Greyhaven Talks Louder Than Life Festival, Artistic Evolution, and Brewing Collaborations

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. Gray Haven. This is Brent from Gray Haven. Nick. This is Johnny. And I'm Ethan. Nice. Here at Louder Than Life, man. Unbelievable, right? Like, this is a fucking killer festival. I've renamed it, though, Hotter Than Life. It is very hot. Oh, my God. Like, I have mad respect and feel bad at the same time for every single artist that's playing this festival because it's brutal.

0:51 And not in a metal way. More in a hell way. You know? I love that you guys do it, though. Like, I mean, the fact of the matter is you could easily, like, come up with a reason why it's no good, especially as heavy and fast any music could be at this festival. But you guys just get up and give it your all, all the artists here. And I don't think people really realize what it takes to do that. You don't even give your permission and feel like shit until after the set's over. Then you die. Yeah, yeah. We're getting a little lucky because we go on when it's already nighttime. That ain't going to matter.

1:33 We're not dealing with the heat as bad, but it is crazy to see the scale of this whole thing and all the moving parts and everyone just kind of in here. I don't know. To do a festival this big, it's pretty crazy to see all the inner workings. And how. I like to find this out. How does Danny Wimmer treat the artists? How does Danny Wimmer and the whole crew treat the artists? I mean, we've had nothing but a wonderful day with everyone. I mean, this. Yeah, I don't think you run a festival this big without treating everyone amazing, you know. I think everyone wants to be here. Yeah, exactly. You know, and it usually doesn't happen. That's why I asked that question. And, like, I've been covering every Wimmer Festival since the beginning, and I've never heard any artist say a bad word.

2:18 And that's, like, unheard of, as you know, in this industry. Yeah. No, it's kind of, I mean, it feels like everyone's getting treated like royalty right now, you know. It doesn't matter which band you are, too. Like, you know, you could be Gojira or you could be, you know, the local high school band. It wouldn't matter. Yeah, exactly. And that's cool. Because, listen, I talk about it all the time with artists. nothing's worse than to show up to a festival and get all this stress because shit's not going right, shit's not organized, and then you have to play for us. In this scenario, you could get up there and have fun than we have fun. Because if you're having fun, we're having fun. Yeah.

3:00 You know? I also want to say that you guys are giving me a birthday present this year. Yeah. Yeah, because my birthday's October 11th. So you're dropping a birthday present for me the day before. Let's talk about that. Hell yeah. Happy birthday. Thanks. Thanks for making the album just for me. Absolutely. So tell me about the new album. Uh, so that will be the one year anniversary, uh, of it. But, um, Yeah, I don't know. This new record has, I feel like, been such a big. Oh, yeah, it was last year, but... Yes. Same day. But I think we're trying to make a big celebration.

3:41 We did a beer collab with a local brewery called Atrium for that record, and they have all the beer here at the festival and everything, too. That's cool. Trying to make something big out of it, because we've been touring and doing this for a long time, but this album, within this year that it's been out, kind of feels like... it's been a huge game changer for us. I mean, we put our heart and soul into that. We're all very proud of it. It's cool to see an album like really work and, you know, kind of the overnight, like how did all these fans, where is everyone coming from kind of feeling. So what do you think contributed to that? In your opinion, if you were like doing an ad buy experience, like you were them and, you know, seeing this and why do you think this album has done that for you?

4:31 One thing I will say is we have a wonderful team behind us right now. Solid State Records is, I think, done just so much to be in our corner, and I think when you have a team in your corner, like, you know, you could write the best record ever, but if no one hears it, no one hears it. Exactly. And I think they've done a lot for us, but we've also just been touring forever, and I've had a lot of bands take big risks in bringing us out, and I feel like kind of an accumulation of years of touring and building up to putting a record out, kind of coming off all these tours with all these bigger bands and may hopefully just right time, you know, the right moment that it came out. But, um, I'm sure I'm speaking for everyone when we all say it's our favorite record of ours. I think it's the best thing we've done. And so maybe just, uh, that, that right time of finally, you.

5:19 Know, our finding your sound coming. I'm sorry. Finding your sound. Yeah. This one truly feels like what we were trying to do the whole time, you know, um, So, yeah, hopefully we still haven't found our sound. Hopefully, you know, in five years we have more things that it's... And. You will, because, listen, being an artist means constantly evolving, like, because you're learning your craft along the way, and you want to experiment with that. Yeah, you never want to make the same record twice, at least we don't. You know, immediately I'm like, cool, well, we've done that thing now. So what's the next thing we can do? I don't want to do that again. Exactly. It's more fun. It'd be boring. Yeah. You know?

