Ixian

Ixian is a one man tour de force of Post Cyber Grinding Noisey Sludge Techno Industrial Blackened doom based out of Athens, GA. His live shows consist of many machines, and masked mystique. There is an unreasonable amount of music for the amount of time the project has been active that can be found at https://ixian.bandcamp.com.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:43

You're listening to Classic City Vibes. My name is Zach Wilder, I'm your host and today I have with me a close friend, multimedia artist extraordinaire and townie of how many years 22. 22. Straight Athens. Horrible, no, my bud Daniel Schreuer, how you doing today? Doing alright, yeah, I just want to jump into question number one.

Speaker 2 1:10

Let's go for it.

Speaker 1 1:10

Yeah, could you introduce yourself and give our audience a brief overview of all the types of art you do, or at least the ones you want to talk about?

Speaker 2 1:18

Yeah, daniel Schroer, you know, do music under the moniker Ixian, which I'm sure is mostly what we'll be talking about, and then kind of dabble in other forms of art, mostly just to do it. I'm not good at it, I don't sell any of it, I just have piles of paintings and artwork and lino cut.

Speaker 1 1:50

It actually occurs to me that I didn't put any questions about lino cutting on here.

Speaker 2 1:54

I should have. Oh no, that's all right. I haven't done that in a minute.

Speaker 1 2:01

It's one of the art forms you do that I know less about, so that's probably why I didn't even think to ask about it, which is wild, because usually I'm like a nerd about asking the kinds of asking about the things in an artist's career that I don't know about, because I'm trying to learn while I'm interviewing. Really, what I'm doing is I'm trying to steal all of your ideas. 90 episodes of me stealing people's ideas and I still can't have any good ones myself.

Speaker 1 2:27

Um, yeah, I think uh, ixian probably is a great place to start. Um, I I put a little editorializing on this, on the questions here, but um, I really do think by a country mile you're like one of the most prolific musicians I know. Uh, you're constantly putting out splits and Ixian singles and records on top of uh recording and playing in uh, one of the, uh I think, hardest working bands in town. Um, our, our band.

Speaker 1 2:59

I think we worked super hard um, considering that like the little, how little material there is out for that band Dude, where does that drive come from? And how have you not run out of ideas for me to steal from you at this point?

Speaker 2 3:16

Well, really it was the whole start of the project more or less happened when the band I was in at the time uh, savagest which we'll talk about later. Yeah, had um was on a bit of a kind of call like a working hiatus, like we were still a band and doing music and so and um as a three piece and one of the members had to take some time off for a while, and so then about, about what year would that have been?

Speaker 1 3:52

This is pre pandemic.

Speaker 2 3:53

Yeah, this would have been the era I'm talking about specifically of.

Speaker 2 3:57

That is probably 2017 to 2019. In that frame, where we were a three piece, one of the members had to go and deal with some stuff and so there were two of us left and we started doing the um mandible rider project as a two piece and then I just had a bunch of ideas that didn't really fit at all with that um and uh, so then decided to do the, decided to do the solo thing with that, and really the whole idea behind it for the most part was just kind of getting every kind of idea that I had out there and trying not to, you know, leave anything, leave as little in my head as possible and sort of treat the project in an experimental way where it was really my outlet for I can just I'm free to do absolutely whatever I want and hopefully I can try to do something a little new on every single release, and that was pretty much it. It spiraled out into way more stuff than it was supposed to be, it was supposed to be just a kind of industrial metal project.

Speaker 1 5:13

Yeah, because that would have been before you went by Ixion.

Speaker 2 5:16

Yes, yes, the first name of the project and the original name of the first album was Mr Squiggle's Party Boat Funstravaganza, and a friend of mine, rachel Blair, who's awesome, did some really hilarious cartoon art for it. But the whole point was that there would be a big juxtaposition between lots of bright, vibrant rainbow. What it looked like and what it sounded like yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 5:49

That was, I think, other than seeing you play in Savage, just a bunch of times, probably, I guess, right near the end of the era you're talking about, because I moved to town in 2015. So I would have seen you play, I think, in around those years and maybe a couple shows before that. Before I was living in athens, I was living over in atlanta. Um, but I think my my first real like uh, concept of you as like a musician beyond playing in that band, would have been, uh, seeing one of those mr squiggles shows yeah, yeah, yeah, I only did All the same gear I think there were two or three.

Speaker 2 6:34

Two or three that I did, which is hilarious because they were actually really good shows with really good bands. But yeah, a lot of the equipment was the same. But at the time all I had released was that one six song, uh, full length, and I was just doing the bass and vocals live, with everything else as a as a backing track, um, at the time. Obviously it's become a lot more than that now.

Speaker 1 7:06

But the interplay of you performing something live on top of a recorded thing and kind of mixing and blending them has just kind of been like a through line from that point to now.

Speaker 2 7:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I really didn't have any other really way to do it, because it wasn't something that really you weren't going to strap a bunch of instruments yourself and jump up and down. Yeah, yeah, and there was so there were so many layers to that one where it was, you know multiple guitar parts plus the bass. There's synth stuff going and then the you know all the different drums and whatnot.

Speaker 2 7:41

That was on top of it, and so that's sort of a constant thing with um the project, and doing it live is sort of parsing out how much of it can can be. Uh, done live, because anytime I'm playing I want to be doing as much as possible yeah, of course which means some stuff that I've recorded is just not really, because I don't. I don't think it's interesting if I'm, you know, if the vast majority of what's going on is backing tracks, what's the point? You know, to me anyway. No, I get that?

Speaker 1 8:16

No, I completely understand it. I think it's pretty impressive how much you managed to get to happen with you having all of using an Ixian term many machines, which that probably would have been the first record that you put out solo that I really connected with. I remember when you dropped that out I was like he's just doing this by himself, holy shit. It is really impressive to see it. You usually have a desk or a table or something and you're setting out all these things and you pick something up and you manipulate it doing whatever Dune-esque technological peripheral thing you're doing, and then you put it down and you pick up another one, and then sometimes you have multiple at once where you're playing off of of, like an iphone and analog gear.

Birth and Evolution of Ixian

Speaker 2 9:10

It's evolved a lot. Where there's been, there's been a lot of stuff that's come and gone, like I used to um anytime I knew somebody was getting rid of an old you know iphone or ipad, it was okay, let me get that. You know there's. There's free um, you know, synths and stuff that you can download, and samplers and things or really cheap, like Koala samplers like $5 or whatever, and synth one is free. So I used to try to do that because that's also one of the things I try to do in the band as much as possible is spend basically no money which is, which is partially being frugal slash broke, but uh, another large part of it is um.

Speaker 2 9:59

I really think art is at its best when you have limitations with which to express yourself. And so it just makes you sort of innovate or just think about things in a way that's different, and the way I talk about it a lot is it's kind of like if you want to have a good beefy guitar tone, you go buy an orange head, an old mat amp or whatever and you play through it.

Speaker 2 10:30

It's going to sound super good, but it's going to sound like every other person who's ever played through that thing. Whereas if you don't have the money and you're like, oh crap, I need to use this old 80s Peavey head and run it through this.

Speaker 1 10:44

I knew you were going to say Peavey, that Peavey magazine at the Space.

Speaker 2 10:49

I love PVs, the old stuff. I love old solid state stuff because it's just, it's near indestructible. Now saying that, I have two large PV max heads at my house that are both not functioning at the moment but for the most part nearly indestructible. They've always got, at the very least, a tone you can work with, and I'm mostly talking from a bass and other things kind of perspective.

Speaker 2 11:18

Guitar is obviously more finicky, but there's still ways to use, you know, cheap gear that will surprise people you know, yeah hard to distort a bass tone enough that it doesn't sound like a bass anymore yeah, and if you, if you just dial in, if you worry about dialing in, you get your lows and your mids in, and then you make sure your guitar players are not trying to scoop and sit in that same range yeah, you're fine.

Speaker 1 11:45

Um, you know they, they, they cover the mids and highs and you know it all cuts through question I was thinking about a minute ago, um, with all of the uh little tech, tech peripherals you buy, uh and employ, and not only just the the actual creation of the music in in the studio or in the, you know, in your studio, but also live, how, how much of that is intended to be uh, like dune lore, like ixian style, like like you know, I'm saying because, like the, the idea of the ixians being in in dune canon, being like those faction of, like machine makers, and like that's at some level like purposeful right yeah, it definitely was early on and hence why the the first album once people you know, because my friends got annoyed with me about the stupid band name and stuff and they're like you need to they're like marcus yeah, marcus yelled at, yelled at.

Speaker 2 12:42

I say I say it like that, but you know, marcus got on my case about you got to be serious man. It's better than how you're treating it right now.

Speaker 1 12:52

And.

Speaker 2 12:53

I think he was right, and at the time I think I was doing another read-through of one of the Dune books or whatever, and so I went with Ixian and obviously the and so went with Ixian and obviously the.

Speaker 1 13:08

It's incredible to me that there wasn't a previously established big metal or noise act that was named Ixian.

Speaker 2 13:14

No, so what there was and I'm a pretty massive. Fucking awesome name. You nailed it. I'm a pretty massive stickler about band names and them not being taken already.

Speaker 1 13:29

You know like I I think that so were we, which is why we.

Speaker 2 13:32

It took us forever to settle on what we did yeah, but it's like you know, and I'm I'm not trying to to call out anybody else, but you know, like, like, nausea and neglect were like known bands, and there's now another. I saw a flyer with a different hardcore band named Neglect and a noise project that was the nausea, which is different, granted, and which is, and it's fine, you know, I'm just saying but for like me personally, and so when I looked up the Ixian name, all I could find was a band.

Speaker 2 14:03

I think they were from England even that put out one record in like 1982 or something, and then a DJ in LA in the early 90s, and so I was like, ok, if we're two, if I'm two to four decades removed from that, and that was all I could find then. You know I feel good on taking this and if I need to, you know there's other Ixian adjacent stuff, like Ixian Mask is like you know what Paul's wearing for a bit. And the third book.

Speaker 1 14:39

I wonder oh yes, I see what you're saying. And Children of Dune. I wonder how many Do you ever look at the SEO or the analytics of your sites, or your band camp or anything?

Speaker 2 14:54

Not really.

Speaker 1 14:55

I would be Good One Good, but I would be interested to see how many spikes of hits on your site happened. Was there a spike after the newest iteration of the films came out?

Speaker 2 15:07

I don't think there was. Was there a spike after the newest iteration of the films came out? I don't think there was. What did happen was several more Ixians tried to pop up after. I'd done it which was also one of my motivations early on, for I'm just going to put out a bunch of stuff. I'm going to put out so much stuff that anytime, anybody tries to look up your album anytime somebody tries to look up you, they can't because all they get is me, essentially.

Speaker 2 15:35

And there was a band in Australia that they changed their name. I messaged a guy Someone on Instagram popped up and was using at Ixium Music or whatever and I think with an underscore because mine doesn't have one, and there's stuff popped up in my feed or whatever. It's like, hey, cool name. And they're like oh yeah, how'd you come up with it? And I just didn't reply.

Speaker 2 16:02

But you don't really have to worry about it, because typically most projects show up, do at most one album, if they're even going to do that, and then they're going to go away, and so you know it's fine.

Speaker 1 16:14

I've staked a pretty good claim to it at this point I mean, I doubt any of those other people have maude tattooed on their knuckles probably not that's, that's's your number one claim to it.

Speaker 1 16:29

You're like I am willing to do this for years. It's good stuff. I really like how wide-reaching I feel like the Ixian project is in terms of like its multimedia, like vision. There's a lot going on with it. It's not just the music, there's you've. You've got um the linocuts that you do for uh, your individual cassette releases that really feel like it. It elevates the, the kind of uh using a heady word here, but the gest gestalt of you know the entire idea. And it's not just that you're going to put out the one like Ixian record and then move on right. There seems like a collective kind of more complicated vision going on.

Speaker 2 17:17

Yeah and that and a lot of it is not. You know there's intentionality behind it to an extent, but again a lot of it's experimenting. So with a lot of the releases in the art, the other part about putting out this amount of stuff is that you then do. It's basically impossible to like pay for artwork and you know all that kind of stuff because it adds up real fast. So that's why a lot of the artwork is stuff that I've done or put together, um, which I think kind of unintentionally leads to some of the some of the cohesiveness behind it where stuff doesn't seem too far left field. But you know it's all different but related.

