Have you ever wondered what it's like to travel the world as a vital part of the music that moves millions? This episode brings you stories from the road with Brian Diaz, affectionately known as Diaz, whose life as a seasoned bass guitar tech for bands like Fall Out Boy, Blink 182, Motion City Soundtrack, and more is a tapestry of adventure, camaraderie, and the pursuit of passion. We peel back the curtain on touring life, from the hilarity of unexpected onstage antics to the shared triumphs and trials behind the scenes.
The nostalgia of music has a way of threading through our lives, and today's conversation with Diaz is a testament to that enduring tapestry. We stir up memories of the music industry's golden days, trading CDs and uncovering the roots of our musical influences. Diaz shares his serendipitous journey from trading a Chili Peppers CD for his first guitar to the nuanced gratification of perfecting a live performance as a tech, all while we laugh over the quirky and endearing side of our personal musical escapades.
This podcast isn't just about reminiscing; it's about the vivid reality of capturing life's most intense moments through a lens. Diaz's pivot to photography during the pandemic and the LA protests reveals a profound perspective on societal upheaval, the eerie stillness of a world paused, and the cathartic return to communal experiences with the resurgence of live music. Join us for an episode that not only celebrates the intersections of music and photography but also honors the indelible human connections forged through shared experiences and the art that documents them.
checkout Brian Diaz's work - https://www.briandiazphoto.com/ , https://www.instagram.com/briandiazphoto/
The Loose Connection podcast is Hosted by Chris Leonard & Kyle Chirnside
email us at looseconnectionpod@gmail.com
Follow us on Instagram , Facebook,
Have you ever wondered what it's like to travel the world as a vital part of the music that moves millions? This episode brings you stories from the road with Brian Diaz, affectionately known as Diaz, whose life as a seasoned bass guitar tech for bands like Fall Out Boy, Blink 182, Motion City Soundtrack, and more is a tapestry of adventure, camaraderie, and the pursuit of passion. We peel back the curtain on touring life, from the hilarity of unexpected onstage antics to the shared triumphs and trials behind the scenes.
The nostalgia of music has a way of threading through our lives, and today's conversation with Diaz is a testament to that enduring tapestry. We stir up memories of the music industry's golden days, trading CDs and uncovering the roots of our musical influences. Diaz shares his serendipitous journey from trading a Chili Peppers CD for his first guitar to the nuanced gratification of perfecting a live performance as a tech, all while we laugh over the quirky and endearing side of our personal musical escapades.
This podcast isn't just about reminiscing; it's about the vivid reality of capturing life's most intense moments through a lens. Diaz's pivot to photography during the pandemic and the LA protests reveals a profound perspective on societal upheaval, the eerie stillness of a world paused, and the cathartic return to communal experiences with the resurgence of live music. Join us for an episode that not only celebrates the intersections of music and photography but also honors the indelible human connections forged through shared experiences and the art that documents them.
checkout Brian Diaz's work - https://www.briandiazphoto.com/ , https://www.instagram.com/briandiazphoto/
The Loose Connection podcast is Hosted by Chris Leonard & Kyle Chirnside
email us at looseconnectionpod@gmail.com
Follow us on Instagram , Facebook,
That was a life lesson, you know. I'm grateful for that too, even if that's not, even if that wasn't ideal at the end of the day, I'm grateful that I experienced that, because now I know what not to do or how I would have handled that differently. And in the end, when it all is said and done, when I'm fucking on my last breath, I want everyone from the fucking, the haters who hated me, the people who thought I hated them, to the people that I love the most to know that I appreciated every single last one of everybody, because that's really the only thing that gets you through all this. You know Music playing.
Speaker 2:Hey everybody, welcome to Lose Connection. I'm Chris Leonard.
Speaker 3:And I'm Kyle Chernside.
Speaker 2:And welcome to 2024. We're going to keep consistent episodes going this year. Kyle and I are committed to doing that. So this week, Kyle, who do we got?
Speaker 3:We got my friend Brian Keith Diaz or as many know him as just Diaz from Edna's Goldfish Reunion Show Tech for Such Bands as Motion City Soundtrack, fall Out Boy, blink 182, stuff that we didn't even talk about, chris.
Speaker 2:I know we didn't get to everything, that's for sure.
Speaker 3:He used to tech for Guns N' Roses when they did the reunion thing and they did the. Yeah, he did Guns N' Roses, he did Bush, he did Chris Trainor from Bush. The guitar player used to be an orange 9mm, probably one of my favorite guitar players all the time. There's so much stuff that we could have talked to Brian about. Really, I mean in retrospect now listen to the episode. Like we're going to have to add him back for sure he's a storyteller.
Speaker 2:He is for sure, and one of the stories that I loved him telling, or the experience, was getting into his photography side of things.
Speaker 2:I think it's very interesting when someone within our industry and touring industry has these other outlets, they get into this other thing and find a passion or something else and a lot of that revolved around. You know, with a big shutdown right, the pandemic took our industry out, had to find something to do and he was out in the streets in LA kind of shooting some of the protests from some of the BLM movements and things like that. And it's pretty interesting to kind of see how that grew and what that meant to him and we dig into all that. So make sure you listen to the end.
Speaker 3:Hey, side note, this fool has been on like vice and in magazines like that we used to read when we were kids Like he's done fuse interviews. He's done like he's an amazing storyteller. We hope you enjoy the show. We got more like this coming up. Chris, I know you want to talk about our socials, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, make sure you follow us on Facebook. Instagram TikTok at was connection pod and go check out Brian Diaz photo work. So on Instagram it's at Brian Diaz photo. There'll be links in the description. He's got some cool shots up there on his page right now. Let's go, let's go.
Speaker 3:Well, I got, I got here this memory helper. I'm hoping it's, not it's a mini unicorn, that's a it you put, you put, you put the dabs in there.
Speaker 1:Okay, I was like it's some sort of druggy thing.
Speaker 3:How many pots can you fit in there?
Speaker 1:It's 2024. You got to just eat it. What are you doing?
Speaker 3:I've already been through that. I was a teenager.
Speaker 1:We tried to do analog weed.
Speaker 3:I'm like, I'm some new shit. Yeah, I gotta do dabs like new shit.
Speaker 2:How is is is snake blood old shit, or is that? Is that still a thing? So, speaking of digging into your past, I came across a video. I guess you all were in Taipei.
Speaker 3:Oh shit, Sneak alley.
Speaker 2:You guys drink blood or something, or a snake blood, or do you see the full video?
Speaker 1:because I can send you the full video.
Speaker 2:I don't think I saw the full video you can hear some Kyle classics Well you weren't a stressed out.
Speaker 1:You weren't a stressed out as our security guy Dre. I'm like I'm not sure if it's true? I don't know. I don't think it's true, but it was a white array at the time he was, he was stressed out like he was like sweating bullets and we're just like.
Speaker 3:Ultimately, I feel like, did we really drink snake blood or did we drink like fruit punch with salt in it, the semen?
Speaker 1:the snake semen. Yeah, who wants that? What's that for?
Speaker 3:Nobody, and a vitamin E pill, and you had to pour it all into one.
Speaker 1:That's just about bouncing it out. He kept on saying it was the antidote.
Speaker 3:He was like oh yeah.
Speaker 1:You got to take that last one, because that's the antidote, oh man That'll fix it all actually.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I believe I said something to the extent of why do I want to put more of this inside me? I'm trying to rid it or something. I'm trying to rid the venom Dude. Brian and I did a fairly long stint together but, like, come to find out, the craziest shit is I've definitely seen his bands before that and it was one of those times when you go see the band and there's this band opening or whatever, and they were just there and that was. I don't know if I saw Edna's Goldfish show, but I definitely saw a reunion show.
Speaker 1:That would have been when you were living in St Louis, so it definitely would have been like Creepy Crawl or. Yep, I think we came through the Creepy Crawl with Fall Out Boy in 2003. I mean, we weren't drawing anybody back then.
Speaker 3:Isn't that crazy.
Speaker 1:There was like 50 people at that show and the weirdest thing about that, that specific show, is that someone from what was that label Drive Through Records came out to like the brother and sister came out to see the show and they were like, yeah, maybe we'll sign you. You got like talking to Fall Out Boy.
Speaker 3:I'm like I just got to look at us like I don't know who you guys are, couldn't give a shit about us, but you guys have been around longer than them guys, though I mean yeah, we were always looking for another thing, though.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. It's like yeah just because you were doing the.
Speaker 3:We were on victory.
Speaker 1:And it was like everyone was trying to get out of their victory deal and like we didn't really have a positive or negative experience. It was just like we weren't big enough to matter, so it wasn't like they were. You know, I know there's a lot of stories about shit that went down with people but like, well, I don't, I don't, I mean, it never happened to us, but there was nothing to take from us.
Speaker 2:So you know what I mean Speaking of, speaking of, speaking of victory. I actually texted Fred Mascherino last night oh nice and I was. I was like I was like hey, we got, we got Brian Diaz coming on. He's like yeah, he knows me from the like breaking panchilla days.
Speaker 1:Whoa, I know, I know Fred from a long time ago.
Speaker 3:You know, he was our first guest, right.
Speaker 1:Oh was he. He was our first guest on Loose Connection.
Speaker 3:It was awesome.
Speaker 1:I haven't seen Fred in a long time. I see Matt Rubano now and then, because you know, Matt lives out here. I live in LA now, so Matt lives out here and I run it.
Speaker 1:I ran into him. Actually, he was like one of the last people I saw before the pandemic started, because he was at NAMM or something we went to dude. It was crazy. I'm like wow, we were at NAMM in late January. I'm like we were definitely just spreading that shit everywhere, not even knowing what it was Like. I got sick like a month after that. I was like man, I was fucking sick as fuck.
Speaker 3:Everybody gets sick at NAMM, though it's just like a thing.
Speaker 1:You're shit. The NAMM Threx Dude, you get you shake hands and cough and everybody's.
Speaker 3:NAMM.
Speaker 1:Threx, Just walking, I was like walk. I'm like I already had the hand sanitizer. I was like I had to the game you know, I was like yeah, look at that bucky's tumbler right there. So I'm going to go ahead and get everyone.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I'll let you guys know something about me that not many people know. I don't drink that much soda anymore. But I tell you what I'll go through two fucking pictures of Kool-Aid a day. No joke, dude.
Speaker 1:No, fucking joke Not great.
Speaker 3:I drink so much Kool-Aid. Yeah, hell yeah. Two scoops baby for a packet. You know what I'm saying? Like from St Louis, dude, I got red in there right now. I got purple upstairs.
Speaker 1:I medically can't do that anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's only fun I have in life.
Speaker 3:Kool-Aid.
Speaker 2:Brian, what's going? If you could go back to your childhood, what's your earliest remembrance of experiencing music?
Speaker 1:I mean I was around music. I mean not people playing music, but my dad always had music on In the car. I just remember listening to oldie stations Like we listened to. I don't know if I always thought it was like a local thing, but I guess it was syndicated. It was like Cousin Brucey. He was like one of those oldies DJs playing like doo-wop and old rock and roll and stuff.
