Transcript for:
Rob Flynn's Journey Through Music and Life

[Music] do you remember what you saying yeah of course i do it's embarrassing rough flynn it is honor to see you man hey brother thank you for thanks for having me out here man anytime dude anytime hell yeah so yeah times are different uh i uh i approached you under the influence of uh alcohol um and i was like "oh [ __ ] it's rob flynn dude." and i started singing the words to from this day to you you did yes yes and you're wearing a suffocation shirt and i was like "fuck this [ __ ] i thought you were i thought you were clowning." so for for okay so there was a period of time where you thought i was like being like a serious dick totally okay i i apologize for that but i was actually serious totally i realized that you know later but like it took a couple of times cuz the first time you were just so drunk i was like "i don't know what the [ __ ] this dude's deal is." and then the next time you were like "hey man are you ever going to play from this day?" and i was like "fuck you." i was just like "what the fuck?" yeah cuz you were still wearing the same suffocation shirt and i was just like "this dude's just being a dick." and you're like "no like i'm serious like i really like that song." and i was like "oh yeah." like it was it was a surprise to me like i didn't know yeah i think someone had to tell you no he's like a new metal guy he's like the new metal guy he's obsessed with it he just wears death metal shirts you know kind of like kind of like a a cover up and then and then i remember that i mean in in many ways i i i give you the credit for this because we weren't playing from this day at the time our drummer dave was refusing to play that song and had been refusing to play it for about seven years at that point was like hated it didn't ever want to play it and i was like i'm cool with playing it and you continually asked for us to play it and and then we were on tour we cuz we did like five tours together it was kind of crazy like how many tours we did together but we were on tour with mega death and it was coming up in oklahoma and your birth it was your birthday coming up yes and you were like i don't know how old it was turning 25 or something something yeah something like that yeah and you were like "dude if you played from this day for my birthday it would be the sickest [ __ ] present ever." and i was just like and you hit me you gave me like a good week's notice you to like lead up and like work on him and so i sat there started working on like come on like let's play it like this like this kid wants to hear it for us like [ __ ] it let's [ __ ] play it you know and uh and finally he relented and we and we jammed i remember you were raging we were [ __ ] stage diving and [ __ ] in the pit and [ __ ] raging and and the crowd went crazy like the crowd went [ __ ] crazy and i was just like dude like we got to we got to start playing this song again like it's [ __ ] people love it man like [ __ ] it did uh did something happen to to you and the guys when you dropped that one record bernie red was there like some kind of like we're never going to play these songs like ever no i mean when we dropped that record we did we were doing tons of songs off that record you know for the whole cycle and for for years after we did those songs and then at some point i just think that like you know you're doing festivals and we're trying to do all these songs off of the blackening which are like 10 minutes long and you know clenching the fist of descent and halo and it's like something's got to go and so those it was that record that went which is weird because isn't that one of like your like the top selling ones it is yeah totally what the hell dude yeah i you know we were just you know how it is in a band sometimes you just kind of get in a in a zone and you're stoked on your new stuff and you just want to share it with the world and you you get you know you've played i've played from this day now like 3,000 times or something like you just you're like i could not play that song for a while and and get away from it for a minute yeah we got our 10,000 hours we got our 10,000 hours you know of just riffs yeah yeah you guys went all this but i do credit you with bringing that song back into machine head's uh live playlist you know like it it was you who did that and after that we brought it back and it never left again really yeah it it hasn't left it's still like we still play that [ __ ] every day every day now every day now oh my goodness at first i was probably like i'm not playing that song for rob oh for oh for garza okay i guess feels cool yeah we were i remember being in dallas and um yeah dave had the e kit out and you guys were all jamming i was like "oh wow." i was like that's quite one of like one of the coolest things anyone's ever done for me like man they're going to play a song for me on my birthday holy [ __ ] that's dope it was it was killer too like the look on your face when we were playing it you were just so [ __ ] stoked and i was like "fuck yeah dude." like this is what it's all about you know what i mean like this is what it's all about mhm like just that you you being as stoked as you were made my whole show like i still remember that show like it happened you know last week yeah yeah and i mean yeah speaking of like you know these are like the moments this is the moment too like just you know sitting sitting across from you having like the i wouldn't imagined it would be me doing this i would not imagine someone told me a few years ago i would be doing this hanging out with you just dude you're killing it with like with like you're you're going to ask rob flynn flynn questions the you're killing it though this is [ __ ] awesome you got the killer show like i watched i watched a couple of uh what did i do i watched the cattle decapitation one i watched the adam d one and then i watched that chris barnes one dude it was so good it was so good man like it was insane and and honestly like i cried doctor what's that i cried doctor did you yeah yeah you looked like you got a little emotional at the end there you know i think i i think we both knew something happened it like transcended like like the conversation like something was it was late too it was almost like 1:00 a.m oh wow and it was over yeah and i'm you guys did it after the show that was the first after show one at the whole it was like damn this is you you know like it's like similar to being in like a band where uh you're just grinding grinding and grinding and something happens something finally this [ __ ] cuts through some finally that was like a big moment like for and l luckily i think with his age uh he just i think he just he's he's a new person you know and i i took it very this is my first time even i think talking about it publicly but i u i doing research on him and coming across these videos of him i took it very personal like you guys don't even know him and i wanted to that's i took it personal cuz i because uh when you have experience being like the internet comes after do for whatever reason like right yeah but that i'm a first off i'm a very i separate the art from the artist that's the kind of person i am for better or or for worse like you could be a dick to me and i was still like listening to the songs i'm a very you know painting like like like whatever um so as for him i'm always like for obviously i have a soft spot for like people like in bands singers or artists i'm like that [ __ ] wrote those songs that brain that what wherever you think wherever you think those lyrics came from that came from him and that's a that's a permanent step uh stamp in death metal like and people try to take that away it's like dude i took it very personal dude i got to say like i've never i've never met him like i've never we we've played a couple festivals here and there but we've just never crossed paths and i'm pretty like i kind of keep to myself anyway like i'm not like mr [ __ ] you know get out hey man hey like i'm just that's just not me and i like i [ __ ] loved that dude at the end of that podcast i was like i was like how do you not like this dude he's so [ __ ] like you know he's funny but he's like you know crazy story like the whole like you know you know family stuff that he was going through and then just going right out on the road and i was like you know it's just like it was a i was just anyway just kudos to you fantastic job on that you know i had a podcast for a while but nothing like this like that was like so this is so professional my [ __ ] was just like zoom calls and you know what i mean like yeah this is the real deal hell yeah man this is the future i think so too man i think uh bands need to take some uh kind of take the power back you know put it in their own hands you know i kind of see like i kind of see where things are going you know you kind of have to own your [ __ ] you know anything i could anything i could do or or the band could do that you own this and no one could take it away that's kind of i think that's where it's going and u you have probably have more experience than than a me rob i think like the music industry or people or music in general is always last to kind of adopt any kind of new thing so i'm just trying so this has helped me to kind of stay like like ahead yeah you know and then also give you know any band small no matter how big or small the band is they have you know they have a platform now i'll talk to anybody yeah it's killer yeah i mean you had like peeling flesh dudes like showing how to do slam riffs and [ __ ] and i was like anybody anybody dude i was as a fan rob um what made you guys what really made you guys make the step to do the burning red because it kind of came out kind of came out of nowhere like what did you guys just jump into that kind of uh record well i mean that was album number three for us um i mean to in in my mind it really isn't out of nowhere like you know we we always had groove we always had hip-hop elements you know like if you go back to the burn my eyes you know pe a lot of people talk to me now about like the dynamo 95 video you know like people talked about all the time you know like i'm doing a method man rap in the middle of the song thousand lies you know like i drop a method man rap like halfway through i don't know if people knew it was method man back then i never heard about it until right now yeah but but i did you know like we were you know we covered colors by ice tea on the second album you know it's that was a bonus track on that like i that hip-hop thing was always there and then with the with that record you know i i do feel like the hip-hop thing kind of dominates the conversation when people bring up the burning red that might be it which to me isn't really the most uh like to me the biggest thing for that record was how melodic we got like we really really lean hard into the kind of cure robert smith guitar tones you know like a lot of melodic vocals a song like silver or something like you know that's almost like it's almost a pop song you know like it's just kind of soft vocals and four chords for a verse and and then obviously the song the burning red which was you know for me at the time terrifying like it was absolutely terrifying to think about putting a song that mellow on a machine head record like that has no heavy guitars that's pretty much just all soft vocals like it never i never go into the heavy you know roar i never go into a screech it just and you know there was a lot of i mean there was a lot of things you know what i mean there was so many things going on at that time period that that you know it just that record became a snapshot of what the four dudes were going through in their lives yeah you were in the middle of it yeah whose idea was it to go with ross then it was uh well dave used to be in a band with ross yes so they they were in a a thrash band called murder car and murder car murder car yeah they weren't very good they weren't very good yeah you can pull it up i thought it was called some something else i guess they're back i heard they might be back together or something though see a long-haired ross i never seen this [ __ ] picture with hell like his hair's as long as yours dude whoa i never seen ross robinson with long hair like that yes yeah he was a total thrash guitar made [ __ ] i remember him being a thrasher but i i never seen the thrash yeah yeah there it is yo dude i got to where'd you find that jay he just i just watched him google it he just went murder car boom murder car but he uh so you know we we had kind of known ross obviously just from the scene we you know the corn you know we had we knew the corn guys and so we knew that you know that connection from ross and yeah and um you know i think we just you know we were ready to kind of make when we when we finished our second record and it was a you know it's big success and like at this point we sold like you know over a million records worldwide and two albums and and we're you know but at the same time it's like things are kind of changing like i feel like we if we make another record this is just like the [ __ ] that i'm thinking in my head that if we make another record in this same vein like we're going to kind of box ourselves in to something that we might not ever get out there's a lot of bands that are starting to sound like machine head and i wanted to just like it's the worst spot to be in and i just i wanted to just kind of get it go some other direction and i don't know what that is but you know with the help of ross maybe we find it and you know personally i'm going through this massive life change and musically we're you know we lost our guitar player logan and he kind of got like pretty much just consumed by drugs and alcohol and you know he's he's taking like 18 volume a day and doing like you know half a gram of coke a day and drinking every day and smoking weed all day and night and you know he's got 33 eyeballs tattooed on him and he's like "i've got 33 eyeballs tattooed on me and i can see out of everyone you know like he's like he's going hard and we're just like whoa dude." you know he's just like i'm trying to talk to him and he's just like "i was reading the cabal and it says that you're the devil with the king's card." and i'm just like "bro slow down like stop with the value." like we're trying to like it's a miracle he's still alive then it really honestly like the fact that logan mater is alive and doing amazing and producing and he's sober now and it's like it's it's incredible and i i love logan like i him and i have totally you know like you know mended our relationship but at the time it was like a really ugly breakup you know and he's like tell you know he's like you're all anchors i'm going to be a rock star you're just holding me back and i'm just like so he quits and like him him quitting kind of sends me like i'm i've already been kind of in a downward spiral like i'm in my own drug kind of [ __ ] i'm going through my own [ __ ] i'm kind of going through this very self-destructive phase in my life like burn my eyes was me like spitting out all my anger into the world and i'm getting in fights every friday and saturday like three times a week i'm getting in fights at bars and [ __ ] clubs and you know just a [ __ ] insane life and then like burn my eyes blows up and now i'm famous and i everybody's like you can't get in fights like you've already got like lawsuits coming at you like you can't they got to stop like you got to you know like people are just want to fight people are just trying to pick a fight with you now because they want to turn around and sue you so don't like you got to stop like you can't take the bait and so then i just it's like it's like i turned all this anger inside and then i just became i went down this really self-destructive path and uh you know like cutting and like bulimia and like all like i really got like [ __ ] lost for a minute there and this is all like during the more things change tour cycle like so panta tours and ozfest tours and all these big moments but like kind of internally like really really falling apart and so you know i i i go out with my wife and i' i've become like a pretty much a full-blown bulimic at this point like i've always been overweight like i've always like had body issues like thinking i'm fat even when i'm not fat and and and so on the road i like just start throwing up like every time i eat a meal i'll throw up because i'm like that bad yeah and i'm like cuz in my head i'm like fat and i need to lose weight because i'm the singer of a [ __ ] band oh wow and i got to like do this and then i'd get off the road and then i just [ __ ] gorge on food like i just eat like there's no i drink and eat and i just [ __ ] glutton oh you had did you have a full-on like eating disorder i had a full-on eating disorder yeah i'm going to turn this over so doesn't see that but i i literally had like a full-on dis eating disorder and you know then i'm gorging on food you know i go out to my i'm going out to dinner and then i come back and i'd like sneak into my house like sneak into the bathroom at some point and throw up behind my you know she's my girlfriend at that point she's now my wife but and then one time like i i'm throwing up in the bathroom and she comes in like we had just gotten back from drinking wine and eating a ton of food and she's like "what are you doing?" and i was like and i i had thrown up and the throw up had splattered back up into my eye and i would you know had she not been there i would have just dried it off and she never would have known this cuz i had been kind of doing this behind her back for a long time oh wow and i remember like i looked over at her like i turned around and looked at her and i've got [ __ ] throw up in my eye and i'm just [ __ ] you know i'm like finger in my mouth and i'm like "what the [ __ ] am i doing?" like what and she's like "what are you doing?" i'm like and i [ __ ] tell her like "i'm i'm throwing up like i've been throwing up." and she's like "how long i've been throwing up for like nine months now like i'm just [ __ ] throwing up." and like "what dude?" she's like "dude like you need she's like "you need some therapy bro." like and i'm like you know like maybe i do like because i'm kind of going through all this logan stuff after he quit and this is all going on and you know so i go into therapy you know like i i start taking therapy with this lady who's this amazing lady and uh you know like when you start doing you know like i want to change like i don't i don't like who i am i don't like where i'm going i don't like this person i've become and i feel like fame's consuming me and i feel like you know just whatever is consuming me you like my own demons i don't want to blame it on fame like my own demons are consuming me we all have them and so and so i start doing therapy while i'm writing this record and you know like when you start doing therapy they call it like peeling the onion right like you're kind of just taking these layers of your life and you're kind of digging in and after a while you just you know you're just ripping open scars and you're you know scraping out the maggots and trying to clean it out and you're trying to sew yourself back up again and that's what you know the the goal at least is and so you know i'm writing these songs and it's really like i start pouring all of this you know trauma from my past from my childhood into the lyrics and into these songs and you know the burning red kind of starts taking the shape like i don't want to like just whatever the song's going to be i'm just letting it kind of take me where it is and it it is decidedly less heavy than you know the last two records that we had done but i just i didn't care cuz i was like this is where i got to go like this is where the music's taken me and this just have to yeah yeah so yeah you you've always been that way i are pretty talk about that you kind of let the music take you where it needs to go for sure probably like even like lyrically and stuff like that yes definitely so you're going to therapy and okay so i have a little experience with this but uh so you're going to therapy and you're probably getting therapy from ross so so you're getting like the double hammer later on yeah when we do go into the studio with ross he is also like his own therapist right like he's he's like a therapist i think his mom's a therapist too so he's like he knows all the tricks yeah yeah he i think he got those techniques from his mom yeah and then so i'm going in and he's like you know it it is kind of like first of all i love ross like ross is amazing like great dude came along at a perfect time in my life like i really needed a guy like ross as a producer you know like up until then i had had colin produce my records and it was very hands-off it was just kind of like whatever you want to do like just do it like you're good you know like it was very little direction like whereas ross was like really like like i want you to dig so [ __ ] deep and like you know like he just would poke you and [ __ ] it was like psychological warfare just like you know like we're playing drums he's you know my drummers tracking drums and he's like throwing [ __ ] you know a plant of [ __ ] flowers at his [ __ ] head like exploding above him like he's like jesus you know like you know just like to whatever makes to get you out of your mind you know what i mean to like just get you into whatever headsp space that you know the song calls for cool and and i had never experienced that like i've never experienced someone who was so like into the psychological side of music you know and trying to bring you know that out of you and certainly as the singer like doing that what's up everybody listen uh it helps the podcast if you don't skip the ads and support the sponsors uh i know it's a little annoying uh you're doing whatever you're doing just getting horned up ralph tony machine has stories but if you got this deep into the conversation then uh you must be enjoying it unless you just hate watching which is fine too um support them or hate them uh they help us keep the lights on consistently put out new episodes every week and grow this thing so we can continue to get bigger guests for all you and me to enjoy so we really appreciate it sweet water i know you heard me talk about them before but i'm reminding you again uh they are the number one not number two online retailer for proauudio and music instruments when the band needs anything for a tour or we need something here for the podcast we always hit up sweetwater uh if you're trying to rock and need any music gear click the link in the description below so they know you came from this podcast drok kid if you're like myself and have no idea how to get your songs on the internet drokid is the easiest way to get the music you or your band wrote on all the streaming platforms uh we're talking itunes spotify apple music youtube music and more check it out at drokid.com/vipgarza to get 30% off your membership that's drokid.com/vipgarza to get 30% off and uh you know it was so many cool like so many cool you know we go we go to indigo ranch to do it which i hated because like you hated it i hated it because it's so [ __ ] i mean it's a beautiful area like you're know you're in [ __ ] malibu at the top of this [ __ ] mountain you got to drive seven miles up all these [ __ ] cl like steep ass cliffs to like get there and then it's the last house on the [ __ ] yeah it's crazy and it's beautiful but it's so [ __ ] remote that you just like you just get cabin fever like i got i mean i was there for a few days and i was just cabin fever like i'm climbing the [ __ ] walls so like i was constantly going into town to like just i'd just go hang out at the [ __ ] grocery store like because i just like i was like this is too [ __ ] remote for me like i'm freaking out and uh but in other ways it was it was awesome you know we're all together we're all living there we're all in a room there's a you know there's like a a shared bed loft kind of situation that we're all sharing in with like spiders everywhere and you know like it's like big ass [ __ ] spiders everywhere and it's a weird time for ross cuz ross has ross has just signed slipnot to his im records label he's signed i am he just produced the vanilla ice record you know and so like i keep forgetting about that and so like all these you know and then the corn dudes are kind of around here and there we had actually gone like on the more things change i went up and hung out like on their like record i hung out with the corn dudes on their like the last day of the record they were throwing a party cuz to celebrate the last day of recording the second album life is peachy and so i was there with them you know all hanging out with them on that so we knew we had already been there we kind of knew the the trip but uh but it was it was just so like you know like vanilla isis coming to the [ __ ] studio like once a week or something just to hang out like just to hang out with ross we were having like we were in this is like you know it's funny because like i'm going through therapy and i'm trying to like you know i'm kind of trying to be sober like i was having like i was really addicted to a million [ __ ] things and and and then like we go down to [ __ ] you know we're in la like [ __ ] like everybody wants to [ __ ] party so then we're just like every [ __ ] like three or four days we're having just a raging party up at indigo ranch and [ __ ] vanilla ice is there and [ __ ] amen's there and slip like a million like dean carr is coming in and then we go into town and [ __ ] just snorting [ __ ] oh my god so much [ __ ] cocaine like every everybody had so much cocaine like back then like it's just like you couldn't go like two people without like hey let's do some [ __ ] lines and and so you know it's it ended up like being this very kind of drugfueled recording and and and i'm like i'm very conflicted at the time because i'm trying to go down this one route with being in therapy and then i'm having you know a really great time like [ __ ] just [ __ ] getting shitfaced and doing blow all the time so yeah and you're you're on like you're on a roller coaster man it was it really was was this was this picture there yeah yeah holy crap yeah that's that tiny it's a tiny little studio man it's just a tiny little [ __ ] studio so were you guys tracking all in like the same room and ross is just there in the middle just like [ __ ] so they were so if you go back that one photo so that's the main room and then i'm in the vocal booth and so we're playing everything basically live i'm singing it live you know and just trying to capture trying to capture whatever i mean we still went and overdubbed stuff but ross was really really all about trying to capture a band playing live you know and and even if you didn't use those tracks you would you know keep them then maybe bring them in to comp them in later you know but like to to keep some that there that that there's a first he was the first guy that really taught me about like there's a first take magic like there is a there is something about the first time you go and record it or the first time you play it like sometimes even when you're just writing it and you don't know what you're doing and they and you just captured [ __ ] lightning in a bottle and so he was a really big proponent of that first time i'd ever really heard that and i fully believe it and do it now with all of our records and that was a huge learning lesson from him oh wow regarding that but you know so he really wanted to do that and it was it was cool to tell so yeah there he's cut he's cut his hair by that point that's the engineer in the background there i can't remember his name i'm totally brain farting on his name is that uh chuck yeah that might be chuck okay what was he i got a bunch of demos from this too like i got chuck yeah chuck we called him chuck ruffs i got a bunch of rough mixes from all from that record and you're you're a you're definitely like an archive chuck yeah that's chuck chuck's awesome he was killer and you're like an artist yeah he was total like hippie dude like "yeah dude how you doing man?" wow he was the best did uh so you guys would like before you guys started jamming you would uh like he would probably say something to you huh he he wanted you to really feel like goosebumps huh he like wanted you to like kind of feel this he wanted he he wanted the [ __ ] hair on your flesh to he did i i probably haven't told the story before but you know like there's a song on the record i was super mad at logan at this period of time in my life like i was super [ __ ] mad at logan like you know just felt like he betrayed me so there's kind of like a a logan diss track on the record called devil with the king's card right cuz remember he told me i'm the devil so anyway and and i don't even know if logan knew that for like years after i told him later he's like "oh really?" and so cuz he was pretty lost