Welcome to the Scene
Welcome to the Scene takes a candid and human look at the musicians of the indie rock/ emo scene of the early 2000s. Host Jeremy Houtsma, Licensed Mental Health Counselor, presents a free-flowing conversation that tends to go in inspiring and reflective paths that touch on a myriad of topics including mental health. The result is an intimate look at not just the music created but also the stories, history, and growth of these individuals. It's a whirlwind listen of nostalgia, inspiration, and insights into who these bands and people were and where they are now.
Welcome to the Scene
Ryan Parrish: Hopesfall, The Satellite Years 2.0, Music and Connection
On October 15, 2002, Hopesfall released a seminal album called The Satellite Years. 21 years later the band remixed and remastered the album. Ryan Parrish was a driving force in the formation, songwriting, and touring force that Hopesfall would become until the end of his time in the band shortly before the full release of the album.
This conversation takes us from the inception of Hopesfall to the complications within the band, and Ryan's journey into other music endeavors. Finally, we discuss Ryan's life as a Video Producer in Nashville, Dad and husband.
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Hey everyone and welcome to the scene. I'm super excited today because today October 15th 2023, 21 years ago to this date an album dropped that would have an untold influence on both the bands and band members in the scene and myself personally. That album was the satellite years by Hope's Fall. Both chaotic and profoundly meditative, the album had a way of pulling you in from complete chaos to a trance-like state. Just a few weeks ago, the band released a 2.0 version of the satellite years. It's both remixed and remastered. Now it's not that rare to have an album remastered, but remixed and remastered that's pretty special.
Speaker 1:My guess is Ryan Parrish, the guitarist from the band Hope's Fall. Ryan was an integral part in the band from the inception of Hope's Fall to the release of the satellite years in 2002. Ryan also played in the band Celebrity and currently plays in In Parallel. Ryan and I talk about all things about the satellite years and his life then and now. We had a beautiful conversation about the power of music, redemption and human connection and how life's changes can be both profoundly beautiful and hurtful at times. So let's get right to it and let me welcome you to the scene. The Soundtrack Okay, so we are live. So you know what is wrong with this, gosh? You're okay man. No, I have logic on too, and I forgot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm getting this weird. Is that your DAW, that you record into his logic?
Speaker 1:Not for podcasts, I mean. I normally just kind of just record on the computer through Zoom and then clean up the audio and logic and whatnot.
Speaker 2:I've done a couple of these and some guys record to QuickTime. You know it's everybody's got kind of a different method yeah it works.
Speaker 1:I mean for the most part it works. I mean Zoom. I'm a therapist so I have like other videos of that. I love that. I use other video platforms that I use, but it's not necessarily like they're more hippocompliant and whatnot. Very cool man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I am. I have audio. At one point in time I'm a psych major too and I thought I may want to go into therapy one day. I don't know, we'll see I'd have to go back and get a master's.
Speaker 1:I know, that's the thing. Actually, this was not what I had my undergrad in, or anything like that. Oh really, yeah, I had an undergrad in TV and film.
Speaker 2:That's what I work in now. Oh really.
Speaker 1:I work in video, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm a producer, so I produce videos for a living now.
Speaker 1:Nice, awesome, yeah. Are you doing like corporate or?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we do a lot of corporate content, branded content, which, you know, I mean, a lot of people think it's not super sexy, but I actually enjoy it, and I get to conduct interviews a lot, which I really enjoy. Yeah, you know, kind of like what you're doing right now, but with a video camera which is, I just like human story, yeah, so it's a really fun job and I get to be creative.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think that's probably just thinking about it kind of, because I've been doing this for 10 years now and then, before that I was, I did my undergrad and I wanted because I went to school in around New York City, in that area. Well, I lived around that area for most of my life and then I was going to ask about the Jersey. Yeah, yeah, I went, I went, I went from. You know, ryan, you're the only person that I would give up watching a giant game right now.
Speaker 2:I know man. Hey, have it side screen, have it on the phone. If you lose your train of thought I won't judge you. I get it. I'm a big college football fan so I do watch the NFL a little bit, but I'd say I'm more of a casual NFL fan versus a diehard.
Speaker 1:Well, I guess like, let's see. So did you grow up in North Carolina?
Speaker 2:Well, I kind of have bounced around the Southeast. I was originally born in in Mississippi and Jackson, the capital city, which you know it's not much to speak of. But so, yeah, I spent the first eight and a half years of my life there in Mississippi. So you know, my mom went to university in Mississippi. So it's in my blood, you know, to watch Rebel football. So I've been watching it for 40 plus years of my life. So college football is like a rule is all right, it's a very special thing.
Speaker 2:And then you know, when I moved to North Carolina I kind of got the back bit by the basketball bug, because everybody loves basketball in North Carolina. But you know I used to watch the Tar Heels yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:So University of Mississippi versus Ole Miss, are they the?
Speaker 2:they're not the same, it's just it's just like a I guess I'd call it like a colloquial, just kind of like shortened pet name for the school. But it's kind of become their calling card really. You know, it's on their helmets. Most people in the state refer to it as Ole Miss. But yeah, it's the same school, right, I did not attend. I did not attend, but again die hard fans. So I get your allegiance to missing a game.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting because we were my wife and I, about two weeks ago, were in New Orleans and so we went, because I know like Eli Manning was Ole Miss, right, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the Manning family. His father, you know, was arguably the best heir of Ole Miss football, which my mom, I believe, attended when he was quarterback. I believe there was cross over there, but yeah, so we went to Cleveland.
Speaker 1:now I live right outside Portland Oregon. I feel like this. You know the timing of all of this is excellent with the satellite years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, yeah. It's been a whirlwind in a couple of weeks for sure, yeah, how.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't even know where to begin, whatever feels most comfortable with you.
Speaker 2:I'm kind of an open book. I don't like Same here. I don't keep things close to the vest, you know.
Speaker 1:So I mean, kind of like what I like to do is just kind of start out just like early life and early musical influences and then kind of move into band stuff and then like what's going on now and what's part of the story now, not necessarily involved in the band, but anything that's just kind of like what gets you going now or just kind of you know what your music, you know musically working on and stuff Sure. So you know just kind of grew up in Mississippi for eight years where early part of your life was music, a big part of your life during I mean, you know, I think my early memories of music is like being in the church you know I grew up in a pretty conservative household, southern Baptist, so there was a lot of you know hymns really.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know I remember singing in church a lot and you know I think a lot of early kid memories of like riding around with their parents and you know they have the radio on or they pop. You know this is back in the days of a cassette tape you know the cassette in or whatever.
Speaker 2:So you know, I remember hearing like a lot of what my mom listened to was just like whatever was on the radio. So, yeah, you know, I was always attracted to it, I was interested in it. You know, I think like early memories would be like Phil Collins, you know, genesis, michael Jackson, you know, thriller was huge, you know. And I think when my years like started to perk up is when, like you know, I would hear something on the radio that felt just slightly left of center, you know, and I think like what, at least kind of in the back of my mind, I think like a baby, I think like a band like Tears for Fears was one of those that like jumped off, you know, jumped out right away to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah this sounds slightly smarter and the lyrical content felt like it had like some depth to it. Yeah, you know, early, early, you too, you know, was another you know.
Speaker 1:I was going to say I was just talking with with the recent episode I released was with Jake Brown, who oh yeah, man. So, and he was talking about how, how much of a huge tears for fears.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean is I can really trace it back to like some of those bands that were playing with space and reverb and big melodies, but like I don't know, I think that's what my ear was attracted to. And then, you know, anything that was like slightly pensive in nature, yeah, like kind of pricked my ears a little bit like crowded house, or you know, I'm trying to think of some of these other songs that just like jump out at me from then. But yeah, those are my early memories of like being a kid, kid, you know not like a teenager you know, riding around in mom's car and sing along with the radio.
Speaker 2:So I have a lot of like. I have a huge soft spot for like soft rock. Yeah, cross comes on and I'm fully in.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm not super critical of that. There's actually some really brilliant songwriting in some of those songs. But yeah, I think those are my early, earliest memories. I grew up on a lot of Motown, a lot of my town, and my dad was a Motown guy so that's the flip side of it was my dad was like super into like early soul, Motown, anything kind of with that R&B. Like strong vocal presence was to my dad. So I do have a soft spot for all of that as well. You know what was your first?
Speaker 1:what was your first taste of like? So I get a lot of man. So many people on that I've interviewed like the Smashing Pumpkins. Becomes like this thing for them. Yeah, yeah, the first time.
