On this episode of the Comcastro podcast, Maximüs Groves and guest host Matthew Queen talk to the new age progressive rock band EQO who have recently released their first album Ananta. Over the course of two hours, band members Daisy Bellis and Kity Faya open up deeply about the album, the state of the music industry, the fallacy of music genre, and the struggle of bringing your dreams to reality. We also have a thorough conversation on new age philosophy and pharmacology. This might be getting into Joe Rogan’s territory, so approach with an open mind.
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Why don’t you want me to start right here the dark night on the top of the sun I thought this was established in our friendship. Like if there’s one thing I get it’s like others misery. If there’s one thing you get it’s look forward. People this is how we can get ahead of ourselves to get started. OK good even internets Viva comcastro Viva la Revolution on this is Max Groves Matthew Queen. So we’re actually really surprised by the outcome of this that you know people seem to be more than just pain. Yeah or are all of you people we have no idea who you are. Because if I think it’s nobody we know we know this for a fact and of our friends admit to listening my theory is that our friends are so tired of our existing bullshit that when we say we have a professional product of our existing bullshit they’re like no do not put that on me I don’t want to hear any more from you motherfucker. You’ve managed to weaponize your conversation graduation. OK So we have we actually have a few friends who want to talk about for a second. People have interesting things happen this week. Matthew reached out to the Atlanta Fringe Festival this Thursday. They’re celebrating their one of the twenty fifteen festival some of the people you can see there are going to be like The Roots Dance Project dark penguin and of course the one and only improv a soreness. OK full disclosure we have no we don’t know any of these guys yeah. Anticipative been very interesting. I cannot wait to see him from the source that’s going to be awesome. So the Celtics Mary’s which is an Atlanta yes. Mary’s there’s an amazing drink specials going on have to double down on the entire deal we already promoted but like I remember you telling me like Thursday Thursday Thursday you told me in L.A. So Mary is a lesbian or is it really. Yeah I don’t know I have no idea. Remember you know the drama of bees and Gage I’m sorry. Oh yeah the place where you all went after it was Americans. That’s it that’s it. Well like I remember you were saying in L.A. like a gay bar isn’t a thing it’s just that’s absolutely right. Some of the hottest bars in L.A. just happen to be in West Hollywood which is what happens because do you know how gay West Hollywood is their police cars have a rainbow on I’m not making it. Hell we interviewed Sammy last week. She’s performing at the jungle weekly in a contest for the Knicks and for your life and which is a reason that I don’t know it’s like going out to work on our voting skills. Yeah I don’t either so exposed jungle is at least leans that way right. Yeah but it’s like not to go to pretty great show like everyone’s like doing that when you know this might be like a step forward for like because that when it feels pretty rigid and what they do so I let you go understand L.A. is just holding them so do you think it’s going to benefit when a culture just like you have an instinct that is happening more or perhaps alternative bars and everyone kind of like Soros open up your nose with and what you heard. To be honest I mean I think you can definitely rocket I mean like it but here’s the problem a lot of the homosexuals don’t like that either there’s there’s a big vocal. Like the King of wholesale a place they’re persecuted by a substantial number of people so when they go to a gay bar you know that stuff like this is a way. Yeah plus I mean let’s not forget the fact that you know if you’re at a gay bar and you’re a guy let’s face it you’re on the hunt and I don’t want to straight people show up it’s like some of those things that a metrosexual thing. Why everyone’s so happy that one away. Gays didn’t like a thing is right there. So I’ve been an ugly bearded guy my whole life. You’re human you’re beautiful but it’s like that’s now the law. We call such a war. Yeah like the what they have to do as a parent they have wealth and it’s a bear but like the how condescending was that just like you never made it so I go talk at one time I was actually so much because really I don’t like the show Spartacus because Spartacus is a pregame show it really is it does a lot of things there’s just no way around that a lot of dude but thing and I’m glad we have weird shows on Emerson tradeable just like Atlanta from special which I think is for everybody and if you don’t want to go there than to go to some of your life or one of the jungle state. Well write something here so that we have up this week if you think back we had we had days in killing of the band echo their release on their new album yet these guys are these guys are good. They’re all over You Tube We watched actually listen we listen to the summer school I only those on You Tube That’s the single Yeah and we listen to the whole album is really good I mean like going for a new age rock sort of thing which is I think that like pop stars are not going to like this trip each of us an airplane has to like the hard experience I just want to be connected to so I’m still having a good time with it. I met these people. Karaoke there to get tickets. I’m glad they got their shit together they got a great product they got a great show coming up in March. Like Michelin three or four weeks we’ll talk about that and so you know the first half basically just boils down to what you know are their influences are people even as people in the music scene for the hustle is never a pleasant. Yeah it’s always like what’s It’s fascinating watching the you know successful you know you start to put it together and that’s and that’s kind of like a new part of where they are in your career that the gears are moving and people are starting to take notice and they have a good product that’s the best part. It feels like Atlanta perhaps has not had that resource. As for amazing talent to have who’s so into an explosion to hear and just to see people you know just go on for love and what you’re doing. I’m just passionate about it. I’m so glad to be able to be in touch with people what my life you know I think I think in fairness people charming so without any further ado I go years ago and I’m he has done the angry video game nerd the movie. Well you know actually don’t you know if that is trying to plug it as an extra. OK I would I would just go to talk about what you did. No you didn’t cover the mirrors I’m losing sight of myself. Again a germ is the perfect segue to an actual introduction. OK So hello universe and it’s good to see you again. We were speaking here today with local artists echo who are anticipating an upcoming album release because of a big show coming pretty soon. This is true enough and I don’t know until March twenty seventh twenty seven you so it’s called I’m not a monster dammit I really I should have actually research that I did and if I had a good hard to research honestly Sanskrit for without and without and does the show and no actually it doesn’t we do we’re going to go like purgatory where you know when I said I was ripe for a lawsuit mean I think it’s a case like this is the never ending Story Oh god the never ending of that list where we’re at the very least the last track loops back to the first exactly without a hand. Exactly which is going to introduce ourselves again on the whole you know the last song. Now one more is love for you guys when I go so oh you know it could be you