but anyway there you know he joined soulfly and then he's doing like a bunch of photo shoots and stuff and so i'm singing that song devil with the king's card and at one point there's like a full like centerfold of logan mater in one of the magazines and he just runs up and sticks it on the window of the vocal booth he's like "right here right here motherfucker." you know he's like "sing this you know sing what you're singing to this." and like he was just funny he'd just come in and like he'd come in and like shake me around sometimes when i was doing vocals like just come in him and joey jordan at one point that song the second song on the record nothing left like slipnot was there we were both there at indigo really at the same time they're getting ready to s to record their first album we're finishing up recording our third album we're all living together they're living in the studio studio sofas and we're still staying in the bedroom holy crap and uh and so at one point you know i i had kind of hit it off with joey and so joey's like watching me record the song nothing left the vocals and he's in there and then at one point they both like i'm doing the buildup you know they got nothing left for nobody else i got and then him and ross run into the vocal booth and they just [ __ ] start literally moshing with me like in a circle pit like while i'm doing the vocals and then they start screaming so you you can hear a scream that's kind of like i got nothing left for nobody else i got nothing left for nobody ah that's joey and ross doing the ah like live with me in the that in this room that they had just run in and we it just sounded so sick we were like [ __ ] it keep it like that's badass that's [ __ ] crazy i didn't know they i guess i guess that the the the timeline is is there yeah yeah that was uh 99 i was there through the whole mix of their album are you serious and i was there almost every day of the mix of the they worked on that song it was at that point the rest of the band like corey and you know sean and clown and everybody had gone home and it was just chris feain joey and ross mixing the record it was really just joey and ross and chris was just kind of hanging out but uh yeah i heard they were like they worked on that song purity mhm i'm [ __ ] you for like 30 i'm not [ __ ] you like 30 days straight like they [ __ ] worked on that song that was like the first song that that was the one that they were trying to get the perfect oh they were trying to get like this is the template right like this is the song purity is the template for the record yeah we there's that always that like one song that okay let's mix this song let's see but they did it for and i was like "guys you got to move on like you're tweaking." i was like "come in." like they're they're on day 25 i'm like "you got to move on like you're just tweaking like just go do some do another song come back to this one like you need to just get and they finally did that." and then the rest of the record fell into place and so like yeah like i was there like i had i had an end of album party with joey and chris when they finished recording or mixing the album we all went out to a strip club and [ __ ] everybody got shitfaced and of course joey had like three drinks and was [ __ ] annihilated drummers chris chris jumped up and was like you know dancing with the chick on the stripper pole and [ __ ] he we got kicked out of the strip it was awesome it was a great night you know joey's like "i [ __ ] love you man." like guy like he was one of those drunks like i [ __ ] love you man like i love you dude let's [ __ ] start a band dude i i'll quit i'll quit my band it's all good totally yeah so funny because ky was sober he was [ __ ] stone cold sober that whole time that's the other rumor i heard they were all sober is that you think they i mean they i don't know if all of them were but like he for sure was like stone cold sober wouldn't have a drink like even when we took him on tour right you know right a few months later he was like sober like no [ __ ] way man like i can't drink anything like i can't he's like i gotta [ __ ] kill this i was like [ __ ] good for you man and i was like the [ __ ] i'm just like like any anything that came in front of me like at this point so yeah i'm always like i always thinking back i'm like should i go sober for like a hot minute is or write write a record but it's just i don't know maybe maybe it has to do with age i don't know cuz i was i didn't drink till i was 21 so first record sober as [ __ ] oh yeah no no no weed no no no nothing i i wonder if there's something like during the recording or just in general that whole time frame okay yeah and what we were i got i was sober for burn my eyes were you yeah i was totally sober for that whole like recording period mixing period like i wouldn't touch a thing like i just really i was like i got to keep my wits about me like i just don't want anything to you know i just need to be as clear as can be because i just want this to kill how long how long is that what like like a month or two months how long were you yeah about a month yeah probably two months is there something to that is there like maybe like like like a period where you should probably step back and just like focus like hardcore f just like a month just just a [ __ ] just that little period is there is there something to that i i mean i've done it a few times i mean certainly certainly back then like you know you and i when we record now it's like kind of like a longer process you know like we we kind of just demo and then the demo becomes the album you know what i mean like whereas back then like you had to go into a studio for a set amount of time and then you had to mix it in a set amount of time and now it's kind of you know it's a little more flexible sure but but back then i was like got to be sober at least for that record for burn my eyes that that explains the focus you know you guys just [ __ ] just lost this [ __ ] log in dude rob and thank you for those stories you know for someone that's like not there is that's all that's all we have you know you just want give me all the stories give me all that i heard yeah i heard uh when you drive up there i heard people talk about they they thought they're going to die oh my god because because it feels like you're going to go off off off the cliff first of all it's a it's a onelane road it's one lane and it's a dirt road with a [ __ ] literal 500 foot cliff to the side of it no guardrails no nothing like it is and ross you know ross has got like a badass bm like a sporty bmw and he would try and take it at like 70 m an hour like the whole time so it was even more terrifying riding with him anywhere but it was crazy cuz it was so you know it was beautiful like it was so beautiful i mean like you're just up there and it's like you're looking over the ocean and you know the ocean's kind of far away but just you know like forest there was a canyon over to the right where you could like hike down and there was a river that ran through the canyon and you could like you know it was very peaceful but at that moment in my life i just didn't want peaceful you know like i don't know why like i i i it was an amazing experience but for me i i i wouldn't ever do it again like i just no yeah it was you know it's honestly like it's a very and you know you know like as i'm thinking about it saying that to you like it's a very i i can't listen to that record you can't listen to the record i can't listen to that record cuz oh yeah because you just associate your memories and feelings to that particular time huh i do and it's and and then it's it's negative but then you have other people that that love it but so there's like this conflicting thing there are people that love that record mhm and they ask me to play songs off it all the [ __ ] time and they always ask me to play the last two songs which is five and the burning red and i'm like i can't man like i can't you know like i ju i wish that i could i i i can't i i i can't listen to the song i don't want to play the song you know like i don't want to think about the time like i don't want to think about the lyrics i don't want to think about where i was or what i went through and i certainly don't want to do it for a tour you know what i mean like yeah like it's coming up it's going to come up in a what [ __ ] four years what four years oh wait no uh for the 30th anniversary 30 yeah yeah yeah it would be and you know i say that now i have i have i have played the song i did it for uh an electric happy hour i played it we did the it was the it was i can't it was just an anniversary i don't think it was like any particular anniversary but it was like the anniversary and i i brought aru the guitar player on that record in and uh we played it live on you know my live stream that i do most fridays yeah and we played the whole album top to bottom and and you know in some ways it was like you know like you know i i kind of enjoy talking to you because you can relate to this more than i like a journalist could because you know sometimes you get up on stage and and you're not i mean you're in it you're and you're in the moment and you're playing and you're rocking but then you're kind of like h i wonder what i'm gonna have for dinner tonight or you know oh [ __ ] did i remember to wash my clothes you know like you're kind of like having this inner monologue that has nothing to do you know and it's not doesn't mean you're not in it but you're just like at that point you've played you know you're on your hundth show and you're just [ __ ] you know you can think of other things yeah and so i i kind of i i force myself to go in to that mode like into like you know like i'm outside of myself mode i'm just like "oh think about dinner or think you know whatever think about 49ers or whatever the fuck." you know what i mean so i and i got through it like i got through it without really connecting to it oh so so you had to like disconnect yourself completely to to jam it i did hm yeah because you had a you had a very interesting uh from what i understand like a like a pretty rough like upbringing you know you were a you were i didn't know this but you're adopted right h mhm and uh you the first time you uh spunk weed was six right wow dude how can i how can a six-year-old brain process that you because you're do you so so when when you're uh adopted um do you call them your parents like you know here this this is my dad for sure okay cool so i mean i'm i'm 6 months old when i'm adopted okay and so i've gone through very you know my from from what i know and i don't know much i don't i've never you know reached out to my uh biological parents but i the handful of things i know was that you know my mom was a teen pregnancy 14 you know she has me at 15 oh and then as she's about to have me the guy leaves and so puts me up for adoption mhm and then i go into the foster care system and i have i know that i've had i had three different parents there three different uh foster parents who were caring for me and that the last one there was like a girl that i connected with and then my parents adopted me and so you know lucky for me i was adopted by you know loving parents you know cuz i could have gotten lost in the foster care system like so many kids have you know where they're just like in foster care forever and then eventually foster care turns into juvenile hall which is pretty much always the case and so you know like if you're too long in the foster care system eventually they put you in juvie which is just like where kids go and actually that happened to my dad that's what happened to my dad and so you know look i was lucky that you know some i got adopted and they picked me up and you know they really wanted to have a kid my parents were they couldn't have children they tried and tried for years after getting married yeah and didn't happen so you know for for them to get me it was like you know they they were just over the moon and so yes that was mom and dad to me and i never looked at it any other way you know that's great man yeah that's cool totally and uh so so your dad would let you so he had like the classic pipe and he would smoke tobacco from right he also smoked weed which i didn't know at the time of course yeah but he in front of me smoked tobacco pipes like an old corn cob pipe you know what i mean like totally exactly like that like the more the rounded one yeah the one that says yeah that one yeah mr brogue yeah classic mustache right classic huge beard huge mustache like like he's like kind of going bald and he's got like this wild hair that [ __ ] sticks nice and he would let you take a hit from his tobacco i'd s i'd sit on my dad's lap and i could i could take tobacco hits and then he let me and he'd drink let me drink olympia his olympia beer how old were you i'm like yeah i'm like four like these are my some of my earliest memories like these are like great childhood memories of mine like my first memories are like me sitting on my dad's lap to smoking a tobacco pipe and drinking olympia beer yo dude yo yeah that [ __ ] right there yes olympia okay it's it's making a lot of sense so what you went to like your uncle's house and you thought and you thought he was just smoking tobacco and then you told him "hey my dad always lets me smoke it." so he he was probably fooled yes okay here have this but it was weed in there yes and so the after i smoke it you know we were always over at my my dad my dad my uncle was my dad's twin brother so we were always over there and my cousins were basically like my brothers and sisters we were literally together all the time um so he goes over there like we over there and i i do that i take the hit and then the next thing i know like i'm walking around the party and the whole ground is just like this and i'm like what is going on like i just i'm so confused as to like why everything is so [ __ ] and i go up and say something to my mom and then i don't know like whatever but but you know at the at the time i don't realize it but later on they're just like oh yeah your uncle gave you you know hit a hit a weed by accident i guess or on per whatever it was did he get in trouble he did get in trouble yes yeah yeah that's why when after i told my mom i was like i feel kind of weird mom what' she say i don't i don't remember what she said i remember there was like kind of a dust up about it so dang you thought it was tobacco dude so you're so you're drinking olympia beer at four at four years old five dang just just ready to rock it's weird because it sounds my dad my dad wouldn't smoke weed around me though and like he wouldn't i i didn't know that he did that and he told me years later when i started smoking weed i go "oh yeah i used to smoke weed when you were a kid." yeah i went i went to the garage and did it yeah bring it to the garage hm it's funny that they uh they allowed you to drink beer but they won't allow you to listen to the to the uh drug beatles yes right i know because he's like funny how parents do that he's he's smoking weed but he i mean maybe it was just because of the i don't know like when i when i think back to it like you know my parents you know you're what you're referencing which is awesome you know that's super rad that you even know that about me about that but uh you know my parents were like i grew up on like old r&b like my parents listen to like old soul old r&b chaka you know [ __ ] earthwind and fire commodores like that's all the music that was played in my household and you know my parents would let me listen to the happy beatles the happy beatles like i want to hold like i want to hold your hand yes and not the hippie beatles which is like you know sergeant peppers and all that [ __ ] you know like revolver all the the drugged out [ __ ] and you know and then pop music like just the pop music of of the day like whatever it was you know like disco songs or whatever so you know that's kind of my my main musical upbringing and my dad would listen to like old oldies like oldies from the 40s like like the bugle you know the boogie wgie bugle boy of company b he's playing like that type of like 30s and 40s type of music all the time on the radio that's probably the real drugy music right i mean just ju just that just that name oh so oh so it's three chicks yes holy cow the andrew sisters yeah the andrew sisters yeah and he loved this [ __ ] so like you know he's it it did something to him that like i think i think this music took him back to you know more more innocent times in his life are you play can you play oh you you might get a copyright strike if you play it right a good a good a good 10 seconds okay [Music] yeah this is sick dude yeah he loves this so he plays this like so at what he was the boy it's all kind of like wartime music and you know it is wart time huh yeah yeah this is yeah so to him this is like you know he he would be an amazing podcast he like if you ever had my dad on your like it would blow your [ __ ] mind dude he had the most insane life you know and so whenever he listens to this i think it kind of takes him back to you know he's he's taken away from his alcoholic mom him and his brothers when they're like four years old and put into like you know foster care and then he goes into juvenile hall and then they kind of go back and forth and then his mom just eventually like ups and leaves them and like and uh it's sad man you know so i think that when he hears this kind of stuff you know it takes him back to like good memories you know like hanging out with his brothers or you know like even hanging out with his mom but you know like they live in a trailer you know so i grew up in a place called san lorenzo so my parents when they adopt me they they're living in east oakland on 42nd and international like in the [ __ ] hood you know and we lived there for a while and then eventually we moved to just a you know just san lorenzo which is san lorenzo is just a poor white trash town in the bay area you know it's a few cities below oakland and you know i know i know most people look at california is like you know milk and honey and like you know but there's all kinds of like little crazy white trash towns like all over this state you know and and that's what this is you know and so you know we live in a a very small three-bedroom room house in san lorenzo i mean if you saw a picture of it it's it's basically like a mobile home with but it's got one of these roofs instead of a flat roof you know what i mean okay and and so this house is like five blocks away from the trailer park that he grows up in and so you know even though we were we were pretty poor you know he was a my mom wasn't working he was a baker at a place called um i'm forget it he's got a bakery in east oakland that he works at merit bakery mh and so you know but i don't feel like we're poor but you know like how kids are like at school they start making fun of you for being poor and having the same clothes that he had last year and so you know and i'm just like whatever [ __ ] you and he's just like he'd take me walking he's like you know what [ __ ] those kids you know like when they're like don't don't listen to them and he and he would take me and we'd go on walks me and my dad walked everywhere we went on hikes and walks every single day like we would go like hike somewhere or we'd walk to some place and you know kind of just talk and and uh we would walk by his trailer park that he used to live in and he's like "i know your your friends i know they make fun of you for being poor but he's like you're not poor like this is poor." he's like "we me and my two brothers and my mom and her boyfriend used to live in an aluminum shed no heat no ac no running water no toilet we had to [ __ ] in a bucket and carry it to the community dumping hole or whatever the [ __ ] it was that was a quarter mile away on the other side of the trailer park you had to [ __ ] in a bucket and then and then walk it somewhere and then carry it somewhere and dump it." and he's like "that's poor." so like no matter what those kids are saying you remember you're not poor and you know like it was a you know of course at the time like i'm a young kid and i'm not like thinking like this is like this huge life lesson but in it was this huge life lesson just about perspective and how everything is subjective and you know how you can you know don't you know don't let [ __ ] get you down basically yeah you know that kind of a thing so you know i uh my so many of my memories from that house are of like songs like that and that kind of music yeah yeah what what else is going on cuz uh you you also mentioned like a you don't like listening to the sound of like of of the train right yeah so uh so you had like a good family but were you hanging around other kids that were just being shitty to you like like what um like what like what was that well i'll well i'll tell you i'll tell you that story but i'll start it off with the this one so the other day so just literally two days ago before i came down here i uh i got a buddy who made me a cowboy hat that's got like you know bunch of like bone bone beads around it and the and the and the bead the thing broke and so i was like "hey can you fix my my hat?" hat you know cuz i i really like the way it looks like all these [ __ ] you know i like dead [ __ ] i got [ __ ] bone and you know [ __ ] you know i like dead [ __ ] chris and uh i appreciate that and so i go over his house and and when i got there i was like "oh wow." like they're kind of near my old house in san lorenzo and and i was like i'm gonna i'm gonna cruise by there after after i'm hang done hanging out with him and i haven't i haven't been to this neighborhood in 20 years it's been 20 years and so i go down there and it's trippy because san lorenzo is kind of between two you know it's a couple cities away from two cities that have really come up in the last like 20 30 years you know like there's hayward which had a big come up and there's san leandro on the other side of it with its downtown had a big come up but i pull into san lorenzo to go look at my old house and i swear it's like time has stood [ __ ] still it looks exactly the way that it did when i was a kid except for all of the all of the houses now just have like old the paint is just peeling off like it's the same color as i remember it as a kid but the paint's just peeling off and there's bars on every door there's bars on the windows there's america there's tattered american flags with american flag poles in almost every front uh yard and there's rusted ass cars like like and i remember it being rusty as a kid and now it's a really rusted ass car and it was just such a trip to go i actually took a picture of it like i took a picture of my old house just to like you know and picture just to like oh wow you got to post yeah i thought about it and i was like i don't know like i think i think you should yeah i yeah so what uh is it abandoned is it abandoned or is it no it's it's still a total like the neighborhood's still living there yeah dozens of people yeah there's i and i jump out of my car and i start taking pictures of the house like like in my head i'm like i hope nobody comes i'm just like "hey i used to live here." you know like i've actually had that happen a couple times like i bought a house in richmond and then like we're living there for a year and this old man came up to the like knocks on the door and he's like knocking a door and he came in he's like this old man like 80 years old and he's like who the [ __ ] are you he's like no he and he looked really nice you know like you could just tell he had totally kind eyes like you know and he's like my wife just passed away and i used to live here with her can i can i come in and and look at this this house and we were like me and my wife were like "oh yeah yeah come in please." and he just like stood there and he cried and he just [ __ ] looked around but it was like it was so heavy you know like it was really like you know he just wanted to soak in whatever the house and all of the memory you know he raised kids there and like you know it was just like it was really it was really like touching moment and you know obviously i wasn't going to do that kind of wanted to go like knock on the door but i was just like i i just couldn't bring myself to do it like i was like i don't know like just whatever anyway i had a pretty uh that neighborhood i had a pretty heavy you know i had i was sexually abused when i was living in that neighborhood when i was 5 years old by a neighbor down the street and you know it was it was crazy because i drove away from my house and drove past the house that it happened at and i passed the house like i just drove past the house and i didn't even realize that like and i thought i thought i was like in my mind freaking out like "oh i'm going to [ __ ] have this freak out when i pass this house because it's going to bring up all this shit." and i didn't it's like i didn't i didn't feel anything like i didn't i didn't you know and uh it was it was crazy because in some ways it was really like it made me feel like great you know like i was like you know i'm 57 years old like this isn't some trauma that i'm carrying me that's affecting me anymore this was a lifetime ago you know this is when i was a little little kid and you know it was it felt just it was like that doesn't that doesn't have power over me anymore and that was like what i took away from it i was like "this moment doesn't have power over me anymore." and it felt liberating in a way because that moment had had a lot of power over me for a really really long time yeah especially when when you're five and trying to [ __ ] process it you know and so you know to me you know you brought up the you brought up the train track so you know this this incident start begins at the train tracks with this older kid who's hanging around with younger kids and you know so you know after the incident happens you know all i and and the train went by the train was going by like when you know just and so you know just kind of triggers this and i live you know i live half a block away from [ __ ] train tracks so like you know you always hear in the train tracks you know and i it's right next to the bart station which is the subway so you're always hearing the bart you're always hearing the subway and just you know certainly like after this trauma happens it's like that sound would just trigger me like it would just trigger you know i hated that sound i never wanted to hear it it would make me [ __ ] cry and you know so and now it's like it's the past you know what i mean like i'm not i'm not there anymore and that sound doesn't have that effect on me either but for probably up until the burning red that is really like it's you know this you know this moment you know haunts me all the time and so a lot of the burning red is me processing in real time like all of this [ __ ] that that i had kind of buried you know like human beings have an amazing ability to black [ __ ] out you know to black [ __ ] out and it's a good thing like you know for a long time like i i blocked that [ __ ] out man like i i'd never thought about it and i didn't want to think about it and and for whatever reason at this period in my life as i'm writing this record and recording this record like this is all coming up so you know so i wrote a song about it and that song five is about that moment and and that's when i say like i don't like i can't listen to that record because the whole record just the whole thing is just that it just is that and i and it's not that i don't appreciate it like i think it's great songs and i think it's great music but like i just don't want to go back there like i don't want to think about it and you know i i don't know if i've ever i don't think i've ever told this story because nobody really you know a lot a lot of people don't ask about this record anymore you know what i mean like you're you're interested in it because you're into this type of music but like a lot of people ask about the other albums yes you know like that song was you know i kn i knew i had to write that that song and then the burning red was kind of like the second part of it because you know when i got into my teenage years like i tried to commit suicide just i took acid one night and started thinking about all the [ __ ] [ __ ] that happened to me when i was a kid and took you there i took it dude it was like a super bad first of all i decided to watch the omen 2 which was like god devil satan i was like omen too what's yeah that one me and my friend we start watching that one and i was just like jesus it was just like way too much for me and i started having like a super bad trip i'm on this really i had just come from a wrestling match me and my friend went to go see [ __ ] wrestling at the oakland arena we had went and seen like rody rowdy rody piper we seen coco beware jesse the body ventura like they're all wrestling and we're frying like a [ __ ] on four-way window pane acid dude