Speaker 1:So I remember that because we lived on Long Island and a lot of our family lived in New York City, so we would get in the car and drive to New York every weekend and I just remember being in the car just listening to the radio. That was like my first real, like vivid experience. I remember hearing the song Working my Way Back To you by Frankie Frankie Valley no.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Frankie Valley. Yeah, so I was like that was like my first memory of a song, that I was like I know this song.
Speaker 3:Did your parents play music at home and they were like they always played the same thing. And you're like, oh, I hear that song on time. Mine was a Sonny and Cher that live version of I Got you Babe, Like it was on all the time or Kenny Rogers Greatest Hits, that was the top two spins. Oh, I remember hearing Kenny.
Speaker 1:I remember hearing Kenny Rogers a lot and then, for some reason, I remember my mom being really into the song Gloria by Laura Branigan. Yeah, and hearing that over and over again. And there was a B-side to that seven inch, the 45 as we call them, the B-side of it was a song called yeah, called Living a Lie, and I and this is, of course, this is like my formative hipster opinion when I was like seven years old. I'm like B-side's better.
Speaker 3:That's a better song. That's a way better tune. So do you ever miss living in New York City?
Speaker 1:When, like when I see things that happen and I'm like, oh, that would have been a cool thing to be around for. Or like I see people going to shows and getting hanging out and like seeing old friends of mine doing stuff and I miss that.
Speaker 3:But my family's a real bagel, a real slice.
Speaker 1:Hey, I got a real. I got a real bagel place right in my neighborhood. As a New Yorker, I could say that there's a good spot.
Speaker 3:They have the water. They have the water.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I love that. It's like they're going to bring in water to make pizza and bagels, like you know you can't even water your lawn in the valley, but they're bringing in water. I was like, if they're bringing in water so you could flush your toilet right here, no, the drought, you know. As soon as you heard the drought was over, I was like, fuck yeah, turn on the dishwasher, fucking open all the faucets and shower on.
Speaker 3:Let's go. I'm fucking train this bitch Lake Mead is empty. How about finding more bodies? For sure?
Speaker 2:When did you start finding music for yourself that you were like? I identify with this. This is my thing.
Speaker 1:You want to know something Forty years ago yesterday, the first record I ever bought with my own money came out. Van Halen 1984. Came out 40 years ago, january 9th 1984. I didn't buy it on the release date. That's the first record I ever bought with my own money.
Speaker 3:That was my first compact disc was 1984.
Speaker 1:First compact it was a vinyl record I bought it at. It was weird. It was like a grocery store in my where I grew up that my parents used to go to, that had a little section of records and tapes that were like locked in a plastic, you know like doors, the way they do with like razors now and shit you know.
Speaker 3:But they have the circle that you would stick your hand through and you could never.
Speaker 1:Oh no, I remember that. I just remember like I had I had saved money like mowing lawns or whatever, and it was like the record was like 799. It was like the nice price or whatever you know had the sticker on it and I was like I saved, save eight bucks or whatever, eight and change.
Speaker 3:Like what a couple of lawns.
Speaker 1:I'm like I want to go buy this record. You know that was it. It was that I had that. I had Michael Jackson thriller. But I mean thriller was cool because it was like everyone had that record. There wasn't anybody who didn't have it. But Van Halen was like, oh, this is like something. I'm like, I like this, this is like this is what I. I gravitated towards. I didn't gravitate towards pop music so much like I appreciated it Even as it. When I was younger I was like, oh, this is good, but like I kind of like this rockin stuff. And growing up in a house where, like Between you know, my, my immediate family and my extended family, everyone listened to Latin music like salsa, merengue, machada, whatever, like all the various things. I was like a lot of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans, so like a lot of like dancing and music and stuff. And to me, as a kid who grew up in a pretty white ish Suburb, I was like I was like kind of like I don't want people hearing, I don't want people hearing fucking merengue.
Speaker 1:And I'm like I want to be something different. You know which is cool. He's like I can appreciate both now, Like I'm like, oh, you know, living in LA, there's a lot of, you know a lot of Mexican music that I didn't, you know, I didn't hear growing up, and those that, a lot of those, a lot of the people I know here now are these memories of like growing up the same way. They were like, oh, I was like I was just like, oh, you, a rocker fool, you know, like you listen to, like rock music fool, and I was like, yeah, that was kind of like the deal. You know where I grew up, but it was a little more like every. It was a little more homogenous. Everyone was listening to like Van Halen, or like when Guns N' Roses came out, Everyone loved appetite for destruction, or you know everyone was listening to poison, when that was the thing like.
Speaker 3:Remember when that was like that was heavy metal. You had to go to the heavy metal section to find.
Speaker 1:Yeah, poison, yeah.
Speaker 3:My friend showed me the poison element, and this is when I was already kind of into punk rock, like I had misfits, like his supertality and like all these little punk rock, dri and shit and I went to his house and he had a poison album Look what the cat dragged in, or whatever and I was like damn, these bitches are hot.
Speaker 1:He was like. That's a dude.
Speaker 2:I was like whoa, I mean I wasn't, you were ahead of your time, kyle. Yeah, I'm old, I don't know Like.
Speaker 1:I was exposed to a lot of that, Like a lot of the glam rock, whatever you know 80s glam, but I always gravitated towards the things that were like maybe a little heavier.
Speaker 1:Yeah because I got into. You know I got into bands. Like you know I was into Van Halen and I was into that, you know got me into other rock, like the guitar heavy bands and like, and I got really into guns and roses. That was kind of like the first band. I would say that was the first band that I got into where I was like I need to know about them. Like I knew all the guys in the band's name and like I knew their kind of backstory and like I was like, oh, like you'd go to, you'd go to a record store and they're like, oh, this is like the old you know the live like a suicide or whatever you know all that shit. And I like I knew I knew of the backstory, you know, and from there was like that's kind of like my first exposure to punk rock or hearing the word, the name, those words, like hearing punk rock, like what is what is that?
Speaker 1:You know like oh, like Duff played in punk rock bands. Like what does that mean? I don't know what that means. You know, and then, like you, do a little research. You find I mean as much research as you can do in 1987, like you didn't have pretty much a magazine, yeah, you couldn't just look yeah you, you find a magazine. You're like I'm just going to read every interview, every like circus magazine or hip parade or whatever. You know, like whatever, whatever.
Speaker 3:Was Rip out yet. No, Rip wasn't out, but heavy metal.
Speaker 1:Rip heavy metal was out. No Rip I'm pretty sure Rip is out.
Speaker 3:I remember getting maximum rock and rolls at one store, like the newspaper version of MRR.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Mrr and I was like I think it's, I think it's still. Is the paper version right, or did they gloss it out a little? I think I'd never.
Speaker 3:I only see the, I only see the website, so they have everything like archive. You know which is really cool, Dude. So did that make you pick up an instrument? What made you pick up an instrument?
Speaker 1:No, it was still a while ago. So like I, I was listening. I was listening to that music. My cousins would play me music. My cousin Keith, who now lives in Hawaii, who I still communicate with Like he, him and his sister Gail, used to play me rock music. They'd play me or like you know whatever, like New Wave and stuff like that. So I like learned about like the cure, or I like learned about Black Flag from that, like I didn't know, but I still like to me it wasn't. I wasn't listening to punk rock. I was too young to understand still that scene. I didn't know what that was and I kind of got into heavier music.
Speaker 1:I started listening to Metallica, you know, when Injustice for All came out, I was like kind of like that was like my shit, even though I look back on it now I'm like, nah, maybe not my favorite Metallica record, but you know it was pivotal for me to hear that, and one of the bands that I learned about through that was Anthrax. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 1:I got Among the Living, which to me to this day is one of my favorite records, not just heavy metal, not just thrash, whatever, like favorite records period. And I heard Cotton Amash and I was like the beginning, that bass intro and I was like what's that? I'm like, I want to play that. And I was like that's a bass guitar. But it wasn't until like years later that I finally got to like actually like got around to getting a bass and like learn. Like you know, I went through my musical journey. Like most kids do you learn like saxophone or clarinet or whatever? You're in like the school band and I'm like man, this isn't that cool. I need to like learn something else, you know.
Speaker 3:My daughter brought home the recorder she's in fourth grade she's got the recorder. I heard a hot cross buns 42 times the other night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember the recorder that was. That was probably the first instrument I mean, that's the first one everyone experiences and I was like, all right, that's cool. And then, like you know, you hit third grade or like fourth grade or something, at least where I lived and then they give you the option they're like if you want to be in band, it's you know $40. And it's you know, not semester or $40 for half a year to like rent an instrument. And I rented a. We rented a clarinet and I wanted to play saxophone because it was like one of the ones like all my friends are playing. But I was a little smaller. So they were like why don't you play the clarinet? And that was like my first instrument that I played. And it wasn't till ninth grade that I started playing bass. A friend of mine had one at his house and I had a chili pepper CD that he wanted and I was like I will trade you my chili pepper CD for that bass and it was a piece of shit, like.
Speaker 2:It was like rusted, or the bass I mean kind of both.
Speaker 1:I was like I just happened to have it on me. I was like it was in my backpack. I'm like I'll give you this. I feel it was like mother's milk and something else. There was another CD that I was like. I don't remember what it was, probably something real embarrassing and shitty, but whatever.
Speaker 1:I was like I was like here, take these. And he was just like in his basement no amp, no cables, no concept of how to tune it, nothing. I didn't know anything. I'm like. Luckily it was like pretty close to in tune and I used to take it and before I got an ally, I brought it home. My mom and dad were like oh here, we go.
Speaker 1:And I was like, well, before I get an amp, I'm like I want to like learn how to play it and I'm like playing with my fingers and I'm like trying to like pluck. I'm like doing it wrong and I used to lean it up against my computer desk because it would vibrate through the desk and it was kind of like my makeshift, my amp you know, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, acoustic.
Speaker 1:Before I got like a little crate practice amp, you know, and just blew out the speaker playing bass through it. Do you still?
Speaker 2:have that bass guitar no no, that one. I lost that in.
Speaker 1:Honestly that's gone, because I would say we probably lost in a house fire, like my parents' house burnt down in 95. And a lot of my stuff, like I was living out of the house but then like a lot of stuff that I'd left behind was gone, like my old records, all like my, you know, like the big record.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it's just stuff. You know, at the end of the day it's stuff. Yeah, I still have my first bass that I bought like when I became like serious about being in a band and like touring and stuff, like like my 83p bass that I bought in the 90s. I bought in I don't know, like 2000 or something Like it's still. I still have that. I don't get to. I don't get to attach the instruments anymore. But that one I'd you know kind of my first one.
Speaker 3:So I know people that get attached to interest the instruments that don't even really play though, like like Joe Bonamassa Now, like those fucking guitar collector guys.
Speaker 1:I mean, I know people who are like that, you know, and I don't know if they have an attachment or they're attached to just like, or they're addicted to you Buying and selling, like the whole, the whole process of getting things. You know, I never understood that.
Speaker 3:To me, it's a, it's a tool, not a jewel.