could be like the tower like with like Stephen King’s Dark Tower series where the very end it starts all over again except now he’s got one extra item to just give it away. Spoiler alert is well our question will occasionally been up for over a decade like I thought I haven’t and I know it’s not a movie you know is the book I want to do so. Thanks but while I just sort of the wasteland of the quote it’s a reliable way. So whatever Bruce Willis is that at the end of the six and I have used and it’s going to tell to his head in the box. Oh God Well I would go in and quickly that was crap item two he’s dead to head in the box. Yeah yeah. Who people are going to like it was trying to gain fans from this interview we can’t gain them by you know spoiling the best movies ever. What was the name of that video I just saw the ONLY on You Tube I only I I only aria. So did you guys just like film out randomly. No is actually in production for a for like four months. We we had we had a lot of scheduling issues and we were we did it in a in an abandoned school or a school that burnt down off of the oven Moreland out any that had now been completely torn down. Yeah there was a lot nobody in any shop down there and this is now historical footage that is actually a part of Atlanta’s history that respect as I think is important. BELTON like from one thousand nine hundred seventy nine hundred sixty something and it was open until around the ninety’s when they had a fire when nobody’s in a thank God But there was a fire and so that it just kind of just going to burn down the ninety’s into my twenty some odd years to rip that sucker down. It was amazing how it was it was such an amazing experience. The set was just outstanding was unlike anything you’d seen because there was there was still light. There’s still a basketball goals hanging up and like you know there was a bunch of like trees that had grown inside of the actual school Reclaim Your phone really run like a half of the building was like school even though we didn’t get any footage of it sadly on the path of the building with light partially scorch you know it’s not like Chernobyl like going back and yeah it really does look like you know will just you know the side not sidewalks but the walkways were all like torn up and everything in and as you could see in one part of the video he put his hand on the wall and it just fall down and that is just what happened I don’t know what happened we did not plan or make it happen and it just so you just roll their eyes. Yeah I just like cracked by his hand as he pushed on it I mean the place was probably one of those like brick level blows no one knew it was coming but Bowman makes the entire thing. Yeah well except for he to make you the fucking hundred one a time until your mind actually cracks. Yeah I mean you’re left as a collage. It was good though you know we knew we were going to be shooting a video for I only I and simultaneous we shot another video called Flow which was dedicated to suicide prevention at the same time so on one hand we’re taught you know a you know one video shoot we’re poisoning ourselves and then the next video shoot we’re talking about you know the consequence of the poisoning itself and when I thought it was it was really really cool and I only I was such a powerful song and that’s why we chose to do that song really really big. So far it’s been one of the biggest fan favorites come to us we haven’t had a single show that we’ve done where somebody hasn’t like that one song now where it’s like oh you don’t remember what I said. They just remember like that one part and they go nuts over it and it really you know they can actually turn. Yeah yeah. My congratulations that’s hard. We don’t actually write songs we write buyers. Yeah absolutely do well that it is funny though because listening to guys music it seems you’re very committed to sort of like emotional and spiritual health or consciousness or well being and that’s that’s extremely rare is like a pop music kind of format you know because you know sing song a fun deal like this whole album This Is this just like calm as like this healing mechanism for me to try to like reach out and say we we hear you we love you when you just came from a from a place of depression like complete and utter depression was that I was at the lowest point you know I had gone through a divorce and I was kind of coming to terms with late my belief system is flawed I am not. Perfect in the ways that the way that I thought I was or whatever I thought I had things figured out and then something happens in this case it was a divorce that really just flipped me upside down. And so as I was writing you know as I usually write I’m always trying to follow the idea that misery loves company and so I try to say you know here this is this is how bad my life sucks and you know now your life sucked because mine does but in this case you know is faced with that with the option and I thought if I was going to write about this in the way that I used to that I might not be alive to to see the record so I decided to follow the light instead of enjoying the darkness but you know it’s funny that you know I’m going to divorce would produce something like that I mean Louis C.K. talks about music and talks about you know how going through a divorce is like the best thing that ever happened to us not what he said What is this perspective following the forces at work as well and divorce is a good marriage. Well Louis C.K. uses humor as you know as a healing mechanism in A’s music. You know if you like humor a lot of the time you make light of what’s going on just to make it her bus sounds but in music you know it’s very you know you’re very vulnerable and you’re showing sides of yourself that you’re not ready I guess ready to show everyone else. That’s actually a really interesting statement come out so when performing like for you guys is it is it almost like a mother persona that sort of like emerge from this or is it like sort of your own. And they’ve been charged. I think if they’d been out in between just kind of like exposing parts of yourself and also kind of being this larger than life character at the same time honestly I feel more like a character whenever I come back down from the stage and I have to interact. But like I kind of I love the way that Stevie Nicks put it she said something to the effect that when she’s singing on stage she feels like her feet go down into the roots to the core of the earth and that her head is sky high because you feel like that and there’s you know nobody you know you was. No I don’t really describe it unless you have a few has some sort of passion that that expresses itself in that way I don’t. I feel like public speaking can also be in the same respect but that’s something something emotive. I mean do you ever feel the crowd like Have you ever felt yourself like manipulating a crowd working with the crowd. Do you ever change your performance like to like match what a crowd is giving new energy is so tangible you know you feel everything that they’re putting out towards you I think the worst show you can play is to no one because even if even if people you know don’t like you you can feed off the energy and use it as a way to make yourself bigger and maybe win the crowd over or maybe others have fun not liking them as well. But yeah. No your you your performance definitely does start to change according to how the crowd responds to you have you have liked to say Don’t take this wrong way. Yeah have you had like nobody shows options like I’ve met because karaoke and I’ve actually had to say no virtue. Well it’s like I would like spending hours we’re not going to just like the most agonizing experience you know not to not you know not to bullshit you but really echo captivates we really do people don’t walk away from our performances or