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1:17
This is Undaunted Life of Man's Podcast.
1:20
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:22
Let's get into it.
1:23
All right, guys.
1:24
Steve, we got a special guest on the podcast.
1:25
His name is Matt Greiner, and he's actually a return guest, but he has not been on the
1:28
show in a very, very long time.
1:30
He was on episode 121 of this podcast.
1:33
That was way back in February of 2020.
1:35
I'll remember that year, but he is the drummer of the band, August Burns Red.
1:39
And guys, if you've listened to my show for any length of time, that's my intro outro music.
1:42
So I talk about that.
1:43
If you don't listen all the way to the end, I actually say that.
1:45
But every single one of our episodes, the intro and outro music, excuse me, has been from
1:49
August Burns Red, so we absolutely love that band.
1:52
And they've just released their 10th full-length studio album called Death Below.
1:56
If you're listening to this on time, it was just released last Friday.
1:59
So wherever you get your music, you can download that album.
2:02
But they started out as an underground Christian metal band in a small town in Pennsylvania,
2:07
and they're now one of the biggest metal bands in the world.
2:10
And so he is my literal number one favorite metal drummer alive at the moment.
2:14
So metal is my favorite kind of music, and he's my favorite drummer, and he knows that
2:17
it's not weird.
2:18
We're buddies.
2:19
We've been gracious enough to be on this podcast before.
2:23
But on this particular podcast, I just want to kind of do a little bit of house cleaning.
2:26
I'm going to ask him some of the same questions I did back on episode 121, because the audience
2:30
is astronomically bigger now than it was back in 2020.
2:34
And so if you're not going to go back and listen to episode 121, I wanted to make sure
2:38
you still got some of the context.
2:40
But since we interviewed him so long ago, we'll make sure that we have some of that.
2:43
And in this particular interview, we talk about how he got into music, how he got into
2:48
drumming, how he got into metal, how, you know, how a band of teenagers from Amish country
2:53
can make metal core, like how does that even work?
2:56
But then we do get into how most people just hear their style of music and specifically
3:00
the vocals and think satanic or dark or evil or something like that.
3:05
But that couldn't be farther from the truth in terms of the guys that are actually in
3:08
the band.
3:09
And then we talk about how early on, even I said they were, you know, Christian metal
3:12
underground band, but they kind of had a bit of a falling out with each other.
3:16
Well, falling out's probably not the right way to say it.
3:18
But they had a kind of define the relationship talk, I guess, about what their band was going
3:22
to be.
3:23
Are they going to be a Christian band?
3:24
Are they going to be a band that has Christians in it?
3:27
Are they just going to be a band and try to make it a good business and be successful
3:30
and play music for a long time?
3:32
So they get into all that type of information as it pertains to that.
3:35
We talk about that.
3:36
But then we talk about how this is the 20 year anniversary of that band and they're on
3:39
tour right now, what that looks like.
3:41
We dig into the new album, talk about some of the tracks, we talk about some of the features
3:45
that are on that album.
3:46
And then we talk about the future of August burns red, you know, how much longer can y'all
3:49
play this style of music?
3:50
Do you want to get into other styles?
3:52
Are you going to be doing different things?
3:53
But then I asked them a bunch of fun questions there at the end, like, you know, hey, if
3:56
you had to delete every single Algas burns red album, except one, which one would you
4:00
leave?
4:01
What about every song except for one?
4:02
Which one would you leave?
4:03
And then if he could be a drummer for any other band in the world, if his band no longer
4:07
existed, you know, who would that be?
4:09
And I asked them some other questions like that.
4:10
So if you're into that kind of like, let's suspend reality and belief and get into a
4:14
question like that, you'll enjoy the end of this interview for sure.
4:17
But I always enjoy talking with them.
4:18
He and I have been become good friends over the last several years, you know, we'll talk
4:21
from time to time.
4:22
And you know, he wishes me well.
4:23
I wish him well.
4:24
And so it's just been a great budding friendship.
4:26
And I'm just very, very thankful for him and the work that he's done.
4:29
And also for his time that he spent with me today.
4:30
So I'm not going to keep him from you any longer.
4:32
So guys, without further ado, let's get into it.
4:35
Matt Greiner, welcome back to a Daunted Life of Man's podcast.
4:39
Thank you for having me.
4:40
Good to be back.
4:41
Funny I say back, but you were on back like in the, in the 1900s, it seems like, because
4:46
it's been so long since you've been on the show.
4:48
But it's because you all have a release an album seemingly in that long.
4:52
So but we'll get there.
4:53
We'll get to the new album, but we're going to have to go over some of the stuff that
4:56
if y'all missed the last one, because our audience is way bigger than it was, if you
4:59
missed our first interview, we'll be doing some of the same questions here.
5:02
But you bang on things really hard for a living.
5:05
Okay.
5:06
So that's what you do.
5:07
You hit things really hard and noise comes out and people like that noise.
5:10
But I guess when, when did you decide to get into drumming?
5:13
And I guess, you know, a lot of people have drummed before, but they haven't like, you
5:17
know, turned that into a profession.
5:19
Where was, where did that interest level for you become like, no, no, no, I don't just
5:22
like drumming.
5:23
I want to make this what I do for a living.
5:26
I prefer this introduction to any introduction I've ever had.
5:29
Okay.
5:30
Good.
5:31
Cast or interview.
5:32
I was just on the way home.
5:33
I was listening to a radio station and the radio host was talking about this guy.
5:37
He's, he's the ex CEO of Home Depot and he just goes on this list of like 10 minutes
5:42
of accolades that this guy has.
5:43
This guy's in his 90s.
5:44
The guy he's setting up and a guy gets on and he's like, well, now I'm completely exhausted
5:51
by my introduction to myself.
5:53
I don't even know what to say.
5:55
I try to get to the point and make it a little bit interesting, okay.
6:00
He hits things and people like it.
6:02
That's right.
6:03
That's how it goes.
6:04
It is.
6:05
It's pretty much what I do.
6:06
Wow.
6:07
I started playing drums when I was 15.
6:09
I'm 37.
6:10
So I've been playing for 22 years.
6:12
And when I started playing drums, I, I didn't know that I wanted to play drums.
6:16
I just knew I didn't want to play piano.
6:20
So I had been playing for four years and I was on the way home from lessons on the dashboard
6:24
of my mom's car.
6:26
I was, you know, coming home from a lesson and I was going one, two, three, four, five,
6:31
one, two, three, four, five.
6:32
If you can't see my fingers right now, I'm going through five digits, five fingers and
6:36
five fingers.
6:37
Somehow I wasn't starting and ending on the same finger or digit.
6:41
I was flabbergasted by this, like, how is it that I'm starting to end you on a different
6:46
finger each time?
6:47
What I didn't know is that I was playing a polyrhythm without knowing what a polyrhythm
6:51
was.
6:52
And I turned and I said to my mom, "Mom, I would like to quit playing piano and start
6:57
playing drums."
6:58
My mom was the easy cell.
7:00
My dad was the hard cell.
7:02
My dad knew that Matt, you've been into BMXing, motocross, and skateboarding all every year
7:08
for the past five years.
7:09
You're going to spend a thousand bucks on a drum kit.
7:11
I don't think so.
7:12
That's weight, get you a snare drum, stick with it for a year, learn how to play wipe
7:17
out.
7:18
And then we'll see.
7:19
Okay.
7:20
And I stuck with it and I bought a drum set for $850 from a friend who was in a Metallica
7:26
cover band, started playing with the guys in ABR eventually, and we all like the same
7:32
kind of music.
7:33
And, you know, I fell in love with drumming because it's the hardest thing I had ever
7:39
done at that point in time.
7:42
22 years later, it's still easily the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.
7:48
That's because you don't have any little rugrats running around, so we need to start
7:51
working on that because that'll be like the worst thing you've ever done, but it'll definitely
7:54
be the hardest.
7:55
So you mentioned, you know, you start playing with the guys from August Burns Red, but you're
7:58
all from Lancaster, PA.
8:00
That's like the middle of Amish country.
8:03
And y'all sound for anybody that doesn't know the band's music.
8:06
Well, if you've ever listened to my show, it's been the intro outro music on every single
8:10
one of these shows.
8:11
Okay.
8:12
So very aggressive and we'll get more into the aggressive sound here in a little bit,
8:14
but I guess what influences for you guys and for you specifically, Matt kind of led you
8:19
to metal core and we don't have to get into all the, you know, difference between metal
8:22
and hardcore and metal core and how they all coalesce, that's going to be a little bit
8:26
too nerdy.
8:27
But like, how does, how do people growing up in Amish country end up going into, you
8:32
know, a barn and recording this type of aggressive music?
8:36
Hmm.
8:37
Yeah.
8:38
So contextualize this, my farm that I was born and raised on and now own half of with
8:43
my brothers and my dad is surrounded by Amish farms and a few developments, but it's, it's
8:49
a very ag centric area.
8:51
So there we were practicing in my barn writing these metal songs and you think, how in the
8:56
world did we get there?
8:57
I think for me, it was, I was surrounded by people who thought the same way in homeschool
9:03
group at church and I thought there's, there's got to be more than this.
9:07
There has to be more than what I hear on the radio and being on the fringe, I, I just felt
9:14
like I needed a little bit more than what I was hearing and what I was seeing.
9:17
So I, I found out about this alternative solid music at a Christian festival called creation
9:22
in the year of 2000 or so.
9:24
And when I, I heard a band called Project 86, I heard a band called POD, I heard a band
9:30
called Zayo perform and I just, I couldn't believe that this style of music was something
9:38
I, I had never heard before and I never, I just couldn't forget about it.
9:43
I left the festival.
9:44
I bought a few CDs.
9:45
My mom's like, I'm going to need to read those lyrics.
9:48
This sounds like bad news.
9:52
And that, I mean, honestly as a teenager, that made me like it even more.
9:56
It's like, oh, cool.
9:58
This is something that I'm not allowed to do and not allowed to listen to.
10:02
And none of my friends know about it.
10:03
I'm in.
10:05
And the drumming thing just sort of accelerated my interest in it because like I said, it's
10:09
the hardest genre of music I had heard up until that point.
10:12
And I like the challenge I like to invest myself in something that is difficult so that I can
10:21
see if I can accomplish, see if I can break through.
10:24
And those two things in conjunction, not allowed to, none of my friends listen to it.
10:29
And this is the hardest thing I've ever done kind of meshed together into what became August
10:34
Burns Red in the beginning.
10:35
Well, and the thing that's very interesting about y'all's band as well is like some metal
10:39
band just get together and they jam and then they end up just like finding the song.
10:43
But you guys are actually writing the songs like you can read music and that's kind of
10:46
a very interesting thing.
10:47
But I want to go back to something that you mentioned a second ago.
10:50
And that's the aggressive, almost dark sound of metal core as a genre.
10:56
So this happened here recently.
10:57
So because I've had to deal with this for the entirety of my show since 2017 because
11:01
I've had y'all's music as our inter-altrum music.
11:04
And the question will be like, why do you have satanic music as your inter-altrum music?
11:08
I had this one guy and finally over the weekend, I had to tell him to stop.
11:10
I was like, look, I don't block anybody, but you're right for the picking because every
11:14
few weeks he would send me something about how the music was satanic and how he would
11:19
listen to my Spotify, Christian Metal playlist, which had Project 86 and Zayo and Living Sacrifice
11:24
and August Burns Red and becoming the archetype and O-Sleeper.
11:27
And he would say, tell me how these aren't satanic sounds that are being made.
11:32
He's like, these are demon notes that these bands are using.
11:35
And I'm like, what in the world is a demon note?
