WEBVTT

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Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, metal's my religion, and yeah, it's my dope. Standing in the thunder on stage in the pouring metal rain. What a feeling, baby, the lights are exploding.

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Hello and welcome to the Metalheads Podcast.

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My name is George. This is Buke. This is Jay. This is John. And we are back today with episode 52. So today we have the distinct pleasure of bringing you an interview, a rather long interview, with a band from South Africa. What? Yeah, exactly. There's no bands. You're lying. No, seriously. Yeah, they actually have metal bands in South Africa. Who knew? The band is called Wilderness King. Earlier this year, they released their second album called

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Mystical Future. And why don't we just go ahead and hop right into that. We'll see you in about an hour and a half.

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We're joined today by Kenan and Dylan from Wilderness King. Would you guys like to introduce yourselves and tell us what you do in the band? Hey, I'm Kenan and I play bass and do vocals in Wilderness King. And I'm Dylan and I play guitarist for Wilderness King. Excellent. Thanks for coming on the show. All the way. Thank you for having us. Thank you so much. All the way from South Africa, we should point out. This might be our longest distance. No, we did Australia once. Yeah, that's pretty far. And again, add them to the list of bands.

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that when they're just talking sound more badass than we even do.

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That's pretty much the case for anybody outside the U.S.

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They all have cool accents.

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Exactly.

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These are the type of guys who come.

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So why don't you tell us where exactly you're from and what it's like being in a metal band there.

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Yeah, well, I mean, right now we're sitting like pretty much in the heart of Cape Town.

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Table Mountain is pretty behind us.

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Not that we can see it because I don't have a fancy flat where you can see it, but it's wonderful living here.

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Playing metal music here is, I don't know, when we got into it, at the start of it,

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I don't guess we ever pictured how amazing it would be like sitting here now and knowing that we were just pushing it the whole time that we're here in Cape Town because obviously your cut to the chase is obviously so far away from everywhere else in the world that you almost want to think like do we pack up everything and leave to like a more populated area where maybe metal is a lot more like more popular or do we like sit here and we actually stick it out and we try and do the best that we can and actually we're kind of doing a mixture of both in a way because now we're really excited to go and

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But we've been here for about 4 years, Kino? Yeah, I mean in terms of the band, we've been doing this for about 5 years now. And I mean we've been in multiple bands before this. And yeah, it's difficult. You have to really be passionate about what you're doing and kind of know that what you're doing is, you know, you're working towards something that's a bit bigger than yourself. And I guess that's why we still do it because we believe in the music that we play. But it can be very taxing, you know, playing in a band here. Just because limited resources. I mean, not in terms of like, you know,

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gear or venues, just the infrastructure isn't really there. You can't make a living doing this here, basically. Yeah. That is unless you guys are in the band Seether. Are they from there? I was going to say, you guys are actually the first. Making shitty music. You guys are actually the first metal band that I'm aware of from South Africa. So on one hand, it's at least for us here, it's kind of a novelty. It's like, oh, that's kind of cool.

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Of course, the music itself is cool.

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I think, you know, the funny thing is like, and I always say that this sort of works in our favor is that being a band from South Africa, people are like, oh, that's cool.

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Let's check them out just because they're from South Africa.

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But then if, you know, if the music resonates with them, then they're like, oh, wait, this is really cool.

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Maybe we should check out other South African bands.

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And then, yeah, then they do that, which is awesome.

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I mean, there's quite a lot of local metal bands.

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I'd like to hear about that. Because I was going to say, you know, if there isn't that much of a scene, at least not like, you know, Norway or anything like that, on one hand, you kind of stand out. And so it's like, well, if you like metal, then hey, here's this metal band. You know, we've got our own metal band. That's awesome. But then on the other hand, there may not be that many metal heads around that are like, oh, a metal band. And also on the flip side, though, with that is, guys, people like us find you guys, I love you guys. We're like, yeah,

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I'm going to see this band live. When are they touring? Oh, they're from South Africa. I'm sure they'll be by. That sucks for us, you know, because we want to be touring and doing that. And hopefully that's something we, I mean, that's something we were working on to get, you know, we're going to do that sometime. I have to ask you guys something first off. With the, you know, continent, you know, bands here from the state side, you know, can tour from, you know, city to city here in the States. A band like you guys, does the continent even provide you guys,

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A bunch of opportunities to like maybe go into Egypt for a show or just going around South Africa if it came down to you guys touring. Exactly. I mean that's exactly what happens. We just go around South Africa and I mean there's only so much you can do. There's only so many venues you can play just in South Africa alone. I mean just for us just going to like another city in this country it feels like you can't be doing something a bit more than I don't know just jamming in our band or whatever. Exactly. That's some sort of accomplishment.

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in a way, but as again, like we don't really have the infrastructure for touring like the whole kind. I mean, you can, but you know, you're going to end up playing some shows with two people or three people. I think we're too old for that right now. We don't want to be playing shows in front of like three drunk people. So I guess the thing for us is maybe, I don't know, maybe we could do other African countries. I just don't. Africa is better than most of them. So I just don't know how.

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When you see a band here in the States, it's like, hey, we're playing New York City. We're playing Dallas, Texas. I don't see many tour posters for bands like, hey, here we are playing Chad tonight. Hey, look, we're hitting up Kenya tomorrow. Where did you pull Chad from? Chad's a funny one. I always love Chad.

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I gotta say the beauty of all this though is that this whole thing started with us and you guys by me getting an email from you Keenan about thanking me for buying the album and then recognizing the fact that while I'm not the Opeth fan I do have White Cluster in my email address and we started talking that way so you guys are on the other side of the world and yet we are talking you know so I think that's kind of the beauty of the whole thing right now even though it sucks that you can't just

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get up and tour X number of cities like you want to.

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I think it makes it a bit more special though.

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Like if it does and hopefully when it does happen,

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I think it's going to, you know,

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it's something we've been sort of building up towards over this last five years,

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I'd say maybe not over the last five years,

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but since maybe getting somewhat of a fan base and having people being interested in our music,

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it's definitely be building up towards a nice tour.

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Hopefully it'd be probably Europe first.

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And then the States, we're aiming for 2018 at some point.

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Thanks. Yeah. That's fine. We're used to being second here. That's fine. So distance has anything to do with it. Yeah, exactly. You know, I want to ask a completely off the wall question here, but I was hoping you could both sort of explain your accents to me. Is this the sort of classic South African accent you both have? Okay, so it's a weird thing because in South Africa, just in Cape Town alone, there's quite a number of sort of racial groups, right?

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I'm not a white person, I guess. And we're a Caucasian man. So I think my accent's a bit more harsh. I don't know, like... Yeah, but also... Sexy? Sexy. Let's go with that. Let's go with that. Yeah, because I mean, as Keenan was saying, like, even in Cape Town, I mean, there's so many different people of different, like... Some culture groups and... Yeah, different culture groups that, like, I mean, I know... Some mishmash of the place.

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with a couple of people who like skateboard a lot and you pick up like their way of speaking, you know, because everyone's kind of, you know, so Kino and I are sitting here with like a kind of mixed accent. You're a model for race relations, this band alone. Are you, are you both born and bred South Africa? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very much so. We, we, we were born in Cape Town. We've grown up in Cape Town and you guys, when you get a chance, you definitely come with us. I said it's the most beautiful. Today in particular is a beautiful day. I just poured up,

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Wikipedia here, no, that's not where I got the Chad from. But you look here, there's a picture of Cape Town City Bowl viewed from Table Mountain. God, it looks absolutely gorgeous. It is. And today, in particular, like we're in the middle of winter, but I mean, our winters aren't very harsh. Well, I guess like sort of relatively speaking, but we actually, I don't know if you want to Google this, but we're in Friero Hook right now. I'll spell that for you. It's V-R-E-R-O-N.

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I-E-D-E-H-O-E-K. And that's sort of the suburb within Cape Town where we're at now. It's a very beautiful place. Yeah, I mean, we're just trying to load up the picture, just to try and show you. But we're pretty much sitting like there where you're seeing that view from the Top of Table mountain and stuff. So it's beautiful. As Kian says, if you guys come down, you must definitely come down and have lots of beers. It would be amazing. I got to tell you guys, I have an indirect connection spiritually. I'm from where Jay lives. I'm originally from San Francisco. But I grew up in a town named Half Moon Bay, which is a

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is a big surfer town. And I know there's a lot of surfing in South Africa. Every movie I've ever watched, you know, that's one of the destination spots. And I was always like, man, I got to go to this place. It's fucking awesome. Like surf homes. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Definitely. Like Jeffrey's Bay. Yeah, lots of stuff. We don't surf. Well, hey, look, I grew up literally like two minutes, not even that, a minute from the ocean, and I wouldn't go in because I'm afraid of sharks. Yeah.

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I hate to go to the boring question here,

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But tell us how you guys found each other and started this band. So Dylan and I were, it's a funny, I guess it's always a funny story, but Dylan and I were sort of playing in this other band and we didn't actually end up sort of releasing anything, but we wrote about nine songs for like a full length and then while we were waiting for, so the other guitarist in that band, he was like this crazy perfectionist dude who owned a studio

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And he was like, "No guys, you have to practice this material for like, I don't know, three years before we do anything with it." And it was just ridiculous. Like just, we were like, "No, well we'll learn." Obviously not how we do the podcast here. There's no plan here. Well, you know, that's how, that's, and we kind of followed this similar pattern with Wildenskling. We didn't plan it. And I think that's why it sort of worked out so nicely. But anyway, he was like, "Oh, we know we can't play shows. We have to get, write the most perfect album." And then in,

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In the interim, Dylan and I were, I don't know, we just became closer friends and like that band sort of ignited our friendship but we started like, I think we were listening to a lot of sort of like Dark Throne and Aura Noire at that point and we were like, it'd be fun to start like a sort of fun black metal slash rock and roll kind of band, you know, and then Dylan wrote a song like towards the end of 2009 and at that point I'd never pick up a bass guitar before and we were like, I was like, oh, I'm going to fucking play bass now and just,

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You know, get a bit more involved. And we wrote a song together. We got very stoned and we wrote a song. And the next day we were like, cool, let's just make this thing. Like, let's try and do it. And then, yeah. Yeah, I mean, and that's the kind of thing. Like, as Keenan said, while we're waiting for the other band, we just started up this band called Heathens at the time, which was the black and roll thing. And that, I guess, me and him spent a lot of time working on the songs there and getting used to how we viewed music. And that's why we can't, we don't really have, I mean, when we joined that, I was like,

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All I want to do is play rock and roll. I just want to play some rock and roll. I want to have a good time and everything like that. But we also came from metal bands before and everything like that. So we were like, well, let's mix everything into the pot. There's no pressure. There's nothing to aim for. And as Kina said, in doing that, we had so much fun with Heathens that when it started forming a full band, we were like, hey, we've been doing this without any much elbow grease. Let's now start really putting metal to the metal and take this seriously. And then fast forward.

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here we are and which is great like it's wonderful memories you know you know i'd like to offer a quick synopsis of what keenan just said which was it was this is basically the story we hung out with this meticulous we hung out with this meticulous guy for a while then i bought a base and we got stoned and we were like let's start a band so like the best story ever dude because yeah i mean it sounds silly but that's exactly what happened you know yeah right on it's yeah i mean i guess like most bands start you like kind of you just oh you want to have fun

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We're gonna do this band and this is gonna be the next best thing and it never works out.

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I'm trying to have you guys work in a vuvuzela into the band. Now you are on Wikipedia, dude. Just because the one thing I know about South Africa was that wonderful World Cup. That was the sound of the World Cup that year. That horn sound. It never stopped. It never stopped. It never stopped. So guys, when you guys first got

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and you guys put out the writing of gods. Did you expect it to I guess be as well accepted as it first was? Because you look online, the reviews for it, the reception was wonderful. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, I don't think we've even processed that yet. We're always looking on to the next thing. But it's no, not to the point where it has been. No, not at all. Not at all.

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is not processed almost. It stems from that first question that you asked us. We're all the way out here in Cape Town. You're like, oh my word, someone in Germany is listening to us and loving it. They're writing good things about it. The things that we feel when we write the song, someone else is picking them up. It's amazing. If we actually sit and dwell in it a long time, I don't know, I guess it would make us not want to push forward as much as we are doing now.

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from the response for writing of Gods and the Sun was amazing. And as we were saying earlier from that question, when we're doing that old heathen stuff, we're always at the stage where we're doing it for fun. But when we got that approval or appreciation from other people, it was like, no, we can. Maybe we can do this, you know? Yeah, totally. So that was really nice, actually. And even just doing this with you guys, the fact that you guys reached out and be like, hey, that's fucking cool. You know, that's all. We're very excited to, you know, just kind of shoot the ship with someone.

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people like our band.

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Yeah, exactly.

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Speaking of...

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Go ahead.

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Just real quick, I was going to say, yeah, Bukh brings up an interesting thing about reviews because, you know, if you look at like Angry Metal Guy, which seems to be kind of like a hub now for a lot of reviews, they love you.

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And he likes our band, which is fucking crazy.

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And no hidden thing at all.

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It's just like he's like, I fucking love this band.

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But it stems from one site like that, and it spreads to the next site that I'm sitting here and I'm like, hey, these guys love this band from South Africa.

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I gotta check this out. You know, and it just it snowballs it rolls for you. So that's great to see that. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it's just yeah, it's like we're blown away because especially like angry metal guy because he's so critical and he's crazy. He's angry. And like you'll say like sort of sort of insult some of the bands that I love and I'm like, but you're not insulting my band. That's weird. Yeah, and I guess that's some sort of validation that yeah, it feels almost too good to like dwell on

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like it's crazy we're just happy that yeah it's been responded to so well because i mean there has been some times where there's been reviews which we've like maybe appreciated i mean we appreciate every review but some of them were maybe like if you just talk about like sort of what people say about it some people will say good things and some people will say bad things and they're both the same really in a way it's just like when you read those reviews and you know that someone's really been listening to the album like by themselves or on a walk in the forest or something and they come back and they want to say something about it whether it be good or bad like that just adds so much fuel to the fire because you're like that person

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It's funny you said talking about

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somebody like headphones on going for a walk

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I was just at the beach last week

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and I put on the headphones

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watched the waves come in and listened to

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Mystical Future and I was just like

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Awesome

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It all makes sense now

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Let's talk about the new one

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Yeah, I was going to say, I wanted to go back. You'd mentioned about pushing forward, you know, and Mystical Future came out earlier this year. It's your second album. How have you evolved since the first album to the sound that you have now on the second album? Musically. Musically, I mean, like, because I mean, it sounds a little different. So, you know, yeah, yeah. I guess I'll start by saying something because with the with the writing of Gods in the Sand, we were still very like young in terms of like playing

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all four of us together. So all four of us in a room playing music, it was still quite early days and we were all pushing out ideas of things that we wanted to listen to if we had a band. Because basically at the end of the day, we want Wilderness King to be the band that we like to listen to ourselves as well because, you know, or else why would you do it? So when we were there, we were all pushing stuff in the band room like, oh, I would like more blast beats or I want thick tremolo or something like that. And so what ended up happening was that Rhyno Gods became this like,

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sort of like greatest hits before we even really started the band because everyone pushing through like their like influences like so much and the good thing about it is that we actually ended up in studio over those two weeks or something to actually push all those tracks down to like what we think is actually quite a cohesive album but we can still hear those elements of us actually just pushing in all directions yeah yeah now when you come to wilderness to mystical future then it's like well this album is something that we wanted to write and we had like a specific purpose of specific vision and it was not everyone just throwing

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our ideas were like okay this song must be like this and then going to this sort of energy and then this and so consolidation yeah yeah totally and so it's it's difficult for us to maybe pinpoint exactly the musical elements without saying things like it was more maybe a rock influence on writing of gods in the sand but then it also comes in a weird way in mystical future but i think if we look at it the best thing for me to kind of almost say about it is that we like we're more serious about mystical future like we wanted it to be like a theater like a product like a proper like theatrical release sort of thing

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And I'm happy with what we did with that because it was such a learning experience. It was so great. Yeah. Yeah, it definitely was a, yeah, I think this is a natural evolution and like getting to know each other more musically. And then we like, I guess with Mystical Future, we were quite set in making it like a sort of to the point journey type of vibe, you know, whereas Writing of Gods in the Sand is all over the place. And some might call that a dynamic album, but some might say it's not that great. But, you know, I think we,

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We kind of took the things that we really liked about it and just kind of expanded on it and yeah, I would say that's the difference. It's just a bit more refined and I think also the production is a bit more consistent on this new one as opposed to Ranking of God. So I guess it's getting to know more people and working with different people and we were able to do more things better this time around than we did the first time. Yeah. Cool. Go ahead, Vic. I was going to ask you guys, it's not, you know, I hate to,

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be talking to a band and say you guys sound like this.