feel like they feel like they’re part of something genuine and a lot of the time even if there’s just four people there which you know my might occur because it it’s not a show we did a lot of favors again in two thousand and thirteen. What was it to the fourteen thousand and fifteen. Well we wrote the album in thirteen. Yes Yes So we were we were doing a lot of shows this favors in two thousand and fourteen and you know where my fans are sexy I wanted a dog so you know basically people were just like hey man you want to do this show you know you guys are my friends and we like you know like yeah sure why not you know and test out the waters the venue and whatnot. We didn’t really put our effort into promoting them very much though. No not like we do now days we bend simply because we weren’t ready you know. Yeah you know we didn’t have a full band at that time so how do you how do you promote you know shows that you’re not prepared for like the shows aren’t worth I wouldn’t pay to see the shows why would I expect you to do so. Yes So we did a lot of favors and had a lot of those shows there would be a lesser turnout than we expected but like I said. Well that was also kind of due to the fact that sometimes they were more genre driven like we would go to a show that was more that was more like bluegrass Yeah bluesy regress or we would go. Our first show is actually at a hip hop venue even though that one wedge and leading Lee Well you know and went incredibly well and they liked it a lot you know you can end up with mixed responses depending on where you go and the other acts that are playing so I mean we never we never had a show where we’ve had like literally one or two people but we have had people who were looking for a certain genre to comment because very frequently like maybe they’ll they’ll pair like Snoop Dog or I don’t know he probably does something but yeah I don’t run D.M.C.. Yeah exactly I will not even just for like one sampling thing but like the Tour is the entire tour is like the rap artist I like the punk band. Like one when Lady Gaga I want to have Diane Ford on her tour. Owners are dying completely affiliate yawners were given to us by record labels and the music industry to make it easier to sell and you know populate more more artists along that same vein but in real life that’s not the way music is ever word for instance in the ninety’s we talk about it being the golden age of music but people open up my CD case and they go oh man you’re Audioslave then you know you because I had their entire discography which was two albums at the time but in reality I can’t stand Audioslave I think I can I think Chris Cornell sounds sounds like my cat but there are two songs in particular from both of those albums that I love. What was it that being yourself. Man that song is amazing but then he goes on to lighten America sounds like a parrot and I can’t I can’t handle it you know it’s funny is what you remind me of the way I describe a horn and I want to horn songs has like like I guess the bridge is really awesome. All enlighten me is my favorite example I like when I was in the song I’m just like rolling I think. My God when you get to the good part and then they do when you’re like oh my God what to really tell them then they go right back to the creepy stuff. Yeah I don’t know. Well well my point my point in mentioning all this was it was that people would go through my my you know my case of C.D.’s CD collecting on my Phoebe collection and you know I don’t even think you can go from ninety six can you know even know what a CD is you know in the future kids are going to look back and see these seem like two that’s the way the ninety’s were meant to be if you know that one day some kid is going to be wearing her vintage I’d be listening to Taylor Swift. I was born in the wrong generation. I mean you know that’s going to happen like Starbucks the Logos is going to be like this throwback Oh yeah right. So but what I was saying before so rudely interrupted you. Is that people come to see the case and they assume that you love that that that artist but in reality you just like those two songs and so I feel like a ninety’s gave giving gave people a big false impression as to how we actually listen to music because now a day you get a more a more realistic representation of it. For instance like every playlist will take you from the strangest You know the I guess the strangest spectrum you go from Taylor Swift to Cradle of Filth to fuck in the way you know it. Louis Armstrong you know back to fuck in Lady Gaga. Well pointless is very much sort of like a sampling of a person you know like if you want to know like it’s been forever. Worse like you want to show someone what you’re feeling you know using I mean this mixtape or you know like playing didn’t happen anymore. Exactly. Doesn’t it in a way though you know because like you can look at it sort of like as a separate thing what it will for you guys like individually like. What would be like your playlist like right now like on your car I would say a lot of hip hop. Well post my favorite genre. I would say it would go from probably Kanye West’s new album you know Tec nine so screw all this stuff to what do I what I love to listen to I am X. and I and Marilyn Manson is new. Oh the weekend is outstanding. I love I love the weekend it would take you from hip hop to the weekend to I am next. Known this is a song well I am I’m on the opposite end of that like my my playlist would probably still include a lot of operating music very rock. So what I would call it marriage now I do I do have you know like a kind of very metal not Arctic ecliptic or fog and fairy weighing in on what you’re carrying it’s a that’s the reason why and where those headed thinking by now I can write them clean and of course I mean can’t can’t live without them. Of course not. Oh God I would die. Oh yeah. Honestly I’m just so glad we still have like bands just about like raging into like Viking battle like from a morning I’ll never know if they are going to say raging infamous yearly I don’t know you know by now you know above the law of God One family found that out of getting at you know there were rumors but I know I should be like a proper Zandra offend if I don’t hear I am here to show you that my friend where you’ll be here all night. There are like twelve albums. Anyway my point is that John is don’t actually exist they were just sold to us. Well I mean part of it is like when you look back on him. History you’ve got to classify things absolutely all other genres come out of stuff like you know historians looking back and saying OK we had the baroque period as you know you have the you know the you know Mozart added this and that you also have the compartmentalization of music where the instruments make them different like an Asian and Irish music how everything uses that circle of fifths sort of scale but that’s because of the instruments that they use you know has caused that you know you raise you raise an interesting point there by referencing the symphony I’ve I mean I I play a lot of classical and it’s a dying art form. Yeah and I maintain that’s dying not because of a lack of interest but instead it’s completely there I don’t know no I don’t use the kind of classical guitar almost before we get into the variational Symphony has had a stagnant ensemble for a while the most recent addition to it was the saxophone and I was in the one thousand twenty’s and there’s been very little composed for the symphony featuring a saxophone since then. In that way I think that rock is also compartmentalise whenever it comes to shows specifically because because the music industry is in the in the way that the donors for the for the orchestra tell them that like we only want you to play these songs in that way they kind of tell the musicians that you know you only have to