Speaker 1:You know what I mean. I mean it could be a jewel too, but I was like to me it's like I'm sitting here looking. I got three guitar sitting right here and I'm just like I mean, yeah, I'd be sad if they went away, but let's get another one.
Speaker 3:You know, I Gotta hook, I gotta hook up at.
Speaker 1:Fender, it's fine.
Speaker 3:So you've moved three times since I knew you. You move from New York to Chicago for a little bit of a stint and Then you move to LA. Do you do miss Chicago at all?
Speaker 1:I Mean obviously I was living in Chicago when I met you. I was already there, so 2003 was when I moved there.
Speaker 3:Yes, I was there 2003, 2009 or 10.
Speaker 1:Chicago is the only city that I would consider moving back to you. I Would have moved back to New York. I'd have to have a fucking grip of money to live in New York. I'm not. I'm, it's already strong enough. Struggle, not struggle, but like you know, it's a big city, it's expensive here.
Speaker 2:So you guys met, you guys met pre fallout boy, or we don't like.
Speaker 1:Cross paths and then we we started working together. I started with fallout boy late 2006, like end of 2006. I was prepping for the first tour which we did in January of 2007, which was that like kind of like theater underplay thing, because they had already been in arenas and was it rejects and no? That one was was newfound glory.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's right. Yeah, it was a newfound glory and I.
Speaker 1:I can't remember who the opener was.
Speaker 3:I forgot November. Maybe it was Monday.
Speaker 1:Hey. Monday wasn't so later that was on an arena tour, because the first the first thing I did with these guys. I remember the very first show I did with with fallout boy was At the Warfield in San Francisco.
Speaker 3:That's right, because they had to lift there would lift my desk up to the fucking second level.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did like it was like three nights there or something. It was like two, it was at least two nights. I know that because we had like set it up. It was one of the first times I ever did that, where I was like whoa, we're in a we're in one place for two nights, just fucking rules. I had done it before, but not with the headliner, where it was like I just leave my shit here. It's great.
Speaker 2:I want to jump back though. How did you go from being in like and his goldfish being in bands to to being a backline tech?
Speaker 1:Um 2003, when my when reunion show ended, I had a couple months to kind of try to figure my life out. I lived in New York City and I moved back with my parents and that was pretty fucking sad because I was 27 at the time we're about to be 27 and I was like I had to figure my shit out. You know, I got a Sort my life out and I was just laying there and I was like, um, we're like, what do you want me to do if we're going to? That's like you know, I had a Friends of ours that had taken us on tour called and we're like we need a guitar tech. And I was like I don't know. I don't know what that. I mean, I don't know really know how to do that. I knew how to like take care of my own Instruments and they were like well, if that's what you know how to do, like just come out and do that, need help, you know. And it was like 300 bucks a week cash.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 1:I was like fuck yeah, it was more than the zero that I was making.
Speaker 3:Like.
Speaker 2:Vantage yeah, vantage trailer.
Speaker 1:No, it was a bus too. That was kind of like a big selling point to me was that it was my first tour, like officially on a bus, like I'd been on buses like a day or two or like in Europe for like a week. But this is like we're touring in a bus and that's it.
Speaker 1:That's what we do now. Yeah, so I topped on it and, like, my first show as a guitar tech was Jimmy Kimmel Live, and the guy that I was handling started the song. So it was like thrown right into the fire. I had no like prior. I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know. I was like I'd never done TV before, never been a tech. Really, I didn't know. I was like man, I'm about to learn everything all at once right here. And then I was out.
Speaker 1:You know, we were out on that tour and it was a lot of things that don't. You know. I didn't think about a lot of stuff, like I had no system in place, how to do anything. I was kind of just like I don't know. I'm the guy who changes the strings and like moves their shit around and then loads the trailer on the bus and then we go on the bus and we drink and you know, after like two or three shows, I was like, after three shows, one of the other techs, this guy, neil, who at the time was working for MXPX, who was also on the tour, and Neil also he, he worked for Pearl Jam and worked for you know, I look at I was like whoa, this is like a.
Speaker 1:This guy's like makes a living doing this, you know, and he was like hey, he's like you know, if you really want to do this for real, like, and you want to like, you can make a living. Like he kind of took me under his wing and was like, hey, this is what you need to do. He's like see those cables get there, you loom these. He's like this over here. He's like you should put this on wheels and do this, and like kind of like streamline my whole shit. So I was like, oh, I didn't think of that Like. He's like, yeah, he's like I see you up here.
Speaker 1:He's like the fucking show's over and you just you have a mess of shit everywhere that you need to like deal with. He's like I'm just gonna, I'm making it easy for you, so I don't have to come up here and help you do this. Like you know it's all and it's all cyclical. Because, like I do that now, when I see people, you know, I see an opening and having you know their tech is maybe working for four people at once and I'm like, hey, I'm watching you up there running around like a fucking maniac.
Speaker 1:Let me help you, you know let me, let me show you something you can do. Let me blend you this thing that's gonna help, because someone didn't pay it forward to me, I wouldn't be here doing this now.
Speaker 3:Sure.
Speaker 1:But that was like my first kind of thing with that, my first long term like so when that ended like it did a couple of tours with them was then was brand new. I did a few tours with them and they were kind of just I don't know if they were wrapping up or they were stopping or taking a break and I would kind of in my head was like, well, I'm gonna go back to try to start a band again and I was like that was cool, made some money.
Speaker 1:At that time. I was like, made some money, moved to Chicago living cheap, and I was like I'm gonna start a band with some new people that I met here and I got a call from Motion City Soundtrack and that was my first long term guitar tech gig. So I to me that's almost like that was the first one Cause that one took me from 2004. Until I started with Fallout Boy 2007. And I was. I was with those guys nonstop and we toured fucking hard for those years Like we were. We went nonstop to the point where I quit and came back because I was like so mentally tired, you know, and yeah, burned out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I burned myself out in 2006.
Speaker 1:And then I almost was like I'm done.
Speaker 2:So when you so, when you first took the gig with Motion City Soundtrack, you more took that, as I need a paycheck, more so than hey. This is what the car I want to make.
Speaker 1:No, this is you know what Cause it had been a couple of months and nothing was really popping. It was kind of like the last thing I had done with brand new was in was was some UK tour and it was an arena tour and I was like, well it's. And like in back of my head I was like I was starting to get paid a little more money. It went from like 300 to 500 or so.
Speaker 1:I was like whoa, I'm like I'm getting, I'm getting a raise right now and and I was like kind of got a taste for it, I was like, all right, I kind of have like a routine now. I had invested in a few like guitar tech and tools and like a little fucking little Pelican case and I was like ready. I was ready to like go. I was like I don't know if I'm going to start with a band, like maybe I will, maybe I won't. And then I got the call on the, you know, motion city guys were friends of mine from when I, you know um re-union show, had done a bunch of shows with them. So I was like that sounds cool. I didn't know that they were like, yeah, we're doing warped tours. I was like sounds like a thing, like sounds fun.
Speaker 1:That was 2004. And we did, we did part of the Warped Tour, 2004. And I was like, well, I don't hate it, but, um, you know, there's other things that I'd rather be doing, but we just kept going. And then 2005 was kind of their big year, because in 2004, we did, um, we did the record Commit this to Memory, which is the one that Mark Hopp is from Blink produced, and they had me in studio as the guitar, guitar tech, um, which was like, yeah, I mean I was changing strings and kind of just hanging out. A lot of it was. You know, hey, can you run the whole foods and pick up like a bunch of shit for the house? Or like Mark would give me the keys to his car and be like, oh, I gotta go, yeah.
Speaker 3:He's like uh, can you run a guitar?
Speaker 1:center and pick up this thing I bought Like I became I was like 20 years ago became his like fucking assistant.
Speaker 3:What album were they on when you were in there? Do you remember that was post-dude ranch? Oh, yeah, yeah, I mean 2000.
Speaker 1:2004 was already, like they had already put out, the self titled, the one with fuel in this you know that was the kind of like game changer. I mean, they were already like they were already moving towards like Tom kind of leaving for the first time. You know that was about to happen. So they were all like in there, like Mark was put his producer hat on and was like we're gonna do this, you know.
Speaker 2:So then in the early on, when did you realize, or early on and I wonder if it's still the same now early on, what was the most gratifying thing about your gig that kept you going, and is that the same thing that gratifies you now? That, like you know because this goes to background in general and I was thinking about this today so you know Kyle and I are audio dudes right, so you know our thing is like the pinnacle is like being in that moment, delivering into that experience that the show is flowing through our fingers on the faders, like it's a very visceral experience. So from a backline tech perspective, I'm not diminishing what you do, but like that's not the same thing.
Speaker 2:So like I'm curious, what? What is it from you at least to you, because I'm sure everyone has their own thing what is it for you? Is that, what's the pinnacle for you in the job that you do that like sustain?
Speaker 1:I mean, now it's kind of like it's so, it's so weird, because it's like being given the kind of Kind of the keys to the, the whole thing where, like someone's, like, I trust you with everything, make, make me Good, make, make my show good. You know what I'm saying. Like yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, like, like and it's. It's the kind of the kind of thing where, like guys like us, backline audio people mostly monitor people, not not as much from a house but my monitors and Really in the hot seat, like when you're in the hot seat and you can't fuck up and you don't and you can have a good streak of like Flawless victories.
Speaker 1:That's what keeps me going. I'm like this is fucking rad, like a. I'm I'm gratified by Helping people that I like put on shows when I don't like people. It's just another fucking job. I just I'm clocking in. I don't care what your show is like. I don't care if you fucking fall off the stage but like.
Speaker 1:But when it's when it's we agreed, when it's people that I like, like a genuine, genuinely our friends with them. We're like the motion city guys who I'm, you know, close friends with, and you know the fall boy guys who I became friends with though you know better friends with over the years, and like People that I would consider you know, and even like someone like Mark Hoppus, who I've known now for going on 21 years, when I, when they, when they have a good show and they look at me and they're like in the middle of it and we can joke, make a little joke during the show. I know that seems so minor, but it's gratifying because I know that I'm doing the thing.
Speaker 1:I'm doing the thing that's keeping them going and keeping them happy and Keeping it so that they're not thinking about anything. The second something goes wrong. It could be anything. It'd be a fucking light that's shining in your face and now you're all thrown off and you're thinking about everything. Now you're playing socks and you're gonna blame it on the instrument. I've seen it. Every iteration of how a band guy fucks up I've seen. But it when, when. It's when we're when we're doing this and we're in the moment and it's show 31 and we're in the middle of fucking, but fuck Germany, and we turn around. We're just laughing about something. I'm like. That's the moment where I'm like this is why I do this, you know, to make it so that someone else can just do their job and I do my job and we're all working as a functioning Organism, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when did you realize that half or three quarters, that everything you just described is Psychological more than technical?
Speaker 1:Oh, I mean ages ago, like when Look I? Without you know, not naming names, but there's been people that I've worked for who are, on paper, good players. They can record, they can do their thing in a studio. Maybe they get into a live setting and they're either they're show people or they're do they drink a lot or whatever. It is performance not so hot, and Anybody who is thinking about it too much would get into their own head and be like, oh, fucking, whatever and it and it'll spiral out of control.