Speaker 1 18:12

You have a pretty discerning eye for being able to pick apart things like public domain art, and you know what was it? The Russian video that you were trying to use.

Speaker 2 18:24

Oh yeah, Russian video that you were trying to use. Oh yeah, I got a. Yeah, that was. That's part of something that's coming out in. November but I was battling on YouTube with the Russian state media kept blocking my. That's so sick.

Speaker 1 18:41

Honestly, that's like one of that has to be like. One of your most impressive artistic achievements is like getting Russian state propagandist media striking down your music. That's sick.

Speaker 2 18:54

Yeah, so I had to deal with that. Oh, go ahead. No.

Speaker 1 19:00

I was just going to ask if there was a process. Is it for lack of a better term? Is it ambient You're just kind of moving around on the internet when you have time and finding things or do you have like a process for being able to pull all these like disparate things together?

Speaker 2 19:16

So there's a couple different parts to it. Really, one of the main ones is that at my last job I was doing, I was basically able to train myself to do my job, but I could also watch tv with subtitles on next to it, um, and so I would just that is still insane to me.

Speaker 1 19:38

That you'd like I, that that is like some. You figured out how to hack one side of your brain and the other side kind of deal yeah, yeah, it works. And like a foot pedal, like that's intense man.

Speaker 2 19:52

Yeah, but so through that I was able to, you know, and at the time that we had a lot of work and stuff.

Speaker 2 19:59

It's like I'm sitting there for six to eight hours a day watching stuff.

Speaker 2 20:03

So it's just going through and being like you know, finding, you know, you find one old horror movie which then you know, after you finish that one, it gives you the next couple suggested ones or whatever else, and so you just roll through them, roll through them, and then when you find a really cool sample or like a really good scene, then you can kind of pull that out and pull that out and use it for whatever, whether it's just integrating into a short clip or into a larger thing, like one of the last shows I did, I integrated. It's a movie called Conquest. It's Italian and it's essentially the way I always describe it to people is that it's basically, if you took only the weird parts from Conan the Barbarian and made that the entire movie, that's pretty much what it is. So it was super great and it's all you know. There's no copies of it as far as I know. That you know are high quality or anything, so it's already, you know, washed out or got lots of stuff.

Speaker 2 21:18

So visually it already looks kind of off and interesting, and so for that performance, what I did was I built the, I laid out the set that I wanted to do, so I had, you know, this song flowing into this song, into that song.

Speaker 1 21:35

Yeah, you were practicing it like after a sacred book practice.

Speaker 2 21:38

Yeah, I had it as a you know whatever 20, 25-minute set and then went back through the movie and then watched it from start to finish, but chopped it as I was going so that a set, like a scene or a set of scenes, would sync up to you know when a song began and ended ended, um, and then had, uh, and then had our good friend josh.

Speaker 1 22:15

Uh, add a layer of glitching effects to it. Yeah, his his analog.

Speaker 2 22:16

Uh, nastiness, freak out yeah and uh, people really dug that and you know, it was this, this was bouvet this. No, this was at uh at scene. A. A, yeah, I bet that looked incredible.

Speaker 2 22:29

It was really cool, it was really fun, because that's something I'm always I always try to be conscious about it that my set is never. The worst thing you can be is boring, that's. The worst thing that can happen is that you know boring, or people are just going, eh, they're apathetic to it. So what ways can you integrate that are know boring, or people are just going and they're apathetic to it. So what ways can you integrate that are going to keep people's attention? Because you know one guy standing there in front of you know, a bunch of super loud amps twiddling knobs and things yelling occasionally.

Speaker 2 23:02

you know it's not always, you know I'm not always actively jumping around, or you know I'm not doing crowd banter or anything like that, and so I could not imagine you doing crowd banter.

Speaker 1 23:15

No, it's just doesn't seem like it's not. It's not my specialty.

Speaker 2 23:21

I've been the I've fronted a few bands, only ever did one where I only did the vocals and it was basically in between every song. It was just me, you know, basically motioning to them like hurry up, hurry up, hurry up. We got it Like next one, let's go, go, go. And yeah, it's I. Just I'm not Captain Charisma when it comes to stuff like that.

Speaker 1 23:47

I think you're plenty charismatic. I just don't think that that's the. It has to be something that you want to do, and you're just not the kind of guy who wants to get up and make a buffoon in front of a bunch of people. It's just very.

Speaker 2 23:59

Personality-wise, you know. Yeah, it feels like cheesy performance. It is, it's cheap, it usually is super cheap, it usually is super cheap, it usually is. But there are people who are good at it, who are just amazing at it, where you're just like okay, this is like you know, when I saw uh opeth, I really didn't like.

Speaker 2 24:18

I like opeth, but I didn't like the show it was the the atmosphere of it sucked and I thought the sound was garbage and didn't like that. But like michael aggerfeld is, he's great at that. Just, you know he can just off the cuff he's. He's a really witty guy and you know there's. It's just not for me. I want, I want to get up there, do what I came there to do and leave, because that's what I want to see for the most part. It's a rare thing, but I don't need too much. How are y'all?

Speaker 1 24:56

doing tonight. I appreciate that and I feel like we have kind of collectively decided on that as a band, in our band, that we both play in as a band. Um, in our our band, uh, we both play in uh, and it's just because it's like when you have, when you have something performance-wise that's good enough to stand on its own, I feel like a lot of times doing that will cheapen, uh, the performance and I think it matters to what?

Speaker 2 25:21

obviously, what the vibe of what you're doing is.

Speaker 1 25:24

You know like I'm thinking now of you just being like you have the whole set up at CNA, you got all these machines, you got the dope freakazoid glitched out movie and you're like how y'all doing tonight yeah that's like the whole.

Speaker 2 25:39

I don't know if you've ever heard it. There's a somebody turned it into like a compilation of sound clips, but it's nothing. But Paul Stanley from Kiss in between. Every song which is like a Kiss show needs that. That's what.

Speaker 1 25:55

Kiss is.

Speaker 2 25:58

It's big dumb rock with a guy going how y'all doing tonight, and then people go woo, you're going to make me spit out my water. Yeah, sorry, no, it's okay, Be like anybody here like beer and people go woo. You're going to make me spit up my water. Yeah, sorry, no, it's okay. Be like. Anybody here like beer and people go woo.

Speaker 1 26:10

I'm wearing face paint.

Speaker 2 26:12

Look at my hair. It's that kind of a thing.

Speaker 1 26:14

It's really hot up here in this thing that I'm wearing.

Speaker 2 26:16

Yeah, which has its time and place, because, again, I've seen lots of bands that can pull that off.

Speaker 1 26:22

I'm not I have seen many bands not pull that off.

Speaker 2 26:25

Well, there's also that If I attempted it, I think I would fall much more in that category. So it's best just to pretend. Plus people I don't know at this point. That's kind of what people expect.

Speaker 1 26:40

They're like oh, I dig the vibe of it, even from the kind of concept to the vision, to what your music literally sounds like. There's kind of like a techno-occultic kind of vibe to it and I just feel like that, as a vibe or as an aesthetic just kind of like, is just antithetical with the kind of front man thing we were just talking about.

Speaker 2 27:03

Yeah, it just doesn't gel as well as it does with other things.

Speaker 1 27:08

You managed to get a lot of stuff to gel with it, though.

Speaker 2 27:11

You know it always makes me laugh because you either have. You know it is what it is. I remember many, many years ago playing. This was at Tasty World downtown. That's how long ago this was and we were playing with a band. They're on Season of the Mist, which is a cool record label, but they're called Council of the Fallen and they're kind of black and death, kind of hybrid sort of band. But the singer did the thing where he does the voice all the time.

Speaker 1 27:44

It's not just for the vocals. It was in between every song.

Speaker 2 27:47

We're just like how is everybody doing tonight? It was just kind of like I was dying.

Speaker 1 27:55

Was it intentionally funny?

Speaker 2 27:56

No, no, it was part of the shtick.

Speaker 1 28:00

That would be a hilarious comedy bit. I mean does anyone have the Wi-Fi password?

Speaker 2 28:07

Yeah it was like that, but you know, it is what it is. They were really good. I'm really glad that we played with them and they were nice dudes. Yeah, that always kills me.

Speaker 1 28:17

Could you walk me through the process of what it looks like, from when an Ixian record is just a twinkle in your eye all the way up through recording and eventually performing a lot of those recordings?

Creative Process and Technical Approach

Speaker 2 28:33

Yeah, so a lot of the times it'll start with just a faint idea of kind of what am I in the mood to make and you know that'll hit me where I'm like oh I want to do a. You know it's been a minute since I've done a really fast album, or. I really don't want to focus on electronics on this one.

Speaker 1 28:52

You think about the whole album that way. Yeah, typically.

Speaker 2 28:56

That's where the concept sort of starts from. A good example of that was when I did the Folding space triple release.

Speaker 1 29:10

That is my favorite thing, yeah that's that's why I figured I'd bring it up that is my favorite thing by far, by far. It is still in it. My my broke down car that has a cd player. That it's, I guarantee you. Disc two is still the disc yeah yeah so it was um.

Speaker 2 29:29

That was one of those ones where I was wanting to just do something. It was I like working under extremes as well. It was like what's the?

Speaker 1 29:40

what's the?

Speaker 2 29:40

biggest, heaviest thing that I can kind of try to do, and so that's why that the first disc, I started messing with it and I started writing things. I was like, okay, how do I make this even slower? How do I make this even bigger? How do I make that? And then that was when I got the idea, for that was a really fun one to do, because what I wound up doing for the most part was I would record, you know whatever it was, an eight to 10 minute big doom song, and then I would take that and I would take it all, all the individual parts down, so each individual drum track and all the guitars and bass and stuff. And then, um, I would pitch, shift it down you know I think it was an octave and then slow the the time in half. So it was. You know, I think it was an octave and then slow the the time in half, so it was you know, twice as long, and everything rolled, and then I would go and then I went back and re-recorded everything at that new speed.

Speaker 2 30:46

So it had both the octave guitar.

Speaker 1 30:50

You know that was down and then stretched out, and then re-recorded over top of it, so it had that layer of stuff. You're literally folding space.

Speaker 2 31:02

And that was the concept behind it, sort of.

Speaker 1 31:05

But you had that idea. You sat down and were like I'm going to make a Doom song and the way I'm going to do it is I'm going to record a track and then I'm going to stretch it out, slow it down and then record on top of it. You had that idea, yeah. That wasn't something that happened organically.

Speaker 2 31:19

It was a little bit of both. It was as I was working on it. I was kind of like massive, you know doom stuff like that. Like Connate's one of my has been one of my absolute favorite bands forever.

Speaker 1 31:38

I have literally never heard it is pronounced Connate. You got a Connate Connate yeah, every time I've seen you write that out, I've even read it wrong.

Speaker 2 31:50

That's the thing, though, is if you're're you know, that's one of those things where you can never never make fun of somebody who's mispronouncing something, because it probably means that they read it first and they haven't heard it out loud, so you know never denigrate anybody who's doing some reading is the way I try to look at it.

Speaker 1 32:12

We will not do that in this establishment, for certain.

Speaker 2 32:15

Which is one of the things that you've heard me rant about plenty, but with Sun, where people love.

Speaker 1 32:23

Sun and.

Speaker 2 32:24

I don't really care about Sun because they've been in. At the time they were first doing that. They were in other bands that were doing big, heavy, slow stuff, that were good and like, made music like you can't help yourself.

Speaker 1 32:44

It's incredible. I love it.

Speaker 2 32:47

I love it you know, like Thor's Hammer. I don't know if I think they only did a four-song EP, but it was. If I'm remembering correctly, it was the two of them, another guy and then a vocalist who she was from Sweden had a super heavy, super heavy growl and it was just you know really good.

Speaker 1 33:11

So seeing them do all these other projects like that, it was just like and then the one that you don't like is the one that blows up yeah Well, and that's what.

Speaker 2 33:18

I would always joke when you know people would be like I've got to go, I gotta go see son, I'm going to see son and go see him, and then anytime, I saw him the next day you know I'd be like oh, so how was?