6:00 And listen, you don't want to play like you did in the beginning after you've been doing it for years because... That is not expanding your craft. And that would be boring as ours. If you were playing the same way you did in the very beginning, it was exciting then because it was new. Now it's not new anymore. When I know we all love the challenge, every record we're like, man, I just don't know how we're going to do that live. How are we supposed to do that? And then when you pull it off and now it's second nature, you're like, oh my god, that felt impossible a few months ago. And now let's work on the next challenge. Let's make a song even more difficult or complex in the ways that we all have to work hard to pull that thing off.

6:49 Yeah. It's a thing where we don't want to lose the excitement of why you started playing music. No doubt. You know, in middle school when you started that, like, magic. You don't want to lose that. Exactly. Always keep it exciting and, yeah. You know what's cool, too, I think about is, like, When you make your first album, those are songs you usually have been playing for years. And then albums like this, like you were saying, it's the other way around. Now you're making the album and then trying to play it live. Yeah. I want to hear what the difference is between those two feelings too. I think for us, we, we are kind of fortunate that we still write the same way that we did back then. And we just get in a room and riff off each other and the songs come together pretty organically.

7:39 But there is a lot of things that happened in the studio where we can change a part or experiment with things, especially for me because I usually come to the table last after the music's done and have to work hard to get the lyrics and stuff together. Um, But I think that's part of the fun of it too is like, all the stuff that we added in and like took chances on in the studio that we didn't do in the basement trying to relearn all that and get more comfortable with the new structure of the of the songs to pull it off live especially vocals I feel like I always write myself something impossible to sing and I have to try to get through 30 minutes or an hour without taking a breath and pull these songs off but they get easier and easier as we tour which is nice but I never want to I don't think any of us want to lose how we get together in a room and write like a you know, basement garage band, just because that's the spirit, ultimately, of the band.

8:30 Well, and it kind of does create the vibe. Yeah, very real rock and roll vibe. A hundred percent, you know? And so, what is it that brought you guys all together initially? So, we had all been playing in different bands around the city for years. You know, we were all aware of each other's bands and stuff. And the first iteration of this band, when we all found each other after the fact, it was like, it just made sense. to bring Nick in. It's been together for a decade now. And Ethan. But we had one practice where they showed up and they had learned a couple of the first songs that we had. And that first practice, it just clicked. It was like, this is the band.

9:10 See, that's what it's all about right there. If you try to force it, every band I know that has gotten to a point where they have the right lineup, it didn't take more than that. It was just immediate. Exactly. It was crazy to... to be a fan of their bands and me and Brent have been playing together since high school and just going to see their bands play and then yeah just one day they showed up and it was like oh well this is it and we just like immediately I bet we wrote a song that's on an album that day just like nice yeah when you find people that all have that same exact mindset yeah it just clicks. You don't think about it it just flows out but not only that it what makes the longevity, because if you're not friends first, and you don't have that synergy first, what do you got?

10:02 Well, then it's just a business. Exactly. I mean, if you're getting into this to do it as a business, you're getting into it for the wrong reasons. No doubt. To be doing stuff like this with your best friends, I mean, that's just amazing. And it does need to be that first. Yeah. Also, where do you... have the musical chemistry. If you're not already have chemistry is. And to know each other, to be especially live. Yeah. Because of course, studio, you can fix anything. But live, to be able to feed off of each other and be good at it, you have to have that chemistry and like kind of know how to feed off of each other. Yeah. 100%. Uh, and yeah, I think that definitely goes big time live to, uh, Like, we don't play to a click track or have anything like that. We're all kind of plug into old school amps. We love the whole feedback, rock and roll vibe. And especially that, you know, you don't have a computer being like, this is when you kick in. I think we all feel each other's presence and know, like. Which I think gives even more of the character to, like, I know that he's about to hit, you know, a symbol right now.

11:13 Exactly. There's that feeling. And it's fun to still get to play off of each other like that and not kind of lean into the computer route of things. Makes sense. Yeah, it's like if you want to hear the CD, you go listen to the CD. Exactly. If you want to come see a live band, like, we're probably going to mess up. Or, like, something could happen because we're playing it live. And I think we all love that feeling. Yeah. No, I'll just say it's going to be a little different each night. Yeah, exactly. And it should be because I can tell you, as somebody that does all these festivals all the time... Even some of my favorite bands, there's some of them that I don't have to go see their set today. I can repeat what they said in between sets by now.

12:02 But then there's other bands that it just never gets old because there are mistakes. There are things that happen. There's nothing exactly the same. And you can. Tell they're up there not dialing it in because when it is the same, then they're just dialing it in. Exactly. It gives the human element. A hundred percent. Yeah. When I see one of my favorite bands have a mistake, you're like, oh, they are human. They did, or this is live. This is, you know, no one else saw that, but I got to see that. That's why I came to the show today. Right. It's a memory, too. Or it's more playful with a song, yeah.