deal with five of them then are you know six maybe twelve if you got a crazy band but that you can only play things and write things that go within the genre. That’s why you have a show that has FALL OUT BOY AND PARAMORE who have a very similar sound. Yeah absolutely. One of which was an amazing and they put on a great great show right on presses you know thirty years of emo pop they’ve mastered it they’ve got it down. Well on a similar Amber Alert has pop music kind of forced itself to catch up to like underground electronica acts you know like the new productions. I feel like having grown up listening or hearing. I don’t ever want to listen to it. They’re having hearing like that whole Christina Aguilera style and then you just compare it to anything from like when you got it. KATY PERRY It’s like production since it was up to this game which are. Yeah and out of that high up it’s game. I’m not sure if talent has that oh that’s why I love that’s why I love pop music and hip hop music in general because you do see people who are constantly trying to get on their grind to master the game it’s a war between producers and they’re trying to make the next catchiest thing so you’re always hearing these new innovative techniques in music where is and I will say this and rock N roll and rock music in general. So many bands you know I’ve been doing I’ve been doing music since I was thirteen but I’ve been doing rock music since I was seventeen so ten years of rock music. A lot of bands just try to replicate what’s already popular but they don’t fuckin realize that hey you know by the time somebody actually discovers you there on to the next big thing so you can trying to emulate Good Charlotte. I don’t know why you would but I know you can anyway. Good Charlotte. But by the time somebody who likes Good Charlotte actually hears you Good Charlotte is no longer relevant. Yeah so you know the reality is that no matter how produced and you know how much you want to condescend on something like Katy Perry or any of the popular stars they don’t miss a beat. And Taylor Swift actually goes out of her way to say that her new a single or she’s you know I think one of things you don’t see is I don’t miss a beat. Yeah they’re all phenomenal. And whenever you’re competing at that level like you’re dealing with just like a collection of prodigies. And we’re going to hand you this popular music and you’re going to be this you know we can we can manufacture you guys now because guess what if you disagree with me. Well childhood prodigy I’ll go ahead and choose the next twenty down the line who all are basically the same. OK what I counted and put on let me count my my counter is it’s funny because pop. Culture has shifted in such a way that people that we can no longer create superstars like Britney Spears or Katy Perry or Lady Gaga things like that. The Lady Gaga seems relevant. She’s also what six years or six years now she’s been she’s been she’s ad two thousand and eight was when she so really is just so fuckin seven years she’s seven years old. I mean that’s that’s that’s that’s ancient and parted from our child but the thing is is that pop culture is now starting to popularize people who are relatable and that’s the most interesting thing this youtube shift has created. Stars like Tyler the Creator who looks like a dude from my boss you know like that rode the bus with me and just remember who got to start anew today. Again Justin Bieber’s also. How many years old he is he when Hubert. Right there I don’t really learn I mean you have before Lady Gaga I was actually you know he got his start before Lady Gaga even did so and like with him like he’s getting all this extra controversy which is just a completely other thing to talk about this all the time and we don’t you know the disconnected persona of superstars is starting to die down and it’s May It’s paving the way for look for people with a genuine passion and what I was saying whenever I said that that you know the talent has diminished. It’s not in the talent of their performing aspect I think it’s in the talent of being able to to create as much because I understand that yes fearless of Swift does write a lot of her own songs but vocally they’re not super difficult like I’d have to say that Christina Aguilera has difficult songs to sing and a lot of the times whenever I’m looking for something that’s difficult to do the only artist that’s even relevant nowadays that. I would say is a challenge is for the machine. Yeah I want solutions amazing like she is the only one that I look at as a challenge anymore but that has to do with my coming from opera so. But at the same time it’s like whenever everything else is just kind of like you have to stop at the right time rather than it being like you know having to do a certain number of notes and scales and things like that. There’s an appreciation for it but I do think music fans are looking to be a challenge. You know absolutely the tagline for Echo is something surreal something to believe and I think I think that people are absolutely searching for things to believe in and that’s why we are popularizing people that we can relate to as opposed to people that we can never be you know you mentioned something earlier that as soon as we got big I was I’ve just been waiting and unfortunately Justin Bieber’s want to prove me right. When you do. So you know I don’t just mean you know you have Justin Bieber in your phone or something. Dropping So he is more like a connection to the people. So I mean the thing about it is like when you two got big the first thing I thought was the next Spielberg and the next Beatles are coming through here or the next iteration internet or video or whatever and whenever you talk about you know blowing down you know the gates you know that the means of production it’s always very difficult to make it big. I mean it still is but it was it was harder back in the days of like Metallica and well basically up until You Tube because you really had to get that check from Warner Brothers or whoever. And nowadays if you make it big enough on your own screw them just do it. The funny thing is you’re creating the exact opposite argument of the superstars of today of like you know there are days roll is constantly talking and all these rock stars who are already and their million dollar homes act like they can have an opinion on what it’s like to struggle to build a bill to pay for. Some talk and promotion you know they’re sitting here saying that it is absolutely impossible for musicians to make it now a day then and it was much easier before because all you had to do was get signed so I think it’s the whole thing is you know struggle is in the eye of the beholder. I really am a very good documentary to watch on the state of music industry is artifact on Netflix right now and it’s done. Bartholomew Roberts aka Jared Leto wrote it and there you know the whole system arms and their entire struggle with getting out of a contract with them even though with the seven year clause out of California they were technically out of their contract but there that I think was Warner Bros that they signed under no Atlantic Atlantic it was Atlantic Records kept trying I could A That might be loose still owe us money so you are still in a contract as it sound right though Atlanta he kept saying it over and over and when he said it and don’t have the right no it was not in any way that the premise of the story is that they were sued for thirty million dollars by the record label and it has interviews from Serj Tankian. I think Steyn from ever is from so many people within the industry you know just speaking out against the record label and according spoiler alert. Again sorry listeners still go but at the end of the great documentary at the end it’s revealed that they still haven’t made a fucking profit. You’re talking