Luke Death

In this episode I talk to my old mate Luke Death, owner of Merch Fan. Being in the industry his entire working life, Luke has some great stories to tell, from funny festival moments, to the craziest piece of merch he has ever sold. 

Playlist of songs or bands mentioned in todays episode 

welcome to Studio 2
https://www.instagram.com/welcometo_studio2?igsh=OXJyOGcxMTJveHhj&utm_source=qr

Luke Death https://www.instagram.com/merchfanco?igsh=MWdmZmZzc25qaW56bg==

Owen Butterworth
https://www.instagram.com/owenbutterworth?igsh=MTdvdm12ZXNydXlqbQ==

The Grove Studios https://www.instagram.com/thegrovestudios?igsh=MWF2ZGo4OTAxc2VoMQ==

Transcript

Jimmy 0:01

So guys, welcome to Studio 2. Thanks. Thanks for having us. I'm Jimmy, and today we're talking to Tori Forsyth and Matt Newton, correct? Hello, correct. That is correct. Correct. So I did a little bit of Googling when I heard I was going to talk to you. And to be honest, it really only tells me about your albums, which is great, and we can get to that, but I kind of want to go and find out who you are first, if that's alright.

SPEAKER_07 0:29

Yeah, cool.

Jimmy 0:30

Okay. So we're going to go back to pretty early. I want to know first of all if you're from a musical family, like if music runs in the family, or if this is something you've just taken upon yourself. And second of all, I I want you to give me your like earliest memory of when you decided that music was your path.

SPEAKER_08 0:52

Yeah, cool. Alright. Well, okay.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

Yeah, you go.

SPEAKER_08 0:55

Okay. Um, so musical family, not really. Um my dad can sing, he doesn't, but as far as music, it was just always around in the house. Um so not yeah, it's not like we grew up playing music. Um, I kind of my when I was in high school, my dad wanted something that he and I could do together. So we went and got guitar lessons at the same time. And um yeah, it was nice. That didn't last long though. And he for him, I can it kept going, but he stopped. And I got singing lessons for a little bit, and um just I couldn't really sing in front of people though. I just sang at singing lessons and it wasn't until I left high school and you know, did life that I started singing in front of people. So yeah. What about you, Maddie?

SPEAKER_04 1:53

Uh I remember singing along the Spin Doctors. Which song? Uh Two Princes in the car on the way to school one day, and I remember thinking this is like pretty great. And I started making up little songs about driving in the car, walking down the street, going to school. Um yeah, but I didn't know I wanted to do anything. I love music though from a young age. Like I would go to like the civic video. I'm a lot older than Tori. I'd go to how old how much older? A little bit, like 10 years. Enough to like go and like borrow CDs from video stores to tape them onto cassettes.

Jimmy 2:29

Oh well, you rich. I had to listen to the radio until I did a double listen to that. That's quite a lot of people.

SPEAKER_04 2:35

Yeah, yeah. No, I remember Steel and Mum's like had one from uni from her uni days. She had like an old like early 80s like tape recorder thing that you could hold up to the TV and like tape off rage. But um, yeah, not not a musical family at all.

Jimmy 2:49

Very interesting. So when you started um guitar lessons and singing lessons, were like how old were you like?

SPEAKER_08 2:56

I think I was 15.

Jimmy 2:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_08 2:58

I started singing lessons a bit earlier, to be honest. I think I started that when I was maybe 12. Um and I done a lot of sport and I was very bad. Well, I was very inconsistent. Actually, um I played soccer and I got in more fights in soccer than I did actually do any soccer playing.

SPEAKER_07 3:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 3:22

So stopped doing that. And then um I asked my dad if I could have singing lessons, and he said no, because he's like, you don't commit to anything, you've quit karate, you quit soccer, you quit dancing, you quit everything. And then he came to a uh I did a school concert. I sang Crush Crush Crush by Paramour. I looked at the back wall and he was like, Oh, she's she's not terrible. Maybe I should put her in lessons. So that's the only thing I kind of stuck with. And um yeah.

Jimmy 3:57

Here we are.

SPEAKER_08 3:58

Here we are.

Jimmy 3:59

Four three albums out, currently recording the fourth, is that correct?

SPEAKER_08 4:03

Yeah, EP and three records, and now on the fourth, yeah, correct.

Jimmy 4:07

Awesome. So you've definitely stuck at that.

SPEAKER_08 4:09

Yes, it's been the only consistent thing in my life.

Jimmy 4:14

Yeah, and so like growing up, obviously, they said music was all around. What what did you listen to growing up?

SPEAKER_08 4:20

Um my parents played a lot of Fleetwood Mac, uh, a lot of um my mum, my mum loved music, so she'd play a lot of Faith Hill, Jewel, a lot of like that um 90s songs like singer-songwriter women. Um and my dad played a lot of Elvis. Um and then when I was a bit older, and we were um I I my folks bought property and we ended up getting horses when I was about six or seven. Uh so country was very much part of our life and started playing a lot of country music in the house. So I think that's where that kind of country music influence comes in. But before that, mum, like my parents are separated at this point, but mum would listen to a lot of country music, um, Faith Hill, Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw, things like that. So I've just always had it in in the background of my life.

Jimmy 5:19

Yep. And what about you, Maddie? Like, do you have like a go away on holidays, you're in the car for four hours, you've you've got the parents put the tape deck on, and it's the the same tape just every time you go on that trip.

SPEAKER_04 5:31

Oh, it's like sitting on the dock of the bay. Oh, yeah. It's like my mum's song. She listens to it every day, all day. Um no, we had she had my mum had a big record collection, and as soon as I remember as soon as I was old enough to operate the record player, I would was allowed to do it when she watched me, but as soon as she'd like get out of the way, I would just be like trying to put records on. And she had um the blue and the red Beatles records, the best of the 60s and the 50s, whatever it was, the two eras. And I would play that on repeat, and I was obsessed with the the Beatles.

Jimmy 6:02

Yeah. I my dad had um uh quite an okay record collection, but one of his favourites was uh Rolling Stone Sticky Fingers with the zip on the front. Yeah, and I just used to listen to it because I played with the zip while that's great. So don't fuck that album, yeah. Anyway, uh so cool. So that's kind of where that whole country vibe's coming from. Yeah, yeah, that's that's pretty awesome. So another question I have for you guys is how does the songwriting process work for you? Like, is it a collaborative event? Is it something that you really work on, Tori, and then like Matt kind of contributes to?

SPEAKER_04 6:40

Like no, no, Tori is a Tory is a uh a pain in the air. Solo no solo writer.

SPEAKER_08 6:48

I've always written. That's kind of the my purpose of doing it. I feel like writing for me, um singing's fun, and I feel like that's a really important part of it, and it's a good way to express things and feelings, but for me the writing aspect of it is where I found that I'd I don't know, I I've never been good at expressing feelings, and then I found a way to do it through music. So um, you know, writing songs, even earlier on, like I I didn't know I was any good at it, and I just kind of did it, and it was something that was very intuitive to me. So that's been a really important thing for me. And in music and in the music industry, it's very encouraged to write with other people, and I've been in situations where I have, I've written with other people, but nothing that I feel comfortable releasing ever comes out of a co-write situation because I just don't feel like I can tap into what um I actually want to talk about. Um just that I think that expression thing. I just don't feel comfortable in front of other people until I'm like, yep, I have figured that out. I want to I want to put that out into the world. So yeah, I think um it's genuinely just been the only way I know how to communicate properly. So songwriting is very sacred, and um, you know, the boys come in when it's time to play the actual music part. That that's not my forte. I play guitar as a supplement to the songwriting. So um you're fine. I get advice. You're good, but um, that's when the guys come in and and you know make it very special.