11:38
And finally, I told him I was like, is there a sound that can be made with an instrument
11:41
that God can't redeem for his glory?
11:43
Are you crazy?
11:44
And then over the weekend, he's sending me pictures of becoming the archetype album covers
11:49
and what was the other one?
11:52
I can't remember.
11:53
But there were all these bands that were like, you know, in the Christian Metal genre and
11:57
he's like, tell me how these aren't satanic.
11:58
And I'm like, well, you can't prove a negative.
12:00
You're the one saying they are satanic, so prove it to me.
12:03
Obviously, if you don't know anything about Metal and you hear Jake's vocals, the screaming
12:08
vocals, most people default to saying the word "screamo" because they don't know what
12:12
"screamo" is, or they say, well, that's obviously got to be satanic.
12:16
But again, y'all's tagline for your band, maybe the greatest tagline ever, angry music
12:19
for happy people, like I'm never happier than when I'm listening to y'all's music.
12:23
That's a really long set up to a question to something that you've heard your entire career.
12:27
How can you guys play this music and not be satanic, I guess?
12:31
Yeah, you're right, we've heard this since the beginning.
12:36
This was a question we heard a lot in the beginning at Christian festivals.
12:40
So the pretense was, you're a Christian band.
12:43
And as a Christian band, tell us about your faith.
12:46
Well, they were boxing us into this world of something that we never said we are.
12:50
It was by association, we're on solid state records, and every band on solid state records
12:56
is a Christian band.
12:57
Well, first of all, let's step back a few steps.
13:00
What is a Christian band, to your point?
13:02
If you play a C chord on a guitar, or if you play a last beat on drums, which is really
13:07
just eighth notes or sixteenth notes sped up fast and played loud, how is it spiritual
13:14
on any level?
13:16
It's just sound.
13:18
And how is Jake screaming versus singing spiritual and a positive or negative in a Christian
13:26
or satanic way?
13:28
It's something that we've associated with a sound, but is it really that way?
13:34
So I'm not going to sit here and say, I can't empathize with someone that says that.
13:39
I can only imagine what my parents were thinking when their son started a metal band in their
13:44
basement and their upstairs, my mom's upstairs cooking dinner, and she hears this guy screaming
13:49
in the basement over top of this loud, awful music in the beginning.
13:53
But I will say, if you want to test your theory, before you make a judgment, do some work,
14:01
do your due diligence, come to a show, talk to me, because the amount of times I've talked
14:06
to someone at the barricade or gotten messages from people.
14:12
And I will take a lot of these stories to the grave, but there is so much church happening
14:18
inside of a show, out of venue, after the show, before the show, even during the show.
14:25
And these are people that don't want to go inside a church.
14:28
And honestly, as sad as this is to say, I don't blame them because of this thought process
14:34
that that is evil, that is satanic, stay away, don't touch it.
14:38
If you get close to it, it will burn you.
14:41
Your faith isn't strong enough to stand the test of being close to something that's not
14:45
like it.
14:46
And that is a problem with the Western church, in my opinion, where we say, this is a caricature
14:50
of Christianity.
14:51
It's not really about Christ.
14:53
It's about being good.
14:54
It's about being separate.
14:55
It's about being better than.
14:57
It's about looking down your nose at other people.
14:59
And it's judgmental, and it builds walls.
15:03
And it's not, in essence, what Christianity is about.
15:06
If you believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and he came to die for you, because he loves
15:12
you, and he cares about you, everybody.
15:14
It has nothing to do with what you've done, then you can get close to anybody anywhere
15:19
in the world at any time, and not look down your nose at them, but also not be afraid
15:25
that what you believe is going to be tainted by it.
15:30
And yet, that's kind of the world that we live in, is like live in the world, but not
15:34
of the world.
15:36
Don't get close to this stuff.
15:37
I would rather sit next to someone who's a non-Christian on an airplane than a Christian,
15:42
because I've found in my experience, there's a lot to be learned from someone who isn't
15:48
guided by this morality that I have salvation because of what I've done.
15:56
And I've seen people at our shows who are in church, and it's been amazing to have the
16:08
experience I've had where I've gotten to pray with people, and I've gotten to talk to people
16:12
just because, like you said earlier, I hit the drums as hard as I can.
16:18
Yeah.
16:19
The thing about that as well, Matt, that I find interesting is, so for you, you mentioned
16:23
the bands.
16:24
We have a similar band.
16:25
Xeo and Living Sacrifice.
16:26
Those were the first two bands.
16:27
So it was reborn by Living Sacrifice, and it was, oh my gosh, the first Xeo album that
16:34
Dan was on, I'm going to take a picture.
16:36
It was the one before that.
16:37
It was Blood and Fire.
16:38
I can't believe that's like my favorite album of all time, and I could remember it.
16:42
But then when you hear a guy like Maddie from Fort Today, or Mike from Convictions, who did
16:48
a little jaunt with you guys as the lead singer, whenever Jake had to go take care of
16:52
some business, and you hear about the things that they experience at shows, they're having
16:56
church with people.
16:57
Now, I think we should all be encouraging people to be a part of a local body, because
17:00
that's what we're called to do, to be part of the Niclesia, a community of faith, to
17:04
not go it alone, to go your own way, and like, oh, I'm just going to be like LaCray and
17:08
wear my church clothes and walk on the street.
17:10
No, no, no, like you need to be part of a local community.
17:13
But that kind of gets back to the question about like, okay, there are bands that I have
17:17
on my Spotify Christian metal playlist that would not consider themselves to be Christian.
17:22
Maybe they were on a Christian label around, you know, Solid State, because you all were,
17:25
you know, on Solid State when it was like the best, you know, thing possible, the greatest
17:30
line up of bands you could imagine for that genre and in that scene.
17:34
But then there was a point in y'all's career and we don't have to get into all the details
17:37
because we did that the last time you were on the show, y'all kind of had a little bit
17:41
of a come to Jesus thing, you know, forgive the pun about what this band is going to be.
17:44
Are we a Christian metal band?
17:47
Are we a metal band that has Christians in it?
17:50
Are we just a metal band that's just doing this because this is what we like to do and
17:53
we're going to go, you know, make records and then go make money by going on tour and
17:57
selling merchants, selling tickets, but y'all, y'all kind of came to an agreement as a band
18:02
as to kind of what you were going to do and how you were going to do it.
18:05
And I even asked you all fair and you said things have never been better for you guys
18:08
as a band understanding your role, not only within the genre, but your role within the
18:13
relationship of each other in having the business of a band.
18:17
But take me through that a little bit because it makes a lot of people very, very uncomfortable.
18:20
And I think this is the reason why I remember hearing stories about bands embodiment was
18:26
one of them.
18:27
I think I remember the lead singer talking about, well, we just said we were a Christian
18:31
band because we didn't custom our music and we talked about positive stuff, but it was
18:35
either get paid 200 bucks to play at a bar or get paid 1200 bucks to play at a church,
18:40
like in their youth room or something like that.
18:41
So for us, it's like, yeah, we're going to go, go make money.
18:44
And so if we have to sit there and let kids pray for us after the show, like I guess that
18:48
will be okay.
18:49
But for y'all, y'all went through the whole gamut.
18:51
So take that wherever you want to go with it.
18:53
Sure, the guys in my band are the best guys.
18:59
I could find if I had the scout and go and LinkedIn and find this musical group, if I
19:05
know what I know now 20 years ago, I'm picking the same guys.
19:09
And we played our biggest show of our career in Denver, Colorado about two weeks ago, biggest
19:13
club headline show of all time, the videos were 3400 people there.
19:17
That was nuts.
19:18
It was wild.
19:19
So I have a little drum solo at the end.
19:21
I sometimes get on the mic and dedicate it to someone in the crowd that I met or somebody
19:26
had a birthday or someone in our crew, that night I went up and said I just want to dedicate
19:31
my drum solo to the four guys in my band who were on the stage and I started getting choked
19:37
up.
19:38
I was not expecting to like get emotional about this.
19:41
It shouldn't be something that catches me off guard.
19:44
I'm with them every day.
19:45
Sometimes they are easy to get along with and sometimes they're not.
19:49
They're just human beings and we're sharing the same bus together.
19:51
But here I was in front of the biggest crowd ever and I'm talking about my friends.
19:55
And I'd rather have them in the band with me than anyone else.
19:59
I think that the reason we are here today is because we clearly defined what we're doing.
20:05
And in the beginning, like I said, the pretense was August Prince Red, as a Christian band,
20:10
tell us about your faith.
20:11
And it was like, wait, is there a question in there before they tell us about your faith?
20:14
Like, are you a Christian band?
20:16
What does it mean to be a Christian band?
20:17
Are you Christians who is Jesus to you?
20:20
And so we took on this blanket statement that wasn't something we defined, but other people
20:25
defined for us.
20:26
And eventually it came to a head and we were in the dressing room in Australia figuring
20:33
out what are we doing here?
20:35
What is the point of all this?
20:38
And it wasn't nice.
20:39
We had a few elephants in the room and we said some things we probably didn't mean.
20:44
But in the end, I'm standing there going, man, I'd rather get to heaven than God say to me,
20:50
"Why didn't you use my name when you could have for your band instead of how dare you
21:01
use my name to benefit your career and your band?"
21:05
And the point in which we were before that meeting, before we redefined our band as a
21:09
business, who aims to play music at a high level, be positive in the world of metal music
21:17
and the music industry and do a good job as musicians, as business partners.
21:24
We defined ourselves in a way that was a common denominator instead of like, "No, I want to
21:28
be this.
21:29
No, I want to be this.
21:30
Wait, let's just keep going down a few levels until we meet each other."
21:33
Once we did that, I figured out that it gives me actually more freedom to do what God's
21:40
called me to do, what I believe God's called me to do with this band, which is very much
21:44
so off-of-stage as much as it is on stage.
21:48
It's the conversation I'm having with someone that I don't want to ever know about except
21:51
for me and that person.
21:53
And that's where the magic happens.
21:56
That's where the real conversations happen and otherwise it's just this like a statement
22:04
of, "Oh, we're a Christian band, but what does that mean?
22:07
What are you actually doing?
22:08
How many times do you have to say God in the song to be a Christian band?"
22:11
How of notes do you have to play?
22:13
Not those demon notes, you can't play those demon notes, you know.
22:18
Keep those out of the mix.
22:21
I think that there is a lot to be said about the Christian music industry and there are
22:27
a lot of people that buy into it because it's Christian and I'd rather not be disingenuous
22:37
about what we're doing because we're at least in control of that.
22:41
I think we as a band are running on all cylinders because of the controversy, because of the
22:50
awful conversations we've had to have at times over the years where we've been like, "Okay,
22:55
what are we doing?
22:56
Let's hammer this out.
22:57
Why'd you just do that?
22:58
What are you doing?
22:59
What are we doing?
23:00
What do we hope to do?"
23:01
And we're running on just a better pace than we have in the past because we have a more
23:07
unified vision.
23:08
I mean, anytime you're working in a group and anyone that works at a company right now,
23:12
you know this when there's a unified vision within your team or within your company,
23:16
things tend to run more smoothly and you get a lot more done.
23:19
But I think something that this leads to, Matt, is a discussion about the naivete of
23:24
people that are fans of Christian music.
23:27
And the question I would like to throw out to you, for those of you that love every song
23:32
on K-Love and Air One and you go to the Christian bookstores and you buy the CDs and the awkward
23:37
t-shirts and all that, has it ever occurred to you that not everybody that is making the
23:43
sound to create that song is a Christian?
23:47
Not everybody, they might say they're a Christian, but they have not put their faith in the sacrifice
23:51
of Jesus as payment for their sins.
