GREYSTONE CANYON are back and Pay Tribute to Thin Lizzy

0:04 Hi, you love them too, dear censure, Wow, pray you you don't do so? Here on the Avengers Fight n W four c Y Radio. And I'm very excited. Why because ray Stone Canyon they're back. They're back, and I really dig what we're going to talk about. There's a couple of new songs I really dig. But let's bring on Darren onto the show. How are you? Thanks very much for having me on very well.

0:56 As we discussed before we just started, it's my birthday today. Bet on it to be here on the show and talking about something that I'm. Very passionate about, which is music. And I think I have something here in my toolbox that is so you just made me think that's so appropriate for a situation. If I still have it, and I'm going to find it at some point, I may play it if I find it, but I'm gonna say happy birthday. And I have to say, Okay, the newest single I know about is the Thinzzi one, but I also went and listened to another one that wasn't in what was sent to me, and I thought that was badass too, because I absolutely love UFO. Oh my god, that was so killer. The UFO song Okay, so everybody knows you have a new album come now. But there are some covers on there that are really cold. There's original music too, but you know, there's some cool covers. I can't wait to I didn't get to hear it yet. I can't wait to hear the Immigrant song. Oh yeah, that's one of my favorite Zeppelin songs. But I do have to say the minute I turned on Suicide, I was like, kinda hell, does

2:27 he sound so much like film? Oh well, that's a huge compliment that if I give you a little backstory to this album, like this is our third album. As you pointed out, there are cover tunes and your original songs. Each of the band members chose to cover song that we thought kind of fitted the DNA of Greystone Canyon and that we could do a reasonable job on the Other reason that we did covers and originals is we wanted to try recording this album live, so all into one room, no click tracks, no studio trickery, just looking at one another, amps cranked up real drums, and we weren't sure sonically how the album would turn out, so rather than risk all of our new original songs on something that could have gone the other way, mix and covers up and it would be maybe a low stakes affair, something like Metallica's Garage Days or Van Halen's Diving Down.

3:26 It's so funny you said that, because the minute you started talking about on Lake thinking listen, Metallica still does covers. Yeah, and those cover albums that they do, you know, I really enjoy those. It's kind of you can hear. You can hear that the band's having fun, and that's really we wanted. Like the previous two albums for us, they've done well, they sound great, but the last one it was such a laborious task to bring them together and it wasn't you know, like the end result was great, we're happy with, but it was exactly a walk in the park to do it. So we thought we'd try and change it up, and that's what. We've done here. And really, I know your listeners are the ones.

4:09 That will be the judge, but for us, it was a blast and we think you can feel that when you hear it, that we're having fun. See, that's so important in my opinion, because first of all, if you're not having fun, how am I having fun? Okay? Second all, like I'm just gonna be blunt. This industry sucks. So like the most fun part is the making and playing music. If that's not fun, it's the wrong industry to be in. Yeah, you've and you know, music and business have always been at odds with one another.

4:50 They're strange bedfellows. So just take the business right out of it, make it. About music, have fun, and hopefully that comes across, you know, hopefully, you know, like it's like when you're at a party, if you're the guy that's smiling and laughing, like people want to gravitate towards that. They're like, you know, I want to be a part of that. If you're open in the corner and you know, people are like, oh, I'm not going near that dude. He's a Debbie Downer, no doubt. That's that's you know that that's how we approach this. And you know, I think even sonically it's turned out great. What what we may not have in perfection and precision, we've made up within passion and attitude.

5:34 So like, you know, like that important. Yeah, like the seventies records, the seventies and eighties records that we really love, That's how most of those records were made, you know, just all the guys in the one. Room, playing off the floor, not using. Tons of overdubs, just just keep it natural and like you know, a band having fun. Well that's fine because one of things I thought of in my mind before doing an a in reviewer way one to bring up whereas you mean, some humans are in a room playing music together. What a concept? Who thought of that?