Speaker 1 33:35

was the note? And that was how it's a pretty good note. Yeah, yeah, many times it was. It was so heavy I I had earplugs and earmuffs on, and many, many times throughout the set I was like is this the point where I have to move away from the pit? Yeah, and I say pit, there was no pit yeah like the, the, the dip in the middle of the amps and it's literal pit in the ground and it's more about you know the experience and all that and I, I totally get all that.

Speaker 2 33:54

It's just also not for me, especially having seen bands that you know. I again at tasty world, but, um, you know the the first time I saw zoroaster, who?

Speaker 1 34:07

later they were in.

Speaker 2 34:09

You know like now they're doing um. You know brent's doing order the owl and stuff and has been for a long time another awesome band. But you know, when I saw zoroaster play at tasty world, you know they had the massive wall of stuff it was. It was so loud I almost threw up while I was standing there, while, like I had to move around and I stood uh to the side of them because I was just like this is insane but you know they were playing music.

Speaker 2 34:36

It was awesome, you know. And everything has its place. I try not to. I think there's very little stuff that actually sucks. For the most part, it's that. It's not. You know, it's not for me. You know, and I think that's you're very charitable about that, I agree, I think, and I think that's You're very charitable about that, I agree, I think, and I think that's well, and I used to, I used to very much not be like that. And then you know, as you get older, with some of that stuff, you realize some of it you know, it just doesn't matter, it's just not.

Speaker 2 35:04

It's not for you, man, and that's okay. Beyonce is not for me, it's not supposed to be for me, it's for other people. They love it, it means a lot to them and I think that's you know. I think that's cool, that people are connecting with somebody else's stuff.

Speaker 1 35:20

And there's so much stuff in the world that it's like you couldn't possibly be in everything all the time. It's like, okay, just turn it off and put on what you want, especially now we meandered away from the question a little bit. So for a record like Folding Space, you've had this concept of writing the record or what the concept is in your mind, and then you get into the studio and the organic process of like putting it to the recording and then like manipulating it and continuing on. How, how does that get from the idea in the DAW to being released to people and then being interpreted as a one-man live act?

Speaker 2 36:20

So that's a how do I answer this. Hold on, I just totally blanked, that's okay.

Speaker 1 36:32

I knew I would at some point. That's okay.

Speaker 2 36:33

I knew I would at some point. That's okay. Ask that one more time.

Speaker 1 36:36

Yeah, so we've got like there's a very long and complicated process. Oh okay, I got you. I got you the process.

Speaker 2 36:45

All right, so you know it starts at the concept of yeah, I want to write a record that sounds like this and some of that kind of does it itself, Like when I'm doing and I know we'll touch on it in a second but if I'm doing a split with another band, I want to make music that's adjacent to them, Like it's still me. You instantly know it's Ixion, but it's in a style that meshes with what the other band is doing. So a lot of times that will inform where the writing process goes.

Speaker 1 37:18

So you would listen to the other artists and think, okay, what can I make? That's going to sound like it complimentary to them. On the same record.

Speaker 2 37:27

Yeah, like with the stuff I do, where it's everything from grind stuff to super slow doom Weird crazy cyber grind. Yeah to all that. It doesn't make any sense to do a split with a doom band and then do speedy electronica stuff with it there are people out there who would do that.

Speaker 1 37:47

Obviously, you have an opinion about that, but I like that there's consideration there. I feel like not everyone would do that.

Speaker 2 37:55

I want it to be cohesive and another big aspect of it is that you know I do everything at home, so that was part of doing this project was learning, quote, unquote, how to you know, master and get a good workflow going for recording.

Speaker 1 38:17

So you didn't do any of that beforehand, before the project that would eventually become Ixion.

Speaker 2 38:25

No, not nearly to the degree. I've always recorded stuff at home, but it was never recording it there with the intent of releasing. It was recorded there, then go to a studio, but sure, sure you know I can't, you can't do that.

Speaker 1 38:38

You do almost all of it yourself. Which is important to say right like the to the recording, to like the in the engineering. Occasionally you'll send stuff off to homies like joel I'll.

Speaker 2 38:48

I'll have somebody have a second listen to it, but no one, no one else. One else has ever mastered anything or done it.

Speaker 1 38:57

But you send it out to. Obviously you send it like I was listening to as I wrote these questions. I was listening to the split, the demo of the split you sent, which was awesome, by the way, thank you. I liked how digital the percussion was. It felt like, yeah, it was Again. When I listen to your music, my brain is thinking about sci-fi stuff, which is awesome because it's like I like sci-fi stuff. I love thinking about sci-fi stuff.

Speaker 2 39:24

Yeah, but so a massive advantage with that is like with all the other projects I'd done in the past, it was your normal band thing, where you get in, you write music as a band at the space and then you go in to record and you record it and then you're done, and that's how it goes, whereas when I'm writing and recording for my stuff I'm usually doing it basically at the same time.

Speaker 2 39:53

It's very infrequent that I write a four or five-minute song and then go and record it. I normally go part by part and then bleed song into song. I tend to record on one massive track.

Speaker 1 40:07

Oh right, yes, yes, you told me about this. It's like your computer's dying as it's trying to process all these plug-ins. Well, that's why I don't really use almost any plug-ins on anything.

Speaker 2 40:21

Because of that, because I don't even have a nice computer.

Speaker 1 40:25

So all of the sounds that you're making are coming from some machine or instrument that you are then capturing, either from a microphone, or you're going direct in.

Speaker 2 40:38

It depends. There's a lot of stuff where I'll use sampled things and whatnot where it's just capturing. I used to do it a lot where I would just capture a tone and then pitch that up and manipulate it from there. I mean, I used to do it a lot where I would just capture a tone and then you know, pitch, pitch that up and manipulate it from there, cause I mean I'll be totally. I didn't even know how to use MIDI stuff until like two years ago or something you know.

Speaker 1 41:02

So it was yeah, I love hiding behind the caveman. Analog.

Speaker 2 41:06

Yeah, so it was you know. So when you hear something you know, like on the Reasonable List album where you'll hear these really fast arpeggios- you know, that's a single tone that I then had to take and then go tap, tap, tap.

Speaker 1 41:24

So it's plus three semitones, and then the next chunk tap, tap, tap, tap.

Speaker 2 41:28

So now it's up seven semitones and one that's up 12. And so you know, I'm basically building stuff out from there and that's just sort of you know, how the workflow just kind of works for me. But the main advantage to doing everything by myself and one of the main ways that I'm able to get stuff you know, and not perfected, because I I tend to put stuff down probably faster than other people would, because I think, you can chase yourself in circles, you can over complicate things, and so it's just as important to know when to just say, all right, enough is enough.

Speaker 2 42:08

But so when I'm recording, like the, the split, that uh, you're listening to. Essentially, while I'm doing it I get the bones down of what I want to do and then, if I'm not actively recording anything, I'm sitting there listening to it on a loop over and over. So I've probably already heard that side of the split 50 times at this point because I've just play it through and through. But when you play it through over and over you go oh, there should be a fill here. Oh, this part is missing.

Speaker 1 42:37

That's interesting because a second ago, I was gonna uh make uh an argument that, like it's, it feels very different from you know, playing and performing in a band and and not needing to go into the studio because, like, when you play in a band, like you have to rehearse yeah, right to be able to record your, your parts properly, because the all the instruments have to be working in tandem and all the musicians have to be working in tandem. But doing this, like, uh, where you're, the you're, you're not only masterminding all the music but, like you're also the person who is producing it, in whatever capacity that is. And sometimes it's like performing on a guitar, on a bass or um, you know, uh, twiddling some knobs and pressing some buttons, but the, the what was interesting about what you just said was that probably fulfills what would normally be considered the rehearsal part. Right is listening to the loop over and over and over again. That that's where the iteration happens.

Collaboration Through Splits and Multimedia

Speaker 2 43:32

I think so yeah, because a lot of times when I'm writing, a part.

Speaker 2 43:37

When I'm writing a song, typically I'm taking it part by part, because one of the biggest things to me with music whether it is a single song, whether it is a set, whether it is an album is the way stuff flows is massively, massively important. So when I write, that's why I like to pretty much write riff by riff, as I'm going and record, as I'm going and get stuff down, because just listening back to it over and over again you go, oh, it'd be really great if it dropped out right here and the guitar carried on.

Speaker 1 44:17

Or maybe it's like dragging too much right here, so it needs something else. Yeah, exactly, and that's on a record-wide scale and not just like a track-by-track scale.

Speaker 2 44:26

Yeah, it starts track-by-track and then becomes song song by song. Where it's, I'll finish the song and then go like where's where am I at? Like what do I feel should be the next thing that happens, and then I write that. So, instead of where you're doing a project where you write 12 individual songs and now okay, how do we order these?

Speaker 1 44:49

Right.

Speaker 2 44:49

The order is the intent from the very beginning. Like it's built into the writing process.

Speaker 1 44:55

Man, that could not be more different than trying to play it a bit. I bet that feels? Does that feel like freeing? Does that feel? Is that a conscious feeling that you have?

Speaker 2 45:05

I think it is this project has been that it's incredibly freeing because I'm I'm not accountable to anybody else with anything I can do, whatever I want you know which you know sometimes. But sometimes that's can also not be great, because sometimes you need somebody to rein you in from your I've said it before, but one of my favorite quotes yeah one of my favorite quotes you know of of all time. It's from you know it's Spinal Tap when they're talking about?

Speaker 1 45:34

I knew you were going to say Spinal Tap.

Speaker 2 45:35

Yeah, I think it's when they're talking about the All Black album or whatever, but when he goes. You know there's a very fine line between clever and stupid, and I think about it all the time. That's one of the overriding things I'm thinking about in most aspects of my life in all time is like how do I take things to that limit where you're like oh, this is genius, without falling just far enough where you're?

Speaker 1 46:08

like this is the dumbest thing I've ever.

Speaker 2 46:09

You should feel bad that you made this.

Speaker 1 46:12

I feel, on the audience side, as just being a big fan of your work. I feel like you managed to dance on that knife's edge in a way that impresses me more often than not. So, thinking specifically about binary and when, like you, I don't know why I didn't look at the track list and immediately put together that they were all named after, I think you should leave sketches yeah, but when you told me that it didn't dumb it down, it didn't detract it like elevated it, like to a new tier well, that was before it like blew up

Speaker 2 46:47

as a thing, so that's why it was like funny because nobody knew what it was referencing. And then once it blew up, then I started having like songs and videos that were getting more hits, clearly because people recognized the that stuff they're inextricably linked in my mind.

Speaker 1 47:03

Now I can't watch coffin flop without without hearing like the weird, like binary happening. It's awesome.

Speaker 2 47:13

Well, and that record was a really fun one because I had a little gap in work around Christmas of that year and just said you know, oh, I want to write something that's you know, it's a mix of grind music and electronic music and in a way that still blows my mind when I listen to it and that and that's how that one was recorded, where it was. You know, I was like, all right, I'm gonna record a, you know, a one minute you know, pretty straightforward grind song yeah okay, what?

Speaker 2 47:48

what does my brain think? Feel like would be would either make a lot of sense or would be most jarring. So either way, again, it goes to the extremes.

Speaker 1 47:58

Or it's where's the flow, perfect, or where is it so jarring that it's perfect as opposed to perfect I I weirdly enough, I think that ends up being one of your more approachable like listenable records, like when I, when I recommend ixion to people that I know, I usually give them Binary first.

Speaker 2 48:17

It's not a super noisy album which can be a turnoff for-.

Speaker 1 48:20

I think that might be one of the reasons. Yeah.

Speaker 2 48:21

Some people, because that was before I was really experimenting with a lot of that and noise texture or noise textures and atmospheres and things which I really enjoy doing and is a constant thing that I do now.

Speaker 1 48:36

I was just thinking about that one part where it breaks off and it starts doing like the do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do. It becomes like a Star Wars cantina scene for like seven seconds before it goes back to kicking you in the head.

Speaker 2 48:47

The shit rules, dude. It really sucks that they were. It's one of those things where it's like you know you get, you get disappointed by enough you know, artists and things as you get older. But um, you know, I've I've always really, really loved the uh, mindless self-indulgence album Frankenstein Girls.

Speaker 1 49:11

Yeah, and then I was very much into them when I was very young.