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But I'm...

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Yeah, don't do it.

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But...

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But nevertheless, I'm gonna go there.

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Oh boy.

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Out of all respect...

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I'm glad you...

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Go there.

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I like this.

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You look at a band like a Panopticon right now.

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He bought an album actually.

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Really?

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It was actually a cool little story. I get all the PayPal notifications and then it was... What's his name again? Austin. Yeah, Austin. So it was Austin at Hammerheartbrewingcompany.com bought your album. And I'm like, I'm sure that Austin guy from Panopticon has a brewing thing called Hammerheart. And then I emailed him and I'm like, hey, are you from Panopticon? And he was like, yeah, I love the album. I was like, what the fuck? That's insane.

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That's awesome. Seeing other bands support you guys. I mentioned them and stuff. It's almost kind of like a perfect storm for you guys that right now in the metal world, bands like them are what a lot of people seem to be gobbling up now and want more of. So it's really that perfect time that when you guys did the whole heave and switch to Wilderness King and then your evolution brought you to Mystical Future now, it's almost this perfect timing.

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that you guys have been writing.

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Yeah, it feels like it.

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Yeah, it does feel like it.

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I hate bringing it back, but that's why when we sit here, even now before the interview, we're still chatting about what we're going to do next.

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Keenan and I were sitting here and we were like, "Okay, by next Saturday we must do this and this and that."

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Because of the things we're saying, we feel like we have flowed with this whole thing and now we write here and we really just want to give it our all.

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Yeah.

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We feel very lucky.

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I'm not joking.

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You're gonna say like where do you want to have lunch after this dude? What is that? What time is it there? It's dinner time there. Yeah, I say okay never mind. Yeah, it's like half past six. Yeah, yeah, half past six in the evening. Yeah. Okay, so I you know, you just mentioned we talked about going back to the brewing. You know, we mentioned he bought your album. We're all beer lovers here in the podcast. If you can all see you know, I don't play in a band. Neither does George or John. We're big. You know, Jay and you guys,

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You can see who the real beer drinkers are. How is the South African beer scene? Incredible. We really have some amazing, amazing beer. Who are some of the big ones? The big ones, you don't really want to be drinking the big ones. I mean, no, no, I lie, because there are some really good ones. But SAB, South African breweries, they make a whole bunch of lagers, pilsters.

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- Your Budweiser? - Yeah, crap. It's shit. - Yeah, we don't drink that. - You can drink it, it's fine. - Hold on. - I hope people hate it there too. - We don't get it yet. - Okay, good. - But I think actually for the World Cup, the 2010 World Cup that we were speaking about earlier, they had a Budweiser for some reason. I don't know why. It was just nice because it was a novelty thing, I think, for me to drink it. But I know our local beer is amazing, like really, really good.

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for that, by the way. You drank it, you said? Yeah, it was fine. I mean, it was very... Yeah, trust me, we hate that beer too. It's very diluted, if you try it correctly. Yeah, it didn't get you fucked, that's for sure. So you basically were drinking the most expensive water you could buy in the area. Exactly. Yeah, whenever there's hurricanes and stuff around here, FEMA comes around and gives Budweiser to people that need it. Yeah.

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That's amazing. Trust me, if you guys were here, we would rectify that situation fast. We have plenty of great beer here. In fact, one of our crew who isn't with us today, Will, he's actually a brewer, so he knows beer. Gentlemen, are there craft breweries that you guys remember? Yeah, anyway, I guess that's the story that I was getting to that. That's fine. There is no script here.

00:26:39.500 --> 00:27:07.980
This is literally audio, sorry, audible ADD is what this podcast is. Squirrel. It's like what any good interview should be like. It's just completely all over the place. Exactly. Yeah, the craft beer scene is pretty big, actually. And it continues to grow. I think craft beer started becoming quite a popular thing about four years ago. I mean, South Africa is late to pretty much everything. I remember when I was young, they always told me,

00:27:08.340 --> 00:27:37.720
We'd get movies like four years after America got movies. But they fucking lied. It's not four years. It's like four months maybe. Anyway, we're already late. We're already late. But the craft beer thing is, yeah, it's just growing and growing. And there's quite a, I'd say a good, I can think of at least like sort of 20 different craft beer companies just in Cape Town alone. Yeah, I'm looking here. I see like Zeppelin, Darling Brew, Little Wolf. Darling's a good one.

00:27:38.940 --> 00:28:05.260
There's CBC, which is Cape Brewing Company. That's from where we are from. That's really amazing beer. What style beer is popular there? Is it your IPAs are here in the States? Do you get stouts there? Yeah. In terms of the craft beer scene, I'd say the top three would be IPAs and vice beers, definitely.

00:28:09.020 --> 00:28:11.680
- Yeah, but not really drink.

00:28:12.500 --> 00:28:16.720
- Yeah, are there, is, how about hard liquors?

00:28:17.280 --> 00:28:18.440
What are people drinking?

00:28:18.490 --> 00:28:21.560
Is it more like a nation of vodka drinkers?

00:28:21.680 --> 00:28:22.300
Is it rum?

00:28:23.680 --> 00:28:25.620
- Yeah, I don't know if you can kind of spread it.

00:28:26.120 --> 00:28:28.600
I guess it also depends on your sort of cultural background.

00:28:28.830 --> 00:28:32.460
I mean, you know, like people sort of in the townships

00:28:32.500 --> 00:28:35.080
will definitely be drinking courts of black label.

00:28:35.300 --> 00:29:04.700
Black Label and Castle Log are sort of two main beers. And people drink that a lot in the townships. And I guess it just depends on like sort of what class you fit into, like what you can afford and stuff, you know. But for me, I love, I work at a wine bar. So I love wine and I drink a lot of wine. Don't shake your head. I was just going to say, South Africans know for their wines. Yeah. Amazing wine. Yes.

00:29:04.780 --> 00:29:33.600
It's okay. You guys are fancy men. It's okay. They gotta spend all that Wilderness King money somehow. You know what I mean? So all these bands are coming out. You see all these bands working with breweries making their own craft beers. Like the other day Jay was drinking a Mastodon beer. That seems like a Mastodon thing to do now. Let's get a Wilderness King wine.

00:29:34.780 --> 00:30:03.580
Wow! That would be good, yeah. Yes. Yes. And we'd have, like, the writing of Gods in the Sand vintage, which is 2012. Like, you know, like, that would be so cool. Now we're talking, boys. You know, you're giving us business ideas. We could have sent you a check soon. You may just be touring the world sooner than you think with that new wine, huh? So, guys, so with Mystical Future, how long did it take, you guys,

00:30:03.660 --> 00:30:05.580
from start to finish.

00:30:07.239 --> 00:30:18.040
It's quite an arduous process actually because we had written the first song on the album, White Horses, we had written that song literally while we were recording Writing of Gods in the Sand.

00:30:18.240 --> 00:30:21.340
Yeah, we knew it didn't really fit into that sort of time frame.

00:30:21.660 --> 00:30:32.940
I guess the weird thing is we were always working on new songs and writing new music and stuff, but I guess life happened and I know Jesse was very busy with his studies.

00:30:33.560 --> 00:31:03.540
Dillon started doing like a teaching degree thing and I don't know the reason our album has taken so long to come up because essentially we finished we had finished writing it in September of 2013 and yeah so I'd say from start to finish in terms of writing we're looking at Jan 2012 to September 2013 but that's sort of writing on and off yeah they'd be like very productive periods where we would like sort of churn out two songs and then nothing would happen for a while just because as I was saying we were just quite busy around that time yeah but yeah I guess in from writing

00:31:03.560 --> 00:31:33.460
to sort of having it out. It was like four years, but in terms of, yeah, which is quite long. It shouldn't have been that long, but just, yeah, as I said, life happened and we weren't able to get it out sooner. Was there one period, though, where you went to a studio or started recording at home or whatever it was that you did and just, like, I mean, how long did that particular portion of it take? Yeah, well, we did a lot of demo tracks for the, like, pre-production stuff. So there was a long time where we were listening to the album. That's maybe also in the time period. Yeah, so we did, like, a demo version of the album for a long time, I'd say.

00:31:33.580 --> 00:31:37.740
Like, sort of beginning of 2014, it was pretty much done.

00:31:38.040 --> 00:31:45.740
Yeah, and there's, I think if I remember correctly, there's only about three major, major changes in terms of like the song sound wildly different to how they do now.

00:31:45.800 --> 00:31:51.760
But like quite three big sections, like one in "I'll Go To Your Tomb", like one in "If You Leave", like kind of like scattered all the way around the album.

00:31:52.080 --> 00:31:55.060
We actually took out like maybe chunks and changed it a little bit.

00:31:55.420 --> 00:31:58.520
And I was from listening to it for about six months, I'm guessing.

00:31:58.600 --> 00:32:00.780
We were kind of listening to it while we were practicing on our own.

00:32:01.280 --> 00:32:31.180
And that's great because when we finally got down into the studio, as you were saying, we were like kind of then just getting all those ideas then onto the final track. Yeah, definitely the album benefited from us actually taking our time with it. Yeah, yeah, of course. You always listen back to something and you're like, oh, I could have changed that and I could have done that differently. And I feel like there's some moments on Writing of Gods in the Sand where I feel like, oh, we could have done that a bit better. But I mean, you know, these are the things you learn as you go along. And with Mystical Future, I was like, oh, really like, I mean, the way you hear the songs on the album,

00:32:31.260 --> 00:33:00.840
That's what they sound like when you watch us live. Which is a nice thing. Or I think what we wanted to do was we wanted the record to sound like what we sounded like when we played with each other. Yeah. That's all right. I was going to let it go. Maybe phrase that a little differently. So let me get this straight. There was a period you said about six months where you were playing with yourselves and then you were playing with each other. And that was the most fertile.

00:33:09.860 --> 00:33:26.180
The last song on Mystical Futures is called If You Leave. And there's some female vocals on there. Who does those? The singer's name is Alexandra Mort. I don't know if you guys are familiar with the band. I think they're from California.

00:33:31.260 --> 00:34:01.240
They're like a shoegazy sort of alternative rock band. Anyway, they released an album in 2012 called Pipe Dreams and I really love that album and I loved her. At that point, they were quite sort of unknown, not a very popular band and I just somehow made friends with the girl on Facebook and I just emailed her and I was like, or Facebook messaged her and I was like, hey, I really like your band. I love your vocals. I think your sound would kind of

00:34:02.460 --> 00:34:26.100
I sent her the song, I sent her sort of the between this minute and this minute, this is the part you get to sing in. These are the lyrics, it'd be cool if you kind of, I kind of gave her sort of a basic idea of the melody and yeah, she was like, awesome, sounds cool and I think we gave her $80 for it, I was like, cool, this is how much money we have now, you can have it.

00:34:26.159 --> 00:34:27.899
Yeah, you can have all our money. Take it.

00:34:28.270 --> 00:34:28.560
Take it.

00:34:28.909 --> 00:34:37.659
And it worked out so piffy. I think it really makes that last song. Also, vocals at the end, it just rounds out everything.

00:34:38.320 --> 00:34:53.080
Anyway, so she was a band that has risen to prominence since. They've got 15,000 fans on their Facebook page. They're definitely a lot more popular than we are. But yeah, anyway, that's how she is. She's not in the band anymore, though.

00:34:53.680 --> 00:34:55.419
Sandra Mort was her last name?

00:34:55.440 --> 00:35:24.800
Yeah, Mort, Alexandra. That's the best fucking last name. I know, right? I was like, of course, you have to be on an album with that name. Yeah. Sorry, Jay. No, no, that's it. So do you think maybe when you write some new material, maybe you'll do some clean vocals? Maybe not to that extent. Well, not female. I think definitely in terms of my vocal approach on the new stuff, it's definitely a lot more melodic, I'd say.

00:35:27.500 --> 00:35:54.680
I wouldn't say clean. I don't think that would suit our band. Maybe, I don't know, maybe when we become like Opeth after 10 albums. I can't speak for that now, but I don't see it. I don't see that. Definitely not in this time. You know what's going to happen though? You just said that and somebody is going to be listening to this podcast 10 years from now hearing you guys and be like, see, I told you they said they were never going to change. They'll kill you guys for it.

00:35:57.000 --> 00:36:25.400
Yeah, every band says that. I don't know. I can't, I think just because we are in Cape Town in South Africa, like I can't see us being so taken in by like corporate things or like, even if I think about like Mastodon, like Mastodon is definitely, were definitely one of my favorite bands of forever, you know? And then, and then the sort of downward spiral started with The Hunter. Not that there aren't any good songs in The Hunter, but just, they're such a sort of

00:36:27.500 --> 00:36:31.440
I think just because we've been in this for a while kind of watching that

00:36:31.540 --> 00:36:36.120
whole thing go down I don't think we'd let our band get to that point not that I mean shit if I was them I'd

00:36:36.120 --> 00:36:55.400
probably do the same thing but I just don't see us kind of going down that road you know what I mean yeah you don't have to rationalize it to us I think that there's we're kind of a split decision here on this podcast but there are those of us who do feel Mastodon has descended as time has gone on and so we totally relate to exactly what you're saying and I think when you are an

00:36:55.400 --> 00:37:25.000
and you're not in a huge band like that. I think it's perfectly fine to sit on your laurels and just say, you know what, we're not going in that direction. And I agree with you. The Hunter, fine. The Hunter is a fine record, but it's not fucking Leviathan is all. Leviathan is definitely, I'd say, collectively is one of our favorite albums of all time. It's so fucking good. I think we should maybe do a master on cover at some point. Dylan and I were actually chatting before this.

00:37:25.400 --> 00:37:55.360
We were saying we've never done a cover before. Well, we've never recorded a cover before. So maybe we could look to an older Mastodon song. We know Jason will be able to play it, but maybe the other three won't be able to. That's insane stuff. Yeah, it's hard to watch. Yeah, it's really crazy stuff. You guys released an EP, Levitate. Yeah, that kind of just went under the radar a little bit. It did. I totally forgot about it. I just reminded about it now looking on your guys' Facebook. Was that leftover music from Mystical Future?