Speaker 2:Poster right there. Oh, is that their new album? That's the door, so that would have been right after they fired Jimmy Chamberlain. Okay, and that's kind of like their I'd call it their goth record you know, better term where they went super quiet and really, really chill. I think it's a beautiful album. I got this in like 99 or whenever from a record survivor. I just I love the cover art. So, somehow I've hung on to it all these years.
Speaker 1:So I mean like tell me a little bit about, like, I love Smashing Pumpkins, but literally it's a theme. I have talked to several different people who have always just named the Smashing Pumpkins as a huge influence and it's like this common thread, it seems like with everybody who got into kind of more harder music or, you know, experimental-ish type stuff like what's the threat there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you know I was hanging out in junior high with my buddy Jeff Shout out, jeff. I don't know where he ended up. We were really close anyway in junior high and you know that was like you know it's common theme that the age of alternative rock and grunge specifically was just blowing up. And you know I had seen Pearl Jam's unplugged performance and was just enamored. You know like I was just like wait, what Like music can be like this and it can be serious and like you know, because I'm kind of a serious guy, you know like so so that was kind of my first entry point really into alternative. You know Nirvana, obviously, soundgarden, all of these bands, but you know, through all of that my buddy Jeff bought the single soundtrack for that film. You know that took place in Seattle in the 90s and that was about the music scene.
Speaker 2:You know, Cameron Crowe, amazing director. Anyway, he bought the soundtrack and you know we were stoked because there were these Pearl Jam songs we never heard, you know, temple of the Dog songs, all this stuff going on, and the last track I believe it's the last track I'd have to look at the track listing but was a song called Drown by the Smashing Pumpkins and I had never heard the band and it came on and I was like wait, this doesn't sound anything like these other bands.
Speaker 2:It was bassy and beautiful and like deep textures. And you know, because there was no internet, you know, I couldn't look the band up, so I thought the singer was a woman. I mean, I thought Billy was a was a female the way his vocals were, and I was just intrigued by it and you know, and the song was like an eight and a half minute song and I never heard a song that long and that that was fascinating to me. And then, like I was like wait, you can make the whole end of the song like this four minute feedback loop with no vocals. It just kind of blew my mind in it.
Speaker 2:It made me realize, like you know, you can expand the rules, you know, right, and I think that's what initially attracted me to the band was just like their ambition. And I know that was not cool during that period of time with a lot of bands you were supposed to, like you know, shirk ambition or kind of right right, try to pretend like you were apathetic, you know. But I think that's what drew me to the band. Was that, that song, and then I just wanted to find everything I could, you know.
Speaker 1:I find, I find, like most altered, so, like you know, alice in Chains or I love Alice in Chains man. You know, like program, all those thinking about kind of now, just kind of, some of the social issues and things that they were just I don't know, just just not afraid to tackle and just not afraid to go after, like sometimes, when I think about some of the things that Pearl Jam wrote about or or, yeah, even nine inch nails or any of that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my big nine inch nails fan too. That came later in life, though I did not like them when I was younger.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, I meant Alice in Chains. For some reason I get nine inch nails and Alice in Chains. Very similar, yeah, yeah, I have no idea why it gets like crossed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the names kind of have a similar feel to them.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, that nine inch nails was too dark for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, honestly it scared me when I was young, but now, as an adult, they've become one of my favorite bands, just because I really respect Trent and his voice and his you know his intention you know, he's just a very intentional person.
Speaker 1:Do you ever see that video of him in like the pop band, in just all, all in black, like an old video of Maynard from Tool, like they're? They were playing, I guess, sober, but it was like way before they had formed Tool and it's like almost this kind of like poppy ish, like really fast right, and you're just like whoa, the evolution of these.
Speaker 2:I love seeing that. Like how did someone arrive to where you know they ended up? You know I was like that's interesting, that's.
Speaker 1:I love. I mean that's. That's the crux of what. What I love talking to people about, like where you know part of the podcast is like where have you been when, where are you currently and where you go Right.
Speaker 2:Like because everybody has a straight line either, you know how you kind of have to, like you know, have to pinball off of some things you know to kind of find your sweetest Sweet spot, I guess you know.
Speaker 1:So what are your voices? So why don't you start getting like, when do you pick up a guitar and then kind of move yourself more into, kind of like I guess how old were you when you guys kind of formed the?
Speaker 2:I think, I think, I want to say, I started pestering, pestering my mom for a guitar, you know, when I was probably like 14, somewhere around there, do you?
Speaker 1:remember what it was.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it was a Montana, acoustic it was a really cheap $150 acoustic guitar, but it was a guitar, you know, so that's all that mattered to me at that point. And you know, I started taking lessons at a local shop down the street, this guy named Keith, who was just I owe a lot to that guy, actually like he introduced me to like a lot of stuff that you know I was not really truly aware of, you know but, he really kind of pushed me down this rabbit hole of progressive music and like Rush and, yes, and you know even the later Arab beetle stuff which is really progressive and weird.
Speaker 2:Even so, you know I got a lot of my early Led Zeppelin. You know a lot of my early learnings were those bands, you know because he's like, if you're going to come in and learn from me, I'm going to teach you the stuff that I think is great, right, I'm like awesome, you know, and it kind of opened up this whole new world of music that preceded me. You know which you know instance way in. You know I still listen to a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 2:You know I unabashedly love Rush and will defend that band and hey man, yeah, so you know, maybe some more of the progressive leanings of maybe some of the stuff that I wouldn't say we were truly progressive any of the bands I've been in, but there is like elements of it. I think some of that seeps in from from from Keith you know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to say do you have an older brother or any siblings?
Speaker 2:No, I'm the eldest in my family. She's my sister and she's about two and a half years younger than me, because I can't tell you like how profound.
Speaker 1:I mean, granted, I have a good relationship with my brother, but like my brother's four and a half years older than me, so oh yeah, the stuff that he was bringing in. Or, just like you know, he's listening to pumpkins, he's listening to Pearl Jam and Zeppelin, and you know Steely Dan and like all these different bands. Right and just you know, we came from a conservative Christian family too, so a lot of it, you know. I mean not them, I mean my parents knew who they, who these people were. They were, they. Just, I don't know, we're a little more conservative with their music.
Speaker 1:So it's like yeah you know, like I remember very specifically like hiding, naughty by nature's like CD and playing it and playing it when they weren't around.
Speaker 2:I don't want to find OPP, you know like I don't want to explain it.
Speaker 1:My mom was really clueless about about a lot of things and for some reason my brother put this single of OPP on and just like my mom just was like completely clueless. But you know, there's this line in there and for some reason she had they had it on, like my brother somehow got her to put it on, and I just there's this line that says I did your partner because she's hot as a baker, not because I hate you, because I'm naughty by nature, and I like was listening and I was like I did your partner because you was hot as a baker. I'm like I must be like 10. Like I say it out loud and I just my brother just kicks the back of my chair and I'm like what.
Speaker 2:Like I do not say it in front of mom, yeah, and like really went over my mom's head, Like so yeah, so I, you know, kind of back to like Keith and stuff.
Speaker 1:I feel like people need like. There are these certain people. If you're lucky enough to have people in your life who kind of you know take an interest, oh, I think if you're like especially too if you're in a more conservative Christian family who kind of open up your eyes to like different ways of being or just like different sounds or tasting a little bit of like the you know forbidden fruit, something that's not like Carmen or DC, oh, yeah, which, yeah, I mean I had a lot of that, you know, kind of pushed, pushed across the table to me and like this is what you should listen to.
Speaker 2:But you know, I just it didn't resonate. And, yeah, I feel very lucky to have had that time at that music store and then I ended up working there part time in high school and that was just an amazing experience to just work in a guitar store and talk to people. One of the other guys that worked there, andy, he was in his mid twenties at the time and I thought he was so old and cool and you know, he introduced me to Jeff Buckley Grace and that blew my mind. And so, yeah, I was really lucky to kind of have some of those like people on the periphery that maybe weren't in my friend group but were in my sphere, that like introduced me to things that maybe I wouldn't have stumbled upon.
Speaker 2:But you know, once I got the bug, you know I couldn't stop. It was just like MTV all the time, 120 minutes all the time, alternative Nation, you know, and that was really informing me, you know, and it's hard to explain that to the younger generation because they didn't know that time, but MTV was pivotal, it was just like they were just throwing all of these bands at you and it was just, you know, constant, like, oh, I want to find the next thing, I want to find the next thing, and so, yeah, I also credit MTV.
