Employed to Serve: Journey to Wacken, Metal Partnerships, and Breaking Genre Boundaries

0:04 Hey, you love done too? Yes, crue for se Wow, crazy you. It's the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio and I'm here. With Justine Fromployed to Serve. And Sammy from Employed to Serve Nice from the UK. Yeah from that's a sound called Woking. That's a long hike. Yeah, I mean it took us some minutes to get here, but I mean you're American rights, that's probably like a ten hour drive is probably nothing to you. Yeah. Sometimes yeah. Well, and I'm in Florida and my daughter lives in the Panmandle and it's like a twelve hour drive from where I live and it's in the same state.

0:51 Wow. Yeah. But you know you're here at Vakin and that's all that matters because you're on the Holy ground now. And that's why you were able to get here, because you had some problems with your vehicle, but because you're coming to the Holy Ground, somebody, one of the metal guards, made sure you made it exactly. He's here. He was waiting for you. I was talking. Yes, I'm like, I'm waiting for this interview, and he said, don't worry about we'll get you covered. We'll get you, we'll get them here. So tell us a little bit about your journey to vakan that not that, not the journey today, but the journey that got you being that vaking and why you had to go through that long trip.

1:42 I get, I guess to summarize because there's there's many roads that lead to Wacken, but I feel it will be important to point out that on our last album, we write a song called Now the Kingdom Come, and we wrote that song last time we played Whacken and we were like, we've written this song entirely for Circle. It's a Whacken festival. So that was kind of like our mission statement. It's like, we've written this song because we are coming back to whack and now play this song. And I can confirm they did Circle it to that song, so it was fulfilled. We were we did not write that in bad That is amazing and how did you guys end up such musical partners. So we started dating when we were sixteen years old.

2:25 Our relationship is now like legally able to drink in the UK eighteen. Years We celebrated whilst on tour as well. Yeah, actually that was the day our van broke down. Yeah, bad omen I kid a. Kid, but yeah, so we started dating when we were sixteen and then we started the band, oh yeah, about five years in. We've also wanted to test the waters of the relationship first before like going into like you know, band band mates as well. And yeah, it's just like been a rollercoaster ever since. Like we we only set the milestone of like wanting to put release on record and do a show and maybe a tour, and then we very quickly fulfilled that, and ever since then we just sort of kept aiming higher and higher and you know, trying our best to spread the good world word of heavy metal.

3:13 Nice. So when you first met, were you like on the same page music wise and whining to be a musician or did that evolve over time? Yeah, we were kind we weren't like exactly exactly on the same boat. My music taste is way better. Music taste is way better. Well, we've always but we've always been metal heads. So I mean when I say we weren't on the same page, I'm getting down to the nitty gritty of subgenre. So well, she's wearing a black Sabbath shirt. So exactly, so just in automatically win spy default there. But yeah, I mean, you were doing a lot of photography, weren't you. I was playing in a bunch of death metal bands and then I was like, hey, I Reckon, you can do vocals.

3:55 She should give it a go. Yeah, and I did. She just learned how to do it just for the band. But like, in terms of our musical tastes, we're very much into metal. But I came from a more punk and hardcore background into metal, and he's a bit more trad heavy metal, i'd say. And I obviously still likes punk and hardcore, but I sort of like listened to a lot of like old post hardcore bands like an Emo and stuff growing up. But yeah, and I got into heavy metal that way. So yeah, then that makes your music that much better, I think, because nowadays when it comes to metal, some of these sub genres they have like these formulas to make metal. It was never like that, So I think the blending of genres is so necessary so you can be unique from everybody else.

4:42 Yeah, one hundred percent agree with that. I mean, and also as well, you don't want to just keep spinning your wheels, right, you want to create something ideally new, So yeah, we always I'm not saying we are reinventing the wheel, but we definitely seek to do something a little bit different if we can. Yeah, we try to be different, you know it mainly just write stuff that we enjoy playing live at Wacken Festival and similar festivals. That's so important, by the way, Like, I don't understand there's artists out there that create music that isn't even the genre they enjoy, And how do you do that? Like, how do you have the passion for that? Yeah? I don't get it. I mean perfect example is like you take somebody like Christina Aguilera. She's a metal head for real, for real, I like her even more now, right, but she does the other day and she's great at a phenomenal voice. And look at what Lady Gaga did with Metallica. I was like, oh my god, she's a fucking rock star. Man.

5:44 Imagine either of them fronting a metal band. Like, how sick with that? Oh? I'm telling you, it has to happen. That's why I'm doing this. I'm calling them out. It has to happen. To the stage. Yeah, we need more badass women in metal because to me, the women in metal are way more badass than the men. And I don't know why my generation ever gate kept because it was stupid. Amen to that, And I always give props to let me kill mister. He was way ahead of his time. He knew what was up, he was all he did. Yeah, so. Tell me, Oh, I'll tell you a story real quick.