00:37:55.440 --> 00:38:24.860
No, not at all. We don't, it's weird. Like I think whenever we write something, we kind of know very early on what it's going to be used for. So with, with mystical future, those five songs you hear, well, actually there was one other idea, but other than that other idea, the five songs that are on the album that was written for the album, there was no, like everything, every rough we've ever jammed in the band room has definitely turned into a song. Yeah. I think molded into some other form. Yeah. So we never ever write more than what we need to, because we know,

00:38:25.400 --> 00:38:55.380
We have X amount of releases that we want to get through so these two songs are going to go there and these four songs will go there and you know. We totally scrap everything. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like in the front. So no no so Levitate is a very much legitimate release and we were actually just talking about maybe we should have timed that a bit better but you know these things happen and we learn from our mistakes and stuff because we really like the Levitate EP it's just maybe we need to give it a bit more sort of promotion or something. Yeah. Yeah. The like kind of thing for the Levitate EP as well is that we also

00:38:55.400 --> 00:39:25.380
As Kino was saying earlier, we always like to try different things and everything like that. So with the Levitate EP, we wanted to do a live tracking album. Oh yeah, so that's tracked live, which is a new thing for us and that was really cool. So it's like one take, push record, everyone plays what they must play and whatever's like mistakes happen is going to be on the album, you know, like, and so it was a really nice approach because we spent a lot of time in studio, like setting everything up and then you get that future, like that was like very, yeah, everything was like, the mystical future had its place, everything like we know, it was very

00:39:25.440 --> 00:39:55.320
We knew where the songs must pick up and where they must let down and stuff. And with Levitate, we just wanted to kind of write songs that we could actually just let out some stuff inside but just in a live like kind of... Like no click track, just kind of go for it. Yeah, no click track, just kind of go for it. And so it is a two track EP so we aren't expecting like 500,000 orders for it, everything like that. But we love the fact that it's part of our catalogue because now when we're looking forward to what we're going to do next, which is say like the next whatever we're working on, then, you know, it puts everything in perspective a little bit as well.

00:39:55.420 --> 00:40:24.800
I'm trying to stay young. But let me ask you this, guys. You guys are almost, you have six cassettes left out of 100. You guys, I see the cassettes for Mystical Future sold out. First off, whose idea was that? And I haven't asked the band why. Hey, it's making you guys money. So great. That's awesome. But gentlemen, here it is July 10th, 2016. 2016. And you guys are still doing cassettes. Can you just tell me why? Yeah, so. Which crazy idea that was?

00:40:26.040 --> 00:40:55.200
So I think around the time we did our first EP after Writing of Gods in the Sand, you know, I don't know, there's this one distro sort of record label, I don't know where, somewhere in America, they're called Hull's Headbangers, I'm sure you guys must have heard that name before. And I would just end up buying like patches and stuff from them quite a lot, and like CDs and records, and they would all sell tapes,

00:40:55.420 --> 00:41:25.200
And I was like, you could find like your favorite album, but on tape. And I'm like, well, that's fucking cool because it's so much cheaper to just buy the tape, you know? And then I think I sort of, for me personally, like sort of a little relationship with tapes. And I was like, oh, it'd be cool to do a Wilderness King tape. And then, but I don't think we ever like sort of went out and looked for someone to put something on tape. And then a guy from San Diego, he has a little label called Grimoire Cassette Culture. It was like, hey, I really love your band. Like would love to put out this EP on tape. And we were like, fuck yeah, I put it out on tape.

00:41:25.420 --> 00:41:54.780
Because it doesn't cost us anything, you know? Exactly. And it gets us... Tapes are awesome, man. I love them so much. They just look so cool. It's a chance for different merch with nice new artwork and everything. Yeah. Hold on. Now, gentlemen, looking at you guys, you guys appear to be around the same age as me, not as old as the rest of my podcast guys. Maybe you say that tapes are cool because you're not like these guys who had hundreds of thousands of tapes all over the house. Do you guys have a good pencil?

00:41:55.420 --> 00:42:24.260
for your tapes, because I know that Jay and George can speak to this. I can't tell you how many times I was with the pencil. It's like, goddamn fucking tape. Actually, John, don't be so sure these guys even know what pencils are. We're the old guys here, remember? Does this look familiar? I remember when I picked up Exodus Pleasures of the Flesh on cassette, and right away, the case got completely fucked.

00:42:25.420 --> 00:42:52.680
I had to do surgery on it. I took a Maxell blank tape, opened it up, threw away the guts, took the Exodus tape, lifted it up, placed it in there, and had to reassemble it and put it all back together just so I could listen to it. Did it work? It did. I was a surgical cassette genius. Tape surgery. The cassettes are literally here. I'm looking at your guys' bandcaps. The cassettes sold out.

00:42:57.760 --> 00:43:25.340
We've talked on the podcast, are they listening to them? And on what? Maybe not. They're not listening to it, but they want it like as a mantelpiece or whatever, you know? They bought it, that's all that matters. The music is decoration. Idiots. No. I mean, we only ever do like 100 or 200 max, you know? They're very like limited runs and it's just like a little cool collector's thing. Yeah, it's just a nice thing to have, I guess.

00:43:25.819 --> 00:43:54.280
And for us, it's always fun because we're going to play around with different artwork on the tapes. And that's become like a staple thing for us. We always have different artwork for every format of every album. A couple of years ago, some band, you know, I get promos from bands all the time. And somebody actually mailed me a cassette and I like took it out of them, opened up the envelope, took it out. And I was like, chucked it. And I'm like, I don't have anything to listen to this on. Sorry. Yeah. I think I would have actually mailed it back. Hey, George,

00:43:55.420 --> 00:44:25.360
That wasn't a wilderness king tape that you got. No. Hey, guys, all three of us, we're huge vinyl guys. I see you guys have vinyl, and that's also sadly sold out. Is your guys' vinyl in stock anywhere? Sorry, which one are you looking at? The Mystical Future vinyl is sold out. The only reason it says sold out on it is just because we don't have copies anymore. So I couldn't say it's available, but then you can't buy it.

00:44:25.420 --> 00:44:54.820
So the only reason that one says sold out is because we're waiting on some more copies. But I just got word that the blue and the black Alpies are sold out. So there's still, I think there's about nearly 100 white Alpies still left of Mystical Future. So we just ordered about 30. So that should come soon. And the album will be available for however long it takes to sell those copies. And you guys are reissuing the EPs, aren't you with the new artwork? Yeah.

00:44:56.000 --> 00:45:25.380
They look great. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So with our first EP and the Nights Fift Us Away, I never got a vinyl release. And there were a lot of fans saying, oh, we really love that EP. We really want it on vinyl. And we were like, you know what? If someone wants to put it out at some point, we will definitely say yes. I can't see us saying no to that. And then for The Devil Within, that was the first sort of local, one of the first sort of Capetonian sort of personal record label that

00:45:25.420 --> 00:45:55.340
put out an album on vinyl. Because vinyl is also sort of booming within our small scene here. And so with The Devil Within, we put that out on a label called Rosen Records. And it was a sort of complete South African release, which was a really cool thing to do. And that sold out very quickly because it was 10-inch, really limited, like 200 copies. So that could sell out. So that wasn't available on vinyl anymore. And people also really wanted to get that. Especially the fans that we only got, like, say, last year.

00:45:55.400 --> 00:46:25.380
and this year, they want the older music, but we don't have vinyl anymore. So it was just like a perfect thing to do, like in the Night's Fits Away and the Devil Within. Because essentially the Devil Within would be like a repress, and then Night's Fits Away is the first time on vinyl. So that's how that release came about. Moving forward here, tell me you guys are not going to get away from working with Jack Shirley. His work is amazing, the mastering that this guy did. Amazing. And I know we, it's weird because

00:46:25.400 --> 00:46:55.380
Jack has done a whole that the band was talking about earlier I know he's worked with them as well and as like with Young and In The Way and Def Evan obviously like and we were just like really big fans of the production that he manages to get because I think our sound can you know if you kind of take the black metal route you can kind of go very lo-fi but we don't want that because there's all this like there's a lot of nuances in the music we want that we want the melodic aspect to come through but we don't want it to sound like this like super clicky like

00:46:55.400 --> 00:47:25.040
overproduced nuclear blast sounding band. No offense to those bands, but you know what I'm saying? That's just not our sound. So Jack managed to get that perfect marriage between giving it that real organic feel, but it's also quite crisp and you can kind of hear everything. Yeah, and there's a lot of space in the album as well. And that's why we were like, please do our album. And that is notable as soon as you start playing the latest record. And I think it achieves what you were hoping it would achieve because it's still definitely kind of cult.

00:47:25.040 --> 00:47:54.960
You know what I mean? But it is so clean and so well put together that you immediately know I'm kind of getting ready to walk down a slightly different path here when you put that record on. It's one of the things that sucks you in. That's a great point, Jay, because we here with this podcast, we're exposed to so much music. And literally within the first couple of seconds that the album starts, you're like, whoa. It's a little different. Yeah, something's different. Like when White Horses starts, it's something different here. Now, you guys mentioned them.

00:47:55.060 --> 00:48:25.020
and they're a point of a lot of contention with a lot of people. Death Heaven. What do you guys think of them? I love them. I hated them at first. Absolutely hated them. I saw them live. Blew my mind and I'm a huge fan of them. I absolutely love them now. What do you guys think of them? Tell them you hate them. Tell them you hate them. I know. I know. I know. Dylan's not that familiar with me. I think initially when Sunbather came out, I was...

00:48:25.040 --> 00:48:54.900
I'd like Defebben from Rhodes to Judah. And I remember, I think it was even just before we did the writing of God's in the Sand, I remember taking the Rhodes to Judah on my flash drive to Dylan's house. I was like saying, oh, listen to the production. This is really good production. And it turns out Jack Shirley did that album. So I remember really loving the production and also the way the vocals kind of blended in with the music. I really, really liked that. And then I really liked Rhodes to Judah. But then when Sunbather came out,

00:48:55.040 --> 00:49:21.220
I thought that was one of the most overrated albums I had ever heard in my entire life. Because obviously there are really great moments in the production. But I mean, the... I just love it. I love it when somebody's trying so hard not to just like offend the person in front of them. Tell them, you know what, dude? I fucking hate it. You just walked up to that slow, slowly. You know what? The cover art is really nice. They seem like nice guys.

00:49:25.180 --> 00:49:55.020
No, no, no, but don't get me wrong because I think I kind of went back to that album after listening to New Bermuda, which I fucking love. And that's just what I was about to say. New Bermuda for me. Me, what they did with New Bermuda was what they were hinting at always from before. It's like the songs are still long, but it never goes to the point where it's sort of fuller. And I felt that there's a lot of bits in Sunbed that were just like, oh, I could have done without this, you know, where I feel like New Bermuda, they stripped it down and it's more riffy because that's

00:49:55.720 --> 00:50:24.840
I guess what this always comes up when people compare us to like post black metal or atmospheric black metal bands they like say oh you know they're playing sort of like the Deaf Heaven style Wolves in the Throne Room or you know whatever I love Wolves in the Throne so I never mind that comparison but when people say oh it's like this whole post black metal thing and for us like I always feel that our band's a bit more riffy than those bands you know but again because we're writing the music and we know what's going into it I can imagine like if you sort of skim a Wilderness Skit record it just might seem like another riffy

00:50:25.060 --> 00:50:51.400
or non-riffy black or droney, atmospheric band. But for me, what I love about New Bermuda is that there's some real riffs. There's some sort of Slayer Metallica things going on there, which I love. The black metal aspects there, the melodic aspects there, I think it's one of my favorite albums. I don't think you guys maybe get the similarities from people to Deaf Heaven because I don't see any promo shots of you guys rocking turtlenecks.

00:50:55.040 --> 00:51:24.720
Yeah, but just that sort of general style of like, you know, you have like these long songs and there's some going to be a clean guitar at some point where it just kind of meanders for a little bit or just, you know, that like Falls of Raros, people always sort of bring that band up and I've never listened to them. Yeah, I've never heard them either. But it's just, but I guess what I'm trying to say is like, I'm hoping that with our new album that we're working on, we kind of want to stand on our own and I guess that's what any band wants to do. But for now, it's,

00:51:24.760 --> 00:51:54.500
I'm okay with being grouped with those bands. I do feel that saying something different, that's all. Dylan, I want to ask you this. When you and Jesse sit down to do work, who kind of takes the leader? Do you guys get your own fits in your head and then come together? It's interesting because it's actually worked out quite differently over a number of releases. That's been something that we've actually wanted to do. That's been our aim, to always kind of switch around.

00:51:54.780 --> 00:52:24.740
how we actually go up about writing songs and stuff. As we were speaking about earlier, because we're still kind of finding our feet. I mean, five years is a long time in our lives, but it's still young in terms of like a band's lifespan, you know? So when Jesse and I get together and we're writing a song, it might be like Jesse has like the first four riffs for a song. And then he'll show it to the band and then I'll like feed off it. So I'll kind of watch what kind of chords he's kind of centering around and what kind of key he's kind of looking for. And I'll try and give my own little perspective on it and make sure that we're meeting at some

00:52:24.820 --> 00:52:54.740
and then also like kind of deviating at others and then on some other releases like we've actually just met up and been like okay let's just try and write something together so there's it's a very difficult question to ask because we've purposely tried to make it different every time we've met up and I guess that's the cool thing about it because we haven't run out of different ways to do it yeah so it makes us more excited to try and write together again because there's still so many different ways that we could write together and yeah we've always been in band I mean I know Akino and I have been

00:52:54.760 --> 00:53:24.740
I don't know tons of bands here which nobody's probably heard of like tons of bands in Cape Town leading up to Wilderness King and some of those bands they've had like one main songwriter and the band just gets very stagnant at some point because you're always all feeding off that one person like letting music out and everything like that so I know Keenan and I feel very strongly about this when we started the band we said like there'll be no stage where there's one person who's like kind of doing all the creative work because it's just silly because there's four people who are

00:53:24.760 --> 00:53:28.160
who have like their own minds and their own like ways of playing things.

00:53:28.890 --> 00:53:30.040
Yeah, and you can learn from everything.

00:53:30.580 --> 00:53:34.100
And on the other hand, it's also if you're one person, you're writing all the time, it's very weird.

00:53:34.460 --> 00:53:35.760
You can't get that objective opinion.

00:53:35.870 --> 00:53:41.200
You might think that your riffs are like the best in the world, but you need someone else to have the honest truth and say like, that's not really cool, you know?

00:53:41.380 --> 00:53:41.500
Yeah.

00:53:41.790 --> 00:53:46.900
And I guess with Jesse and I playing a lot, I can play a riff and Jesse will try and play with me and stuff.

00:53:46.990 --> 00:53:48.680
And I can see that he's not really feeling it.

00:53:49.180 --> 00:53:54.700
And that's good because I know that's not a good riff for us to put in a song because why should we put a riff in a song that the other guitarist is not?

00:53:55.280 --> 00:54:24.120
So that's why when we do those pre-productions and stuff, we really put all our energy into it and we make sure that what we're playing is great. So difficult question to answer, but I guess it's something we're still having fun experimenting with right now. That makes sense because when you read a description for your album on Bandcamp, you guys, for the last album, Mystical Future, it says atmospheric black metal, progressive rock, post-rock progressive metal. I think that kind of shows through. Even though you guys kind of fall into this little umbrella of atmospheric black metal. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:54:24.200 --> 00:54:54.000
That's what I'm referring to, John. Yeah, I'm a prog guy. And everyone makes fun of me all the time. Oh, the old prog guy. Look at that asshole. But I hear a lot of that in your stuff. You know, we're all earphone guys, too. I love to throw the earphones on and turn the music up. And they hear the little intricate parts in there. So you sort of answered my question, I guess, because it sounds like there's a lot of people putting something into this under the guise of One Umbrella. Oh, definitely. So just real quick, it's a typical question, but is there any other,

00:54:54.220 --> 00:55:22.320
Who are your guys main influences then? Since you have kind of this diverse sound that you're bringing all together. Yeah. So I think when we started the band, it was around, when was this? Like sort of 2010, 2011. I think at that point we were still very much completely mad about Opeth and Mastodon and Kojira. Kojira, yeah, Kalitonia, Agalok. Yeah, Agalok was a big one.

00:55:24.500 --> 00:55:53.900
like, oh, oh, enslaved. We were fucking worshipping enslaved. And you can hear a little bit of enslaved, I definitely think. Yeah, like Vertebra, like we think. Yeah, Vertebra was like, it's so weird because I think there's a lot of enslaved fans who don't like Vertebra as much as the other records, but that's my favorite. I think it's probably their pinnacle, honestly. Yeah, yeah. Oh, awesome. Yeah, but just because I've seen a lot of bad reviews and also the production value on that album. It's so organic and warm. And anyway, that's,

00:55:56.760 --> 00:55:59.380
We should have our album actually sound like a little bit.