6:19 And it's so strange to me even when I'm saying these things out aloud, as it's kind of everything that we grew up on. That's how it was done. But a long yeah, everything changed, you know, and I don't know, things definitely became more sterile. And also with no budgets to make. Music anymore, like you said, you know, the industry, it's just it sucks. Well, you may as well not chase that carrot because there is no budget to make Welcome to My Nightmare or a Pink Floyd the Wall. There's no budget to do that anymore. So you might as well go the other route and kind of strip it down and just make a really good organic record.

7:05 And I think when you're all in a room, the music sounds different because when you're doing different places you're not connected to have that cohesive sound, you know, and you're not feeding off putting chart And there's something to be said about real like talk about Zeppelin, Like Achilles Last Stand. Everybody thinks that was just a great robber plant screaming voice, when really he was screaming agony and pain from the car accident, you know, but it turns out to be like one of the best screams ever. Yeah, what a fantastic song, you know, I mean right if you or your listeners a you know, speaking of Zeppelin and the way they made records, the Rick Biado, who is just an endless knowledge of music production theory, et cetera, et cetera. You know, he got all the bottom tracks and like you can't quantize those drums, if if, if you stop putting that kind of music to a click, it takes the human feel out, it takes it takes the.

8:04 Whole vibe and journey of these songs away. And nowadays people are making records and you know, the drums aren't done on the same day as the guitar or you know, everyone's done their own parts in a home studio somewhere else, and they're not they're not even. Closely, And how are you getting into it? Like as a musician, Like if you're playing by yourself, how are you getting into it? Like, yes, it's still fun to play, but there's something to be said. It's no different Dan. If I listen to a song and and they cut everything out except one instrument or just the vocals, it's stunt the scene. Yeah, it it's it's definitely where we're in a time now where everybody's got home recording equipment, uh and and even the big studios, everybody's just doing everything digital and editing it, but we're not really seeing, you know, the results that are coming out.

9:04 Where's the cut through? Where is the next where is the next ac DC? Where is the next Metallic? Where is the next Van Halen or Jimi Hendrix or you know any of these guys. It's just it might be an easy way. To record in and a budget way to make music and albums, but it's not adding to the depth of music legacy that we already have. And that's the shay. Yeah, totally. And you know, there's something be said about the realness and the rawness of not overproducing everything and mistakes happen like nobody's perfect. And you know you mentioned Van Halen. One of my favorite memories ever, of like thousands and thousands of gigs I've been to in my lifetime, was at the nineteen eighty three US Festival heavy Metal Day, which was weird because Triumph late on heavy Metal Day.

10:03 You can imagine if you had a heavy metal Day today and that was the band. But Van Hallin was the headliner of heavy Metal Day. And so they're starting to play, ain't talking about love and Eddie is looking over at Dave because he's not singing, and then Dave, the consummate like one of the greatest frontmen ever in my opinion, three hundred thousand people, and he just says on the mic, I fucking forgot the words and they all and they all and he was he wasn't even joking either, but the whole place roared like the best thing ever happened. Was that the biggest applause of the whole day, you know, because he forgot the words and that was even better typical Diamond Dave. There was one person in the crowd that echoed them, and that what can He turned to that one person and he pointing at me he goes, I'm gonna fuck your girlfriend.

11:09 Oh yeah, that's favorous, right, and how cool is that compared to today Today? If the band fucks up, it's usually because the band are trying to play along to backing tracks, right that they missed the arrangement up and now the vocals are out of sync with the music. You can't just pick that up. It's kind of like, you know, talk about a vibe killer, like if a singer just forgets some words and you go, hey, fuck it, you know, like, yeah, we're all in the moment together, two three, four, we go again. But when it's all sync the whole shows, you know, like backing tracks and sink blights. Yeah, well, like Phil.