Speaker 2:And then, like there were a couple of local record shops Ernie's comes to mind which they would stock a bunch of bootlegs. So I'd go over there and buy bootleg CDs when that was a big thing, and so I'd get all these rare, you know unheard live versions of pumpkin songs that were never put to tape. And so, you know, I just started, I was like rabid, you know, like at that stage of my life it was just like input, input, input, more music please. So yeah, it was just and I think I don't want to take the credit, or I do feel like amongst my friend group, I was one of the ones that was like coming up and being like hey, this new thing, hey, this new thing, like constantly wanting to intro bands to people, and I found the curation of that really fun, even as a teenager, so much so that ended up working in a record store in college and post right out of college, post college, and loved that talking bands and shop with people, so just kind of a nerd.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you find yourself in a high-fidelity situation. Yeah, just a music nerd man, yeah, and it sounds like well, I'm curious about, like what was that ravenessness, Like what? Like if you could pinpoint something inside of yourself, was it just youth, Was it, you know?
Speaker 2:hitting on something.
Speaker 2:You know, I think, kind of coming back to therapy, like I think in being in therapy for so long, I've really tried to explore the younger versions of myself, you know, and like who was that person and why was I attracted to these things? In a place of, like, forgiving my younger self and giving my younger self a little more grace, you know, yeah, but I think it's a couple of things. I think I've always felt a little bit uncomfortable in my own skin. I don't know what I attribute that to.
Speaker 2:I think maybe moving at a young age and like my life changing very drastically and going to a different state and being an introvert too, you know, and being kind of a shy kid, I think music just spoke to me because it was a way of expression that didn't use words and it felt comfortable, you know, I don't know. It just felt like, oh, you can express yourself in your emotions without speaking, and I found that to be extremely powerful and resonant, you know, within me. And I think as a kid that kind of didn't fit in. I wasn't like the outcast or any of that, you know Right, but I didn't run with the cool kids and there was a bit of just identity issues, I guess, and I think I dove into music because it gave me an identity and it spoke to me and it made me feel less alone in the world.
Speaker 1:I see. I think, that's really interesting. Just not to cut you off, but I've had conversations. I have conversations like this all the time with you know, I think, a lot of people my age because I see a lot of teenagers, I see a lot of you know where identity, where the things that we would grasp or cling onto when we were younger like for me it was music right and for some people it's, you know, being a sports player or like there's an identity you need to hang your hat on something right when you're younger, where you're just kind of like.
Speaker 1:I need something that I can relate to, that makes me feel like I'm part of something right.
Speaker 2:You need to thrive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you know, and like I was an emotional kid, like that's just. You know who I was, me too and you know that you know was constantly trying to think about like what my place was as a guy versus you know, like harnessing my own emotions and trying to figure those out. And you know I was completely relate, you know.
Speaker 1:and so there were. I had this very specific moment in mind, like, for me, one of the biggest, the seminal moments in some of my like listening is just there were bands, there were songs that just touched something inside of me that I was like I don't know, like it expresses an longing or an angst that, like, I just connect with that. I want more of this and I don't even know how to like.
Speaker 2:No, it's that not to jump in, but, yeah, I've always described it as like that hopeful melancholy. It's like this acknowledgement of the pain and the sadness and all of these things that exist in the human experience, but finding a way through that to find that shred of hope that we all need and cling to to get through our days, you know, and I think striking that balance musically, those are the bands that generally I've always been drawn to, where it's like a tragic optimism.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's not fatalism, right, it's not nihilism. I think that's why I can never really get into at least some versions of metal, just never appealed to me because it just felt so nihilistic, right. Anyway, yeah, I mean, sounds like you were a sensitive kid like me. I was very sensitive and still am, and that's just something I'm kind of coming around to in middle age and being okay in admitting that and accepting it.
Speaker 2:I think there's a real at least in my own journey and exploration of who am I that there's been kind of a circling back around to the sensitivity that maybe I suppressed or hid from people, maybe through my 20s when I was trying to prove myself, you know, and I think Lance, who I played in celebrity with and play in in parallel with, where he's a very sensitive individual and I think that's why we bonded with one another very quickly. But we always talk about the artist's brain, I think in order to be a channel and a vessel and I don't wanna get too metaphysical about it, but like you have to be open to like being able to tap into those like uncomfortable parts of existence, right? Yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, I'm a huge problem, or whatever it might be I'm a huge.
Speaker 1:well, I was like the band that opened up a lot for me was just the Counting Crows. My brother listened to lots.
Speaker 2:Oh, dude August and everything after is people forget. You know, if you come to the band now, it's easy to forget what they were. Oh yeah, and that record blew my mind. I was like, wait, a dude is singing about this stuff, right, right.
Speaker 1:Well the first, one of the first things that I ever you know, I actually never. This is a funny story, because the first stuff that I listened to I was always in the back of my brother's car, or I remember like we were driving down to Virginia on vacation so I had like stuff on my Walkman or whatever you know like kind of listening to, and they had a double disc live album that was called Across a Wire and it was I remember it. Yeah, so it was the VH1 storytellers that they did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I watched that one dude. I remember that.
Speaker 1:And so I remember the first time hearing around here, but it was the live version and his performance. Like he goes off into all these different you know, like his performances were otherworldly you know you're like where's it?
Speaker 1:you know he's, where's he going, yeah, where's he going with it. And so I learned all the melodies from the live album and so I knew the melodies only through that. And then I would throw on like recovering the satellites or August and everything after, and just be like wait a minute, like we sing along, and then just realize I didn't know the actual album. But that's what I loved, that so much.
Speaker 2:Oh man, yeah, Dude, those first few records are really, really phenomenal and I feel like, you know, the historical lens has maybe not given them the credit that maybe they were due.
Speaker 1:You know, there's a great podcast that I listened to that it's called like they just dissect albums and they did, or in bands and they did something on the Counting Crows and it was.
Speaker 2:It's because everyone thinks of like the Shrek song now.
Speaker 1:Right, that's what they associate with Counting Crows.
Speaker 2:It's like well, I get why you think you know it's kind of how. I feel about later era Weezer. You know it's like it'd be easy to come to it in their later age and forget how rad they were, you know.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah, and they still can belt out. I saw them like a few years ago with like Matchbox 20.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:But I that was the thing is I saw it and I was just like I don't even know half these songs, like yeah, bring me back. I think like the first big concert my brother brought me to was Counting Crows and Live.
Speaker 2:No, I like that. Throwing copper record a ton yeah.
Speaker 1:Which was just. I mean, it was the coolest thing for me.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah 15 year old kid like with my brother For sure, dude, you're like hanging with my brother and his friends. Yeah, yeah, it's like going to your first shows, man. I mean, that's life changing stuff, man.
Speaker 1:Right and to go from that. And then I had all these friends and this is kind of like an interesting transition that we're listening to like slipknot and heavy stuff and finding this kind of like aggression inside of me and that was kind of my precursor to getting into more like post hardcore. And hardcore and.
Speaker 2:And yeah, and all that.
Speaker 1:And all that stuff, and so, like, each thing brought out a different Emotional connection. Oh yeah, and so, like when I I mean, you know, frailty of words is a very Hard, chaotic record in a lot of ways, yeah, like, how did, how did you? Well, first of all, how the bands start.
Speaker 2:Oh, the band started. I was a freshman in college. I went to a school in Burlington, north Carolina, called Elon University not related to Elon Musk. Proceeded that guy, anyway, yeah. So we all grew up in church together. That's how we knew one another. Youth group kids yeah, we were. We were the oddballs. You know, that's how I'd describe this. We were the ones that, like the youth pastor, didn't know what to do with you know, right.
Speaker 2:We'd go to we'd show up to church and band T shirts and anyway, like we formed a form to share bond. And then it was just like you know, like I was saying earlier, we were just trading music with each other and we had an older friend named Chris Kincaid who was the first basest, who was on frailty, and he started to get into sub genres of music and he got found crank and deep Elm and Drawing a blank, like the first few promissory records J Tree Records that was and he just started buying stuff like sight unseen, never having heard it, and so we started finding a lot of, like you know, early I guess I'd say the Midwest emo stuff which just really spoke to me in particular. And yeah, so that was kind of the genesis of like finding not just alternative rock but weight. There's even these deeper sub genres and you know, obviously tooth and nail was huge for us. Solid state, yeah, where was?
Speaker 1:solid state index, like my obviously early introduction was I was MXPX, like that was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that was a lot of people's intro, I think, my intro to Seeing that there was spiritual bands that were playing music that was really Interesting and groundbreaking and pushing boundaries. You know, I used to go to this family Christian store and there was this girl that worked there named Julie T, and I could tell that she was punk. You know, because back then the way you dressed kind of informed everything, you know, the monoculture, everybody kind of like looks might be into punk, even though they're not, you know, but back then, if you, if you dress a certain way, it's like, well, that person's into what I'm exactly. Yeah, I started talking to her and she started recommending these bands. You know, starfly or 59 being an early one, the gold and silver records kind of kind of blew my mind. Plank Eye was another one, porolou, which ended up being one of my favorites, you know, I guess I'd say if, if you're counting Christian bands. But so, yeah, that that was a huge entry point.