Jimmy 8:27

Okay, cool. So so essentially you come up with the crux of the song, all the lyrics, how you want it to be laid out. Do you are you asking them, I want to hear something here put it in, or are you letting them kind of add their colour where they need to?

SPEAKER_08 8:43

Yeah, I think for the last, I mean, the last couple of records it's been extremely collaborative and they've they've all had um you know a very uh important part of expressing themselves through the music too. So I kind of write the melody, I write the lyrics, and then as far as like the production and you know, added instruments, it's very much up to them what they want to do with it. Chloe's just joined us in the studio guys.

Jimmy 9:07

Hey Chloe, how you going?

SPEAKER_03 9:08

Chloe?

Jimmy 9:11

The um the the smaller of the two security guards at the grove here. Hello, darling.

Owen 9:15

Jerry's got the barking ambient.

SPEAKER_08 9:17

I can hear Jerry like rustling in a bin.

SPEAKER_04 9:21

Yeah, behind you. I could see him through the window.

Jimmy 9:23

And so just while we're still talking about that, Tori, so for you, um I mean, obviously you can change every time, but what what comes first, the the lyrics or the the music or the melody?

SPEAKER_08 9:33

Yeah, it's such a hard question. I I've never been able to answer it.

SPEAKER_04 9:37

It's honestly you channel stuff, or do you feel like you think of stuff?

SPEAKER_08 9:40

Yeah, I think it's just like particularly getting a bit older and not having as much time as I'd like to be able to write, I have to get up really early and just kind of like let it happen. And if it doesn't happen, it then I have to go to work, you know what I mean? Like I have to go to my day job. But um, yeah, I think it's it's definitely a channeling thing for me, it's just kind of a stream of consciousness, and then um I kind of reflect okay, yep, that was good, or oh no, that was terrible.

Jimmy 10:11

Yep. And what about few, Matt? Like when Tori finally writes a song and she says, Alright, Matt, it's time for you to to come in. Like, how how do you go about that process?

SPEAKER_04 10:23

Well, uh, that's a very interesting question. Because I've I have I've been assigned songwriter in the past, so I spent a lot of time writing in the the the songwriter sense. Like, I spent a lot of time in Sweden at a songwriting, a publishing deal as a pop songwriter. So, like, would write songs with the people that wrote songs for Pink and Katy Perry and Sheffield and yeah, yeah, like quite a while ago. And that used to be what I thought I wanted to do. I was like, I'm gonna be a songwriter because I'm I think I'm I'm good hanging out with people and reading other people's energy, and I would get in the room, I'd write guitar parts and write lyrics and melodies and stuff. And then I met Tori and started playing for her. I was a really big fan of Tori's music before I was in the band. It kind of weirdly just happened that I ended up playing with you guys. And because you don't collaborate, it's like, and we never tried to, it's this really I don't know, it's like this cool situation where I wouldn't touch her songs anyway, but I had to totally change and think about things in a different way. So that was a long way to answer. With this record, in the past I'd always just try and come up with a million ideas, like every idea I'm like, and then you cull it down to nothing. With these, as the songs would go in the dropbox, I would listen to it, take a note of what the vibe was and what I thought about it, and then I'd never listen to it again. I didn't listen to any of them more than once until a week before we got to the studio, so two weeks ago. So I had or maybe like once or twice, had a little bit of a dip in and be like, oh yeah, that's pretty good. But I didn't actually play along to them until seven days before we we left to come here. So everything that I do is kind of has to be based on your energy and what you're doing, and I'm not thinking of anything, you know what I mean? I'm not like I'm not like coming up with anything with my I know it's your left or right, whatever the side of your brain is that you is the controlling side. I'm not using that. So I'm trying to just get in and just channel whatever the ideas are. Feel the energy, feel the vibe, and just but it is exhausting, I'll tell you, it's like really tiring to do it that way because you just like I think it makes sense. Yeah, you're kind of in juicing your own creativity.

SPEAKER_08 12:23

And I think like it's a very particular way of doing it, but it's how I write the songs, so it's only kind of fitting that that's how this the record gets created.

SPEAKER_04 12:33

That makes sense.

SPEAKER_08 12:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:34

So you don't have a chance to overthink anything, and I don't have a chance to get it right either. So you it's almost like it's full of these little pretty imperfections, whereas it's just the opposite of like Nashville country and stuff, you know, where everything's kind of the opposite of what the music industry is today. Yeah, and like I could do like we could do that, like we could make it perfect, but I don't like listening to records that are perfect. Like I I like the first bands I loved were like Nirvana, like Nirvana and like the grunge stuff, and then I was like I was a massive new metal fan.

SPEAKER_08 13:04

Like I didn't come to country until Tory, really, like which is interesting because I'm a massive new metal fan, and I'm why are we doing country music? Paramour collabs to sure manifest it.

SPEAKER_04 13:21

I want oh we before our session the other day, we had a session Sunday night and we spent the afternoon drinking savvy bee and watching Paramour live on YouTube.

Jimmy 13:32

But there's nothing to say you can't throw just some crazy song in the middle of your album.

SPEAKER_08 13:36

I mean Well, we have it like this this next record is just it's perfect because it's just got the perfect balance of everything I love in music, and um, you know, I I when I found my taste it was paramour and bands like The Pretty Reckless, which is another female fronted rock band, and um just that way of expression, I really was drawn to it. So um, you know, the country music side of it is for me it's a storytelling because you get to tell a a beautiful story and tie it up in a bow and it's this beautiful country song, and then the rock side of it is it's a different form of expression, it's like you know, every um dark emotion that you have can be screamed or yelled or just like energetically exposed, and that is equally as special as the country music to me. So um having someone like Matt join the band, um it honestly was just like one of those. Oh, this is I didn't even question it, I didn't even really think about it to be honest. Like he kind of just appeared and I was like, You're my guitar player, and that's I was in a music video before I was in the band.

SPEAKER_04 14:54

Yeah, okay. That was 29. 2020, no, 2021. So it was February, so it was like smack bang, COVID, yeah, distancing regulations, and you needed someone to be play guitar in a music video for one of your rock and roll, like had the heaviest song on your record. Yeah. So I moshed in a video clip. Did you show up with your BC Rich and like I remember I dressed all in black because I was like not sure what to do.

SPEAKER_08 15:22

I didn't give anyone any details.

SPEAKER_04 15:24

And I didn't play on the record either, so I was like, what do I play? And then when we were recording, it wasn't like it was like half it wasn't the final mix of the album, so I'm playing bits in the music video that aren't you can't hear in the song, and I'm like, stupid.

Owen 15:39

Maddie, you said before that you didn't open the drop box until a week before you guys came to the studio. Tori, what kind of state do things go into the drop box? Obviously, they're finished songs, but are they just iPhone demos or are they shit out there? They're just iPhone jobbies, just you and your acoustic?

SPEAKER_08 15:59

Yeah, they're pretty shit.

SPEAKER_04 16:00

Can't hear the guitar on some of them.

SPEAKER_08 16:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 16:03

I guess the chords.

SPEAKER_08 16:04

Yeah, it's fuck off. You can hear the guitar. Shut up.

SPEAKER_04 16:10

Only one.

SPEAKER_08 16:11

They're pretty shit. Uh no, they're they're they're like bones.