we're [ __ ] we're i mean we're bonkers and we're [ __ ] we're hammered like we're we took bart there we drove his car to the bart station took bart to the arena and then like you know he's like starts screaming like starts screaming a bunch of out of hand [ __ ] and like everybody start wants to kick our ass and so [ __ ] we end up leaving we go back and we like it starts pouring rain and my friend has this giant like crack he's got a giant crack in his windshield and he's like i can't drive you've got to drive rob blanket i'm just like i can't drive i'm [ __ ] frying on [ __ ] acid out of my brain i can't so it's pouring rain and i'm trying to drive out of the bart station and it's [ __ ] like poor i can't see i get lost in the bart station for like 20 minutes like i can't even get out of the parking lot i'm so [ __ ] whacked out and uh and then we sit there and we go back and then we're frying and we watch a couple of funny movies but then he like "let's watch the omen too." and i was like "that sounds killer." but then like i'm just like you know i'm like at this point i've been kicked out of my house like my like 17 like i'm [ __ ] living like on friends couches my dad kicked me out like i'm [ __ ] like i'm just kind of like i'm [ __ ] up like i'm a [ __ ] up at this point right like just a [ __ ] mess and so yeah it was it was bad it was all bad and so you know like i'm i i'm going in and i'm kind of like that song was about kind of that moment the burning red was about that you know that you know wanting to commit suicide moment over all this [ __ ] that i had been burying and so you know i go into you know going back to ross and his psychological warfare where you're recording an album and you know i'm telling him that i and i'm like i want to like i need to i need to sing about this it's like i need to sing a song and like i need to just get this out of me you know and i i want to get i want to get rid of it you know and i i don't not to say that just by writing a song it makes it go away sure but i need this like to i need to get this out of me let's process it and the first couple times i try and do it like i just can't like i can't write about it like i can't i can't even get through the song and i stop like i just stop recording the song and so this is kind of a long story i don't you know it might be kind of boring but like no let's go who cares dude who cares okay i'm in all right but so so i'm so then i'm like i'm reading i'm going crazy like charles bukowski poetry right like i'm reading like all this charles bukowski stuff and i just seen barfly a mill i'm like i'm obsessively watching the movie barfly or mickey roor and like you know it's all about like getting as [ __ ] up as possible and then writing lyrics or writing a story or writing a book or writing what there's barfly right there h [ __ ] best mickey ror is a goddamn stud in that such a grimy movie like it's just so good anyway we sit there and uh you know his whole trip was about like getting [ __ ] up and then writing and that's how like that in his mind that's the where you get your best stuff and i'm like okay i'll try i was like i can't like i can't connect with this song and i really need to get it out so i'm going to try and write this song about this [ __ ] horrible trauma in my life while i'm all [ __ ] up so i'm like i'm going to do a bunch of coke and i'm going to get [ __ ] up and then i'm going to go like i make this plan right like i tell my wife and everything like i'm just like i'm going to go like this is what i'm going to do i'm going to go do like a gram of coke i'm going to go get shitfaced drunk and i'm going to write all these lyrics i'm going to stay in a hotel room so i'm not by you and like driving you crazy oh my god and she's just like this is a bad idea and i was just like no it's a great idea and there it is it's like you did that last week right this is this is the best such movie it's a [ __ ] such a gnarly movie sick and uh anyway so i'm like i go i go i set up somebody i'm gonna i'm gonna buy grandma coke at this bar that i'm hanging out at all the time called the hut and i you know hanging out this this girl i used to date like she's the bartender and so i'm going to go hang out i'm going to wait there and like you know she always gives me free drinks and stuff so fun good vibe and i'm going there and this and this guy never shows up and so another so i'm hanging out i'm like kind of bummed i'm like "fuck i've already paid for the hotel room." i was like "well i just i guess i'll just get really drunk and then write these lyrics." right at the end of the night this other buddy of mine and i'm not going to name any name but this other buddy of mine came and he shows up and he's like "i got a bunch of speed." and i was like and i used to be i used to be really addicted to speed like in my in my early 20s i was really addicted to to like late teens early 20s i was super so i tried i've been trying to be not do speed because it really had like a big power over me for a while and uh i was like well i'm kind of hammered now and i'm just like i'm trying to do charles bowski so i guess i'll do a bunch of speed so he's like let's go back to my house we'll get a bunch of beer we'll do a bunch of speed it'll be killer and he's sitting there he's [ __ ] tell starts talking he's like we go back and he's [ __ ] like this dude's like so [ __ ] intense and he's insane this dude's insane like he's one of the most craziest craziest friends i ever had in my [ __ ] life like [ __ ] wired like fighting all the time like when i was fighting he was like my partner in fighting and uh he's sitting there he just got married right he's just got married married he's like 30 and he just married a 21-year-old chick and he's just like yeah and he's like telling me how great being married is and all this stuff and then he starts telling me about how sister's really cute and like all this stuff and i was like "oh okay cool." and and then he's just like "yeah." and then you know the sisters "she's really cute man." and i was just like "cool." you know i was just like and he's just like he's like "rob i'm telling you she's really really" and i'm just like "oh my god." he's just like he's like "i couldn't help it rob." and i was like "what?" he's like "i couldn't help it she was all over me." like and i was just like "oh my god." and i'm [ __ ] sitting there he's like and i've done now i've done like a quarter of speed i'm [ __ ] wired high to jesus and i'm just like i i i got to go write lyrics i got to go write lyrics i was like i got to i got to get out of here man so i go i'm like i'm going to go the whole point of this was like i'm going to go write lyrics so i leave and i go back and i get back to the hotel and i'm like i'm try i start trying to write lyrics and i'm like kind of hitting like a roadblock and i i total sidebar i had just gotten my nipples pierced okay right okay a quick a quick sidebar quick sidebar okay got it quick sidebar my nipples pierced you know this is like late 90s like piercings and [ __ ] spiked this is like you know blonde rob and like [ __ ] and so i'm sitting there and one my right nipple had got really infected in the last week right i'm and i'm like i'm not talking like like it's [ __ ] a giant pule about like that big like a giant green glob of pus is perpetually leaking out of my right nipple like at this time and i'm trying to do yeah there you go and i'm trying to do uh i'm trying to do my nipples my nipples my nipples this might have been before the nipple this might have no this was after the nipples this is after this is after the the record's done and so uh and i'm so like you know when you're on speed you start tweaking right like and i'm just like "oh my god what's going on with this [ __ ] nipple?" so have you ever had your nipples pierced i've never had a nipples pierced okay have you you've had something pierced though right yeah so you know like you try and like yeah you try and like soak it right like you soak it with stuff like epsom salt and hot water so when you get your nipples pierced you're supposed to take two cups of water and like hold it with epsom salt and hold it over your nipples and that's the way it heals right like nobody tells you this when you get your [ __ ] nipples done but like when you start doing it so i'm sitting there i was like i know what i got to do i got to [ __ ] put the cuffs over my nipples and like cuz it's now it's really starting to hurt it's [ __ ] gross it smells like it's just [ __ ] green [ __ ] coming out of my nipple and i'm like "oh my [ __ ] god." and i'm like [ __ ] i'm wired so [ __ ] high like i did so much speed at this dude's house and so i'm sitting there i was like i got to take this thing out and so i like i unscrew it's like a barbell right so you unscrew the one side and then it pops out and then the one side like there's it's so like tight around my nipple is so like infected that as soon as i take that bar out the other side just shoots out and it goes into the sink and it goes "oh no." and i'm like "oh." and i try and grab it and it goes down this sink and i'm like "of course it does." oh my god i'm like "fuck." and now like now i've just got this leaking [ __ ] nipple i'm like i go back and i'm like "okay just try and write some [ __ ] push through the pain." i'm like "push through the [ __ ] pain." so then i just start punching my nipple and i'm [ __ ] like trying to write lyrics and i'm [ __ ] high on speed and i'm drunk and i'm trying to write lyrics and everything that i come up with just sounds so [ __ ] stupid and then like i'm like "all right like i'm going to try and just jerk off and go to sleep." i try to jerk i can't jerk off like i'm so [ __ ] wired i can't and i finally like i finally it's like now it's like 7 a.m and i'm like i just call up janevrav and i'm just like janevra like come and pick me up this was this is a bad idea like so she comes picks me up like like okay dude like whatever and so wow total failure at like tapping into whatever this is this moment in my lyrics trying to write these lyrics and so after this i get sober i was like i got to get sober like i've been partying so [ __ ] hard writing this record and doing blow and now i'm doing [ __ ] speed and i'm trying like i'm kind of going down like this i'm i'm i'm a bit of a mess and uh i'm kind of constantly hung over and like granted it got some great vocal performances on the record because i was just like constant like cigarette you know vodka throat you know rasp and uh you know i actually the next morning after that crazy speed night i wake up and i read all my lyrics and i'm like oh my god like it's just the most childish [ __ ] is it dumbass [ __ ] and i'm just like #fail like total [ __ ] fail and so then i'm like i'm going to straighten out and you know really try and just you know dig dig just sift through the bile and the [ __ ] open up that scar and just [ __ ] sift through it and i did and i i wrote the lyrics and when i went back to indigo i wrote the the lyrics there and uh i went into the vocal booth to sing it and i just took off all my clothes and i got completely naked i' i've never told this story but i i got completely naked and i just turned out all the [ __ ] lights in the thing and i just said "press play." and i said "i probably got about three three in me here that i can sing like three times." and i did it i did it three times and then on the last time i just like i completely just broke down like just crying and screaming like just screaming like primal scream therapy and i just when i was done i just curled up on the floor in a ball and i laid there for like two hours and just cried and just like i was like i was dead like i just i just stared at the [ __ ] wall for two hours and adam my bass player at the time came in and he sat next to me i kind of sat behind me just laid there and i just laid there for then and i got up and i went and there was a there was a bench outside and there was a bench that was like there's like an avocado tree field like in the front area of the studio and there was a just a bench and i just went and i sat on that bench and like looked out at the ocean for like another two hours and it was nighttime and [ __ ] cold and i just didn't care i just did it and i when i came back in the song the burning red wasn't written at that point and i just picked up a guitar and i sat in the living room and it was really late by that time like everybody had gone to bed and and i and i just wrote the song the burning red and i wrote the whole like all the chords and the music and i started like [ __ ] around with the melody and and the next day i sang the burning red wow thank you for sharing that rob appreciate that man that's cool yeah it's just as as fans we just don't know all we hear is like this like record you know i i was like "oh there has to be some kind of backstory there something you know?" thank thank you rob it's awesome man welcome what uh so you had to uh just just to close that one off so you had to temporarily get sober to kind of so you're trying to access it with with the with the drugs but actually what helped you go in there was actually cutting everything out okay absolutely yeah i know some people struggle like how am i going to what do i do how do i access that you know and i guess you were like "okay maybe i'll do speed i'll get [ __ ] blacked out drunk." but actually just it was just what getting sober and just kind of sitting with it just just having a clear head just having a clear head just having a clear head and you know and then once i was done i was like that's you know i thought about playing the song i was like i don't i'm not going to be able to do this and i don't want to like i don't want this i don't want to do this on stage like i i never want to cry on stage you know what i mean like i don't want to [ __ ] like nobody wants that you know what i mean i i would love to see that you know you know who was really stoked was probably ross he loves that rob rob's naked and he's crying it was heavy it was heavy and he was like really you know he was really good at that you know that time it was very you know you know i it could have gone like if there was a different producer there i think that record would have gone a totally different way and i certainly don't think a song like the burning red like i was terrified to put that song out like i it was there was a good time a good week after it was recorded where i was just like we shouldn't put this song this is just super like everybody's going to think we're gay you know whatever you know what i mean like you know what i mean like those are the conversations we were having you know what i mean like it's too soft and it's too soft but actually it's the it's the heaviest it's the heaviest of the heavy it's uh it's kind of interesting that that's you're at that point and kind of started when you know like uh i didn't know that you could so your dad uh rented you a guitar for three months right oh yeah there we go there's a from the day video that's sick dude that's tom that's tommy vex in the video is it from the band band bad wolves he's uh he i can't i don't know if they're going to show him right now but like he's in there where'd you find that jacket that's a ruse jacket that's a ruse it's a it's a racing jacket like for like not it's not nascar but it's like you know like a a na like a like a nascar jacket and uh he gave it to me and then you know who directed this video i think tommy's the guy in the in the gold mask i think i could be wrong i'm not sure he might just be he might just be in there but the director of this video is uh michael michael martin he did like all the masterp videos he did like bone thugs and harmonies videos like he did the crossroads at the crossroads at the you know the bone thugs and harmony song so he was like a big rap video guy sick and uh the label the label really wanted him to do the video like they really really wanted and we didn't want him cuz we were just like ah this is like like we didn't really like those videos you know what i mean we were just like this is kind of corny like we want something street but they're like this is street he's doing all the the most street stuff there is and we were just like but it's not like but you know the thing is he had like a you know like you got to remember in in 1999 like mtv was [ __ ] all powerful you know like if you got if you got a video on mtv like it was the difference between like it you could send your band into the [ __ ] stratosphere like even just one song you know yeah and this is the era of like where every band is coming out and selling like 10 million records you know what i mean like every [ __ ] band on the planet is like it's just you know when one band sells 5 million then the next band sells 7 million the next band sells 9 million then 10 million then 12 million it was like it was crazy so it was like get you know we got to get this guy and he's going to do this and like you know it was really like you know he was a good he was a good director you know he actually made some some cool videos but you know it was like you know the hair and you know everybody makes fun of me like i'm a meme you know because of because of this video i'm i'm dressed like a box of orange juice and i've got like ridiculous like liberty spikes like punk rock liberty spikes like how was the time though how was the time dude it was the and i'm kind of like doing the you know like this is like he's just like you got to do more like do more with the hands and [ __ ] you got to like you're not doing anything i was like i don't want to do anything i was like i'm the i like i play guitar you know like show me a pierce nipple yeah at this point i've gotten rid of my voice my pierce nipple because it got so [ __ ] infected so then i've just got one and then i've just got this like now i've just got like you my nipple is still [ __ ] up from it like it's just a mutant nipple now like it's just all [ __ ] up that no more there's no more pus just so you know there's no more puss you know but yeah but it was like it was good [ __ ] yeah he did an nwa thing i mean that's kind of what sold me because i was such a big hip-hop fan like when i saw that he did the nwa thing i was like okay like that's it because i [ __ ] loved nwa you know so but uh but you know like that record to me like when you take that video out of the you know when you take the imagery when you take the whatever like to me that record really it really does stand the test of time it's got some great songs and you know i you know i don't know if i mentioned this but but so from this day is also kind of about that song in about that moment in my life in a way so i told you i i told you i just went and visited my old neighborhood so when i last visited it was during the writing of that record oh you and i kind of went back to like confront it i guess you know and and obviously this is like i'm now 29 years old or whatever and you know i'm going back there to kind of just face this moment that has caused a lot of like [ __ ] in my life and uh and i sat in front of the house where it happened you know and he i mean they weren't there anymore you know it was just like somebody else lived there now and and i didn't feel anything and so then i went over to the the train tracks where it all kind of started and and i didn't feel and i just kind of sat there like trying to feel anything and i felt nothing like i thought i was going to cry like i wanted to cry like i tried to cry and i couldn't [ __ ] cry and i was just like "what the fuck?" like and then i just went you know i was living in berkeley at the time and i went back to my house in berkeley and and then i just started writing the lyrics and i and i started it off like a i started it off like a what is it like a what's it called like um to whom it may concern like that was the first thing i wrote like just kind of like i was writing it to myself or writing it to whoever and uh and i just started writing those lyrics you know for all the verses and for all the choruses and like that song just like poured out of me and the music at the time wasn't written this was just like a poem that i wrote after you know trying to face this moment and so then i kind of reverse engineered a song around that idea and i and i changed it a little bit like as i went because it was more like kind of this kind of uplift not uplifting but like this kind of like get through it song you know it wasn't about that moment it was about about getting through a tough moment in your life it's about surviving a tough moment in your life and fighting through it and pushing through it and you know conquering it and that's what that song became about that's sick man uh jay go back to the to the covers go to supercharger what what memories for you come up when you when you see this this is uh well so the artwork is by paul brown the whole package was by this guy named paul brown who was a became a longtime collaborator of mine amazing super killer video photographer like like a kind of a genius really like he's so talented and i really loved this guy totally hit it off he was a awesome dude and um yeah it was we had kind of played around with a few different things he really wanted to have a a girl on the cover okay and so the first couple of versions of this were kind of like a like a hot chick with like you know chrome eyeball you know chrome eyes and and i was like the same color like the same color kind of sepia scheme with like lightning and whatever and i was like i don't know what this has to do with supercharger like it's just it's a it's a hot chick but but i don't know what it's got to do with with supercharger and so i was like you know what why don't we just you know i showed him the logo i was like "hey i you know this is my logo that i drew on my wife's refrigerator like 1990 1991 and uh you know it's been our logo ever since so like why don't you try making that in that same style?" and he came up with that and it was like i was like "holy [ __ ] that's [ __ ] sick." do do you have a a pleasant memory of of his songs um some of them yeah for sure um this was kind of like like bulldozer and yeah for sure bulldozer supercharger you know we went back to indigo ranch but we didn't go with ross why'd you go back to indigo because i remember i was kind of shocked when i saw they went back to indigo why yeah i don't i don't know you know we had a big we had a big falling out with ross after the burning red came out mhm and so he you know we weren't going to work with him again and so it was produced by johnny k and johnny k had just done the first disturbed record and he was pretty hot and you know again the label wanted him yeah that's johnny k he was tall as [ __ ] like 6'8 like this [ __ ] was gigantic like he was like lurch and uh but you know great guy but just great guy but not the guy for us and you know he it just it was a very it was a tough record to record kind of a tough record to write we were having a lot of problems like internally as a band and you know like a lot of money arguments about money and you know dave quit dave quit for a while during the burning red and adam quit for a minute and you know was about to quit and and uh you know we were just having like a lot of issues and then we kind of got through it and we wrote this new record and you know some there's some killer songs on there like i really do think like bulldozer i mean bulldozer is like a [ __ ] we play bulldozer and [ __ ] like lose their mind like it's a alltime machine head classic now you know crushing around you you know but there's some stinkers on here you know i could you know like people often look at this record as like kind of a dud for machine head and and i can see why like it's it's got some bangers but it's you know it's it's it got it's hit and miss yeah i was kind of curious what weird thoughts first off thank thank you for going in so in depth of that record now you know i've i'm sorry if this podcast is kind of u to people listening watching kind of selfish i just really wanted to know more about that particular record you know because i haven't really heard many stories but what's i think what's what's most fascinating to me about uh your band rob is i was kind of curious what you guys were here because uh it seemed kind of people like kind of like wrote you off it seemed like it's like during during this this time period i was kind of curious what happened and then uh cuz cuz when people like doubt you they they like they'll just erase your entire past they'll like everything you done they'll just like "oh no they're they're [ __ ] done." you know so so i was kind of curious uh so it's kind of fascinating where your your your mind goes you know uh to kind of come back from that so i was kind of curious what um so this record is out is done okay uh it's her stinker right and then so what i was watching some videos well we're so the record comes out uh two three weeks after 911 yes yeah and we make a video for the song crashing around you crashing around you is going to be the single and we make a video for crashing around you and the original version this isn't the original version this is a we we had to redo it because the original version had had us standing on top of buildings that were crashing down like and we've got like all this cgi of like literal like you know like we're on the [ __ ] world trade center like basically and [ __ ] buildings are crashing around all around us and it's a sick video it's [ __ ] killer it's so badass like it's awesome and we're juice were like "oh my god this is going to be a sick ass video." and like and then you know that [ __ ] 9/11 happens and you know they basically any song on the radio on the video like any that even references crashing or this you know like like you remember let the bodies hit the floor like if they yank that they yank everything you know even frank sinatra songs are getting yanked off the radio and like it's our shit's like it couldn't have be more dead in the water and we've got a tour starting six days after 911 wow so we go out sorry man and we're just like we're terrified to even fly you know we think that like you know of course and you know at this point like they're going to bomb everywhere like they got new york we're going to you know the tour starts in fargo north dakota they're like they're going to get fargo north dakota like why would they get fargo north dakota no they're not but like in your mind you're just like you know you think everybody's going to get you so you know we go out there and you know the shows at first are just like they're weird you know like people like everybody up front in the front row is just like why am i here like really tell me it's going to be okay and and then and i'm like i need you to tell me it's going to be okay cuz i don't know like don't look to me like i'm not like don't put me up on a pedestal like i'm just as [ __ ] up and lost and confused about all of this [ __ ] as you are and how long how long did that last that tour was five weeks and by the by the end of the first week it was kind of like oh oh i i know why we're why we're out here now like i know why we're doing this like all these people that are coming here we're all trying to get through this [ __ ] insane moment we don't know what's going on and we don't know what's gonna happen and it's like music is what's gonna pull us all through this and the shows become these this massive release like it's just these super intense shows where the crowd's just like they're just getting out all their pain and their confusion and their rage and and you know we go all you know go into like new york area and you know the shows are really intense there and it you know like we then went over to europe too because every band canceled their tours in europe like our tour we had a tour starting in november and every band system vown pantera you name it everybody canceled their tours scared because of terrorism and terror attacks and and so we were like "fuck it." you know we had just toured 6 days after 911 we're like "we're [ __ ] going over there we're not going to you know our fans we need this i need this they need this like they need this we need to do this for them." and we went over there and we were literally the only band on tour over at the time and the shows were insane like it was just amazing and you know it really you know you you hear people talk about the power of music and it it's almost a cliche to say it now yeah but i can tell you in those moments in those handful of months right after 911 playing those songs and i started i started working in we started an intro at the beginning for the live version of crashing around you where i just started talking about life and i started talking about 9/11 and i started talking about what we all saw and we all this shared experience that we all just lived through not even a month or two ago and it was so crazy to watch people like just you know like people would come up to the show like [ __ ] thank you like thank