23:54
That includes the singers, but even look at these big churches, these mega churches that
23:57
have these mega bands.
23:59
Some of those people in the band are session musicians as in they are paid a few hundred
24:03
bucks a weekend to come and jam with the person who is the leader of the worship crew
24:09
or something like that.
24:11
And there may be the Christian.
24:12
And so I think for a lot of people, we get really, really wrapped around the axle about
24:17
labels because then it's like, okay, are you just a Christian band or are you a Protestant
24:20
band?
24:21
Are you a Catholic band?
24:22
Do you like Calvinist theology?
24:23
Are you Pentecostal?
24:25
Like you can start breaking it down into all these different areas.
24:28
Then the reality is is regardless of your job, Matt, and you know this, work is unto
24:31
the Lord.
24:32
Like whenever this show had tens of listeners as opposed to tens of thousands and hundreds
24:38
of thousands of listeners, I gave it the same level of effort because I was working as unto
24:43
the Lord.
24:44
And you know, there's not going to be a big difference in my level of prep between this
24:47
conversation with you and the one we had three years ago because I was working as unto the
24:52
Lord.
24:53
I guess where that leads, Matt is like, okay, I only know that you and Jake, the lead singer
24:59
of ABR are professed public Christians.
25:02
I don't know about the other guys in the band.
25:05
Has that come up on tour where you have an interviewer interviewing you guys and they
25:09
ask one of those other guys a more pointed religious question?
25:13
Or when you have a kid or a fan or something like that coming up and maybe they're wanting
25:17
to be ministered to and they go to a member of the band that's maybe uncomfortable with
25:21
that.
25:22
Again, I'm creating scenarios that I have not heard of, but has something like that happen
25:25
where it kind of creates a little bit of this dissonance?
25:27
Yeah, absolutely, it's funny you bring that up because that does happen at times and it's
25:34
like, oh, what does everyone believe?
25:37
It's almost like you're airing your business meeting in front of the fan who just asked
25:41
the question like, oh, we're actually all kind of curious here, you know, Matt, where
25:45
are you at right now?
25:46
You just went through something awful, you still, you still have the same amount of faith?
25:49
Oh, yeah, actually I have more.
25:50
I have more faith.
25:51
I actually know that I believe in God even more than I did before because of this terrible
25:56
thing I went through, not in spite of it.
25:58
And I think I would look at it like this.
26:03
The times that my band, the guys in my band, I would like to think if they were listening
26:07
to this, that they've noticed what my faith really means to me.
26:10
Is it just a bunch of words?
26:11
Is it just a title?
26:13
Is it because I was born and raised in Christian house?
26:15
The times that they've looked at me probably the closest have been the times, I'm trying
26:22
not to get choked up here, where I've been through something that has rocked me.
26:33
That's when you're under the microscope.
26:35
What does it really mean to you to believe in Jesus?
26:39
Is it just because it benefits you?
26:40
Is it just because it's what you know, it's what you're comfortable with, you're afraid
26:45
of anything else, safe?
26:48
Or is it real?
26:50
And I think five or six years ago when I was going through something very challenging,
26:57
I remember having a conversation with someone in my band and they said, they looked at me
27:02
and they said, "I don't know how you're doing this.
27:05
I don't know how you're doing this.
27:06
We were about to leave for a tour.
27:08
I have no idea how you're doing this."
27:10
And I remember standing there and just thinking through that question, which doesn't seem
27:16
all that profound, but I'd never heard that question before, put that way from someone
27:21
who knows me very well.
27:23
And I didn't even really have to say anything.
27:25
You just know that you're known for what you have talked about for a while and now people
27:31
believe it because of how you're handling the situation that anybody might find themselves
27:40
in.
27:41
So, Christians are not above pain and suffering, terrible things happening, it's not about
27:47
avoiding the pain and suffering, it's about how you bow your head and you take it and
27:52
you face it.
27:53
And in that moment, I knew that you know what actions mean a lot more than anything I've
27:57
ever said.
27:58
This single interaction with this person probably speaks a lot more than anything I've
28:01
said.
28:03
Now using that to look out towards my band, guys, I think the guys in my band, regardless
28:10
of where they are in their faith, do a very good job of being husbands and dads and business
28:19
partners and bosses.
28:22
And where they are in their faith is not really something that I'm privy to.
28:28
And I actually respect that in a way because it's personal to them and it's not something
28:33
that they platform and they show off in a grandiose way that's like, "Look at me!"
28:39
Which I find incredibly annoying about Christianity and the church sometimes, it becomes your
28:46
way of presenting yourself when it's like, "Wait, God made you to do certain things
28:51
with your life."
28:52
Like for me, the bang drums, it's not as I can.
28:56
And God gave me that gift and I'm using it and actually I love doing it, I don't look
29:00
at it like something I'm doing for him initially, but then look at what happens because I'm
29:04
doing this.
29:05
God gives you all these opportunities because of the thing he gave you.
29:08
It's not that he just made you so that you can say, "I'm a Christian.
29:11
I'm a Christian.
29:12
I'm a Christian.
29:13
I'm a Christian.
29:14
Look at me.
29:15
Look at me.
29:16
Look at me."
29:17
I find that I have a lot of respect for people that lead with actions and not so much with
29:23
their words.
29:25
And I would say that that's my experience with the band.
29:27
We don't really go into this world of talking about what we believe or don't believe all
29:32
that much.
29:33
It's more like, can we work together?
29:35
Can we do a good job of treating each other well?
29:37
Can we play this show and pull this off tonight?
29:42
If we suck and we fail at it, how are we going to make it better the next day?
29:49
Those day-to-day interactions are something that just earns a lot of respect in our camp
29:54
more than like, "Here's who I am."
29:57
Okay.
29:58
So you can probably feel a question like this coming, but obviously you're very familiar
30:02
with the Great Commission and the mandate that we are to share the good news of Jesus
30:08
in our lives.
30:09
Do you almost feel like, do you feel that tug in you though that you have a duty to share
30:17
your faith and to have those faith level conversations with these men that are, you know, unbelievably
30:25
interlinked part of your life?
30:27
Because I can see how someone would be like, "Okay, yeah, I didn't share Christ with the
30:32
person that made my sandwich at Subway today, man, that makes me feel bad," versus, "This
30:37
has been one of my closest friends for two decades.
30:42
And if something were to happen to them, I would never be able to forgive myself that
30:46
I didn't cross that line of your life, my life, "Hey, let's go along to get along, libertarianism,
30:53
who cares," to being like, "Hey, man, I just need to tell you who Jesus is to me and what
30:59
He's done for me, and I also need to tell you that He did that for you too," and then
31:03
just let them deal with it from there.
31:05
Do you feel that gospel tug of like, "Hey, this is more than just a business, I care
31:12
about y'all's souls.
31:13
This is more than just our families being able to hang out and it not be awkward.
31:17
This is about us hanging out in the next life," you know what I'm saying?
31:20
Yeah, it's a great thought.
31:23
I think I probably need to hear that.
31:26
As you're listening to this or as we're talking to each other, it's obvious that it's much
31:30
harder to have those conversations with someone you're close to and spend a lot of time with
31:35
than someone who you just meet in the subway and you'll never see again.
31:38
Right.
31:39
I would actually say that it's not really all that hard and maybe it's not even the right
31:44
thing to do.
31:45
It's just sort of lazy like, "Hey, by the way, God loves you.
31:48
See ya.
31:49
Never see ya again.
31:50
Ministry's dirty.
31:51
You're in the trenches and people are going to look at your life as an indication of what
31:54
you actually believe."
31:56
I would say, so I got married last May and since I got married, my prayer life has become
32:02
a more important part of what I do just because I'm trying to take care of my family and taking
32:08
care of someone and taking care of this, you know, my relationship, prayer is such a powerful
32:15
starting point of your day or maybe the end of your day.
32:18
And so I've been praying more about, I've been praying for people more than I have in
32:25
the past and I would argue and pushing back against you, it's like, well, what is the
32:30
way to carry out the Great Commission?
32:34
Is it just with your words?
32:36
Is it just by saying, "Hey, just so you know God did this to their face when you're making
32:40
breakfast on the bus next to each other and you're just brushing your teeth and you're
32:44
starting off your day and you're going to be together the entire day?"
32:47
It's like, what is the best way to tell someone about God, something that they already know
32:55
and something that they already know you stand for?
32:59
Is it a reminder like that?
33:00
Is that for you or is it for them?
33:03
I've found in my own life it would be probably more for me than for them, at least at this
33:09
point and so the way I've been able to kind of start this chapter would be just like
33:18
just praying about it and praying for them.
33:21
And whether that advances more into, "Hey, by the way, we should sit down sometime and
33:26
talk about this," great.
33:28
But I think that that's not where I start and it's not even halfway through.
33:34
It might be at some point but it's not the essence of having a relationship with someone
33:38
and having your actions speak for themselves and really actually caring for that person.
33:43
I think the easy way is just to say it, the more difficult ways to live it out and actually
33:49
pray and care for that person.
33:51
I think there's certainly a lot of wisdom in that.
33:54
The thing that I would encourage you to do is there are people, it's kind of like this
33:58
church camp idea to where if you just live a good life, eventually someone will come up
34:02
to you and be like, "Hey, why is your life so different?"
34:05
"Oh, Jesus," and then we all give a thumbs up to the camera and it's like a Mentos commercial.
34:11
But at some point, it's like you're absolutely right.
34:13
It's actions and words because you can't just use the name of Jesus and then go act like
34:18
a Jack whack and the other 99.9% of your life, no one's going to believe you.
34:23
But part of the thing is the thing that I've noticed and this has kind of been shocking
34:27
and really humbling to me, Matt, is there are a lot of people in my life that I assumed
34:32
knew the gospel, but they just knew about Jesus.
34:36
They didn't know the gospel and that's the difference to where it's like they could say
34:40
Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, they could say Old Testament, New Testament, they can say
34:44
Jesus died on a Roman cross at the behest of the Jewish Sanhedrin.
34:48
They could say stuff like that, but they don't know the gospel and the good news is that,
34:52
no, no, no, Jesus isn't just a Middle Eastern Jewish construction worker that died 2000
34:57
years ago because he made a bunch of cultural elites mad.
35:01
It's more than that.
35:02
He was sent here for, you know, on a, on a secret mission that became not so secret
35:07
and it was to, to give you a way to have your sins paid for so that you can be in the presence
35:11
of God for eternity.
35:12
And so that would be a, my encouragement to you and my encouragement to anybody else is
35:15
like, when you sit down and talk to someone and you just like realize it's like your brain
35:18
explodes.
35:19
You're like, wait a minute.
35:20
They've never heard the gospel.
35:22
They've been in church for 20 years, but they've never heard the gospel.
35:26
They got a bunch of life lesson stuff.
35:28
They got a bunch of like, Hey, don't, don't cuss, don't drink, don't dance in public.
35:32
They got a bunch of that stuff, you know, like behavioral modification, but they didn't
35:36
get the gospel.
35:38
And so to move on from that, I do want to kind of put a little bit of a bow on the intro.
35:42
Believe it or not, we're still in the intro of this interview here, Matt, but we're there
35:45
a lot of good stuff so far, but the reality is, okay, yeah, go ahead and add on to that
35:49
just a second.
35:50
You just sparked something.
35:51
So I remember years ago, I was an Amsterdam and I was sitting on the bus and a lot of the
35:55
guys went out to drink and just kind of look around and have fun in Amsterdam.
36:01
And there I am.
36:02
This kid that had really no idea who I was.
36:04
I just knew that I was a air quote Christian, like I shouldn't be doing that stuff.
36:10
So I'm going to stay here in the bus.
36:11
So I was alone on the bus, Kyle alone on the bus in Amsterdam.