SPEAKER_04 16:15

That's always how I've done it, is just dropping iPhone memos into a file, and you know, if the lyrics and the melodies there, then I'm like there's one she's talking about guns, and you can hear an ice maker go off in the background, and I genuinely thought she was being clever trying to do a gun sound. And I pictured her standing in the kitchen singing the song and then pressing the iMaker to go. But she's going, Oh sorry, the ice maker went off. And I was like, Oh, that's perfect. They're really good. They're just ice.

Jimmy 16:47

Someone's got like a few microphones around an ice machine.

SPEAKER_04 16:50

They're just they're just voice, they're literally voice memos off your iPhone. But they're like, you cannot you can hear my dog breathing in one, it's great. But the fact the songs are there is like they're the final verse, the lyrics that you send to on those, they're they're exactly what ends up on the final record.

SPEAKER_08 17:04

Yeah, as far as melody and lyrics, it's exactly how they're they've been recorded in the demo. It's just everything else gets better.

Jimmy 17:13

Okay, so now we're in uh 2021. Forgive my ancient Greek, but how the fuck do you say the name of that album?

SPEAKER_08 17:20

Yeah, Provlepsis.

Jimmy 17:21

Prov Lepsis, okay. I've tried and I might I had like four different ways in my head, so I might have uh Provlepsies and Provlep, yeah, it's close, I know. But yeah, my ancient Greek is terrible, sorry.

SPEAKER_08 17:34

Um I don't think anyone has been able to say it.

unknown 17:38

Good. Yeah.

Jimmy 17:40

So I look, I've I've actually listened to so much of your music over the last week and a half since Scott said we'd be hope might, you know, you'd be keen to have a chat that it's literally track changed my Spotify algorithm.

unknown 17:55

That's good.

Jimmy 17:55

Maybe for the better, I'll still get to the side on that. But one of your songs from that album, and I'm assuming it might be Redund- Is it Redundant? Yeah, yeah, that's the one I'm gonna think for that fat roof in the middle, yeah. That did me.

SPEAKER_04 18:09

I was like, oh dude, I wish I could say I actually that was like playing that clip felt so good because I was like, this is like the kind of roof I'd dreamed to write. But that was all like Shane, you and Shane Nicholson.

SPEAKER_08 18:20

Yeah, for the first couple of records, uh well for the EP I had Trent Crawford produce it, who's a local, he's down at Narara, but um, yeah, I had Shane Nicholson produce the first two records, and it was just pretty much me and Shane, and he we recorded that out at um geez, Avoka, um, in his home studio, and yeah, it was it was very much a um a different way of recording, and then when you know I was like, okay, I'm ready to step out and got the band involved.

SPEAKER_04 18:52

Dude, talk about full circle moments. Like you were born in like 1995, right? And in like 1998, my older cousin gave me Pretty Violet Stain's CD, like Shane Nicholson's band. It was one of the first music things I ever got given that I was like, and like an older cousin gives you music, it's like whoa. And it was literally Shane Nicholson, and I like that it was one of my like treasured like artists fast forward like literally 22 years, yeah, and I'm in a music video of a song he wrote, and then six months later the song you wrote the song. No, you produced sorry, produced, produced. Um and then six months later, you're like, oh, asked me to do shows with you, and I had to learn how to play country music because I'd never played country music on guitar. I'm a bass player normally, and um I learnt to play country music from Shane Nicholson's country music on your albums, that's just totally this wild, like yeah, time span loop that freaky, man.

Jimmy 19:54

Yep, and the central coast is a very small place, so I know you guys aren't from here, but when you I am actually are you?

SPEAKER_07 19:59

Yeah.

Jimmy 19:59

Okay, so I thought you were from do they consider this country New South Wales, is it?

SPEAKER_08 20:04

No, I you'll see all sorts of shit on the internet of where I'm from. Um they've said that I'm from Curry Curry, which is just I lived there for like the shortest period of time, but um I I now live on the Sunshine Coast Queensland, but no, I grew up. I grew up here, I went to St. Peter's, I went to Tugra Public School.

Jimmy 20:23

Worked at Oliver's?

SPEAKER_08 20:24

Worked at Oliver's, I worked at Boost Juice in Tugra Westfield.

Jimmy 20:28

You live the full Central Coast experience.

SPEAKER_08 20:30

I am, yes.

SPEAKER_04 20:32

Dude, it's crazy how similar Central Coast and like uh a Sunshine Coast of Queensland are just like I moved to the Sunshine Coast, I just don't know anyone there, so it's perfect.

Jimmy 20:42

Yeah. Slide under the radar. That's good. Awesome. Um, so we've all right, so let's talk about some some albums then. So obviously, your first album that you brought out in 2018 was called Dawn of the My Own Writing is that messy. Dawn of the Dark. Dawn of the Dark. I can't even write. Should have been a doctor, but I'm not smart enough. Alright. So a couple of songs that I really loved off that album. I think I've literally just been listening to to Tori for the last week and a half. It's it's been a fun journey. But um Hell's Lullaby. Love that song. Thank you.

SPEAKER_08 21:28

Yeah, that's his favourite. Yeah, I love that song.

Jimmy 21:30

There you go, that's cool. Um, how does that come about? Um tell us the story behind Hell's Lullaby.

SPEAKER_08 21:40

Man, I have to think.

Jimmy 21:41

The one thing that really I really loved about that, it like it it starts beautifully and then it goes into this all the strings like that. So is that a Tory idea, the strings? I think is that where you've or is that where you kind of get into the recording process and say, at it? Like where how does that? Coming.

SPEAKER_08 22:00

Yeah, I mean I just wanted it to sound beautiful because the the lyrical content of the song's quite dark. So to have something like strings over the top, um, that was definitely I look, I'd love to take credit. I don't think it was my idea. I can't remember, to be quite honest. But I would say it was a Shane thing because it you know, first record, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing, and I honestly just still don't feel like I know what I'm doing. And we're up to number four.

Jimmy 22:28

But um who does it, dude? Yeah, just make it up as you go along. You find it.

SPEAKER_08 22:32

I feel like that has been the the journey, is just making it up, but I feel like it was definitely Shane's idea, and yeah, I just I wanted it to sound beautiful, and um, I had a beautiful cello player come in. Um I've bloody forgotten her name, but she was awesome, and I feel terrible because I forgot her name. She's Cello Diva on Instagram, I know that much, but um yeah, she she just made it so special, and I think I mean that song like I said it's quite dark. I it's definitely I've done a lot of um that I got a lot out of the way as a teenager, and that song kind of reflects that.

Jimmy 23:14

Yeah, yeah. I like that. I got away with a lot, I like that. Yeah, yeah. And um, so your last album, All We Have Is Who We Are. Uh that was recorded here at the Grove, was it not? Yes. Yep, and and that was only released a year ago. So obviously you've been pretty busy over the last 12 months writing a whole new album.

SPEAKER_06 23:39

Yeah.

Jimmy 23:40

Yep. So in All We Have Is Who We Are, you had a song, is it the second song, or We Are with Shane Nicholson? So he uh Sometimes Sometimes with Shane, yeah. Yep, featuring Shane, yep.

SPEAKER_06 23:53

Yep.

Jimmy 23:54

That's I'd I like the concept behind that song. Um it kind of resonated with me. I've been through a similar situation. And so do you want to explain that? How that kind of fits.