Speaker 1:You know Where's I going with this. Oh, but Take someone like that who's maybe like I don't know, just doing their show. As long as you keep them Going and happy about what they're doing, whether it fucking sucks or not, they're, everything's cool. No one's throwing a tantrum, no one's throwing their instrument around, no one's Blaming you. And, like you know, again, I have worked for all types. I have worked for Musicians who don't know one string from another, who are just happy to be there, to guys who can fucking play their ass off. But are the coolest people ever, dude and what? Like naming names? I say someone like Larry Lalonde from Primus yeah, dude is a fucking monster player.
Speaker 1:I know he plays the weirdest shit ever in Primus, but like he's a player, like he's a real deal like and less. But they're not so self-involved that they're like fucking, why is the action on this thing off by a fucking millimeter? You know, like just it's not. It's not like that. You know what I mean. On the other hand, I've had people who are pretty far up their own asses. That'll do that and you're just kind of like what? Who are you? Like? You're the hired gun in this thing.
Speaker 2:Like yeah, you know, I'm probably making a video thing, like yeah you know I'd probably make more money than you.
Speaker 1:What do you like? Why are you?
Speaker 3:yelling at me. Why are you yelling?
Speaker 1:I just I mean, I've had some like look, there's, there's, there's things to be to find gratifying in you know a lot of aspects of what we do, whether it's like, hey, we're the first band to play in Shenzhen, china, or we're like the first, you know we're the first to do this, or we're the fucking trying to go to Antarctica and we're.
Speaker 3:I don't know if that was gratifying.
Speaker 1:It's great to be here tonight again. Great to have all you guys trying to get into the hotel through the windows.
Speaker 1:Which is a great story on its own, holy cow but like when you, when you're, you know, when you're doing stuff, like that stuff is gratifying and also just like kind of like Not a bucket list thing, but I can get to check it off and they're like well, I did that, fucking, went to India with guns and roses. I don't like, I don't know, like didn't think I was ever gonna go there, but I went and I went with a very strange version of this band. Look didn't?
Speaker 3:Didn't you have something to do with tour wings to?
Speaker 1:We're wings. That was. That was gratifying in a different way that's yeah, and. Instagram account. You know, what's funny is like I still let me see when was the last time I updated to a wings? I'm looking at my other screen up top.
Speaker 3:So while you're doing, Is that a?
Speaker 2:yeah, wings was an.
Speaker 3:Instagram they did for beer and wings and all the, all the different places that we went and it was Great, it was good.
Speaker 1:I had a pretty good like like my format that I used like my, my grid. Oh my god, last time I updated it was July 15th 2021 and it was. It was insane because, oh yeah, oh, it was like all right, hold on, shout out real quick.
Speaker 2:You're followed by chicken and brown sauce, and which is run by a which which is run by a buddy of mine From the corporate world where you get fed chicken, you get fed chicken.
Speaker 1:I will say I think it's. Where is it? It's on here somewhere. I Reviewed a place in Maine. It was in Portland Maine. I was there, god I was. I mean, it's been a while since I've been in Portland Maine and really like 2017 with the band city in color it's a Dallas green from the Lexus on fire has been. We were in. We had two or three days off in Portland, me and Matt Stanky.
Speaker 3:Yeah, matt, you know of course he.
Speaker 1:You know I'm not to get too off track, but you know he like he pivoted you like Now he's an incense maker Love it.
Speaker 3:He makes like stick.
Speaker 1:I literally just burned one out in the my living room.
Speaker 3:We buy Julie.
Speaker 1:Bosman all time.
Speaker 3:He went to social distortion. I thought that was a great gig for him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he told me it was like the antiques roadshow.
Speaker 3:Shocking.
Speaker 2:That's the first time I experienced incense, by the way, was Backline text. So I grew up maybe a little more like sheltered and and and, not so much in the, you know maybe.
Speaker 3:Secular world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there you go right, so so, like, like, my first tour, you know and like and I like. What does that smell, you know? And then it became like, it became synonymous with me, like incense and backline text that's I'm married thing. Anytime I smell incense, I think I never was.
Speaker 1:I never was an incense guy, but doing the blink record just this last year, 2022, I Was working on that I was in Travis's studio pretty much like three times a week, just sometimes just sitting there just hanging out in the control room just waiting. Marcus wanted me to be there and and he burned this specific incense which I bought now, and I burned this thing called piñón and it just reminds me it. To me it smells like the studio now. So we started buying incense here and then Julie got a mic girlfriend. Julie was like oh, it's like Matt makes incense. It's good, I'm incense from Matt. So now we never a couple weeks. We put an order in, we're just burning sticks get me out of here we do what this is doing to my lungs and my brain.
Speaker 3:It's like I'm living California, so bad for me. Just put up a sticker everything causes. So that's what is still gratifying to me. We even talked about this before the show. Brian is like Appreciation and you get that from those little jokes that you get during the set. You know what I mean. Sure it Appreciation, just like you're doing your gig and they're not even thinking about your gig at that point. They're thinking about me and you are interacting as people. And then the second thing is fucking food dude. I swear to God, I feel like I'm on a food tour every time I get a tour schedule. I really am, oh I look, I my any.
Speaker 1:I used to be a thing where I'm like, oh, where are we going?
Speaker 1:But like, really, what I'm looking at on the tour schedule is looking at my days off and seeing if they're actually gonna be days off and like if it's a place that, like I, I know Food or brewery that I like, or you know something like that, because I got really into the crappier thing and I Was doing that for a minute. I don't really I don't really hit that as hard anymore, but Food for sure, like we just had. What the fuck was that? My lights just flickered. Ghost that's it. We're out of electricity to you, no water, no.
Speaker 3:Ship it in from New York for the bagels yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I'll just. Like. You know, we just had this tour. We were in Europe for two months. We had a ten day break in the middle and they were like We'll give you X amount of money if you want to stay, we can fly you back home and fly back. Some people like, fucking, I'll do it for the miles and whatever. And I was like am I gonna leave Europe? I got ten days. Julie's gonna be working eight of those ten days. She can't, she couldn't come to Europe. And I asked her. I was like they are, they gave, they're giving me a week to decide. Like what should I do? And she was like, fucking stay. She's like, why would you? She's like it's a free Basically a free trip. Like you pay for everything else. And I was like where am I gonna go? And I went to dude. I went to Madrid. I ate like a motherfucking disgusting animal. Like it was more I meant more how moan and fucking cheese Wine. And you know, like I was just fucking.
Speaker 3:I was like man, I think I'm getting gout right now I Would have called you and been like buy a track jacket, get a tin and some white on white asics and go to Amsterdam.
Speaker 1:You know everybody and that was the thing, everybody on the tour. So like what happened was we? We stopped in. We ended the first half in Austria, in Vienna. Then some people, which is Vienna is cool and I would have liked to maybe had some more time there. But I was like I'm like the next we're picking back up in 10 days from now in Lisbon. So I was like, all right, what can I go to? That's kind of going that direction, you know and not all topics, but I went to.
Speaker 1:I went to yeah, I went to Malta first, which I'd never been to, and Malta was rad. I've been hearing about Malta my whole life. My best friend growing up he was in Edna's Goldfish and now as a booking agent, he books Paramore and he books ex-ambassadors and my friend, dave Galea he his family's from there and I had never been there. So I finally I was like I was fucking Texan. I was like I got 10 days, where should I go in Europe? And he's like, jokingly, he was like why don't you go to Malta?
Speaker 1:And then I looked it up and I was like whoa, this is fucking crazy cheap. Like I could actually do this. I'm pretty cheap be here for like four or five days. So, like all this, all this is to say that I did all this based on like how many Michelin star restaurants I can go to, how many fucking dinners I could book, how many places had little things that I wanted to check out or whatever, and I was like Stoked about it. You know, that's what. That's what keeps me going throughout a tour is the. What kind of things am I gonna do on my days off? Because the show is almost like on autopilot at that point, you know yeah nothing it should be.
Speaker 1:But Mentally you get into a little bit of an autopilot world. You know you're like yeah, this is what I do, have a routine every day. Here comes in, I do this, do that, get the show, get it show ready. Guys come in, they soundcheck, they leave like nap, do the show shower back on the bus, whatever you know like yep yeah. You know the deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so another thing you've taken up while touring is photography. Yes, so two places I want to go there, one just a kind of how they come about and what's that been for you?
Speaker 3:Um, this is right here is doing art gallery shows with this stuff now like Bkd, let's go.
Speaker 1:I Wish it was more it was. I wish I could dedicate more time to it. I mean, here's it, here's a deal. I Took photography classes in high school. I had a camera back then. I had a Pentax K 1000 like it was my dad's car. I learned how to shoot film and how to develop film back in the 90s, started touring and I just had disposable cameras. I just brought like disposable film cameras and then at some point I didn't care about it. I like I just didn't have a camera.
Speaker 1:I have like little pocket fucking whatever. Didn't take it very seriously. And then the iPhone came out and this is it's so crazy to think that the iPhone is what Spurred me along to like try to get better camera. So it's taking photos and like instant, and like Instagram too was like a thing it was like Taking photos and like I'd share someone. Instagram is people like oh like, what kind of camera do you use? I'm like no, it's like an iPhone 5 or whatever you know, like some bullshit ass.
Speaker 1:Thing some one pixel, you know, and I was kind of like, oh, I'm like maybe, maybe I'll get a camera at some point. And it wasn't until, honestly, until 20 2015, when I started dating. That's when I started dating Julie. From my birthday she got me like a gift card To a camera shop out here and she was like, put this towards getting a camera. And I was like I think I will. And I bought my first like actual, like camera with like lenses and all that, like my first digital, because I'd never own a digital camera beef, I mean, I had like little fucking, like little pocket camera, but not like a fucking Like little pocket camera, but not like a little Sony or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm like, not like a full frame like I can shoot a concert with it. You know, and that was it. That was the beginning of it and I just had, you know, I just learned from there. Then I kind of went, I kind of dipped back into film a little, because it Kind of came back. It's I had a little bit of a renaissance. It was kind of it's just so expensive to do it. I was developing film at home. I was like pouring chemicals down my sink.
Speaker 3:It's a fucking.
Speaker 1:My neighbor's got three eyes. Now I was like, oh, this is poisoning everyone. Um, no, I was. You know, I was doing that and I think the really what kind of really got me shooting a lot more again was the pandemic. It was what kept me like, honestly, man, like if it wasn't for that and doing some kind of like home teching, like I don't know what, I don't know, I don't know what I'd be doing. I'd be working at a home depot right now. So that's where I wanted to go.
Speaker 2:So you did an article in one of the sites or interviews or whatever, and you talked about during the pandemic. You went out and shot during some of the riots. Yeah, one of the yeah, not riots, sorry, I don't want to. I don't want to. I mean, it was it turned into it turned into.
Speaker 1:it was a protest that turned into the beginnings of a riot and then that kind of you know cropped up around the city, but where I was was definitely the start of.