Speaker 2 49:17

And they had that where it was just really off the wall. Constantly it was. You didn't know where it was going next, and you know, then it turns out the guy's a mega creep. And you know it's been hard for me to listen to it, so I don't even know if I've put it on since, which really annoys me that stuff was like I, when I was in, like, uh, high school.

Speaker 1 49:39

It was one of those things where, like you would turn it on at a party and it was like a vibe check you would. Either it would either instantly like you would make best friends instantly, or it would become a scare in the hose situation where, like everybody walked out of the room and you're like, oh okay, nobody here is a freak like me yeah, and I've always very much enjoyed, you know, stuff like that.

Speaker 2 49:57

They can jump back and forth and can you know because, if, because, if anything, typically it for me stuff like that holds my interest, because you know it's like what the hell are they doing next?

Speaker 1 50:09

and you know that can be really cool. It occurs to me now that that, like, maybe you've managed to like reclaim, or like maybe not ever lose, like the sense of whimsy from Mr Squiggles, it's like secretly there in Ixion.

Speaker 2 50:23

Well, and that's sort of. There's only so serious I can be with anything. Just because of you know, I'm often focused on the absurdity of everything around you. You know, no matter what it is, no matter how serious you want to take something.

Speaker 1 50:38

We live in a very absurd world.

Speaker 2 50:39

Yeah, it's just, it is what it is, and there's only so I mean, you know there's only so serious that you can take black metal, you know like, and it's one of my absolute favorite things on planet Earth. I love it to death. It's one of my absolute favorite things on planet Earth. I love it to death. But at the same time you can kind of recognize when it's, you know, corny and dumb and I think that's okay. I don't think you need to parody it and make fun of those things, but I think there's ways to approach it that isn't ultra serious but isn't making a complete joke out of it.

Speaker 2 51:08

And that's kind of where I and's why you know you'll hear with you know when when bands are using samples or whatever, where it's like you know a really serious thing or like oh it's a scary thing from a horror movie and most of mine have an element of humor to them to some extent, because I mean, why not? And you know, I like, I like stuff that has strong juxtaposition, and so that's why I kind of enjoy the bouncing back and forth, the ultra-serious music paired with the weird goofy sample or you know whatever else You're making me think of Cierrascuro.

Speaker 1 51:47

You know, that art-like concept where it's like you have these, your subject is is really incredibly like intensely lit, but everything around it is super dark. Like like literally in a literal sense, like your subject is very harsh and it creates a kind of a cartoonish juxtaposition. Before we move on from Ixion, I just wanted to ask how the splits happen. Do you headhunt folks to work with or do people reach out to you?

Speaker 2 52:24

So I'd say probably about three quarters, two-thirds, three-quarters is probably me reaching out and finding folks and the majority of people say you know yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 1 52:36

That's because they should. They look at your stuff and they're like oh it's, we're working with some highbrow material here yeah and I've gotten, so I've gotten very few.

Speaker 2 52:46

I'm trying to think if I've ever had someone, just I've never had anybody, just straight up be like no, absolutely not you know you get the one sometimes where it's like you know, oh, I'm busy, or whatever. And I always tell them totally cool, if you don't have time or if you're not interested, that's fine, it's not going to hurt my feelings, you know, it's okay. But a lot of times people say you know, yeah, okay, let's go for it.

Speaker 2 53:09

And one of the better stories I have about this is that it was very early on. It was when I did the you know I had put out at that point I had only put out a couple releases and somebody hit me up through I think it was through Bandcamp. I was like, hey, would you want to do a split? And I was like, yeah, I'd probably be down or whatever. And they sent me their band stuff and I was like, hey, would you want to do a split? And I was like like, yeah, I'd probably be, you know, down or whatever. And they sent me their band stuff and I was like that was kind of weird. Like, yeah, okay, you know why not and it was another thing with this project was trying to say no as little as possible.

Speaker 2 53:45

That's one of the things that like constantly pushes me to do things is when somebody asked me to do something unless I have a really good reason not to do it. Um, but so they hit me up about it and we're like, yeah, yeah, corresponding and sending things. Uh, only when we were about to release it did I know that they were like 15 year old kids in michigan who are like super. They're just awesome musicians that play weird stuff, like the drummer can just play crazy jazz and they're multi. It was just two people, um, and they all did multiple instruments and things and so and they were like jazz trained and it was just it was really cool. And then once I found that out afterward, I was like this is awesome. I was like it feels a little weird, but also what release was that?

Speaker 2 54:40

that was the split with uh, via ferrata. What was the name of the split? So, the one that one didn't have that one didn't have a name, um, but one of the tracks that became so, the track that's on there is the one that basically spawned Folding Space coming together because I did that track for that release. And then I was like, oh, I should try to flesh this out and do a whole concept, but yeah, doing it like that.

Speaker 1 55:08

And then gonna have to go back and give that one another listen, yeah so I've had that.

Speaker 2 55:12

And then, um, gonna have to go back and give that one another listen. Yeah, so I've, I've had that. And then you know people in their you know 50s that I've done stuff with, that are just other old weird dudes making metal music and and uh, whatnot. And I've just, for the most part, found that if you, you know, approach people and you're into it and and you also, like you know, you get a lay of the land like I'm not going up and asking, you know if you're on. You know I was about to say like metal blade or something. I don't even know if that's still a thing anymore, but you know on on a real, you know, legit label and doing that.

Speaker 2 55:47

I don't you know you don't approach bands like that, but if it's another band, another independent artist, it seems like they've got some time on their hands. You know what's it gonna hurt to say yeah, that's probably the the silver bullet.

Speaker 1 56:00

Right there is the independent artist part yeah, which is who I tend to.

Speaker 2 56:04

That's who I want to work with anyway, because I'm not on a I'm not on any kind of a time crunch, like Like going back to the binary release. I decided I was going to do it. I think that one might have been originally intended for a split and then the other band dropped off, but I can't remember.

Speaker 2 56:23

But I was like, okay, I'm going to do this. I wrote and recorded the whole thing, start to finish that week, and then, um, you know, made, made the tapes a day or two after and then it was released.

Speaker 2 56:39

So it was from conception to being in people's hands in about a week and a half which is nuts dude, you can't, you can't do that, and I remember talking with um you're right, you can't do that in any other capacity than what you're, the way that you do it you know, I remember talking to to uh chris, uh from vincas, about something they were having, you know, delays on their, their record, or oh, there's a six, six to eight month delay at the plant or whatever. So it's like they've already put all this time in writing the whole album, then they've gone in. And it's like they've already put all this time in writing the whole album, then they've gone in and recorded it, then they've had it mastered, then they've had then their labels, sent it off to whoever then it's gonna take, and it's just like I don't have a year to be sitting around waiting on these things, because I have too much that I want to be, which is also why I tend to make, you know, I just diy all of this dude.

Speaker 1 57:31

That's how I'm feeling about pull this. Uh, the right now is I'm like I feel super burnt out on those songs yeah which is why, like when we were listening to that demo at practice, I was just like I'm just gonna sit in the hall, for I've heard Tetsuo so many freaking times, dude, um, especially when we have like a whole other record, that's just like waiting in the queue queue I can see how liberating just being able to be like binary done.

Speaker 2 57:58

It's done onto the next thing, which is why a lot of times I don't dwell on it either. But it's also why I'm really horrendous at promoting stuff, because in my head I'm already onto the next thing. I'm like well it's out. What do you want me to? I've got other stuff to do and and it's not like you're.

Speaker 1 58:13

You're, you're playing shows, but you're not touring yes so it's not like there's a, there's a cycle. Like you're, you're very un, unshackled to the typical, what people think of as like the typical and I don't have to.

Speaker 2 58:25

That's the other thing is, I don't have to sell it it doesn't matter I it. It really doesn't matter. I would. I would do this if literally nobody listened to it, which some releases. That is the case, but you know, that's it's not?

Speaker 1 58:40

not a lot of people uh listening in for grift cult, huh yeah that was. That was one of the most ridiculous album covers.

Speaker 2 58:47

I've ever seen that one and I think about it all the time yeah, the other, the, the guys from the other band, which from Pope boner, they did the collage of it there. Those are really, those are really good folks. They're from, they're from down in Florida, they also play in more serious bands, bands like uh dying whale and a machinist who used to play up.

Speaker 2 59:16

Uh play up and out um a decent amount, but that was like a side project thing that they were doing, and so I was like all right, well you want to do that.

Speaker 1 59:25

There's like a snapshot in my brain of seeing it. Uh, like sitting up on the counter at one of the old Shady Beast brick and mortars, just walking in and seeing it and being like that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen.

Speaker 2 59:39

Yeah, one of them did the collage for it, which is cool, which is also what's awesome about doing splits, and things is getting.

Speaker 1 59:48

Because it is nice doing or putting Tupac on the cover.

Speaker 2 59:50

Yeah, oh the freaking that. I love that album. That's the, that's the split with crouching nude, um, but uh, yeah, so he made it. He made a, the collage art with tupac on it and stuff you can't find that almost anywhere has been taken down everywhere because whoever from Tupac's estate got their not a cease and desist but essentially, and got all those images taken down, and so it's down a lot of places.

Speaker 2 1:00:28

But yeah that was, and I saw it at the time. I was like not at all what I was expecting for an album cover, but I told him to run wild with it and he did.

Speaker 1 1:00:36

Literally angelic, like purples and yellows. Again, one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen Incredible. Yeah, I will go to my grave with that image burned into my mind that was the other dude who. But finding the people who are willing to do that kind of thing is in itself, I think, one of your greatest artistic strengths, like finding other people who are willing to create these absolutely just, utterly insane conceptual things and being able to bring it together in a way that feels cohesive, like you were saying earlier.

Speaker 2 1:01:12

Yeah, and that's what you know and you can get a vibe from folks. It also helps that I've put out so much stuff at this point that it's easy to point. You point to it and somebody goes oh okay, this person is going to deliver on what they said. This is not going to be a dead project where we put in a bunch of work and then nothing happens.

Speaker 1 1:01:31

That's why there are no Sacred Bull splits. We've tried to do it in the past, but it's never worked out.

Speaker 2 1:01:38

Yeah, it can be very difficult to coordinate and do all those sorts of things.

Speaker 1 1:01:40

It's hard enough to coordinate one band of people. Yeah.

Speaker 2 1:01:44

And that's the other thing, is a lot of it is not with bands. For the most part, a lot of it will be one or two-person projects.

Speaker 1 1:01:50

For the most part, a lot of it'll be one or two person projects for the most part, which, which is just a lot easier to just coordinate and get together real, real, absolute meeting in the mind situations in a lot of these, um, the absolutely wild, uh, lawless concepts, and a lot of it really does feel like uh, yeah, I think lawless is the right word that I would think about. It feels like this like I don't give a shit about any how anyone views this stuff. We're going to make something that is truly and utterly unique to like you and then who the other person is yeah, it's and that's, you know.

Speaker 2 1:02:29

For me it's the point of art is not for impressing other people. The point of art is not to be good, speak for yourself. The point of art is in the process.

Speaker 1 1:02:40

I'm trying to get my accolades.

Speaker 2 1:02:44

The point of the art is in the process, which is why I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent here. But this is one of the main things that when you see the kind of people who embrace garbage, like Gen AI, they don't understand what the point of art is. What they think the point of art is is to wind up with a pretty picture. So that's why they think AI is great. I type in dolphin jumping over bridge dunking basketball, and then it makes that image in the style of and then you rip off somebody.

Speaker 1 1:03:15

I would love it if you drew that image and then taped it to the practice space wall.

Speaker 2 1:03:21

Be careful what you wish for. But you know they don't understand. They're like oh it just, it takes out the tedium of having to like you know make a bunch of stuff like work on it for years and to make stuff that isn't, and that's why it's democratizing art, bro bro, it's democratization aggravates the ever-living hell out of me, and it just because, again, it just misses the point.

Art as Process, Not Product

Speaker 2 1:03:46

When I finish a record, I don't go wow, I can't like I want to look at this or I can't wait for people to pat me on the back and tell me what a good job I did. I go. I'm really proud that I made that.

Speaker 1 1:03:58

That's what the shows are for.

Speaker 2 1:04:01

And if people you know I don't make it I say it all the time I make music for an audience of one. I make music that I want to hear and that I like, make music that I want to hear and that I like. And if other people like it, it's a, it's coincidental, but it does feel very good because I know that I put out something that was authentic. So if you connect with something I did, you're actually connecting with. You know what I wanted to express with this, whereas I didn't sit around and go well, how do I make this riff poppier so that it'll be played on?