SPEAKER_08 24:05

Yeah, I mean it just it's pretty much my last relationship. It um you know, I uh I've never been one to write I'm I'm kind of a little self-absorbed in the way that everything that I write's kind of a bit more introspective, it's kind of how I process myself. Um, but as far as break-up songs, I've kind of steered clear of love songs and breakup songs just because I don't feel like I've ever had a story worth telling as it sounds pretty shitty. All my exes will be like, oh well then but uh that's fine. Um but yeah, my last relationship it was I it it was just this clusterfuck, basically, because I was broken up with and I I don't really care, I'm gonna say I'm gonna give you the good oil. I we were on tour in Adelaide and COVID happened. Yep, and he broke up with me in the midst of lockdowns. So we were trying to get from Adelaide. My parents had just moved to the Sunshine Coast, and I lived in uh the Hunter Valley, and we had to get from Adelaide back to the Hunter Valley, and then I had he broke up with me on that trip, like in the car. I'm not joking, and I had to get myself like it was like a 20-hour drive or something stupid, and we had to just endure it, and then I had to get myself from the Hunter Valley to the Sunshine Coast, uh, like we had 24 hours until lockdown, so it was just wild. So it kind of just reflects the unexpected in relationships, like you're not you're not always gonna um be on the same page, and unfortunately, heartbreak's part of that, but hindsight, you know, it was never meant to be, and I'm appreciative of what happened, it doesn't always have to be bad, but it sucks.

Jimmy 26:24

Yeah, like I mean, breakups always suck, but what I got out of the song is they don't always have to be bad. Exactly. Like you can still be adults and get on, and that's a exactly a great lesson, and uh you know, um I really appreciated that when I when I kind of looked into that song.

SPEAKER_08 26:41

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don't hate him. He's alright.

Jimmy 26:44

He's alright.

SPEAKER_08 26:45

I'm glad he did it.

Jimmy 26:47

Bit of a dick.

Owen 26:48

Timing could have been better.

SPEAKER_08 26:49

Could have been better, but that's fine.

Jimmy 26:50

Yeah, when's the right time? Aces and eights, that's another song that really resonated with me on um on your last album.

SPEAKER_04 26:59

It's your favourite too, isn't it? I love that song, yeah.

Jimmy 27:01

We like we we should have a jam, we like the same music.

SPEAKER_04 27:04

That's a few people's favourite song. That's like a few people have like done done things with and for you because they're like all that song.

SPEAKER_08 27:09

Yeah, they like that song. Yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, it's one of my favourites. Um it really like before we went into the studio, it was pretty chaotic. I didn't know if I was gonna keep songwriting, I didn't know if I was gonna keep being a musician. And I'd written an album and I just kind of approached the label and was like, hey, here I am, I'm still here. And do you want an album? You know, it was very much a case of like cross my fingers and hope that I'm still relevant enough to be able to do it. And Scott had just uh come into the picture as far as my record label, and he he was a fan, he liked it, and I was like, amazing, let's make an album. And I looked into Scott and his background in music, and when I saw Silverchair was part of his history, I kind of got very nervous. But at the same time, I was just like, okay, that's actually perfect because of what I love and what I love about music. And as soon as I met Scott and had a chat with him, he he understood music for the sake of music, not just for what it looks like it's uh turning into as far as like modern technology and things like that. Um he got what I what I cared about. We we we have similar values for music. So when he wanted to produce it, it was kind of a no-brainer for me, and um I was honoured to be able to work with him. And you know, the fact that he wanted uh like I I said, look, I my band are important to me, do you can they play on it? And he was just like, absolutely, of course. So it was a real turning point as far as my um musical ability. I'd never played on a record before, um, which was very nerve-wracking for me because I don't consider myself a guitar player in any sense, but to have them part of it and uh be able to kind of you know be in a our own energy and space and create a record was just very special.

Jimmy 29:22

Yeah, amazing. Um, so I've spoken to Scott. I know Scott's very big on, he always talks about how lyrics bring around his songs. So I suppose I can see why Scott would, you know, be be looking at your songs and and be excited about them. Um so many lyrics, so many like you just channel all of them just from nowhere.

SPEAKER_08 29:45

I mean, obviously I feel like they come from somewhere, but yeah, it's just very much a channeling experience and just kind of tapping into something. I think um You're a bit psychic. I've become pretty spiritual out of it, to be honest, because I think um you can't you can't come up with things sometimes I kind of reflect on things I've written and I'm like I don't I don't understand how I would have been able to come up with that by myself, you know what I mean? Yep. So I think from music I've become more spiritual. Um but yeah, it it really is just like a it's such a massive part of the way I I live life and uh Scott gets it, he understands that, and so do these guys, like they're such um like you know, Maddie's super annoyingly tacked into I feel like when I joined this band, I like He's really annoying.

SPEAKER_04 30:38

He finishes my sentences and stuff, it's really annoying weird moments where like it's almost like since I joined the band, I stepped in Tori's stream, and I will have these moments where I'll know when she's nervous about stuff and we're not near each other because it's a really foreign feeling. I'll be like, it's a really weird feeling, I stomach, like nervous, and then we'll run into each other and she'll be like, Oh, I've got this thing. It's really strange, it's been a really strange experience. Have you ever heard of the band?

Owen 31:03

Have you ever heard um Johnny Greenwood talking about songwriting? And he talks about how he's not like not a spiritual or a religious person, but when writing a song, it's like he's tapped in. The song is like out there and it exists, and it's kind of tapping into him, and vice versa. Totally. And it's kind of just coming.

SPEAKER_04 31:23

Oh, absolutely. The last since the last record has I think for all of us since we did that last record, the amount of shit that we have gone through together and then done, like, is oh, it's like a lifetime worth of stuff. But I'm we're really plugged into each other in a very strange way. Like, even something I can't even remember what it was the other day, we're in the room, and you went, Oh, never mind. And I said, Oh, and I just went, Oh, you mean blah? Yeah and it was like there was no way I should have known what you were thinking about. And I was like, get out of my head, dude.

SPEAKER_08 31:54

No, no, you get out of my head. Get out of my head.

SPEAKER_04 31:58

But yeah, so even like and Zach's the same and Reese. The Reese and Tori are really similar, like energetic personalities. Reese's our drummer. And like we went through a whole he like he went through a whole thing last year, like he was really unwell.

SPEAKER_08 32:10

And we had to like be okay if we spoke.

SPEAKER_04 32:12

Probably, yeah, like Reese had um He had cancer. He got cancer last year. So like and we've we had this like, you know, full band, and then he got sick, and we didn't want to risk it. So we did like this whole tour as like a three-piece band where we had to go from being this rock band to being like, oh, we all have to sing and we have to be entertaining, like we have to talk shit so people aren't like bored. And then fast forward through to like a few like we just did a five-week USA tour together as a four-piece band in uh basically a Kia carnival, like a Chevy Grande. And like that's a like five weeks is a long time to be within a metre of four other people, right? And like we we did okay. Yeah, not too many fights and the fights we have are like worth it. They don't last long, they're worth it if it makes sense. So I don't know, it's sometimes you just feel like you're on the right track, you know.

Jimmy 33:10

Well, I think even too with that, if you can if you can let it all out and get over it, that's just a great thing, you know. There's there's nothing worse than just burying something inside and then it explodes into for sure into nothingness. But that's amazing. So um between your second and third, like I noticed with Provsies, sure, close man. Um I've got a mush mouth anyway, so I'm never gonna get it. Let's just put it there. But I noticed there was a lot of variation in the songs there. You know, you can definitely hear that countryside coming through, but you've got that, you know, alternative kind of rock rock sound coming through. Um, when we look at the next album, I'd like I I hear a classic country album. There's a few little bits in there, but I hear more of a country album. Now we're a year away. Like, what are we going to hear this time? Is there a mixture in there?