00:55:59.880 --> 00:56:01.780
We're the guys to have that conversation with.

00:56:01.870 --> 00:56:02.160
Trust me.

00:56:04.480 --> 00:56:08.280
I guess those, and Primordial for me as well was a bit of vocal.

00:56:08.420 --> 00:56:08.700
Yes.

00:56:08.800 --> 00:56:10.160
I love that fucking band.

00:56:11.400 --> 00:56:13.740
In fact, it wasn't actually that much black metal.

00:56:14.720 --> 00:56:16.320
I think that was more of a personal thing.

00:56:16.510 --> 00:56:21.640
I know for me, I was getting into that sort of real darker side of music and really enjoying

00:56:21.640 --> 00:56:21.820
Like,

00:56:22.060 --> 00:56:24.320
like older Gorgoroth and discovering like,

00:56:24.580 --> 00:56:24.680
um,

00:56:24.880 --> 00:56:25.780
death spell Omega.

00:56:26.400 --> 00:56:26.680
But I mean,

00:56:26.780 --> 00:56:29.520
I don't know if that like really tied into the music though.

00:56:29.860 --> 00:56:30.240
Immortal,

00:56:30.620 --> 00:56:30.800
maybe.

00:56:31.000 --> 00:56:31.240
Yeah.

00:56:31.400 --> 00:56:32.980
Like maybe that came through a bit more,

00:56:33.320 --> 00:56:33.620
but again,

00:56:33.740 --> 00:56:34.940
the immortal has it sort of like riffy,

00:56:35.020 --> 00:56:35.520
more riffy,

00:56:35.640 --> 00:56:36.240
black metal style.

00:56:36.780 --> 00:56:37.580
And so when,

00:56:37.860 --> 00:56:38.260
when we get,

00:56:38.340 --> 00:56:38.480
uh,

00:56:38.780 --> 00:56:40.240
people from Norway buying our music,

00:56:40.240 --> 00:56:40.500
I was like,

00:56:40.560 --> 00:56:40.700
ah,

00:56:40.860 --> 00:56:40.940
yes,

00:56:41.020 --> 00:56:41.640
we've done something.

00:56:41.760 --> 00:56:41.820
Right.

00:56:44.460 --> 00:56:44.740
They're not,

00:56:44.900 --> 00:56:46.280
they're not into American sounds.

00:56:47.480 --> 00:56:48.180
So that's cool.

00:56:48.440 --> 00:56:49.100
It feels like something.

00:56:49.600 --> 00:56:51.580
but the cover for mystical future is not exactly,

00:56:51.620 --> 00:57:21.580
your, while it's a mountain range, it's not exactly the frozen tundra of the north, though, is it? Yeah, no, exactly. And I guess we wanted to do... That was a conscious... Yeah, that was a conscious thing. We were very sort of influenced by our surroundings, and we were surrounded by a lot of beautiful things, a lot of bad things as well. And I think that ties into the album as well. And we kind of wanted to be like, well, this is what we see, and this is what we're inspired by. So it's sort of like an ode to our homeland, so to speak. Yeah, I think I saw him in the best one. That's awesome. Yeah, I mean, I saw him in the best one.

00:57:21.620 --> 00:57:50.700
and I talking about it and being like, yeah, we can go all the way up to the forest here on the mountain and wait for like a very like misty morning and stuff because we wanted a photo for the album, you know? Yeah, yeah. And then what are we doing? Why are we doing that? You know, what we're trying to do is trying to take an album cover that we've seen before. And it actually happened that we were taking a photo shoot on that very beach that very day that we took that or the photo photographer took that photo. And we were there and he turned around and everything just looked perfect. It was the four of us standing there. And he took that picture and that ended up being on the album. So it's a real memory.

00:57:51.040 --> 00:58:20.900
You know, suddenly I'm picturing a black metal band in Hawaii who's got to come up with a couple of bands. And they're all just going, fuck, I don't know what we're going to do, dude. And then, Jay, there's the one idiot in the band who had a lay on the whole time. Yeah. And so around about, I mean, and so we'll just talk about our influences and stuff. So when we were talking about, I don't know, like when we all came together as a band, they're actually, I can't think of one band that all of us really enjoy. Like, I mean, I might be missing some, but like literally,

00:58:21.040 --> 00:58:50.800
There's not one band where we all get together and if we're like all in a car, yeah. If we're all in a car together, what on earth are we going to listen to? Like it's, I mean obviously the person driving chooses, but you know what I'm trying to say. I just force my friends and wife to live in. I assume it would be Rodriguez. That's a little inside joke between me and the boys. You guys know Rodriguez, that whole South Africa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I don't know if you guys saw the Rodriguez documentary. Oh, it was great. Yeah, well that's like, that's pretty much a Cape Tonian thing. Oh, is that right?

00:58:51.020 --> 00:59:20.960
Okay, well, I'm going to go back and watch it again. Because you know that record shop that he goes, it's like this guy was like tracking him down. Yeah. That record store was five minutes that way. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So that, yeah, that was my sort of, and all like, I think the opening scene is like they're driving around the mountain. That's in Camp Spay. That's like 10 minutes from where we are right now. So check it out again. Yeah, cool. So the guy who tracks him down is like a local, so the African like music collector dude. Right, right, yeah. Yeah. Is that a good record?

00:59:21.020 --> 00:59:24.900
I mean it's one of three so yes.

00:59:26.340 --> 00:59:28.380
It's one of the top three record stores.

00:59:28.380 --> 00:59:29.220
Yes, it's one of the top three.

00:59:31.360 --> 00:59:32.420
Definitely the top three.

00:59:32.860 --> 00:59:37.360
But there's actually one that just popped up now which is actually selling really good records, like vinyl.

00:59:38.540 --> 00:59:44.940
But again, we don't have – there's not enough people who like just alternative music in general, never mind metal.

00:59:45.120 --> 00:59:46.400
That's like a whole other niche by itself.

00:59:46.940 --> 00:59:48.080
Yeah, such a diverse country.

00:59:48.080 --> 00:59:50.760
Yeah, everyone's just listening to all sorts of things.

00:59:50.840 --> 00:59:51.460
But yeah.

00:59:53.000 --> 01:00:01.120
Like Australia, do you suffer from just really bad kind of charges for, you know, like does it cost a lot of money to buy records down there?

01:00:01.320 --> 01:00:01.420
Yeah.

01:00:01.460 --> 01:00:01.960
Or other things?

01:00:02.180 --> 01:00:02.740
Yeah, it doesn't.

01:00:02.860 --> 01:00:03.520
And musicals.

01:00:03.720 --> 01:00:03.800
Yeah.

01:00:04.380 --> 01:00:05.900
What's popular music there?

01:00:07.320 --> 01:00:13.960
Like here, you know, you listen to the top of the charts and you've got Bieber and shit like that.

01:00:14.360 --> 01:00:16.040
What kind of stuff is popular there?

01:00:16.080 --> 01:00:46.040
I guess the same stuff like whatever gets played on the radio would be popular so like whatever yeah like Justin Bieber or like there's like a big big pop like I mean there's pop culture everywhere in the world so they'll obviously like relay everything that the states are listening to and some UK stuff and then any sort of South African locally made music that's going to be like more like the traditional music like in traditional languages but still have that like pop feel to it yeah it's like kind of emulating something that was

01:01:10.260 --> 01:01:14.600
I was going to ask you, when you guys have to play shows, how far is the longest you

01:01:14.620 --> 01:01:44.320
Why did you guys have to travel to different venues? Oh, not long at all. I think the... Probably the longest ride is probably like half an hour to Stabenbosch maybe? Yeah, half an hour away. But normally it's like 10 minutes. Yeah. It's very quick. I mean, we've played shows like right at the bottom of the street in a really nice place. Yeah, we're actually literally in the road that we're in right now. In the road that we're in now. There's a... We had two shows on this road because we also played here at Straight No Chate or Mahogany. No, I'm thinking of that. Oh, and then Kimberly Hotel as well. Oh, yeah, yeah. Of course, of course. And so there's... I mean, everything's quite close.

01:01:45.120 --> 01:02:14.560
That's really cool about it. But even tying into our question, we were talking about touring earlier, like the other big city in our country is Johannesburg, obviously, which is like more than a thousand kilometers away. So it's like you play everything here and then we pretty much have nothing inland until like Joburg, which is one thousand kilometers away. So Cape Town's cool. But as we were speaking about this, only so many venues. There's sort of limited like things to do in Cape Town. So like for us, we feel that, you know, we've kind of done most things a metal band.

01:02:14.600 --> 01:02:21.860
I think everything a metal band can do in Cape Town and in South Africa really. So I guess that we have our sights set on foreign shores now.

01:02:23.560 --> 01:02:26.920
That's good. I like that. We've done everything a metal band can do in Cape Town.

01:02:29.500 --> 01:02:34.020
So for us here, a thousand kilometers, I had to do the math. 600 miles.

01:02:35.260 --> 01:02:40.440
You guys, have you made it out there to play? Because that's not like next door.

01:02:40.650 --> 01:02:42.500
No, we've done it three times now.

01:02:43.320 --> 01:02:48.380
Yeah, even this year, like three months ago, two months ago.

01:02:48.650 --> 01:02:49.380
Two months ago, yeah.

01:02:49.650 --> 01:02:54.240
We went and we actually went to Johannesburg, which is about, as you said, about 700 miles away or something.

01:02:54.310 --> 01:02:55.160
And then 600 miles.

01:02:55.670 --> 01:02:55.760
Yeah.

01:02:55.760 --> 01:02:59.900
Down to the coast, we played another show there and then back up to Joburg, played another

01:02:59.970 --> 01:03:00.480
place through there.

01:03:00.640 --> 01:03:01.860
And then we fly back, you see.

01:03:01.930 --> 01:03:05.760
So it's more like we fly to that city and then we play around that city and then we'll fly

01:03:05.870 --> 01:03:06.240
back here.

01:03:06.820 --> 01:03:11.000
And it just doesn't make sense to drive because there's not a lot of like sort of spots you

01:03:11.000 --> 01:03:11.760
can play on the way.

01:03:12.060 --> 01:03:42.020
I mean they are but like it's almost pointless stopping there because you're gonna be playing to like no one essentially we might be lucky if there's one guy who turned up and actually liked the show so I guess you just have to be smart about it but hey if we had more money to do that I'm sure we would just have a little holiday because South Africa is a beautiful place like no matter where you go yeah it's just just in terms of what we're doing you can't make money from the tour yeah you can't you won't be able to make money from it I mean I still remember being like a young child and stuff and you always see these music documentaries on TV and they're like

01:03:42.040 --> 01:04:11.960
And then we just got into our van and we started touring from city to town to town. And I remember being like eight years old or something and thinking like, where did they drive? There's no place near here. And you realize that places like the States or Europe is completely different. You can town hop or city hop and go from state to state. You guys are so lucky. You guys are so fortunate about it. Yeah, we locked. I guess this is where we are. That's funny you guys should say that because I can't tell you how many times I've been talking to George and Buk and be like, oh, there's a show in Baltimore. Ah, fuck, I'm not driving.

01:04:12.060 --> 01:04:42.020
up there. It's like 40 miles. I'm not driving in all that traffic. So guys, do you guys both with you? Have you guys been able to see a lot of bands even tour at all? Actually, the weird thing is like over the last three years, I'd say we've been very lucky because I think people are starting to catch on to Cape Town, not just being like a sort of cool place to visit in terms of sights to see, but it's, there's a lot going on here, man. There's like a lot of good

01:04:42.040 --> 01:05:11.720
and there's sort of cool alternative things happening within the underground and people are starting to sort of catch on to that and just in terms of like design and sort of like the creative industries like they're like we have some very incredibly talented people here but we just maybe don't have the resources like you guys do you Europeans do but we're starting to sort of get that level now. Have you guys has OPEF played South Africa? I thought they would not. We'll probably get them in like five albums time and they are completely different. Right?

01:05:12.060 --> 01:05:42.020
Right now, no, but Behemoth was here for the second time. Yeah. We played with Behemoth the first time. We played with them in 2014. Yeah. Who else is down there? So there was this local metal festival called Witch Fest, and they brought down Septic Flesh. Cannibal Corpse. Aborted. Cannibal Corpse was fucking insane. Yeah. Yeah, so we've been actually really lucky over the last couple of years to see some really great... But as Kina said, recently. That's a very recent thing. Yeah. At the Gates was

01:05:42.040 --> 01:05:42.640
to come down.

01:05:43.150 --> 01:05:45.560
But anyway, you know, we have we've seen some.

01:05:45.820 --> 01:05:48.040
You guys got the Maiden tour just recently, too, didn't you?

01:05:48.180 --> 01:05:49.100
Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:05:49.220 --> 01:05:49.700
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:05:50.040 --> 01:05:51.280
Unfortunately, we couldn't go to that.

01:05:51.400 --> 01:05:52.500
But yeah, Maiden was here.

01:05:52.570 --> 01:05:54.420
So I mean, we are the second time as well.

01:05:54.720 --> 01:05:57.020
Yeah, the second time they were down like in the 90s.

01:05:57.090 --> 01:06:01.560
And so with Blaze, that guy, they were down here with the wrong singer.

01:06:02.439 --> 01:06:05.680
So Maiden made their first appearance just recently is what you're saying then.

01:06:06.230 --> 01:06:06.880
Yes, exactly.

01:06:08.310 --> 01:06:08.760
There you go.

01:06:09.840 --> 01:06:38.740
So we have a much more fortunate than like say our generation just before us. I think if you had told us like 10 years ago we'd get to see like Behemoth at like a local venue we'd be like you are lying. That will never happen. So you know. When you were like fathers or something like people just older than us and stuff I mean they were like collecting records and vinyls I'm sure like they would just have loved to see like a single single band come and visit. I mean I know my father has like tons of records and barely ever saw people

01:06:38.760 --> 01:07:08.740
who you actually listen to and it's much more fortunate now with Keenan and I. Yeah, our generation. Yeah, yeah. Because a lot of these more bands are taking the risk and not risk, but just jumping out. As I said, people are starting to catch on to K-Time. Whenever bands come down, they're just like, wow, this is a really crazy cool city. I think we've almost forgotten about it, like the Southern Tip or something, but people are starting to catch on. I don't know if you guys know Magrudergrind at all. Yeah, I've heard of them, yeah. So they're like a power violence trio from

01:07:08.780 --> 01:07:38.440
Brooklyn Band. We just played with them three weeks ago. They were down doing a South African tour. That's awesome. There's a couple of friends of ours who have now taken the liberty in bringing international bands on a smaller scale. That's the third band they're brought down. They're doing really cool things. We're just lucky to be like, hey, we want to play the show. That's fun. That's the cool thing about the underground. Look at this. Why would you not want to play there?

01:07:38.780 --> 01:08:08.740
Why would you not want to go there? Look at that. Gorgeous. Gorgeous. Guys, on the quick side, what's the World Cup stadium being used for now? Or is it? A giant toilet pot. Looks like it, yeah. That's where they're storing the Vamazulas or whatever the fuck it was. Is it even being used now for anything? No, not really. I mean, it's a weird point because all the cities had to have like, for like technical things, like all the cities when they had

01:08:08.780 --> 01:08:15.140
the stadiums are going to be used for after the tournament and everything like that.

01:08:15.400 --> 01:08:27.380
And I think only the stadium in Durban, like the King Shaka Stadium in Durban, I think it is, that one is still being used quite a lot because they have this cool sky ramp sort of thing that you can walk over the stadium and everything like that.

01:08:27.640 --> 01:08:30.540
But in terms of Cape Town, it's just sitting here doing nothing.

01:08:30.640 --> 01:08:34.080
There was talk of having a kind of flea market type market.