you so much for you [ __ ] saved me in this moment like i needed to hear that so much and you know that's what again like to me that's that's the reason you know that's the reason i do this that's the reason that i continue to do this because you know i i need to feel that you know i need to feel that too not from my band like from other bands you know what i mean like i was that same person in that crowd in that circle pit up front at those shows looking at that band and having them sing me those songs that [ __ ] saved me totally man unfortunately uh that was kind of like the last time where everyone kind of remembered what they were doing at that moment huh right everyone everyone has has their own story yeah is that is that is that the last moment like like that i can't remember it was anything after 9 911 where everyone kind of noticed where they were united yeah no yeah i was uh i mean you know like i i got arrested and i was seeing my probation officer so i was out of school and then yeah walking to the police station everyone's like looking at at the tvs right that you remember that that's what you remember yeah yeah um i went to some house to a friend's house and i trashed it and then i got arrested it was sick so you had to go meet with your probation officer yeah yeah 13 that's awesome 13 you got you got to get you got to get arrested once you know oh yeah i think when i think the younger it's like chickenpox is just get get out of the way when you're young and then learn your lesson and then move on oh yeah you know that that that really is that oh yeah i've been arrested like probably 11 or 12 times oh you yeah oh you're you're a [ __ ] other i'm getting no more arresting chicken fox hopefully you know fingers crossed no no good man i mean yeah you're you're getting to a [ __ ] three fights a week man man not getting arrested luckily you know i know we could probably run right you're you're running you're running away yeah i didn't want to get caught by the cops [ __ ] that you know oh no being arrested sucks man you're [ __ ] terrified do you think you think the world's going to it is it is terrifying it's scary you know you get scary getting pulled over for a [ __ ] you know speeding ticket true it's all [ __ ] like even like you don't when you get pulled over even when you know you're fine like why why am i scared yeah i'm fine literally like unless unless someone plants drugs in my car i'm [ __ ] but everything's fine yeah just be just be cool to the cop especially all these videos right now going viral like people like just testing like poking the cops like [ __ ] this job probably sucks ass just be [ __ ] cool with them i had i i had a couple of cops that weren't cool though really yeah what uh what happened it wasn't driving though like i got arrested on new year's eve although i i guess now that i think about it i was kind of i was pissing in a i was pissing in a doorway okay i remember getting i thought i was doing nothing i was like "oh no you were doing i was doing something." wait i was pissing in a doorway on on broadway in san francisco so like you know like the main drag of like the the new year's eve party oh you forgot the part that you were being [ __ ] yeah i mean i was just pissing in a doorway for god's sake it's not that big of a deal like it's [ __ ] dude it's if you saw broadway at this particular this is like this is like where all the [ __ ] prostitutes and the strip clubs and [ __ ] you know it's like me pissing in the doorway was the the least of anybody's problems dude i'm i'm terrified of uh of peeing in public i had an incident happened to me a couple couple months ago i was peeing uh peeing in the parking lot uh my my girlfriend was driving me and i was like you know sometimes you just got to go and you're older it's like i don't i i can't hold it i'm peeing right now she's like "okay we'll go in between the cars." you you look around there's no one around okay rob i kid you not but when i'm done peeing this couple came out of nowhere the one the one couple in a parking lot was the car that i was next to cuz you're the peeing you're peeing in between cars and that's god or fate like and uh i know but it's just taking a piss you know it's not like that she well she had her uh her drunk boyfriend or husband oh jeez yeah so uh so he makes a big stink probably luckily my girlfriend was sane in the moment sometimes you're just not there and in that moment i was weak i didn't have the [ __ ] mental speech she's like get in the car and we're going to leave and sure enough uh when we were pulling out i just i mean you weren't pissing on their car right yeah you were just pissing on the street between the two cars but but but what but what the girl said is he's peeing on her car so right right out of the gates i was wrong i i was wrong but she lied i was wrong she lied uh my girlfriend said "get in the car we're leaving." and sure enough she was right we were pulling out and the guy was your cliche probably uh late 20s really tall white bro shaved head and football jersey on it was during like it was sunday so all like the football games are going on okay he was some drunk dude and he was this was not their first rodeo so i was like so that was the last time i almost so yeah i'm like i'm terrified of peeing in public now 39 right 39 now i won't be in public anymore yeah you know [ __ ] it dude okay so anyway enough of my selfish stories uh so what no no it's fine what uh that's what i love about podcasts you know like they can be a conversation yeah i do i do enjoy that part of it yeah well people especially what i don't think people really realize is that with with artists artists and people in bands they they they tend to need longer time to to process thoughts i noticed so like that's why i i'll be quiet for a period of time when someone's done talking because i know for me if i'm done talking i'm not really done talking it's just it's it's something i notice with people in in bands but i try to explain that to like uh like in like uh to the public but i think it's just like i i just know i know how a musician's brain is kind of chain linking so i kind of give them like give them the space because it happens to me all the time i'll be like i'll be on the verge of like obing up and then someone will say something and then that that stops my chain linking process and i i close back up you mean when you're doing an interview uh it's happened during a podcast yeah okay yeah so i make sure that i'm not doing that to somebody else it's the i got to say that's you know i had a podcast for a while i don't do it anymore but uh and it was mostly on zoom like i never had like you're kind of next level like the mine was just always on zoom but it was over the pandemic yeah so you know but that i gotta say that was a really good uh it was i don't want to say it's a lesson but it was a great experience to just be quiet and let somebody talk you know get somebody talking about theirelves and then not interject with your story or your version of you know the same thing that happened to you or whatever but just let them like tell their thing and then just keep them you know it's not the way that it's the way that people should converse but sometimes in society now they don't dude i would rob so so you got to experience that with with your podcast yeah just there there's that's my personal secret weapon is just shut up shut up and listen right you know but that's how conversation should go it's like one one person talks you're not thinking about what you're going to say next your your brain and it's a it's a [ __ ] muscle dude you got to continually work out that muscle dude like your brain wants to come up with we're gonna say this you have to say this but like chris shut the [ __ ] up dude and let let oh this is how humans should communicate you the they say something you're not you're not going to say you're not thinking about what you're going to say next you're going to okay that's what that's what they said okay then then then i process it and okay this is what hopefully this is what they meant and then this is this is my this is my response right that should be that's normal human communication but it's pretty rare when you find i think that's why family and close friends are super important because you can tell when you're talking they're actually listening to you they are oh this you know this is my [ __ ] best friend or something you you could tell you're talking they're not or like your parents too like some like parents because they come from a slower age sure they're less inclined to jump in and kind of you know whereas like younger people when you're talking to them yeah i love i love listening man it's cool i've learned i learned a lot you know you know this is i'm i'm going to lie here each each each person is kind of like like a book and they'll they'll you you'll get one golden nugget from my from each one you know one one or two and then now and now now you have that in your back pocket you know could be uh you know it could be unrelated to music it could be personal it could be music it could be about recording it could be something that that that you're going through it's [ __ ] fascinating dude it's [ __ ] nuts dude anyway um i i i don't want to take time talking about me uh you uh so another selfish question actually is uh i was curious where you were personally is when again when you're you're riding uh through the through the ashes cuz i i remember being younger rob and uh watching like these videos of you and like dave like trying to like sell the band i was like "oh right." i was like "damn like you how how you could just get to a level and then almost kind of lose it." like like something happens to you like mentally like it's like man how do you like i just watching those videos like i remember like seeing dave have like this like drum machine hey this is what this is what we're doing i was like damn they're [ __ ] going through it man yeah what was uh what was that experience like for you like what were you guys communicating like hey we don't got a label anymore hey we should take a break or hey we should this is the time actually to write like probably our sickest record like how how'd you guys process that time i i mean first of all so supercharger the cycle kind of ends we you know contrary to popular myth out there we actually negotiated off roadrunner we weren't dropped okay like we negotiated hey you know like this isn't working out we didn't it didn't you didn't live up to your stuff like you know we don't we don't want to sue you but you got to let us go and so they they did and they let us go and they kind of like you know it was a clean fair break mhm and um at the time we had a [ __ ] ton of labels i mean you know i mean you live in la so you know probably what it's like better than anybody like everybody here blows smoke up your ass like oh my god your band should be so much bigger if you were with me i would make you a millionaire and a star and a blah blah blah so you know we uh i call it [ __ ] my my uh my it's total [ __ ] my [ __ ] pull my [ __ ] meter dude it's just it it rings off constantly like around here you know so it's like keep the keep keep the circle you know tight but you know somewhere during the burning red you know we you know we kind of got sucked up in like the whole music industry thing you know like it's like we're doing this video with this guy that we don't want to do a video with we end up firing our manager my longtime manager that i've had since violence and you know get him eventually you know time passes but you know that all happens we get with a high-powered management company doesn't work out we bring joey joe joseph our manager are back you know the same manager from my early days and uh he's actually still my manager now been my manager for 38 years 38 years man except for the you know the little period where i fired him but but had a boy but but uh he uh so you know we come back and we've negotiate out the label and and we had about probably seven labels that were courting us during this period when we were still signed right like if you sign with us like [ __ ] blah blah blah you know can take you to the next level this that the other thing whatever they you know all the [ __ ] that they say yep and uh you know we get we get unsigned and we're like "hey like here we are we're free agents now like we're ready to go like deals done we're out we're clear." and they're like "slow down." like you know pump the brakes we got to we got to you know we got to hear some music and we got to make sure that you know this is the right fit for the label and this and we're like "well you know like we've got four albums out." we're like "well that's the problem you've got four albums out." and i was like "what?" yeah what does that mean and they're like well you know you're you're proven i'm like and what does that mean they're like well if you have never had any albums out you're unproven so the sky's is the limit or it's a failure but we already know like what you've sold and i'm like we've sold two and a half million records like you know by this point we've sold a lot of [ __ ] records and you know granted at this point you know this is crazy crazy to think about but you know this is 2002 so you know we've already had kid rock do gold diamond we've already had lincoln park go diamond we've already had limp biscuit 7 million i mean million [ __ ] millions and millions of millions of records and you know you've only sold two million records over four albums and we're like wow i don't i mean like this is wild like i you know it's you know it's it's a respectable amount of records and like you shouldn't be looking at this like it's a negative like well you didn't sell 10 million i'm like "but who has you know like they're like,"well kid rock and i'm like "listen like you know i don't know what to tell you here but like you know so you know at this point you know aru we're having problems with aru ao really wants to take the band in a more commercial direction and and i'm just like i i'm just like i don't you know we'd already kind of gone through that with him on the last record and i was like look i i want to just be machine head machine head is got thrash we've got some hardcore we've got some hip-hop we've got some goth we've got some whatever you know and that's what i want to do and that's all i want to do and i'm just going to try and write you know like i'm not going to try and write a hit or a this or that like we're just going to do what we're going to do and so he's like well i'm going to quit and we're like great go you do you that's cool with us you know like so we just the three of us just kind of forge on writing and it's really just dave and i because you know it was just mainly dave and i at that point like sitting in the jam room and uh and we end up writing stuff but we we end up getting you know we they want to hear demos and they they're like we need to hear a hit and so i write a song i write one song that i'm not really into but it's called pins and needles and i'm just like whatever i think it sucks like i think the vocal performance is terrible but it's kind of what they want and i'm like if this is the one song that it takes to get us onto the record company so that i can do what i want with 10 other songs i don't care like i'm just trying to like yeah you know the idea at that point of going you know completely independent isn't doesn't seem very realistic post 911 world that we're in at this particular point yeah and so you know i'm i'm i'm like broke you know like we're in a [ __ ] lawsuit with this company and like this lawsuit drags on for years like years and years and years like i'm [ __ ] like hemorrhaging money fighting this lawsuit i'm you know now i have no label i you know me and my wife had just bought a house and now i don't have money to pay the mortgage and i'm so now i'm like taking up other jobs and i'm i'm sitting here and i'm like i start doing guitar tech work at a studio called fantasy studios which is where we actually recorded our first album burn my eyes and like i'm the guy who like you come into the studio like hey you need your guitar set up like i'm be over here just like bring me all your stuff and i'll like you know get it going dude you're rob flint i it was and i tell you what i tell you what it didn't bother me that that gig actually paid really well you know i'm working at a studio so it was like you know it's a fancy studio and like so they're like hey we'll pay you good and and um but at one point my uh my friend michelle does the dreadlocks in anders from inflames hair and she her studio is right next door to fantasy so this guy comes so andrew from inflames he's on tour with earth crisis right now and i'm monomarthr and they're playing over at slims he wants to get dreadlocks from this girl who's famous for doing really good dreadlocks and he comes over and then she's like "oh you should go over to fantasy studios it's kind of a famous studio like right next right my place." so i'm like working on a dude's guitar and like anders from inflames walks in and i was just like "rob flynn what are you doing here?" and i was just like i just remember being so [ __ ] embarrassed i was just like "oh yeah just you know doing i had to make whatever excuse." and and he's like "oh okay." and i was like "what are you doing here?" he's like "oh i just got my dreadlocks done." so oh wow but i just like at this point i'm like "fuck man." like i guess it's over like i remember thinking that at that point and you know like i got asked by uh the drowning pool guys to be the vocalist and i was like i was yeah i was like and i theor you know they were like offering me a lot of money for the time and and i was like i was like you don't want me in your band you know what i mean like i'm a take over the band kind of guy i'm really hard to work with i'm really hard to work with i'm i'm easy to work with but i'm going to if as long as you're okay with me taking over your band and i was just like you know thank you you know honored that you even thought of me but like you know but i'm i'm seriously thinking these things and you know i then my wife gets pregnant i got a kid on the way like now we start [ __ ] i can't pay the [ __ ] mortgage on the house and i'm like i was like it you know like we're me and my wife are arguing she's like "dude like it's over like you know you had a good run you [ __ ] sold two and a half million records you put out four albums like you know like you had a good run." and i was like she said "i know." i'm like and i'm like "you're right like i had a good run." and she's like you know like when do you give up the dream i'm like i don't know but like you know like and we're you know we're kind of arguing and like you know mostly about money cuz it's like all about money it's all about money and you're just like can i [ __ ] like i can't [ __ ] pay the goddamn this [ __ ] lawsuits i'm hemorrhaging money from this lawsuit um and you know we're arguing and finally at one point i'm just like look and and i and i and i say this with all due respect to the fedex guy because i love fedex and i love everybody in the mail industry and like you know people who work for fedex and all that but i looked at her and i was like "do you see me as the fedex guy?" she was like "no." i was like "what do you see me as?" she's like "you're a [ __ ] star." like you know you're [ __ ] you play music for because it's in your [ __ ] blood it's in your [ __ ] it's your soul and i was like that's right i was like so [ __ ] believe that i'm going to do it she's like then go [ __ ] do it she's like you got to [ __ ] make it happen now and i was like i [ __ ] swear to you i will just [ __ ] believe a little bit longer and i [ __ ] did and i finished up that [ __ ] record you know we ended up getting signed by roadrunner in europe and so we go to record the album start through the ashes and america is still like well you know we just parted ways we don't know if we don't really want to sign you again cuz that's kind of weird and i'm like i know but you know roadrunner europe just signed us so like you know because they were two separate labels at that point even though it was like roadrunner records it was two completely separate oh yeah like businesses so america roadrunner america was one thing and roadrunner europe was a totally different entity different boss different everything and so you know we just we went about recording that record and you know during also during this lawsuit period and this other period you know we're shipping we're you know kind of going back to the thing that you brought up about dave and us having to like ship these songs we're shipping these demos off and it's got this song pins and needles and you know we we end up getting turned down by 35 labels we got turned down 35 labels rejected us and the first five labels was really crushing to me like it it [ __ ] crushed me like i was depressed and just really like i was like it's it's over like it's over you know like and then we got five more labels checking us out you know checking the demo out like not checking the band out but same thing they turned us down more turned us down more turn by the time it got you know first i was really depressed by the time i got to like the 15th one i was kind of annoyed by the time i got to like the 20th like rejection i was like "okay man." like "wait a minute here." like i was like "really?" you know by the time it got to the 30th record company rejection i was just the angriest most pissed off [ __ ] you [ __ ] them [ __ ] everybody [ __ ] everybody who doubts me i i was just a walking like kind bomb like i was so [ __ ] you know i wasn't fight i wasn't i'm not doing the fighting every weekend thing but i was like i'm i'm fighting for this band now and you know we just wrote a record and we put it out and then you know we finished the recording of the record and we had been really you know we demoed some stuff for roadunner us and they were all excited and they're like "oh we might do this." and then the last day of recording they turned us down and they said "we're not going to sign you in the us." and up until this point we had totally kept our cards you know close to the chest and you know nobody knew that we were unsigned you know we were just like going about our business like we were still on road runner and then it was like well we got to tell everybody so now i you know at this point i know it sounds crazy to say this because you know you know it's so common now but in 2003 you know doing like videos and sticking them on the internet was like unheard of right like you know talking to your fans on a message board was just like you know that's the way we kept contact with people because everybody had kind of left us magazines wouldn't cover us like you know promoters would you know all this stuff we still but we the promoters would book us because we drew a lot of people and we made them a lot of money and so i was like look we'll you know we're going to keep on making you money because people still want to see machine head and so that was always like the feather in the cap that we had you know that was the ace up our sleeve that we always had and so you know at that point though it was like you know i i put out a post and i was like on the message board i knew it would get picked up you know blabbermouth was just starting so like there was all this internet stuff i didn't need a magazine i didn't need a magazine i was like i don't need a [ __ ] magazine anymore this is the way i'm going to communicate with our fans via this thing called the internet you know via message boards via these little videos and that we would put up that like literally would take you know 17 hours to upload you know a minute and a half long video you know you're watching it on 56k modem where it take like you know an hour to load a video for people to watch but we did it and that was the way that we communicated and uh and the record comes out over in europe and it [ __ ] explodes chris like it [ __ ] explodes and everybody's like "oh my god." like it just blows up tour does amazing and then you know two months later roadrunners comes back and they're like "hey like that new record you got's really good." we're like "oh yeah the one that you passed on." like "oh is that the same record?" we're like "oh yeah that's the same record." they're like "well we want to we want to put it out." and so then we resigned with roadrunner and then you know like just kind of kept on [ __ ] keeping on man yeah was that was that the first record that you actually produced okay man just oh my goodness that that i that that's a lot of pressure too it was yeah we just i just that's wow i was like i can't pay i mean you know how sometimes it is like those bigname producers and we had gone through a slew of bigname producers like ross got paid a lot of money we had terry date mix burning red it was a lot of money you know we had johnny k for the next record it was just so much [ __ ] you know it was too much and i was like i don't like i can do this like i learned a lot from colin i've learned a lot from ross like i know what this band is supposed to sound like and you know i had help i had a great engineer like i can't take the credit like mark keaton was my engineer mhm andy sneep was finishing up a testament or an exodus record and he came in for the first day to just kind of help with tones and set up mics and stuff and yeah totally so i had like you know i had i had help you know and then it was just a matter of getting the performances out of the band and myself that that would make the record yeah that's one of the most fascinating times uh as like a fan as an outsider uh about about your band i was just curious where where uh you were because it it gets really [ __ ] up because anyone anyone could get there but keeping it and then it's even even worse when you lose it to gain it back is well you you find out who you are you know how much how much do i love this and then then then you have you're older so you have wives girlfriends bills i didn't i didn't make this [ __ ] happen now this [ __ ] needs to [ __ ] happen dude yeah and uh and you guys did man it's it's [ __ ] fascinating man no matter how uh how many knows how many nos and and what's also uh fascinating is uh your ability to compartmentalize because uh it's really easy to buckle under pressure cuz cuz you can't force out riffs right it's being able to kind of there's like the pressure but you could actually tone it wait was that was that what was that what you were doing you're like toying out like this this this kind of outside thing all right this is time to write with dave this is how do you do that i mean we were just we were just writing you know he was he brought in like a lot of uh my old rift tapes from the more things chang he had held on to my riff tapes i'm pretty bad at actually holding on to my rift tapes like i almost never ever go back to old rift tapes like i always just start fresh like i don't want to i don't care what i did two years ago 10 years ago 15 years ago i just start new and i go and that's just what my mind wants to do and uh but he brought back some rift tapes from the more things change and we kind of took a couple of riffs from there and and uh but really it was like you know that record to me you know some people and i always hear people say it was a return to form which i don't i don't know if i agree with that like i still feel like we were just kind of moving forward and you know i felt like we brought some you know it's still a classic machine head record but it brought in new elements and a new vibe and it felt fresh and you know i think uh you know kind of brought in some stoner elements with songs like elegy you know i mean imperium imperium is like you know like imperium was just kind of like lightning in a bottle you know what i mean like i written in like one day or something crazy like well he david brought in the verse riff and we had been jamming on the verse riff for a while and then i wrote the chorus and and then we had just that little section of the song like a minute and a half of the song and i was like this is cool but it's not like i don't know where it's going mhm and then i got i got the flu and i canceled practice i was like i'm so [ __ ] i was just shot like i'm [ __ ] dead on my feet like i can barely even get out of bed yeah and at some point i just got so sick of you know your back starts hurting like after you've been laying down too long i'm like "oh just get up and play guitar." so i just picked up a guitar and and uh and i [ __ ] just wrote imperium like i wrote imperium in like 30 minutes like the whole the the whole intro and then i was like "oh maybe i can connect this to the one verse thing." and then i wrote the bridge and then i wrote the thrash part and then i wrote the super fast part at the end and then i was like i was like i was like "oh my god." i thought i was like i think this song's done like and i was you know i'm super [ __ ] sick at this point so i'm like maybe i'm just like so goddamn sick with the flu that i think i've done something killer and it's not but then i woke up the next day i was like oh no this is this is good and i went in and i showed it to the i was like i think i finished we were calling the song d at the time you know you always have like dumb names for your song like d so we called it d i was like i i think i finished budda d it's pretty cool and like i played it for him they're like "holy [ __ ] this is sick." so the song you know this is the week before we're going in to record the record yeah like no lyrics like i've got i've got no i've got nothing like i've got like i just finished this song it almost doesn't end up on the record and then a couple of days later i had we had been jamming on the last song on the record which was desend the shades of night and uh at at this point the song is like the most the wackest deaf tones ripoff you've ever heard like it's so bad like it's just the worst it's the worst like it's horrible and i'm just like but it's got this one part in the middle that i love and i'm like the one part is so good i was like we got to do something with this and that's what became the bridge and a little bit of the chorus and i was like "there's something here." and like we're arguing like the whole band wants to like fire the song from the record they're like "this song sucks we got to fire it this like shitty dev tones." i'm like i'm like "i know it is but like it's this one part's so good." like i'm like i'm like "listen give me give me two days." and i i feel like i got this idea i was going to start the record with basically the beginning the beginning acoustic thing of desend the shades of night was going to originally be the intro to the album right right it was just going to be a quick little intro and it was you know so i was like "give me let me give me you know two days when i come back i'm going to trying this idea out." and then maybe it works maybe it doesn't but i uh you know at the time i was like i don't i don't usually talk about this because you know metal dies are always just like "oh my god that's so lame." but like i [ __ ] love coldplay i'm a huge huge huge coldplay fan those first two coldplay records are like desert island i get it albums for me i got it when when i i got dumped oh that's why people love this [ __ ] band dude you i went yeah you you go into a coldplay [ __ ] you going down a coldplay rabbit hole dude it is like the best depressing music you're ever going to [ __ ] hear i get it i get it and it's so like especially those first two records are just so stark and there's something to them man there's some [ __ ] nasty tapp and like and i was like me and my wife had been listening to coplay non-stop and you know she's pregnant and we're constantly like playing coal play around our kid and it's crazy i'm just going to go off on a sidebar here but like we're listen we're just listening to that because we just you know me and my wife just hang out and listen to music and like we were really vibing on the coplay records at that point and uh when we have our first son xander you know we have xander on a couple months into the ashes tour cycle and you know he's a he's a pretty uh what's the word collicky like he's got he cry he's like he has a lot of trouble sleeping he's constantly awake cake and he's like crying a lot you know he's like crying a lot like a lot a lot you know like he's like "you're just like we didn't sleep for like nine [ __ ] months straight like after he was born." like he like it was [ __ ] brutal like and uh but we'd put on that first song on the second the other album with the white the white with the kind of guy with the beard goatee or whatever yeah that one we'd put on the first song a russ on that record and xander would be crying and crying and he'd hear that and go and he'd shut up and we were like "dude we played this song so much when he was in the womb." like maybe it's like triggering some like thing from hearing that right like he's connecting to hearing cole play when he was in the womb or something because it would just make him that one song would just make him completely stop for the whole song he would stop crying and we were like this is crazy anyway just you know put that on repeat yeah yeah just loop that song all the time loop that song dude but you know i'm kind of like vibing on coldplay and i was like you know maybe i can just kind of try and channel some of this into this metal song that i've got and i end up like so i throw away all the lousy deaf tones ripoff stuff that we're doing and i just end up writing this like 8inut song that's like this kind of sad ballad about death and mortality and you know it kind of becomes this like moment on the record and it you know it was really it was really really cool like this is one of my favorite songs that we've ever done you know really tried to like channel some like eagles tried to channel some like you know this part especially now i'm vibing on some cal hotel california [ __ ] right here oh yeah let's take a little break if you're wondering how i can sit listen and focus for long periods of time i think we're probably two hours in the rob flynn podcast uh the answer is coffee but not just any coffee we have the bag right here uh we drink whole bean guards of podcast coffee from concept cafes uh they also work with other sick bands like mohead cannibal corpse i sign kills is a new one and more uh if you're a fan of high quality coffee like i am check it out at click the link in the description below last one i promise a heads up for all our youtube members um after going back and forth with youtube um for almost a year we have decided to switch over to patreon uh there's an issue with the join button which makes it pretty inconvenient and a hassle to join uh i love youtube but there's no signs of this being resolved so uh it seems like the older channels got like godfire in um all good just want to give a heads up so the change doesn't come out of nowhere so uh look out for that and that's it back to our conversation with rob flynn you took uh classical guitar lessons when you were in high school right i did wow i should have uh he gave me a d maybe d he gave me a d and and you i used that fuel for so long i was like "fuck you i'm going to show you motherfucker." yeah it's [ __ ] up dude well what's was your i was like "what's the guy who got an a+ doing now?" huh right true true man yeah but what you had for for your final you had you had to learn a uh a classical piece right i did nice what what was your one take take away from that like uh did did you like kind of take something from from that class besides the hate i mean i it was it was you know honestly like i i held on to that anger because i was just a young dumb [ __ ] idiot but like it was such a good experience like it really was amazing to have a music class you know because i was so into music and i was so into guitar at that point classical guitar in high school man yeah dude like it was [ __ ] cool like my final my final yeah my final there's your d my final was d minor yeah uh d the song's in b b minor no i meant no i meant your uh your your grade oh yeah yeah that's my d d's pass we uh we just [ __ ] found that but i was uh you know i i he i had to do green sleeves for my final a song green which is that song and uh but you know like the thing that was killer about the class was oh english folk song yeah yeah and and you and you used to jam this song when you when you were a kid right i did i can still play now no i mean after learning it for the thing i did yeah but i i used i can still play this like i still play it from time to time just to kind of like i'm like i there's something about me like i got to i got to keep my chops up like as long as i can still play this yeah i'm good with guitar but at the time yep it's a really sad song like all the notes are all minor and i love sad chords man yeah it's like any minor it's like that [ __ ] killed it on all the sad chords on that one mhm and uh you know so i i did that but it was killer because we had just you know bunch of friends we're playing guitar we're making music and even if we are we were just kind of goofing off we were basically just smoking weed and like playing guitar and you know in high school and i was taking a lot of meascaline in high school so like mecoline was like you know like acid oh my goodness got it they were like all the all the all the all the cholo vatos in my high school i went to american high in fremont and uh and and all the cholovato sold me masculine like so we were just like constantly frying in class and you know [ __ ] coming into class stoned as [ __ ] like and and a teacher definitely knew i pro she probably knew about the mecalene because the meascalene was really hard to hide because it makes you laugh right like you're just [ __ ] i'm just trying to read a book like cracking up all my god you know like laughing for no reason at all it's kind of hard to hide that yeah but i loved it i went crazy on meascalene for a while like i really like i really i leaned hard into it me and my friends what how does it make you feel and what do you like what do you think about i i never took it i mean it's have you ever done acid or mushrooms oh wow good for you dm uh just dmt and iwasa okay i do probably probably similar to an iawaska vibe you know like kind of you know hallucinations and oh okay yeah i mean yeah a lot of hallucinations emotional changes duh emotional changes a lot of visual distortions though okay and i took uh the one time i did it probably the last time that i did it i didn't have a you can't have a bad trip on it sometimes mhm and uh but one of the time i i generally had good trips on it but me and my friend uh this kid down the street vance we took it and then we went uh we went outside of his house and we were just looking up at the trees and i remember every single leaf on the tree this is night time now and every single leaf on the tree turned into a devil's head and it was like look at this tongue sticking out and [ __ ] horns and like i was just like "holy [ __ ] this is sick." i looked at the tree stump and it just turned into a giant python that was just endlessly going down into like i don't know the dirt or hell or whatever the [ __ ] it was we started walking down we started walking down fremont boulevard and like i go to piss behind a you know pissing behind a car i'm pissing behind a truck and i'm looking at all the headlights coming and i'm on a gravel and it just turned into a bunch of skulls rolling at me like hundreds of skulls like rolling at me like as i'm taking this piss and we went and sat down and we're like lena we didn't want to go into his house because his mom we were like his mom was there and we were like oh my god your mom's going to know we're frying on meascalene and uh so like let's just sit outside so he was in a like a townhouse complex and we're sitting there and the and the local bullies come through as we're like leaning up against these trees oh no like the three bullies of the neighborhood like come through and we're like "oh no." we're like "fuck." and they're like "what are you doing?" and we're just like "we can't even talk." like we're so [ __ ] shot on meal right now we've taken two hits of meascalene and we're sitting there we're literally paralyzed against this this tree sitting down up against this tree they're like "get up get up." they start like [ __ ] punching us around we're like trying to get up and just [ __ ] look i stand up and i'm looking at this dude and it just like i'm talking like 500 super fast lines are just going on his face like like drawing all over his face and i'm just like "holy shit." he like starts punching me and my friend vance he's like "what the [ __ ] the matter with you guys like fight back." we're like like [ __ ] tripping you idiot yeah i mean we just we couldn't even do anything and finally after like i guess he got bored of us and was just like leave these [ __ ] dicks alone and just like went that's that's what you call a bad trip it wasn't a bad trip in some ways it was kind of like a lesson we were just like oh man if you just like shut your mouth and like not say anything like the the bully leaves you alone and uh so we then we go in and we watch we start watching tv and you know who do you know who uh what's the guy that did over the pandemic he started doing like all the metal covers um was it robert frip it was from king crimson it was the guy from king crimson he started doing a bunch of metal covers like oh there's he was just on that youtube if you go back yeah go to the right a little bit yeah that one right there that guy is that right yeah robert frip so robert frip is this is the guy for uh king crimson and so we go in and we're trying to like hide from his vance's mom and we turn on the tv and this motherfucker's on and king crimson is like the most insane like jazz prog rock [ __ ] mayhem you'll ever [ __ ] hear in your life and he's playing a song called elephant talk okay and he's like it's like elephant talk like like it's [ __ ] it was the ultimate music for frying on two hits of meascaline like it was weird and crazy and psychedelic and bizarre and [ __ ] oh my god it's just the most bizarre [ __ ] yeah he's a sick guitar player sick guitar player dude he's insane yeah listen to this [ __ ] what instrument is that i have no idea but we start watching this like as we're frying on meascalene and we're just like "this is insane oh my god." you got to remember this is like 1983 or something you know like oh they definitely did this [ __ ] like this is made for dudes on acid and so that's that's us that suit alone so we start watching this [ __ ] and we're like whoa and it was perfect and it just the night ended super good i don't even know why i started telling the story i kind of forgot why i started telling the story now no it's great it's perfect yeah no i like i like uh sidebars okay inside here but it's come i was trying to bring this back around and you know that's in my age no it's cool cuz it doesn't always come back around no cuz uh you uh we already went through uh through the ashes so we we already kind of went through the the stories i kind of so so now so now you it's kind of gained back right uh the the uh the band's in a better spot so where yeah what uh where where were you mentally when like okay when you're going to write the blackening where uh how did uh like like where where were you at well i it was crazy because like i you know i had my first kid about uh halfway 6 months into a 20-month touring cycle i have xander and you know i take a break and then i take a break for like two months and then i go right back onto tour and you know i'm i'm gone for another 18 months no 14 months 14 months i'm gone and i come back and then we get pregnant again and you know we want we wanted to have two we wanted to have two kids and we wanted to have them close together and you know now we're we're writing and you know we're confident like we've really jelled as a band 20 months touring will gel you as a band you know what i mean like we played every [ __ ] nook and cranny of planet earth by this point wow and you know we're feeling good and we're feeling strong and we just we just start writing and you know you never know where i i mean i shouldn't say you never know like i never know where i'm going to go with a record like i don't know where i'm going to go i mean i want to write heavy and i want to do sound like machine head but you know i i love that keith richards quote where he always just says you know we're just a vessel and the music's just leading you and you just kind of follow the music to wherever you're going because that's what that's what it is i fully believe in that and you know so we start writing and you know this the first first two songs we write you know beautiful morning and slanderous like slanderous is my least favorite song on the record like i don't even like the song really like it's just like whatever it's okay you know like it's okay but so i'm not like you know and then and then we had written a bunch of other songs that didn't make the record also during this period that all were just kind of okay like you know so like the first like three four months that we're writing for the blackening like there's nothing to indicate oh wow this is going to be some awesome record like i honestly think all the songs suck like i don't like any of the songs we're writing and so then we hit upon uh beautiful morning and we get to that middle section and um you know i mean most of my fans know this but i'm i'm a huge my chemical romance romance fan i love my chemical romance like three cheers for sweet revenge the black parade like those are also in addition to coldplay's first two records like those two my cam records are desert island records for me and you know i i haven't really heard uh you know these kind of like super crazy emo melodies before you know like these really like sad emo melodies that are especially on that that that three cheers record and um you know i'm just like you know what i'm going to try like i'm kind of getting more confident as a singer you know like i'm not i'm not a very good singer you know what i mean like i'm up until this point i'm completely self-taught like nice you know i don't you know i know what i want to hear and i've always sang on every machine head record like there's always singing you know like i'm your god now or even old or song like nation on fire like it's got singing but i'm not confident as a singer and i'm i know i'm good at heavy singing and screeching but i'm not you know i'm not confident in my clean singing but singing along to like my kim and stuff i kind of get like that confidence where i was like i like i think i can do some of this like high clean singing like i feel like i can do this and uh so i start trying a couple of things like that in that song beautiful morning in particular the bridge of beautiful morning and once that part comes together i'm like "this is killer." like "this is something new this is something fresh from machine head." like it works like it sounds like machine head and you know it kind of like really lights a fire under me and you know the time of the record you know this is during the first gulf uh the first iraq war you know this is still you know we're still post 11 here and you know we're still very affected by it you know there's a lot of anti-war lyrics on there and i as i go further and further down you know the writing process a lot of songs are starting to have this anti-war you know i'm [ __ ] hate the bush administration and like all of that's kind of coming out mh and you know in some ways it's even coming out almost too much like i'm trying to make every song be like an anti-war song and including that song beautiful morning him like i really tried to make that song be this anti-war song and it just wouldn't like the verses you know cuz i have this really sad part in the middle right like and i wanted to make this sad part about you know what i was feeling about this war that i felt was totally unjust and i just wouldn't work like it just no matter how hard like i'm trying to stick a a square into a circle and it's just not fitting and it wouldn't so i just had to like throw i literally wrote like 10 versions of that song of that song's lyrics and i just [ __ ] threw them all away and then i just dug into like depression and you know whatever going through and and uh yeah so like we're going through that and then you know we just kind of hit on these magical moments really was like kind of a magical time like we were all dialed in where everybody was there practicing every time you know and you know you know what it's like sometimes like dudes aren't in it like sometimes dudes just are checked out they don't want to [ __ ] be at the practice room they got [ __ ] to do new girlfriend what [ __ ] starts calling and they're like i got to go [ __ ] do this and i'm like i get it you know like i get it you know i've been there at times too but like you know it was a magical time when we were all just there and there for the work and there to put it in and you know we're grinding like you know dave and i were there you know two hours before the other guys would show up we jam we jam for three hours at rehearsal then stay for another hour and a half work on [ __ ] so like we were a [ __ ] killing machine by the time this record was like finalized we go into the studio and it's like boom shit's [ __ ] done hella fast and granted like musically i'm saying because lyrically then i had to like you know and so you know we're writing these songs and the first you know we write this first batch of songs that i'm think are awful and then we write another batch of songs that i'm pretty stoked on and this ends up being you know beautiful morning slanderous now i lay down and aesthetics of hate so these are the four shortest songs on the record these are all like standard you know five minute long songs you know for machine head that's kind of like our average length or whatever and uh you know so really there's there's nothing to indicate that we're going to start writing 10-minute long songs at any point during this whole process right like you know there's never there's not even a precedent for the last record you know we wrote a long song on the last record that descend the shades of night song mhm and then at some point we just start writing these really long involved merciful fate 30 changes in a song 30 riffs in a song type of songs and you know we don't got a clock in our dressing in our in our jam room like you know i have no idea how long these songs are we're just kind of vibing it out and we're like "this feels killer." and then one you know after like a couple of months we're like "let's time these songs and see how long." and we're like "10 minutes like what the [ __ ] like these are 10 minute long songs and i was like dude like we're crawling up our own ass like this is crazy like nobody wants to hear four 10 minute long like no this is this we're getting like we're turning into like the self-indulgent musician who sticks his [ __ ] head too far up his ass yeah it's always it's a fine line dude tough it is and i'm like and so everybody's like you know what you might be right i'm like okay let's trim the fat trim them back down to five minutes so we take now we take these 10-minute long songs and we trim them down to five minutes and we're playing them and we're kind of working on them for a couple of weeks and they don't feel right it's like you took all of the loop toloops out of a roller coaster like all of the fun parts and now we're just riding on a kids roller coaster and we're like we're like what happened to like all the all the fun's gone like all the you know so we were like [ __ ] it man like let's let's put it in and roll the dice and you know it's album number six like what do we got to prove like let's just do what we're going to do and and and see what happens and you know we went in there and you know it was a really a challenge like the lyrics were the biggest challenge like that was you know writing lyric you know it's like 9 10 11 paragraphs of [ __ ] lyrics that i got to come up with now to like fit these songs and but you know we did it and it came out and it was just it's lightning in a bottle man like you never you know you never know what people are are going to think about a record you know like you hope everybody likes it and you believe in yourself and in some way i think every band when they go to to put out new music and they go and they do like this is the part honestly this is the part of of setting up a record that i hate like i the the period between the record's not out yet of course and you got to talk about it and try and describe with words what music sounds like and i i i i don't know like like you know like i i can't sell this [ __ ] like you know i'm just so you know like even when you listen to my interviews from that time i'm like i hope everybody gets what we're doing with these 10 minutee long songs like but if you don't get it like i i understand like i understand why you might not get it because the [ __ ] we've got 10 minute long songs it's crazy and uh it just [ __ ] blows up man like the record just explodes like it's just it's a complete phenomenon be that is just becomes bigger than us it becomes bigger than anything and we go out on tour and you know we end up you know we're touring with go lamb of god and we go out with heaven and hell and it's heaven and hell and meade death and and i'm a huge black sabbath fan and i've already toured with black sabbath once on the ozfest when they did their first reunion with aussie and so i had kind of gotten to know geyser a bit at that point you know geyser used to like it was crazy like on ozfest like i go up i watch sabbath every single night this is this is dream come true pinch me i can't even [ __ ] believe like i don't even like i'm totally like i'm so like [ __ ] imposttor syndrome on the [ __ ] that tour i'm just like i don't even deserve to be here like what like this is crazy like you know and then geyser's like you know geyser is a huge machine head fan like geysers come out to see machine head shows and he's like headbanging to death church and [ __ ] and i'm like oh my god like that's [ __ ] sick and so you know i'm like he comes up and like i'll be watching on the side of the stage and gizrael kind of like come over and he'll be like rob come here and i'm like what what do you mean he's like come here like he's pulling he's like calling me to like come towards the stage like while he while he's playing a show at a [ __ ] soldout amphitheater and i'm like what he's like "come here." and he like he'll pull me up and he'll like just line me up behind his bass amp and he's like "just watch the show from here." and so i'm like like i'm just like sitting here like i'm like like i shouldn't even be here like what the [ __ ] like what my dumbass on this [ __ ] stage like everybody's like who the [ __ ] is this dude and he's i'm like are you sure he's like no it's fine like stay here and so i watch the [ __ ] like i'm watching black sabbath play like you don't even know dude like i was a 13-year-old [ __ ] dork who worshiped the ground like every black sabbath record i'm writing in to the black sabbath fan club and you know there aussiey's already you know doing solo career and they've already got dio like at this point and i'm like i'm like please get back together with aussie osborne and come to the cow palace in san francisco and play national acrobat off of sabbath bloody sabbath and i will be there with a sign that's you know like on a sheet like hanging from the you know like i'm writing all this like to the thing and of course i never hear back from him or whatever but i'm just like for me this is like this is like a i can't even tell you how special it is that you know that i have the respect of these guys like i never ever in a million [ __ ] years dreamed i'd be doing this type of [ __ ] or that gzer butler would invite me to watch [ __ ] black sabbath play and now here i am like i wrote this dude as i'm 13 he's now inviting me to stand on [ __ ] stage you know so i'm just like it's you know dream come true [ __ ] that that is a beyond dream yeah and then we go on that we go on the heaven and hell tour on the blackening and you know i'm walking out and i'm come out of my dressing room most days and then for some weird reason like for about a week straight every time i walked out of my dressing room like i'm gonna go to catering i'm gonna go to the bathroom i'm go to go back to my bus tony iomi walks out of his dressing room at the exact same time and so i look down the hall and i'm like "oh hey tony." and he's like "hey rob." and i'm like "oh my god tony knows my name knows my name." just like he knows i'm alive you know and [ __ ] you know time passes you know like the tour ends and then we go over to europe and we're touring in europe and we're now doing the festival circuit we do download it's this giant [ __ ] moment and uh the metal hammer awards come up we're playing the metal hammer awards we're up for best album up against lamb of god who was very mad at us when we lost but but i end up i end up winning a golden god and the blackening winds album of the year and uh and we're upstairs as this happened you got to walk from upstairs to downstairs to walk on stage and as we're walking by it's tony iaomi and geyser butler sitting on a table right at the corner as we're coming around and tony iomi gets up and he goes "rob [ __ ] congratulations mate." and gives me a [ __ ] huge hug like on my way down to like accept this award and i was like it was chris it was one of the most surreal moments of my [ __ ] life and you know never in a million years did i ever dream that i'd do it and it was just so [ __ ] you know this is like this is the blackening to me like it just was like an endless stream of good news for [ __ ] you know 