SPEAKER_08 34:03

Have you gone it's like a 50-50 split? Yeah, yeah. It's pretty like um, I've I've never felt like an album reflects me so well as far as what we're creating now. I think I've written the songs that kind of they equally balance each other out, and they they arguably could sound conflicting at in certain points, but you play them like we sat there today and um m one of the my my favourite one of my favourite people, Claudia from Ireland, she's my record label, she came down and listened, so we played all the tracks. Um and the story just ties it together, but sonically you could say like they could it's very different, like all the songs have their own personality.

SPEAKER_04 34:58

It's more though, like I think it's like um like where it's rock it's more rock than the rock record, and where it's country, it's more country than the last record.

SPEAKER_08 35:07

Yeah, we're like really going, we're leaning right into what they are.

SPEAKER_04 35:12

It's like an ex it's extreme on both ends. It's very strange to because we didn't because like I said, like we'd listen once and have take and write down my thoughts, and my thoughts for every song were like, wow, this is so traditionally country. And then like a two weeks ago start writing them, and you're like, half of these are very rock and roll.

SPEAKER_08 35:32

Yeah, but it's perfect, it's like exactly what you know when we do a show, when we're playing live, we put on a rock show, you know, when it's a full band, it's it's energetic. There's some down moments where there's a songwriter kind of songs featured, but at at its core, it's like we put on a high-energy show, and that's what we love to do, it's what we find fun. So to have a record where we're we're kind of getting that perfect balance, it's it's extremely exciting for us.

Jimmy 36:04

So, what's more fun for you? Sitting in the studio or getting that on tour? Just I mean, I I know they both have their own.

SPEAKER_08 36:12

Yeah, they do. They both have their own like I love this moment right now where we get to do this because it feels like every time we get into the studio it's this new era. You know, we're building something new and it's it's really exciting. Touring's hard, like it's it's not for the week.

SPEAKER_04 36:33

It's hard, it's harder than it has ever been too.

SPEAKER_08 36:35

Like, yeah, now like I've Matt's done a hell of a lot more touring than I have, but I spent a lot of time in a caravan just touring around um playing five shows a week. Like that was my b bread and butter was just playing pubs and doing touring. That was pre-COVID. Entering post-COVID touring is so different, and it's almost like people don't want to leave the house anymore, so it's a different level of like difficult, but um yeah, I don't know, it's just different, yeah. But also, like we just came off the back of an American tour and it was extremely successful, and people frothed it.

SPEAKER_04 37:20

It's hard like to deal with as like a musician because like I only do this because I want to play shows. You're like, well, touring's shitter than it ever was. It's like I'm it's like being hungry, I'm still hungry, I still gotta do it. But like fucking sucks. Like it sucks now. Like, like, dude, even like go back like 15 years, I was in like punk bands, and you go on tour and we would get like um did some supports to us for like big Australian bands. Like I did the um a band I was in did the whole support for the butterfly effect Amago tour, which is like 40 shows back in 2006. Like that's like they had like a number two record, big record, sold-out shows. We would get $200 a show, which was no money then. But you would sell enough merch that because people had cash and people were buying drinks, that you could buy petrol, you could live, you could do it, you'd make a few thousand dollars a night, like a thousand dollars a night, a couple of things like you could do okay, you could do okay.

SPEAKER_08 38:22

That's like impressive, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:24

Well, I mean, we would all stand at the door on the way out and be like, we'd like buy a CD. Like we just hassle drunk people and they'd be like, well, you'll take my last ten bucks.

SPEAKER_06 38:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:34

You can't do that anymore. And like people like you say, people don't leave the house. So there's like this whole like it's fifty, it's like fifteen bucks for a beer. Like everything's so prohibitive in Australia for like going out and having a good time, it's like you get punished for it. If we're just in America, and it's like get a three dollar beer in a pub, tickets like ten bucks to a show, they put tip jars in front of the band so people are happy to throw like ten dollars into a tip jar. And it's like there's no tax on people having fun. So we did this whole like we hung out in Kentucky for five weeks and it just felt like the way you could like like you could do it and like be okay. Or is it like in Australia? It at the moment it feels like punishment for doing something that people enjoy in a weird way.

SPEAKER_08 39:20

It's a whole it's like a it's a real deep dive into like the politics of Australia.

SPEAKER_04 39:26

Yeah, I'm gonna do this thing that I love and people love and have plenty of time, that's fine. It's like I'm gonna play, I'm gonna go do these shows. Ellen doesn't have to leave till 7.30, isn't it?

SPEAKER_08 39:36

But it is, it's it's it's really different over there and and people uh because things are more accessible almost, it's like people wanted to come out. Like we we played the same venue twice, a couple of weeks apart. It we doubled the audience and half the same people came just because they're like, it's a Tuesday. Yeah, of course we're going out. It's like here, it's like please come out on a Friday night.

SPEAKER_03 40:01

Yeah, please. It's only it's only 40, it's only $35 to see my band play.

Owen 40:06

Yeah, plus the $45 Uber or the exact train that's gonna be $20 million.

SPEAKER_04 40:15

It's like you get punished for going out and have a good time. It really does feel like coming back here, I'm like, I'm I just don't know what to do about the situation. I'm like, how do we fix this at the moment? It's almost like it's so close to breaking it has to break so it can start again.

SPEAKER_08 40:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:28

Like it's your weird. But we're not gonna stop. So it's like you make records and you do like you do the touring and you just need everything else to fix itself.

SPEAKER_08 40:37

I feel like at this point it's a choice, and I keep saying this, and I've said it since the last record, like we don't have to do this, we've got day jobs, you know. But as far as like what I feel like I'm personally meant to do, and I feel like I'm speaking on behalf of everyone, but we choose it because it's something that feels kind of innate, and we can't not choose it.

SPEAKER_07 41:04

Yep.

SPEAKER_08 41:05

So at this point, we're okay with choosing it, and we're gonna keep choosing it until it works.

Jimmy 41:10

Well, it seems to be working.

SPEAKER_04 41:11

Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of fun. Look, it it does. We are having a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_08 41:16

Having fun while we do it.

SPEAKER_04 41:17

And that said, it sounds like we've been really negative. Even over the last year.

SPEAKER_08 41:20

We sit here with our wines talking shit for an hour and we choose them now.

SPEAKER_04 41:24

Life's hard. I had my first wine at 1 pm. It's difficult. We get to make music, yeah. No, but it's like, you know, it is um it's a weird situation because it feels like across it's not just music though, it feels like art is like deliberately being devalued right across society. Like we all love it and we all want it, but then like we just treat everyone like shit that does it, and we go. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:46

But I love it.

unknown 41:48

I love it.

SPEAKER_03 41:48

Anyway, you want to pick this uh conversation up?

SPEAKER_07 41:51

Because I feel like we've just gone.

Jimmy 41:56

Life's life and it's real, right? We're talking about real shit. That's fine. I mean, like personally, I'd I've gone out less since COVID, and it's it's it's more so you know, I've got kids that have got to think about and stuff like that as well, but it's also that that whole expense, like, well, if if I'm gonna go out and see something, who looks after them?

SPEAKER_08 42:15

And then when you do like there's it's same though, we we have condensed our outings. Yeah, it's like it has to be something important to go out where it you know when I was a teenager you could afford to.