Speaker 2:And you know, I had a friend well, not a friend, but in high school there was a couple of guys that I could tell were into punk, rock and hardcore and I was kind of intrigued by it. You know, yeah, I didn't fully understand the music and one day in algebra class, this guy, evan, you know, he'd wear a minor threat T-shirt. I felt like every day to class and he's like, hey, man, you like heavy music, right? And I was like, you know, because I like rage against machine and helmet and all that, I was starting to kind of venture into that kind of lane, so to speak. Yeah, I was like, yeah, you know, I like rage and stuff like that. And he's like, well, hey, you should come to this show, you know, I'm like, all right, you know, he hands me a flyer and we go, you know, and it's like I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like I get a community rec center or something. And I was just like, what is this?
Speaker 1:You know like yeah, I was just like intrigued.
Speaker 2:I was like these guys are playing a show that they set up. There's people here this probably would have been 95 or 96 somewhere around there, and yeah, that was kind of my entry point into Hardcore. And then, you know, going back to the record store, and like I think the first one I found was maybe overcome, blessed or the persecuted, and I was just like this dude's voice is just the angriest thing I've ever heard, you know, and at first I was like I didn't get it, you know, but I wanted to get it.
Speaker 2:It was one of those situations where you're like I'm intrigued and I want to keep listening to this, but I don't know why, and you know. Then that's what.
Speaker 1:That's what the Satellite Years was for me. That's very cool man. It was one of those things where, you know I'd kind of been introduced to just you know, some victory bands taking back something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think that's a lot of people's path was victory, you know yeah.
Speaker 1:And I just remember like I was going to to OREU, which is Orr Robert's University.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1:For I went there for two years but you know we kind of yeah, I kind of found a group of like seeing guys you know that's all we did which shows and like I you know that's the first time I saw a hopes fall with it. But I remember my friend Matt was just driving and he had a ton of different cities at rival schools and Jimmy World and Clarity and you know like like stuff like that, and he popped in a band and I was like this is like I don't like screaming vocals for the most part, but there's something, there was something about it that I was just like this is like just the right touch for me, like this is of like melody and aggressiveness and it just grabbed me for some reason and I was like who?
Speaker 2:is this.
Speaker 1:And my friend was like, oh, this is this band. Hopes fall. And that was. That was my, my introduction to the satellite years. That's so cool and that was the first.
Speaker 2:That was my gateway into a lot of harder things like yeah, which makes sense, and I totally forgot and didn't answer your original question about frailty and how chaotic it was, but I think we were. You know we were figuring ourselves out on that first record. You know we were figuring out how to write a song, first of all, what we are, what is our voice, what you know, what's our thing. Right, you know, and I think you hear us figuring that out on that record. You know, I think that probably attributes to some of the chaos of it.
Speaker 2:And also you know we were listening to a lot of like training for Utopia and, yeah, you know, coalesce and like some of these more chaotic bands which I think Earlier on that was, I don't want to say, it just kind of piqued our interest. But you know, there was this old video I saw of you guys at Cornerstone.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I think you start off with.
Speaker 1:I think it's called the men. Is that the instrumental? That's right. And then it like Hard transition and you guys are just like In it, like yeah, it was, it's. It's such an interesting transition. I've seen some old videos of Chris on bass and stuff like that and that meant that that guy went hard. Oh, he went really hard. Yeah, I mean he went super hard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, I don't know what to attribute that to, other than just like youthful energy. And you know, I, I, I, I, I, I, I always enjoy lulling the audience like right out of the gate, I don't know why, like I just I would go see all these hardcore bands and like they would just like stack like their most brutal, you know, breakdown up front, and I was just like you know, like that's cool, but like what if we thought about this differently and started with something beautiful and like kind of set the tone? And then to me, in my own mind and this I can be totally off but like setting that kind of serenity at the front, when you, when you left the serenity and then went into the chaos, it was that much more jarring. You know, and that's what I wanted, and what we wanted to do was like I always wanted to catch the audience off guard and not from a place of like being a contrarian or any of that.
Speaker 2:Just like how can we think about this genre of music in a way that maybe you know some of the beat down bands or mosh bands aren't doing? You know, because I knew that wasn't me, I'm not like that's, that's not what I'm drawn to and I'm not bagging those, those types of bands I mean, there's a lot of great mosh bands, but I just knew that wasn't us, you know, and I think we all knew that. So it was like let's lean into this kind of other thing that we know we can do, and I do think it it linked itself to maybe catching the audience off guard a little bit, and that was the. That was the intended result.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, when I think about you know, I think that's that for me at least, that that's part of what drew me in with the, the like beautiful guitar parts, and then, mixed in with some of this, it's encompassed a lot of different emotions. At one point, right Like for for I don't know what in in tension is, and there's a whole another you know, dialogue you can have about, like artist intent versus what's received and interpreted, and all that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not up to. It's not up to you, to the artist. You know how you receive it is how you receive it, right, and all I can do is, you know, and all the band can do, is kind of put the energy that we wanted into it and hope that maybe a fraction of it resonated, whether that's the pretty stuff or the heavy stuff or whatever. Well, I think it's watching.
Speaker 1:when I went to Furnace Fest in 21, like which I was, you know that that was an amazing experience, but, yeah, I'm sad I missed it.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's.
Speaker 1:it was a difficult, a difficult time in general, but there's a thing for me, same for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there is a. There is a part you know, is it April left with silence? That just kind of has an instrumental that I pray you find that's that's April left with silence or is that end of an era, end of an era, right? That part I just I just remember and like, when it gets to that part, like Jay was just kind of sitting there just like looking over the crowd and it was just this really weird, not weird like it was just a surreal, like beautiful experience that everybody in the crowd you could, you could feel right, and and just the instrumental parts and that you guys had, and even the what was the dude. I feel like an idiot now because it's okay.
Speaker 2:I'm not.
Speaker 1:I'm not hold the sky. Sorry yeah, all this guy.
Speaker 2:I can't remember half of the song.
Speaker 1:There's he's like there's, he's like breathing parts. You know that happen, yeah, and it just allows the music to kind of capture people right. And you could, yeah, you could tell the people who were into like the much older stuff. And then you know, I have been into the whole catalog for a really long time but but just kind of I don't know the kind of like for lack of a better word like like say a lot, you know, say the rest, the pause, where you're able just to kind of like sit and experience. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:I call it like, like the trans effect, right? Yeah, like I'm always drawn to that and even as a player like, those are my favorite parts of the songs to play. Like you know, it's not the riffs for me, even though those can be fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's. I wait For those trans, like parts, you know, and that's what it is to me, and it's a meditation in a way. Yeah, you know for myself, I'm only speaking personally. I can't speak for all the guys, but, like you know, that section of in the Venera is meditative.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:To play it and it, it. It's like a, a balm or something, I don't know Right. It calms me down and it centers my thoughts and quiet my mind, and I think that's what I'm always trying. I'm always trying to find that, you know, because I don't have a quiet mind.
Speaker 1:Right yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my mind is like very busy and and I'm an overthinker, you know. So finding those moments for me is powerful. Right, it means a lot to me to hear that maybe other people tap into that or pick up on it.
Speaker 1:Oh, it is. I think it's what makes you know what the beauty of, of of these interviews I get to do is like. Sometimes there's just self discovery within myself. Yeah, like, oh, that's it. That's what it is, it's it for me. What draws me is that meditative, contemplative part that, like is sets. Sets because you can have hard and you can have fast and you can have chaos like I just yeah.
Speaker 1:But at the same time, I I was always trying to pinpoint like what? Why does this music in general just like speak to me? It's not just the ethereal stuff, it's, it's the breathing. And like when I found that when I was in college, like it just, it just hit differently in a way and I was like, wow, what a mix of like the duality of how I feel and you know, we're like you know powerful, like Doug's screaming, and I'm like this is, this is the aggression part you know like for myself, and then just meditate and just appreciating that other side of me.
Speaker 1:That's like I'm.
