'll shoot on Metallica, Rammstein.
Speaker: I'm sure we could do it. if we Look. We're in a pin-aided group. Do I get one? I hate Red Hot Chili Peppers. oh dode to me too. me too Bad, bad, bad dude. bad dude I think the hate for the band musically is so overplayed. They're a cool band.
Speaker: Flea, Chad ah chuck Smith, right and John Frusciante are great. Anthony Kiedis can go fucking jump off a cliff. Music does nothing for me. Music in general does nothing for me, I guess is what I should Yeah, you're dead inside. I feel like that's everybody who's in a band. I feel like people who are in bands just realize that they don't like music, but they're compelled to play it.
Speaker: Being a musician is so embarrassing. I'll just say it. All music is inherently bad. Being a musician is embarrassing. All bands are bad.
Speaker: Solid closeout. I love the way you guys sold it. That was nice a good finish. Good finisher. Check out our record. It sucks. Yeah, it sucks.
Speaker: We've maxed out credit cards and spent years of our lives put it out. and Yeah.
Speaker: Well, on that note, real quick, where can people find your cool single? ah A bunch companies that donate money to four drones. Yeah, you can find it Deezer if you use Deezer.
Speaker: What is Deezer? Are you trying to sell? I mean, what are you doing right now? Do even care about your art, dude? What what even is art?
Speaker: no um it's ah it's a heavy bit that we're we're doing. No, it's on all your streaming platforms. It's on Spotify. It's on it everywhere that streams music. Pure volume, if it exists, it's there. The band is Loud Sounds. The single is The shape of Shape of Your Ghost. Shape of Your Ghost. That is also the title of the album. Why am I better promoting your music than you guys? Because that's what we need. We need other people to promote of our music, and not us. We're on a mind over matter records. Shout out to Austin. Thanks for you putting this out. um You can find it on their website. We'll have links in our socials.
Speaker: We're on band camp. That's the best best place to get anything. Yeah. Buy it directly. You'll get the most pre-order the record. It comes out November 12th. ah Yeah. And we're, we're playing an album release. We're playing it front to back at Fett and Providence with our buddies in dream. Well, actor, observer and peace of you.
Speaker: Oh, nice. Actor Observer. Those guys are always fun. what's what When's that show? On November 19th. November November November 21st. I'm terrible with dates. November 21st.
Speaker: I always get a message from Cal or Tim or his other guitar player. um I'll make a post to a story or something. It's like, hey, dude, that's the wrong date. like so Oops. November 21st. You guys really need your own Don King, you know? Yeah, yeah we do. with dawn here If you're listening, is he, i don't know if he's dead, but I don't know. Hit him up.
Speaker: Yeah. All right, everybody. Well, thanks for listening. We will see you next
Speaker: time.