SPEAKER_04 42:30

And yeah, and like I feel like people like when I was in my early twenties, all I did was just go out. But like that's not a reality for a lot of people right now, and it's it's different I don't know.

SPEAKER_08 42:42

Without being political, it is the economy, it's just it's so expensive. It is very expensive.

SPEAKER_04 42:47

It's like what what does art look like in a recession?

SPEAKER_08 42:50

Yeah, this this exactly.

Jimmy 42:52

Voila uh well I've seen some what people call art, and it's not always art. I was in the tape modern years and years ago, and it was a canvas with a razor blade cut in it, and I'm just like, come on, buddy.

SPEAKER_04 43:04

Yeah, dude, like the banana tape to the wall.

Jimmy 43:08

I think you get paid for that.

SPEAKER_04 43:09

Yeah, but then it's like I don't know, we what we were in the studio the other day with our bass. Zach's doing a jaw harp, which I don't know what a jaw harp is.

SPEAKER_08 43:18

It's like a goes boing.

SPEAKER_04 43:20

It's like a little whistle you blow it to a boing boy. And we're just standing there, I'm like, what does this cost? What does this cost on an hourly rate? What is this costing us for the go boing, boing, boing? This is indulgent, yeah. But like, yeah, you gotta live.

SPEAKER_08 43:35

That's art.

Jimmy 43:36

You gotta live, you gotta live. Yeah, it's wild. Art in all of its forms. Yeah, I love it. Alright, so I was telling you before that you've I actually have to thank you for uh an a new artist that I found over the last week. Um, as you've changed my algorithm, as I said before. So I think he shares a few similarities with you in the sense that definitely has some country songs, but then it definitely has some rock and roll songs there. I don't know if you you know of him, but Stephen Wilson Jr.

SPEAKER_08 44:13

Yes, he sings that six song, Cuckoo.

Jimmy 44:17

That's him. He sang I'm a song, okay? Yes, that I'm a song. Um and I what actually the first song I heard of his was the Stand By Me cover. Oh, yeah. Which I I think I nearly cried the first time I heard that. I'm like, wow, this is amazing. But that's all thanks to you. So thank you for introducing me to some new music. I don't think I would have come across him if um if it wasn't for that.

SPEAKER_08 44:41

Do you do you like doing covers as like a job or like for fun?

SPEAKER_04 44:52

Why do you like playing covers? Yeah. As if you don't. We did when we were in America, we're doing like a cover a day just for fun.

SPEAKER_08 44:58

It was fun. Like we we've uh we've got a Deftones cover recorded and it's not yet to be released, but like, yeah, we love doing covers.

SPEAKER_04 45:06

We if when we're like we wake up in the morning when we're near each other and we like we'll pick one and just do it.

SPEAKER_08 45:11

We'll just have a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_04 45:12

We did the Audio Slave, we did like a really cool country version, like a stone.

SPEAKER_08 45:15

Uh Joan Osborne.

SPEAKER_04 45:17

One of us, Joan Osborne. We just got hope that no one's ever heard. It's just like fun to play. And I wish I would like, dude. If you someone taken over this question, I love playing covers. I feel like it's where you you do covers of someone else's song and you understand who they are and you understand who you are at the same time. It's the way you do it that's different. You're like, ah, that's what I do, that's what I am. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 45:37

No, I concur. I completely agree. Cover gigs, on the other hand, uh I stopped doing those for a purpose. I love those songs. It's my medicine alarm. Wheedlum.

Jimmy 45:51

Let's go. Yeah. I have uh I have a prescription too, it's all right.

SPEAKER_04 45:57

Same.

SPEAKER_08 45:57

I have my oil prescription and I have a 530.

SPEAKER_04 46:00

Every day, every day at Unitori at 5 30 pm, it's just like wheedlum.

SPEAKER_07 46:06

Go to bed. Sleepy time. Super sleep.

SPEAKER_04 46:09

Yeah, dude. I love cover gig. I played bass, I played probably thousands of cover gigs as a bass player, but I mean it's different to being a singer because you've got to like singing's like such a strain. Playing bass is just such an easy thing to do.

SPEAKER_08 46:20

Like that was my bread and butter for like a few years though. Like I'd play five cover gigs a week, three hours a night.

SPEAKER_04 46:27

That's a lot of work for you.

SPEAKER_08 46:28

It's a lot of yeah, and travel two hours between shows, maybe five hours sometimes. So I've done it. Uh I don't do it anymore. We do it for fun, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:38

Yeah. I used to play in like ABBA trip theatre shows. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hannah Montana. Um, what else? Michael Jackson, history.

Owen 46:48

How many wing wigs did you have to rock?

SPEAKER_04 46:50

Oh, the ABBA show I had a blonde wig, and it was like it was like it had a bob across the front, and um I got to stand at the back and had like the full like blue sequence shoulder pads, like, and you it's like whatever, you just sub in and the bass, like the band have names, but the the bass player doesn't have a name, so I'd be like, look how you have like two hours into the show, they're like, up the back, we want to say thanks to Sven from Sweden, and I'd just jiggle my head. I'd be like, Yiggle, jiggle, jiggle, yeah. It was the dude, honestly, world's greatest job. As someone that plays bass, like I was like, that is just like that. Is the source? That was so fun. You don't have to talk or be anything, just blend into the background, wear a wig, jiggle.

SPEAKER_08 47:32

Yes.

Jimmy 47:36

Oh, I that's that's uh this is a jiggling currently.

SPEAKER_04 47:40

I try to jiggle covers are fun. You're great, you are great at singing. I love sing hearing you sing cover versions. It's fun.

Jimmy 47:49

Do you like to put a Tory spin on all of them? Or I remember like at first when I'd like learn a cover song, I'd try to like make it perfect, you know, and then I'd find a bit and I'm like, fuck, I can't play that no matter what I do. Because it's just different. And then you get to a point where you're like, alright, throw all that out the window and just make it up as you go along. So no, I'd I'd I quite enjoy sitting back and and doing that. As my mum said, I paid for the lessons, so you'll play when I tell you. Do you play? Yeah, I play, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 48:20

Yeah, cool.

Jimmy 48:21

That's awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 48:22

Do you play guitar?

Jimmy 48:23

I play guitar.

SPEAKER_08 48:23

Yeah.

Jimmy 48:24

I do.

SPEAKER_08 48:25

Think?

Jimmy 48:26

I enjoy singing, but I wouldn't call myself a singer.

SPEAKER_08 48:29

Similar with me and guitar. I enjoy it.

Jimmy 48:31

Yeah, we'd swap that around.

SPEAKER_08 48:33

Wouldn't say I'm a guitar player. Um yeah, cool. No, I think um it it's like how you learn. That's how you learn how to be an artist is by playing your heroes and and learning what you are and what you're not as part of the equation of their songs.

Jimmy 48:50

I've actually um I love when I go and see a band and and you hear their influences in the band. Like I went and saw a couple of young bands, um, young kids a few weeks ago, and like their the first band that played their set, like I'd it was Queens and Stone Age, Livana Metallica, and I'm hearing it all. And one of my mates is like, oh, Metallica song. I'm like, no, it's not, like, they're listening to it, man. That's just an influence. Come on, that's awesome. Like, that's and there was nothing for me, there was nothing ripped off, but I heard all of their influences, and it actually got me excited because it's good to hear all that coming back around again, you know. Totally.

SPEAKER_08 49:29

Like, I get so excited when I hear kids playing, like teenagers playing those bands, like all of them. Queens of the Stone Age. There's they're some of the most iconic sounds that we have, and I think it's yeah, bring it on.