6:25 So I was married to a British girl. And why do the British girls they come over to the States and they all act like royals and they, you know, they get all hoity toity and look down on the Americans and we're classless and they're high class. And she was like that for sure during the day. Then she became fun party girl. Then she became batshit crazy girl. That's the way it is. It's all afront. Okay, So I never knew where she was from. So from I'm the description, I want both of you to guess what part of England she was from? Okay, Essex? No?

7:11 Sorry, no, is it? Can I ask this question? Is it north or south of Birmingham? If you know, I don't know if it's north or south. Maybe it's diagonal, I don't know, I can't remember. But Norfolk she she spoke the proper Queen's English. But I'll give you the key clue, the batshit crazy part. And and she drank fifteen margaritas every single night. That's why I said, Essex, but. Love you Essex. What would be the furthest place in England from being a royal and being a high class person in England, or at.

8:01 Least that's what I was to England, not including Wales or Scotland. No, England. She's got Queen's English. She speaks to Queen's English. But that's not the hint. That's the fake. That's the fake. Liverpool, No, no, okay, do they have a Premiership football team? You gotta go up. You gotta go up from London. It's not near London, Newcastle, you're the winner. It's so like everybody. It's so funny because every English person they start laughing, what do you mean she was this or that? And like didn't you recognize the jeordi Aska accent? And that's why I said what I did? I'm like, no, she's I think she practiced. She she spoke the Queens English.

8:50 I love the Jeordia accent. It's fun right, you know she should have kept that. I liked it better to be fair. If she lived with you in America, no one would have been able to unerstand it. Probably no, no, no, not at all. That's like the first time I went to Birmingham. You know, my friends in the U k. Are like, You're not going to understand word they say. There. I'm like thinking myself, come on, it's English. Now it's different. I asked them to speak Spanish to me so I could understand them because I didn't know what the fuck they were saying. Now I know Ozzie was the best. Yeah, now I know Ozzy wasn't speaking like that because of all the drugs. It was just Birmingham, yeah, the right. And then you get to Scotland and there's a whole other kell I dated a Scottish chick.

9:34 Too, Agians. She just couldnt understand and bless them. Oh yeah, and like and I dated Scottish chick too, and actually I guess so you're like, I know, right, oh man, that's funny. And uh, you know, I could understand her though, so I I think that's what they do. They come over to America and they kind of hide and I don't get it. Well, I know my ex wife she was probably embarrassed to be from Newcastle because she's She used to say, you picked the wrong sister.

10:17 I never met her sister, but apparently her sister is a singer of a hardcore punk band that's cool in Newcastle. So shew the name. I know the last name Rogers, but that's pretty popular of the Oh the band. Now I never got that. Ah shame. She might not want to tell me because maybe I would have wanted to hit on it. I don't know. Keep me in the back pocket, that's right. So tell everybody you know how they can reach out to you, how they can connect to you, how they can get your music, how they can buy your merch because they can't listen to my show if they don't buy your merch. Because now you have to figure out a way to get back to the UK.

11:00 Well, I mean, I guess the one stop shop for us is www dot employed, tosurf dot com, which has all of our merch, all of our upcoming toward dates. We're on tour, not in the States this year, but hopefully soon. But if if you're traveling to Europe, we've got a bunch of tour dates coming up. Yeah, we're work or you want to go to the States so bad. It's just so damn expensive for like British people to get visas. But yeah, we're not we're not doing on purpose. We do want to come. We do want to see you at daily Wimor festival. I cover all the daily Wimor festivals. So I'm putting out. There manifest exactly, the Metal Gods exactly. And you know, maybe in what is it, two and a half years or one and a half year, Yeah, two and a half years, when we have somebody normal, if there ever is a by normal leading our country again, you'll have an easier time coming over because I have a hard time going home when I leave, really really really I go and it's.

11:54 The accident in the town and everything. I have the license that shows my address. I know what you're doing here. I live here, Oh for how long? Bus forever? I mean US citizen, look at my US passport. It's ridiculous. Yeah, that's that's crazy. Yeah, it's kind of ridiculous that a country is going against immigration that started by leaving England and immigrating to the United States before it was a United States. In the UK, we're fond of such hypocrisies as well, so you're not alone, my friend.

12:34 I know, man, it's terrible and I love listen. I love it in the UK, Okay, I love the people there, I love everything there except your fucking weather. I can't do it. I had a publicist asked me and moved the UK so I could do all your festivals there. Like, I can't deal with the bipolar weather. Even in the summer. It's do you know what though, We're getting here waves and wildfires so it's heating up. Yeah, there you go. But like I'll have four seasons in one hour at festival. That's why we talk about the weather all the time exactly. That's why it's a stereotype. Is there any final words you want to tell the listeners that we haven't covered that they need to know about you guys?

13:19 We have two new singles out, A Moment Gone Too Soon and Dead Reckoning. If you haven't listened to us before, check those two out as a starting point, because they're pretty fun. I am biased what I find them fun. And yeah, stay safe, stay hydrating and beer list. Yes, and thank you for being at baking and making it and thanks for being on the adventures of pipe Man, Thank you for having us, Thank you for listening to the adventures of pipe Man. I'm w for CUI Radio