36:15
All my friends are out there.
36:16
And I'm just sitting there fuming like so much better than them.
36:21
All those guys are out there sitting in Amsterdam.
36:24
And then it dawned me, I'm like, okay, I'm not doing that stuff, but what am I doing?
36:30
Yeah.
36:32
Is it any better?
36:33
Of course, it's better.
36:34
I'm not doing that stuff.
36:36
And it's like, no.
36:38
And what I wrote that night was a lyric that I don't think I forgot used, but I started
36:44
writing a lyric about, are you familiar with the verse in the Bible where someone sits
36:50
before God, God says, "Depart from me, I never knew you."
36:53
He's sitting on his accolades, right?
36:55
Yeah.
36:56
Here's what I've done for you.
36:57
I don't know.
36:58
Yeah.
36:59
But look what I've done for you.
37:00
And I had this vision or thought and I wrote a lyric about it.
37:02
There was a girl, she's sitting in front of God at his feet.
37:06
And she's crouched over, right?
37:09
And there's no words being spoken, she's just sitting there.
37:12
And God, in response to her sitting there, says, "What are you doing?"
37:19
She says, "I can't believe it."
37:21
And God says, "Believe what?"
37:23
He says, "Believe that you are looking at me.
37:25
There's no way you see me."
37:27
And he says, "Of course I see you.
37:29
I'm looking right at you."
37:30
And what you know about this girl is that she lived her life selling her body and had
37:35
no idea what true love was.
37:39
Her entire life, she's just sold her body and has been abused and taken advantage of
37:44
and thrown away.
37:45
And here she is sitting in God's presence for the first time, maybe ever feeling true
37:49
love, at least this kind of love.
37:51
And she can't believe God's looking at her.
37:54
And God said, "I love you.
37:56
You are who I see.
37:57
I understand you.
37:58
I know what you've done with your life and I love you."
38:01
And she says, "If you understand what I've done with my life and you love me, you both
38:06
know me and you love me at the same time, I will love you and follow you forever."
38:14
And God says, "Come on in."
38:18
And I thought to myself, "Wow, how much closer is someone to God's heart that's actually
38:23
lived a life of sin and realizes the depth of their own crap that someone who's stood
38:30
up here, like I used to be, you know, stood up.
38:33
I don't smoke cigarettes.
38:34
I don't swear.
38:35
I'm not going out to the book."
38:36
And you sit before God.
38:38
How dare you use God's name for that?
38:41
And I'm so glad that God's grace in my life honestly has saved me from that mentality
38:47
or is working on me still, because I still have moments where it's like, Matt, you're
38:52
better than those guys over there.
38:53
It's like, "Whoa, watch it.
38:56
Watch it.
38:57
What are you doing?"
38:58
And if you're listening to this and you can relate to that at all, I would encourage
39:02
you to get out and work with people and get to know people who aren't like you because
39:08
you'll start to realize how judgmental you are.
39:11
And at the same time, you'll realize how much you have to offer people who don't know God's
39:16
love or don't know the Bible or don't know what it is to be known by someone and loved
39:23
by them at the same time, because no one of us deserves that.
39:28
None of us.
39:29
No, and that's the truth of the gospel is that none of us deserve it.
39:32
Matt, I just recently spoke at, I spoke a couple of times at a max security prison in Pennsylvania.
39:38
And I'm in there speaking to murderers, rapists, pedophiles, kidnappers, gangbangers, the worst
39:44
of the worst that society has to offer, right?
39:46
And like this is the prison where all MS-13 inmates have basically been sent to so they
39:50
can kind of sort them out.
39:51
Like it's a rough, rough place.
39:52
Like I went through their museum where there were hundreds and hundreds of shanks that have
39:55
been made over the years, but this is what I told the guys when I was in there talking
39:59
to them.
40:00
I said, "You guys have crossed the lines of man.
40:03
That's why you're here.
40:04
That's why I get to leave and you don't because I haven't crossed the lines of man, but you
40:08
have, but all of us have crossed the lines of God, so in that way we are brothers."
40:14
And so just because I geographically don't reside here doesn't make me better than you.
40:19
It just doesn't because you're either a sinner that has no hope or you're a sinner say by
40:24
the blood of lamb.
40:25
And that's it.
40:26
It's binary brother.
40:27
Like you're either going to spend eternity apart, like apart from God, or you're going
40:31
to spend eternity with him.
40:32
And that's just a reality that I think for a lot of people, you're absolutely right.
40:36
The word that I use would be depravity.
40:39
Like when someone's had that rough life, made all these terrible sinful mistakes and they
40:43
were just a horrible person.
40:44
When they get snatched up by the truth of the gospel, they understand that it counts for
40:49
them way more than the kid that never got in trouble growing up.
40:53
The kid that minded all his peace and cues and was, you know, the consummate first born.
40:57
You know what I mean?
40:58
It's just a completely different thing entirely.
41:01
Now, I don't want to just, you know, take us off into total philosophical land because
41:05
that we do need to do a little bit of business here.
41:07
But I do just want to do, I find it very interesting, Matt.
41:11
You're currently in the middle of your 20 year anniversary tour as a band.
41:15
And I don't care whose band it is or what band it is.
41:19
When Led Zeppelin got together or when Metallica got together or when ABR got together and everybody
41:24
made their first album, I don't even care about Led Zeppelin, but when kill them all
41:26
was a record.
41:27
And when y'all release your, your first little EP with the elephant on the front of it and
41:30
all that.
41:31
And like you're on pure volume, just trying to get people to listen to you.
41:34
There's no way you could have known that two decades from now, you would be on a bus
41:38
going from city to city and that you would be playing before bigger audiences that you've
41:43
ever played in front of.
41:45
Take me through that because I'm so daggum happy for you guys because of the work that
41:50
you've put in and how y'all stuck together.
41:52
And it's been essentially the same lineup for a very, very, very, very long time since
41:57
the first LP.
41:58
What's that feel like, man?
42:00
I mean, it, it, it's hard to sum up because I feel like we're celebrating 20 years on
42:08
a tour, but we're still trying to reconcile the fact that it's been 20 years on one hand
42:13
you're saying, wow, you're old.
42:16
And on another hand, you're saying, wow, good job, congratulations.
42:21
We started the band for fun and we still have a lot of fun, but I will say that it's our
42:28
fans that have kept us here.
42:31
Our fans are incredibly loyal.
42:33
And number two, it is the guys in this band that don't stop working, do not stop working.
42:40
Keep pushing forward and creating and thinking of the next thing to do.
42:45
And it's really about the details.
42:48
In the beginning, we sold pizzas.
42:51
We literally had a bake sale and donated plasma to raise money to record our first EP, which
42:58
is the elephant on the cover.
42:59
It looks fragile after all.
43:00
We needed money to record.
43:03
And so how are we going to make money?
43:04
Well, let's all get together, let's see if we can make a thousand bucks.
43:07
And we did.
43:08
We recorded the album and then we streamed our stuff on peer volume and, you know, hardcore
43:13
MP3.com, got a deal with South State, went to Franklin, recorded with Adam D. It's been
43:20
a slow climb, but I think the foundation for what we've been doing has really just, it's
43:27
been the same since the beginning.
43:29
We love doing this and we want to do a good job doing the thing we love.
43:35
And so, yeah, we had some member changes in the beginning in 2006, for as long as it's
43:41
really mattered, we've had Jake, our vocalist and Dustin, our bassist, and everyone's just
43:45
kept working hard and finding themselves in a better position than the year before.
43:52
Like you just said, we're celebrating 20 years.
43:54
We just played for our biggest audience in a club headliner position in Denver, Colorado
43:59
on this last tour, 3,400 people.
44:03
And we still have a whole other leg to go in the US and have a new album coming out on
44:08
March 24th.
44:12
I'm just really grateful for the opportunity to do this because there are so many stars
44:18
that had to align and it just leaves you feeling fortunate to be in a band with guys
44:22
that work hard and don't stop working and then fans that continue to support us all
44:27
these years later.
44:28
Well, Matt, your luck is going to continue because here next month you're coming to Oklahoma
44:32
City to see me and what could be better than coming and seeing me in my beautiful ginger
44:38
face.
44:39
So, you know, things are just going to keep looking up for you guys.
44:42
But as you just mentioned, guys, if you're listening to this on time, y'all have got
44:45
if my math is correct, your 10th full-length studio album is out now.
44:51
It's called Death Below.
44:52
Now, the first thing before you, you know, dig into the album because obviously we need
44:55
to do that.
44:56
We need to sell some records.
44:57
You're on a new label, Sharptone.
44:59
Now, most people don't understand this because almost nobody understands the music business.
45:03
Almost nobody in the music business understands the music business.
45:06
But there are bands that seemingly migrate from this, you know, this label to that label,
45:13
like y'all made a bunch of records on, you know, solid state.
45:17
And then you've kind of done some, you've been on several different labels since then.
45:21
How does that all work?
45:22
Do you just sign a one-album deal with one label and then you're basically a free agent
45:27
after every single album that goes out?
45:30
Our place is like, yeah, this album's really good and we like it, we'll sign you to another
45:33
deal.
45:34
Like, how does all that work?
45:35
Mm-hmm.
45:36
Yeah.
45:37
So every contract is different.
45:38
But the contract we saw with solid state was like, hey, you guys are nothing.
45:44
So we're going to sign you for, it might have been an option, like we'll put out the first
45:49
one and then we'll see where it goes and things go well, we'll keep you for another
45:54
four.
45:55
So we were with them for like five albums.
45:57
Once your contract is fulfilled and like you said, you're a free agent.
46:00
So at that point, you can say, well, I'd like to go to this label or there's a bunch
46:05
of labels now looking at us because of our popularity on solid state and you can negotiate
46:12
and figure out the terms you want and then you can go and you can sign with them.
46:15
The label we're on now, Sharptone, this is our first release with them.
46:19
It's called, yeah, so our new album is called Death Below, comes out on the 24th and we
46:23
were just really stoked to sign up with Sharptone because of the bands they have and the deal
46:27
that we agreed to with them feel like it's very much so them taking care of us and acknowledging
46:33
the fact that we've been a band for so long and also thanking on us providing success for
46:42
them.
46:43
Right?
46:44
It's a good business relationship.
46:45
Prior to this, we were on Fearless and we did a couple records with them and it was
46:49
also a great label.
46:51
But what happens is your contract runs up and you can say, we'd like to resign, we like
46:55
what happened here or we'd like to look elsewhere.
46:59
The thing that I've noticed about the music industry is it's changing all the time.
47:04
So you might be really excited about solid state in the beginning, but then after five
47:08
albums, I mean, you're talking 10 years.
47:11
It's a lot of time for the industry to change and maybe another label to pop up that fits
47:16
your sound and your aesthetic more than your current label does.
47:20
And so you say, all right, thank you, but we're out of here.
47:23
We're following this other place.
47:24
Sometimes band comes, you know, come back to their original label.
47:28
There are a lot of bands that have left solid state that have gone back to them.
47:31
We are out of place now where we're obviously a name that is known and we have name recognition
47:37
and labels have more to offer us than he did when we were just signing back in 2005.
47:42
So we have a little more way to throw around, but there's a definite need for us to have
47:47
a label, to have that support, to have that distribution.
47:51
But even that's changed because of streaming services and there's not so much the need
47:56
to get a CD into a store as there is to get the help you need to get the artwork together
48:01
and get everything ironed out so you can get the release up, get the marketing, get as
48:06
much promo as you can so that you can get as much streaming in the first week.
48:10
Oddly enough, vinyl is hugely popular now.