11:51 At Field says that live shows, he goes, come on, guys, sing it with me, talking to the irons, because sometimes I forget the mers. You know, and you've got to give it to someone like James, Like he's playing really long shows. They're they're touring. You know, the amount of dates that a band like that does. When we talk about vocalists who you know, maybe need need backing tapes to fulfill touring commitments, there's so many shows and the voice just on only last so long. That is a different discussion. But yeah, head off to James. So that that's that would be a herculean task, right, And now you take the other side of that. There's bands today that cancel shows because there are laptops were working. Yeah, yeah, I remember that.

12:42 Yeah, yeah, that's that's I mean, there's some really great Instagram memes that go round of people that play with setups like that, and they've all got the in ears. So when someone comes to see their rehearsal, you can only hear drums. There's not there's you know, everything else is just going through in its. Man, you've you've just sucked the life out of everything here. It's our motto was especially going into this album, was everything needs to be moving here, you know. And at the same time that the guitars, the bass, the drums, the vocals, it's all got to be pushing air, real air in the same room. Just put some microphones well placed and capture the sound of this room.

13:29 That's that's the way it should be, you know. It's like even doing stuff like this, Okay, there are times that I'll tell my engineer if he's adding an interview or something like don't take the ums out because you know, if it's too polish, it's not really interesting the people. Yeah, it's been. Doctored and it's fake. And in a world full of fake shit, you we wanted to believe that sports and music were some of the last truly real anything can happen. But then you know, business starts to get their claws into that.

14:13 So maybe they want the band to do more dates than they're capable of, so they've got to use backing tracks for whatever reason, or just that they suck, I don't know. And games in sports that corrupted to get people to throw games. I mean, you know, we need something real, right, We've got to have something that's just human. And here's what I love. Okay, do you know the band Bad Flower? No? I don't, so check them out because they're really good. But they do a lot of festivals here in the US. And one of the festivals one giant. The singer he had Laryn Jacob, so he still came out and performed, and he plays guitar, so he was playing guitar, but he told the audience, I have Laren j Vis. I'm not allowed to sing. Can all of you sing for me? And they did their whole set, didn't cancel anything, and I think it was one of the best gigs they ever had because the whole place would sing in every song.

15:17 It's a bad ass. And I mean that stuff happens right like in in. Unlike unlike sports, where if it's a team sport, you might have an injury and you can, you know, you can bring in a replacement. Because it's part of the team. But music doesn't really have that, you know, like no, it's even the theater, I guess as understudies for maybe the main roles. But you know, in music, because you're paying not just to hear the performance or as you'd see a tribute bad you're paying to see the person. Yeah, I thought, if you're going to see Wasp, will it better be Blackie law Is singing. If you're going to see Metallica, it better be James Hepfield singing. And I mean, like you said, well if they're and they just fess up and say hey, And I mean on that point them we had that ere Slayer came out with Megadeath some years ago and Tom.

16:09 Had some horrendous ear infection. He could hardly stand up, but he had no voice, they played, he didn't sing. Guys from the support bands jumped up and all did a song each. Some people from the audience got up and sne You know, the band would have been like, well, we got through it. It's hardly going to be the crowning achievement. But the show goes on, right, That's what they say. Yeah, the I time and bad situation would be is like say, if Mustaine was his voice and they put Hatfield in the thing for him, he may not be happy about that. Hey that's well, that'll get plenty of coverage. That will right, He's getting enough coverage out of putting Ride the Lightning on.

16:52 The new Oh. I can't wait to hear what that sounds like, because I mean I was aving Theatallica's first show ever, so I actually that Mustine in Metallica, and I love Mustine. You know, I love Metallica too, but I love Mustine and like he did partially wrte that song. So I'm looking forward to hear it because even like I loved the Four Horsemen, but the mechanics, like that's. That's the real thrash song is the mechanics, you know, so you can't you can't imagine James Hetfield singing those lyrics right, the mechanics lyrics. Like Mustane always had that he like loved you to death.