Speaker 1:There was a few times when I was like right in the middle of fucking weird shit Like I have. It's funny I was going through all those photos last night because I just deleted my entire Instagram feed and I was like I only want to have black and white photos and I just want to have nine like just a little fucking grid of nine photos, and I'll change it out every couple of weeks, just put nine different photos. So I was going through all these photos last night and I got to 2020 and it's fucking crazy how it evolves, cause it's like it starts with, like I start taking photos of, like the insides of grocery stores being fucking empty, like you know, of food, tons of people, no food, nothing Like I don't know how it was where you live, but it turned into fucking like every man for himself here, no toilet paper, no food, you know, just wild shit. So I was taking photos of that. And then I was taking photos of my neighbor and everything shut down and then, like every softening you go to like you know, I went out to like there was one day I was like you know what it says right now, and even no one's on the roads Says I could get to LAX in 25 minutes.
Speaker 1:Then I'd go down to LAX and shoot an empty airport and it was literally middle of the day no one. I saw maybe a total of 20 people there in the entire airport. I drove around in less than a minute and I was like whoa that was. I'm like you can actually do that.
Speaker 3:No bus shuttles cut you off or anything Weird.
Speaker 1:It was like what a single person. One of the terminals was straight up, just closed. It was just like we have no flights. The Delta terminal had a screen that had like three flights on it. This was in April of 2020. So I started doing that. I started shooting like these kind of like desolate scenes. Go to Hollywood. I stood in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard and just took a photo of like no cars, no one anywhere, everything fucking boarded up, shut, not even boarded up yet. Just closed because we hadn't reached the other shit yet.
Speaker 3:Desperation.
Speaker 1:Then the first thing that happened that I kind of caught wind of was in it would have been early May, it would have been May, I think, may 1st we started having. It was the first anti-lockdown, anti-covid protocol protest and it was like a pretty like fringe group. That was like put this together and it was like some people out of Orange County, out of Huntington Beach or whatever, and they came up. They were like we're gonna go to city hall or whatever downtown, to downtown LA. I was like I'll go over there and shoot it and it was like anti-mask, anti whatever. I showed up and it was still like back in the day when everyone dressed like a fucking old timey train robber with the fucking bandana on, so I got my bandana on.
Speaker 1:I'm just like, look, I don't know what these people are about. I'm just like I'll do what I gotta do. Then I bring my camera and it was the first time I'd ever been met with like resistance from people where they were like who the fuck are you? Are you with the media? Are you with the fake news or whatever? And I'm like I was like I'm just a dude, I'm just documenting this shit. Like I'm documented everything from like people coming out of hospitals to you guys, to the fucking airport, to the beaches being closed. Like I've been all over LA shooting photos for my own thing that I'm putting together or my own collections.
Speaker 1:at the time I wasn't really putting anything together, which is, I was just doing it because I had nothing.
Speaker 2:It sounded good. It sounded good and nothing else to do?
Speaker 1:I'd go out to Venice Beach. No one's out, walk around the beach and there's fucking fence up. You can't even go to the beach. You know, I was like taking photos the fucking skate park filled with sand. The city took like tons, literally tons of sand.
Speaker 3:I remember that from the news.
Speaker 2:Oh, did I stop people from actually skating? Like they just filled it with sand.
Speaker 1:Yes, I mean like to fast forward a little. I did end up putting together like a hundred page photo book that I did a limited run off. And the center, the centerfold of it, is like a wide, like stitched together shot of the park just filled with sand. It was fucked up. I mean there was no one there, you know, obviously no one's skating.
Speaker 3:In sand.
Speaker 1:So that was the first time, like when that protest happened, I was like, all right, shit's getting a little weird here. You know, like LA is getting weird. And then the George Floyd thing happened and that turned into like so there was a protest and I was like, well, I'm gonna go to the protest, I got it, I'm gonna shoot photos B. It's like, yeah, you know, this is something that's fucked up. You know, fucking cops this and whatever.
Speaker 3:And, like I'm gonna try to be on the right side of history for this, you know?
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. So go down there. And we made it to the Beverly Center, made it back. I have a bunch of photos that are like of like people, you know, just marching in the street and people in cars in solidarity, you know, pulling up and, just like you know, everyone. It was like a unifying moment. And we turn the corner and we go to. We're like right by where CBS is, I think CBS or CBS Studios, it's like at the corner of Beverly and whatever. And as I'm walking up I just see a fucking ton of police cars in their lot and I'm like this is not gonna be good.
Speaker 1:Cause now the police are out in the street and they're blocking it and they're all in riot gear and I'm like that's fucking crazy Cause no one's like, no one's being violent, no one's whatever. The police are already riot gear. They got the fucking soft bullet guns or whatever the rubber bullet guns, they're all you know and they're all in a line trying to block the street and people are going past them. City bus is trying to get through, people are fucking tagging the city bus and I don't remember exactly the whole thing, but like people are trying to get through, a guy smashes into another car and some guy's yelling and I'm like, get out of the. I'm like I'm in the middle of the street, get out of the street, get out of the street.
Speaker 1:Cop car pulls out and it's just it's left in the middle of the thing. It's definitely a bait car. It's definitely bait. You know what I'm saying? Like they didn't, that wasn't just like the cop got out of the car and like, and someone said it on fire, but like they, they rolled it out, some old ass cruiser, and people did what they did and they fucking they. They were lighting cop cars on fire and people were fucking dancing on the hoods of burning cop cars. There was fires all over the corners and it was like that's what the show was like.
Speaker 3:What a great picture, by the way it like. We'll have to put a link to that picture.
Speaker 2:I was saying I've heard you describe that. I don't think I've seen that picture yet though, so I'm curious to see.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I have it up anymore, but I mean it's on the, it's on the internet, you can find it but yeah, that was kind of like that was the beginning of like when shit started going down, because that was the first, not saying like LA was the first, but like you know, as far as like when the protests started popping off, that was the first one where people were like yo do you hear what happened in LA?
Speaker 1:Like they were like lighting cop cars on fire and fucking whatever, and then like New York the next night was like what crazy. And then everywhere is going crazy.
Speaker 1:But I was shooting that stuff for a minute and you know that did it in LA. It didn't really go on for too long. It was kind of like a few days of people really being like wallowing out and then it kind of calmed down. And then it was like they were protests, but they were way more contained. I think a lot of people were like oh yeah, that's probably not. You know, it's probably stupid to.
Speaker 2:Did you have time at all, like in the moment? Did you have time to process what was going?
Speaker 1:on or what you were experiencing.
Speaker 2:Literally, no, literally nothing at all, because while this was happening, like feel anything, or were you just in?
Speaker 1:the method of like capture, capture, capture.
Speaker 2:I was shooting like when did you process what was going on?
Speaker 1:I was like I said I shot the. I have photos. I look at my sequence of photos. I shot photos of the guy who got into the accident. He was trying to get his car out of the road.
Speaker 1:I turn around, there's like a bunch of like a group of people all like in, you know, like masks, but like also like balaclavas, like kind of just really like hiding their faces. And before you know it, you see like there was like I do have another photo of it from a different angle, where you can see there was like a fucking. There was a homeless dude with like a tent right next to that car, like his, his shit was like right there, like, and he like the car is on fire and he's trying to like pick up all his shit and try to move it. And all these people are like you know I was not far from it Like I was maybe like 50 feet away.
Speaker 1:I turn around, I snap a few shots and then I'm like I should probably get out of here. I don't know if this is going to blow or like what's going to happen. You know, like it's fucking, there's a fire and it's like black smoke coming off and I'm like it's not great. There's other people like up there like taking selfies, like you know, like get down on one knee and, just like you know, whatever, and I started making my way back and there's a bunch of cops, they're. They kind of all pushed us into this, this one zone, and I the photo that is I do have a main stream now. My very actually it's the very first one on my feed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the police car Is the beat tagged.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like police cars tagged and that police woman there and she was kind of like staring at us, like you can see in the back all the smoke, because that was from the car.
Speaker 1:She was kind of put you know, trying to get everyone out and there was like a ton of. I have another one too of this fucking super mad dog cop. He was just like holding a gun. He's like we're ready to fire one. I should put that. I'll put that one up next week. It's going through the my best of the last five years.
Speaker 3:So I thought your only book was 1800 miles of nowhere.
Speaker 1:That was like yeah, that was, that was a writing thing that I got, kind of, we're weirdly pressured into you from I don't know, I don't even like. It was like a bunch of stuff I had written, and then they were like, oh, it's pretty for you. I'm like all right.
Speaker 2:It was dead. It was dead, stop. I want to. I want to, I want to while we're in the moment here of you, are, you know, mid pandemic or early pandemic? You're shooting this. The world is just world changing.
Speaker 1:World changing falling apart.
Speaker 2:Fast forward to July 24th 2023. And you were out on your first tour, major tour in a stadium, post pandemic, and you have a quote it said. I'm just reading for beta what you said I believe it. When the lights go down, the band steps on stage. I felt like a fucking miracle.
Speaker 1:Oh, that was great to be one, yeah, yeah yeah, we all had lost.
Speaker 2:oh, sorry, maybe this is oh, two years ago. Today I apologize. Oh yeah, yeah, crying during a ska band opening for fallout boy at a baseball stadium was not my 2021 bingo card, but I'd be lying to you guys if I said I didn't tear up watching them spread joy to everyone that desperately needed. So take me back to that experience. What was that like? Visceral feeling to that full circle?
Speaker 1:Making that tour happen was crazy because it was the first like really big. I mean people were doing things here and there, but that was the first like that was the big one, where it was like can?
Speaker 1:we bring a band to the stadium. You know, and we did. We're doing everything, the protocols they told us to do, like wear masks, testing when we had to do the thing, and blah, blah, blah, whatever. And we finally, you know, we're rehearsing and we have the show day and I just remember being up and catering up in this baseball stadium and me and one of the guys in our crew, chris, just sitting there eating.
Speaker 3:I'm like I'm like oh shit.
Speaker 1:I'm like you're about to start playing. I'm like we should go down there and watch this. I'm like go down and there's 40,000 people in there and this fucking band's on. It's the first day of this tour and I'm just like just watching this happen again. I'm like my fucking life's back. It's back. We did it, we waited 500 days or whatever it was, and now like just right back into it. You know, like, and people-.
Speaker 3:People lost their mind at those first few shows, Like I remember going back to the first thing and it was like I mean that whole first tour was like.
Speaker 1:It was like people I don't know, I don't know how much that people forgot how to act, but like you know you get, you cut them a little slack. You know you were just like, yeah, this is fucking. This is like a whole new experience. It's people who had never been to a show before. You know, this is their first. Like they grew up in the COVID, post COVID world, you know, but like seeing all that come back and seeing people actually like singing along and being involved in something that was so important to them and so important to us, it was like man. Like I said, though, like anything could have derailed that. We could have been, we could have been a minute away from the play, and then we're, like tour's canceled.
Speaker 3:You know how many times did you take that thing up your nose. What do you?
Speaker 1:think Um, I'll tell you, not as many as you think I did.
Speaker 3:Really.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you cause. I'll tell you, on that tour we didn't test. It was more of a like test if you feel sick. But we're not doing a thing where we're testing every day.