Speaker 2:I'm also a Count and Crows fan, so you know, letting that breathe and I think that's you know I mean speaking, you know, from my own perspective. I think I can't do heavy all the time, man, you know, it's just not me and it's I love. I love a lot of bands that are just strictly heavy right, like they just pummel you and but those aren't the records that like I'm going to go back to again and again. Like I'll go back to it when I need that fix right, yeah, that fix of I'm having a tough day or I want to work out, or whatever it might be something to amp me up. But generally most of my favorite records have ebbs and flows. You know, it's like different emotions, different things coming to the surface, because I think it more broadly reflects the human experience. You know I can't be angry all the time, you know right.
Speaker 2:I certainly deal with anger issues, for sure, you know. But I don't want to live in that all the time.
Speaker 1:I want to find rest, and sometimes those quiet moments are rest, you know yeah yeah, Kind of going back, I think, because I went to a theological seminary that was a psychology school too. It's kind of a dual punch, but like yeah, that's a lot, yeah, lots of unpack A lot of deconstruction, a lot of reconstruction a lot of like all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but they, it's the concept of Sabbath, you know, of just like not doing anything and just resting and contemplation and you know it's, it's, it's neat, like Sabbath is an incredibly beautiful concept that it is, and it's awesome, and it's one of those things to you that is undervalued, you know, yeah, we're so obsessed with busyness and and product productivity and all of these things, you know.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I'm curious it just really quickly, like I mean we could talk all day about what hopes for was, you know, and just like the impact that it that it had. But you know I've listened to other podcasts that I think I listened to the label podcast that you were on and every band has a story, you know and like that. And bands are such a hard thing. They really are.
Speaker 1:To be in a to be in a situation where you take you know four or five people and try and get them on the same page. Holy moly, like you know, it's difficult to do that with people that you know, your own family Right. So like conflicting ideas, like that, I don't know what was that. What was that time of life like for you?
Speaker 2:You have an end of an era.
Speaker 2:It was, I mean my you know my time period in the band was roughly four and a half to five years, like if you're counting the initial run right Like when I was a young, a young young person. So it was just. You know I'm not I don't think I'm exaggerating when I when I say that we lived and breathed it. It's all we cared about. Yeah, it was literally all I cared about, and you know all the energy went into it and you know we were rehearsing three, four, five days a week for hours, like hours of time, like we would go up there on like a Sunday and practice from like one until five. You know it was just sheer insanity when I think back on it, but you know that's what you do when you're young and you have an idea and you want to express it.
Speaker 2:I really think that's kind of that was the energy. We had ideas and we wanted to express them. That was it. It was just like I didn't even care. It was like I don't care if I make money doing this, right, I just want, I have this thing and I need to get it out and I need to put it into the universe, and you know. So it was just like it was obsession man. That's the only way I can like. My whole identity was wrapped up in it at that time in my life. You know, for better and for worse it was both a good thing and a terrible thing, if I'm being honest.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm sure. Yeah, you know, as a young man who didn't really know himself.
Speaker 2:I'm still, am you know? Anyway, it just the group of us was just.
Speaker 2:It was like this is it, this is what we're doing, and that was that you know, there was no like you know, until it wasn't you know, and then I spun out, you know, but yeah, I just remember that was it, that was my life and you know, I was going to college at the same time and certainly I was wanting to make good grades and do all of that and have a degree, but the focus was the band Right and that initial run was just intense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it seems like I mean like intense and beautiful and like and sad and like it's just like how we're talking about how songs have been flow. That was the experience in the band as well, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I remember the numbers and figuring that out and you know, continuing to evolve stylistically and like wanting to challenge ourselves and not repeat ourselves, and how do we keep pushing this envelope? You know, yeah, we were just making stuff that excited us. To be honest. It's like do you think this is exciting? Cool, okay, I do too. Let's keep going.
Speaker 1:And it seems like it was a special time and place too. It feels like what happened during those years. I don't know how much that could be replicated.
Speaker 2:It can't. I mean, it's a time like you can't go back and recreate what was man, and anyone that thinks they can is lying to themselves. That's just my opinion, it's not from a place of like. You can't rekindle or redefine or rediscover, but you can't be who you were then and you know. Who I was then was not dissimilar from who I am now. I just have more life experience now to be able to look back and handle things more maturely, you know, than I did I was talking to a friend yesterday.
Speaker 1:He for the podcast, his name is Joe and he was in a band called Edison Glass. And they were my friends for Joe. Joe actually lives in Tennessee. His name is Joe Moore and I'm familiar with the.
Speaker 2:I'm familiar with the band.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they were my college buddies. Like growing up. I've roomed with with them and all that stuff. But like he said? He said something to the effect of looking back like and I was like this is a really good therapy line Like we, we are.
Speaker 1:we were who we needed to become like in those times you know, and so, like when you're looking back on mistakes or things like that, it's it's, it's out of and, especially at that age, it's out of survival and especially if you're touring and doing all these things, like you're living, you're surviving, you know, for the most part and it's like a fun survival because you could do that. But when you're 40, you can't do that, you know, and like I also just don't, like I don't see that type of organic scene. I guess, like when I was saying, like recreate it, like I don't know.
Speaker 2:I mean, you live in Nashville, yeah, I'm in Nashville now, yeah, I've been here 20 years I mean, the music scene is huge, obviously.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, but you're surrounded by people that can outplay you here for sure.
Speaker 1:There's something. There was something that just felt really organic about what was going on in terms of like shows being put on or just you know different records and yeah, yeah, that that there's different grassroots, now I'm assuming. But I mean was, I mean there's? There's so much I could ask you right, and I like to try and toe toe the line between, like, past and present.
Speaker 2:But like dude, I'm whatever you got. I'm happy to answer man no matter how? How surface level or how deep you want to go.
Speaker 1:Well, just did you realize? I mean, look, I mean there's you and and then there's younger, you Like, did you realize that people would still be listening to this stuff? People would still be impacted? No, like, how do you think about that? 100% as it's going on versus you know, as a, as a wiser, like looking back.
Speaker 2:It blows my mind. I mean, like no joke. We had a text thread last week when satellite years 2.0 went up, you know, and we're all on the thread together. You know, and you know, we were just blown away. You know, every last one of us was just like I can't, I don't understand. You know, and I still don't understand. You know, the fact that you want to talk to me or that anybody wants to talk to me. You know, it's one of those things that I still don't grasp. You know, because you know and I am, I'm not like, I am just a normal dude, you know, like, like I'm not special, I'm not like, I just made this thing, we made this thing, you know, and it resonated for some reason, and I don't even truly know why. You know, for the same reason, but it's beautiful, you know, it's one of those things that I'm like, I'm grateful you know, like I'm grateful that people care.
Speaker 2:You know at all that I made something and then someone sits down with it and digests it and it informs something for them. You know, like that, that's what I always like. I think back to young me listening to my favorite records, you know, and like just being obsessive, like just every detail I wanted to understand and comprehend and, like you know, as a music fan and as a music nerd, like I obsess over those things.
Speaker 2:You know, and how to know that someone else out there is doing the same thing with something that I created. It just it's mind blowing to me, like because those that vinyl sold out so freaking fast it was ridiculous.
Speaker 1:I'm lucky my friend was at furnace fast because, dude, that was like nuts.
Speaker 2:It was nuts and you know it. Just for me I'm just speaking personally, not for everybody it was redemptive for me last week, and what I mean by that is like there was a lot of turmoil in the band when we made that record and I think it, you know, and I exited in a way that was not great, okay, and and there was an emotional fallout from that experience that lasted a long time for me. I mean, that's what? One of the things that pushed me to therapy, if I'm being 100% honest, was that experience and, you know, feeling unmoored after that, like. So so to see that last week it just it was redemptive. It was like it kind of took some of those rough edges you know that I had for the satellite years and it and it kind of sanded them down and it's like that's powerful for me 20 years later, 21 years later, to be able to be like oh, wow.
Speaker 2:What it feels, good it feels good, but also it's deeper than feeling good. For me it was healing in a way.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it and it.
Speaker 1:I've heard Adam talk before just about I. Here's the thing I was really. I was a little hesitant to listen to it.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:I understand why, you know, and, and I was, like there's sometimes when bands go touring and things like that, that like I've had the fortune of, like you know, being a part of seeing so many bands that got so big and you know being able to, to, to just have that experience, you know, like seeing Koei and Cameron in a small club or you know, before things like you're just like these, these intimate moments that I want to remember, that I don't want to try and recreate again. Yep, you know that I'm like, look, if I went and saw them, it would be in a totally different experience and I just kind of want to like encapsulate like that in my, in my head, as the experience that I had. I get it, you know, but I also knew that because when, when the Arbiter album came out, I corresponded to you Very record yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I corresponded pretty heavily with with Adam because I was doing a whole like I made a beer for the thing and like all that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember that, and I mean you know which was, was, was amazing and to you know, just knowing that that mix was not satisfactory, you know, for a lot of the band, or like how it, how it kind of turned out, and you know in his own words, so to have, like you know, a redemptive, even like we're going to try and do this some justice, like the way we kind of wanted it to be, and it's it's a, it's a there's a time and place for both albums, right, like there's things that I hear that are coming, like some of the more acoustic guitar parts like amazing. You know what I mean. Like and it does justice. But there was a hesitation of like I get it. You know, I don't know. So my question is like, were you, were you hesitant about that process?