48:14
I don't handle a lot of this with a band, but I know that we make a lot of vinyl and
48:17
we sell a lot of vinyl and it's very cool to see that cycling back.
48:23
Sharp toon's been awesome with that, just, you know, allowing us to be really creative
48:29
and kind of stretch out and do as much as we want with our artwork and with our album
48:35
and just kind of curate it the way we want it to be.
48:39
It's been a great thing to kind of see because you can also see the evolution and another
48:43
thing is you don't have to sound like every other band on the label.
48:46
Like I don't really know of any prominent labels where every single one of the band sounds
48:49
the same, that would get really, really boring not only for the execs, but also for the people
48:53
that are just like, and I guess in modern day, there's not people that are like, Oh, I'm
48:57
a solid state guy.
48:58
Oh, I'm a ferret guy.
48:59
Like it doesn't seem like we have as much of that.
49:01
It's like you're into what you're into and you don't like what you don't like.
49:04
But there was something that was very, very different about this album and thank you very
49:07
much for getting me access to it early.
49:09
I've, you know, wore it out in the last couple of weeks is that y'all have features on this
49:14
album.
49:15
And I was like, wait a minute.
49:16
This is like a rap album.
49:17
What are all these features?
49:18
So you have a song with Jesse Leach, who's the lead vocalist of Kill Switch Engage, the
49:22
original and now back.
49:23
You have Jason Richardson, who's a guitarist, formerly a born of Osiris and guys, if you
49:27
haven't listened to Born of Osiris, you need to check them out.
49:29
And also Chelsea Grinn, you have JT Cabby, the lead vocalist of era.
49:32
And then probably most prominently Spencer Chamberlain, the lead vocalist of under oath.
49:36
So who gave y'all the idea or was that like a label thing?
49:40
They're like, yeah, yeah, we need to stick some other people on the album because that
49:43
was just odd to me because unlike rap, because rap, you have your producer that makes the
49:46
beat and all that.
49:47
And you need multiple voices to kind of make, make the rest of it interesting.
49:51
But it's like you bring in a guitarist who's already lead guitarist when you've already
49:54
got JB, you bring in a couple of different lead vocalists that they're not singing harmony
49:58
with Jake.
49:59
They're doing their own part.
50:00
They're like, take me through that whole creative process.
50:03
Right.
50:04
Right.
50:05
So JB gets most of the credit for the idea to bring in guests.
50:10
And what happens is he'll approach us and be like, hey, I have this idea for guest musicians
50:15
or guest vocalists to come in and we can feature them on the album.
50:19
Let's figure out what songs that might work for.
50:21
So we'll send out text message or make a phone call, hey, do you want to be on our album?
50:26
And it's either a yes, I'd love it or we'll see or now I'm out.
50:31
I don't want to do that.
50:32
Can you tell me?
50:33
He said no.
50:34
I want to know.
50:35
I want to name names.
50:36
Who are the people that said no, I need to have a conversation with them.
50:39
Right.
50:40
I don't think we had any news.
50:41
Okay.
50:42
Thank you.
50:43
Good.
50:44
Very good.
50:45
Okay.
50:46
If we did, I don't know about them.
50:47
Yeah.
50:48
So I wrote, I worked with Spencer on a song of the album and it was really cool to sit down
50:52
with him on a zoom call.
50:53
I did like a 30 minute zoom about the lyrics I wrote for a song on the album, Her Reckoning.
50:59
And just, he would just wanted to know what the lyrics are about and what direction he
51:03
should take his vocal feature in the song.
51:06
And maybe if there's any parameters or if he can kind of do whatever he wants to do,
51:12
I grew up listening on the road.
51:13
So it was, it was wild to be on a zoom call with him and be like, wow, this is really
51:17
amazing that the singer of under earth is going to be on our album and not only be singing
51:23
a part of our song, but he's actually going to create something and bring something new
51:27
to the table.
51:29
Same thing with Jesse Leach.
51:30
I'm sure that that was cool for Jake to have someone like him on the album and it just,
51:37
it helps round out the experience, right?
51:40
It's like anything you can do to make the album better and stronger and bigger and have a
51:45
wider reach.
51:46
You should probably do those things and so we're stoked.
51:50
We have the artists on there that we do.
51:52
And like you said, it's, it might not be something people have seen from us in the past, but
51:58
it's, it's something we've, we've thought about a lot and we've, we've done a little
52:01
bit of it.
52:02
Never to this extent.
52:03
It's just not really a metal thing.
52:05
And I don't know if like there was never, like James Hetfield didn't do a song with
52:08
Motorhead.
52:09
Like, you know, there's just certain things that just wouldn't, wouldn't have fit for
52:12
whatever reason.
52:13
But on this album, it seemed to fit, but I will say on this album, Matt, that you almost
52:18
made me very, very angry, okay, because there are two really long songs on this album.
52:23
Okay.
52:24
The cleansing, which is the second track.
52:25
And then the last track with Spencer called the reckoning, like you mentioned, those songs
52:29
are just shy of eight minutes long.
52:32
And I thought we were under an agreement that no song ever can be longer than the seventh
52:37
trumpet.
52:38
Okay.
52:39
That's the last song on Thrill Seger.
52:40
That's just over eight minutes long.
52:41
But y'all are like, y'all are like nipping at the seven trumpets heels.
52:45
What's the, what's the big idea here?
52:47
Okay.
52:48
Y'all trying to replace the seven trumpet.
52:49
The stars begin to fall.
52:51
Yeah.
52:52
You can't replace that song like what, but I guess my, I'm kind of being a little bit
52:57
tongue in cheek.
52:58
But my question is, is like, you know, seven, eight, nine minute long songs, that's not
53:01
August Burns red.
53:02
Like that's between the buried in me.
53:04
That's tool.
53:05
Like that's, that's those types of bands that are maybe a little bit more Prague or that
53:08
you have to do acid before you can even understand what's going on in the song.
53:11
It's like, you know, what, what I guess precipitated, you know, these two kind of more long songs.
53:17
Yeah.
53:18
Well, we started writing this album in 2020 and might have even been back in 2019 and we
53:24
actually recorded guitars for some of the, some of the album in 2020, most of the album
53:29
actually.
53:30
So you have to understand it's, it's not just something you come up with intentionally.
53:36
It's all done.
53:37
Start recording it.
53:38
We know exactly what we're doing.
53:40
It's more like, okay, we have a couple of songs that's go to the studio and start recording
53:44
and see what happens.
53:45
And I think people have this idea that there's this guiding principle behind an album before
53:53
you even start.
53:54
Right.
53:55
It's usually not that way.
53:56
It's like, okay, we have a couple of songs that's, that's, that's see what happens.
53:58
And then you get into the studio and you're like, oh, this part's cool.
54:01
Maybe we want to extend this part or maybe we want to tag on this section that I've never
54:06
used in a song.
54:07
It fits in this song.
54:08
It's the right key, basically the right tempo, it, it fits musically.
54:11
Let's keep it going.
54:13
I think also we've been doing this for so long that it's like, huh, why not do something
54:19
a little different than what we've done in a couple of years, the last couple of albums.
54:25
Death below is different than some of our recent work.
54:30
How is it different?
54:31
I would say it's less.
54:33
It jumps around a little bit less.
54:36
It doesn't have as many of those like random staccato moments that happen and they're
54:42
gone and they happen and they're gone.
54:44
There's more of a theme and I would say the theme is darker and heavier.
54:50
For one, there's more blast beats that just settle in.
54:53
There's a blast beat for like a straight minute and backfire and that is odd for us.
54:59
I am the type of drummer that would write apart and get bored with it after five seconds
55:04
and write something else.
55:05
I think in our old age, we've settled into our sound a little bit more and we do the
55:14
best we can with every album, but it's like, okay, where are we at right now?
55:18
Code was a dark time for a lot of people.
55:21
I feel fortunate.
55:22
It was actually a really good year for me.
55:24
I was able to be home and not touring and dating my now life and building my studio and
55:29
it was actually a really positive time of my life, but it wasn't that way for everybody
55:33
for most people.
55:35
I think some of the songs probably represent that year and just the odd time that it was
55:42
to be home and grounded after.
55:43
You have to think like you're used to doing something for 15, 16 years and all of a sudden
55:48
you're told you can't do it anymore and you have to be home and so maybe creatively you're
55:53
coming up with guitar parts or songs that are different because the rest of your life
55:57
is too.
55:58
It's so interesting because I probably listened to the album three if not four times all the
56:03
way through before this interview and dark wasn't the word I would have used to describe
56:06
it, but it is because I guess in my head when I think dark, I think Lauren is sure, right?
56:11
I think of something like that to where it's like or impending doom, where it's like, this
56:15
is dark.
56:16
It's like you can feel the heaviness of the music sitting on top of you, but it's almost
56:20
like a groovy dark.
56:21
The new album is kind of a groovy dark because you're right.
56:23
I did notice the blast beats because typically blast beats were a part of your music.
56:27
I mean, you got a blast bell for God for God's sakes, the result in that you sell, but it's
56:30
just like it wasn't a little bit more extended.
56:32
But I guess as you guys as you look into the future, do you see yourselves as a band gravitating
56:39
because here's the thing.
56:41
Y'all are called the gods little g gods of metal core, right or the kings of metal core
56:45
to not offend anybody, right?
56:47
I don't know.
56:48
Are we called that?
56:49
I did.
56:50
I just said it.
56:51
So you're called that.
56:52
Okay.
56:53
I've seen it said of you guys that y'all are like the gods of metal core kings of metal core,
56:56
like y'all have taken the sound and you own it now.
56:59
It's like everybody else gets to borrow it when August burns red isn't using it.
57:02
Okay.
57:03
But you can venture out into more death metal type stuff to more Prague type stuff to all
57:10
these other different genres that I won't say because people won't understand it on
57:13
this show.
57:14
Where do you see the sound gravitating towards?
57:17
Because like there's something to be said for George Strait to make the same fricking
57:21
album over and over and over and over.
57:24
And then you get 50 number one hits because people like the sound and they like the story.
57:28
And then there's another thing to be like, know what?
57:30
We need to expand our creative legs or extend them out a little bit to kind of see where
57:35
we go.
57:36
Where do you guys think you'll be hit it?
57:37
Yeah, that's a good question.
57:39
There are a lot of personalities in our band and creatively that comes out a lot of different
57:43
ways.
57:44
So some of us would say, well, we're not going to do the same thing over again because that's
57:47
not being an artist.
57:48
I have to do something I've never done before.
57:51
It's kind of hard to do after 10 albums and then someone else will say, well, this is
57:54
really good.
57:55
I don't care that we've done it before.
57:57
Let's do it again.
57:58
Yeah.
57:59
You put five personalities together who care a lot about the little details and whatever
58:04
we come up with is going to be good enough for us and that's good enough.
58:10
And I don't know what sound we are searching for next, but I do know that we're not going
58:18
to put something out that we don't like and that we're not proud of.
58:22
It might sound like it has in the past or it might be different.
58:25
I don't think that wherever going to be the band that puts out an album, it's like, whoa,
58:30
that's really surprising.
58:31
I didn't think they would ever do that.
58:34
And having people throw stuff at us and call sellouts like I think we have too many safeguards
58:40
in place internally to be like, no, no, no, we can't do that.
58:43
That's not us.
58:45
Because of that, we're going to try to push the envelope because we're artists, but we
58:49
also know what we're capable of as musicians.
58:53
And here might be the biggest factor for me personally.
58:56
I don't feel the need to show off what I'm capable of on the kit because I've matured
59:03
as a musician.
59:04
It used to be like, go as crazy as you can, go as fast as you can.
59:06
Do as much as you can.
59:07
People need to know you're a good drummer.
