Escape the Fate’s Reflections on Growth, New Fans, and Songwriting Evolution

0:04 Hey, you're listening to Adventure on W4CY Radio. This is the Pipe Man here on the Adventure's Pipe Man W4CY Radio, and I'm here with.. Robert. Matty. From Escape to Fate. Yes, here in Montreal at Warped Tour, man. Yeah. How does it feel 20 years later... to be back at Warped. Tour again and again and again? I feel old, man. No, it's cool, man. It's definitely different. That's what everyone's been asking and talking about. How does it feel different than all those old times? Those were just so young. All these growing pains and doing everything wrong and slaving away and dealing with rain and broken down cars and all kinds of things. Now it's humongous in production and you get to reunite with old friends and new fans, old fans. So it's a, it's just really more celebratory of a, of a certain genre than, than in days past, you know?

1:10 It's like a family reunion. Yeah. You know? And, and so how does. It feel like when you keep getting invited back to do this, like Warped Tour is iconic. We're here in, in Montreal and you're going to be playing in Mexico City too. Like, What does it feel like to keep coming back? Like, not every band comes back. Well, there's days when you wake up and you're like, geez, man. Like, what am I doing with my life? Like, I should go get a job, you know? I got bills to pay and stuff. But, you know, you just feel like you still matter. Like, the brand is still relevant and that you have... I don't know, you still have something to offer to people just who like music, you know?

2:02 And I'm still passionate. I still practice every day. I still love doing what I do. And so to get invited to something like this, it just really feels like, I don't know, like a certain validation for the work. I don't need to be validated in this way for my life, but for my career, you know? Yeah, that makes sense. So yeah, so it feels really cool, especially when you've seen some of our peers grow into certain just.. I don't know. They, some of them have gone really big and some of the bands that you used to like who kind of haven't been as active and then they come back to you and it's just like a new generation gets to discover the music that I love and I'm one of those bands too. So it's cool. And we're in a weird spot because we have new music too and we still have a fan base that continues to grow and new fans that discover and know us for more newer stuff and then obviously the nostalgic fans that have been there for a long time or discovered us later and listen to the old stuff.

2:54 See, I think that's a great thing. Like, To me, that's your true musicians and artists when people like the new stuff and. The old stuff. There's a lot of bands that people only really like the nostalgic, but when you can come out like you guys and write new music and people love that too, to me, that's the validation right there. Yeah, it's weird, but that's why you keep doing it because you got to grow it. And then the fans that are kind of more of the older stuff, they'll give the newer stuff a chance and it might grow on them and then they'll eventually a few years from now the newer stuff will be older and they'll be nostalgic for.

3:35 It totally so how would you say that as you're older your writing process is different or your creativity of it is different. I don't know. Every song's different right I don't know. What do you do when you write? We take a lot more time writing now. That's better, right? When you're on that hamster wheel, when you're going from date to date to date and don't have time to really create, but you have a deadline, I think it's better when you have the time to think of how you really want the music.

4:23 Actually, that's what's crazy. You're asking what's different or what it This time around, we took our time. We didn't put a deadline on it. See, that's cool. And so it was refreshing to be just kind of open-ended about it. And then since the album's been done for a while, now we're putting deadlines on releasing things. And so it's like now it feels rushed, which is weird because we took so much time. But it was awesome. We got to take a step back and work on songs and be like, okay, this is like the meat and bones of the thing. Now let's go back and you take the guitar solos and go work on that. Just get in your own world. And then I'm going to go work on the drum parts.

5:03 And then you. Focus on lyrics. So it allows you to really rip the song apart and take it to another level. And we hadn't really done that in a long time. It was a lot of writing in the studio with the producer. And I don't want to say rushing it, but yeah, everything happened so fast that you didn't really get to digest it as much and kind of tweak it. It doesn't matter at the end of the day because the song is what it is. But it feels more satisfying knowing I did the stuff that I wanted to do. And the song is what it's going to be now. And I don't go back and be like, oh, I should have done this or I should have done that. I did everything I could do to it. So it's a more refreshing way of doing it now. Cool.

5:43 And so now when you're not doing this, what's each one of your passions like? Oh man. I'm outside of this for me. I mean, I'm a fitness guy. I just love going to the gym and like whatever fitness is, or I'm either I'm boxing, you know, just hitting the bag or sparring and getting beat up or like, I don't know, just lifting weights, anything that makes me sweat. I enjoy doing it, but really it's just spending time with my kids. Um, I am, that's the best, right? And I love watching them grow as frustrating as it can be at times. It's, It's really awesome just always taking them on adventures, making new friends because I got to become friends with the parents of their friends. And I'm on their schedule. And it goes from I'm this important guy and people need me to be places to I'm just their chauffeur and the butler for them. So that's really where my two passions are.

6:34 And see, that's cool, too, because that time goes quick. Like you think it's like a long time and you like blink and they're adults or teenagers and maybe they don't want to hang with you. You know? What do you do outside of this? Outside of music, I still do music and play guitar all day, every day. Honestly. Work on music. See, that's... Fitness and being healthy, but still music. So, do you... In your off time.. I play music and play guitar for fun. Right. Do you do different other genres? Oh, yeah. Anything. Whatever I'm feeling that day. That's cool. So.. What's some of the other stuff that you like to play? I do a lot of instrumental music and soundtrack stuff, like movie soundtracks and video game soundtracks. A lot of classical and jazz stuff, too. I like to write in all different genres.