about thirty seconds to mars thirty six to Mars with Jared Leto as the celebrity front man and that band still hasn’t caught up to profit and they’ve been around for nearly on fifteen it’s got to be like ten years now it within your documentary came on you know I was trying to feel young. We go beyond ninety nine ninety nine was on the I don’t care where you know what’s fascinating is like you mentioned a roller and how he doesn’t have or people like him don’t have a right to say anything about knowing how to struggle because he was talking about he had some fire rightfully placed with stuff like American Idol because he thinks that it’s profoundly unhealthy to teach kids that like you know the way to superstardom is to you know win this talent competition and then you’re big but then to prove his point he says you know we did use you know we just practice and we stopped and we Septimus up and then we became Nirvana and I was like whoa whoa hold on there you like that escalated. Yeah I did that to Asian Man Well I mean I don’t know if you have some struggle there right it’s just different like it was a different hustle right you know it’s a different animal. Thanks for having me and I had both having been in singing competitions it is it’s more of a reality T.V. thing. Yeah I’ll tell you what they say and if you don’t think it right then or the way that they want you to say it then you take it again and again and again and again and then I was OK when they want you to I made it further than Katie. How do you know. I will probably let you know if you drink the banana. You know all right Jack. I was actually and I was I was on X. Factor I did mean what the fuck. His name Simon and Britney Spears. His name is Britney Spears. And then all of them whatever you know fuck name dropping. So the thing about the thing about the reality series is that like she said it is exploiting your weaknesses. The moment you’re not talking to humans you’re talking to producers and the producers are there to make a show and the show has to get ratings and that’s the name of the game. So they don’t really give a shit if you can sing. What matters is that when they start hearing you go hoarse you know they’re starting to get a little excited. I did. And they’re like you know just keep talking to us just keep talking to you I can’t because I can’t sing. Yeah that’s good that’s good. Say that again. I can’t sing. Yeah that’s just like that you know and then they get you on stage and you can’t talk and sing and they’re like why couldn’t you think and it really is that duplicitous and final cut and paste all different sorts of things into there like the moment that you know they feel like oh yeah well it was a little like week but I really liked it although it was a little Yeah it was a little weak. The only person they used for my segment who was L.A. Reid who said it was karaoke on steroids right sounds like an insult or whatever but he actually said yes after that said it’s karaoke on steroids. But all of it. Yeah and then when the segment airs it’s like we’re going to marry you if you carry out hands only parent like something good to L.A. REID Yes I mean only L.A. Reid did sign Justin Bieber is a huge I don’t know I don’t know I think it sounds odd sounds can people get it sounds like it’s all talk. OK so oddly something that I could make artificial care and are using performance karaoke of the time. Yeah it’s like straight into my brain. Maybe he was saying that my he felt my balls shrinking in during the karaoke answer anyway. If there’s more it’s you perform a higher voice that they got. Yeah probably. Actually we should mention the target like that’s how we met I don’t sing karaoke and this guy was like one of the most mind blowing peoples walks in and out of nowhere. Thank you Maximus. Yeah next time when you bring it back to like that human element. Its what the youtube fans are for him to know the people but that they operate on the Internet a really human you know I don’t know the one thousand year old I don’t know what it is within me that just can’t get with a girl and actually I do love his music. Love who fight is there’s a lot of passion behind it and I think he’s amazing for what he does but just shut the fuck up when it comes to talking about the the music scene today. You don’t fucking know you have no idea what it’s like to be in our position because you’re already above our position and not only that he he started before the age of the Internet exacting a four generation X. practically existed. Yeah so there’s only like five people to listen to like sounds unique. Wow. Exactly here is now what like all the most brilliant unique people are competing with each other at the same time. Right would Nirvana actually stand a chance at existing in this you know this this world of music today who you know it’s hard to say that one of the things about Nirvana is that they resonated with the Generation X. culture yes that is absolute their stuff if you really are but a guy in his early forty’s or late thirty’s right now who has a goatee and you put on Smells Like Teen Spirit. It is going to hit him in a way that like the rest of us just don’t get it. Yeah and I I think that you know there was kinds of songs exist these days by the stratification of art in general has been I mean it’s like it’s so fine that you I mean I mean it’s like it’s like what’s up with that rule for internet porn Rule thirty four gotta poised are too young and it was so specific and because like I have music I listen to in my car like some some electronic music that like I don’t let anyone listen. Yeah. It’s just something that’s so specific I know like no one ever ever going to want to see this objective. I hate I hate that somebody’s guilty pleasure like no pleasure should be guilty I feel like you should just enjoy it and they were I think you know you know I think if you know that I will hide from the rest of the world for post pro prog some product model but I don’t know my mother. Yeah right you know that’s what I was saying and joggers don’t really exist anymore because you know back in the eighty’s between the eighty’s ninety’s even seventy’s like everything was really kind of concrete in that respect because they were feeling things. Now you know because we were coming off of off of the like fifty’s era of you know big band which was really honestly rather similar to the orchestral music but in a smaller scale with more brass. Yeah and so like it was really more of a time of feeling things out and so you’d be able like I feel like the energy kind of changed with that to create the genres and now those honors are being multiplied and divided in just you know now that’s why those sort of genre’s exist because the barriers are breaking. I remember Hugh Laurie said on Colbert Report America’s greatest gift to the world is jazz. Yeah you know that’s we can play jazz music. Yeah but I like that the sort of love of a sort of an intellectual exploration of what we can accomplish as opposed to what we want in the first place but rather as an Englishman to some people hating on America in a jazz club and you know if you can get over it he was like a beautiful I just don’t ever want to leave here like this. This is amazing. A guitarist is heavily heavily influenced by jazz and classical to jazz. Was I mean one of your own classical music has challenges American mastery there and the degree of perfection is unlike anything else I’ve ever seen inclusive of my current job. Like it’s ridiculous how good you have to be and then you go into jazz jazz and it’s like leaving like training for the Roman Legionnaires and entering into the jungle and it’s like walking on it all by heart but I hadn’t thought of the I and I come from like you in that respect of I Can Do you like practically every genre under the sun can’t rap though you know she can’t