59:08
Now it's like, what about the song?
59:12
So we've gotten better at that over the years where I come into the studio and someone knows
59:16
they're not going to hurt my feelings by saying, Matt, stop it.
59:19
Slow down.
59:20
Put that out, keep it simple, stupid.
59:24
That's not the right idea that's due to this one.
59:25
And instead of me being like, oh, my gosh, I spent all this time on this.
59:28
You guys are a bunch of jerks.
59:29
I hate you all.
59:30
I'm leaving.
59:31
It's like, okay, yeah, you're right.
59:33
Let's take this to a vote.
59:34
I'm fine with whatever is best for the project.
59:37
It's a more diplomatic system than it was back in the day where I'd probably do something
59:44
like that.
59:45
Well, and that shows your maturity as a person also as an artist.
59:48
I say that like I'm an artist, but yeah, I mean, you know what I'm saying.
59:51
But like, look at the thing you did with Zilgin a while back where you had like this jazz
59:55
ensemble band around you and things like that.
59:57
Like that was a song like that was like, that was the most incredible things that I've ever
1:00:01
heard because it's like, that's Matt.
1:00:03
But who's this guy with like this 87 string bass just like going nuts like in the middle
1:00:07
of this whole thing?
1:00:08
Like it was, it was really, really an awesome thing that you've done because it wasn't just
1:00:12
look at how cool I am because I was brought here by Zilgin.
1:00:15
It's like, no, it's like, let's see how how great of a song we can make.
1:00:18
Now, one thing about your band is like whatever genre you end up getting into, you guys aren't
1:00:22
a cover band, but you do make some pretty amazing covers.
1:00:25
So as a lot of people know, you make a lot of Christmas covers.
1:00:29
You did a whole Christmas album, but a couple of years ago, you guys dropped a cover of
1:00:33
system of a down's chop suey.
1:00:36
Now the reason why that was so awesome because the cover was awesome, but I remember being
1:00:39
at the last show where y'all were in Oklahoma City and you know, like in between bands when
1:00:43
they're moving the other guys, you know, kits and amps and all that often, you know, getting
1:00:47
ready for the band, you know, they're just playing random songs and you know, people
1:00:50
are kind of homing along, maybe singing a little bit of this or that, but then chop
1:00:54
suey comes on and the crowd's freaking out.
1:00:56
Everybody's singing the entire song, but we know y'all are about to come out.
1:01:00
And so as a crowd were like, okay, let's not get too excited about chop suey because they're
1:01:04
about to cut it off and bring the band out, right?
1:01:07
But literally the entire song played, everybody goes nuts because they were so excited that
1:01:12
the entire song played and then the lights go dim and then you guys come out and it was
1:01:17
like, okay, let's all get ready.
1:01:20
So part of it is like there's like a, you know, a really, really good connection for
1:01:23
that song and your band and your fans and all that.
1:01:26
But are there going to be more covers that you guys are going to do in the future that
1:01:30
are kind of in that similar vein?
1:01:32
And then I do have a request because I want to get your answer first, but I have a specific
1:01:36
cover request that if you do take requests, this is the one I want.
1:01:40
So are we going to get to see more covers?
1:01:42
Well, that's here your request.
1:01:45
We'll see.
1:01:46
And this will tie into another question.
1:01:49
I've always kind of had a dream that Lars Ulrich didn't exist in that you were the drummer
1:01:54
for Metallica.
1:01:55
Like that's kind of like a dream that I've had.
1:01:57
I would love if y'all would cover battery or anything off of ride the lightning or master
1:02:03
of puppets.
1:02:04
But battery is the one that just sticks out my brain that that's the one of all the songs
1:02:09
that have ever been made other than maybe free bird because I think that would be funny.
1:02:13
I want y'all to to cover battery.
1:02:15
So it's really ironic that you're bringing this up.
1:02:19
My sister texted me Sunday or Saturday night actually pretty recently, a couple of days
1:02:25
ago.
1:02:26
And she goes, Matt, no, she didn't say Matt.
1:02:28
She said, do you guys think you could cover Enter Sandman?
1:02:33
Okay.
1:02:34
I didn't respond to her for like three or four days until yesterday.
1:02:38
And I was like, I might be, Joanna, I might be kind of tough to do that because I feel
1:02:42
like that's one song.
1:02:43
We would try to cover and the original would be better than our cover and we would just
1:02:47
make a fool of ourselves.
1:02:49
And then I talked to the band about it.
1:02:51
And JV is like, we could try, I'll listen to it and see what we can pull together.
1:02:56
We literally just talked about that this week.
1:02:58
So Metallica, Metallica is on the table.
1:03:01
And thank you for bringing this up because I love doing cover songs, whether it's a Christmas
1:03:06
song or whether it's the Westworld theme song.
1:03:10
It's just very fun to give our, I don't know, our own interpretation of what a song could
1:03:17
sound like if we had written it.
1:03:19
But we don't have to start at the bottom.
1:03:21
We can literally just take a melody and take a general idea and kind of reconstruct it.
1:03:25
So yes, we will continue doing covers and there are more Christmas songs on the way.
1:03:31
I'm sure there's nothing in the works right now.
1:03:34
But Metallica was the most recent band talked about.
1:03:39
I haven't thought about battery, but I'll, I'll pitch it.
1:03:43
Hey, well, I was going to say master of puppets, but that's the lowest hanging fruit because
1:03:47
that's probably the greatest song that that band has ever made.
1:03:51
But I mean, battery, that's the one to where it's like, you can't just listen to the Metallica
1:03:54
songs that are on the radio and no battery necessarily.
1:03:57
So that would be the one that would be like really, really good for the fans.
1:04:00
But the other thing that's interesting about it is so going back to Chapsui and I'm not
1:04:03
taking anything away from the drummer of System of a Down, but he's not the most incredible
1:04:07
drummer in the world.
1:04:09
Like he's good for that band and their sound.
1:04:12
But then when you play that song and even just a little like, Blaspy during the verse,
1:04:17
like just the random, it's like, blast, blast, blast, stop, blast, blast, stop, like, that's
1:04:21
just so unique for it for that song because you've heard that song a million times.
1:04:26
And then you hear just a little bit different and it's just a little bit more interesting.
1:04:30
But that does lead me into this question I was going to ask.
1:04:32
So it's funny that Metallica is kind of swirling around this part.
1:04:35
There just has to be a song in y'all's catalog that you hate playing live because like Metallica,
1:04:42
they've got to hate Inter-Sandman by now because no matter where they play, when they
1:04:46
play for how many songs, they always have to play the encore and play Inter-Sandman.
1:04:52
For the rest of their lives, they've got to hate that song by now.
1:04:55
So when y'all are in concert, is there a song that you guys have to play or they'll
1:04:59
riot but y'all are just so over the song?
1:05:08
Great question.
1:05:10
It's different for me.
1:05:11
I'll say something I haven't said before publicly, which is I could play a song a thousand times
1:05:16
like Composure.
1:05:17
I'm talking about Composure right now.
1:05:19
Composure is a song I've played probably 1500 times.
1:05:23
We've played over 2000 shows.
1:05:24
I've probably played it 2000 times with practicing.
1:05:28
A lot, I should know it by now.
1:05:30
I still struggle with the song.
1:05:32
There are parts of that song that are really hard on my feet and it's bizarre because of
1:05:36
course I know what I'm supposed to play.
1:05:38
I could think about it easily but to be able to actually carry it out on my kit, it's tough.
1:05:44
I have to practice a lot.
1:05:45
So do I hate playing a song or would I rather not play a song?
1:05:49
Like I said in the beginning of this, I like to be challenged by what I'm doing and it's
1:05:53
part of the reason I still love drumming today because it's the hardest thing I've ever
1:05:56
done.
1:05:57
Composure is a really hard song for me to play.
1:05:59
We always forever and ever will have to play White Wash that would argue Composure is up
1:06:05
there.
1:06:08
Composure is a really tough song to play and so therefore I still like playing it even
1:06:11
though I've played it a lot because it's not a gimme, it's not an easy song to just slide
1:06:15
in there.
1:06:16
I would probably say that Laura Zorik hates playing one because it's a hard song on drums
1:06:22
and if he's not up for the challenge and just wants to get the show over with and get
1:06:27
done, probably not a song he likes to see on the setlist.
1:06:30
But it's not the case that I hate playing a song because I've played it a lot.
1:06:36
I hate playing a song if the crowd isn't into it and if it's just something we're doing
1:06:44
that's easy and we're just feeling space.
1:06:47
That would be an instance in which, that's not do that.
1:06:49
I don't think any of us want to just go through the motions.
1:06:52
If the crowd's into a song, I don't really get sick and tired of it.
1:06:55
I can't speak for the rest of the guys, I'm sure it's not the case across the board.
1:07:00
But Composure and White Wash and basically every song we've ever written as a band is
1:07:04
very hard for me except for like Meridian, Carpe Diem and maybe an instrumental song here
1:07:11
and there.
1:07:12
It's all hard.
1:07:13
I have to work a lot to be able to play it and so therefore I still enjoy most of it.
1:07:19
So what's the hardest, like if there's one song towards like even if you love it, if you
1:07:23
don't, new song, old song, what's the number one song where it's like, I can do this but
1:07:27
I'm going to have to really get after it.
1:07:30
Oh, well, Rescue and Restore is 10 years old this year and there's some songs on that
1:07:38
one we've never played live that's are going to be tough.
1:07:41
But a song that we actively play on this tour, it's really tough, Backburner is still a really
1:07:48
tough song.
1:07:50
You have blast beats that are like 2, 22 BPM.
1:07:55
It's real quick.
1:07:56
I know the parts but it's like to really lock them in well and play at a high level.
1:08:03
That's one of the toughest.
1:08:04
For sure.
1:08:05
Okay.
1:08:06
So we're going to go from the toughest song and now I'm going to ask you a bunch of very
1:08:09
uncomfortable questions that I'm sure you've heard before because I think I asked you them
1:08:12
on the last album.
1:08:13
But we'll see if your answers are different, okay, if you, Matt had to delete the entire
1:08:20
ABR discography and everything, every album you've ever made disappeared except for one
1:08:26
album and that's the one album, not you, just you, not the entire band, just you, the one
1:08:31
album that you are leaving for humanity.
1:08:34
What's the album?
1:08:36
I'm deleting every album except for this one except one you get to leave one and all of
1:08:41
you guys disappear and this is how the world will know ABR existed.
1:08:48
I'm leaving constellations.
1:08:50
Okay.
1:08:52
Why that one?
1:08:53
That that's obviously a fan favorite, but why that one?
1:08:58
Two reasons.
1:08:59
One, the artwork.
1:09:00
I was laying in bed one night and I was thinking about the movie.
1:09:03
It's a wonderful life.
1:09:04
It was right around Christmas time.
1:09:05
There's a scene in the movie where I forget the guy's name but he's like, Hey, you want
1:09:11
the moon?
1:09:12
Throw a lasso around and pull it down for you and I had this idea of as Christians,
1:09:17
we should be locked into God like a star in the sky versus kites which are our own ambitions
1:09:25
and hobbies in life that just kind of leave us astray.
1:09:28
And I had this idea for artwork and I sent it over to Ryan Clark and we came up with
1:09:33
the artwork and I just think it's really cool and I know it's important to me.
1:09:39
The artwork is cool how I had it conceptually and then we carried it out.
1:09:43
And then the second reason would be creatively.
1:09:45
I think my drumming on that album was at a time when I was just sort of finding my feet
1:09:52
as far as like, I don't need to be the craziest in the fastest, but I'm going to try to write
1:09:56
things that are intentional for the song and lyrically I wrote some lyrics on that album
1:10:02
that I'm really proud of.