Speaker 1 1:04:35

that is most definitely not happening.

Speaker 2 1:04:38

Usually it's the exact opposite how can I test people and alienate some of them?

Speaker 1 1:04:44

but yeah, how can I alienate my own audience in a way that will make them come back and get alienated again?

Speaker 2 1:04:50

and again. That's what the whole, that's what the whole thing is about. Art is about the process. I I'm not a good. I'm not a good painter. I still paint all the time I like doing it I think you're an excellent painter and that is not.

Speaker 1 1:05:02

That is not in a like a friend, masturbatory way, like I genuinely think that. Like what you do is unique to who you are as a person and the stuff you make brings me joy. Like when I walked in and saw the can I borrow your amp image. There was like 30 seconds where I had my hand on the wall and I was wheezing because of how funny it was.

Speaker 2 1:05:27

Well, I'm glad, you know, because I'll do stuff all the time where I'll paint something and I'll look at it and be like it's not very good, I'm glad I did it. And I'll do stuff all the time where I'll paint something and I'll look at it and be like that's not very good, Glad I did it. I'll just throw it away, Don't think about it again.

Speaker 1 1:05:39

People who come to my house really like the one that I have. It's like three of your, do you? Have names for them Imps.

Speaker 2 1:05:44

Goblins. At some point I called the original guy Ned, and so they were. The Neds was what I called them.

Speaker 1 1:05:55

I have a painting. I have a lot of your art, but there's one on the big section I have Above the corner there's one of three Neds. They're kind of like almost doing a little pose together. They've got their arms around each other. People really connect with that one when they come over. I think it's just because, partially, when you walk into my apartment it's just like staring at you.

Speaker 2 1:06:20

I'll get like I've got. I've got a pile of stuff like that. You can just leave it behind your couch and when someone goes, I like that, you just hand one of them.

Speaker 1 1:06:26

Well, we're gonna do that for the, for kickstarter fulfillment, for sure. How much do you feel like your process, if at all, or your musical career or anything has changed pre and post-COVID? Because you have more consideration with that or have to consider it more than your average artist, I think.

Speaker 2 1:06:47

Yeah, so really the split for me is less about pre and post-COVID and more pre and post.

Speaker 1 1:06:55

He has arrived. Yeah, pre and post, when my son was born. John.

Speaker 2 1:06:58

Henry is here. Yeah, Because you know, and for anyone listening, he was born severely premature, at 26 weeks, two pounds. He's not supposed to be alive. He's eight years old now.

Speaker 1 1:07:10

Killing it? Yeah, doing great Banging on the piano? Yeah, he's a better noise musician than I am Slamming. Yeah, that I will agree with. Yeah, he's slamming the cover down on Kendra's hands.

Speaker 2 1:07:24

But you know that basically stopped everything that I was doing at the time. I was because before that, you know, doing in Savagist. We were touring, you know, at the very least one or two weekend every month, sometimes more, sometimes for longer stretches, and you know, up and down the East Coast and then once that happened, it just shut it all down because he was you know, he was in the NICU for four months and then he was hospitalized every month or two for the next year or two of his life and you know, it really just made it so that everything else had to come to a standstill.

Speaker 2 1:08:03

So it's also part of this project taking off as it being another outlet for me. Outlet for me. And you know some of the lyrics on that um, on many machines. Uh, like the song atelectasis, like I. I wrote that in the hospital with him when I was like my, like my kid's gonna die like this.

Speaker 1 1:08:25

Uh, this sucks you were wrong, son, I was wrong was wrong, thankfully. Capital W wrong, he's still here.

Speaker 2 1:08:33

Thankfully I was wrong, but that's what that song is about is being with him and next to his bedside and seeing him hooked up to 800 machines and a bunch of other stuff.

Speaker 1 1:08:45

Just like his dad, hooked up to so many machines many machines and uh, you know so. So for me covid wasn't really all that big of a deal because I was, I had already had to have.

Speaker 2 1:08:56

Okay, I already had to slow down and cut down to a point that then, once covid happened, it basically made it meant, that everybody else was okay, that okay for me covid was a, it was a breeze in terms of all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 1:09:09

I was like I already okay, you know, because before covid we had he was really medically fragile already. You know, because before COVID we had he was really medically fragile. He had, you know he still has stents in his heart. He's got a rare heart disease. He had lung disease when he was real small. That he's mostly, you know, grown out of. So you know when people came over.

Speaker 2 1:09:30

We already had hand sanitizer like mounted to the wall. And you know, one of my best friends, you know, then savagest clem clem wouldn't even come in our house because he was afraid to give you know he was afraid to give our kid a cold. You know, it was to that point, um, and so, really, when covid happened, it was like it was a breeze for me. I was like this is great in terms of, like you know I'm now I'm not missing out on all this stuff.

Speaker 2 1:09:53

Um, other people are you know like when you know it's like a good example of like. Another thing from that was like uh, this is probably around. I think it was around 2019.

Speaker 2 1:10:05

You know there was a savages got booked to to play a show with Goat Whore and John Henry just landed in the hospital a few days before that but he still needed to be hospitalized and taken care of, but he wasn't on death's door or anything, and so I left the children's hospital at 7 at night in Atlanta, drove back to Athens I think they had already set up my gear, if I remember correctly I got on stage, I played the 30-minute set, got off and left and had to go straight back to the hospital. So just, covid, being like you got to stay inside and do stuff. I was like, okay, I get to stay inside and just make music and do whatever.

Speaker 2 1:10:54

I wonder if, like weirdly, it just yeah, you've probably said or expressed that to me before, but it feels like it's only just now sinking in how much you were prepared for that world state in a way that like nobody else was yeah, it was no big deal to me because I was like I already don't, I already limit my contact with people I already have to, you know, because again, literally a cold, would you know, give him pneumonia and put him in the hospital, and it was a whole.

Speaker 1 1:11:24

And that's lessened over time. Oh for sure, he's gotten stronger.

Speaker 2 1:11:28

You know, like with his lung disease it's essentially there's a pocket of dead tissue in his lungs. Basically, and what the doctor told us early on was that he's getting older.

Speaker 1 1:11:37

He's getting more mass.

Speaker 2 1:11:38

Yeah, the bad news is he'll always have this. It never goes away. The good part is it doesn't get any bigger, but his lungs are going to. So while right now, it's and I'm making up numbers.

Speaker 2 1:11:50

while right now it's 15% of his lung capacity, when his lungs double, triple in size, it's going to be 5% of his lung mass. It's not going to be a big deal, and it hasn't been, which has been super cool. So he's still got lots of other things going on, but none of it's life-threatening anymore and do you feel like it's less on your mind life-threatening anymore?

Speaker 1 1:12:11

and it's I. Do you feel like it's less on your mind when you're at shows now?

Speaker 2 1:12:15

oh, for sure I don't I don't you know, obviously you know. If you got a kid, you still think about him all the time in the back of your head, but it's not nearly to the point where it was like, should I be? Should I be here? Yeah you know like that was. You know I had to deal with a lot of guilt around some of those things when he was in the hospital and stuff. It was like, can I go have fun for an hour?

Speaker 1 1:12:39

It felt like I couldn't.

Speaker 2 1:12:41

Stuff like that was really hard. I remember there was one time when he was in the NICU for four months. We went and saw him every day, usually multiple times a day. We usually just stayed there all day. But I remember there was one time I went and I'd, you know, did a, did a pool party with uh, you know friends and hung out and did stuff. And then came home that night and kendra was like, did you go by the hospital today?

Speaker 2 1:13:06

and you know I was like oh, you know, it's one day she's like go, you go right now and she, you know, and I mean I'm glad, I'm glad she did. You know, it's one day she was like you go right now and she, you know, and I'm glad she did. But you know, it was just but. So it was constantly having that kind of push and pull with that stuff. But that's not really the case anymore. So again, covid was, and we still take precautions. You'll still see me wearing masks at shows when other people aren't, and that's just not to, because the one time I played a show and I didn't wear a mask, at Bouvet, I got COVID at one of our shows. That was the only time I've ever had it. So it was just like, and then I felt guilty about that?

Speaker 1 1:13:46

Wait, that was the Sacred Bull show, mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 1:13:48

Yep.

Speaker 1 1:13:49

How many years ago was that?

Speaker 2 1:13:52

It wasn't that long ago it was one or two years ago at most.

Speaker 1 1:13:56

Okay it might have been last summer or the summer before that. Okay, okay, it was whenever.

Fatherhood, COVID, and Artistic Adaptation

Speaker 2 1:14:01

I was playing either Blasphemous or Blasphemous 2 because I had to quarantine in my office for a week or two, so I had to sleep and live completely separate from my family upstairs.

Speaker 1 1:14:15

Now I remember this and that's how.

Speaker 2 1:14:17

I filled my time was just sitting there with video games because I had nothing to do.

Speaker 1 1:14:20

Well, I'm glad you had Blasphemous, because that game freaking rules. Oh my God, it's so good. One of the greatest things.

Speaker 2 1:14:26

If you've seen me play live in the last couple years, I usually have at least one sample from one of those games in there. That's basically the only thing I've ever had serious in a set.

Speaker 1 1:14:41

Oh my God, dude. Time to go back and replay. Blasphemous Dude. What was it like reuniting with Savages on stage after all of the things we were just talking about?

Speaker 2 1:14:55

It was weird I was.

Speaker 1 1:14:56

I was oddly like nervous to get back on it again because I hadn't played those songs in several years come out at all that you were nervous, like it's cheap, like man, uh well the nervous nervous to get back together and play once.

Speaker 2 1:15:10

We were actually so. That was like before we were getting together. It was just like I hadn't even seen either of them, and you know however long it had been since you know, before excuse me before COVID and stuff, and you know it was like am I going to remember any of these songs, like you know?

Speaker 2 1:15:29

because they're not. You know I know them but they're not the easiest songs in the world to remember and and and purposefully so you know I've told you the story before about. You know the songs to the to the point that they barely make sense because, in a huge influence on being all over the place and all those kinds of things, was just playing in Savages with Clem because he's the most insane songwriter and guitar player.

Speaker 2 1:15:57

I've ever. He just approaches music in a way where you're just like He'll just play a riff and then you're just like what?

Speaker 1 1:16:02

He feels like he's from a different dimension. No, I agree.

Speaker 2 1:16:05

What timing is this? And he's like I don't know.

Speaker 1 1:16:08

And the fact that he can do all of that and also do vocals it's literally mind-blowing.

Speaker 2 1:16:13

It's nuts, but it was like getting back together and getting back on it. It was just like that was the one thing about COVID stuff and all that. It just wasn't around anybody at any time. I had to remember how to talk to other humans again and stuff.

Speaker 1 1:16:29

All of us had to to some degree, I think, but but for you probably much more so yeah, and so it was just like you know uh and then we got in there and started doing.

Speaker 2 1:16:38

It was, but we picked straight came right back.

Speaker 1 1:16:41

It was, it was like riding a bike.

Speaker 2 1:16:43

It was like, absolutely was like no time had passed and um and you know he's at the at the time Jason had got a studio space over at Full Moon actually. So that's where we practiced the songs and then recorded two tracks. I don't know whatever happened to those, because Clem needed to. He wanted to redo his guitars and put vocals over it, please make sure that stuff comes out, man Please. Well, I need to send him a text and ask him if he's still got two of my pedals, Dude.

Speaker 1 1:17:19

I'll show you when we go to walk out of the studio. But I literally have Invisible Birth of Death, the CD, in my notebook right now because it I don't remember what it was in, but it got spit out of whatever machine it was in and I was like that's where it's been. Because I've had the slip case on my desk for years and I was like I'll find it eventually.

Speaker 2 1:17:42

Whatever it was in. If it's scratched, I probably have one or two copies still hanging around, sweet One or two extras.

Speaker 1 1:17:49

I mean I burned that into my computer years ago. Two extras I mean I burned that into my computer years ago. I would really like and I know that I'm definitely not alone in this, would really like to see some more Savage's material actually recorded.