01:08:36.780 --> 01:08:37.560
It's just like

01:08:37.779 --> 01:08:38.980
Yeah, this gorgeous stadium

01:08:40.160 --> 01:08:41.859
It's right here on the water

01:08:41.980 --> 01:08:43.600
It looks like there's a golf course around it

01:08:43.900 --> 01:08:45.000
And it's probably just sitting there

01:08:45.319 --> 01:08:46.040
Not being used

01:08:46.640 --> 01:08:48.259
It's taking up a lot of space

01:08:48.440 --> 01:08:48.880
It's huge

01:08:49.000 --> 01:08:51.319
You guys have like

01:08:51.780 --> 01:08:52.960
Baseball and football

01:08:53.120 --> 01:08:55.359
So you probably get used for one of those things, right?

01:08:55.520 --> 01:08:56.880
We have some soccer matches

01:08:56.980 --> 01:08:57.940
We have some soccer matches

01:08:58.700 --> 01:08:59.359
There, but like

01:08:59.500 --> 01:09:00.240
Yeah, I mean hardly

01:09:00.240 --> 01:09:01.839
It's definitely underutilized

01:09:01.900 --> 01:09:03.240
I know there's an event happening there

01:09:03.359 --> 01:09:03.600
But like

01:09:03.819 --> 01:09:04.920
It's not the field

01:09:04.920 --> 01:09:34.859
They use like the conference or the corridors. It's weird. Chili Peppers played there. Kings of Leon played there. Cole played there. Justin Bieber played there. Now we're getting into it. Now we're talking. There we go. We can't pack the stadium just yet. One day. One day. Boys, so quickly go with the, ask you a couple more questions. We'll let you guys go on your evening. The sports,

01:09:34.920 --> 01:10:04.900
down there. Do you guys watch sports at all? And if so, what do you guys watch? I mean, people, there's, yeah, sports vary. I mean, South Africa is pretty much like a sporting nation. I mean, amazing cricket, amazing rugby, which is our, I mean, in terms of like, South Africa is like one of the best teams in both of those sports. Do you guys watch sports? Because we talk to a lot of bands that are like, no, I don't watch sports at all. Oh, yeah. I mean, like, okay, so a little history

01:10:04.920 --> 01:10:34.900
My life is I come from a very sporty family so my dad was a professional soccer player and that's something that I was going to end up. That was my plan to do it with my life and then I discovered metal and all went downhill from there. It was like your disappointment. Pretty much. That's not even an exaggeration. But anyway so I come from and also a big cricket fan so I personally come from a family that's very into sport so I still love sport but I've definitely

01:10:34.940 --> 01:11:04.460
Not paid as much attention to it now as I've gotten older. But I mean, I still... Did Dad play in country, out of country? Yeah, I played sort of for the local professional clubs. Cool. Yeah. Cool. I'm so glad I got to hear the term amazing cricket today. I didn't know those two things could go together. Cricket is really... I have one of my friends from work is from Trinidad. They love cricket.

01:11:04.920 --> 01:11:32.960
But then he tells me, and then, you know, Cricket's on, but he's like, yeah, Buke, the same match is now in, and it's like fourth or fifth day. And the score is like 147. It just blows my mind. I can't catch the tails of it. I'll tell you, South Africa's got a great golfer. I'm sure you guys know. It's like Gary Player, who is probably the 80-year-old man I would fear the most in the world because he's in such a great shape. He probably beat my ass in a second. I met him once. Did you really? Yeah.

01:11:34.960 --> 01:12:04.880
He's in America, doesn't he? Yeah, he's probably been here for a while, but I believe he grew up there. Yeah, so. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of great sort of sport local, I mean, well, South African sportsmen and sportswomen and yeah, like, yeah, I would say sports big, especially, and soccer's also massive. I mean, maybe, I mean, in terms of like nationally, like we have a lot of sort of big soccer clubs and like fans are, you know, as fanatical as pretty much anything for any kind of entertainment thing. But, um,

01:12:05.000 --> 01:12:34.840
Yeah, we're also quite an active band in a way. So like, we do like every once in a while, like kicking the ball around together and like, yeah. And so obviously we have, I mean, I played soccer since I was like young. Yeah, I used to play soccer for a long time. Until. And Jason, our drummer, was not here. Yeah, Jason also played. He's an incredible sportsman. Like, he's really talented. Like, that guy can literally fucking do anything. Like, I'm not even shitting you. That guy can do anything. I'd like to see, let's get a maiden, Iron Maiden Wilderness.

01:12:39.000 --> 01:12:40.460
I know they do.

01:12:41.820 --> 01:12:42.520
And they're old now.

01:12:43.140 --> 01:12:44.100
You could probably beat them.

01:12:44.140 --> 01:12:44.680
They're getting up there.

01:12:49.240 --> 01:12:53.640
So getting here, wrapping things up with you guys, which we're having a blast,

01:12:53.880 --> 01:12:55.580
which I could talk to you guys all day.

01:12:56.220 --> 01:12:57.780
It's always like that with these things.

01:13:00.360 --> 01:13:03.400
How is the future looking for you guys?

01:13:03.680 --> 01:13:33.300
I know you already talked about how the writing process is. It's kind of a slow burn. Can we expect anything new soon? It's weird. The writing process isn't always a slow burn. With Levitate, I think we did that in a month. It just depends. We go through these very productive periods and then a period where we chill out and just take it easy. We're writing a lot of new music. I know just between Dylan and myself, we have quite a few ideas.

01:13:34.380 --> 01:13:40.320
We definitely are pushing to do something. The plan is, I don't want to talk before anything

01:13:40.460 --> 01:14:03.580
happens, but we're definitely going to have a new full end next year. Definitely. Excellent. I can't say exactly when, but I think not later than the middle of 2017. There will be a new world-listing album because the plan is to go to Europe and we'll hopefully be there at this time next year to promote a third record. So that's the plan. We might do something before then as well.

01:14:04.199 --> 01:14:28.540
We love doing little EPs before albums, so that's also a thing for us. Go play Vaken. Was there ever talk in the band, guys, that if things continue to take off for you guys, are people at a point in your life where they create maybe the idea of picking up and moving to a more metal-friendly area? That's a good question.

01:14:33.640 --> 01:15:03.600
a few times and it's so weird like I don't know when you're younger you know you always have these ideas of like playing on a big stage and and we've never we've never done that yet you know but you know it is something that we still dream about I think still like to this day and I think when you're young you always you you don't you kind of have like you're very optimistic and you don't kind of realize what life is going to throw at you so you're like oh I'm just going to be in a band full time and I'm going to do this and it's going to be great I'm going to make lots of money and I'm going to have I'm going to be happy and then as you get older you're like maybe that's not

01:15:03.640 --> 01:15:32.780
What's even gonna happen? So then all I can say is for us, we're just super grateful that people have responded to our music in this way to the point where now we are actually talking about going to Europe. And just if this is a once off tour, fuck, we're gonna die happy, man. And I think we sort of realized that we love living in Cape Town. I wouldn't live in another place in the world. And I've traveled a little bit. I haven't been to America yet. I've been to Europe. And we have to go to America.

01:15:32.800 --> 01:16:01.000
Yeah, definitely. Or the states, or whatever you guys call it. If there was one place that you could play, where would you like to play? New York would be actually. Yeah, New York probably would be amazing. I mean, I don't know. Would that be a good place for us to play? We don't know what the scene's like, but it would be great to go there. Just in terms of a city, though. That's a great city. How about Washington, D.C.? You don't want to come here now. It's all fucked up. Playing in that room you have back then. Yeah, exactly.

01:16:02.800 --> 01:16:05.080
I think what I'm trying to say is that like

01:16:06.020 --> 01:16:07.480
you know like you kind of

01:16:07.500 --> 01:16:09.640
your sort of goals kind of shift

01:16:09.740 --> 01:16:11.600
as you get older so I think for us now

01:16:11.780 --> 01:16:13.440
is to keep making good records that

01:16:13.520 --> 01:16:15.700
we're really proud of and if that

01:16:15.840 --> 01:16:17.500
allows us a sort of month

01:16:17.780 --> 01:16:19.560
holiday which would be traveling

01:16:19.680 --> 01:16:21.860
and playing shows then I couldn't

01:16:21.920 --> 01:16:23.520
think I'd want more than that you know

01:16:23.860 --> 01:16:25.380
I don't know if I'd want to do

01:16:25.960 --> 01:16:27.720
you know like two or eight

01:16:27.980 --> 01:16:29.600
months or twelve months you know

01:16:29.720 --> 01:16:31.000
like eight months of the year or whatever

01:16:30.980 --> 01:17:00.580
Yeah, yeah. Or whatever bands do. That just seems crazy. Yeah, it might suck the passion out of what we're doing with the releases in a way. Just to go because obviously it's like, what, 14 hours for us just to get somewhere else in the world, which is quite tough. Touring would be tough. But what I'm trying to say is that earlier, the question about relocating is kind of a double-edged sword because when we were younger, it was almost like, we have to relocate. Yeah, we'll have to relocate. We have to relocate. And then some of us were also like, oh, but we'll never will because,

01:17:00.960 --> 01:17:30.700
It would just be like turning your back on South Africa and everything like that. And now that we're getting older, we just actually don't listen to any of those thoughts anymore. And we actually just look towards the future and be like, cool, we're going to release an album. It would be amazing for us to go and tour, get some new contacts, speak to more people, have more opportunities like this where you get to speak to awesome people. Yeah, exactly. And just go and then we'll see what take every day as it comes in a way. Yeah. So I think I don't know if we will relocate, but we might relocate.

01:17:30.960 --> 01:17:56.960
3-4 years or so. I think something that has become quite special to us and it's not something that I really, I think maybe this is more Dylan's influence, but it's not something that I gave too much thought of when we started our band. But now that we have some sort of success and some people like our band, I think it's very important for us to continue to be a South African band. And I don't think because that's quite a special thing.

01:17:59.480 --> 01:18:22.760
You said it's a special thing and that's cool. You're going to, of course, see reviews for every album for years to come. And it's going to have in there, hey, this band from South Africa. And that's cool. That is kind of your thing. It's not another band from Sweden. You guys are kind of your own thing. So that's cool.

01:18:26.960 --> 01:18:56.760
As you're saying, we might lose that little bit of touch of something special. Yeah, it is. I don't think it's off the cards for us to sort of go relocate maybe for six months or so and maybe go write an album in San Francisco or something like that. Something kind of more conceptual. But I think we always invest in African band. I think we're always going to live here. It would be nice to kind of travel the world and do this. And getting up to the stage where we can do a tour in Europe and a tour in the States every year or something like that. Yeah, that would be amazing. Just to do once,

01:18:57.000 --> 01:19:26.940
and do like sort of 30 days on and then four months off and another 30 days and then because then it doesn't become a job you know i think we love living and i think we're all interested to see what sort of i don't know financial business ventures we might take on here in cape town so i don't know the the future's kind of looking very bright and wide right now yeah yeah i like that you know you can go and work anywhere but home is home you know so yeah you know even if you went and worked somewhere for a year south africa's still home you know yeah

01:19:26.940 --> 01:19:56.920
You don't have to change your home just to work. Exactly. I think that's where we are. That's definitely where we are. Awesome. A minute ago, Dylan said that he liked having a good experience. This is like talking to awesome people like this. I think he was talking about us. When we get a guest up to that level, that's when we need to wrap it up. Because we're only going to push him down now. Before we go, we want to give you guys a chance

01:19:56.960 --> 01:20:26.920
to let everybody know where they can find your stuff. Pretty much like most online streaming services like from Spotify to Deezer to SoundCloud to YouTube, Bandcamp, everywhere. So yeah, check us out, Wilderness King. And then merch or anything like that will be something from Bandcamp would be great because that's obviously run by us. And if we're all sold out and obviously support the labels. It's funny because

01:20:26.960 --> 01:20:56.820
When Buke was asking about vinyl and he said it was sold out, you kind of looked confused there for a second. And then he said for Mystical Future. And so I was like, that must mean that the first album is still up there on vinyl. And so I actually went up there and I bought it. So there you go. Oh, really? When did you buy it? Just while we were talking. Oh, that's amazing. I'll check on my phone. I'll send you an email saying thank you so much. I got the green swirly.

01:20:56.940 --> 01:21:26.600
One. Yeah. Oh, awesome. Yay. Thank you, George. We have about, I think it says 18 on the site, but we're waiting for another 12 and then that's it. And that's, that's it forever. That, that album will be sold out and won't be repressed. I don't think like, but that's also, it feels so good, man. Like we've managed to sell nearly 300 records as a South African band. And we very like appreciative of anyone who's bought that. So yeah. Thanks George. Now they, now they're so, now they got to pay, uh, how much like $200 shipping. Now I had to pay the shipping.

01:21:28.340 --> 01:21:56.240
It was like 18 bucks to ship it here. Jesus. Is it, when you guys. That's actually not bad compared to most places. You know, like Germany is the only place that it's relatively cheap. Yeah, Germany is cheap for some reason. But Germany is great for every reason. Yeah, Germany is great for every reason. There you go. Like, I think it's because of the German fans we get to take a little cut from our PayPal account now and then, you know. Because the German, like, I mean, the German fans,

01:21:56.940 --> 01:22:24.300
I'd say they make the bulk of our fan base. Germans have been very good to us. There's a scene there, man. That's the metal country. We're definitely going to get out there next year. But then I'd say after Germany, probably Americans actually. So it's nice to know we have some fans on both continents. America bought a copy today. Thank you, America. Good to see.

01:22:26.960 --> 01:22:56.860
say before we go? Only that it was a pleasure to have these gentlemen. It was a lot of fun, guys. I'm glad we finally got to put this together after talking a few months now. Yeah, exactly. It's awesome. Good things take time. Yeah, we don't do anything quickly. And we don't. Our interviews are long, so it was nice of you guys to take the time. It was generous of you. We all dig your stuff. Thank you so much. Look out for our music before the end of the show. Guys, we're quick. Last question.

01:22:56.940 --> 01:23:24.520
I know we just ended it and wrapped it up on nice but I love streaming services. They help me in my coming and going to work and stuff like that. Is your whole catalog going to hit Spotify and stuff? Because I see that just Mystical Future is on Spotify. Unfortunately, it's only Mystical Future because when we kind of spoke with the labels and they've kind of done all the sort of back-end admin things of putting our album on Spotify and on iTunes or whatever.

01:23:26.960 --> 01:23:56.460
about that earlier. So the best thing to do, I don't know, I think Bandcamp has a sort of streaming app. Yeah. Once you buy stuff on Bandcamp, after a while it stops you playing it. Pretty much everything we've ever done is on Bandcamp and maybe we should even speak to one of the labels and ask them to put the whole back catalog on as well. It's just people allowing them to find you more. Because people's listening habits are different and I'm sure if they're listening to you. You're so right.

01:23:56.940 --> 01:24:26.840
Thank you for bringing that up because I'll definitely actually speak to them and be like, maybe we should get all of the music up on there. It all could come back around. Hey, if they hear it on Spotify, go buy it on Bandcamp. Exactly. Thank you. And now the Wilderness King wine. Two tips from Bukin. You guys get Bukin when it comes time. Oh, hey, no. It's always self-serving with him, though. He's like, here's the app I use. Can you put your music on that, please? Sorry I can't be like George and get on those.

01:24:26.940 --> 01:24:29.040
their good side by buying their stuff right now.

01:24:30.020 --> 01:24:34.000
Let me know when George is trying to buy your guys' love and affection.

01:24:34.360 --> 01:24:37.740
When you get more Mystical Future Vinyl, let me know. I'll buy one of those too.

01:24:38.160 --> 01:24:47.480
I'll add you guys to the database. Well, at least you and George and John, because you guys have your email addresses. So you'll see when we have new stuff ready.

01:24:48.320 --> 01:24:49.100
Excellent. Awesome.

01:24:49.360 --> 01:24:52.000
Thank you guys so much. We had such a fun time chatting to you guys.

01:24:52.480 --> 01:24:56.080
It's very easy to do it. So yeah, we'll do it another time.