7:21 See, that's cool, because, like, you know, there's been a lot in the old days where, oh, you could only listen to this genre. But we all love music. You know, it's not just one type of music. And like you said, It is, depending on the vibe. I think that's what's cool about Warped Tour, because you can get all those different vibes here. If you want to listen to metal, there's metal. If you want to listen to punk, there's punk. If you want to listen to ska, there's ska. And you can do it all in one day. And I think people think that people only listen to one type of music. But, yeah, it's different parts of your personality, too.

8:04 Well, I think now people have accessibility to it, too. As well. That, that's a good reason too. Yeah. It's like back in the day when I'm like, I'm holding up a, a rap CD or my fourth Megadeth CD. That's, you know, I still need this one in the collection. My wall. Sorry. I'm going to go for, I'm going to go for Megadeth, but I could be at the gym doing my thing. And I'd be like, you know what? I'm going to listen to Megadeth and the new whatever the rap album might be or, you know, classical or whatever. So I just have access to it all, you know, for one price for every month, you know. There you go. And you can have appreciation for it, which maybe you wouldn't have in the past. Well, yeah, because in the past, you had a limited amount of money and you spent it.

8:46 You had to make a choice. Like 15 to 20 bucks for one CD. Now it's 15 bucks and I get all of them. Totally. I think you're spot on about that because you can just change the tracks anytime you want. See, a lot of people talk about streaming services, what the negatives are, but there's positives too, where you're getting your music exposed to people that may never have listened to it. So that's kind of cool. Have you had fans come up to you that were like, they only learned about you because of things like, those other stream on the streaming outlets. Have they come up to you and said, Hey man, I heard you here.

9:27 I don't normally listen to that music, but I love your music. Oh yeah. It was like on playlists and stuff. It's so, it's weird. You'll find you on a playlist. I know that's other. Bands that are similar, you know, at least, but we kind of fit into a couple of the different sub genres of rock. So they'll, they'll, they'll find it in like the active rock next to like three days grace you know or they might find us in the stuff more warped or where it's like yeah here's the veil you know so we're kind of in this sort of middle ground and yeah so it we'd be fans from like I don't know you just get exposed out there in that different stuff or in someone's TikTok video. Or something right it's.

10:08 Weird but whatever it all works I guess. As long as they hear you what was the first album or song you guys. Ever heard in your life yeah Yeah, that's a hard one, right? The first CD I ever got in middle school was Significant Other by Limp Bizkit. Nice. But at the same time, my parents were exposing me to The Beatles and Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd and all the old school shit. Then I got really into 80s metal and classical. So yeah, kind of 90s new metal, but along with classic rock and 80s. Metal at the same time. There you go. How about you? I mean, my parents were, I feel like they were born in the perfect time and It was Metallica and Guns N' Roses touring together, and it was like, that's still my dream tour to this day. And, yeah, so it was Appetite for Destruction and the Black Album, both at, like, just this exact same time. I dressed up as Axl for, like, when I was, like, three for Halloween.

11:09 That's pretty cool. Later became known as the guy that looks like Slash. Yeah. The album that made me want to be a musician and be in a band, though, was Blizzard of Oz by Ozzy. Or Crazy Train by Randy Rowe. Oh, my God. I saw Randy. That was like, okay, I want to do that with my life. I saw Randy. I had Blizzard of Oz on 8-track. Oh, man, that's awesome. I still have the CD and a vinyl version. So funny, the 8-track, like Mr. Crowley, 8-tracks, they used to fade out of a song and fade back in while they changed tracks. Mm-hmm. In the middle of Mr. Crowley, that is what would happen. It would fade out and then click tracks and then fade back in.

11:51 Like, they would split up a song. No! Yeah, it was weird. And you used to have to put your, like, matchbook under it so it would go to right speed. Otherwise, it would, like, slow it down. Crazy. It makes me feel really weird to say that I'm old enough to where I used to listen to things on tape. And 8-Track's even older, so it's not that bad. But, yeah, when I hear... Enter Sandman. There's a part, you know, in the second verse where he says, dreams of war, dreams of light, dreams of dragons. There's a part. I had a tape and it would go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you have to splice. It that way. It's like dreams of war, dreams of dragons. That's how I hear the song still.

12:32 Totally. Yeah. So I don't know if I told you this last time, but I was at Metallica and Slayer's first shows ever. Yeah, I remember that. Right? You had your jacket with you. Yeah, my battle vest. Yeah, yeah. Yep, yep. Yeah, well, but like now you have people like me that are your guys' fans. There's somebody out there saying, man, I was at the first Escape the Fate show ever. No. Slayer, bro. I know, right? Agreed. So anything else you want to let the listeners know that we haven't covered already? I mean, yeah, just the main thing is the new album.

13:13 Like we were we're discussing a date either really soon or pretty soon. Label wants it really soon. We wanted it already out. But, you know, you wanted to reach people. So you got to present it. So we've dropped some songs and, you know, we're looking for. A fall album. Release date but we are releasing a new song next week which. I don't know when you're going to air this but it'll be very soon it'll be as like monday i'll be releasing it of august. There will be another song and i think this one's uh i think a lot of people are going to like this one so the next couple for sure and um yeah so that that's that's it so just keep paying attention. To that nice well thanks for being here at warp tour and thanks for being on the adventures of pipe man once.

13:57 Again Thank you for having us. Thanks for having us. And I'll get to see your sets at Louder and Aftershock, too, because you'll be there. Cool. Have a good one. Thank you. Thank you for listening to The Adventures of Pikeman on W4CY Radio.