Speaker 2 1:18:05

Yeah, and we'll see they still talk pretty frequently. Yeah, just because they were best buds before I was even in the band and stuff. So they hassle and heckle each other all the time about anything and everything. And I think Clem's been putting the bug in his ear to let's do some stuff, let's play. I'm just like I mean I'll do it, but I don't really know how to best coordinate it in a way that is going to make any kind of sense.

Speaker 1 1:18:35

I pulled Clem to the side after that set and was like bro, if you need help, whatever you need, there are people here in town who will support this and who miss it dearly.

Speaker 2 1:18:53

Yeah, so Jason's out in Denver. He actually just sent me like two days ago. He sent me two tracks from his new band that he's doing. That's kind of a kaios-y sort of desert rock sort of thing. And then Clem is up in Pennsylvania and he mostly just that show is the first time he picked up an electric guitar since the last time we had played together. He just plays acoustic stuff.

Speaker 1 1:19:19

Oh, I mean of course, I bet that sounds just as crazy he was doing stuff at some kind of shaman retreats or something.

Speaker 2 1:19:26

I don't know Whatever the hell he was doing up there.

Speaker 1 1:19:30

That is very on-brand for his entire vibe.

Speaker 2 1:19:34

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:19:35

I just got to have it on public record. Man, if you were not at that 40-watt show, the Savagest Reunion show, that happened, it was last year, this year.

Speaker 2 1:19:45

I think it was to I think it was 2023. I think it was December of 2023.

Speaker 1 1:19:52

Oh, I think I'm thinking of it as if it were in 24.

Speaker 2 1:19:55

No it definitely wasn't.

Speaker 1 1:19:57

That's right. It was December 23,. I think you're right. If you were not at that show, you missed probably the best show that's happened in Athens in the past 20 years. That set was unbelievable, and many of us who were standing right as close to the stage as possible were just stun-locked the entire set.

Speaker 2 1:20:20

I appreciate it. I'm glad we got to do it. We'll see if anything, the door isn't shut, it's not like. Oh, I hate that guy.

Speaker 1 1:20:29

That's pretty much what Clem said too. He was like we will resurface. He said some shaman shit. He was like we will resurface, he said. He said some shaman shit when I, when I, he was like we will resurface. The savagest is going to slumber.

Speaker 2 1:20:42

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Speaker 1 1:20:44

He said something along those lines Um, I also, uh, gun pointing at you. Emoji, if in case you didn't like. Like, there is a threat. There is an idle threat. I don't want to spend too much time on it because there is a whole episode that you can go listen to. That happened before Daniel joined, but has joining Sacred Bowl affected the way that you think about or play music at all? Is there, like, has there been any effect on you as a musician? And also, uh, are there comments, complaints or threats you'd like to make to either me or any other member of the band while you're on public record?

Speaker 2 1:21:24

I think, um, I think one of the main things was it was really nice to settle back into a band that was um, that had less of the um, less of the chaos and less of like everything going on constantly, where it was like, oh, I can just write, you know, I can just try to write a you know a memorable hypnotic kind of baseline that sits underneath you know what these guys are doing and, um, and that was something I haven't gotten to really do in a very, very long time but despite playing, you know, bass in a a lot of bands was just hadn't been in one in a while where I had that kind of you know two guitar set up.

Speaker 1 1:22:11

they're kind of floating around doing their own thing, and it was mostly just because I had done at that point, you know two guitar set up.

Speaker 2 1:22:16

they're kind of floating around doing their own thing, and it was mostly just because I had done at that point you know I had done Savagist. Was you know eight, eight, nine years or something that I'd been doing that as, like the band I was in Cause I was on before that I was always in several at once all the time, and then, once um once, I was doing Savagist, it was like, okay, this is what we're doing.

Speaker 1 1:22:40

That's kind of where I'm at with Sacred Bull at the moment.

Speaker 2 1:22:43

It filled all the niches for me and so I didn't have to do anything else. But then getting back together, that's why with some of that stuff, like the stuff that's on Pulvis or like the older material I don't enjoy playing as much as the newer stuff, because I haven't gotten to put I know I want to play the new stuff too.

Speaker 2 1:23:05

I just didn't get to put my sort of spin on it, and not in the slight, I really. That was one of the things about joining the band. I really liked what Josh was doing, so it was at the same time I was like, well, how do I maintain sort of the vibe that? Is going on while adding, you know a few things.

Speaker 1 1:23:26

here and there, you liked what Josh was doing more than Josh liked what he was doing?

Speaker 2 1:23:29

Probably no.

Speaker 1 1:23:30

I can tell you that with certainty, because the reason that you're in the band is because he came to me and was like hey, you're having a knee surgery, do you mind if the interim, if we figure out how to find someone else to do the stuff that I'm doing, because I hate what I'm doing and I want to play guitar instead. It was nearly a I will quit if we don't do this scenario.

Savagist Reunion and Sacred Bull

Speaker 2 1:23:49

And that's what made it really fun was that it didn't affect it. Fun was that it didn't affect. It hasn't affected a ton of you know, like what I've done with Ixion. For the most part, I do think it has helped with the way I think about certain things, like, in just subtle ways, how stuff comes together, how you learn to write songs in your own kind of style. But that's why doing this last, the unreleased Sacred Bowl full length is getting to get together with me and Griffin in the space and him bringing riffs and then figuring out how to.

Speaker 2 1:24:29

Okay, how do we turn this into one big, cohesive part? How do we bridge these two? I love these two parts, but they don't make any sense back to back. How do we, you know, bridge these two? I love these two parts, but they don't make any sense back to back. How do we make them connect? How do we and so it helped me from that perspective gathering somebody else's thoughts and trying to help build them into something that we're all happy with, whereas with Ixena it just kind of it all falls on me and again there's nobody to bounce ideas off of. So if I have a bad idea and I don't realize it's a bad idea, then there's a bad idea on the album, you know, whereas that that doesn't happen as much with the sacred bull stuff from from behind the drum kit.

Speaker 1 1:25:07

It's been very nice to see, uh, someone who has the ability to spin out riffs at the rate that griffin does, to be able to connect with him on that, because that dude is a riff machine. You tell him to go home and write a riff and he will come back with like three in the genre of the vibe that you asked for. And, uh, it's very nice just to see, uh, you to be able to connect on that level. Because I feel like on some, on some level in the past, he would come in and say, okay, I've got this idea, and he would perform it and be like that's it, man, that's the idea, what do we do with it?

Speaker 1 1:25:40

And I'm like I don't know, man, I'm going to try to put, I'm going to do my best to write a part that is as complimentary to the thing that you have written as possible. But I don't know how to be able I don't know what in what way to be able to help you develop your idea. And when you guys come to, or when you came to me with that material and you're like hey, here's an entire song that literally first time that had ever happened to this band, the first time it was like hey, here's the, from start to end. We have like a pretty good idea of what this is going to be and we even have an idea of what we want the drums to sound like and being able to go oh sweet, I'm not, I don't feel like I'm floundering with like is this working, dad?

Speaker 2 1:26:29

And for the most part, that's if I'm conceptualizing drums in my head. For the most part, it's never. This is the drum beat I want here. It's this is where the snare accent should be, so it's basically like about should it be a one, two, one, two, one two or a?

Speaker 2 1:26:46

one, two, three, four, one two three, four or whatever you know, the important part to me is that's what's really setting the feel of what's going on, more than almost anything, because you can change. You can play the exact riff you know for four minutes and just keep changing, the drum beat up and down, you can have the dynamic shifting around in the song without you know the guitar doing the same. Yeah, that's something.

Speaker 1 1:27:09

That's something I've naturally, I think, always done with griffin's riff, because griffin's riffsiffs and maybe something that I did not expect you two to be so strong on together You're talking about writing hypnotic bass lines. He likes to write hypnotic riffs, so, like the two of you writing the most hypnotic thing in the world, and I'm like I feel like the drums have to move around in a way that, or else we're like playing the tightest thing in the world and it's not changing. Yeah, um, it's good stuff. I feel like, uh, there was I, literally, but like in a very spiritual sense of before and after, like you joining the band, I feel like we this is I when we go, when we sit down to write or when we go to play live, I really do feel like this is what the project was always supposed to be, and like what griffin and I have always been trying to like achieve and never successfully do, um, in a way that now I'm like, oh, yeah, this is it.

Speaker 1 1:28:04

I don't have to think about it in like an anxious way anymore. It's like it's happening, the, the art that's happening is the art that I think this band should be, which awesome. Thank you for taking me up on that random. Hey, do you want to join my band?

Speaker 2 1:28:18

I've joined. That's the thing about you know I've mentioned it before it's. You know I've obviously talked to you about it, but like it blows my mind how many you know, the number of, like, heavier bands in this town is absolutely staggering. Like there was a time, you know, I could probably list 15 off the top of my head right now, whereas there was a 10-year period where you couldn't list 15 heavy bands that came out of town and if you could.

Speaker 2 1:28:48

I played in 80 of them. You know, um, but you're not the first person who's done that either. That was the one of the bands I joined um forever ago. Any any old skate punk people will probably remember but um. Community chaos was a band. Um and my. We weren't friends at the time, but I used to go again. I can't believe tasty world is coming up again, but my, my, my friend, worked there and every time I would come in there he had.

Speaker 2 1:29:22

You know, their bass player had just left. For whatever reason, charlie great dude owns Lucky Cobra Tattoo Right. But Charlie Rules. He's one of my favorite people, but I haven't seen him in forever, but um, but anyway. So they were without a bass player, and so every single time I would go there, because that was basically the only venue that would have any sort of remotely heavy music for the most part. So I'd be there all the time and I wasn't.

Speaker 1 1:29:52

I wasn't 21 and I didn't drink, and so I figured out that if I so I figured out, if I just showed up to shows an hour early.

Speaker 2 1:29:59

I would just go in there get a water and I would just go sit down and wait for an hour and then they'd start taking the door or whatever, and then I wouldn't have to pay that still works today.

Speaker 1 1:30:07

You can do that at Flickr. And a little little tip, a life hack for you uh, folks out there trying to get into the heavy shows, now you can just walk into Flickr at 5 and they won't.

Speaker 2 1:30:18

You just gotta hang out in that room the whole time. Yeah, you really do so. Every time I would go in there he'd pester me and be like you wanna come play bass, you wanna come play bass. And then finally I was like okay, I was really glad I did.

Speaker 1 1:30:29

I'm glad I didn't have to pester you. That was super fun.

Speaker 2 1:30:32

Well, because I had a decision to make, because that was when you know Savages was coming to a definitive hiatus, because you know the other two members were moving and leaving town. So you know I had people asking me about it and had to make sure that it was the right fit. Both between you know the stuff I had going on with my kid, you had people asking you about what. About playing, about joining.

Speaker 1 1:30:58

Joining Sacred Bull.

Speaker 2 1:31:01

Or no joining other bands? Yeah, joining their band.

Speaker 1 1:31:03

Oh, and you said no to the other ones. Yeah, so I turned them down.

Speaker 2 1:31:06

Screw all you. I got it. So I turned them down and none of them were like I can't believe.

Speaker 1 1:31:10

I totally thought you were going to say no. I was convinced that you were going to say no.

Speaker 2 1:31:13

Yeah, I was convinced that you were going to be like ah, it's not Well, and that was part of it. I was in that zone of like try to say yes to as much stuff as you can Like unless you have a really good reason Like. A good example of that was recently this band from Russia hit me up and was like hey, will you remix one of our songs? And I was like okay, will you remix?

Speaker 1 1:31:36

one of our songs and I was like, okay, that's sick.

Speaker 2 1:31:37

I was like I've never done that before, but sure. And so I made a weird deconstructed version of their, just completely mangled and mashed it and stuff and sent it back and they're like awesome, they're all hyped on it because I was like that is so sick.

Speaker 2 1:31:54

I have the time to do it. I've never done it before, so I should learn something in the process, and that's again with art stuff. That's why every single thing I try to do if I can try to do something I've never done before. You're not always successful at it, but you almost inevitably learn. Even if what you learn is that this ain't working, you're still learning.

Speaker 1 1:32:18

You're still learning that and a lot of the time like that has to be like 20% or lower miss rate when you set out to achieve something different like that, yeah, you, uh, I, I, I would be surprised if, if you would have more failures than that because of how much experience you have in in making so many records, and I was looking at your band camp, uh, whenever I was drafting up the questions and I love that you're like the 2023 uh package.