01:24:56.400 --> 01:25:25.860
Yeah, we'll have you on again sometime. Next album, maybe. Next album, yeah. Next album sounds great. Awesome, guys. Hope you have a great Sunday. Yeah. Thanks, you too. Enjoy your evening. We'll talk to you later, guys. Thank you, guys. Bye. Bye. All right, that was our interview with Wilderness King. Make sure to check those guys out. You can pick them up on Bandcamp. Bandcamp is probably the best place to get their stuff because, of course, Bandcamp stuff goes directly to the band. So make sure to check them out.

01:25:26.420 --> 01:25:56.380
Good interview. Yeah, great guys. We love talking to them. We could have talked to them all day if we had time. I just want to say again, John, thank you for setting that up. That was really enjoyable talking to those guys. And it was really all Keenan. He emails you or emailed me at least when I bought Mystical Future. He emailed me too. And we just started talking because there's a little bit of an Opeth reference with my username. And it's just talking more and more. I can't tell you how many emails I've got from him. So it was really cool to finally talk to him and Dylan. Yeah, I think it's a

01:25:56.420 --> 01:26:25.180
It's really great that bands on Bandcamp have this personal touch that they do when you buy their album. Like I said, he emailed me as well. I think that's really smart because it sort of reinforces a bond and a feeling with the band. They all have the automatic email, thank you for buying the album. But then when they actually take time and write and say, hey, George, blah, blah, blah, and they throw things in there like you mentioned the podcast.

01:26:25.240 --> 01:26:54.200
And so it personalizes it and builds a bond between you and the band. And I think that's really smart. Yeah, definitely. I agree. All right, let's get into some news. First up, Paul Deano denies having cancer. Says he had a rugby ball-sized abscess on his lungs. That doesn't sound very fun.

01:26:55.920 --> 01:27:24.140
Sounds big. It sounds bad, yeah. Well, feel better, Paul. So the first batch of MDF 2017 bands have been announced, and I know some of us are kind of looking forward to this. First one was Morbid Angel with Steve Tucker. Personally, I could care less about that one. I don't know about the rest of you. Don't care. Yeah, I don't care. Yeah, fuck them. All right. But then we've got Autopsy. And, you know, they're pretty cool.

01:27:27.440 --> 01:27:55.220
I know you're getting ready to say Acker Cocker is coming. Yeah, Acker Cocker is also coming. And then probably the most anticipated one so far for myself and I'm sure for John, In the Woods are going to be playing. Oh yeah, big time. Big time into that. And there's a band called Decrepit Birth. They're going to be playing there. I've heard of them. They're a death metal band. And the band that will hopefully guarantee that Neutrino is coming back next year, Nordjavel is going to be playing as well. So that's kind of a cool little

01:27:55.260 --> 01:28:25.220
There's at least one name that I absolutely cannot read on the poster, so I'll be looking forward to whoever that is. They have the written out list on the website as well. Is it on the Facebook page or on their website? I think it's the Facebook. The only band I'm looking forward to has been announced, and they're the headliners, the parking lot. Of course. Yeah. So it's been speculated by a German newspaper

01:28:25.260 --> 01:28:55.140
that the new Metallica album may end up releasing on October 14th. So I guess we'll see if that actually happens. I probably made this clear, but I really don't care. I don't. You know, whatever. I mean, and it's not because I have any disrespect for them or any weird thing like that, but they're done. They're not going to make any great records anymore. It could still be interesting. I just finished reading their book, Birth, School, Metallica, Death. I don't know if it's their book, but it was a book about them anyway. I think it was authorized, so that's what it comes. It was a good read.

01:28:55.920 --> 01:29:25.160
I'm waiting for that Master of Puppets book. Yeah, yeah. Let's see, what else is going on? Century Media is going to be releasing a 7-inch Hellhammer single called Blood Insanity on August 19th. Yeah, I mean, I'll probably get it because it's Hellhammer. I'm not a big fan of 7-inches, even though I bought all those Iron Maiden ones that came out a couple years ago. George is a big 10-inch fan. Yeah, it's got to be 10-inches or at least 12 inches for me to be interested. I'm exactly the same as you, George.

01:29:25.260 --> 01:29:54.880
I'll get it. Just to get it. I don't know if I've ever heard the song. No. With no disrespect to High Hammer. Because I actually love them. But it's not going to be the lost great track or anything. What was the history on it? Is it just something they recorded and it just never released? I guess I didn't read the full article. So probably some of the biggest news on here. Yeah, I think it's probably the biggest news on here. Blind Guardian is going to be playing the entire Imaginations from the Other Side album on their North American tour this fall.

01:29:55.360 --> 01:30:24.340
And John pointed out a message from Power Prog confirming that they're going to be playing it at Power Prog as well. So John and I are on board for that. You're going to hear it. You know, I have to say one thing about them, though, which is Hansi does not even try to hit the high notes on when at least not when I saw him live. Imaginations from the other side. I mean, it sounds good, but he just doesn't hit the high high stuff like when he gets to like something that is maybe. No, there's some stuff.

01:30:24.380 --> 01:30:54.180
He really just shoots for a lower register, which is fine. He sounded like himself. I saw him on the Twist and the Myth tour, which was a record I think I liked more than most other people. But that's cool that you guys are going to hear that. Yeah, I can't wait. And you know what? Maybe we will too, depending on what those tour dates are. Yeah, the nice thing is we're going to get probably the biggest stage you think they play on the tour, maybe one of the bigger stages. Yeah, and probably the most enthusiastic crowd, you know. Oh, man, that crowd will eat them up. Yeah, when I saw them play the third Prog Power,

01:30:54.380 --> 01:31:24.340
I think. I can't remember. It's been a while. The place just went insane for them. So it'll be cool to see them again. You know, there was a band that I know, like a lot of their subject matter gains them a lot of fans. I've never, I'm not saying it's because I don't like them. I don't, I've never understood why they are as big as they are. It's like metal. You know what I'm saying? I'm not saying that they're bad at all. I love them. It's just they're one of those bands that I don't understand, you know, why they are. That's the way I feel about Opeth. Just kidding. I like Opeth. I think, honestly, I think

01:31:24.340 --> 01:31:54.320
It's like, first of all, they've been around for a long goddamn time. But I think at that time, it was like the band that the Dungeons & Dragons fans went for. You know what I mean? And I think that really is part of their appeal to people. Yeah, totally. Makes sense. And there was always Demons & Wizards metal out there, but they really just went for it. They were really like, it sounds like a role-playing game in its way, you know? Yeah. Iron Maiden released a game on iOS and Android called Legacy of the Beast. A few days ago, Jay

01:31:54.340 --> 01:32:24.280
I sent out a message to everybody going, hey, have you played this game yet? And I hadn't played it yet, but I downloaded it after he mentioned that. And I don't know if you've been playing it, Jay, what your opinion is, but when I opened it up, I started kind of playing around through it, and I was very unimpressed. I was like, oh, this is so lame. It's all on rails, and it's kind of lame. And the next thing I know, it was three hours later. Yeah, you got stuck in it. That's because it's turn-based combat. It's fun. And it's fucking it.

01:32:24.340 --> 01:32:53.920
and the sound is cool. I like it. Three hours later, I was grudgingly like, all right, fine, it's not that bad. I love when Eddie screams, it's really actually like Bruce, and it's something they isolated from one of the recordings, and it's like, ah! You know what I mean? It's good. I like it. I was telling Buke this, and it certainly doesn't have this depth, but it's a kind of thing like Heroes of Magic after a fashion. It's that turn-based stuff, and you can upgrade your characters and stuff.

01:32:54.360 --> 01:33:23.800
The only thing I haven't found out yet is if you ever get to play as other Eddies than the one you first see, which I was under the impression you eventually will. I got as far as, yeah, that's what happens when you play for like three hours. I got far enough that I got Wicker Man Eddie. And you became, you were playing as Wicker Man Eddie? Yeah. You can, you can, there's a little button on there. You can tap it and it'll, any other Eddies you have. Oh, fuck yeah. It'll, it'll let you pick one. I will continue to play then. I enjoyed it. I think it's a fun game. I mean, you know, it's, it's a good one. Like when you're sitting there waiting for the train or to pick up your wife or whatever.

01:33:24.360 --> 01:33:54.100
It's a good way to waste 10 minutes. I haven't tried it. Do you have to give your name when you start playing? So it's not going to scream and say, scream for me, Jay. Scream for me. That would be killer. The thing is that I don't like about the game. I don't like gaming on my phone really. Here I am, PC Master Race guy. These games now that are free throw microtransactions at you so much. There's stuff like that in there.

01:33:54.340 --> 01:34:23.600
I didn't bother doing any of it. It's not as bad as some of them, though, Buke, for what it's worth. What was this game I was playing? Candy Crush? No, but it was the Warcraft game. If you've ever played that, it was actually kind of fun. And that was microtransaction fucking bullshit hell. The Maiden one's a little better off. You can steer clear of it pretty easy. But I mean, it's fun. It's fun. It's Iron Maiden. You know, it's just that's the whole reason that I'm interested in it. And it's fun. Right on. Oh, is there somebody else here? Hello?

01:34:24.340 --> 01:34:54.300
What the hell? I had to do some negotiations, but I'm here. Yeah, you are. Late to the party, man, but I'm here. Yeah, well, I thought I'd say hello. Hello, everyone in the podcast world. Yay, Will's here. Right on. There's a package headed your way tomorrow, Will. You are the man. Thank you. My pleasure, bud. Yeah, don't send anything to the rest of us. Yeah. You know what, though? Why don't we bring this guy on? You know, if this episode gets out, we'll let Will say it, but, you know, don't let this guy get on here.

01:34:54.360 --> 01:35:24.260
and he still hasn't made us a Metalhead's beer yet. Ouch. Oh! No. What I was referring to is I got Will with one of those Mastodon beers. Yeah, I thought so. Yeah. And I appreciate it, sir. No, I'll send it up. And I will write it up and give you tons of credit. I'm really curious to hear what you think of it, to be honest with you, because your palate is probably more sophisticated than mine. And not probably, it is. But I enjoyed it.

01:35:24.360 --> 01:35:54.280
I thought it was pretty good. I've had all the Mastodon beers. This was probably the one I liked the most. Did you have, was it Iron Tongue or Black Tongue? Yeah. Is this the one from Germany? Yes, sir. Yeah, I'm kind of surprised how you were able to score that one. There's a really kick-ass fucking beer store near me that gets weird and obscure shit. It's where I buy my Pliny. Which actually, did you say you'd had that before? By the way, feel free to send something. Yeah, where's my Pliny, bitch? You know what? Well, if you, and I'm sure you don't care, but if you want to wait another day or two, I'll throw Pliny in there. Hell yeah. Yeah, I can wait.

01:35:55.060 --> 01:35:56.640
I'll reciprocate and I'll send you

01:35:57.200 --> 01:35:58.520
some beers from out here.

01:35:59.040 --> 01:36:01.000
Cool. Yeah, I'll let you know when it's on its way.

01:36:01.900 --> 01:36:02.820
But the Pliny's

01:36:02.820 --> 01:36:04.660
I think come out on whatever.

01:36:05.060 --> 01:36:06.120
I'll get one this week.

01:36:06.940 --> 01:36:08.220
I've been waiting for a Pliny.

01:36:09.120 --> 01:36:10.880
You know what, Buke? I will send two

01:36:11.120 --> 01:36:11.960
to Will. Three?

01:36:12.480 --> 01:36:13.680
And that means that you...

01:36:14.800 --> 01:36:15.680
You fuckers.

01:36:16.760 --> 01:36:18.440
The problem is they only sell me one at a time.

01:36:18.610 --> 01:36:20.440
So I'm going to have to walk in and out of this store three times.

01:36:22.160 --> 01:36:23.520
Because it's such a limited release.

01:36:23.960 --> 01:36:53.580
I won't be an asshole and ask for a fourth one. I'll be cool. If I get cold enough, John. It's easy enough for me to get on the job. You know what, Jay? Jay, why don't you and I just drink Plainis when I'm out there? How does that sound? There you go. That's exactly what we're going to do, dude. All right, we got two more news releases. Yeah, we better do it, yeah. Metallica were featured in Brioni menswear campaign, and I'm sure they're going to catch a lot of hell for it, but I got to tell you, the picture I saw of James Hetfield, he was pretty fucking cool looking.

01:36:53.940 --> 01:37:22.260
Wait, were they actually wearing clothes or were they using the music to sell clothes? They were wearing the clothes. They've become fashion models, Will. I'll just say what I said about the new record. I don't care. Well, speaking about things that nobody cares about, I know we already sort of talked about it, but Morbid Angel are also working on a new album with Steve Tucker and who fucking cares? Well, I mean, we'll see what happens, but yeah, who cares?

01:37:23.960 --> 01:37:53.700
I don't care. Yeah, I care enough to just make sure it doesn't sound like the last one. Yeah, you'll listen to it for a minute and see what you think. And hey, maybe it'll be awesome. All right, let's do some new releases. There's actually only two this time. First one is the new Fates Warning album, Theories of Flight. I think John's probably going to want to talk about this one maybe even a little later. We'll see.

01:37:53.940 --> 01:38:23.920
Yeah, I'll just say that I've been waiting for this one for a while and that I like it a lot and you'll hear me talk about it more in a little while. Leave it at that. And the other new release is one that's been sort of rather heatedly discussed among the Metalhead's crew is the new Inter Arma album Paradise Gallows. And let me just say on behalf of Chris, fuck you all. Yeah, this one is actually getting spun with me right now and I think we'll remain doing so for a while. Also, another

01:38:23.980 --> 01:38:53.680
We were just talking about the Maestro record. Another record, just to point out, great fucking cover on this record. It was interesting. I tried listening to it again last night after you guys were so passionate about it. And the music is cool, but man, those vocals just... It's not even like they're too harsh or they're too... There's too much reverb on them or something. Well, I will say this. I'll give you this much, and I like them. But it's almost like a Nile-style death metal vocal.

01:38:53.760 --> 01:39:23.080
You know what I mean? And therefore, it is kind of a strange juxtaposition to what they are actually doing because they're not like that at all. They're not that kind of band. Yeah, I mean, there's certainly worse vocals out there, far worse. It just kind of didn't gel with the music for me. Yeah, but for me, I think if you come at it from an angle, you know what it feels like to me, George, in places? It's very Ahab-ish. And if you can kind of come at it from that angle, I think you might enjoy it more. All right, well, I'll try it again.

01:39:23.760 --> 01:39:45.240
My two cents is I bought it, sound unheard. And I listened to it very briefly this morning for little bits and pieces here. But it didn't sound bad to me. It sounds like inner armor. Actually, it seems like a record that you will like to me, Will, for what it's worth. Yeah. Thanks, sir. Why don't we do our top three?

01:39:54.420 --> 01:40:23.700
What's gonna be? What's gonna be this week? So John gave me this idea, and given that last episode was our mid-year list, this made perfect sense to me. So we're gonna do the top three albums that we're looking forward to in the second half of 2016. And of course, we will start with John. Alright, so two quick honorable mentions. One is a newer band for me, and one is an obvious band. The newer band is the New Witherscape. I'm looking forward to it.

01:40:23.740 --> 01:40:52.880
to hearing that. Ah, yes. Maybe I have. Maybe I haven't heard it. I don't know if I'm going to say anything. We've got the promo. I know. And I'm looking forward to finally getting it officially. And the other one, this shouldn't be a surprise, but I'm putting them here because it's obvious who my number one would be. And it's the new album from Opeth sometime later in the year. I didn't put it in my top three because it's too obvious. And I don't know how looking forward to them. I'm looking forward to it, but not as much as the other ones. So my number three, man, we haven't heard from him in about 52 years. In the woods, pure. Yeah.

01:40:55.040 --> 01:40:59.900
I just listened to the one track that's streaming on Bandcamp and not bad.