SPEAKER_04 49:45

We're in like the fourth wave of emo now, hey. Like, there's all these kids like 20-year-olds now that are emo again. I'm like, dude, you look like meat when I was 20.

SPEAKER_07 49:52

Yeah, I love it.

SPEAKER_04 49:53

How's this happening?

SPEAKER_07 49:54

So good.

Jimmy 49:57

All the piercing holes will close up one day. Yeah, nah, mine still haven't. I got the daggy ears from the stretches.

SPEAKER_04 50:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 50:05

We both have these weird nose holes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:09

Dude. I had the eyebrow piercing. That's how you know that that's how you know that I liked corn in high school.

Jimmy 50:16

No, you needed a double one to know that. Yeah, I did. I pulled it out once and then put another one in. So my mate's got ripped out in a mosh pit one day. His hair got caught around it, it's gone forward, blah, everywhere.

SPEAKER_04 50:27

He's like, oh that's like the late 90s, early 2000s in hair is like the eyebrow. So silly. So much fun though. Yeah. Oh, dude, how good is corn?

Jimmy 50:40

So I got a thing about corn.

SPEAKER_06 50:42

Yeah.

Jimmy 50:43

Yeah. So why do they call corn corn and corn on the cob corn on the cob? Where really you're taking corn off the cob. Like it should be the other way around, shouldn't it? Oh, you're talking about the band, sorry.

SPEAKER_08 50:56

Oh my god, I'm not there yet, eh?

SPEAKER_04 51:03

You catch up. You catch up.

Jimmy 51:08

Alright, so thanks for the chat.

SPEAKER_07 51:12

Oh, thank you.

Jimmy 51:13

Thank you. Alright, so the last thing I do is I ask for a recommendation for a song. So it can be one of yours, it can be from a band that we've spoken about, it can be something completely off kilter, but this is probably gonna get played out at the end of the podcast if copyright lets us do so.

SPEAKER_04 51:32

I got one. You go first?

SPEAKER_08 51:35

No.

SPEAKER_04 51:35

No one didn't give you time to think. I was just trying to be polite about it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_08 51:38

Please give me time to think.

SPEAKER_04 51:39

Okay, so I've been listening to one today. I made our bass player sit down and like I was like, just sit down and listen to that song. And it's called Dark as a Dungeon by Merle Travis. And it's from like the 50s. And it's about working down coal mines in Kentucky. And it has like a minute-long just chat at the start where he's just saying, Son, my grandpappy just wants told me. And it's just honestly, take four minutes out of your life and just like that's what records used to sound like. It's so cool. Dark as a Dungeon by Merle Travis.

SPEAKER_08 52:11

And even after that little spiel, I got nothing. Um on the weekend, Matt and I had a day where we just indulged in everything, and we listened to Paramour for an hour. Like a full live set. We listened to The Pretty Reckless for an hour, Queens of the Stone Age, Lincoln Park. A little Lincoln Park.

unknown 52:38

A little Lincoln Park.

SPEAKER_08 52:39

Um and with that, I still don't have a song. I thought maybe it'd come to me if I just kept talking.

SPEAKER_04 52:50

Um You just did a cover of the.

SPEAKER_08 52:52

What was the Eagles of Death Metal song that was a reference? I want you so hard, I want you so good.

SPEAKER_04 52:58

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that was good.

Owen 53:00

That's it.

SPEAKER_04 53:01

That's not gonna be a reference to this country album.

Owen 53:04

Is it called the The Boys Bad News, maybe? Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 53:08

The boys bad news.

Jimmy 53:12

So there's a great um great album. Have you ever heard of Blind William McTell?

SPEAKER_07 53:18

No.

Jimmy 53:19

Okay, so he was like this um blues guitarist pre- just before the depression hit, and played a 12-string, and he was meant to be the next big thing, and depression hit and became obscure. But there was a um there was a music exec that was going around looking for him. He he did this big tour through through the south and realised that every single household had a blind Willie McTell album, but he'd never heard of this guy, like he'd never met him, he wasn't anywhere. Anyway, one day he found a busker on the street playing a blind Willie McTell song and went up and said Great Randition. He's like, Well, I'm I wrote it. So essentially, this guy takes Blind Willie Mattel out for the night and earns a bunch of money playing, you know, bars and stuff like this, and looks after him, wakes up in the morning and takes him to the studio and he recorded it's called Last Sessions. We record this album and he tells his life story in this album. It's absolutely fantastic. But there's a lot of those 1950s blues songs where he he gives you the whole big minute of this is how this song came about and then rips into it. And my favourite off that album would be Dying Crapshooters Blues. So suggest you listen to that.

SPEAKER_08 54:28

We'll absolutely go and listen to that. Can you write it down, Matt, because I'll forget that.

SPEAKER_04 54:34

Yeah, I got it, I got it in my notes.

SPEAKER_08 54:36

Write it down.

SPEAKER_04 54:37

Dude, that's awesome. I love a good song recommendation.

SPEAKER_08 54:39

Yeah. We will go back and we'll just like put that on the the boom boom.

SPEAKER_04 54:44

There's a playlist. Um, this I'm saying too many now, but there's a really good playlist. It's not mine. If you just search 1940s country on Spotify, there's a bunch of self-made things, and 1940s country is all like weird. It's like around World War II, and everyone's kind of crap, and it sounds a bit crap, and it's just so fantastic. It's everything's good. It's all about being an alcoholic and the depression and being a cowboy's girlfriend, it's like the best.

SPEAKER_07 55:13

I just think you always said cowboy's girlfriend.

SPEAKER_03 55:17

Okay. That's the song wanna be a cowboy sweetheart. Okay. Anyway, I've said too much.

Owen 55:23

Driving nails into my coffin.

SPEAKER_04 55:27

Yeah, oh dude, drive that's a that is a that is a winner. I'm driving nails in my coffin.

SPEAKER_03 55:35

Every time I drink a bottle of booze.

SPEAKER_08 55:38

It's such a good era for country music as far as like stories and just sounds, too. Honestly, the sounds that they got out of that.

SPEAKER_04 55:45

Because no one's fancy. No, no one's trying to be something. Everyone's got like, it's all just everything just sounds like that scene in that Johnny Cash movie. It's like, if you had one last song to play, what would it be? And they're like, these ones. All of them.

SPEAKER_08 56:00

Nothing makes me happier than Matt's American accent. It's terrible. It's so bad.

Jimmy 56:04

I don't do accents anymore because they all end up Indian. It's just doesn't matter where I start, I go there. So I just stay away from him completely these days.

SPEAKER_08 56:12

Don't shake us. He does his what's that? What is it called? Yeah, fuck me. The fact that you said that's insulting because it sounds terrible. So we had this like Reese, our drummer, he can do that really well.

SPEAKER_04 56:33

Matt says I thought I could do it really well, and then they started teasing me and I actually had to reassess my whole life. I was like, wait, am I not good at this voice? And now it turns out I'm not good at voices. I've just got to like anyway.

SPEAKER_08 56:43

Well, he got it, so you must be okay.

SPEAKER_04 56:45

I'll give you a nine out of ten for the month.

SPEAKER_08 56:47

Yeah, dude, I'm telling you, I can do it. I'm back. I'm back, baby. To be fair, I've never watched Family Guy, so I don't know, but just from like everyone else making fun of you.

SPEAKER_02 56:59

Shh, thanks, people.

SPEAKER_08 57:00

Shanks, Tori. Feel unwell.