Speaker 2 1:32:48

The 2022 package yeah, well, so that's yeah, and for for anybody, it's all. The vast majority of it is free. You can just take it, listen to it, do whatever. But yeah, I had to start doing that because the Bandcamp page got so cluttered so fast that, yeah, it just got insane and overwhelming. But you know at any given time, you know, and overwhelming, but at any given time, I think right now, releases 36, 37, and 38 are all either done or mostly done and are just waiting to come out.

Speaker 1 1:33:30

And I did the full length, Six or seven years right, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:33:35

That's unbelievable output. I did a full length that released on January 1st. That was supposed to come out on a label and then they were having issues and then it kept getting pushed back, pushed back and I was like, you know, I'm just going to put this one out and I'll write another one for them if they want it. But I released it at 12.01 on January 1st, so it would be the first album that was released for the 2025 year for anybody. So it won't make any year-end lists because people won't remember.

Speaker 1 1:34:08

That's why everybody releases everything in you know November or whatever. That's what they're doing. That's why they that's not Saker Bowl. We're like ah, so you?

Speaker 2 1:34:17

can get on the list. When can we?

Speaker 1 1:34:19

get it out.

Speaker 2 1:34:20

So did that, and then the two noise wall releases, and then there will be two splits which I guess I haven't really talked mentioned in my name at all, but one is going to be with Obscurity. Who's from athens? Nice who is awesome, they're great, they're a, they're a two-piece, um doing kind of just loud electronic, kind of digital hardcore-y sort of stuff, but not quite. You know, I don't uh, I don't keep up with enough of the categorizations to pin it down any more than that.

Speaker 2 1:35:00

The first time I heard it, though, I was like this kind of reminds me of Atari Teenage Riot and that makes me happy, and so I'm really stoked for that. That will probably be out.

Speaker 2 1:35:11

I think we're shooting for September and then a three-way split oh three three-way split which was proposed to me by, um, uh, my friend of mine who I just reached out to. He runs a label in philadelphia that's called strange mono that everyone should check out. They have a super diverse, um array of artists, uh everything for they've got, you know, grind bands and noise and stuff, and then they've got singer songwriter.

Speaker 2 1:35:45

Okay, yeah, like it's, it's all over the place, but um the, the guy who runs it, um dan, who's a super great guy. I messaged them because the point of the label is that they donate all proceeds of everything they do.

Speaker 2 1:36:00

So every release has a cause, and so it'll be like oh, this is going to be for the National Abortion Fund or whatever, and so you sell your stuff and do it, and I don't even care about making any money off anything I do anyway. So I was like this is awesome. I reached out to him and he was like, yeah, let's put something out. And we did it and um, anyway. So he's. He's also in another band, um, that's called uh, it's called beauty, that they are a two-piece and it's a drummer and then him doing like synth noise and vocals over it. It's um. I'll send it to you later. It's cr. It's crazy good, it's so awesome. But um. And then a band out of ohio called uh disposal unit.

Speaker 1 1:36:46

Who?

Speaker 2 1:36:46

I just learned of, for when they had mentioned doing, um, this split and, uh, that that'll be the next couple of months, and then, um, the last thing is what you had alluded to earlier the uh, with the Russian video where, um, I basically did, I had recorded a, um, uh, an instrumental black metal, noisy kind of full length and then wanted to do visuals for it, and so it was stitching together stuff from basically editing down. You know some of it's like, you know full movies that have been edited down into you know six minutes of stuff or whatever or have been crunched down to 20 minutes of material and then the song is seven minutes.

Speaker 2 1:37:38

So you shrink that to seven minutes but you overlay it with a three-minute video that you stretch out to seven minutes, then blah, blah, blah. So anyway, it'll be a release that they'll go together. I'm planning on doing it on VHS but it'll also be on YouTube for people who don't have, who don't collect kind of dead media stuff. But that'll be in conjunction with my friend. James Greer is going to be doing his art show. It'll be at Flickr. So we're going to do a combined thing where he's going to have his art up. He's going to have his art up, we're going to show that album slash video. And then there's going to be a couple other people who's I should have written it down their names are escaping me at the exact moment who are going to be doing some musical performances afterward.

Speaker 1 1:38:31

Is that on the books already?

Speaker 2 1:38:34

Do you have a date for it? It's mid-November, I remember that. So mid-November at Flickr and that'll be really. I'm really really looking forward to that one.

Speaker 1 1:38:47

I love that you guys do all these, like everybody in the band really doing these incredible, crazy multimedia things. I will definitely be at that show Cause, uh, when you sent me that originally, or sent me the kind of, I guess, early variants of it, I felt like I was watching um, there's like a there's an old uh, spike TV TV show that would run at like 2 AM called cinema tech. You know what I'm talking about. What they would do is like they would take really obscure video games. They would take cut scenes from it and then just put like crazy, like electronic music over top of it and just completely cut out all the audio from the video. So it was like you were watching like a Fever Dream MTV music video. That was like. Anyway, when you sent me some of the stuff that you're, you were just talking about that's I felt like I was.

Speaker 2 1:39:39

I was taken back to like watching that stuff as a kid, being like this weird, like completely from this person's mind multimedia, full, engaged senses, experience it's funny that you you brought the video game cut scenes too, because I did cut a bunch down but they didn't wind up fitting the overall vibe of it. But I actually haven't played it yet, I've only seen it from the gameplay footage and the cut scenes. But Infernaxx, where it's like a I'm familiar with this it's like a retro kind of thing.

Speaker 2 1:40:25

It's sort of blasphemous but more like side scroller. You know kind of a deal, but it just didn't wind up. I couldn't make it work side scroller kind of a deal, but it just didn't wind up. I couldn't make it work, and that was what I was going to say earlier. We were like oh, your hit and miss rate is that I have a lot of misses. I usually catch them before they become anything.

Speaker 2 1:40:49

So I have a folder of that's not a miss, then, man if it never made it out, I have a folder of finished projects and unfinished projects. And the unfinished projects I think there's at least 10 partially worked on releases or whatever.

Speaker 1 1:41:05

But a lot of that stuff ends up coming back or finding new life.

Speaker 2 1:41:09

A lot of it does. What was supposed to be the second Ixian release has been on the shelf since then. Like I haven't touched that stuff and there's a lot of really good stuff on it.

Speaker 2 1:41:22

Um, I don't know how well a lot of it would fit and I have to re-record a bunch of stuff and I've just not been in the in the mood to do that because that's a whole, because I don't write anything down, like normally. When I'm writing a riff I'm like, okay, I need okay here, I need like a blast beat. You know, grim riff that's going right here.

Speaker 2 1:41:42

And so I just sit there and I tinker around, tinker around, and then once I come up with you know, a four-part thing or whatever, I go, all right, cool, and I record it right then to the click, so I have it, and then typically just move on from there and keep going, and then I go back through at the end and I'll re-record everything. But after that it's like but when I do that, I have to relearn whatever I did, because I've already passed it. I didn't write it down, I didn't practice it, I didn't do anything, um. And so, yeah, I really have to like go back and like really like relearn everything, um all of it's super impressive that you do it.

Speaker 1 1:42:20

I appreciate it um other than the most obvious one, which we can talk about if you want to. Uh, but what's? What's a book that has majorly impacted your life, any anything you want to talk about in terms of like, if it's affected your music, your art or just, uh, your perspective or your philosophy?

Speaker 2 1:42:37

I would say so there's a lot I'll rattle off, since you know it's a library thing. So definitely gonna list some, some books and authors, and we've talked about this before. But a lot of my taste is um is older asimov, is that what you're going to say first? Well, that's one of them, Okay.

Speaker 1 1:42:56

I thought that that was going to be the first thing out of your mouth was.

Speaker 2 1:42:58

Asimov? No, no, probably the first one that's affected the most stuff, and no single book has really impacted the most, because they share such similar themes all the time. Is you know, philip K Dick, where?

Speaker 1 1:43:18

you know it's hard for me to pick out of all of the many things and his influence through everything is, you know, is pretty obvious. I gave Do Androids Dream to a person. It was their first book, first Dick book, first time they've read a book by Dick it was their first book, first Dick book. Yeah, First time they've read a book by Dick, like earlier this week.

Speaker 2 1:43:41

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:43:41

Yeah, it's awesome to be able to like. That's one of the best parts of this job is being able to.

Speaker 2 1:43:45

I love, love, love that.

Speaker 1 1:43:47

We've got that. We've got man of the High Castle.

Speaker 2 1:43:50

Yeah, man of the High Castle is great, valis is great. Flow my Tears. The policeman said is awesome.

Speaker 1 1:44:00

The Martian one.

Speaker 2 1:44:01

They're like stuck in a pod.

Speaker 1 1:44:04

We have two more at least I was trying to think of, because I had to go hunt it down in the stacks because some of our stuff is uncatalogued.

Speaker 2 1:44:09

Yeah, and some of it's longer, some of it's shorter. You know the stuff like the Scanner, Darkly stuff.

Speaker 1 1:44:16

That was one of the other ones. Scanner Darkly for sure. The Total Recall. That was one of the most maybe the most depressing book I've ever read.

Speaker 2 1:44:23

Yeah, they tend to have that effect.

Speaker 1 1:44:26

I didn't feel that much about androids as much. But when I read Scanner Darkly for the first time, I was just like crushing.

Speaker 2 1:44:33

He can get heavy.

Speaker 1 1:44:36

Rapid Fire hit me off some more real quick.

Speaker 2 1:44:38

Alright, so we talked about it the other day. Ray Bradbury yeah, of course, Absolutely love Ray Bradbury. I have a stack of Bradbury books Asimov, massive, massive.

Speaker 1 1:44:50

I found the Gods Themselves. Is that what? That's called, not the copy. You gave me the different one. No, I think I gave you that copy back, could you?

Speaker 2 1:45:02

ask for it back.

Speaker 1 1:45:03

I think I have that one, yeah, and then Josh gave me a replacement copy. I literally found that a couple days ago I was rearranging the budget.

Speaker 2 1:45:11

The Gods Themselves is super good. I love, love, love the first three foundation books.

Speaker 1 1:45:20

Are there more than three foundation books?

Speaker 2 1:45:25

Yeah, because the time scale is so big where it's like one book takes the course over centuries or whatever. So they can just kind of keep going out. But I literally wrote an ambient concept album about the mule from the foundation.

Speaker 1 1:45:43

That's right. Yes, it is, that's right.

Speaker 2 1:45:45

That's a book one.

Speaker 1 1:45:46

Also an excellent album cover Very simple, but very evocative yeah.

Speaker 2 1:45:50

And maybe it's hard for me to really this is more of like a Mount Rushmore situation than a you know absolute favorite, but Ursula K Le Guin is just unbelievable. She her writing. That's one of the books that I was going to write down, for it's got one of my favorite quotes ever, which I'm going to butcher trying to paraphrase it, but it's in Earthsea. And it was a really big one for me when I was going through a lot of stuff with my son and whatnot, where the quote is something along the lines of like the more you know, the more knowledge the man has attained, or whatever, the more clear his path.

Speaker 2 1:46:37

Or is this something along those lines where it's effectively like you know, you become more. The more you know, the more sure you are on like what the right thing is to do here, like you don't get to waffle on things, because you have enough knowledge that like this is the way you do it enough knowledge that like this is this is the way you do it very, very utopian. Take on on analysis, paralysis. What other people would? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's I'll find the quote later and it's it's much.

Speaker 1 1:47:05

It's much better than that special shout out to left hand of darkness, which is yeah, I think, probably my favorite Le Guin left hand of darkness, the lat.

Speaker 2 1:47:13

The Lathe of Heaven, I love, love the Lathe of Heaven. The Dispossessed she is incredible the fact that she and Philip K Dick didn't go to the same high school is absolutely insane to me.

Speaker 1 1:47:29

What was in the water. What were they serving at school?

Speaker 2 1:47:34

lunch and the one other one that I wrote down um to mention uh is uh murakami, who I oh wow, I did not know okay love, love. I haven't read any of his stuff in a minute but what's your favorite, murakami? Probably the. Um, the hard-boiled is probably the I'm forgetting the full title of it, but that one's really good.

Speaker 1 1:48:02

The only Murakami I've read is 1Q84.

Speaker 2 1:48:05

Yeah, kendra's got that one. I haven't read it yet.