1:10:04
Okay.
1:10:05
So I'm leaving constellations.
1:10:06
So I would say messengers first and then constellations reason why I would say messengers
1:10:11
if if I had complete control is because that was the album where it was like, oh, y'all
1:10:16
just thought Thrill Seeker was as good as we could get.
1:10:19
But now it's like metal cores ours now y'all just let us know if you want us to loan out
1:10:23
this sound.
1:10:24
And so that was when it was like, that's where I feel like the band was like, we're here
1:10:27
to stay.
1:10:28
It was like a giant middle finger to everyone, you know, that was just trying to get by in
1:10:32
the world of medical.
1:10:33
So that would be mine.
1:10:34
We're going to make it impossibly hard, okay.
1:10:36
You have to delete every single song that August Burns read has ever recorded, except
1:10:43
for one.
1:10:44
You get to leave one song for humanity.
1:10:46
What's the song cutting the ties so that you can still have your podcast.
1:10:50
Hey, you know, I would have no intro outro music if it came to it or whatever.
1:10:55
But hey, that that is a that is a great way to have to intro an outro.
1:10:58
But like you get one you get one song.
1:11:01
What is it?
1:11:02
We're over a hundred now.
1:11:03
You get one.
1:11:04
So you, so you, so you don't want to interrupt me.
1:11:09
If I pick a song, are you going to use it as your intro outro music?
1:11:12
I've told you from the beginning, every time y'all record something that I'm legally allowed
1:11:17
to put as the intro outro music, I'm going to switch it out.
1:11:19
So I'm good switching it out, baby.
1:11:21
Okay, I've got to switch it out.
1:11:24
All right.
1:11:25
I was going to be trying funny and say, Britney Spears, no, no, no, no hit me, baby cover.
1:11:32
No, not that life.
1:11:34
That would be a let's pretend like that would never happen.
1:11:37
Okay.
1:11:38
It's got to be on the LP.
1:11:39
Okay.
1:11:40
It's got to be on the LP.
1:11:41
We're deleting one song.
1:11:42
It's going to be that one that's got to go.
1:11:45
There you go.
1:11:46
All right.
1:11:47
We're, we're keeping one song to sum up everything else.
1:11:53
All right.
1:11:54
I'm going to say that song is Medler.
1:11:58
Okay.
1:12:00
Why that one?
1:12:01
That one's a specialty.
1:12:03
I think it's a well written song.
1:12:05
Start to finish.
1:12:06
I think lyrically it says a lot about our culture these days, which is hurry up, goes
1:12:11
fast as you can get as much as you can out of life and screw everybody else.
1:12:20
And my brother works primarily in palliative care and sits with a lot of people bedside
1:12:27
at the end of life.
1:12:28
And I've talked to him about what are people saying?
1:12:31
And it's like, oh, they're, what they're not saying is, I wish I'd spent more time at
1:12:35
the office.
1:12:37
What they are saying is, man, I have, I should have spent more time with a human being, however
1:12:42
that is in their life.
1:12:43
And so it just really makes me think about how I'm living my life and what's important
1:12:48
and what's at the top.
1:12:49
And the song talks about, you'll never fly fast enough to make time stand still.
1:12:56
It's about how we are so task oriented and so driven that we forget about people.
1:13:01
And we prioritize profit over people.
1:13:03
We prioritize so many things over things that matter when for those of you wondering, that
1:13:08
is on the one album that Matt decided to keep.
1:13:10
So that is on the constellations album.
1:13:12
It's the second to last song on that album.
1:13:15
The one I would say I'm very impressed.
1:13:17
You.
1:13:18
Wow.
1:13:19
I'm more about my band than I know about my band, Matt.
1:13:21
I can't remember why I walked into the kitchen, but I can remember things that will
1:13:26
literally not even ever come up on like any type of a game show.
1:13:29
So it's, it's nonsense like that.
1:13:31
Now the one that I would say is I would take one off of constellations and this is going
1:13:35
to seem like low hanging fruit, but I would leave whitewashed.
1:13:38
And the reason is because for my money, I wish it was appropriate to have like a minute
1:13:43
long intro to a podcast because that would have been the song that I would have asked,
1:13:48
dear, please, please, can I have this as my intro?
1:13:50
Because if there, if there were a musical representation of wagyu beef, that's the intro
1:13:57
to that song because it's just, it's beef on top of beef and it's so sweet.
1:14:01
Like it's just guys, if you haven't heard the song whitewash by August Burns, right?
1:14:05
I'm not kidding with you.
1:14:07
Like just think about wagyu beef.
1:14:09
That's what the beginning of that song is.
1:14:11
Okay.
1:14:12
Is that weird?
1:14:13
Is it weird that I just compared it?
1:14:14
Or did you just come up with that?
1:14:15
No, no, this is just things that come to my crazy ginger brain.
1:14:17
This is just how it goes.
1:14:18
It's podcast sponsored by a new beef.
1:14:21
It's just lost you.
1:14:22
Your comment was so over the top.
1:14:24
Okay.
1:14:25
Now you're back.
1:14:26
I got you back.
1:14:27
Hey, the world just could not handle that nonsense that happened, but you tell the rest
1:14:30
of your band mates that I said that about whitewash and when y'all played here in Oklahoma
1:14:33
City, like maybe we can get some wagyu beef, throw it out to the crowd.
1:14:36
Make it awkward.
1:14:37
What do you think?
1:14:39
I think I think you should probably start off.
1:14:43
I think the cover for this episode should be a picture of some wagyu beef.
1:14:48
Okay.
1:14:49
You know what?
1:14:50
It's definitely appropriate what to do this.
1:14:51
So I'm going to ask your permission because normally I put a picture of the person.
1:14:54
Do you want me, Matt Griner, to instead of having a picture of you on the artwork for
1:14:58
the this episode, do you want a picture of wagyu beef?
1:15:00
Because I'll do it.
1:15:01
I will straight up do it.
1:15:05
Somehow that does not surprise me about you, Kyle.
1:15:08
I don't.
1:15:09
Let me think about it.
1:15:11
Okay.
1:15:12
I regret a decision I make right now in the moment.
1:15:14
Okay.
1:15:15
It was a really funny thing.
1:15:16
You'll follow up at the end.
1:15:17
I prefer to put you on the cover so everyone can see your beautiful face, although you
1:15:21
don't have a big as a beard as you did the last time I had you on the show, which I'm
1:15:25
a little triggered by, but you know, you got the cool guy beard right now.
1:15:28
Okay.
1:15:29
I got more hard questions here.
1:15:31
So you already mentioned that if you could go back to day one and you could pick all
1:15:34
the guys for your band, you would pick the guys that are in your band right now.
1:15:37
But now I'm going to put you in a scenario where all those band mates that are in your
1:15:41
band right now, they don't exist.
1:15:43
Okay.
1:15:44
That's the face of the planet and you have to start a new band under a new name and
1:15:48
new everything and you can take any member of any other band without issue and they are
1:15:54
going to be part of your new band.
1:15:56
We don't need to come up with the name or any other right now, but you're the drummer
1:15:59
for this brand new band.
1:16:00
You can have whoever you want.
1:16:01
Who's the vocalist?
1:16:02
Who's lead guitar?
1:16:03
Who's rhythm guitar?
1:16:04
Who's bass?
1:16:05
And do you have anybody playing like the triangle or something like that?
1:16:08
Mm hmm.
1:16:09
Will Ferrell.
1:16:10
Yeah, Will Ferrell playing the triangle would block cowbell, he's in the percussion stand
1:16:16
over there.
1:16:17
Makes sense.
1:16:18
I would say Dave Grohl is my vocalist.
1:16:21
I would say, I mean, I'm just going to go with Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers because
1:16:28
I feel like he's going to add a lot to the groove.
1:16:32
We're not going to be a metal band by the way, we have to be a metal band?
1:16:35
No, no, no.
1:16:36
New band.
1:16:37
You can do whatever you want.
1:16:38
Okay.
1:16:39
I have to say we're going to be a worship band just to really get you going.
1:16:42
Oh, but uh.
1:16:43
Worship music's the best.
1:16:44
I just love it.
1:16:45
I just, I just cry the whole time.
1:16:48
Oh, yeah, um, now we won't be that.
1:16:53
So Flea playing bass, Dave Grohl, I'm going to go with guitarists.
1:17:02
Really I have to just pick anybody I want.
1:17:04
Anybody you want?
1:17:05
You can have lead rhythm.
1:17:06
You can have multiple rhythms.
1:17:07
I know who I'm going.
1:17:08
I'm going to go for Paul from between the buried in me on lead and on rhythm.
1:17:16
I'm going to go with, uh, we'll go with Matt Heafy from Trivia because that guy is a personality
1:17:25
and it would just be fun to have him in the band and, uh, yeah, just be able to tour with
1:17:30
him.
1:17:32
That would be an absolutely crazy sound.
1:17:34
Okay.
1:17:35
I'm going to keep putting you in these weird scenarios.
1:17:37
Now I want to know that if ABR disappeared and you could just slide in to another existing
1:17:44
band right now, which band would you love to be a part of?
1:17:47
And then then we'll take it back to historical.
1:17:50
Any band from history, if you could just slide in and be the drummer for that band.
1:17:55
So an existing band, you're their new drummer and any band from history.
1:17:59
You're their new drummer.
1:18:01
What would you see it?
1:18:03
All right, I, I would like to play drums for like current current day.
1:18:13
I can pick any band, any band today.
1:18:16
Okay.
1:18:17
Yeah.
1:18:18
Uh, I want to play drums for Metallica.
1:18:23
That's my dream.
1:18:24
I want to go.
1:18:25
I'm going to go up as high as you can go in the genre.
1:18:27
I'm going to Metallica.
1:18:28
Any band ever?
1:18:30
I'm going, I'm playing for Johnny Cash.
1:18:32
Oh, I never even thought of that.
1:18:35
I mean, when that driving nuts, boom, chicken, boom, chicken, boom, chicken, boom the whole
1:18:38
time.
1:18:39
That's all it is.
1:18:40
Oh, man.
1:18:41
What?
1:18:42
I mean, that's the awesome.
1:18:43
I'm 37.
1:18:44
You know, things are getting harder to play all this fast.
1:18:48
Heavy metal.
1:18:49
I'm good with that.
1:18:50
Oh, well, that kind of leads me to the question.
1:18:52
So I've got one more question after this, and we'll get you out of here.
1:18:55
How in this litter, I know I've been joking around a little bit literally how much longer
1:18:59
do you think you can play at this speed?
1:19:01
Because, you know, we've talked about Lars and in Metallica a lot, like aside from the
1:19:05
fact that Lars just, it just constantly makes mistakes when he plays those songs live.
1:19:09
He can still play fast.
1:19:11
It's not that interesting.
1:19:12
It's not my favorite drumming in the world, but he can still play fast.
1:19:15
And I think he's, if he's not in his 60s, he's close to it.
1:19:18
How much longer can you keep the technique and to have the fast Twitch ability to play
1:19:24
the stuff that you're playing now?
1:19:26
Mm hmm.
1:19:28
I don't know.
1:19:30
I don't think the limitation will be me being able to play it physically.
1:19:35
I think that my career, honestly, my time with this band is something that I'd just
1:19:43
take year by year.
1:19:46
And I think that I would be able to play this kind of music in my 40s and 50s.
1:19:52
I mean, there are things that I could do to make it easier on myself.
1:19:57
I wouldn't have to hit as hard we could maybe slow down some tempos if it came to that.
1:20:02
I used, I broke my ankle when I was 20 and 21 and I played with a hard shell cast on
1:20:06
and we slowed down some tempos and it was great.