Jimmy 57:03

Uh that's a six, sorry, Matt.

SPEAKER_04 57:06

It's gonna get worse than what I do it.

Jimmy 57:08

As long as it doesn't end up Indian Euro.

SPEAKER_04 57:10

It just gets worse, yeah, totally.

Jimmy 57:20

Cool, so well, alright. I know we said we finished up, but Owen's really good at swapping stuff around, so he'll just sort this out. So how uh how um you've been up here for about a week and a half? You how long are you recording for? You got much left to go? Is it nearly wrapped? Are you how are you feeling about it?

SPEAKER_08 57:40

Um how long anyhow?

SPEAKER_04 57:42

We've done nine songs. Yeah, we're pretty we're they're they're really dude. You should answer, but I'm really excited for you.

SPEAKER_08 57:50

Nah, you're part of it. Um, I think I mean we've been here for yeah, a week. What day I think I don't know. Ten days. What day is it? Ten days.

SPEAKER_04 58:00

Like day nine or ten.

SPEAKER_08 58:01

Yeah, and then we're leaving in a week. So we've been here a while, and we've still got a while.

SPEAKER_03 58:08

She's got ten songs. We've done nine, we've done a lot of um we've done a lot.

SPEAKER_08 58:12

Like half of them are we've battled the elements.

SPEAKER_03 58:15

Generate electricity.

SPEAKER_08 58:18

Man, it's been it it's been a time. Scott's just been a champion.

SPEAKER_04 58:23

We've um yeah, I love chaos, so like I'm in my element. I just sitting in it. It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_08 58:28

Qualified in chaos. So yeah, no, it's it's been interesting because we like you know, full well, you've been fixing the problem. Yep, I think we got there.

SPEAKER_03 58:38

Yeah, it's been great.

SPEAKER_08 58:39

Dude, nothing.

Jimmy 58:41

Had some power issues, so the the whole streets down, and Scott had to get a generator in, but because this is places 20 odd, 25 years old, it's been built on and built on, and every time we turn the generator on, something could happen and trip out. So we spent you know, three or four days running through and rearranging circuits to balance the load on the generator, if you really want to know. Yeah, um, so that's that's what I've been doing while these guys have been making an album.

SPEAKER_04 59:06

But we we it's got enough fun to be around, haven't we? Because like it's it takes you away from like you can sit there and just dwell on these songs, but then you're just sitting there thinking about the phase across the Matt and I have a particular interest in chaos, and I think we thrive in that environment.

SPEAKER_08 59:23

Like we're not really phased by it, we enjoy it.

SPEAKER_04 59:27

Electrical joke, yeah, but not phased by it.

SPEAKER_08 59:30

Oh Got it.

SPEAKER_04 59:33

Yeah, but it's been ex it's fun. There's some would have it any other way. I love I love little like um good story to tell, you know, chaotic interjections into anything, anything possible, you know. This I'm I love to and Matt will make chaos if there isn't any. So if I'm bored, I will be like just like create a chaotic situation so people do something interesting.

Jimmy 59:50

So yeah, I'd growing up whenever whenever anything got chaotic, I'd look at my mum and like, is everything alright? She's like, It's just an adventure. Yeah, yeah, it's just an adventure.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:00

I love that. Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:01

Yeah, yeah. And life is just one big adventure, so why not? It's correct. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:07

No, I think um, I mean, like I said, this is probably one of my favorite. No, I can honestly say this is my favourite album I've ever made because it's just like I'm at a point in my life where I feel like I know who I am more than ever, um, and I appreciate who's around me more than ever. And you know, I think um we're just in this this vortex of just like we've been together for the last year pretty consistently, and we've been around each other enough to just understand what's going on. So to put it all in an album is just perfect. Cool.

Jimmy 1:00:48

I can't wait to hear it. Yeah, I can't wait to show you.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:51

Yeah. I come into the studio with too many ideas, and over the course of five takes, Scott chips them off me.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:59

Simpler!

SPEAKER_04 1:01:00

Fucking stop doing that. Nobody said nobody said I did that. He goes, Well, that was a fucking great take of 72 ideas. How about you just fucking pick one?

Owen 1:01:12

Your Scott impression is not as good as your family guy impression. They're both no good.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:19

I can't do Scott. He's a singular human.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:23

Yeah.

Jimmy 1:01:24

I love people who are unapologetically themselves as soon as they're my favourite people. I love him so much.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:29

I think that's why he's so good at what he does.

Jimmy 1:01:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:31

He's so good.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:32

Because even me, it'll just again again vocal takes. It's great. Pushes me to my limits. This particular record, honestly, I've he's pushing me. It's great.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:46

And she has no flight. Have you cried yet? I don't cry. No, she doesn't cry, and she has no flight mode, so she just gets angry for a minute. Like as she's getting more push, you watch just get openly angry. It's pretty funny, and everyone knows it's gonna happen now, so you just go, she got over it.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:02

She looks quanky.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:03

She'll get over it. She's she's quanky now.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:06

That's when, yeah. He knows. He knows when it's too far, and it's a good dynamic.

Jimmy 1:02:12

Yeah, awesome. She must love working with him because you've obviously come back for a second go.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:17

He's the man.

Jimmy 1:02:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:18

Yeah. I don't have anything. No comments. Yeah, no comments. As Scott would say. No comments.

Jimmy 1:02:26

And it's like it's a pretty magical place to record at, would you say?

SPEAKER_08 1:02:30

We get to go out into the forest every morning for a walk, have our coffee.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:35

Jerry comes up looking for food.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:36

Chloe's cute as heck. What do you want?

unknown 1:02:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:40

Studio dogs.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:43

It's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:44

Cool. Smashed it.

Jimmy 1:02:52

I think we finished with a huff, Owen.

Owen 1:02:54

Cool. Cool. Awesome. Great work, team. Thanks, everyone.

Jimmy 1:02:57

Thanks for having a chat.

Owen 1:02:58

You're very welcome. Thank you.

Jimmy 1:03:00

Um so for everybody else listening, that was Tori and Matt. I hope you um go out and listen to all of Tori's music um and share the podcast while you're at it. Um share Tori's music while you're at it.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:16

Thanks.

Jimmy 1:03:17

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:18

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:49

I never will forget one time when I was on a little visit down home in Ebenezer, Kentucky. I was a talking to an old man that had known me ever since the day I was born in an old Friend of the family. He says, Son, you don't know how lucky you are to have a nice job like you've got and don't have to dig out a living from under these old hills and hollers like me and your papy used to. When I asked him why he never had left and tried some other kind of work, he says, No, sir, you just won't do that. If ever you get this old coal dust in your blood, you're just gonna be a plain old coal miner as long as you live. He went on to say it's a habit, sort of like chewing tobacco. Come and listen, you fellers, so young and so fine, and seek not your fortune in the dark, dreary mines, it will form as a habit and seep in your soul till the stream of your blood is as black as the coal, it's dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew, where danger is double, and pleasures are few, where the rain never falls and the sun never shines, it's dark as a dungeon way down in the mine It's a many a man I've seen in my day Who lived just to labor his whole life away like a fiend with his dope and a drunkard his wine, a man will have lust for the lure of the mines. I hope when I'm gone and the ages shall roll, my body will blacken and turn into coal. Then I look from the door of my heavenly home and pity the miner, a dig in my bones, where it's dark as a dungeon, and damp as the dew, where the danger is double, and the pleasures are few, where the rain never falls, and the sun never shines, it's dark as a dungeon, way down in the mine.