Speaker 1 1:48:09

And that was. That is a tome.

Speaker 2 1:48:11

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I haven't read it.

Speaker 1 1:48:14

The reason I read it is because the copy we have has that dope dust jacket where it's like kind of semi-transparent that's the one. That's the copy we have and it's like, yeah, I sold me on the book, like literally reading a book, because judging a book on its cover, um, but that that took me like an entire year. I carried it around with me for like an entire year, our copy.

Speaker 1 1:48:34

I kept having to recheck it and then check it back out, and at some point somebody put it on hold and I had to like lose it for a month and then check it back.

Speaker 2 1:48:42

Yeah, most of the thing is most lately I had stepped away mostly from fiction for a minute, not for any like particular reason.

Speaker 2 1:48:51

I just didn't have anything that I was like I need to read this or, like you know, had been recommended to me. Obviously, when you recommended southern reach and gave me a copy of it, I was like this is awesome, I really enjoyed that. But mostly over the last you know five years it's, it's been mostly non-fiction stuff, where it's a lot like a lot of kind of niche. You know history or um, kind of political sciencey things like um. You know books on? Uh, oh, my god, I can't believe I'm forgetting his name is benedict, who writes on nationalism and things and, uh, read a couple you know books on um you know, the, the, the balkans, like the breakup of yugoslavia oh yeah, we were talking about that.

Speaker 2 1:49:42

Yeah, at one of the practices read a really good one about the, um, the, basically the history of, like, greece and turkey and um, all that stuff which is near impossible to fathom. As you know somebody from here, so it's just really. It's just not a thing you really encounter, in much the same way that there are certain things that are very American, that are weird to explain to somebody else, but a lot, of, a lot of history stuff.

Speaker 1 1:50:13

Especially from someone with a country that has more than a national history, longer than 300 years?

Speaker 2 1:50:20

Yeah, exactly. Well, that's like you know, when you look at stuff like the oh my God, is it the Battle of Sarajevo or whatever, which is like the 1300s, that you know there's still beef over stuff like that. It's just stuff that you can't fathom. Still beef over stuff like that, and it's just stuff that you can't fathom as someone who's like I? Don't even know where my family came from more than 100 years ago my mind doesn't even go back that far.

Speaker 1 1:50:45

Um, that's, that's nuts. Uh. Is there anything in particular you're reading right now you want to talk about? Uh? Nothing or the most recent thing you read nothing at the moment.

Speaker 2 1:50:56

It was probably one of it's probably the the greek history, one which was not um.

Speaker 1 1:51:03

When I say greek history, it was like way it was not, it's not city states and it's more, like you know, the countryside that is now known as Greece. Yeah, it's more about that was the nation.

Speaker 2 1:51:17

I find the Balkan region and the Ottoman Empire and stuff I find endlessly fascinating because it's such a, it's just such an odd thing when you watch the rise and fall and how they, you know how they controlled their chunk of area, but you know kind of mostly got stagnant but still were able to do some things in World War I and you know it's just an interesting thing with a ton of history. I mean, just you could spend and people have. You could spend your entire life just learning about.

Speaker 1 1:52:01

The geopolitics of one spot Of literally just of. Constantinople or Istanbul.

Speaker 2 1:52:07

You could literally just focus on that, the most important, basically, connection between two places and where culture and things flowed back and forth between.

Speaker 2 1:52:19

You know all those various places and it's just uh, I don't know, it's just a cool thing and and something that uh got a, got a lot of respect for, and it's just just interesting. I just find it to be an interesting topic. Um, one other person I will say in the non-fiction um realm that I really like is and I'm gonna again, I don't know how to properly pronounce the name is adam uh hochschild, who wrote um a book called To End All Wars, which is a history of World War I, but it's more about the tension and story between the actual going to war, like a big part of the story is juxtaposing one of the main generals and like his sister, who was a massive anti-war person and kind of you know, and talking about all this because you don't learn about you know it's just like oh, world war one happened and then you know that it's not often taught about as much the resistance to the war which did happen.

Speaker 2 1:53:31

a lot of it was women, a A lot of it was communists trying to rally workers and be like this is not our war, you know. Just all those sorts of things.

Speaker 1 1:53:41

The narrative being controlled by, essentially, the world state of the past hundred years.

Speaker 2 1:53:47

And he also wrote another one called King Leopold's Ghost. That is about the Congo and the rubber trade. And that was one of the most depressing but best books I've ever read, but it's horrifying and I think all people should have to.

Speaker 1 1:54:10

You need to confront the fact that, going back for X amount, x amount of time, people have been exploiting other people all over the world whether you know whether it's people in the and some of the same city where this places in the world are still dealing with some of the oldest problems in it in in so effectively, ways that have has not changed for the individual individuals being oppressed literally throughout the entirety of human society and human history. Yeah, there's those things, that ways that have has not changed for the individual individuals being oppressed literally throughout the entirety of human society and human history yeah, there's those things, that those issues didn't go away and they've they started that that region is is my current uh geopolitical interest that that I is like the, the democratic republic of the congo.

Speaker 1 1:54:49

Yeah, um, everything happening with, like what? What is it being called world war, war Africa? Have you heard that term? The stuff that's happening, currently unfolding to this day, is wild, considering how long it's been running. And these same issues, same conflicts to this day.

Speaker 2 1:55:10

One more I'll shout out is. Murakami's nonfiction if you've never read. It is Underground, which is.

Speaker 1 1:55:18

I don't even think I knew he made nonfiction.

Speaker 2 1:55:21

So this is what. So I'll talk about this for a second but, for me with a lot of artists it's really Sometimes it's not even the art they make or whatever else. It's when you can get a sense of the person through it and he's somebody who.

Speaker 1 1:55:39

I feel like you get a sense of Murakami through everything he makes.

Speaker 2 1:55:54

Yeah, he's very much him. He did with people who were affected by the Tokyo subway gassing, by Shinrikyo. Fascinating Just the way he approaches. It is just just with so much humanity, juxtaposed with Japanese culture of people talking about like, oh, I could tell something wasn't right, my vision, but like I had to get to work or like I'm a salary man Sure sure yeah. It's just a very interesting. I'll let you borrow it.

Speaker 1 1:56:34

I think that I would probably be a lot more interested in reading that than another one of his fictional works after reading 1QA4.

Speaker 2 1:56:43

Well, that was massive. You know Norwegian Wood and some of those others. Sputnik Did.

Speaker 1 1:56:48

Norwegian Wood get turned into a film. I believe it did? I have not seen it, I'm pretty sure I saw that when it came out. I was a student in Atlanta and I saw it at the student art house and I was like I remember my buddy came away from that film Like he just would not even talk. He's just so emotionally affected and he now is like a massive Murakami stan.

Speaker 2 1:57:12

Yeah, he's phenomenal. The man knows what he's phenomenal.

Speaker 1 1:57:19

The man knows what he's doing. Where can our audience find your work other than the places we've already talked about? Or maybe we can shout those out again?

Speaker 2 1:57:27

Yeah, I'll give a quick plug for it. The main place is on the. It's all in the Bandcamp right now ixianbandcampcom. Nothing more complicated than that. Everything, virtually everything, I've ever released. I think there's a couple things from compilation albums and stuff that may not be on there, but the vast majority of it is on there. I've tried to put everything up on streaming, despite the fact that I hate the concept of streaming, and I've done nothing but lost money having it on there, which is fine but I have it on there for I have it on there for other people.

Speaker 2 1:58:05

That's to me, it's a service for you know other folks. If you're listening and you're like I'm supporting an artist by you. Know I listen to them all the time on. I'm supporting an artist by you. Know I listen to them all the time. You're not supporting them at all. That's fine. I'm glad you're listening. I'm super thrilled.

Speaker 1 1:58:19

But, like I've shown, people before Buy some merch. I've shown people before that the revenue I've had.

Finding Ixian's Work and Upcoming Shows

Speaker 2 1:58:28

And you know that's not profit, that's revenue. If you sell a shirt it counts the whole price of shirt. But yeah, my revenue on bandcamp is literally a factor of 100. 100 to 1 is the ratio of my bandcamp revenue to streaming revenue over six or seven years or whatever.

Speaker 2 1:58:51

Yeah, so literally, if somebody you know comes and hands you a dollar, that's one singular dollar, that's going to do more to support than streaming over and over and over again, 24 hours a day for a month so you got Bandcamp and you're going to have a YouTube channel yeah, there is a YouTube channel oh, it exists already. I think it's just. It's either add ixian or no.

Speaker 1 1:59:18

If you add ixian noise maybe. Yeah, if you look up ixian music or ixian noise like you can, you can tell it.

Speaker 2 1:59:25

It's daniel yeah and yeah and have, uh, and there's a instagram is the main thing. That's where, that's the one that and I say keep, keep it updated. I get really annoyed about it and I always feel like I'm overposting. If I post more than like once a month, you're not.

Speaker 1 1:59:43

You're absolutely not overposting. I'll drop a few stories here and there, but yeah, I'm there the videos you used to do with the masks, and you would like do a little dance and then pull a name out of a hat.

Speaker 2 1:59:56

Well, and that's, yeah, I miss that stuff. Well, I was doing those for uh, those were for shade beast when I was booking and doing those, but yeah, so those are. Those are the main ones is the, the Instagram band camp and there's the YouTube channel, but that's basically just got um, there's the YouTube channel.

Speaker 1 2:00:14

But that's basically just got Be on the lookout.

Speaker 2 2:00:16

It will have dope stuff soon. Yeah, there's always stuff happening, and what I always tell people is that if I put something out and you don't like it, just wait for the next one, because it's.

Speaker 1 2:00:25

It won't be long.

Speaker 2 2:00:26

It's probably going to sound different and it won't take long to come out.

Speaker 1 2:00:29

It'll be like two days and real quick. Are there any upcoming shows that you want to shout out that you're going to do that? Folks could find you at. Yes, so there is one beyond that November one Look out for the November show at Flickr.

Speaker 2 2:00:45

I'm literally pulling out my phone.

Speaker 1 2:00:49

James Greer's Art Rules as well. I have a piece of his on my wall above my thermostat. That is incredible. Every time I change the temperature of my house I look at his little squid knot thing and I'm just like that is so sick. I'm like I've got to make that in a tabletop game.

Speaker 2 2:01:04

All right, it is Sine on October 10th, which is a Friday, and again, I've never heard their name said out loud Frizzin.

Speaker 1 2:01:21

Frizzin F-R-I-S-S-O-N. I've met those guys before. They're good dudes.

Speaker 2 2:01:26

I'm stoked to do that show. Chase and Ross from Nihilist and the Sundering Seas are doing a new band.

Speaker 1 2:01:34

Oh sick as a two-piece Okay.

Speaker 2 2:01:36

It's like a two-piece sludge.

Speaker 1 2:01:37

How does Ross have?

Speaker 2 2:01:38

time I don't know. Chase is playing a bass six. It should be cool, and Rosie and the Rat Dogs are playing too.

Speaker 1 2:01:47

That's good. Okay, look, if you're not at that show, you're dumb, you're stupid. That's an incredible lineup.

Speaker 2 2:01:52

So that should be a good one. So that's the only one right now. I do want to start playing more shows. If you listen to this and you're like oh, that's awesome. I wish you played more.

Speaker 1 2:02:01

Just ask me to play shows and I'll probably say yes. He's on that radical saying yes thing and not turning down shows and I don't mind playing first.

Speaker 2 2:02:17

He prefers it actually. Yeah, so it'll be a nice, be a nice little uh blasting opener and then you can get on with the uh, with the good stuff people care about.

Speaker 1 2:02:20

Well, daniel, thank you so much for coming out on the podcast I I have been dreaming of doing this for a very long time and I'm glad we finally got to make it happen. Um, I think your art rules um, and I I'm not alone in that uh opinion. Um, people in town uh regularly will will talk to me about your stuff and I'm always like, yeah, I'm, I, I am his biggest stand.

Speaker 2 2:02:44

Like, if you have criticisms for my man back back up or I will get at you well, I very much appreciate it and I appreciate you know you asked me to do this and finally being able to get in here and do it. Yeah, um and good night. My listeners and I appreciate you asking me to do this and finally being able to get in here and do it.

Speaker 1 2:02:56

Yeah, and good night, my listeners.

Speaker 2 2:02:59

See ya.