1:20:09
So I don't think the limitation would be how long could I do this physically?
1:20:12
I think it would be, it would be more a question of what's the most important thing in my life
1:20:17
right now and is touring and spending time away from home interfering with that.
1:20:23
I would say that would be the limitation.
1:20:25
My wife is very supportive of what I do and I could see myself doing this for another
1:20:32
10 years.
1:20:34
But at the same time, it's not something that I'm locking myself into and saying, "I will
1:20:38
do this until I'm 50."
1:20:41
I look at it year by year and sometimes even less than that and be like, "Is this still
1:20:45
what I'm supposed to be doing?"
1:20:46
Okay, it is.
1:20:47
I'm going to work really hard, stay in shape, practice a lot, and make sure that I can do
1:20:50
it the highest level so that I'm not taking away from this experience that I have.
1:20:55
The baseline for your question is how long can you do this for?
1:21:00
The fact that I'm still doing it is so awesome and I don't want to take that for granted
1:21:05
and I want to do the best I can with the time I have.
1:21:08
So that when I look back in 30 years when I'm probably not doing it anymore, I can be like,
1:21:14
"Well, I did everything I could at that time of my life.
1:21:16
I'm proud of it.
1:21:17
I did not take the easy route or the lazy route and I gave it everything I had."
1:21:23
That's my personality.
1:21:24
I want to make sure that I didn't compromise at all.
1:21:30
Yeah, you want to make sure that you've rung yourself out for where you feel like God had
1:21:34
you, but that actually does dovetail into the last question I wanted to ask you.
1:21:38
It's kind of a personal and maybe a heavy place to end here, but it's important.
1:21:41
You're married now.
1:21:42
That's okay.
1:21:43
Obviously, your wife is supportive of the stuff that you've done.
1:21:46
She's gone out on tour, some of y'all's tours with you and all that.
1:21:49
You can see that on social media and I know that other guys in the band have families.
1:21:53
They have children and wives and I would let them answer for themselves in terms of how
1:21:58
all that works, but what does that look like because y'all don't play some shows.
1:22:03
Y'all play a lot of shows.
1:22:06
When you're touring in between writing and recording an album, you're touring.
1:22:10
You're getting after it in the United States.
1:22:12
You're going over to Europe.
1:22:13
You're bouncing around all over the place.
1:22:15
It's one thing when you're single, maybe she's got a personality that's okay being alone.
1:22:18
She doesn't need to touch you every 16 seconds to know that y'all are still in love, but
1:22:23
kids do change things a little bit.
1:22:25
What have those discussions been like because that'll obviously change what's going in
1:22:29
the gumbo a little bit?
1:22:30
It's a great question and it's a great, it's time to well too because we're on a tour right
1:22:35
now and I say right now, I'm home in my studio on a break.
1:22:39
The only reason we're home right now is because a couple of us are married and we made the
1:22:44
decision as a band that we need to prioritize quality time with family and not do a six
1:22:49
and a half, seven week tour all at once.
1:22:51
Let's break it up into two chunks so that we can be more sustainable as a band and take
1:22:56
care of what's the most important thing in our lives, honestly.
1:23:00
We all know that it's easier to do a month with a month in between month, month off,
1:23:06
month than seven weeks straight.
1:23:08
So yeah, it's more costly.
1:23:10
It might be a little bit more burdensome in the workload of prepping for each leg, stuff
1:23:16
all at once, but man, it is so awesome.
1:23:19
It's the first time we've ever done this.
1:23:21
And I'm glad that we as a band are able to look at this realistically.
1:23:25
I'm not surprised because the guys in my band are smart and careful and care about things
1:23:30
that matter like our family is more than anything.
1:23:35
And speaking on a personal level about my wife, being married is awesome.
1:23:40
And I am so glad that God's grace in my life brought me to this place where I'm with my
1:23:47
wife, Annie, and just how much more fulfilled I am at home and even on tour where I have
1:23:55
someone praying for me, I have someone to live my life with.
1:23:59
And I have someone making me better on stage, even behind the kit.
1:24:02
She's not a drummer.
1:24:03
She doesn't know all that much about drums, but just little notes, like if you can see
1:24:08
this, I have these little notes all throughout my studio.
1:24:12
Yeah.
1:24:13
I'm proud of you.
1:24:14
You're the hardest worker in the room.
1:24:15
I mean, this stuff means a lot to me.
1:24:17
And when I'm sitting down here working and I'm frustrated because I can't nail something
1:24:21
or there's my camera or because my camera falls down, I just, I know that someone's got
1:24:28
my back and it's really just made the band and touring and practicing and this whole
1:24:34
thing so much better being with someone who I get to live my life with that that sees
1:24:40
my love for this and sees it in the right light and perspective.
1:24:45
So it's interesting about that just yesterday, I was talking with the buddy of mine who's
1:24:48
a pastor and he was, we were talking about ministry and he's like, yeah, your spouse
1:24:52
is either going to be the launch pad or the lid to your ministry.
1:24:56
And if you're not prioritizing, so for your sake, it would be your band or your art.
1:25:02
She's either the launch pad or she's your lid.
1:25:05
And those little notes that you just showed like, dude, I've got notes sitting right here
1:25:08
too from my wife, little, little note that that I have here in my little workstation.
1:25:13
And it's like, this is a launch pad, you know what I mean?
1:25:16
Like, cause I can always look down and whenever I'm frustrated cause, you know, my voice,
1:25:21
I'm having trouble with my voice, I'm having vocal cord surgery next month, I got a lot
1:25:24
of kind of fear around, you know, talking into a microphone for a living and maybe that being
1:25:28
potentially taken away from me.
1:25:30
But it's like, I've got a launch pad, you know, for a wife that's really going to be
1:25:34
helping propel whatever this is, whatever on Daunted Life is.
1:25:38
And for you, it seems like you've got a launch pad to whatever Matt Griner, the drummer or
1:25:43
Matt Griner, the dot, dot, dot, that is going to go off into eternity that she's going to
1:25:48
be part of the team.
1:25:49
That's pretty awesome.
1:25:50
Yeah.
1:25:51
I'm rooting for you, man.
1:25:52
I really like what you're doing with the Daunted Life and we might not agree on everything,
1:25:57
but I really appreciate the fact just speaking publicly here on the recording.
1:26:01
I don't know if people are still listening at this point, but if you are, there are a
1:26:06
lot of people who are not willing to take a stand for something and you might not agree
1:26:10
with what someone says, but no matter what they say, it is a lot easier to believe them
1:26:16
and listen to them if they actually stand for something.
1:26:18
And Daunted Life's always been something that I, when I think of the lion or I wear the shirt
1:26:24
or I hear you talk about the Lion of Judah, it's like you've always been steady with that.
1:26:28
And that's motivating for me to be that way of my life in a way that, you know, we need
1:26:37
in our culture.
1:26:38
There's so much up and down and left and right and no one knows where anyone else stands.
1:26:43
And it's not helpful.
1:26:44
So thank you to Daunted Life for having me and to you for starting this whole thing and
1:26:50
having me back.
1:26:51
Well, that is a tremendous compliment.
1:26:53
I definitely appreciate that.
1:26:54
It's kind of one of those things.
1:26:55
It's like some people are like, Kyle just sounds so sure of himself and he's so opinionated.
1:26:59
It's like, would you listen to someone's show where for an hour they don't have a fully
1:27:02
formed opinion?
1:27:03
It's like, that's not something like my favorite commentary is what you just basically gave
1:27:08
me.
1:27:09
I don't always agree with what you say, but I basically don't care what's after the but.
1:27:13
It's showing that, Hey, you're you're paying attention.
1:27:16
You appreciate what we're doing here.
1:27:17
So I appreciate that very, very much.
1:27:19
But you know, we went everywhere in this conversation just like the last one, but that's all for
1:27:23
me.
1:27:24
Is there anything else you want to get off your chest?
1:27:26
Yeah.
1:27:27
Well, to bring Jordan Peterson into this, since we were talking about him before, he said
1:27:31
something that stuck with me, which is when he sits down for an interview and you've had
1:27:35
the chance to mute him, which is also, you know, it's really cool that you got to spend
1:27:40
some time with him.
1:27:41
But what I heard him say was when he sits down and talks to somebody, he really doesn't
1:27:45
care if he convinces them of what he's saying.
1:27:47
He's not looking for them to like him or affirm his stance on something.
1:27:53
He thinks in a really logical sense, of course, it's Jordan Peterson, how far is this going
1:27:59
to go, this truth that I believe is true is going to be broadcasted and eventually maybe
1:28:05
find millions of people and look what's happened.
1:28:09
Millions of people have heard what he said and the person that he's talking to doesn't always
1:28:12
sit there and nod their head and agree.
1:28:15
So I use that and I think about that and I think, man, it really doesn't matter to me
1:28:18
if you, Kyle, agree with what I said here today.
1:28:21
What matters to me is that it's where I'm at and I think it's true and also at the same
1:28:26
time, the guys in my band might listen to this and I want to do a good job of representing
1:28:32
them because they can't be here to represent themselves and I try to be honest and I also
1:28:37
try to give credit where credit's due and I can't be on a podcast talking about my band
1:28:42
and not talk about my band members because it's really the team that makes it all work.
1:28:46
So thank you to Jordan Peterson for kind of bringing that idea into light which is like,
1:28:50
don't people please, don't try to make someone like you speak the truth and it really doesn't
1:28:55
matter if the person likes you, actually it's probably going to go a lot further if you
1:28:58
say something that you think is true and doesn't get the affirmation in the moment, but Mike
1:29:03
it'll hold out more than that in the long run.
1:29:06
Speak the truth and let the chips fall where they may.
1:29:08
Matt Greiner, thank you for coming back on Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.
1:29:12
My pleasure.
1:29:13
Thank you, sir.
1:29:14
All right, guys, I hope you enjoyed the return appearance of Matt Greiner on the show, but
1:29:18
before we let you go, we are going to do a quick resilience boost.
1:29:20
Add Undaunted Life, our mission is equipping men to push back darkness with content that
1:29:23
forges spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
1:29:26
So the links I've got for you today, I've got a link to the August Burns Red website.
1:29:29
So you can go there if you want to buy vinyls or their records, t-shirts, all kinds of
1:29:33
different things.
1:29:34
If you want to know when they're coming on tour, that's the best place to go.
1:29:36
Again, I've got a YouTube video to one of the album singles off the new album, Mr. Song
1:29:41
Ancestry with Jesse Lee, choose the lead singer of Kill Switch Engage and then also a link
1:29:45
to Matt's Instagram.
1:29:46
And just here's my encouragement to all of you guys if whether you listen to Apple music
1:29:49
or Spotify or wherever else people download their music, make sure you go out and save
1:29:54
and download stream, buy, purchase, whatever you got to do, the new August Burns Red album
1:29:59
death below.
1:30:00
Thank you guys for listening to this episode.
1:30:02
Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five
1:30:05
star review.
1:30:06
If you want to come speak live at your event or on your podcast, you shoot me an email
1:30:09
to info@andontin.life.
1:30:11
That's i-n-f-o @andontin.life.
1:30:14
Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else
1:30:17
including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way.
1:30:20
Just go to www.andontin.life and as always, we want to thank the band, August Burns Red
1:30:24
for allowing us to use their music for our content.
1:30:27
The music on this podcast is our song "Cutting the Tides" which is off their 10th anniversary
1:30:30
re-recording of their album Leveler.
1:30:32
The links are in the description.
1:30:34
I'm your host Kyle Thompson.
1:30:36
Remember, keep pushing back darkness, keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience.
1:30:42
Keep seeking the Lion of Judah.
1:31:12
[Music]