Speaker 2:No, no, not at all. I think I approached the process with the idea that I only wanted to do it if we could honor the record, and what I mean by that is honor what it, what it was, but also honor what it should have been. And I, and I'm like, if fans like the first version, better, I get it, I get it. But I hated that record, like hated it like so much so that I could not listen to it. Like I'll never forget the first time I listened to it and I was just like you've got to be kidding me Like I, like I can't express how much I disliked it Like it felt like a total I'm just speaking candidly. From my perspective, it felt like a total failure of everything that we wanted to do with it. And what I mean by that is the intention of what we put to tape was true, right, all of that was true. It was all lost in the mix, right, it wasn't our intention while we were tracking it. All of that was great, right, the sounds we were getting to tape were good. It was the mix.
Speaker 2:And the mix just was so murky and muddy and there was no separation in the instruments and you know, it just felt messy and so when this opportunity presented itself, I, you know, I was like yeah, yeah, let's do it. You know, like because I want to hear what we had wanted it to sound like, and I do believe that 2.0 sounds the way we would have wanted it to sound in 2002. Yeah, through the lens of maturity, through the lens of knowing what we're doing now, because we were green man Like we, you know, we didn't know how to express like hey, you know, I need like the EQ, like 1K EQ, dial back or all these things. You know, we were just kids, like going for it. So, you know, as I've aged, I've, you know, I've learned a thing or two about audio and how to express it in a way that makes sense to a mix engineer.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I think that's my question. Was there no like when you got the mix back, were you just like, like? Was there any pushback on it?
Speaker 2:I don't know but I don't know how that process played out because I was out of the band. Okay, so we had tracked the record.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's even worse then.
Speaker 2:We tracked the record, you know, for two and a half or three weeks, I want to say, in Illinois with Matt from Hum yeah, and we had a week off after tracking and then my recollection was we were going to go back to Chicago to finish mixing with Keith Cleversley who mixed you'd prefer an astronaut? Which?
Speaker 1:is one of my favorite records of all time.
Speaker 2:Anyway, in between on that break is when they asked me to leave the band, so I didn't get to participate in the mix, you know. So that was a sore spot.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I'll be honest, it's water under the bridge now, sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm in good graces with everybody. We love one another. It's a brotherhood at this point. But you know, at the time you know things were very not on good terms and so, yeah, they mixed the record. I wasn't there, I wouldn't have been able to correct the failures of that mix, but the fact that I didn't get to have input that hurt a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess, colored my listening experience with the record for many years. I don't know if they had a pushback. My assumption would be and Josh or Adam could speak to this better than me my assumption would be we just ran out of money. And it was like this is the mix you know. The label was probably like and this is me assuming, but knowing how those things go back then it was probably like hey, the money's gone.
Speaker 1:Right right.
Speaker 2:There's nothing we can do about this. Yeah, there's nothing we can do about it. So, you know, we all just kind of lived with it and strangely, the record had legs, even despite all of that which speaks, you know, which speaks to the material. I think you know that people could see past that, you know, and see the heart of the song and the heart of the record. You know Right right, which is amazing.
Speaker 1:It feels like you know the if I was to put myself into your shoes, which you know, I don't know anything around the surrounding of you leaving, but being like being asked to leave versus it being a mutual decision or any of those things like your what you know, to take something that you've cultured and made in a collaborative effort, but also like this is this is this is your child right, like, in a sense this is something that you've put so much time and energy for sure, and then to have that representation.
Speaker 1:It seems like if I was in your shoes I would have felt like so much was robbed right Like in in the, in that process, not getting to have anything any say or you know, in some of this stuff, and so it. I could see how that would add an extra level of like.
Speaker 2:Yeah, complexity I mean, I can't.
Speaker 2:I can't unentangle the emotions from that period of my life, away from it. Even though I've worked through most of it, you know, and I've made peace with it, I still it still brings up those emotions, you know, and, like you know, to be 100% candid, you know the day it dropped on streaming, you know I'd listen to it as we were providing notes for 2.0 and in all of that, so I knew what was coming. But to have it official, I put it on. I got to work early, put my headphones in and nobody was there, because I'm usually the one of the first people into the office because I have young kids, so I'm up all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I put it on. I'm like you know what I'm just going to like sit, I'm just going to sit and listen and I mean I got emotional man Like I mean the end of only the clouds, you know like it made me cry.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean it really did, because it was like, you know, 21 years of life that is just snapped, you know, yeah, and it was both a reminder of my love for those guys but it was also a reminder of, like, who I've become, you know, and it was just extremely powerful. And, you know, I hope the fans hear that and I hope they give it a chance, because it moved me and I felt unmovable for so long around that record. You know, and I don't know if that answer is kind of your question- that's a really beautiful thing.
Speaker 1:I think there's, you know, to be a fan versus to be a part of the experience. It's two separate experiences, yeah, and like the emotionality or what you're putting into the music or the intent, like all those things matter heavily in the process, you know, and like I will say I mean kind of circle back to, like, you talking about being robbed.
Speaker 2:I don't. I know what you're saying there. I don't know if I would describe it in that way. I think I would describe it in the sense that you're leaving something unfinished. And for someone like me who is wired to be a perfectionist and is highly self critical you know I'm my own worst critic in many ways, you know, I think it just always felt unfinished to me and I hate that feeling of like leaving something not done or not complete. You know, yeah, and it altered the course of my life, you know. I mean that that moment in time, you know April or May of 2002, whenever that happened somewhere in there was the spring, that's all I really remember, but yeah, I altered the course of my life.
Speaker 2:I mean my life changed after that dramatically. You know, I moved to Nashville and I met my wife and, you know, joined another band.
Speaker 1:I remember. So that's, I saw a celebrity. I saw you on tour with Hope's Fall when was that. This was, do you remember when? I think it was somewhere in Oklahoma.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, yeah, it was you.
Speaker 1:Julianna Theory, and I think it was Julianna.
Speaker 2:Theory, that's Copeland. Copeland is on one of those legs. Yeah, the Fine Brothers, the drummer and bass player and celebrity, were Oklahoma natives.
Speaker 1:They grew up in Oklahoma City.
Speaker 2:So we played there all the time because we had a solid fan base there because of them, so we always had good shows there.
Speaker 1:So I was just thinking about like what were you on good enough terms at that point? Because they were touring satellite years?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we toured with Hope's Fall. Yeah, that was who I like. If there was a motion, I mean I'll be 100% honest. It was extremely difficult. Yeah, you know, because we were not on good terms. I mean we were not ignoring one another, you know, hey, what's up, you know that kind of thing, but it was hard. I'd say what was hardest about it is like being the opening band on that bill and like people filing in to see your band and they're half interested because they didn't come to see your band, they came to see Julianna Theory or Hope's Fall. It was very humbling. I'll say that.
Speaker 1:I mean if it makes you feel any better. What I remember from that show is at some point my friend turned to me and said I think the singer from Hostel just threw up behind the stage. That was like the memorable part of the show.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I mean, dude, the band went hard back then. I mean Brigham used to throw up a lot Like after shows, like the headbanging was just so crazy. But yeah, yeah, I mean it. It wasn't all bad though. I mean I loved touring and celebrity.
Speaker 1:It was like, well, that makes me question. Like if it was, if it was an uncomfortable thing, yeah, why were you guys? Why would you tour together?
Speaker 2:You know the machine, you know.
Speaker 1:First fight.
Speaker 2:No, the music industry. You know, our manager managed Julianna Theory. So the manager of Celebrity managed Julianna Theory and he's like, hey, they're going out, you guys should open. It seems like somewhat of a fit you know Sure.
Speaker 2:Even though I would probably debate that. But yeah, you know, and it just so happened that Hope's Fall is support, you know, and it's like well, am I going to turn down this opportunity? Like, is my ego that big? It wasn't at the time, you know, and I think I was so interested in doing something new and striking out and finding another voice for myself that I was willing to take the ego hit of watching my old band every night. Yeah, you know, watching their merch table have a long line, you know, and you know it sounds petty as hell, but you know, it's like that's a thing.