01:41:00.220 --> 01:41:01.160
Yeah, we'll see. We'll see.

01:41:01.620 --> 01:41:03.360
Excellent. Jay, what's your number three?

01:41:03.680 --> 01:41:08.300
Well, just bear in mind that my preamble here is there's a whole bunch of stuff coming out that I don't know is coming out.

01:41:08.540 --> 01:41:09.840
So, you know, whatever.

01:41:10.500 --> 01:41:20.300
Yeah, and now that's not to downplay my number three, except that it would probably be the first one to not be on my list when somebody else tells me something else, which one of you guys will.

01:41:21.340 --> 01:41:23.260
But Sog has a new record coming out this year.

01:41:23.520 --> 01:41:53.480
I didn't know that. Yeah, I like them a lot. I don't like every single release they've ever done. I like the first two, or we know, first three better. That last one was a little, eh, a little spacey. So let's say I'm looking forward to seeing if they get a little bit back on track here. Yeah. That'll be good to hear. All right, Buke? We got a little taste of the track from this band, Monolorde. I loved Veneer when they came out in 2015. It made my

01:41:53.500 --> 01:42:23.360
their album Lord of Suffering Die in Haze is coming out in August. Excellent. Cool. Looking forward to that one. Yeah, I want to hear that too. I hope again we we talked about it when we heard this first track that the vocals seem a little clearer now is like underwater sounding which was a complaint from I believe you George. Yes. About veneer. But these guys can riff man. Yeah, if they put the vocals up further in the mix they they will just crush it.

01:42:24.500 --> 01:42:52.560
I see John bought a single already. I won list and I was like, oh, fuck, I gotta, I'm buying it right now. I was buying it actually while I was listening, so. Yeah, right on. I've got two honorable mentions. One of them has an album title, but I didn't write it down, so I don't remember, but the New Testament album, I'm looking forward to hearing that. And the new Crowbar album, whatever that ends up being called, I'm definitely looking forward to that. But my number three,

01:42:53.500 --> 01:43:23.160
is from a band that I didn't expect to hear from again. And, well, they're putting out a new album. So Life of Agony is at some point this year going to release A Place Where There's No More Pain. So I'm cautiously optimistic. Their last album kind of sucked. So, you know, we'll see. The New Testament is called Brotherhood of the Snake. And it's also, they're all saying one of their thrashiest, fastest records. Yeah, we'll see. Just to throw that out there. All right, John, number two.

01:43:23.520 --> 01:43:53.380
Number two, anytime this guy releases something, I'm into it. Well, not almost into it, but I'm looking forward to the new one from Devin Townsend. I guess it's Devin Townsend project called Transcendence. Cool. You never know what you're going to get, but I'm always looking forward to it. You do not. Not a predictable person, that's for sure. And I think that's what makes it interesting, looking forward to what he's going to put out. Awesome. And we're going to see him in September, so yay. Yes, we are. All right, my number two is Imminent. It comes out this month. It's a band that I really got into.

01:43:53.500 --> 01:44:23.120
last year. It's two of the guys who play sometimes with the Melvins. It's the bass player and the drummer and they have a band called Big Business. Their last record was great and really good. I still want to recommend that people go check that out. It's not the most metal sounding name in the world but trust me if you're into some sludgy stuff go back and check out Big Business. Battlefield's Forever. The new one is, I forget what it's called but it comes out in the next couple of weeks. I pre-ordered the vinyl and I heard at least two tracks from it. Sounds just as good as the last one.

01:44:23.160 --> 01:44:53.140
Awesome. Buke, number two. My friends who like melodic death metal, in September, Insomnium is releasing their album Winter's Gate. It's like a concept breaker too, which is interesting. Their last album, Shadows of the Dying Sun, I loved that album. Loved it. So really looking forward to hearing what these guys can put out next. This is one of those few bands for me which every album is solid that these guys do. Cool. Yeah, I'm looking forward to hearing what these guys can put out next.

01:44:53.180 --> 01:45:23.140
I'm looking forward to that too. All right. My number two is Fires Within Fires from Neurosis. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Awesome. I completely forgot about that. Yeah. I just, I just happened to see that again when I was looking for what was coming out and I was like, duh. I think the detail, and they just released the, you know, the details, track lists and things just a couple of days ago. So yeah, that'll definitely be something I'm looking forward to also. Yeah. Cool. What's your number one? It's already out because it came out right after we did the

01:45:23.180 --> 01:45:52.020
I know what it is then. If you don't know what it is, if it's not open, it's maybe this band. So who knows? Maybe, maybe not. I don't know. It's Fates Warnings, Theories of Flight. And if you haven't heard me, I've been just yucking this one up big time. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So while it's already out at the time, it was still my number one anticipated album. It surprised me with how heavy I only got a couple songs in. And I went back again a couple days ago. And I think it was actually while I was at the beach.

01:45:53.160 --> 01:46:23.140
I tried to get into it again and I still only got into a couple songs but just because I got interrupted I was impressed with how heavy it was but you know I still I've never been a big fan of what's his name Ray Alder yeah he's just too not metal sounding he's a great singer no you know I think I think he used to be a little more metal George I mean I think he kind of has let go of the high pitch thing that he used to do a little more on like no exit and stuff like that and I actually like that better because no exit John

01:46:23.180 --> 01:46:53.140
I can handle John Arch, but No Eggs, it's really hard. As much as I like that album, it's hard to listen to sometimes. He does that BASF commercial. He breaks the glass there at some point. What's your favorite track off the new one, John? What's that? Your favorite track off the new album. I actually like every song off the album. I don't know. White Flag is really cool. SOS is cool. It's hard to say. It's one of the few albums I've heard in a while where we talked about Leviathan and Goji

01:46:53.680 --> 01:47:22.960
I don't have a song I don't like. Everything resonates with me. And this kind of, I wouldn't say cause a rift or an argument, but kind of opened up a nice little discussion on your Facebook when you posted that you got this. Because you remember I had mentioned I thought these guys were no more. Oh yeah. That's Faith No More, not Faith's One. And I think all it is is just that they've never been a big band. Yeah. I mean, they had a big time early on. George probably knows better because I got into them later than George.

01:47:23.160 --> 01:47:51.520
and not to dwell on it too much, but they were probably much bigger early on than they are now. They were never that big. They were known, though. They were known, and they toured more. You know what? All the other big prog metal bands referred to them. It was news when John Arch left the band. They're kind of like King's X. You guys remember when King's X came out? Exactly, dude. Fucking great band, a good hard rock kind of proggy band. Just fell through the cracks. That's all it was. Just never got going.

01:47:53.160 --> 01:48:23.120
I sell you on Ray Alder and I'm not necessarily trying to do that George but you might check out his other project Redemption. I've heard it. Have you? Okay I was gonna say because that might get you a little more into him. I've only got a couple of their records. I think it's just that I probably just need to listen to it and acclimate to it because I just don't listen to that style of singing anymore. I mean to me it's a very dated style of singing. It's very 80s to me. Well I think it's more just that's half of prog metal now still sings like that or power metal. Which is why I don't.

01:48:23.180 --> 01:48:53.140
listen to it. Yeah. And let's be honest, George, you're an Arch fan. I am. You just are. I was very displeased when Ray joined the band. Yeah, that's what it is, I think. What was it, like 86, 87, something like that? 87, I think you left in 87, yeah. I remember distinctly listening to the Metal Shop radio show on a Sunday night, you know, fucking Walkman or whatever, sitting in my bed because it was on too late for me to listen to it, and heard the news that John Arch had left

01:48:53.160 --> 01:49:23.020
And I was just like, no! So I was a bit peeved with Ray Alder for taking his place. But I've gotten over that now. But I probably do subconsciously need to find some way by that. Or not, dude. Or not. I mean, it would be the rough equivalent if Paul DeAnno replaced Bruce Dickinson with all due respect. You know what I mean? It's a bit of a backwards move. A backwards step. I mean, just because John is like God, you know. One last thing about it. I'll give this to Fate's Warning of all the changes they've had.

01:49:23.160 --> 01:49:53.120
Jim Matheos does like to kind of pull from the airs. Like they did a parallels reunion tour. The Arch Matheos was kind of a harken back to the old early Arch years, which now they're doing the Arch years. So and without anyone getting too pissed off about moving the band around in different directions. So it's kind of nice. I'll give it to that. I mentioned this record a lot, but above and beyond the Arch Matheos, I still would refer people to the John Arch EP, which was so fucking good. Yeah. Honestly, that probably should have been on my post-truly.

01:49:53.180 --> 01:50:23.100
2000 best of list. That's how much I like that EP. Well, that and the Arch Matheus album are basically just companion albums. They just happen to be like eight years apart. But they really are kind of companion. It's actually its own band, I guess. I love the Arch single release. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. I just think, you know, just put a little more grit in there. I'm not asking them to sing, you know, harsh vocals. Just don't be. But you know, this is the dividing line though, George. It's not like I even expect them to do anything different. It's just not.

01:50:23.180 --> 01:50:52.880
not what is pleasing to me. But all and that is exactly what all the prog guys say about the stuff you like. You know what I mean? It really is. It's always it always is just like it sounds pretty cool, but I just can't stand those fucking vocals. You know, I mean, he's obviously a great singer, but you know, it's funny that the band that probably exemplifies that the most would be Dream Theater images and words. People either love them or hate them. Then awake. He got real aggressive. I was like, oh, this is fucking great. And then it just went slowly down the rabbit hole after that, you know, and.

01:50:53.180 --> 01:51:21.220
So I wish more guys would be more aggressive like LeBouret was on Awake or like Russell Allen was during the late 90s, early 2000s. He was just an aggressive motherfucker on stage when he sang, which was cool. But he was bluesy too, though, at the same time. You just don't get that as much anymore. Whatever. The argument's really funny because I think Opeth is the defining band for that, like what Jay just said. I can't tell you how many friends, oh, fuck, Damnation's the greatest album, but I can't fucking stand Blackwater Park. I want to punch these people in the face.

01:51:22.620 --> 01:51:52.180
Isn't that funny? I mean, there's a weird little initiation you've got to take at some point where it clicks for you. And either it does or it doesn't. Because, John, I went through that in my biggest Opeth phase. There were many friends I could not turn on to that. Same here. Because that was, you know, before that, it really was, you know, most extreme metal was really extreme. And so you weren't going to get somebody into Dark Throne. But Opeth was one of those bands that started to happen where there was a lot of crossover type stuff, if you will. And I still couldn't pull my maiden friends in.

01:51:53.760 --> 01:52:22.500
I've got a friend and Greg is an Opeth fan but not really much else in terms of extreme music. He likes Iron Maiden and a lot of prog stuff but he doesn't like... Jay, what's your number one? A lot of people think of these guys as a novelty band. I drop their name here a lot but god, they make amazing records and I would really love to sell all three of you guys on them at some point but Trollfest has a new record coming out this year. Their last two records are just genius and they're not a novelty band. They inject just enough humor in their

01:52:22.520 --> 01:52:22.720
thing.

01:52:53.840 --> 01:53:22.500
It's a band. There's a lot of talk about them, so I think maybe I'll check them out. Opeth. Oh, yeah, I've heard of them. Yeah, I've heard of these guys. They have a new album coming out. To say that it wouldn't be my number one most anticipated every time they release something would be a lie. That's the same for me, but I just wanted to get another band in, so I put them in honorable mentions. Yeah, because you knew I was going to, yeah. Yeah. By the way, did you see who they opened for last night? No. Black Sabbath. Yeah. They had a cool picture of Michael and, what's the other

01:53:23.640 --> 01:53:48.180
There was a picture of them warming up beforehand, which I think was their way of saying, if it's Black Sabbath, we're going to fucking warm up. Yeah. My number one will probably elicit some groans, but I'm really anticipating it. I want to hear what they do. Metallica. Oh, that's right. Yeah. I forgot about that. Yeah. Why not? Well, you don't know what it's called yet, but I still, I'm pretty curious. All right. Why don't we move on to what we're listening to?

01:54:12.180 --> 01:54:21.620
All right, I'll do it real quick. Some of these are obvious. Obviously, the Fate's Warning, Theory of Flight, I've been spinning nonstop since I got a hold of it.

01:54:22.300 --> 01:54:51.780
Kind of a band like Catatonia a little bit. A band called Wolverine, Machina Viva. Might be a little too proggy for some people, but I've been a fan of theirs for a while. A band that releases an album like every three or four years only, and then they disappear again and come back. But I love everything they've released. A band called Dark Suns, Everchild. A band I told Buke about. I'm not sure if you guys ever listened to them. I believe they're from Finland also, but they're probably the closest to Opeth, Slash, Circa, Ghost Reveries.

01:54:51.860 --> 01:55:21.680
is a band called Pressure Points. Yeah, False Lights. I went back to it again. I had missed it in 2015. It easily would have made my top 10 now that I've gone back to it. Okay. Two more. Another band from 2015 I missed, instrumental band called Blackwood Exodus. Just cool stuff. They kind of cover a lot of different grounds. If you like instrumental metal, give them a spin. And then I could say all the Wilderness Kings catalog, but the one I listened to a lot this week was their first album, The Rite of God in the Sand, which I think is an excellent first album for them. So cool. That's it.

01:55:21.860 --> 01:55:50.960
So, what are you listening to? What am I listening to? Well, I just bought the new Inner Arma and I haven't had a chance to fully absorb it yet. I did pre-order and get two songs from Dunsmuir, the Neil Fallon side project, which I have to say, the two songs I've heard, this album's going to be high on my list at the end of the year. We thought you'd like it. Oh, I mean, it sounds like clutch, so it's great.

01:55:52.620 --> 01:56:19.120
I did buy today the Scream Bloody Gore deluxe version. I'll tell you exactly why after – like I've always had Scream Bloody Gore. I've had it for 20-some years or whatever. What made me buy it in the deluxe version is because I – when we were at Death Fest, I bought the book Choosing Death by Albert Mudrian, who's the executive editor of Decibel or whatever editor of Decibel.

01:56:20.700 --> 01:56:50.280
That's a great book and it really digs deep into the origins of Death and Grindcore. I mean, I've learned so much stuff from that book and they were just talking about how basically Death was just really Chuck Scholdinger at the time running back and forth between Florida and the San Francisco Bay Area just trying to find people to play with. It's kind of like a one-man show on this album and so I just wanted to go back and listen to like all the deep early rehearsal demo tracks on that. So anyway,

01:56:50.700 --> 01:57:20.680
I just got the Van Helgd, which Rick up in the Manchester, New Hampshire area, one of the guys who listens and tweets to us a bit, he recommended it. Temple of Phobos is the name of the album. That's pretty good. I've been listening to The Hallow Catharsis a lot. A guy I know via Twitter who's a fellow brewer up in British Columbia, Canada. He's the drummer for this band, so I doubt

01:57:20.740 --> 01:57:50.400
their two albums, "Uncanny Valley" and the EP2 Organic Entrenchment. They're working on a new album right now. It's kind of what I've been listening to. Cool. Jay? My list is not terribly long, but it has some cool stuff on it. I don't think I mentioned this one last time. I think I found them since. A band called Netherlands. Netherlands as in the country or countries. I don't remember. They have a record out called Audubon.

01:57:50.700 --> 01:58:20.660
kind of sludgy. I would almost call it post-metal just because the lyrical themes are not terribly metal, but I dig it. The singer sounds like the ob singer to me. I also am listening to, as a shout-out to Neutrino, who was trying to get me back up on this album, Inter Arma. I like that record. I have been listening to Gruesome a lot lately because I hadn't gotten that new one yet, and now I have it, and I'm listening to both of them again. And then a band that has just kind of blown the top off of my head.