wrap her shit now. Yeah yeah right. OK But here is another one that I have I’ve never been able to quite conquer and I think that comes from I think that comes from having that sort of background with that much like you know I got it I got an object weighed it what did you say so you got to be some style. So here’s the funny thing. We’re not going to resolve the known Kitty of your parents out of the basement. I mean they’re in a fuck in in a what were in the cars fucking blistering late blistering heat it’s like ninety five degrees and I’m like we’re not leavin this car until you Brett I we’re sitting here a lot of white pretentious coffee shop in Atlanta really like Master cricket over here well yeah I’m going to train your only way to get it you know we gotta step up our game. The new age progressive thing can only last for so long and the hip new age hip hop you know chakras about turning red right now. Brad one of that a few moments of my heart. Well what I will say is that the genre of Echo is actually new age progressive alternative. Now we cut out the alternative part because we then realize new age progressive alternative all sounds the same and all the power like sounds like it was the only agent of a variation of a variation with rock. Yeah and then I thought they I’d rather doubly go with new age progressive because you definitely have like progressive aspects serious with very odd or not I don’t regret having Musically though we’re progressive we’re actually sponsored by Progressive Insurance and kids. No response isn’t really that you know you have good insurance but we just put people can you know. Yeah they got that out of F.L.L. they know what it means but you raise an interesting point you know if you’re writing a story if you’re starting a band if you’re doing anything and you try and figure out like how do you market it like that. That’s that the you have to like kind of put some labels on it but then the problem is as you’re developing the art you know it’s you know small businesses do something similar called pivoting. Yes No you have to. Three or four times a lot of early businesses before you figure out like this is the one that’s with me yeah your niche market or whatever. I definitely think you know that’s a valid point for for musicians as well you know we are kind of like small businesses but I feel like I feel like just because you call yourself something doesn’t mean you’re obligated to fulfill those expectations all the time. Art should never be expected it should never be predictable and I feel like all all all the music industry has done is constantly gone against that notion has been oh you’re going to go see an alternative band Well then you might like this alternative band and you’ll like this author and because they just want to create a pantomime and I love the other one on the same even though the other ones like punk alternative and you know you will say you have eco progressive alternative mixed with punk like fuck in I don’t know. Point one eighty two with us and see how well it goes over you know. We’re totally you know various people have really allowed it out of control. They are they are not stable and you know and you know it’s. It’s just it’s a relevant you know you you shouldn’t I want to basically put together a show where people don’t know what to expect for instance what really what inspired this was our first show. Like we said earlier we played with a bunch of hip hop groups expecting everyone to walk out but in reality what happened was everybody who appreciated the lyrical content of Echo could then appreciate the lyrical content of hip hop hip hop artist and I don’t know if you’re familiar with hip hop but hip hop has some of the strongest lyricists in the music industry hands down. Here they have since rap rap was poetry or is anything else. Yeah Def Comedy Jam which just said get rid of get rid of the beats and just focus on the lyrics. Not even just not even just the message but the way they can twist the English language into making it you know internal rhyme. It’s it’s phenomenal right there people. I had high hopes for him for a long time because internal rhyme structure especially in his early stuff was heavy. Oh yeah and when you get away from the singles like I actually saw Music Midtown and he he really wowed me just like the like his ability Well number one he’s fast and he can articulate like a son of a gun but like yeah but I yeah he had like some very complex melodic I guess like like lyrics you know thrown an absolute I mean when I see him like at an auction you know you don’t want to see him at all he’s a may see it he got the drugs like man I know he says he’s done with drugs and good for him he didn’t he did not quit a moment too soon. Yeah yeah yeah yeah we got him that credit on the single rap god be I don’t know it’s amazing is that it is as it was on the way it was as it was but it was new like months ago I am mine. He still has a lot of time. But even but even apart from them and then there’s there’s tons tons of hip hop artists and my point is and mentioning all day is that people can appreciate the lyrical content of the hip hop artists that played right before echo. We had no idea how this is going to go over and then the hip hop crowd absolutely loved us because they admired a passion and maybe they would have been in the other alternative bands but they were sure as hell into us that it’s not like a fundamental value of hip hop like if you if they’re for real. Yeah like it was incredibly to CERN in aspects of peoples like where they’re coming from if what they’re saying is credible. Yeah I know I should be across all genres if you feel like it’s credible and if you feel like it’s actually somewhere that it’s coming from a real place. Honestly I feel like whenever comes a pop artist you have to really like look into it and figure out who the writers are. Yeah and that’s another problem which is not always like the same producer is like Britney Spears and you know I go where I like the writers all come from different era. He is like fear wrote wrote a lot of different pop hits she wrote one for Britney Spears you know she wrote you know Sierra Leon has diamonds you know actually that elastic heart and chandelier you know yeah you know Lady Gaga Lady Gaga wrote for a lot of people and also that chick that I really don’t like her songs that Meghan Trainor there was another year and a lot of songs for Also Britney Spears and and a bunch of other artist before she actually came up. Now Demi Lovato I think that’s the one that she’s made we’re going to miss Mr Nyungar something she was like a star in college or some of them. She’s she’s only twenty. Well you were saying the whole point where more of the Lord right or whatever you were saying that the songs were written for her by the governor. No no she is saying that Lady Gaga is another person who writes a lot of hits for us. Yeah lady I used to write hits for it she wrote for the dolls before she started as an actual artist on around her and a few other different artists that I do not remember the names of the Pussycat Dolls was like her kind of claim to fame before she began. And that’s that’s an interesting point too because we do automatically assume that there is always you know there are always ghostwriters among pop pop artists and I think that’s where people become disheartened by pop music I mean all of all of Maroon five XNU newest album which is a smash hit. You know it’s part and Granted he’s on everything. He’s gorgeous and interesting he was on what I told you so like oh my I here are you know they usually Gentry’s fuckin shoes are going to get stuck to the floor. That’s OK But right now I’m Clive’s new record is written by Maroon five whatsoever. It’s all complete even though all of the previous ones were given that yeah you know what’s interesting is