Speaker 2:A lot of people didn't even know that I was the guy that helped write that record, you know. So it was a good lesson, and there was a good lesson in ego check and. But it also pushed me to become a better performer and a better guitar player, and I mean this 100%. It's not that I wasn't upset about the way those things played out, but I was fully devoted to celebrity at that point. I mean, that's where I wanted to be, that was the band that I wanted to be in and in some ways and this is not a slight to hopes fall it was just a more natural fit for my style of playing. You know, left to my own devices, I play guitar more like celebrity than I do hopes fall, you know.
Speaker 2:And what I mean by that is like genre of music, like okay, so I was if I'm going to put a record on, you know I'm going to put on Teenage Rist. You know I'm not going to put on like whatever the new heavy thing is. I'm going to put on like an alternative rock oriented type of album. So you know, kind of sliding into celebrity, it was just a really natural progression for me and I really just wanted to make that band the best it can be, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, What'd you guys? You had two full lengths, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did a Love Sick, which is the record I joined on. It was about halfway recorded when I moved to Nashville.
Speaker 1:A great record, you know, I was listening to it today and one of them I was like this there was like a dishwalla vibe, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:There's certainly some dishwalla in there and you know I love that type of stuff. But yeah, so I came in on that, I played a few songs on that record and then we did Mining for Twilight afterwards, which is an extremely dark record. It's a divorce record. That's what Lance was going through at the time, so you can definitely hear it and I was a writer on that record. They really welcomed me into the band. It was very they're like dude, we want you to contribute, you know. And I was excited to flex some of those muscles that maybe I didn't get to flex as much in Hopesfall, which is more ambience and vibe versus riff, riff you know, based rock, which I love that too.
Speaker 2:So yeah, they kind of gave me carte blanche or like dude, do you like whatever you do, do that. And we just all the reverb pedals, yeah and dude and honestly that was so fun for me what to like, focus on effects and think about playing off the vocal versus playing a riff and like it made me a more nuanced player being in that band and helped me think about that. It helped me think differently about songs, you know.
Speaker 1:And did that roll over? I mean, is celebrity is in parallel, definitely has.
Speaker 2:It's 34. Yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:I mean it's incestuous. You know, in parallel is three fourths of celebrity, so it's celebrity minus the drummer and honestly, it's kind of celebrity 2.0 in a way, because our drummer in parallel was the producer for celebrity, so there was already a natural kinship there musically, so that, you know, when Matt, our original drummer and celebrity, decided he was going to hang it up and he owns a bunch of salons now and that's that's kind of his gig. You know, we're like well, Mark, you're the next natural fit. And when we started in parallel, it was just kind of a it was a three piece at first, just me, Jesse and Lance and Mark. On the record that came out in 2020 fashion, or Mark was like I want to be a full member and we're like come on, let's do it.
Speaker 1:I was. I was going to ask, like kind of going back a little bit to redemption, was there any redemption in your 2011? Like reunion, totally?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, absolutely, that was different. Live and recording are different to me, and to perform with the band, live again, certainly was healing, absolutely. You know, to see the fans, to talk to the fans, which was always one of my favorite things to do, you know, just hearing people's stories. I'm endlessly fascinated by people and, yeah, that was a beautiful experience. Man had a blast doing it. It was nice to see Doug.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't think anybody had seen him in a really long time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to be with Doug again was wonderful. To be with Pat you know I hadn't seen Pat in a long time yeah, and the shows were great. They were fun and well attended and we got to do them with our friends, you know, like the play shows with Harvard and Code 7. I mean, come on, you know it's like that North Carolina bond you know is special. So, yeah, I loved it. I had a blast.
Speaker 1:Did you have any interest in playing any of the shows that the guys were doing for the Satellite Years, or oh yeah?
Speaker 2:I mean, it's not a question of desire, right Logistics, it's a question of logistics for me. I'm the only member not in North Carolina. Yeah, so it's about you know, before kids, seven hour drive, after kids, you know in eight and a half hour drive.
Speaker 1:Right, and it's a totally different ball game. I mean, I know that you're the only one who has younger kids at this point Jay has younger kids. Oh, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Jay is about to have his third any day now. So Jay and I's kids are right in the same age bracket. Yeah, you know, Jay was in Chicago for many years and he ended up moving back to North Carolina. So he's back in town. So it makes it much more palatable and easy for him to show up for rehearsal. You know, for me there's just a lot of hoops that have to be jumped through to make it happen. So that's really the reason you know it's not from a lack of wanting, it's.
Speaker 2:you know logistics and timing it's. You know, and you know when we're. You know this like PTO and like how much time do I have off for my job? And like how much of that do I use with my family, which is the most important thing to me, or my girls, and you know so it's adult stuff, man. You know it's like I would love to be up there playing. I just haven't been able to fit it in, you know, without sacrificing large chunks with my family. And right now, you know that's what has taken precedence, and rightfully so. You know I've got two very young girls and you know what that entails. You know it's constant and you know.
Speaker 1:and do you get hit as much as I do with my boys and wrestling?
Speaker 2:My first daughter, remy, is extremely physical, extremely physical, like she wants to be climbing on you at all times. You ever had those moments where you're just like all the time I'm touched out. Every like by noon, every day, I'm touched out, you know, but you know it's part of the gig.
Speaker 1:And totally.
Speaker 2:And I don't want to. It's not, you know. I want to be careful in how I talk about it because I show up for my kids you know, even when I'm touched out, I'm showing up.
Speaker 2:So, but yeah, I mean that's where things stand right now. You know the door has always been left open. You know the guys have been like look, if you can make one happen, let us know. We'd love to have you, you know. So it's not off the table, it's just I've had to hit pause, essentially right now, at this stage of my life, just because there's there just hasn't been enough time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because I was in North.
Speaker 2:Carolina, I would be on up there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, For sure. Like I don't know, there's just so much funny things about being a parent that you know it's, I find being, being. You know, I'm 40. And so being 44.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so like it's hard, you know, thinking that like so my nephews like I said, I was four years older than me. My nephews are 16 and 13. And it's weird being in a different space and also just kind of like as my energy levels and things like that it's. You know, sometimes it's just I want, I man, I want to wrestle, but my knees are so jacked up right now, you know like different things like that are.
Speaker 1:Like my son, like just randomly, like hopped on me and I was like, oh, my girl, something like that and it's parenthood is just it is wild. It is wild and I'm going to describe it?
Speaker 2:It is feral, it is just crazy. But you know, man, it's like nothing has changed my perspective more than caring for two children, man. Oh yeah Sounds insane but like no, it's not, it's my perspective.
Speaker 1:Another parent doesn't sound, so yeah, it just.
Speaker 2:I don't know about you, man, but like I was a reluctant dad, and what I mean by that is I wasn't rushing towards being a father, it's not. I was not resistant to it, I just didn't grow up around kids. Yeah, I'm from a very small family. There weren't little kids running around, and so, you know, I was like hesitant, you know, and but man, they've just changed.
Speaker 1:They've changed me deeply and there's a joy that I never knew until I had had my sons.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, you know it's otherworldly man Like it. Like the depths of the way I describe it is like it's like my daughters have opened up this pathway. You know in my heart that I didn't know was there, and through therapy and talking about it and being a new dad and all that like they also have helped me rediscover that sensitive little dude. You know that like existed before. Life just, you know, hits you, you know, and like I've been able to tap back into this like emotional part of me that I maybe had repressed, if I'm being honest, like and that's a beautiful thing. So, yeah, I've just been trying to lean into it. Man, you know as exhausting as it is, you know. You know it's like you get to the end of the day and you're like I feel like I live 10 days today. Yeah, yeah you know and I'm like how?
Speaker 2:and like right now, talking to you, I'm like how am I going to wake up tomorrow and do that again? But you do it, yep, you do it. You wake up and you do it and somehow you find the ability to do it and you know, you adapt, you adapt and I don't know, man it's. I don't want to hallmark card it because there's a lot of it's hard. It's the hardest thing I've ever done.
Speaker 1:I think, yeah, I think it's one of those. It's one of those things that, like it's the most unique experience I've ever been. I've never been so utterly exhausted one moment and laughing my ass off another. And you know, hugging my kids or just you know, just like trying to treasure whatever time you know that I have as they're growing older and just trying to be present you know, dude, that is the word man present and like.
Speaker 2:That's what has been very helpful for me, as being an overthinker is like Remy is in the moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I walked in the day, dad, let's play cars. I mean, as soon as I walk in, that's the first thing she says. All right, all right, let's go play cars. Kid, where do you?
Speaker 1:want to go yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, and we play my matchbox cars and she's just thrilled, you know, and it for me it's always like it's a level set, yeah.