Speaker 3:That's insane.
Speaker 1:There's like I mean, looking back on it, I think I could speak to it now Like while we were in it it was kind of like a don't ask, don't tell thing. But I can see, I can understand why it was like that.
Speaker 1:Like I can look at it two different ways, two different ways that I can see this In 2020, I did. I did some streaming, live streaming stuff with Bush, testing every time we walked into the room, rapid tests. Whatever we did. I did a thing with Usher, another live streaming thing Me and my friend Ben and my buddy Brian Southall this is tour manager we're. We had to do a thing where we sit in our cars and they'd fucking jam that shit up your nose Every day. If seven days we're doing this in the morning can't get out of your car until you test negative. When you walk in, you gotta sign all this fucking paperwork. They put a little thing on your head to take your temperature. They disinfected my bag. They had some spray. They sprayed my shit. There's a guy walking around with two yard sticks taped together to make sure everyone's standing six feet apart. Little fucking. I called them the fucking COVID gnome, fucking little dude walking around with these two sticks.
Speaker 1:One point me and Ben are trying to carry a keyboard and he's like you gotta stand further apart. They're like you can only do so much, you know.
Speaker 3:Hey bro, that guy got certified to be in that COVID position Like remember when that was a thing too.
Speaker 2:I had so many people Certified COVID officer.
Speaker 3:You could get certified you get paid to carry around that yard stick anywhere, anywhere, anywhere they needed. So all this shit goes down.
Speaker 1:We do all this fucking protocol nonsense. We're in these rehearsals for like five, six days. We're eating outside. We can't eat in the room. It's a fucking heat wave in Burbank. It's 115, like 115 degrees every day and we're eating outside, eating fucking Chipotle, and I'm like I don't know and like part of me was like I don't know if I ever wanted. I don't wanna do this like at all anymore. This fucking sucks.
Speaker 2:And we do all these If this is the new norm, I don't wanna be a part of this.
Speaker 1:And on top of all else. We do all this fucking shit, all these protocols and this one I'll speak to because we share a birthday we do all this shit. Fucking usher rolls in here out of his G-wagon, fucking bypasses all the protocols, doesn't test, doesn't do nothing, walks in and he's fucking the moon, walking up and down the place with a microphone, singing in everyone's face. I'm like, dude, we just spent a week trying not to get COVID and you just came in here and you're fucking singing in everyone's face without testing, like we're in like the midst of it. This is 2020. This isn't like. This is like. We're still in the unknown. We're not at like-. If someone did that now, it'd be like I don't know if someone had. If someone walked in this room and like I have COVID, I'd be like come on, man, get your COVID out of here. Back then it was like. Back then it was wild. Like if someone had it, it was like I don't know, this guy might die.
Speaker 3:We don't know how many people did you get to kill?
Speaker 1:Yeah, did you get to kill another? You're gonna kill an innocent grandma. Yeah, it was like it was just so much unknown then, right, it was just like I'm not gonna fault anyone in 2020 for being extra or being over the top about stuff, but it's 2024 now.
Speaker 3:We're not, we're really not doing all that it's like a harsh cold now, like there's, there's, there's worse, it's harsh cold or anything.
Speaker 1:Hey, it could be bad. Dude, I've had good, not good flus, but like I've had mild flus, I've had severe flu, I've had bad colds, I've had not so bad colds, all.
Speaker 3:I could think about is that you? Had Chipotle for a week outdoors at 115. I was like part of you is fed up and never wants to do this again and part of you is just diarrhea. It's you're like quit with the fucking Chipotle.
Speaker 1:Quit. Do you know? Do you know Ben Young Guitar tech? Ben Young, I don't know he he worked for. He worked for. He worked for Lincoln Park, then he became he did Lincoln Park and then he was Joe Truman's tech. I haven't.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:He also played. I play in a band with him. Now we share a rehearsal space but me and him did that, did that thing with with South Hall, the Usher thing.
Speaker 3:I love that you're doing another band.
Speaker 1:This one is. I'll explain that one later, but yeah, so I mean, like we're doing this thing, like we ordered this food, right, it shows up, they got. The whole band is like five dudes and the me and the tour manager, managers, all these people order all this food and it's not labeled right and it's a hundred and 15 degrees out. We're sitting under these tents, on these fucking hot ass benches and the COVID officer is like well, you can't just go in here and touch it. I have to open everything up and tell you what it is and then you can say if it's yours. And he's fucking dude. I thought the keyboard guys or the percussion guy was gonna fucking kill him. He was like hey, yo man, come on, give me that fucking, give me my fucking burrito. Man, I ain't playing with y'all. He just comes up and just grabs it out of his hand or handed it to him on the six foot stick on the very end.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's like one of those, like the pool net things you know, put it on that, put it in the net and see if you can get it for two Holy shit, that was a.
Speaker 1:what a stupid time stupid.
Speaker 3:I like that Chris used the term new norm, because we haven't heard that in a long time. Thank God, because we were questioning a lot of shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, here's the deal and I thought it was crazy that people were doing this, but like it was necessary at the time. But I feel like we look back and go, huh, kind of wasted a lot of money on that. All these studios pivoting to like a live stream thing was crazy to me where they were like oh, we're gonna retrofit our studios to be like you can come here and do this live stream. I'm like, hopefully that's modular because it's not gonna stay. This is insane in a year from now or less.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's so. You know, I live in the corporate audio space now, like the corporate production AV stuff, right, and quite frankly that's how we survived. We built five production studios in our corporate headquarters, you know, and that's the only way we survived was to do virtual meetings and town halls and the business conferences that we would, association meetings that we would do, live at convention centers and hotels, like we had to build studios and had to make it this thing and God, thank you, that is like all those studios were like dismantled, like I'll never forget the. We dismantled the final studio and it was like man, this is so relieving.
Speaker 3:Every church did it too.
Speaker 1:There were people, yeah, and people were trying, you know, I understand like that you need to pivot and you need or you need to like figure out how to do the thing in an altered version of it or whatever. But I was never under the impression that this was gonna be permanent and I feel like people thought, like this is the new wave of seeing concerts. It's like man, I watched a total of two live streams, the entire A there was part of me, that was just. It was depressing, you know, and I just I was like I can't bring myself to watch this thing, I can't participate in, you know, like, but B also, it's like I just didn't, I don't care Like, I don't wanna, I'm not gonna watch, I'm not gonna sit in front of a screen and watch a band play to nobody, you know, playing to nobody. I did enough of those streams to know that it's like the weirdest fucking shit. The bands feel awkward about it.
Speaker 1:There was a studio space over here at Third Encore in North Hollywood. Mark Woodcock was running it. Mark production manager, audio guy, he was running it and they were banging out live streams, one after the other. Go in there, turn over the space and then another band will come in and just knocking them out. So Bush went in there and did one. We used that same space. We did something for the inauguration, for Biden's inauguration, for Fall Up. We did that, went into that space. This is 2021. We're already like getting close to like.
Speaker 1:That was like the tail end of the streaming thing, where it was like why are we doing this? The Usher thing we did, we did it in a Burbank studios. It's like a big fucking studio In the middle of the thing. I guess halfway through the set, usher decided this is one of the ones. This is so fucking crazy. This is how stupid live streaming is to me and I'm gonna tell you this right now this is the stupidest fucking thing I've ever been a part of where I was like this was like almost my breaking point.
Speaker 1:We go to this thing, same thing. You get a test, the thing jammed up your nose sitting in your car for an hour, can't come in. They finally clear you. You come in, sign all this bullshit paperwork, blah, blah, blah. Whatever we set up all this stuff, it's TV, it's a TV studio. So all the TV guys. They're already fucking annoying and then on top of that, they have their TV COVID people, the TV COVID officers, so they're in there and I'm telling you blah, blah, blah, whatever. And it's one of those things where there's screens all in front like a 270 around the stage and there's a live feed of people who sign in, right.
Speaker 2:And it's a fake Like a bunch of zoom windows of everybody being in front of you. Yes, 100 zoom windows.
Speaker 1:And people are like the director's like all right, yeah, 100, yeah, the people are like they may be 100. And everyone's like all right, usher's gonna play this blah blah, blah. Like they have the hype guy and he's like this is what you gotta do clap when this blah blah, blah, blah, everyone's like cool, you got into the live stream, we're doing it. He plays his six songs, whatever. And then he sorry so, he plays his six songs walks off. Everyone's like all right, thanks, bob, we don't have a clap in. And then everyone starts signing out. Usher decides he wants to redo it and they're like oh.
Speaker 1:Well, they're like the crowd is gone, the crowd is signed out, so they're like well, we recorded all of it because it's meant to be. It wasn't even a live stream. It was meant to all be recorded and then streamed later. So like, well, we have a recording of the whole thing. We'll just put the recording up of them on the screen to react and we'll just sync it to react whatever. And at one point so he's doing this now he's playing to a screen of people who aren't really there anymore, that's, they're not there. We're recording this for a later date. And at one point the DJ is just playing someone else's song and Usher's dancing around. And I'm like, so Usher's dancing around to a song that's not his, to nobody, to watch at a later date, and I was like this is top one the stupidest fucking thing I've ever been part of Top one.
Speaker 3:I'm bored, that's it.
Speaker 1:That's the one I was like this is like being a guitar tech for someone who lip syncs like what's the fucking? What are you doing? What are you?
Speaker 3:doing that. Dude was vibing with the DJ, and it wasn't just one person, it was him and his boy were just like go it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to no one Playing. Like a fucking playing beat it or something. You know like he's just fucking dancing around, spinning and like pointing at the screen to like a recording from an hour ago. You know like what is that? What are we doing? I was like dude, covid needs to end right now. So usher's not fucking dancing for a video? Insane, insane.
Speaker 2:Can you talk about the? I'm going left field here, I'm going in different direction. Can you talk about the relationship of backline techs and bands and artists? It's funny I was actually you're talking to a coworker of mine as we had to do a visit in New York and like trying to explain that, like you know, often like a backline tech will like, say, one guitarist is you know, there's obviously plenty of acts where you know the band is, you know, interchangeable, they're session players or whatever, and so if a drummer gets replaced, the backline tech goes right.
Speaker 2:So, like, what is that relationship like with you and that artist that you're checking for and how does that maybe follow with, maybe wherever they go? Or maybe you experienced that. I haven't really.
Speaker 1:I haven't followed an artist to other things. I mean I will. If I'm working for someone, I'll do whatever projects they do while they're working on that stuff. I never had anybody leave and be like hey you're coming with me to go work for this other band.
Speaker 1:And I've worked for higher guns and like whatever Like when I worked for SEAL, I've worked for fucking 20 different people over the course of two years. It's like whatever. But like I get brought back because SEAL wanted me there, his management wanted me there, but that's it Like my relationship with these artists that I work for, I mean, like I try to keep it obviously friendly, like I don't want a fraught relationship with you know which I've had with people where I'm like I can't wait for this to be over.
Speaker 1:I can't wait to get away from this to these drop me nuts or woman it could be a lady I'm working for. There's lady guitar players too. Not any good ones.
Speaker 3:No, no, no.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm gonna get him.