3 years and then it was like an endless stream of bad news you know like phil's father passed away dave's mom passed away like it was like all these like crazy ups and downs and you know we toured for three years and three months on that record like slipnot tours and then we get metallica tours and [ __ ] headlining every festival and you know we did two headline tours the whole time like it was like we did eight eight tours of the us like it was [ __ ] it was bananas you know man to think back like when you're when you got that tech job yeah yeah that that's only that's only five years in the past you know what i mean it's only five years how much you could [ __ ] do and it's like a few years man boy you [ __ ] earned it man it's cool say "fuck it i'm doing it." i mean and then touring with metallica dude like that was just i mean that was for me you know that was you know metallic i i i love black sabbath right like black sabbath's like the band that you know like they're the reason i wanted to smoke weed and drink beer and get snow blind and sleep with dirty women you know what i mean like [ __ ] like every every decadent rock and roll thing like came from that band i wanted to play guitar my first guitar riff i ever learned were black sabbath songs you know so like that band holds this special place in my in my young heart right the metallica is like the band that's like kind of sets me on my on my path you know like i'm you know i become friends with this guy named jim pitman in my high school art class and you know at the time i'm listening to what was you know pretty underground music like you know the first molly crew i love the first two molly crew records like i love shout at the devil i love live wire and shadow and uh too fast for love and i'm listening to black sabbath and this guy turns me on he's like "no there's this there's this whole new like thrash metal thing coming up." and i was like "oh yeah what's that?" and he's like starts playing me all of this underground music he like he's he's a tape trader and he trades with people and he's like i he's got i've got pen pals all over the world and they send me like this music and it's all like demos and bootlegs and live versions of stuff and there's these bands coming from california and one of them just moved up here and they're called metallica and you know they're playing this super fast form of music and like i listen to it i'm like holy [ __ ] like what the you know he's playing me like the slayer you know first album you know metallica demos exodus demos and then punk discharge gbh like [ __ ] all this like gnarly punk with dead kennedys like all this [ __ ] and so he opens up this whole like world for me that i'm totally you know you know up until then i've listened to iron maiden i've listened to saxon i'm listening to you know ex you know that kind of stuff but he really takes me down this whole like other thing and and you know he i'm lucky enough to have had a handful of people in my life that they see something in me that i can't see in myself you know he he told you uh to be a singer right nice he tells me to he's like "you seem like you're the guitar player you should play guitar." and i'm already playing guitar at this point but like you know like he really kind of makes me like go down route that route and you know like i said we're pretty poor and my dad's like you know i talked to my dad like i want to get a guitar and you know my mom's like i don't want you to you know play music you should do something else and and my dad's like look i'll i'll rent you a guitar i'll rent you a guitar and if after 3 months you're still playing the guitar you know we can talk about maybe buying you one oh it's a good deal yeah totally and so for $45 a month he rents me like an area pro guitar area pro yeah the area pro it's like a it's like a stratacaster type of guitar yeah are you pulling it up yeah there you go yeah mine was those are yeah kind of like the ones on the right yeah sort of like that nice not quite as fancy but it's like a just like a plane strap and uh okay and uh and i get a amp that's about 4 in by 4 in like a little square amp like this mhm and i just i play that thing day and [ __ ] night like day and [ __ ] night i'm playing guitar and then i get in a band and we end up getting this guy his name's null and he's a really good guitar player but he's not into thrash at all like he's into like ufo and stuff like that and i don't really like ufo but i'll play it because i'm just like jamming and i'm just like i'll just [ __ ] play cuz i want to just [ __ ] play i don't care so i learned how to play rock bottom even though i hate the song rock bottom and i'm just like doing that ufo there you go totally and he's like crazy about it and you know this is michael shankers on the guitar like he's a guitar legend i just don't like i don't get it like i don't get it at the time because i'm so into thrash you know this is like it sounds old to me and uh and so you know he's so good that we get a we get a there's a talent show happening at a at a hotel like a holiday in and it's like a it's it's it's like a bunch of bands are going to go do like a battle of the bands at this thing but it's it's half battle of the bands half uh kids beauty pageant sad so it's like you know 13-year-old girls like getting up there singing like kumbaya by and then it's like a handful of like rock bands and we come up and we play a song by this band called torch they were like a kind of like a new wave of british heavy metal band from sweden called torch and we get up there and like my drummer's just like "you can't play guitar like you're not good enough." he's like "so," he's like "you should just sing." and i was just like "really?" i was like "i'd rather just play guitar." he's like "no you you know you seem like you're the singer you should just sing." and i was like "okay but i'm super annoyed because i just want to play guitar." and i get up there and yeah there it is torch right there i can't remember the name of the song but i want to say it was the first song of the of the on the record and uh that's a promo picture oh that's oh my god look at that album cover isn't that the best album cover you've ever seen in your life that's way better than than the blackening oh my god that's like it's like those pan it's like those early panta record covers right like just so [ __ ] out of hand sometimes it's so bad it's good right that's a great that's totally that's a great example that's a great example but uh so we get so we get there and like and you know this is like one of those moments where like we plug in we start playing we just we just followed this you know 12-year-old girl who's sang kumbaya wearing like a tiara and like a sash and and then we get up there and we're like and i [ __ ] at one point i like slide on my knees up to the front and dude i swear to god i remember i'll never forget the look on everybody's faces cuz it was such a [ __ ] it was such a rad moment i i'm telling you like 70% of the audience just like the minute we started playing went and covered their ears and stood up and walked out the [ __ ] door and i was just oh wow like you can do that with music okay whoa i guess i guess we won yeah one more that's a good album cover right there that's a really good album cover right there it's a little better is it is this electric kiss i don't even know this yeah this is 80s for sure that that's a 80s cover dude yeah and so we start so we start playing like we start playing garages we start playing you know backyard parties we start playing living room parties and you know we're we're but we're playing like the keer party circuit in fremont you know i moved to fremont like when i'm in junior high and uh and [ __ ] you know it's it's killer because and then we go see so metallica puts out kill them all and you know like the the first time i ever get drunk is to metallica my friend jim's older brother buys us you know like a 12-pack of beer and we sit there my parents are like at a bar like till 2 a.m dancing and uh and he play we've got a bootleg of metallica playing live somewhere like probably the stone in san francisco and we start freaking out on we get the more and more we get drunk we just put whiplash on loop like we just listen to whiplash like a hundred times in a we start walking around with a boom box on my i right behind the track of the high school and so like we're walking around like screaming whiplash at the top of our lungs shitfaced [ __ ] drunk our first time ever [ __ ] drunk and like listening to this live bootleg of whiplash we're like this is the [ __ ] best band like i want to make music like this like this is the music i want to make and then next thing we hear metallica's coming into town and it's raven headlining metallica and exodus opening and it's the kill them all for one tour and they're playing at the keystone berkeley which is like a 500 like a probably a 400 cap room and uh i have my dad drop us off i can't even like drive at this point like i have my dad drop us off and i make my dad drop us off like two blocks away from the show cuz i'm like dad like you can't i can't be seen thrashers dad like thrashers can't be seen with getting dropped off by my dad and uh yep there it is right there and so it's the second to last night of the tour i think because berkeley and then san francisco if i'm my i can't i can't read that but uh or maybe it's not yeah there it is keystone berkeley what what's the date on that i can't see that that's september 2nd september 2nd okay september 2nd 83 i wasn't even born yet yeah cool and so me and my friend were waiting in line and we're freaking out we're already exodus freaks i actually had that shirt that shirt right there go to the left right there the raven kill them all for one tour i had that shirt and i gave it to my buddy craig licero and forbidden and he [ __ ] lost it that [ __ ] oh kill to have that shirt right there you always lose it i know you can't loan your you can't loan your metal shirts to your homie no dude it's bad and and they also can't borrow your your cds they you always scratch them or steal them so [ __ ] piss me we go to the show and right when we you know at this point i've gone to like you know my parents had taken me to see um you know like i said my parents aren't into rock music at all and so they've taken me to see a couple concerts in my life because they they do like to go out to see concerts so they've taken me to see uh donnie and marie osmond which was like a kind of like a a variety show that was on television at the time and donnie marie were these famous you know mormons or whatever yeah and uh you know it's like pop music or whatever yeah and uh i remember that's like the first concert i go to when it's just nothing but screaming girls arena full of [ __ ] screaming girls for an hour they play yeah this is them this is the first concert i go see yeah it's like so [ __ ] like first concert huh yeah i'm a little bit country i'm a little bit rock and roll that's rad i had the straight up donnie hair did you when i was when i was in like fourth and fifth grade yeah i found i found the pictures this guy definitely like star wars what's that i was like i saw i saw your haircut this guy definitely loves star wars i i love star wars and this [ __ ] was like so we go see it and then they they're liking you know they like they take me to go see john campbell which is like kind of like a country guy who ended up hosting a tv show called that's incredible okay and uh then they take me to go see neil saddaka like a bunch of like kind of like older pop guys from like the 50s and 60s and then i my first concert's ac/dc which was funny cuz chris barnes said that was one of his first concerts the ac/dc show on the those about to rock yeah tour my that's my first rock concert oh wow and uh and so bringing people together yeah i love that your dude's doing this the whole time that's so good like i love it yeah we it's awesome we got to fact check and bring bring them the flyers you know yeah but then you know so my this is my first like one of my first metal shows going to see this metallica show and we walk in and the first person we see is james hetfield from metallica and he's at a bar stool and he's signing autographs like this is we walked into the we paid our you know $7 or whatever it was and we walked 10 feet and there's james hetfield signing autographs and we're like holy [ __ ] like this is the dude we were singing whiplash to when we were drunk the other day and so and so we're like you know we just walk up we're like can we get an autograph he's like [ __ ] yeah he writes like [ __ ] yeah my friend's autograph you know like and signs his name on a cool dude yeah and then and he goes up and this is like cliff burton's there and and i remember every second of this show dude cliff burton's wearing a dawn of the dead like jersey he's got his [ __ ] big old fatty big big bells on james j james hetfield's wearing a ronald 6 wilson 6 reagan 6 t-shirt 666 with an upside down cross behind it and i was like "holy [ __ ] he hates reagan." sick you know and so and then you know kirk's wearing the [ __ ] kirk that's kirk on the right over there with the v and the leather jacket and the [ __ ] that whole trip oh my god like it's awesome like this show me and my friend we don't go up front cuz we're kind of scared because everybody's like circle pit and we're like whoa this is crazy oh yeah it's like kind of the first time i'm really seeing like a [ __ ] raging circle pit and crow time you see like real p you're like oh wow i got and so i'm sitting there nice i'm sitting there and i'm like i'm like we we headbang the whole show and then we start to watch a little bit of raven and then i got to leave cuz my dad you know this is like no cell phones this is like my dad's like i'm going to be there to pick you up at x time 10:30 or whatever and uh and you know you got to be there because i got i got to go to work my dad was a baker he worked at 2:00 in the morning he worked from 2 till like 10:00 and so he picks me up and the whole ride home my dad you know me and jim are just like "okay we're starting a band we're going to be faster and heavier and thrashier and [ __ ] you know just relentless." and then like that's we just go down this [ __ ] route of thrash like just [ __ ] everything becomes about thrashing and being faster and you know we start playing these backyard parties as forbidden we start forbidden evil and that's the first band i'm in and you know we just start we instantly i mean we're playing cover songs too so we're playing like slayer covers we're playing black magic by slayer we're playing a lesson in violence by exodus whiplash by metallica and then we're doing our own originals you know we we start writing original songs oh yeah you kind of sprinkle them in there okay yeah we start kind of so we're doing like half and half and then if we're playing like sometimes we play parties like this is when like a kegger party we're we're 8 17 at this point so we can't buy beer so like if we play a kegger party you know it's generally like older dudes and older dudes will be like all right play like a led zeppelin song what's all this fast [ __ ] this sucks you know and we're just like "okay so we got to play like a led like in between like black magic we're playing like a led zeppelin song or you know an aussie song just to like kind of you know make the dudes party that we're playing at happy." and then uh but eventually we kind of get like a buzz you know like we get a buzz going in the in the neighborhood and we start getting other young kids from my high we play our high school and you know we play my our guitar player craig craig licero we play his high school and this becomes like the stuff of legend in our total you know little boring suburb of fremont which is like 50 miles you know away from the city mhm and uh you know like we get a circle pit at the high school right like [ __ ] they build us a stage and we play lunch we play at lunchtime and [ __ ] we get a circle pit and [ __ ] kids are stage diving and like [ __ ] the [ __ ] teachers in the school don't know what to [ __ ] do they're like they're like this is this is too much you know but we're like [ __ ] yeah you know like we haven't even played a club show at this point and we think like we're the like we're the we're the kings of fremont you know yeah when you remember yeah they used to have bands uh play during the lunch break but then once the first pit started uh that stopped quickly that very quickly yeah yeah yeah we we had a we had a defininal band play at lunchtime and then they stopped having bands play during lunch right after that in high school for sure but but you got totally understandable yeah but if if you if you got in there you got we we found that sweet spot boom yeah you got that that was your kickoff dude that's sick man hey rob i i'll feel terrible if i don't bring it up now uh we haven't even talked about your new record yet right yeah it's coming out uh april 25th yes correct nice what's up with the uh personal question was it done on purpose the way you did the song titles and and all all the o's did you okay okay i'm i'm going to write write this song but it has to have a o in the in the song title was that like cuz some kind of well yeah i mean i don't know i mean i didn't really think about it like that but i started doing that on the last record okay yeah i started doing that on the last record and um it's awesome you know like i we we did it again on this record and we've gotten so much [ __ ] from like oh my god the scandinavians are losing their minds over it they're just like what the what what what are you what are you doing like that sound is like blah blah blah blah blah they think it's dorky and i'm just like look you know motorhead with the omls or you know mley crew with the omlots or the black metal bands cult you know k v lt i'm like i'm just playing i'm just playing with the alphabet man like i'm just you know there's so many bands and there's so many things and i'm just trying to do things that make us stand apart a little bit from it just so it's kind of like and now it's kind of like our thing like it's just a machine head thing and i'm just going to roll with it yeah it's an it's a vow that apparently sounds like oink it sounds like the word oink so if you're saying like choke it's more like choink or whatever okay and i'm like whatever i don't [ __ ] care like i just think it looks cool and i kind of just went down that route you got to do things that just made make you stand out we we still do that you have to every every record you gota you got to stick out man the songs yeah i i heard the record this morning man it's awesome that's right we sent you the record cool awesome well it's funny i had a i i was driving here jamming it was kind of i forget sometimes cuz i i'll be jamming like like a new record i'll be oh [ __ ] like this isn't this isn't even out yet th this is like right it's like what what would i tell myself in uh what would i tell myself in high school you're going to get these records in advance you're just going to jam them like casually like "oh [ __ ] i'm listening to the brand new record and it's not even a big deal." that's so fun i was like "damn that's [ __ ] sick." two months in advance that's awesome man it's it's also awesome that you don't got to worry about like the leaking any yeah yeah that's not really a thing anymore right thank god yeah yeah i mean in some ways i i was never like i know like the the record industry kind of went crazy on it i was never that like you know like i said my friend traded tapes man i had everything months sometimes years before it came out you know i i mean when i was a kid when we were like coming up in the thrash scene like i had rain and blood four months before it came out it still had the high hat counts at the beginning of every song like we were we had that [ __ ] from everywhere you know like we had just a whole like network of people that would send us you know we had we had exodus bonded by blood 6 months before it came out oh [ __ ] we had all the bootlegs that they were playing all the songs you know i had a million you know creator record and like a bunch of stuff like that so to me you know that that never that never uh you know it never killed my desire to want to buy the record or own the record it made my fandom even more deep because i felt first of all i felt like i had something special that nobody else had and i was just like this is just cool that like i've got rain and blood and you don't you know what i mean because i know how sick it is and like you got like and i just play it for all my friends i'm like you got to hear this [ __ ] it's so [ __ ] sick and you know and second of all like it it's just you know like it just makes that that much more cool when everybody finally hears it and you're like "yes dude." you know it's so [ __ ] good and you know all the bootlegs all the demo versions all the different versions of songs like i had the metallica demo i had exodus demos and then you hear the album and it's a little bit different you know you had bootlegs of exodus you know i'm learning how to play guitar to exodus bootlegs that's how i'm learning how to play guitar exodus doesn't have their album out yet you know i don't learn you know we're playing a lesson in violence like before a lesson in violence is even out like that's how big of an impact this underground tape trading scene is you have a whole other perspective yeah and it's like without it you know like i don't learn how to play guitar you know what i mean like without learning those songs like because of that though to me it is super you know the leaking thing never was a big deal you know like yeah didn't a locust leak like two months in a ashes leaked i mean ashes was out six months everywhere before it came out in america blackening leaked locust leaked bloodstone leaked you know like and i was just like who cares big deal you know like it is what it is and people are excited about it and that's it don't matter matter and now it doesn't matter really because you know because it's all dsp which is cool yeah it's a whole other metric oh so so you sold out of the vinyl already dude it's killing it like it's crazy like our [ __ ] pre-order is insane great it's been amazing it's been really amazing yeah you got to have a sick vinyl you [ __ ] have to man when did you write this riff i wrote it in july of 2023 yeah the [ __ ] yeah it's uh the [ __ ] three note the three note bendy that's a riff that uh once you have it you're like "okay it's everything everything's going to be fine." yeah oh i i to i totally was just like "oh this is a good one." i i was like i i was like i had i hadn't written a you know i used to write bendy riffs all the time like burn my eyes has got like two songs with big bendy riffs you know like more things change has got the end of front lines got like a sick bendy riff with a bar thing you know [ __ ] devil with the kings card is all [ __ ] bendy riffs you know like on burning red and then i just you know i don't always get away from them but i kind of just give it a break sometimes just because i don't want to overdo a bendy riff and then but this time around i brought it back like big time i was like i got to bring back bendy riff i haven't done it in a minute it's like this one just wrote itself it did it was very it was this song came together super fast like [ __ ] super fast some songs come come to you fast and some is a [ __ ] hassle dude some songs take yeah i mean it's all the process right you know what i mean like yeah it's the process and it's great when it happens fast and sometimes it's great when it takes a long time you know because you just you got to go there with it you know like you don't know where it's going and you just go "ah this sucks." and i always i demo like crazy like i really demo a lot i and i always have just cuz i need to like i'm doing you know i'm when i when i write like i hear i hear guitar i hear bass i hear drums i hear vocals i hear like the whole song so when i start like rehearsing it or whatever i can't really you know i hear it i'm hearing it in my head one way and then but i can't like i can't listen to it you know what i mean like it's like i'm playing it and it's like i'm kind of doing this other motion and i like i can't analyze it and then so i got to demo to like hear it back and that's when i can go oh okay this is working or this isn't working or whatever but when i'm playing it like i can't think like that i don't know like i've never been able to do that like i can't but i can hear everything that's going on but i just can't go is this good or is this bad until i'm hearing it and i'm not doing anything that makes sense yeah i never thought thought about that way maybe that might be a problem i have because when you play it my sucks but you only know until you kind of you're not like like you're not playing it's weird have you ever heard of your yes i remember like uh when when you're doing soundcheck or something like you're like you're playing but then when you're not playing it sounds completely different ever have that what's that like if when i'm doing sound check it's like if i but if i'm not playing like if someone else is playing i'm like oh that's how my tone sounds like but but oh someone else is playing your guitar yeah the moment you are playing it it just sounds [ __ ] i mean you know it's all it's all in the you know it's all in the hands it's all in the hands happens man it's all in the hands it is you know like your guitar tech can play your guitar and you're like "no that's not how my [ __ ] sounds." you know so no it doesn't sound shittier i i'll show you how to do it yeah you know what i mean yeah it is in some ways right like you got to kind of add sometimes you got to add like a slop like they're playing it too right i added a lot rob i have i add a lot of slop there's there's a lot of slop in there i love slop i i make a point to add slop in there like it's like you know i love that punk rock i mean i do like i grew up on so much punk rock and going to punk rock shows and you know like i used to go to like a hundred shows a year you know like i saw so many [ __ ] bands and like that's what i loved about punk rock and hardcore like it wasn't about metal kind of there was a time period not so much now but like there's definitely a time period where metal metal got very perfect it got about being perfectly tight and perfectly you know and i i was like no like you got just boned out of tune and [ __ ] dig you know like i i love that that to me is like that's the attitude and that's the fire and that's the passion and you know so i i always you know i don't make a point to add it in but i never make a point to take it out sure sure rob i i have a one one more question for you um throughout your career uh do you have you have like you look like you ever look back i'm like man i wish i kind of you know did that differently you know like what what were some like lessons that that you have um i i get this question a lot and i'm assuming it's because i'm uh on album number 11 and i've been in for a minute you know i've been i've been making music for since i was 16 and i've been i've been in a band since i was 16 you know like i' i've never had i mean i've had some real jobs and i' i i uh i strip i was furniture stripper like i worked in an antique shop stripping old furniture like stripping the the protective layer out and then re rest restaining it or re you know putting the varnish on it [ __ ] yeah i did that for a while and i did uh you know i worked for bill graham doing catering for a little while for several for couple years and like scott we scott wheelen from stone temple pilots was coming up to get enchiladas one day and he got a machine head demo along with his enchilada oh dude let's go that's how that's how you give someone a demo he was super annoyed he was just all i'm like and i could to now now i could totally understand that but at the time i was like i'm hustling i got to [ __ ] cry like this dude who knows maybe this dude likes you know anyway but uh you know like i've but i've done this for a really really long you know i worked at a car wash for a while i you know sold drugs for a while like i i've done this for a a long time a long time man you know and there's i you know i i did write a song called no [ __ ] regrets yes is the chorus for imperium and you know not to say that you know you don't have any regrets you do have some regrets i do for sure you do have some regrets and but but they're probably not the regrets that most people think they are you know what i mean and i don't have any regrets about any of the music that i made and and the reason that is is just because music is a moment in time you know and that moment could be filled with chaos that adds to the awesomeness of the music and it can be filled with chaos that adds to the you know shittiness of the music when you don't get it right you know what i mean