when you look at Justin Timberlake. Or a Marine firing those guys are the one thing the one thing they do well is they do a good spectacle. Yeah like you can’t take this away from any of those big guys when you have those kinds of dollars back in the wild where you’re going to do on stage in terms of just a show you know unlike let’s divorce ourselves for a couple seconds from a like high minded philosophical conversations. They’re going to do some stuff that looks flat out cooler than your and then you’re going to find from virtually anywhere else and that’s their that’s their staying power you know they’re going to charge one hundred twenty for a ticket and you’re going to see something that’s just off the wall. You’re absolutely right. No one’s ever taking away the talent from them but but we are we are saying hey stop acting like you’re doing things that you’re not like it’s like great you could hire do not generally especially do their interviews like whenever I’ve seen literally like certain artists talk about a song that they say that they’ve written. That you can look on the Wikipedia page and see the writers of the song and I say that they co-wrote it of course because they’re always in the studio with it and they’ll make tweaks and things like that that I like add towards their voice but that doesn’t mean that they wrote all of the lyrical content is that me either if their interpretation of it and the but they don’t put it off that way. I think when Michael Jackson standing as an exception I think any time you go into the song and dance people. Justin Timberlake being just in easy one. He focuses a lot more on the athletic you know like like the dancing like I do with movies I like doing or are sure like you know he’s going to sit there and really focus on trying to like impress you with the visuals and it’s it becomes you know is dividing his attention so to speak so it’s hard to really like there’s no apples to apples you know like what why would we talk about Justin Timberlake and Justin Bieber when Michael Jackson did in fact exist. Michael Jackson was the greatest thing that has ever happened to anything I ever heard of and Omar’s making it I was right there for no more. It’s coming right up the ring. Bruno Mars the difference with him in the heat of the dance is not she does sit down in a piano quite a bit more often then than Michael Jackson did Bruno Mars put on the best Super Bowl halftime show I’ve ever seen. Oh yeah I know that you will have to show and you know those are pre recorded as they know they’re not you’re not not not that wingers as Part number of hours as part they they’re very very very very strict about their pop OK life but hopefully yes actually I was going I don’t know if we know the vocals were prerecorded as well. Yeah but I know there are all of Asia unplugged so obviously there is no if you were going to play it you know what I never like Red Hot Chili Peppers in the Start menu. Everyone I’ve ever wonder if you heard the waves but we are professional haters that’s our show. OK fine. Contest So for our guests we love our guests and we just come to you. Yes there are a lot of you talking about people who care about what you say we measured in inches. Don’t forget me but two we’ve been talking for an hour it’s been an hour and that’s what the long form interviews actually kind of funny actually like The Daily Show only has five minutes to get things and yeah but then people start to like you starting to know people you know that’s what happens at the point where you’re like you’re getting like coached on what to say in your interview and the other Grasse Tyson took it to a science he literally measured with a stopwatch and like put numbers into Excel. How long someone would talk before Jon Stewart make a crack so he started rehearsing sound bites on his own in those in those intervals. So his interviews went off like it was like marvelously and I John actually talked about this and then like in New York kind of broke down he was like you know you know what crack is that that intent and beautiful that he like figured out that there is a pattern that’s a scientist that’s the way I thought I was right there and I was like most engineers would even think to do that. The brilliance was like to measure in the first place. Do you think I want another. Maybe Malcolm Gladwell did it right by or now it’s over. Predicted the whole election. I don’t remember. Remember I’m not involved in politics you know you work for a flight of politics you know what you’re saying about about pop pop artists is that you’re saying that you know if they divide you know they divide their skills from dancing to singing and and things like that and I think that I think that people are eating you know no one should ever take the talent away from a pop artist because they put in one hundred ten percent that’s why they’re always in the in the forefront even if they can’t sing that well or they had to have help in the studio. Shit who hasn’t. Most people most rock the rock hard as hell. Most rock groups have a lot of help in the studio as well. Most a lot of drums are quantized some people don’t even play double bass some people don’t play their guitars the way you hear them. So it’s dumb to give flak to one genre and then exclude another. I remember on one or two song What’s my name again because I’ve been able to place on the riff that I wrote. Yes like sit down to a concert really. But this is just really know what I should have said is except for Echo because we reported every fucking thing exactly the way you heard we had our our engineer Jason Andrews it like Spotlight Sound Studios was amazing he is a he is a pusher. But in the best way especially for us because he wanted a all around organic sound so you just have pusher and I put it well I think if you’re old and like you know for sure you’re drugged or whatever but anyway. Everybody’s got a real push. Oh God look at closer you know if you push your going. You are you know that OK. I think my spiritual life ahead of her. So you don’t push just let it let it flow. Actually walking back and like oh oh oh oh no no I’m not going to say that letting it go and finding the white English. You know that you love me. Good evening. Internet Max Groves gave a comcastro and gave a lot of it was the UN Matthew Queen. So this is the second half of our going to first be prepared to be blown away by this I can deliver this one is deadly where they get credit for your age and situation so if you’re a militant atheist to get out right now we are going we’re going straight we’re down here and once we go there we’re just going to love it. It’s weird. We might be stepping on Joe Rogan then it was fun. I mean like after that I’m going to thank you. Dude you are fucking on point. Keep going does not win over you know I read all of those books. I’ve always thought I should write one just like I would like my own Unified philosophy of a community where you’re such a faker you’re a poser man you’re in the weirdness and I was going to make it up as you go. Yeah this is one of my thing. Our phone conversations yet. I just we know people who do things like that and they see such such strong values of ethics and like what the point of this is you know this isn’t a throwaway This is our lives and this is this is going to understand the rest of this guy’s phone and without further ado. If you know some some subtle teenager who just takes a profoundly amazing shit and Mike has this like Quake Buddha moment where they’re like you know it’s going to be our short conversation. Yeah but anyway no no I haven’t forgotten. Jason and as he would like literally take us and we would have a take and he would take probably about two letters or not to let it you know we have just like fell. Even though you know like two words at a time like we have like all these little spaces