12:43 Like one of my favorite memories, I was just talking to Jose from Sirius about this, is I was at the Us Festival in 1983. Van Halen headlined. And they started playing Ain't Talking About Love, and David wasn't singing. And Eddie looked over to him, Michael Anthony looked over to him, and he just looked at this crowd of 300,000 people and said, I fucking forgot the words. And they, like, cheered. The whole place roared. Yeah. That's an awesome front man, because he did fucking forget the words. He was probably fucking partying all day long. Yeah, yeah. And he owned it. Instead of trying to play it off, he owned it, just like he said.

13:25 Well, and that's a memory for you for, like, 35 years later. Like, you don't remember the perfect fake set like that, but you remember that, like, dude, he forgot the line. Like, that's kind of awesome. And it was awesome. And it was awesome. It's kind of awesome. Just happened the other night here at Laird and Life. Chad Gray was performing. They started a song. He stopped it, like, 30 seconds in, and he just told the crowd, oh, we fucked it up pretty bad. We're going to start it over. A good start over is cool. And I'm like, that's fucking cool. Instead of just going through... Like, everybody cheered. Yeah. Nobody. And then they love it more because they know, like you're saying, you're real. Yeah, yeah. You're human. You're going to make mistakes. It's not fucking AI music.

14:10 Exactly. And unfortunately, I think we're losing more and more of that. And so it's even more exciting when you see the band's... Have those moments so the bands be real to themselves like that. Yeah, it's so much fun. And even now, speaking of AI, if I see stuff on TikTok or Instagram or whatever, I'm like, oh yeah, that's not real music. It's too perfect. Yeah. And there's no feeling that goes along with that. No. It's too perfect. There's no feeling that goes. It's just.... Exactly. Blank. Well, it's gotten too easy for people to get to do that and lean on that and make a chorus and post it on TikTok and get big.

14:53 You didn't even write a song, you know. Or you're like, you're adhering to what you think people want. You're not writing music for you. And you should be writing music for you before you're writing music. And you should have to learn how to play an instrument, man. Jesus Christ, like. I remember what I had to go through... And I fucking hated it. But. You take any of the best musicians... They went through what I went through... 20 times... Like. Yeah... You know. Still going through it... I feel like I'm still learning... Right. Exactly... You know... That's part of it... And I think that should be part of it... And that's also how you get different albums. Oh yeah. Because if you're using AI... It's going to use the same... Program... For every song it makes.

15:35 Yeah... Whereas... As an artist. learning the craft, making mistakes, that's how you evolve to the different sounding albums that, again, back to, it's not the same thing over and over again. Well, and like, and that's where the experiment stuff comes in, you know, like, I don't like, the Beatles wouldn't have written Revolver, you know, it's like those moments where I feel like the music, like the world changes, or then people are now trying to do that thing that you experimented and did, it's like, Well, if everyone's just doing AI and you're just copy and pasting at this point, no one's making something challenging and new that's changing the way people are wanting to hear and make music.

16:19 And you used a perfect example as the Beatles because they had so many changes and so many different genres, so to speak. Yeah. Zeppelin too. Absolutely. You know, like so many different, and that's why they have that long lasting effect. I know other bands that I actually really like, but after their second or third album, every album after that just sounded like the same thing with no emotion put into it. And I don't like that stuff, later stuff, you know, or you have bands like you, Or, like, example, Bring Me to Horizon.

17:00 I like that they changed a lot of shit up. But then they drop a Deathcore song this year, and it's more exciting because they did all this other stuff, but they still went back to their roots. Yeah. You know, so you can go back to it, and then it's not boring anymore. If they had made that same first album for every album, would we listen to new Bring Me to Horizon at this point? Probably not. No. So it's, yeah, it's like not asking permission for the next movie. Like do something that like, like giving people that, that challenge. And I think that's when people follow and you get to bring me the horizons that are like, wow, they, yeah, they were death core band. Now they're doing this, but they'll still do that too.

17:43 Exactly. It's cool to see. A hundred percent. So is there anything you want the listeners to know about you guys that we haven't covered array or anything you have coming up that you want to tell them? We have a full U.S. tour coming up with Periphery. Nice. It starts next month, so we'll be all around the states and Canada for that. Yeah, besides that, I mean, yeah, keep it quiet. It's about to turn a year old. We did a big collab, I said, with our friends at Atrium Brewing in Louisville, so five minutes down the street from here, we have all of our beer on draft and cans and try to do a fun celebration, so if anyone's in town, it's definitely a place we want them to stop by and check out.

18:28 Nice. Well, I'm glad you're here at Louder Than Life, and thanks for being on the Adventures of Pipe Man. Yeah, hey, thanks for having us, man. Great talking to you. Great talking to you. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipe Man on W4CY Radio.