like and it's just it's all life you know because that's what life is and you know like life isn't filled with all ups you know there's downs in there and especially when you're in a band you live your life in public and those downs are public are very public you know and they're very you know and we've sold this point we've sold four million [ __ ] records like you know we're i'm i'm famous for lack of a better word you know like and so when bad things happen to me like you know some people are kind of cheering it on because i'm the famous dude and it's like yeah [ __ ] that guy you know [ __ ] me just because i'm famous you know what i mean comes with the territory unfortunately it does and you know like none of that matters none of that [ __ ] matters you know the people who love you great you know people who hate you great like it is what it is you know like i i'm proud of all the songs that we made on all the records because those moments were captured and we felt that they were good enough to share with the world and they were good enough to share with the world whether everybody connected with them or didn't connect with them hey man you know five years from now you might connect with that song you know there's been a million bands that i heard the first time and i was like "this [ __ ] sucks it's awful." you know like what's this band called suicide sounds i mean like i just didn't get it you know what i mean like i didn't get it you know and then five years later maybe i saw it live or maybe i just was in a different headsp space and i [ __ ] fell in love with it you know and i just it [ __ ] flipped me on my head and kicked my ass and i was like "this is so [ __ ] awesome." and that's the beauty of music and you know somebody you know you don't like us look i'm grateful if one person likes one song that we did and that's all that they ever like by machine head dude that's a win for me you know what i mean like there's that's that's more than you can hope for because it's so hard to get people to notice any kind of music that you make and you know for me you know i you know i told you i grew up really [ __ ] poor there was a time you know my parent my mom got a job and eventually we got a little bit of money and we moved to fremont started doing okay and that's when i fell in love with all the bands and started playing guitar and started being in a band and then i kind of started [ __ ] up again and my you know re you know you're a rebellious teenager and you start acting like a dick you know and like you don't want to be around your parents and you know i kind of fell in with the rough crowd and and you know there were so many times when i was this lost kid 17 18 um smoking meth on an aluminum foil little v i'd pour meth in there and i'd take a [ __ ] pen a bick pen and i'd take the end out and i'd stick it in my mouth and i'd hold this [ __ ] foil and i'd light it and i'd go and we'd just smoke meth [ __ ] like crazy get shitfaced on the cheapest $5 vodka smoke [ __ ] weed like i'm sleeping on my friends couches and i'm and i'm lost like i'm i'm lost and i'm probably on my way to jail or dead real real quick and i'd listen to these songs and i'd listen to music and you know it could be jimmyi hendris little wing or it could be pink floyd or it could be metallica and slayer or it could be you know punk rock you know dead kennedy's or discharge or whatever you know [ __ ] that like makes me angry or sad or whatever and it saves me it saves my [ __ ] life and it makes me want to live and it makes me want to play guitar and it makes me want to push harder and do my thing and and that's what music is about and you know there are kids who come up to me and adults who come up to me and they say the same thing you know based on the lyrics that we wrote or based or whatever you know they were in jail for all this time and they just listened to this one song over and over again and it got them through and you know i've had you know the leader of dms wrote me and was like "fucking you know you wrote me back one time you know like i was just replying to people in the burn my eyes era and you wrote me back one time." he's like "you don't know how much that [ __ ] letter meant to me you know like when i was in jail locked up." and that was me that was me i was that kid so when i'm writing songs the songs on this new album unattoned like i'm not trying to reach radio people i'm not trying to reach spotify top 50 i'm not trying to reach [ __ ] i don't i'm trying to reach that poor kid who grew up in a [ __ ] white trash no nothing town that was [ __ ] spoken smoking meth and drinking his way into the [ __ ] early grave and needed a song needed a song to save him because that's who i was and that's who i write for that that's [ __ ] beautiful man uh we we always go back back to that like what you know what song saved me you know that's what now now that's what we're doing you know like you're talking to yourself even when you get older i got to say when i walked in here i saw that that picture and i' i've still got that shirt from the from the memorial show yeah thank you for doing that show man it was cool i love that you have that that's such a cool picture you know and i still and i that show i don't do you ever talk about this i don't know if it's okay to talk about this oh it's fine okay that's fine yeah i you know i don't want to bring up bad memories or oh no no i i those are unfortunately i don't know i kind of like talking talking about the weird stuff or and i'm i'm drawn to like the like the like the dark stuff like uh i like i like talking about it's weird i don't know i don't i don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing you know that that shirt that show first of all that show was incredible like so [ __ ] incredible like so many people coming together you know it it was beautiful man it was it was [ __ ] beautiful like that crowd was like there there was so much [ __ ] happiness on people's faces man like i w i don't know i probably never told you this but i walked through the crowd like all night i w i just wanted i just wanted to i just wanted to soak in the vibe man like i just wanted to [ __ ] you know we toured with you guys like five [ __ ] times man like so many tours i don't know if people realize the like machine head suicide silence connection you know like i'm not sure why it happened sometimes it just aligns that way the mayhems and the [ __ ] meade and the european tour and the [ __ ] you know and i i tell i i told uh i had a i'm brain farting on his name the singer for white chapel oh phil yeah phil boseman yes yeah he that [ __ ] [ __ ] killed it dude jesus christ when he came out i was like "oh my god." like it was [ __ ] savage he's an animal like he's a [ __ ] animal i brought that up to him i was like i was like "dude holy shit." you know him and him and uh ricky hoover who i'd never met till that night and ended up like broing down with later on that night he was super cool and uh but you know i remember walking around and and and soaking in the vibe and catching it and you guys had such a cool um you you did like a video tribute like what did that start the show the video tribute started the show right mhm and uh dude that thing was so good and i was like "okay i'm not going to cry." you know not going to cry i'm telling myself i kept on trying to tell him like "don't cry." you know and uh it got to the one uh the one moment where mitch is about to oh yeah i did die young i did oh that's right i forgot mark was there huh mark played it with me yeah i sang an acoustic version of die young and uh mark was on guitar and and uh scott and it was kind of like a nice little quiet break quiet break in a in a night full of [ __ ] raging death core no it's beautiful man i was kind of i don't even know how this whole thing happened kind just started and then just kind of went and there was like these breaks and segments and people just were just there for it it was it was awesome and uh yeah and then i i think i played guitar on uh you only live once yep and then randy sang i don't i don't think i've ever seen this no this is at the fox theater oh yeah i remember the crowd was super into it i was kind of i was kind of nervous i was like "fuck i'm playing a [ __ ] acoustic song in front of a deathcore crowd like everyone's going to be like "what are you doing?" and and it was good like people like it was cool you know like i'm glad they liked it because it was it was from the heart you know echos i i'm sure everybody was really emotional you know no more so than you and your band but you know we uh but i remember watching that uh intro the the the video thing that you guys put together and the part that broke me dude the part that totally got me was the the bungee jump at with full force yeah you know the scene where he does the bungee jump and he's just like looks in the camera and he's like i remember talking to him right after he did that he came in to the like the backstage area he's like dude i just did a [ __ ] yeah this part like oh my god i was just like ah like [ __ ] dude that's when i lost it i was just like i [ __ ] because i remember him coming in and talking we did all those festivals together like we were on every [ __ ] festival that day you know like every like we were there together we were hanging out like [ __ ] days off like [ __ ] going in holland we were hanging out at that bar that one night and [ __ ] you know and i was just like h you know that really hit it home for me cuz i was like that was just that was just the other day like that was just [ __ ] over the summer when that happened and i you know i just it brought back all those memories and all the other memories of [ __ ] touring and you know he was he was such a character man like so many weird little ocd things too you know like remember how like he was really obsessed with taking a shower after the show like you ever talk about that [ __ ] annoying oh my god he was like he would get into freakout mode if he couldn't get a shower right like i was just like i haven't showered for 5 days what like what's the big deal he's like got to take a shower like you'd always come into our dressing like rob like i got i'm like you go bro like you're having a moment okay like i was like i'm i'm probably not even going to use it you know he's like whoa [ __ ] funny you know but just so young and [ __ ] you know all those all those moments different moments came floating by you know it made me think about like the first tour that we did with you guys you know like you're the [ __ ] hottest band on the planet dude we do the mayhem with you there's like there's no band [ __ ] hotter like you are the [ __ ] band like everybody's there for you [ __ ] crowd everybody the [ __ ] crazy singal pull the drake hard pass like [ __ ] i was like "holy fuck." starting to pop it was and then he's like you had your bass but you had your crazy acid bass player like dude's taking acid like every night oh yeah yeah that's why it was it was at this tour we're like "okay like we can't you can't do this anymore." yeah that was pre danny canny yeah that guy and i remember mitch he tweaked his he had a giant like herniated disc or something at his neck i don't know if you remember this but he had like a giant lump like a [ __ ] lump like this big on the back of his neck cuz he was like headbanging so hard and just going so [ __ ] hard and he was like "i don't know what i'm going to do rob like i'm in a lot of pain." and i'm like "you really need to see a chiropractor or something." like dude that is not good but he just [ __ ] that [ __ ] just powered through that [ __ ] that whole goddamn tour i was like you're a [ __ ] do that [ __ ] stomp and the [ __ ] hand thing and the i was like jesus [ __ ] beast yeah he hit me hard as [ __ ] dude he did that [ __ ] went hard as [ __ ] no one breaks dude i remember that i remember that i remember too like that era because we took you we head we headlined and you supported us on that tour for what black crown right yeah yeah yeah and uh that was the time when you know he was always i mean a [ __ ] star like dude was a [ __ ] he was one in a [ __ ] million and uh and he was a good front man in this era you know like very commanding and like obviously you know tall and cute and [ __ ] you know tattoo like all the girl all the girls were crazy about i'm like he had everything right like all the dudes wanted to be him all the chicks wanted to blow him you know like i was like you got like you're it you're like the dude you know and uh and [ __ ] but yeah that [ __ ] that's the [ __ ] that gave him that crazy neck thing i was like [ __ ] animal and then uh but like that tour when he was on that tour and then he started doing the festivals he's just like i forget what he always kind of had a rap and i i can't remember what he said he was asking he would ask the crowd to say something and he's like "no no no when you answer me you answer me with power say it again." i can't i can't even remember what he was like he was asking the crowd to say something maybe it was like a song title very very commanding but it was like i was like "whoa this [ __ ] is commanding now." like he's just [ __ ] commanding it was it was amazing it was amazing to watch you know that progress like cuz we probably tooured together i guess four years or whatever from mayhem kept going dude it just kept [ __ ] going man anyway shout out to having that drawing back there just because i brought back a lot of memories seeing it it was cool yeah i like i like seeing it and i like when the bands see it they get kind of reminded you know i like i like to remind myself too you know just i mean it's been a long time now right it's over 12 years is it really over 12 years over 12 years man yeah that mayhem when that [ __ ] [ __ ] happened you know how it is once you [ __ ] once like the rocket ship takes off it's we we've always had a really good relationship like we didn't fight or anything we're always friends but once that [ __ ] took off as that that's my that's my that's my demon that's my biggest regret is we we we just lost that connection you know we're always friends but just just didn't really talk you talking about the band or you talking about you and him it was it was it was our band you know it was our band and uh they just didn't like you know yeah didn't didn't go home on from a tour and see see how he was doing when we're writing songs it's always separate you know it's like all like these things that you know it's the cliche you know you don't you don't know what we have till it's gone you know it was it took that it took the shock wave to to [ __ ] change and and you know me for a while you know i was i was a very different person you know so fortunately it took him dying to kind of kind of change yeah i mean i just wish it didn't have to be that right it just sucks man it's yeah and sometimes you don't get like cuz it's true you know it's hard like people don't you know everybody thinks that like being in a band is the easiest thing in the world you know it's just [ __ ] and drugs and booze and [ __ ] money and you're like and there is that for sure but like you know you're it's a lot of hard slogging and it's a lot of living on a tour bus for months on end and not sleeping and you know you're in a fishbowl and certainly you guys were in the biggest fishbowl because it was like all eyes were on you like it was just [ __ ] crazy like covers of magazines instantly like seven shirts and hot topic right off the bat i was like "holy fuck." like yeah and it was like so much you know pressure and fame and you know like it it it takes a toll because like you're just around each other all the time and you get off the road and you don't want to [ __ ] see that person and it's not because you don't like them it's because you're [ __ ] sick of seeing them yeah it's just like i want to see somebody else yeah just around him all the time it's funny how how it's funny how you could be around someone all the time but not be with them right yeah totally and not even know what's going on in their head right yeah that's [ __ ] that sucks and it happens it happens way more than i think people realize in a band that just because you're together you you don't know what's going on you don't know what they're thinking you don't know what they're doing you know your relationship starts to disintegrate and you don't even realize what's happening you know yeah until it's [ __ ] does you know and you know and you don't always get that uh you know you don't always get that closure on your relationship you don't you know we we're so conditioned to believe that you know through movies or a series or through just stories that like oh there's going to be a happy ending the happy ending doesn't happen more often than not you know like sometimes it just ends you actually get more unhappy on endings than happy endings i noticed especially when you're talking like a a a long career like i think uh more [ __ ] goes wrong and i think the bands that stick stick around and just you just have a couple good ones you know it sucks dude yeah that that was a [ __ ] muscle that's a muscle and took a long time to you know not tour like that anymore you know now i'm a lot of shows man so many shows yeah now which is which is what you got to do you know like you were the [ __ ] it band you know like you got to [ __ ] that's the only way to do it you got to [ __ ] tour full time and now and now when we tour now we had unfortunately mitch now it's just you're with each other but now i'm make make it a point to pull someone aside at some point someone like mark or or dan ernie german ernie eddie especially singers i find need a little bit more um to see how they're doing see where their mind is i tell them where my mind is for better or or for worse i share the money issue i share i share the bad news as much as the good news it took uh took a long time to learn that you know it just sucks [ __ ] it sucks we got like what needs to happen for you to become like that person you know sucks but uh my uh my my girlfriend told me that uh we we we've been dating for 5 years she's she's [ __ ] sick she's like the best she's i call her the foundation of us as whenever i introduce her to people that she's [ __ ] sick and uh she she told me something when we when uh when this that's awesome when when this first started she told me something and um like i still try to wrap my head around it but it's like you the you started a band to prepare you for for this and it's been it's just [ __ ] up you know it's why i believe in god like he has he's he's [ __ ] twisted dude like he really he [ __ ] put me through through the ringer and now this is this why but if i didn't go do that this this wouldn't exist you know and i have i i could talk to people like like you rob and like the younger bands uh we we've been having people here uh lately actually that uh we have snot in here people that have dealt with passings and bands and i'm kind of the only guy that could cuz there i think i think respect with people it's always subconscious like you don't you don't talk about it there's just like when there's just like mutual understanding and it sucks that you know it sucks that i'm not saying it sucks that that it had to be me but it just sucks that like that's what had to i don't know like a blessing is a curse you just sucks yeah i mean when it's in a i haven't had i mean i've lost a band member but he wasn't a band member from for a long period of time my drummer my original drummer passed away but you know we hadn't spoken in a long time and he was kind of just doing his own thing he had gotten out of music and you know i had a i had a lot of friends die you know like especially like during that burn my eyes writing period you know and it does it does affect you you know it affects you i can't imagine what it's like to have it in a band certainly like while you're with the band you know while you're still together but you know you know so i i i often feel very unique i feel you guys have really like you know it's tough because mitch was such a [ __ ] icon i mean he was literally like he was the face of death i mean he was literally the poster boy him and ollie you know like the two cute tattooed guys and looking and you know like [ __ ] and it's like and then he he passed and it's like oh wow like it's hard to you know there was a time when i was telling mark was like what should we do and i was i was saying that there was you know that band joy division they had that famous song uh love will tear us apart love will tear us apart it's like a new wave song very popular in the 80s anyway their singer committed suicide and it was hard you know it was terrible it was you know the band was [ __ ] devastated they had just had this massive hit and this massive success and they changed they you know they made it he was a pretty iconic dude you know like he was kind of the face of the band as well and you know they changed their name to um they started they started they just said "okay we can't do joy division anymore we have to become new order." and they became a a new band a totally new band and one of the guys started singing and then you know at first like their fans didn't accept it you know like the the joy division fans were like "no like we want what we want what once was." and they were like "well you know we can't we can't do that." you know what i mean like you can't we we have to move on like we've got to do like we still want to make music we still have to do this and so they did it and in some ways it kind of became like a you know years later they ended up having success with like that song blue monday that you know orgy famously covered like not you know years later and you know they kind of had this second life because of that and wow you know it allowed them to kind of distance themselves from the past but you know and it's like you never know what to do like who [ __ ] knows what to do you know like it's such a tough decision and you guys were so young you know like even at that time you guys were all still so yeah i know man like it's crazy like you you don't you don't know what's right you don't know what's wrong like you want to pay your respects to him but you still want to make music and you know like yeah i don't really know what i don't know how to make right decisions but what helps my process is i know what i don't want to do and i know what the wrong thing to do is so if i if i have a solid or i know i don't want to do this i know this is not right then i'm going to do this that's kind of that that's that's always helped me well you made the right decision man you know because you wanted to play music more you know you wanted to make music and as long as that's where it's coming from it's real and it's authentic and that's all that [ __ ] matters you know and people are going to like it or people are going to hate it and you just got to keep you just got to keep going man you just got to keep [ __ ] going dude there's a there's a i don't know what it is there's a magic just keep going i i want to quit the band so so many [ __ ] times oh my god i want to quit the band i want to quit my band like every six months you know like [ __ ] this [ __ ] [ __ ] [ __ ] you know like but you know you just i'm [ __ ] i'm just like and what are you gonna do like [ __ ] i'm pathetically unqualified to do anything else at this point like i'm just doing this 16 years old like i'm [ __ ] you know like this is it this is it like this is it you know and i'm and i'm lucky enough that i'm and i'm still here and that anybody cares about my [ __ ] band you know like this is not the typical arc of a band you know to have like this kind of you know especially after our last record we just had this huge renaissance you know like it was this hu like people just [ __ ] freaked out over the last record and just it elevated the band to this other level again you know and i'm so grateful and fortunate to even be here and have people give a [ __ ] you know so you know like as long as that's where you're coming from you know that's that's the right that's the right decision you're going to die the singer and guitar player of machine head yeah and that's and that and that's a [ __ ] honor you know and i'm dying the no matter what else i do this i'm i'm going to die the guitar player for 20 songs that's it yeah that's is it and that's a pretty sick it's pretty sick i'm pretty [ __ ] strong pretty badass yeah i keep it's a life less ordinary it is man yeah we we both had roller coasters i guess you could say of a career you know and i keep telling people um it's funny when i when i have no money when i had no money it's when i'm the happiest and i feel the most successful like all the all my guys they you know eddie mark dk and ernie they respect me you know it's like that's you know i can't i can't [ __ ] buy that when you have what do you mean when you have no money oh rob i'm broke okay i'm [ __ ] broke as [ __ ] dude um but uh i'm not i i thought you i thought you were talking about like the early days of suicide silence when shit's uh it's kind of ties in with the podcast and all all that stuff like uh a sacrifice a lot um the band still continues but uh i like i like to go in a room and make people feel like i'm an idiot but uh it's per it's purposely done and um uh yeah i guess maybe that's why the band's still still here like uh they they see how much uh i've i guess i i'm not trying to pose but i don't know i've grown as a person i guess and i've done this learning uh it's directly i flow this knowledge into suicide songs that directly i i become addicted to knowledge uh because i want to play guitar it's everything is about that literally whatever i got to do to play that and then support the guys and make the make make the right decisions but um yeah i mean the money's always tough in a band man you know like that that you know we've all been sold that that led zeppelin everybody's on private jets and [ __ ] you know it's champagne and caviar and like it's it's i'm not going to say i haven't had that and you know but you know it's it's tough to make [ __ ] it's tough to make a living being in a band you know it really is man yeah when you make a a especially in a metal band you know this isn't [ __ ] with the weekend you know what i mean especially a metal man and uh obviously you know i'm not uh again like i'm i'm not i say i'm an idiot but i know i'm i'm a highly intelligent person everything is done on purpose even if i say oh don't feel bad i'm an idiot okay of course if i if i and like people like put me on a pedestal like don't put me on a pedestal okay like i'm a [ __ ] idiot like i was smoking meth like a few years ago like [ __ ] like don't like the [ __ ] do i know stop listen stop listening to me for advice like i can barely get my [ __ ] together like i can't get your [ __ ] together dude i i [ __ ] i [ __ ] what the [ __ ] are you talking about i i i i [ __ ] feel it man but it go it goes along with with with with the music i don't know where this comes from or where i got this from but i will literally purposely make make a decision that we'll lose money uh with with this and the band but knowing if we do this this is going to make us more money 5 years from now for sure or so many decisions dude so many decisions are like that in so many way more than people realize it is [ __ ] the majority of decisions or that that's it where you're you're you're investing in your future constantly dude and hoping that that pays off i hope this pays off baby a lot of times it don't you know a lot of times it don't and you just got to [ __ ] roll with it man like you just [ __ ] do it and it's like you know there something will happen in those moments though like even in those investing in the futures that don't pan out you learn something from it whether it's a failure or a success or whatever like you learn something from it and that's that's all it is even if it's just like even if it's just on a personal level you learn something from it you know what i mean like you don't know what it means and you know it's like what do they call it like the music business is all about the intangibles the things that you can't see and that you don't know about you know like and and hopefully the stars align and you hope that the stars align and and and often times if you keep on you know it's like it's going to happen one of these you just keep on rolling that dice [ __ ] like it's going to happen one of these times keep rolling a dice man and uh i've learned also to make to make decisions without ego yeah that that's also i think kind of why why the guys trust me you know is everything's done for purposely for the band and their well-being and i think that's how you know it's how you can make you know anyone can keep a band together when when there's money flowing but but when shit's going wrong dude like that's when when everybody leaves you when everybody turns on you when you're not cool anymore oh dude that's the hard part man and and you know like look