Speaker 1:There was something that was like she doesn't care about the band.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, she doesn't care about any of this. Yeah, she could give two shits about any of that. All she wants is me, in that moment, to play with her Right, and there's something for someone that is always thinking ahead or thinking in reverse. It's been profound for me, yeah, you know, and it's really helped me with, like, my struggles with depression, which I've battled all of my adult life. You know it's. I don't know it's just it's. It's been really beautiful for me.
Speaker 1:I was. I was thinking when I one of the things I never intended to get into child and adolescent therapy, but it just that was how it went down and it just kept going down that path. So I did that for quite a few years. But I remember my child and adolescent class. I had a professor who was was like you must learn to play, you must learn to play again. You must learn, you must learn to be a kid again. And I get chills when I say that, because the invitation to play right, the invitation to, to, to, to be, to be childlike, and it's, it's like you have to meet them on their level, right.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and they can sense it man oh yeah, you know it's like they know if you're phoning it in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, and just I was fortunate enough to because I had to with to be, in order to be an effective therapist with younger kids, kids who were going through extraordinary things you know, just tons of foster kids and trauma and like all this stuff it's, it's healing. But I had to let go of like I found a lot of joy and inhibition and just being able to play again you know, and to get that sense, you know, and and not care.
Speaker 2:You know, I think that's what's beautiful about it is like I find myself like in public. You know, if we're out and Remy wants to play, whether it's like hey dad, I want to make you dizzy and we spin in circles, or whatever it is, you know like I don't even think twice. I don't care what anybody thinks. Yeah, you know, I'm just like, if this is what Remy wants and if this is what's going to help her connect with me, right, which is all she wants she just wants connection. We all want connection, like what you and I are doing right now. You know, you just want to feel heard and seen. And you know it's like I just like someone who's guarded and reserved About stuff like that. Like it is like it's been amazing for me to just like I don't care if, like, we're waiting in the whole foods line and she wants to do that, it's like all right, kid, let's do it, yeah.
Speaker 1:I. One of the things that's been really interesting for me and parenting is is, you know, sometimes I for myself, I have to keep in mind that what I know now is, through the big, the way that I view how my parents raised me, or like the concepts that I maybe look back and are like this is how this affected me and that affected me, like if there's anything that working with kids has taught me, is like how resilient kids are and like when I come, I man, I have to keep my own issues at bay when I'm parenting my kid Right and I like not just like whatever anger, frustration I have, but also reme remembering that, like there, I because of maybe my own stuff, of not wanting to see my child get hurt or feel hurt or any of those- things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think of remembering, having to remind myself that, like my child is not me and I have the benefit, I had the benefit of looking back on all this stuff when I was a kid and in the moment it was, it was the moment Right, and I wasn't thinking about like whatever emotional trauma, like you know what I mean, like are trying to prevent that, or you know I was just.
Speaker 1:You know the things that I needed food, water, shelter, and just like, do my parents love me, my parents spend time with me? Like that's what I needed. And you know, as as a dealing with teenagers today, sometimes there's this kind of concept that I think about, where I feel like it's there's some form of what I call like trauma parenting, where it's like we have the benefit of these different things and looking back we're looking back with adult minds, right, and I think that, like our kids need to go through hard things, they need to go, you know, they need to become resilient, like the way that we help that those, to help them through their emotions and just not let them sink or swim or not tell them to shut up or not, tell you know, and I mean it's like the amount of people that I sit in therapy with, where it's like who taught you not just about like what the emotion is, but how to get through it? And just like coaching my son of like I know you're frustrated, like oh man, we're dealing with that last night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what do we do about that, you know, or like, how do we deal with that? There's something you know through through the therapy process to where kids want attention. There's no worse thing than no attention, oh man, you know. So they'd rather get it negatively or, ideally, positively, right. So anything is better than just not being noticed. Oh, yeah, and I that's an adult thing too, you know like I track with all of that man.
Speaker 2:You know, I mean they're just, they're just mirrors, that's all they are. Yeah, and they mirror you and they also reflect, you know, myself, back at myself, you know, and there's moments where I'm talking running down from a place of frustration and I'm like, whoa, maybe I should take my own advice. Yeah, you know, like and that sounds cheesy but like it's profound to me.
Speaker 2:It's like I'll be like, take a deep breath, you know, put your hand on daddy's chest, yeah. And then, like I'll get in traffic and, like you know, somebody will cut me off. It's like, oh wait, like that thought comes back in my head of like, oh I, if I'm modeling this for Remy or for Glory as she comes of age and can move and walk around, I should probably model this for myself too. You know, yeah, there's been moments like that for me, where it's been like, oh, she's just a mirror holding my own advice back up to me. You know when I need it, kind of put in front of me.
Speaker 1:It's such an exposing thing.
Speaker 2:Oh, right, because nothing.
Speaker 1:Nothing gets by him. Yeah, I mean the conversations like my wife and I have sometimes are just like man I, you know, I was. The other night my son was just woke up and he was screaming for God knows what reason and I just was losing it and I was just lucky, lucky to have my. My dad was visiting and he, I felt so embarrassed, like I just felt so embarrassed, and like I talked with my dad because he was like can I, you know, just let me take him because, like you know, no judge he could sense it. Yeah, you know. And and just the next day I texted him and I just, I, just I love my dad to death. I had really good parents and and I was like I just felt really embarrassed and he was like, don't ever Like you, don't there's, there's no need to ever feel embarrassed in front of me. You know, he's like your kids remind me a lot of you when you were younger. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:Um, you know just a couple of things I I just want to say like because I got to get going, my wife just got home from.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man Totally get it.
Speaker 1:It's like almost 10 o'clock your time, or if not 11, it's almost.
Speaker 2:No, it's 10. No, it's 10.
Speaker 1:You know I something that struck was, you know you just talking about the redemption of the album and just what an important Like that's so cool man, like I can't even tell you like that is, that is such a cool thing To. For me, I think, like redemption not only spiritually but just faith, you know, in in practice, is it's so cool to be able to get to experience that and not, and to share that with everybody else and see how everybody is like responding to it. It must be such, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think shared experience. I'm just grateful, you know at this point in my life that I get to have that experience, and and you know for the fans to I do read everything that people post and send and that's heartwarming too you know, that resonates and that's all you could ask for, really. Yeah, you know. So I, you know, I'm just embracing, trying to embrace gratefulness, you know yeah, what?
Speaker 1:why are you working on music now?
Speaker 2:Just adding, and no, I mean we've got a couple of things in the tank, you know. I mean there's a couple of hopes fall, songs that I was on with all of the sky From those sessions that haven't seen the light of day. I'm hoping, now that 2.0 is out, that maybe EBR will equal vision, the record label, maybe it'll Fast forward, maybe the release of that, those three songs as a unit. You know that we wrote together that's from 2019 when we wrote those. So pre pandemic life but and then in parallel, we've been sitting on three songs as well. We tracked last summer and then life happened, you know the adoption, and Lance moved and you know there's some health issues amongst the band. So we are reconvening in a couple of weeks. I have a spot on a lake in East Tennessee, nice. I think we're going to drive out there and have a guys weekend and kind of finalize those and then get those to mix. So Six new songs, hopes fall, three In parallel, three. So I'm hoping those will come out soon.
Speaker 1:Ish, you know so awesome and yeah, I, I is funny before I need to get to Tennessee specifically, my brother goes there all the time for beautiful statement stuff. Yeah Well, we had a choice between. I was like either New Orleans or or Tennessee was going to or Nashville was going to be our, our things. We decided to go to New Orleans, which is fantastic.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It was, it was yeah, it's a trip, but I got to get out to Tennessee for sure. Well, if you ever come over, man, let me know, Hit me up. I'd love that Grab coffee or whatever yeah. I got a friend I'm old time friend. He owns a coffee shop called. Osa, I think it's called. Okay, yeah, it's the coffee. Small coffee stand, like micro Roaster type thing, coffee.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it's in, just Thanks, thanks so much for talking. Oh man, Thanks for thanks for having me. It's such a Always appreciate it, man.
Speaker 1:For sure it's so therapeutic for me, just in general. It's kind of my own Type of therapy, so I get it. It is for me too, man, and the fact that it's always nice to connect the dots and Chat with somebody new.
Speaker 2:You know always, yeah, there's so much more. I mean I would love to talk about just even terms of like.
Speaker 1:Video production and like all of that stuff.
Speaker 2:but Next time around, maybe, if we do Well, I'm open to it anytime. So that does it for this episode.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. You can find us on all major podcasting platforms, as well as Instagram and Tiktok. At the scene cast, as always. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening.