and you have a through it again and again and again we were actually really sick during the studio we were the sickest we’ve ever been our entire album was recorded with the help of neti pots and apple cider lager and honesty and we actually recorded five minutes we were actually recorded during the snowstorm. Yeah I know it was called a shit apocalypse Yeah right all it so you couldn’t go home you’re just there. Yeah really we were stuck at the studio your second at Kai’s parents’ house which is nearby so which was actually a much better place to be stuck in our own houses we had like no food and they had like all this food and it was really warm if i slept at work what do you have to go. Yeah yeah. We couldn’t speak when we were in the studio like not because you know we are that disciplined. We tried but we were just but we went through like it was like if I didn’t during an I.T. leave my two cups of tea every morning I would not have been able to speak or sing or anything that day and I had to do a neti pot at least like four to six times a day I was hanging out with all the time if what one person gets sick or you are going to catch a break. We all live together. Yeah good avi and Kyra guitarists all live together and we wrote the entire album in our in our living room with the help of a lot a lot a lot of anger in our church and writers. I was trying to say that at the same time a servitor was just wasn’t coming out as long oh no no I hang I don’t promoting going they’re not paying you don’t want to be orchard every fucking last bit of our album was written with the with the help of Angry Orchard and cocaine and really much less cocaine and that was and there was enough cocaine for sponsorship of crow cams. Now if the nation kill I would I would say I would say we did. Brought to you by the car bringing you amazing resources for anxiety in your present lives. The cartel and Health with the not just forget about the never mind we won’t get political and where drug money goes. OK Yes I’ll be out of the country. Cocaine is strange in that you know it takes you to such highs and lows immediately afterwards and it’s big in Los Angeles which has an enormous disparity between rich and poor with almost no middle class so it’s like when it’s like this drug was made for the city. That’s what I love the most about it. I love I love cocaine specifically for the fact that it leaves you high and dry like you can do a lot of cocaine and eventually you’re going to reach the fine line between hey I feel I feel pretty good and it’s like hey I feel like I’m going to have a fuckin heart attack and when I’m on a train and I’m going to smash into a wall you know it’s funny that you’re mentioning it cocaine in. OK weed in Atlanta is something that’s at most parties and if you want to go find it. But if you go look for it it’s just not around. You have Los Angeles weed is around my very first party in L.A. there was like an old gentleman who works for US bank. Major guy and he’s going to join I like hold my gun as I am not in Kansas anymore and so what kills the void. What fills the void is cocaine you know if the thing that’s at every party but he’s going to get to know who has the right and the right person to get it from because I know the cocaine from from friends who are out there that they cook in L.A. is drastically drastically dropping close or math or really any kind of claim. I mean you know I consider myself a cocaine Khana source our own home but oh my God you know pretty sure she already has I definitely And no I actually did tell my mom it’s kind of funny of a side story here so it is an exciting day. Absolutely you know do you want to spend I mean. When I would I spend fifty dollars not fifty hello like sixty to eighty dollars on a gram of cocaine. I know that I’m investing my money and I’m like Hey I am this is a lot of money that I’m getting a little bit out of. Now if I were to spend twelve dollars and get a bag a garbage bag full of crack then I’m going to be like oh my God this is this was amazing and I’m and I’m going to pray I’m going to build up my tolerance level and see that’s actually kind of like our policy with drugs. Yeah I don’t do anything for too long. Yeah. Like literally don’t go longer than like a week and a half on anything whether it be like M.D.M.A. we did or cocaine like just don’t stay with anything too long because then you did develop a dependence and you will appreciate the high last year. How do you feel about essentially the idea of narcotics and sort of. If I was reading Dr got all the time he was arguing that addiction. It’s kind of existing because of our way of life that for all of human history in our comics have been a means of spiritual awakening. Yes I suppose that’s really I think I think he was telling me at some point about how somebody told him I don’t remember him but that drugs are kind of like you can reach as a drug sort of state of mind but with with just meditation but drugging I don’t like the short cut. Yeah I think I told you that straight from me because that’s why when you’re watching he said way back about old it’s like you get you get like this awakening but you don’t get to bring thing back with you. That’s precisely accurate one of the biggest criticisms of using drugs or they’d be in D.M.T. L.S.D. whatever what have you. In order to get to that moment or whatever you define as like that moment your reasons state. Yes but I don’t you don’t see it change you. As soon as you come back down and the difference between the long slow path toward the top of meditation the pain staking all the stuff you have to do if you know let go and let go of letting go blah blah blah. Yeah it’s like that actually does change you when you do L.S.D. and you get like a glimpse into the curtains and you’re just when you get pulled back into reality you’re but you know who you are again and nothing is changed. L.S.D. is a is a form of you know all drugs are a form of discipline and so you have to take them. This sounds terrible but you do have to experience them more than more than once in order to discipline yourself for when you when you first get on drugs it’s going to be very very overwhelming is throwing yourself into an entirely new experience. And so it’s hard to retain everything that you gain from it. Now see for me specifically like I do you have a completely different outlook on life every single time that I come down from a psychedelic because for me you include weed as a psychedelic. Yeah and you know I think when we do the same you know like yeah that it effects him differently than me I don’t really change that much on weed I’m just a little bit more relaxed. I have never experienced psychedelic effects even with dabs. So. I I can’t I can’t take it as a psychedelic because I’ve never had those effects on me but whenever it comes to something like mushrooms or lsd every single time that I take a psychedelic I will vomit. And when I do vomit I have to be in the mindset that I am purging the things that I hate about myself or that I hate about things in the world. Any any sort of negative emotions that I have towards anything and I vomit those out and it usually looks like snakes and dragons and it’s kind of awesome. Literally what Chairman would be instructing you mediately after that like I feel good and I and I come to other realizations about my life because of having that mindset of like I know that I’m going to throw up. I know that it’s going to suck. But beyond that and within those like next few months. It’s like those are the things that I’m still able to keep in my mind to work on because it’s kind of like a transitional thing that I that I use on occasion was given a new perspective every experience only you know you can only take from you know you can only take what you want from it if you choose to view psychedelics as a as a recreationa