Speaker 1:He's like wait a minute, where are we going with this? Now, like I try to, you know, I try to keep it light and friendly. I don't try to get too close to people because when you start getting into that world you get feelings, start getting hurt, you know, and people start getting like I don't know. I know a lot of these dudes who a little. There's different times.
Speaker 2:It becomes less business, more politics. Well, here's a deal man Like.
Speaker 1:There's all different types. There is the very roadie like I clock in, clock out, it doesn't matter who I'm working for, here you go, boss.
Speaker 3:Blah, blah, blah Like get to your station and look angry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like that is that guy. We've been saying that for years. Again, get your station with piss, like whatever. Like I don't, I'm not that guy. Maybe some days I am that guy, but overall I want my I don't.
Speaker 1:But then there's also like the fucking, like rock star techs, like the guys who and some of them are fantastic technically at their jobs but they're a little too like hey, look at me, I'm the guy doing the thing up on the stage and I got the, I got the picks. I'm going to be whatever, I'm going to be able to throw you the drumsticks and I'm going to give you setlist. Guy. You know, like I don't know, don't be, you're not part of the show. You know, like it's kind of and sometimes people are part of the show.
Speaker 1:Like you know, right now, tom DeLong's tech, justin, great tech, one of the best techs I've ever met in my life. He's a younger dude. He's only ever done like a couple of years of touring. Tall, motherfucker. He's like six foot five long, hair, mustache, looks like Jesus and everyone calls him Jesus and when he comes on stage, tom will introduce him as such like to the crowd. He's become part of the show and that's. That's fine the artists, let the artist pull you into that. Don't be like, hey, make a big, you know, don't be flashy. Just fucking put on a black shirt and some black jeans and get up there and do your thing. Don't fucking turn it into, you know, don't turn it into the D-Az show or whatever you know. That said, that said, there's been times when I've been part of the show and that's fine, but I try to keep my overall thing. We are friends, but I work for you. We can be friendly, we can text each other, whatever.
Speaker 3:Remember when you stole the instruments and played misfit songs.
Speaker 2:That's kind of the greatest story ever and when I tell people that they're like well, how did you not have to get fired? Don't leave me hanging here.
Speaker 1:We were doing an underplay tour with Fall Out Boy, like doing really, really small places. I mean, we played that fucking North Star bar in Philly. Like they were real small and I feel like the shows were announced like a couple of days in advance. For each one it was like now appearing at the basement east in Columbus.
Speaker 3:Saved by Latin, wasn't it? Or was that there was another underplay?
Speaker 1:No, that was. You're so close to being.
Speaker 3:One story off.
Speaker 1:Sarah, yeah, we were doing that, that run, we did the. There was a great American music hall in San Francisco, small venue, it was me.
Speaker 3:We had.
Speaker 1:Cadet Superdave doing monitors and the monitors for that show were like literally on the stage, Like they were just like I think he was standing on like a fucking chair and the desk was kind of like propped up on the side of the stage so you can kind of look up. But it was like Superdave, me, Kedaver doing stage. Right, I was doing guitar and bass. Yeah, I was doing guitar and bass, he was doing guitars, he was doing and AJ is doing drums. And we decided right after this one song, we're all going to act like something's up with your. I'm like we need your instrument, Something's up, I need to look at it. And AJ was like I need to sit down. He's like I got to fix your kick drum or whatever. And we had been sound checking this misfit song. We've been sound checking Astro Zombies for year fucking years.
Speaker 1:At that point, yeah, and we were just like, all right, fuck it, let's, we're going to, we're going to punk them tonight. We're going to take their instruments and before they get a chance to say or do anything, it's going to run up and we're going to go one, two, three, four, just fucking start. So I, I played guitar, superdave came out from behind monitors, played bass. I handed him the bass, I took Patrick's guitar and they're all like the band is looking around.
Speaker 1:Fucking Kedaver puts on the guitar, he's fucking. Another tall motherfucker puts on this guitar it's like up here on them, you know. And AJ's the drums and he's like one, two, three, four. I'm like I'm ripped through the song and everyone in the crowd is like what the fuck's going on? Pete stage dives during the thing and Marcus is trying to fucking pull him back into the onto the stage and there's like video I've seen of it where Patrick's like I did not know this was happening.
Speaker 1:He's like this is pretty fucking awesome. They were like punk. The band ended up playing and like after the show, like there was a couple of dads in the crowd that came up to us and like, dude, you guys played the misfits. That's so sick. My kids don't even know what that is. So you guys were like the best band of the night.
Speaker 3:One of the other other underplays we did. The dudes from every time I died came out and they played Pantera and this place was like in Buffalo at the penny penny pub or what was it called. It's something penny.
Speaker 1:No, it was the Buffalo and Buffalo. I'll think of it. It was small, a small place. An AJ crowd surfed to the bar to get beers for the stage that he did.
Speaker 1:Like our drum tech jumped off stage, crowd surfed, grabbed a couple of fucking bottles of the bats or whatever. His crowd surf back. I was taking in a literally a closet. It was like the gear, like the mic, stand closet on the side of the stage. I just set up a fucking guitar boat in there. I was like half sticking out and I was just like on my knees the whole time, trying to stay out of the way.
Speaker 3:You got to picture this, Chris. These dudes were doing arena shows.
Speaker 1:I mean they were doing arena shows, Sometimes multiple nights in place.
Speaker 2:You've talked about this underplay tour a ton, just maybe not in detail, just like the concept. It was crazy.
Speaker 3:And like, and it was like for us and the band at some point, because we knew that they were going to be super annoying and we're going to have a horrible time. But it was going to be the best show ever, because they're playing old stuff, it's going to be the best.
Speaker 1:It's going to be the best story story.
Speaker 3:The hang, the hang in the show were just like iconic. Imagine seeing Taylor Swift in a 200 cap club. That's what it would be like.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:Off the chain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was. It was some Fuck, it was fucking was annoying to do that, but it was. In the end it's a character builder.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was. It was. It was different. I mean, and I've done it over the years with again with Fallboy We've done not to that degree. I mean, we've done some small stuff, but I think I have a little more awareness of how that all works now, so it's a little easier to wrap my head around it when we're going to walk into a situation like that. And we've done everything from doing like you know, we did stuff like people's houses and shit, you know. Like you know, when the big got back together in 2013, they kind of we're like we're not going to do this, this and this. You know they don't want to do like that.
Speaker 1:One time we did 17 shows in a row in Europe and we just didn't have any days off and it freaked the band out because they were like the fuck are we doing? Like, why are like we're? We're like a famous night for anything, but like we're like a famous band? Like why are we doing 17 shows in a row, right? Oh, like, half of this shit we're not even getting paid for. Like this is just like record label garbage and we were losing our minds. That was the one where we ended up having a day off at Amsterdam after 17 days and I just I ate more mushrooms that those two days in Amsterdam than I think I ever ate again.
Speaker 3:You blocked her in the corner. To like this. I remember to and there was, like this huge carnival, out of no way carnival, we're like on mushrooms.
Speaker 1:I'm dude every single time in Amsterdam. I tell people, like you know, right over here it's right at the main central, you know, like the central part of central Amsterdam, right there. You know, and it was like fucking, I was tripping just looking up at these like well, picture this.
Speaker 3:I didn't get any right, I tell. And it's just like your wet Jack the Ripper cobblestone, like old town looking thing, dark, dreary. And all of a sudden we turn this corner and there's a huge fair in the middle of the street with like Ferris wheels, like claw machines.
Speaker 1:I mean God was looking down upon us a day that was good. I just remember like the next day was actually the last day in Europe. It was in Amsterdam and I decided I was like all right, during like a song or two before Saturday, I'm like I'm going to eat the remainder of these mushrooms and I was like it's going to be easy. I'm like we have 30 pieces. We do seem to count 30 pieces. Put a piece of tape right, one through 30 on these 30 pieces of gear that are definitely not going to cause me an issue later. And it's like Henry Bordeaux is tour managing and he's like and he or he was production manager, so we're something that he. He was like, yeah, and he was like I got you know, rocket cargo is coming to pick up the pieces. He's like we pack up all our shit and the truck is late. We are waiting and the mushrooms that I ate, that I thought I was timing to to start showing up when we were done, are now. They're just, they're not in the mail anymore.
Speaker 3:The package has been delivered and I am like did I am looking at all these I'm fucking sweating and I'm laughing.
Speaker 1:And AJ is like giggling Everything's packed up and it's like in a pile. And Henry's like did you count the pieces? And I'm like count what, what?
Speaker 3:count. I'm like it could be 500 of these?
Speaker 1:I have no fucking idea. And he's looking at us. He's like you know what he's like. Just get your shit, Just go to the hotel. He's like get out of here. He's like I'll deal with this. Henry saved my ass. Wasn't the first time? Won't be the last time. Hold up one second. I had to pull my ear out. I haven't worn these ears and I haven't worn them in a while, so have to have him in for this. Long is like. I need to need a break. There's sense of phonics, though. They're like the squishy guys, Kind of like oh nice, yeah, the yeah.
Speaker 2:So, brian, what's the funniest or craziest or whatever story? The dirt. Oh no, kyle.
Speaker 1:I mean, let's just say I'm not saying that this is crazy or specific, but I have seen Kyle in a fucking banana hammock. Fucking brief, I mean more than once. I like multiple times and be like the best.
Speaker 3:I don't know why. I think it's the foot. That was the best one hands down we had like okay.
Speaker 1:So we had this long ass drive. We didn't even have really a night there, it was just like we had the day off. They were like we're going to stop at this resort, like kind of the resort hotel on the shore, Panama City.
Speaker 3:You know kind of like the Gulf.
Speaker 1:It was like yeah, we're like spring break.
Speaker 3:We're a spring break.
Speaker 1:We get there like eight in the morning or just like, all right, fucking, we're rolling in, coming in hot.
Speaker 3:I'm like whenever the fucking pool bar is open, we're all swimming up, you know but we had we had been we had been drinking the night before and we all said let's go get speed, let's go get speed. Everyone show up at the hotel bar with speedos or we'll go great, because they have those crazy swimsuit, because they have those crazy swim places.
Speaker 1:I will find you these photos. I have photos of that.
Speaker 3:Dave Raina Compton. Dave did a whole photo shoot of me.
Speaker 1:That's where the photos came from. You know, justin the new guy he was our new guy was our. He sent me a whole like a whole folder of photos from that tour Because that was the blink. That was when we went out. It was 2009 when, blink, when you two got back together, fall point was the last tour.
Speaker 3:Just about to that tour.
Speaker 1:And that was like the yeah. When was the last tour ended? All it all ended at the garden.
Speaker 3:So the whole kicker to that was is the next day we had a show in Jacksonville at the amphitheater and I forgot who in the band was like. Hey, we had a really good day off in Panama city yesterday, but Kyle or sound guy had a really good day off. Everyone look up to the IMeg and the two huge IMeg screens on the side was my whole photo shoot of like running through the waves.
Speaker 1:I don't remember that. I don't remember that I have a photo of you. I have a photo of you cutting AJ in the shower.