at look at all the great bands like you know judas priest had a different singer for a while you know iron maidens had what four different singers you know they had blaze bailey they put three records out they were as uncool as uncool could be at that period you know and i'm not saying i didn't like it i'm not don't i love iron maiden all due respect to bla1 bailey and and all of it i'm just saying at that point they were viewed as uncool you know and [ __ ] now it's like nobody even talks about that era you know it's like people just [ __ ] you know it it comes back around and if it does if if you keep fighting it'll it'll come back around you know yeah i definitely see the light at at the end of the tunnel yeah we we've uh we've gotten past the valley and that's so we gotten past the worst and so now it's just you know sometimes uh i mean sometimes it needs a restructuring anyway like you know you spend money like sometimes you start spending money and you're like i don't even know why i'm spending all this money this is crazy what are we doing yeah man yeah but you know sometimes like things just take time so now so now you got past the valley we're all well aware but okay now you got to write a record now the record has to come out now it has to those so all they all understand the the worst has passed uh our guarantees are higher than ever for for like these like solo shows everyone so so everyone kind of sees like there's kind of like some like oh that's tangible i see we were here but now there's that and uh it's awesome so now we're kind of at that point like just got to wait for the record to come out and then let's be let's be patient and and continue to uh be ourselves it's like it's like what you were saying you know don't [ __ ] uh know i like making decisions based uh for my integrity character that don't sacrifice my butthole you know i don't [ __ ] do any i don't do any no butthole sacrifice no dude i don't [ __ ] go out there smooth rob i don't [ __ ] i don't care i got my i'm 39 years old dude my my my [ __ ] meter dude is just [ __ ] it just it [ __ ] just lights off and i i can't deal with it you got to work that into a lyric the sacrificial butthole man almost dude you have like these little moments where like you want to like sacrifice your character but uh i i could probably say that uh we've all you know we [ __ ] stuck by our i mean you got 50 people telling you to sacrifice your character after a while you're like "oh maybe maybe it's not so bad." like "fucking you know you hear that a hundred times and you're like "oh might i might." maybe i should yeah i mean i you know i definitely got caught up in that for a minute and you know it's rough like you you know like i said like i don't you know i don't know what i'm doing i'm just trying to write music all i ever all i ever alls i ever wanted to do was just play guitar and write songs and sing back and make [ __ ] circle pit and make [ __ ] jump and sing and [ __ ] headbang and go crazy like that's all i've ever wanted i'm not a businessman like i don't i don't know what the [ __ ] right decision is i just know like what the music that i do and where it comes from and i i do know that i'm really really really good at that i know that i'm not good at a lot i'm not one of these guys who's good at a million [ __ ] things i'm not like but i do know that i'm really really good at that and you know i just try and focus on that and you know i got a good team of people that help me make decisions now and you know i feel like we've all got a good head on our shoulders and what machine head needs to be and you know at this point you know we're not you know we're not the heaviest band in the world you know what i mean like we're heavy but we've been around for 32 years and [ __ ] [ __ ] like you guys came along and lauren ashore and the slaughtered revail and you're [ __ ] 10 times heavier than we'll ever ever ever be you know what i mean i can't sing like that i'm never i don't even want to try to it'd be [ __ ] ridiculous too you know it would sound stupid for my [ __ ] heavy metal gandalf ass to be [ __ ] trying to sing like that yeah you know i just you know we found our lane and we're super lucky that we found our lane and we [ __ ] made that lane a little bit wider and a little bit wider so we can kind of go over here and do this and go over here and do this but at the end of the day it's like it's just you know it's just being it's just machine head music that's what it is to me you know it's it's metal for sure 100% but you know like on the new record you know which i think we started to touch on a minute ago and then we kind of went off onto some other stuff here hey you hey you invented the the [ __ ] sidebars now now i'm all about sidebars now throw out a couple of sidebars let's go but you know like with this record you know like i think i was saying like my my last album was like a huge renaissance for the band like it it just was [ __ ] crazy you know we headlined hellfest we it just what record was that that was our 10th record 10th okay yeah double it was a concept record it was like first time we ever did a concept record opening track is a 10-minute long song with you know it's it's nuts and you know i'm i'm fortunate enough to have been in this position a handful of times where i now have to follow up this record that is so beloved by fans by people by you know it's incredibly successful like elevates the band to another level and in in my experience you know everybody wants us to write another concept record you know like everybody is just like you should just just make another record like that one and i'm like you can't like you got to go because it's never going to live up nothing's ever going to live up because that moment you know like for so many people you know like laura's always talked about this you know like the reason so many people love the black album it's like they lost their virginity to the black album nothing ever is ever going to top that you know like people lost their virginity to locust or the blackening or whatever like nothing's ever going to top that yeah you can't top you know that's just like life and stuff and and you know so with this record i really you know i set some pretty strict parameters around what i could do and i'm not a big believer in talking about the direction of a record like i i always feel like even if we have done it in the past it never panned out like it didn't you know we oh there's going to be the heaviest or the thrashiest or the whatever and then it just you just got to follow it to wherever it goes it never works yeah it never does it's just it's you know music has a say yeah it does and so but i did want to put some structure around it you know i i didn't want the the last record had a bunch of long songs so i was like i don't want any song longer than four minutes on this record so that was one structure mh the other structure is huge slayer fan to the death one of my you know one of my favorite bands life-changing bands of all times and one of the most underrated things about slayer is their genius use of chord changes chord changes [ __ ] galore all over every song lead have like three different chord changes in the lead section and it always like the way it sets up the chorus or whatever so i was like every song has to have a chord change outside of the typical structure that you would expect you know maybe it goes to the fourth fret maybe we just at some point it's got to go to a key change that totally doesn't go with where the rest of the song went last thing is that the music the la the music in the last chorus had to be different from the music in the first chorus that maybe the drums drop out maybe the guitars drop out maybe that's where the key change happens but something had to be lyrics would always be the same but you know when at first it kind of took me a minute to kind of get into that like mindset like wow this is like a really challenging way to write but it always just became about like trimming the fat trimming the fat trimming the fat and you know in the end what it came up was with 10 songs plus two instrumentals shortest 41 minutes shortest album in machine head history and i'm really proud of this thing i really feel like we got a [ __ ] monster on our hands like it's just really unique and you know it's it's it's not our heaviest record i'm not i would never say that it's our heaviest record it's got a lot of melody you know the last song on the record is a i'm i'm a total sucker for the elton john piano ballad you know like i'm a total like i love chris stapleton like i'm a [ __ ] total sucker for like you know so like i'm adding like a ton of music and that last song scorn is it's like i've been trying to write a piano ballad for four albums in a row now and i failed four four albums in a row i failed four times in a row and uh can't force it dude and i finally nailed it with with this album i i got a collaborator this guy joel wanisk i collaborated with um jordan from bring me the horizon ex bring me the horizon on this on the whole album he actually got a piece in every record which was really cool added a really amazing element nice and um but me and i got a few collaborators like four guys that i work with but me and this guy joel wanosac finally like nailed down this piano thing and you know i write most of my lyrics at 3 in the morning and i like i really every for the last five albums i i write them all at 3 in the morning what time do you wake up so i i i usually go to bed about 11:00 and i can i can never really sleep more than 3 or 4 hours and i wake up at like 2 or 3 every single night what no matter [ __ ] what i don't know why what the [ __ ] this started happening like 20 years ago and i used to fight it and like lay in bed for two hours like [ __ ] mad and [ __ ] turning and and i then i just get so aggravated i couldn't go back to sleep so after a while i just was like "fuck it i'm just going to get up and i'll just play guitar or i'll write or i'll do answer emails or what the [ __ ] whatever you know like i don't what i don't do is i don't turn on my phone i don't ever look at my phone i just look at emails or whatever if i do work and uh so you know i'd wake up every morning and just and write lyrics and you know it's a good time especially like when i when my kids are my kids are older now like my oldest is 20 my youngest is an is 18 he's you know about to he's going to be graduating high school this year and but certainly when they were younger it was really difficult to like get any time to write lyrics and so this 3:00 a.m thing kind of became like my my my quiet time it's the only time that i could really you know because it's either that or you're like feeding your kid or you're [ __ ] taking him to soccer or like you know you're a [ __ ] uber driver for your kids you know what i mean like and so i just rolled with it and now i that's it's the only time i write lyrics it's literally the only time that i can focus and i and i even put like i kind of like because my life has no structure i'm in a [ __ ] band like i can do whatever the [ __ ] i want anytime i want you know what i mean like so i got to make but i have to make a structure for myself and so i set the timer for 30 minutes and i sit there and i just write every morning at 3:00 a.m and i just write and write and write and i don't care if it sucks or if it doesn't make any sense i just try and write poetry and make rhymes and find rhymes and even if it's just i'm a little teapot short and stout you know like [ __ ] i just to keep to keep the flow going non-stop for 30 minutes of writing and then the next morning i'll get up and i'll read it and i'll kind of go h that was [ __ ] dumb or whatever but this one line is cool and uh you know that that piano song you know it was it was the last song i wrote on the record and you know i know i know a lot of people think i'm like super mr libtard social justice warrior guy and what that's just not me but like that's kind of just what the you know people think and the haters think you know and you know i just started writing about not that but i just started writing about you know i don't believe in trump but i think the [ __ ] democrats are a bunch of spineless [ __ ] [ __ ] and i don't believe in anything anymore i i believe i believe in myself and you know i just wrote all of these lyrics kind of in that mindset and you know the last line is you know the wings of an angel the heart of a king the strength of a lion the power i bring i've lost faith in everyone follow no more my heroes have failed me they look down on me with their scorn and so i took all of that and i just i was like i don't have any music like but i really like these lyrics and you know so i came in with zack zach's my engineer he's my producer he's [ __ ] awesome he's amazing and i was like i just want to play you know i got my own studio i'm fortunate enough to have my own studio so i recorded most of the record at my own studio oh wow and uh i just picked up guitar and i just said i'm going to play like you know four chords here i'm just going to make this up as i go i don't even know what i'm doing i just want to sing over this to something sure and uh and i did and i and i sang it and i sang it in two takes like i just i laid out all the lyrics that i had written that morning on like i pulled up some [ __ ] on my computer i got two binders of lyrics you know i wrote like three and a half binders of lyrics from this record alone just three and a half binders and i open them up and i'm just like [ __ ] i feel like i'm rainman like i'm over here like i'm like just connecting like lines that don't even like go with each other and i literally sang the song in two takes and like when i was done i was like "that's that song's [ __ ] done." i was like "that song's done." like that's and it's the last song on the record and then i was like i sent the chords to joel and i was like "hey like can you make this into like a piano like sad piano chords and put it together and kind of reverse engineered the rest of the song." and it's really i got to say chris i'm i'm so proud of this song it's a real like it's definitely like kind of the outlier of the record but i really just feel like it's a special song you know like and it's kind of something we've never done and you know when when you've been trying to do something for a long time 15 years i've been trying to write a [ __ ] piano song like and it always just sounded like too like dorky and like a [ __ ] you know player song no it was like i wish it was a coldplay song like it's just like there it is you know and just it didn't and you know i'm like and it happened and it just you know sometimes that you know that i'm a big i'm a big believer in that like first take magic you know like there's something about not knowing what you're [ __ ] doing like you go to do a guitar solo and you're like i don't know what i'm doing i'm just going to try like do some [ __ ] here and then you're like oh [ __ ] killer you know that was something and then you try and redo it and then it sucks like you can't recreate it again and so you know i'm a big proponent of that lots of that all over this record you know like i said the demo basically turned into the album you know so like tons of vocals and then i sing it and then now i'm trying to learn that i'm like what the [ __ ] like what i don't even remember what i played here now because i played it like one time and now it's like i gotta remember what i played yeah i see i've seen some people like film themselves griffin oh yeah like while they're recording yeah oh okay that's a good idea so that they like see where they're at that's a good idea i'm too lazy for that we'll see maybe you that's crazy so uh that's was that the same technique that you learned from ross no the the [ __ ] one take and it's done well yeah i mean it's not always that you know like sometimes it takes [ __ ] 100 takes right like sometimes it takes 10 verse versions of lyrics that you throw away 10 versions of lyrics you know 10 full sets of lyrics yeah yeah but with ross it definitely you know ross definitely was a big you know big part of that for sure just like teaching me that you know don't make it doesn't need to be perfect you know like i can sing something and even if it's a little out of tune i'm like autotune that [ __ ] i don't [ __ ] care like the the emotion's there like the crack in my voice the tone in my you know the [ __ ] if i miss this one note i don't want to res it 10 more times just to get something when you can like just go and i'm like it's i love it like [ __ ] i'm not you know i love it um when when was the last time you uh spoke to ross at that corn show i went to we were talking about that corn show yeah i saw him at the corn show yeah he's doing good [ __ ] yeah yeah it had been a it had been a minute though we we hadn't spoken for a long time yeah [ __ ] yeah i mean he lives down here there's not any reason we would cross paths yeah how was it what how was it you give him give him a big a hug or oh [ __ ] yeah cool man [ __ ] yeah no yeah we talked for it was we were hanging out i was hanging out with brian for a lot of the show and uh you know i was actually hanging out with brian waiting for they were getting ready to go on stage and then ross rolled up and i was like "dude oh my god." you know like [ __ ] so it was like all of us were hugging like "oh my god." you know cuz long time man since [ __ ] a lot of years it's a long time i've knew the corn guys i saw i first saw corn opening for the deaf tones at a club called the dragonfly club here in los angeles when i was mixing burn my eyes and everybody was talking about corn and i already knew the deaf tones because uh we had just my friends had been playing with them and i i knew who they were and i liked them i had the demo and uh so yeah they were i the record wasn't even out you know their record wasn't even i'm seeing them as a they were signed but the record wasn't out so it was 311 opening corn de tones at the dragonfly and i didn't see the opening band so i want to say i want to say it was 311 could be wrong but uh it was corn supporting and then the deaf tones headlining this this is when chino had like super long blonde dreads and [ __ ] yeah i don't know if you're going to i wish we could i be able to find it yeah it's a good show though sick ass show yeah and so i knew him from then then we did a we did a show called um both of our records were out at this point and there used to be a thing called foundations forum which was kind of like a conference like a music conference and like labels would get there and they'd have speakers and management like i saw like anthony ketus from the chili peppers do like a speech you know like talking about music and just whatever and uh and we played that show together us and k played that show so that was the first time that we played together and then i saw him just a bunch of times after that like i saw him opening for sick of it all like on their first one of their first tours i saw him opening for house of pain and biohazard in new york a little later um and you know yeah i mean it was you know so like just you know getting to know those dudes and you know i people you know they they give me credit for this and i'm always like you know you know very humbled when they do but i i was the first person to ever get them played on mtv in europe really so machine head blew up they didn't have a they didn't have a record their record wasn't out in europe like something was going on like it got delayed or whatever over there and uh and i was loving the record and so i host a headbangers ball in in europe and i'm like you guys got to check out this band they're from [ __ ] southern california they're sick like everybody here you know i play the blind video and it [ __ ] blows up so then the label's like "oh my god we got to get this record out now." like rob flynn just played them and like you know kind of like launched their trip over there and like john you know those guys are always super you know like you know i'm like always like stop like you know it wasn't that big of a deal but they're like no you if it wasn't for you like we wouldn't even have a career over there like you know it's [ __ ] it's cool man i heard uh yeah because you guys popped off in europe first and i heard the same thing was for kors i mean that that uh that story kind of ties in it's cool oh yeah okay cool it's rad yeah uh well rob i think we're uh i think we're approaching four hours holy [ __ ] are we really wow i think it was another heavy bangers ball it wasn't this one 97 was probably this is 97 that's probably was this is 94 yeah this is in 94ers ball dude holy [ __ ] look at that young man what happened i look in the mirror i'm like who's this old guy dude you're rob you're l you're lucky to be alive brother i um i really am i dude looking i really really am doing research into your uh your life and uh especially pre pre-banned i'm like yeah this should definitely not be here should definitely yeah you should be i've died a few times yeah you should be in jail or or dead for sure um so for sure anyway bro what what is that luck luck or something i don't know uh yeah rob any closing thoughts or uh nothing but bugget it says naughty oil oh my god i i've never even seen that is is this keep going oh that's the foundation i was telling you about that's me in ' 94 this is the show this is the show i'm talking about where korn played yeah i don't know why biohazard's there though like they didn't play or maybe they did play i have no idea look at billy i've never seen this video before this is crazy biohazard dude legends i loved biohazard dude those dudes were the best they they are the best i [ __ ] love every one of them those are some big earrings dude yeah i did have the i was i was rocking the big earrings those are i had the nose ring going those are some [ __ ] hoopers dude yeah it was it was the style at the time it was huh yeah it was the style at the time i don't i mean i don't know i don't have just you know what like super proud of you you're [ __ ] kicking ass if you know you're going to be broke and then the money will come back in you know like don't worry about that [ __ ] like you'll pull it together this is amazing like you've really like leveled up like the podcast game like i'm i'm very uh honored to be here you know like it's like my podcast was like so [ __ ] rinky dink and like shot compared to this like this is like professional like it's [ __ ] awesome you know what's up super proud of you and congratulations man and thank you very much for for having me on here chris it was really awesome yeah thank you for your kind words rob um so uh where where can people find you guys uh yeah where do you want people to go oh yeah we're we're going on tour in april so record drops in april tour starts in april machine head in flames lacuna coil unear all across sick north america yeah let's go i'll be there i'll chicken beer the show dude do it rob love you brother thank you man oh you know what i got something for you okay i got something for you okay hold on hold on you know can you do me a favor and bring me that box over there yeah cuz i i wanted to know what was in that's right i forgot we were it was such a good conversation i totally forgot about it you know it's like you know sometimes you do an interview and like people don't know anything about you and it sure it [ __ ] sucks like i'm sure you know it [ __ ] sucks all the time that's it's one of the reasons why this started you you you blew my mind with like all these little details you brought up about my [ __ ] life and [ __ ] i was like "holy [ __ ] i'm man." anyway i uh i'm getting i wanted to share this with you okay i am getting ready machine head is getting ready to launch their own whiskey really oh [ __ ] and i wanted to we haven't announced it yet we're going to announce it uh this next week and i wanted to present this to you to have and to kind of help with the announce and present to the world as well and uh so this is called we're dropping a whiskey called here here this is for you it's like christmas for me that's mine okay yeah that's yours that's going to be yours let me let me open this [ __ ] dude holy [ __ ] it's a big ass box dude all right oh wow so it's called shotgun blast whiskey you know like devidian left freedom ring with a shotgun blast holy this is like what's in here yeah so it's this is the first the first edition of shotgun blast whiskey is going to come with two shotgun shaped saw off shotgun shaped bottles of a super premium 10-year age bourbon whiskey and a four-year age bourbon whiskey that i was like a custom blend that i made with the guy and oh dude yeah dude i'm so sto soaked on this it's sick dude i i don't even know how do you even like okay so yeah there's a finger thing right there so yeah so it's it's two sawoff shotguns filled with this super premium whiskey and uh oh just the smell of like the box is like hitting me wow this is this is beautiful man this is [ __ ] rob this is beautiful man wow so yeah it's it's like your porn wow and then it comes with two shotgun shells for shot glasses okay i was that that was my next next question so these are these are shot glasses yeah those are shot glasses shotgun shell shot glasses they're shotgun shells nice man yeah dude so i'm really really excited about this i really think it's going to be a cool thing for the fans and uh it's going to be available uh we've actually just got distribution in europe congratulations and uh australia so it's going to be available in america and in a few weeks later it's going to be available in europe australia and uh we're just you know like machine head's always been a big drinking band and i think most people know that and they come to the show to [ __ ] party and rage and [ __ ] headbang in circle pit and i'm just like this is just so like this is perfect for you know a band like ours that's awesome man well well rob yeah i can uh congrats and uh thank you for the gift man do you drink whiskey [ __ ] i do yeah you want to do a shot yes let's do a shot all right let's do it man let's do a shot i'd like to know what you think please okay okay so we got we got the shot glasses okay yeah how do how do you i don't even know what i'm doing right now okay am i am i going to [ __ ] kill someone right now yeah i i really want to put the box right here all righty and uh okay how does this thing open you want to do the honors rob no you got to do the honors i do okay you got to do the honors it's your whiskey oh [ __ ] okay i'm rob i'm scared don't be it's night proof though it is 90 night it is it is night proof okay how much do uh is like like a full shot you think sure yeah let's do that cuz i like full shots dude let's do it you like strong coffee and full shots all right how do you anything good put the cat back team work here teamwork makes a dream work teamwork it can make the dream work dude this is [ __ ] i just that's right i did just sing a morgan wall and post malone song suck on that rob thank you for your time man honor man hell yeah brother cheers dude woo yow there we go smooth scary woo man i'm like i'm i'm i'm in the band now i'm i'm in the band holy [ __ ] that's badass right on hey man is that is that u is that the is that it i think that's it yeah that's it all right everyone all right later that's awesome peace out everybody oh no all [Music] right later close it peace out everybody oh honor man awesome good wow really good yeah man i did a lot of reach from your life i'm surprised it's your life brother might make a good book one day oh dude wow dude this is [ __ ] crazy right dude i'm so juiced it's nice it's crazy how it even happened you know like i can't believe i'm [ __ ] putting that with me and like something that actually like goes with the band you know what i mean like i didn't want to just stick my name on a bottle i didn't want to just no it's good man i'm on it man it says for yeah batch one yeah whiskey 90 proof man yeah they ain't [ __ ] around it's good though it fits you man it's cool yeah thank you two more things i want you to sign this sick this is the uh i think i'm not sure if you seen the other board we got we got three more out in in the front this is going to be our fourth one got barnes right there dude fog adam b [ __ ] everybody dude oh sick everybody can suck it dude get the logo dude my life is literally crazy nice thanks rob you're welcome this is like a no man this this one alone when when did that come in the mail did you like just get it or what um yeah they just came in like about a week ago and the first thing that i was doing down here for the first friday and saturday i was just doing photo shoots and video shoot like we're making a commercial so just like presenting it and i just need content for the website and socials and all that stuff so i just took i hooked up with travis sh we went out to we went out to the desert and [ __ ] just you know [ __ ] blew [ __ ] up with looking out there with [ __ ] yeah