01:58:20.700 --> 01:58:50.680
I had black metal band that is doing some I think kind of innovative stuff and when they're not innovative and they're just kind of in the groove they've got killer riffs a band called Black Fucking Cancer holy shit I listened to that the other day I fucking love this record dude it's so good it's and it's got it's got aspects of doom in it and even aspects of sun in it just little aspects for those of you who can't stand them this record is got its grips in me Black Fucking Cancer great record it's a self-titled record

01:58:50.700 --> 01:59:20.500
There's no title for it. And they're from your hood, aren't they, out in San Jose, I think? They're from San Francisco. And I was kind of checking out their Facebook page recently, or excuse me, their Bandcamp page. And I got all excited because they had a show close by me, but I think it was last year. I think that's how often they put up their show in August. So I'm either seeing them in August or not. Yeah, they forgot to put the year. Exactly. But yeah, they are from out this way, and I might try to make some strides to get them on the show. Cool. Buke.

01:59:20.700 --> 01:59:24.220
What I'm listening to have gone back and I was listening over

01:59:25.380 --> 01:59:26.980
our mid-year lists

01:59:27.800 --> 01:59:28.840
I made a bunch of lists

01:59:29.120 --> 01:59:31.160
and I honestly did not listen

01:59:31.320 --> 01:59:31.800
to it before

01:59:33.820 --> 01:59:35.020
but the

01:59:35.460 --> 01:59:35.960
Ishan album

01:59:37.860 --> 01:59:39.360
is really good

01:59:39.740 --> 01:59:40.360
really good album

01:59:41.120 --> 01:59:41.720
amazing

01:59:42.140 --> 01:59:44.580
I listened to it

01:59:45.380 --> 01:59:46.160
one night while gaming

01:59:46.410 --> 01:59:48.360
been hooked on it this whole week

01:59:48.540 --> 01:59:49.480
bought the vinyl

01:59:49.480 --> 02:00:18.540
Awesome. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Good stuff. Yeah. Cool. Amazing. Is that it? Okay. That's it. It's work. Work's been busy. So I haven't had free time. So I told Buke and I told Jay, I think, that I was taking sort of a new music sabbatical for a little while because I was kind of burned out after the mid-year. And of course, I wasn't able to stick to that. But I have been listening to a lot of like classic albums like some Metallica and Slayer and stuff like that.

02:00:19.480 --> 02:00:47.140
I did pick up a few things that I wanted to mention. So from Fiend's List this year, his, what did he call it? Indie. His Indie List. I picked up the band Ostracon and two of theirs, Reward in Purpose and A Tapestry of Scabs and Skin. Really good stuff. You should check that out. I also picked up a band from the UK whom I have reviewed in the past.

02:00:49.500 --> 02:01:19.460
I know those guys a little bit they're called footprints in the custard and the album is called the descent of decency if you like music that is not proper and not very decent check these guys out they're pretty filthy on Jay's recommendation I also picked up the Netherlands album Audubon another band I picked up who we want to get on here I talked to them about coming on we just have to find time it's called Oberon and I picked up the

02:01:19.500 --> 02:01:22.840
They're pale blue dot and through space we ride kind of a

02:01:24.300 --> 02:01:26.220
Sort of a stoner kind of thing

02:01:27.180 --> 02:01:31.660
It's really good stuff. You should check it out. You can find them on Bandcamp and my last one is

02:01:32.240 --> 02:01:39.800
A project called spirit adrift on the album behind beyond says the I think it's the guitar player from takeover and destroy

02:01:40.160 --> 02:01:42.740
Who is a which is a band that I really dig a lot?

02:01:43.620 --> 02:01:47.080
And if you haven't heard them, you should check them out as well. So there you go

02:01:47.000 --> 02:02:16.660
That's what I'm listening to. Let's move on to our classic album. All right, that'd be me. So I took heed to Bukes' Swedish death metal of the early 90s. And maybe not the most prominent Swedish death metal band, but they were at the time, I guess, a little bit. But it'd be Beyond Sanctum by Therian.

02:02:16.980 --> 02:02:45.740
Oh yeah, it's old. It's old. It's not bad. It's okay. That's bad. No, it's not bad. That's sort of the era that I like. Yeah, you know, and it's what? Two albums before they made their change. I was sitting there and I thought, what am I going to listen to? I saw it. I was like, I'm going to go Swedish death metal. Right on. So give it a spin. Cool. Violence. I've been spitting the old violence. If anyone remembers them, I think they were from the Bay Area. Yeah, it was Rob Flynn. Yeah, yeah. He's now, he's machine head now, right? Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

02:02:47.640 --> 02:03:16.440
Listen to that, Oppressing the Masses. Right on. It's a great album. It was one of my favorites when it came out. I liked Eternal Nightmare, I think it was called. First one. Yeah, Eternal Nightmare. Yeah, it had the big red mouth. It was almost like the Sarlacc hit on the floor. Yeah. Jay? I'm going to cheat because I was kind of thinking along these lines. One of the things we talked about in the last episode was that maybe we would start changing this a little bit and maybe remove the year. We were going to start calling this We Recommend. Yeah, I know.

02:03:16.980 --> 02:03:46.960
I was out of town and I didn't get a chance to think about it and figure out what we're going to do. So that's my bad. Not at all. But my record does not quite fit into the, it's close though. It's not quite 20 years old, but it's very close. It's a record I've probably mentioned on here a million times, but man, if you don't own this record, there's something wrong with it. Well, okay, you should own it. Let's put it that way. And it's better than 50% of the Iron Maiden records and it's Bruce Dickinson's Chemical Women. Chemical Women, yeah. So good. Yeah, good album. Right on. Buke. My classic, because I can't think of any of the

02:03:46.980 --> 02:03:48.560
I can't think of anything.

02:03:49.900 --> 02:03:51.120
There's nothing good out there.

02:03:51.330 --> 02:03:52.440
Yeah, there's nothing good out there.

02:03:52.620 --> 02:03:54.560
There's nothing, you know, you need to check out.

02:03:55.820 --> 02:04:01.940
This one is actually, it's almost 20, so I'm going to say it's a classic.

02:04:02.540 --> 02:04:03.760
Check out, again, if you haven't.

02:04:03.790 --> 02:04:04.560
I don't know how.

02:04:04.650 --> 02:04:05.820
You can call yourself a metalhead.

02:04:06.660 --> 02:04:07.800
By, yes, honey.

02:04:08.140 --> 02:04:09.460
Sorry, my daughter came in.

02:04:09.820 --> 02:04:12.600
By Demiuborgir, Enthrone Darkness.

02:04:13.340 --> 02:04:13.680
Triumphant.

02:04:14.780 --> 02:04:43.760
Inthrown Darkness Triumphant by Demu. Check it out if you haven't. Morning Palace, Spellbound. By the Devil. Yeah. Master of Disharmony. Just awesome, awesome record. Yeah, that was my introduction to the band. That was the first album that I could find in the store anywhere. Great album. My classic album is one that I've been dying to get on as a classic album. I'm sure I've mentioned it somewhere before. I know I have. But it's finally now 20 years old. And it's Triarchy of the Lost

02:04:43.780 --> 02:05:13.220
Lovers by Rotting Christ. It's funny seeing these albums, you know, each year as they come up and hit 20, you're like, damn! I was crazy, dude. I was actually going to do Sentence Down, but it didn't technically release until like November or something like that, so it isn't quite 20 years. That's nuts. But, you know, like we've been saying, we're probably going to get rid of the whole 20-year classic thing anyway as soon as I can get my head wrapped around the new format. All right, vinyl purchases.

02:05:25.940 --> 02:05:42.540
Okay, real quick. It's a Fate's Warning month, so I got the new one, Theories of Flight, and I also finally picked up the last album, Darkness, in a Different Light. I picked up Death Virus, the double live that they just did, I guess, which was supposed to be for Record Store Day. I hadn't picked it up until now.

02:05:42.800 --> 02:06:12.480
Got the reissue of Wolves in the Throne Room, the item of 12 stars, and the new one from Gojira Magma. Cool. That's it. I got a couple of things. I got death, leprosy, and spiritual healing. And I really like those repackaged things that Relapse did. I don't remember if I mentioned this last time, but if I didn't, I balked on a copy of The Puppet Master by King Diamond.

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at Death Fest and then found a reasonable priced one. Actually, George was like, I bet you can find it cheaper. He was right. I got that in the mail the other day. And I also got my copy of Winter Horde's Maestro. It was one of 49 other copies of the band out of Israel. And I got my copy in the mail this week. That's everything that came. Was it numbered, Jay? I don't think it was, George. I don't think it was, was it? I was also disappointed that it doesn't, I don't, I have to look at it again. Let me grab it. I don't think it has the lyrics in it, which really pissed me off because it's a really cool story.

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as near as I can tell but I really was hoping it was going to have lyrics. Yeah, I don't know if mine has lyrics. I got it right here. Let me look real quick. It's not numbered, John. Oh, you know what? I was wrong. It does have lyrics which is great because I've been meaning to sit down and parse my way through this story because I really, I think this is probably one of the better concept records of the year. It is. I was really impressed with this album. The only thing I would say about it though is, and I love it, I think it's good. There's really not any wasted space on it but it fits into that category that John was talking about this year which is it's a

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a little long in the tooth at places. It needs to be maybe just 10 minutes shorter, honestly. Because it doesn't go enough different places. They're really good writers of melodies, but it's just a little long for the amount of variance that's on it. But in any case, I wouldn't want to recommend it any less to people. It's a great record. What'd you pick up, Buke? Just got, after listening to it, just went out and got the Arctic's bottle. Eson. Yep, got the Eson. Can I just say, too, that I think this is one of the better

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record covers of the year too, the Winterhorn. I love this fucking cover. I don't know if that's an old painting or what it is. I'm going to look it up. I love that fucking record. What we're talking about, this artist, what do Emperor fans think of his solo stuff? As far as I know, they like it. I think it's probably here to miss, honestly. Depends on if they're all true cult, evil. True cult, yeah. They probably are not fans. They probably don't like it, yeah. But that record, I bet you that's going to be on

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every list at the end of the year of ours on this pod. I think, especially since the last one, I think we could all say we thought was okay. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it was, it was okay. And I think this one's just a leap above where he, so yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally agree. All right. I don't know if I mentioned it on the last episode or not, so I'm going to say it again just in case I didn't. I got the, the Gojira Magma. I also got Winter Horde's Maestro, which Jay was just talking about. I also got the Wolves in the Throw, Wolves in the

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The Throne Room Diadem of 12 Stars, like John was just talking about. And then there's one that is all my own, which is the reissue of Ulver's Kveldsanger. Which one is that? What's on the cover, George? It's their second album. Hold on, let me look. I know. I have a bunch of them already. I just want to see if that's the one I think it is. I believe it's all acoustic. Yeah, that's a great one, dude. I didn't pull out of it. I also ordered the Madrigals of the Night, but that hasn't shipped yet. Say the name of it again.

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Madrigals of the Night? No, the one that you just got. Kveldsanger. Okay, yeah, that is acoustic, but I was thinking it was Natin's Madrigal, which I guess is the Madrigal of the Night. That's probably my favorite one. Yeah, that was my first Ulver album, and the guitar tone on that is just crazy sharp. There's no low end whatsoever. Did you say these were just reissued? Is that what you were saying? Yes. Okay. About some deep tracks. All right, deep track. Opeth track. Maybe some people know. I know Buges probably heard it.

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I don't know if you guys have but it's from the watershed sessions it's dare like herds which I really wish they would have put on the album that's awesome yeah but it's it's nice that it's available so right on weirdly enough so I'm working on a brew heads column right now I'm working on master of pumpkins and which I did confirm is somewhat of a tribute to master of puppets so it's a pumpkin beer brewed by troggs so I was actually listening back to the black album

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Just wondering why I hate it so much. And so I was listening to the last song on it to see if they had what did what Metallica typically does in their last song and makes it just a brutally fast song. And they did it. So I forget the name of the song. The last song on the Metallica Black album. But anyway, oh, it's The Struggle Within. Terrible song. Anyway, that's my favorite song.

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That's my deep track. That's why I was like, oh, maybe I'll go back and I'll listen to this and I'll like it. I've had Metallica on the brain after the last two days trying to write this column. No, it's terrible. That's my deep track. All right. Jay? Mine is partially for you, John, but partially for you, George. I'm not going to tell you why. I will tell you why, but you have to figure it out for yourself. I played a bit of a demo, just a short piece of a demo track from the new Catathonic Society stuff for George. There's a new song,

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that I played for him and he asked me why did I call it that and what and I'll be honest with you George it was if there was an inspiration it was this song and you'll have to go to listen to the song to understand why and anyway it's a song off of Rune which arguably all enslaved tracks are deep deep tracks but it's a song that is called Tides of Chaos oh nice you know that with that one Will with the spoken word stuff in it I've got this noose around my neck did you just call him Will did I? shit fuck I've joined that group

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But anyway, that's just, I love that. That's probably my favorite Enslaved record, ultimately. I don't know. Well, actually, I just told those boys it was Vertebrae in our interview, which that would be a close tie. But anyway. Same for me. Ruin is one of my two or three from them, from their massive catalog. I forgot, how much did you, I know it was on your list, John, but where does the last one now kind of stand with you at this point? I still like it. I guess I just haven't gone back and given it more time than I should have, but I actually did like it.

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I think it made my list. I'm pretty sure it did. I have to check. No, it was on your list. It was for sure. It was on me. You and I both had it. Yeah. Deep track. Well, from Demu, going back to them, from their album, Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia, the track, a lot of people only know Puritania off of that album, but number nine, Absolute Soul Right. Nothing super special about this.

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I really like it looks super cool song so that's my deep track so deep so deep nothing can really be said back because nobody knows it because it doesn't stand out trick it which wait which which record is it off of buke puritanical euphoric misanthropia all right good because I actually have a favorite song by them and I'm trying to find it right now it's off of storm blast well buke wouldn't have listened to that one it's not in English good job George camera camera was actually it was I don't think I'll say is one time we were talking to

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And I think his favorite song on that record was the same as mine. I'll have to go back and look at it. Speaking about not in English, is the Covello text still sticking with you, Jay? Yeah. I kind of got smart this year and I kind of keep a running list at this point so that when we get to the end of the year I'm not just fucked. And I can tell you that, and I don't want to say what, I told George, but I'm not going to tell anybody else, but something knocked it off of number one, but it's still number two. I love it, dude. I listen to all three of them.

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of them now. Except for the first one, it's kind of hard to find on vinyl for a good price. But yeah, I fucking love those guys, dude. Shit's killer. Right on. My Deep Track, going back to, I think it's around 1990, Creator and their Extreme Aggression album, the song Love Us or Hate Us. You know, I meant to mention, George, I've been listening to a lot of death metal right now. And this totally came because of Gruesome and the Death Re-releases. And I have been listening to Creator a couple times a week right now. And it's all the older records.

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Yeah, this is part of my sabbatical here of listening to the oldies. They were a great fucking band. I mean, they're still around, but Miller, his voice changed a little bit. It's one of the few things I don't like about the new creator records. His voice is a little different than it used to be. But those first three or four records were just fucking insanely good. Yeah. Yeah. What was the track again? Love Us or Hate Us. Okay. It was basically their response to, you know, people saying you should sell out and fucking, you know, write music for MTV and stuff like that. I was listening to that.

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the other day at the gym and I was just like, fucking yes! Well, and then ironically they did kind of. Well, yes, but honestly I like that stuff too. I thought it was just different. Yeah, the last few have been really good too. I know Will thinks so too because we were talking about that last time. All right, before we go, make sure to check us out on SoundCloud, on Facebook, on Twitter. I am Disciple OVMetal. I am at OpethFan. I am at CatatonicJay and I also want to mention that I am

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And finally, on Bandcamp, which is also CatatonicJay. And I am at WhiteCluster69. We're also on Instagram. We're on YouTube. We're on Stitcher. And of course, you can find us at WeAreMetalHeads.com. And like Jay mentioned, I'm also on Bandcamp at MetalHeadsPodcastGeorge, I believe it is. All right, that's it for this episode. We will see you next time. Before we go, make sure to check out Wilderness King. See you next time.