Speaker 1:In the shower and you put, for some reason I mean I get it because he's getting his hair cut, he's in his fucking boxers, but for some reason you're in your underwear. I'm like, why are you? Why I'm dressed, I don't know. There was a lot of like. There's that are like a lot of like. So I used to sleep I still in the same bunk. I sleep in the middle, middle passenger side back, and you were middle past your middle driver back. So I was across from you and I just remember, like some nights I look in there, kyle's in his bunk in his jacket, still hat pulled down, slice of pizza, or sometimes he just be, sometimes you just be awake, eating and be like.
Speaker 3:I still do that to this day too, like I always have food. I always have food in my bunk and I'm always fully dressed.
Speaker 1:I'm not a dad. I'm not a dad, but I do a lot of dad sleeping. You know, like fall, fall, fall asleep in the corner.
Speaker 1:My spot on the couch. Well, I mean, like you know, like in the in the bus I don't know how it's developed, but I'm always like the table guy. But I like the table where I can see the door, almost like I got a fuse coming in. And usually it's because I am the first one on the bus, not for you know, whatever I do backline, like I'm done pretty quick and with blank I load the truck so I load my truck.
Speaker 1:I'm the three backline guys I'm the only one is in the truck and it's fine. I don't want anybody fucking bothering me, I want to just do it and get it done. They get it done, they, those guys will finish and then they'll go. You know, daniel Jensen has to pack up a second drum kit. He's got other shit he's doing. Justin will go take a shower. I go directly to the bus because I want to get the coldest, freshest beer and I want the first piece of food. So I get to that table and I sit there and I watch people come in. That's my fucking MO. That's just how I do it.
Speaker 2:Kyle was the Tony Hawk story at front of house. Was that fall? No, but.
Speaker 3:Brian and I shared a room at the.
Speaker 2:K.
Speaker 3:West. Oh, that, that was with the funk junkies. I did an X games thing and asked, or whatever. But Brian and I had to share a room at the K West and this was after buying a package of sugar that was wrapped up or whatever and in something. We're sharing the room and we've been hanging out at the K West bar and I think the singer from Eagles of death metal was like just hanging out, like super had his headphones on the bar Like we had a oh, oh, yeah, yeah, that was yeah, he spent.
Speaker 1:Jesse, whatever his name is, spent 13 hours fucking at the bar. We so we roll into the K West in London, walk in check it in. And when you walk into the K West the check in desk is to the left and then the bar and the hangout lounge areas to the right. I spent many, many a pound in that bar whole pocket, full pocket, full change. Shrap, lots of shrapnel. So I looked to the right at the end of the bar, where it was festival season.
Speaker 1:We're doing writing or something like that. Here's Jesse Hughes, singer of Eagles of death metal, end of the bar. He's got his fucking beer and he's got headphones on and he's fucking bopping. He sees us, gives us a little like you know little head nod or whatever. We're like, all right, I'm like Jesse Hughes going to be it's going to be our buddy. Go to my room. I'm like I got a fucking shower or whatever. Just got off a flight. I think we had just actually flown to England. He probably came from the.
Speaker 3:States.
Speaker 1:So I'm like a little shredded. You know, maybe lay down for a minute, come back. I'm like I'm going to get some, going to go across the street get some food or whatever kebabs walk out. This is a couple of couple hours later, still middle of the day. Here's Jesse Hughes. He's got his headphones on. He's fucking rocking.
Speaker 3:I'm still at the bar, Damn he's still fucking, still fucking going.
Speaker 1:Go eat, come back. Jesse's still there. I'm like God damn, this guy's going Couple out, fast forward over the couple hours and we're all like everybody's in England. We're like all right, let's fucking go to the bar. Let's, let's start the night. Go there, this motherfucker is still at the bar. Headphones on drinking headphones not plugged into anything. He's just fucking amazing. He's just so fucking spun out, he's just listening to nothing and he's rocking out talking to everybody now too. Having a blast Fucking everybody with the headphones on.
Speaker 3:Wild, that man's wild. We had a great night and then we got back to the room and Diaz talked in his sleep and I forgot what he said. He was like. The exit is now.
Speaker 1:No, I said, I said, I said uh, shit's difficult, Get used to it and you said, oh, it's not on my Chatar. Yeah, I was talking in my, I was talking about sleep, this dude let me tell you that was my. That was my. You know, like back in the day I guess it would have been my space or early Facebook, you could have a quote by your name, and for the longest time my quote was shit's difficult, get used to it. I said that in my sleep, dude, I'm fucking wisdom, wisdom in my sleep.
Speaker 3:Man, I've always had a blast. I'm with you Like. It's been so cool to catch up. Finally, we're going to have to put links to all your stuff because I think it's all super relevant. Oh, yeah, for sure. Maybe we get you back on with we'll tag team someone else.
Speaker 1:Let's get someone else.
Speaker 2:We'll do it again. Well, let's close it out this way Brian, what's um? Uh? If you could define your legacy or how you'd want to be known, how would you define that? Man, my legacy, my legacy in touring or whatever life, whatever life touring, whatever, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:I want my legacy to be. I was that I was someone who tried to understand and appreciate everyone and everything, no matter how different it was from what I believed in or from what I. I just want someone to. I want to, and I think a lot of it probably is to do with like my, my photography, and like how that opened my mind to like all right, I'm documenting life, I'm seeing things and I'm getting up close and personal with strangers, and I want everyone, from strangers to the people that are closest to me, to know that, like I loved everyone you know that's what I want my legacy to be is like I loved life, like I loved every little fucking weird thing it's ever happened to me, and like every, every opportunity that I had, I was thankful for it, no matter what it was, even if it sucked.
Speaker 3:It made for a great story now, life was what I mean.
Speaker 1:It only sucked when it happened.
Speaker 3:It's a great life. It's a great story now.
Speaker 1:It's some of its lessons. You know like I can tell you a million fucking bands and people I never wish I worked for, but you know one not a million maybe like four. But like you know you stuff like that where you're just like that was a life lesson, you know I'm grateful for that too.
Speaker 1:Even if that's not even if that wasn't ideal. At the end of the day, I'm grateful that I experienced that, because now I know what not to do or how I would have handled that differently. And in the end, when all said and done, when I'm fucking on my last breath, I want everyone from the fucking, the haters who hated me and the people who thought I hated them, to the people that I love the most to know that I appreciated every single last one of everybody, because that's really the only thing that gets you through all this, you know.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. I you know what that was supposed to be my last question, but you spark something that I was actually I was actually thinking about today when it comes to who are those four artists that you worked for?
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, no, another time.
Speaker 2:No, I was thinking about this as a as a photographer, right, and you even said like, really, in the moment, you don't maybe have the time to process, and whether it's the pandemic stuff, whether it's a concert, whether it's whatever, right, like you're, you're capturing your private thing, you have angles, you think there are things. Do you find yourselves, you find yourself being able to have another experience with that photograph after you go back and look at it? Does that? Is that a different experience? Like what triggers there, like what happens there?
Speaker 1:So I have this, I have this thing, like I, a lot of it's social media is fucked things up, so people want to take a photo and share it instantly. This is fucking this shit's fire. I want to. I want to share everybody, yeah, and there's something to be said about that, but it's fleeting. You know, when I was going through all my stuff last night, or the deal that last time in the last couple days, and I'm sitting there I'm looking through years of archives of photos, you know hundreds of thousands of photos, film and whatever. They're all digital, they're all my, my program, and I kind of I rate them so I know like all right, this one is a keeper, this one's not. This is something I edited already, this is something that I've printed. Like I have a coding system and I was like looking, I was like, all right, I'm going to just go through all my like selects from whatever these years are. And then I was like, no, you know what? I want to see everything.
Speaker 1:Because at the time when I was, when I was loading this into my computer and going, oh, this one's cool, this one's cool, this one's cool, just pressing buttons, I wasn't looking at it critically and like now I'm looking back at some of the things that, like I might have skipped over, and I look at it and that, you see, you see things completely differently when you look at them Five years on, even two years on.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm looking at things that were, I say, two years, like 2020,. I'm looking at some of those photos and I was like, ah, some of this is trash or whatever, and some of it's like really simple stuff and I think I can sometimes put myself back in that place. It was four years ago, but I can. I can picture myself just like being like all right, I'm going to press the shutter on this because I see the thing that I want here, and then maybe it didn't translate that day. But now I'm looking at it and I go, oh, it did translate, it did have some sort of impact. So I do in the in the moment, I do live in that thing where I'm like I want to convey this with this photograph, but then you kind of develop a different meaning from when you have time away from it. It's the same with music. It's the same with any music I've made, you know not that I'm getting any deep meaning out of my old Scott punk band or whatever but like I can,
Speaker 1:listen to it 20 years later and go man for a fucking 21 year old kid yelling into a microphone like I had some shit to say and like I was fucking dedicated to the thing you know. Like maybe you know, when you have that much closeness to it you're like, ah, whatever, it's just the thing I do. But anything that I've, any piece of art I've made, whether it's photography, animation that I've done or music, whatever I look at it, I go. I need some distance from this. I need some time from it. I know what I was trying to do in the moment, but I think it would be better if I had time to just kind of like, forget about it and then go back and go.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I could put myself in that place and I remember where I was in my head when I made that. But also, like, see it almost like as an outsider. It's a weird thing. I feel that, more with photography than but with music to you, because, like I mean, fuck, since the pandemic, I, I, before 2020,. I didn't really know much about recording.
Speaker 1:I didn't know how to do. Now I know how to do home recording. I kind of learned Pro Tools pretty good with Ableton now and, like you know, I have you can't see it, but I have all this shit around me, keyboards and whatnot and I started. You know, I started like making music and I can go back to 2020 and go okay, what was I trying to get out with this? And I could hear open up an old session to be like oh, that was pretty cool idea, and now that I know more and have a maybe a better idea, I can like redo it. You don't really get that opportunity with photography, but with music you can do that. You know, you can have some time away from it and then go back and go oh wow, like I understand where I was three years ago and really continue.
Speaker 1:you know, build on that, or?
Speaker 3:whatever the story has to be cool for you to tell too, because you're looking at those things a different way than everybody. Finding the impact in them will tell the story how you want it portrayed, but like being able to see the whole line of progression is just like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and sometimes there's there's things to like when I look, yeah, when I look at it, like you just just saying like that, like that one, like the riot photos, the protest photos, like there is like I mean I could. I could probably do a 10 photo series of everything leading up to that, from like people smiling and being unified to like cops, literally like I have photos of people I'm running towards it, but everyone's running away from being shot and fucking, you know, maced and shit, and I'm like you can watch that. I can show you 10 frames of that. That day going wrong and in my head while it was happening, I was just like just capture the moment, just get, just document this. Someone needs to document it, something needs to document it. That's what was going through my mind and I look back and I go holy fuck, like I have all this crazy shit, like why did I insert myself into that? Like someone had to do it, you know, but maybe one day people will see that too.
Speaker 3:They will Well, thanks for hanging out with us tonight, man. It's great to catch up. We'll do this again, for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, for sure, for sure, it was really, really, really cool yeah.