17:37 He always he touched on those wake Up Dead, you know, like the relationship type stuff and Metallica in. Those early abums. They they wouldn't touch that with it, you know, with a yardstick. No, I'm a Mustane guy too. Then I used to work for road Runner Records. And in Australia. Prior to that, Sanctuary Records in the UK. So I got to work with Dave on a few albums just as a marketing guy. What what A what a hob work or what a you know? Pitched so weird because you know the whole thing that if there's like a spirit or something, you get chills. I just got chills because you know about Michelle Kerr, right.

18:19 Yes I do. Yeah, and obviously a US rep UK, she was UK, but she passed away last year. I knew her pretty well and I got chills when you were talking about road Runner because I was thinking I thought about her. It was funny because that's one of the festivals. I do media coverage for Bloodstock in the UK, which she she was the pr person for that, and so machine Head was playing and he did this like whole tribute to her, like on stage at the fest of all It was the most badass thing. I walked up to him like a month later at another festival in the US auns just like, what was it?

19:09 Ladder than Life? I think I just walked up film I was like, hey, I just wanted to say that was a pretty badass thing he did. Day came to Michelle and shook his hand and walked away because it was it was so cool, you know. So it's so funny. It's like road Runner Records is everywhere. Yeah, Like I mean, weren't they just they. Were really the brand for metal music and they were maybe the bigger of the independence. You know, if you were on road Runner when they come out with Merciful Fate, Annihilator and then that whole first wave of death metal.

19:54 I think the earlier Bitchery Records were road Runner and then the whole ninety sing with Fear Factory. Machine Head sept to her, YadA YadA, YadA, whatnot. Yeah, Well that's yeah, that's another story. Ily met Michelle the once when she came out for sound Wave out here in Australia and I was still working for road Runner and she was out here looking after Machinehead. Yeah, you know, it was funny. You'll love this. He was saying that she was a bat. This is his this is exact word, a badass bitch, and she could drink any guy under the table. He said. There were a few times I'm like, no, no, Michelle, I got a cap out. I'm done. You got me.

20:45 I look off. It's a tough industry to be in, full stop, but it's a tougher. Industry for a woman, for sure, and for her to make that mark on the world that she made, because there isn't anybody you can talk to in this industry that doesn't know her. It's kind. And she was like, she was very helpful to me too, Like I came over and I was covering Bloodstock and I'm there for a first time a few years back, and she was hooking me up with interviews with bands and stuff like helping me out and like just amazing, you know, And there's so many amazing people that were from Roadrunners. So it's very cool to me to learn that you were at Roadrunner too.

21:29 Yeah, yeah, well that's that's six degrees of separation or maybe in the music industry on the one degree line right. Right, totally. So, yeah, you have the new album, something Borrowed, something new? Are we getting married? Uh? It's going to be released worldwide December fifth on rock Shots Records. Who I guys say that record label. There's so many bands I interviewed from that record label, So who knows. Maybe they're this this decade version of Roadrunner.

22:09 Roberta who runs Rockshots. You know he's. I think I think the Roadrunner business model is it is something he looks up to, like from its heyday anyway. And something that Roberto always says that's very different to a lot of other labels is he's not interested in signing a band that's been around for twenty five years. On other labels, it's an easy sell. He wants to find new bands. So and is I think our his. Label only started maybe eight years ago, and our new album is going to be the two hundred and thirty sixth release or something like that.

22:50 I only know that because of the catalog. DD two three six, But I mean, so that's how many That's how many albums he's been putting out, and he just he's just passionate. About the music. You know, it's not about oh, this band's already sold this many on this label, or this band's got one hundred thousand followers on their Facebook page. Heat's just looking for music. And that's that's pretty refreshing in this day and age. Oh I love that because I was managing an artist a while back and I had a connection with Sonny Records, and their first question wasn't you know seventy to music? It was how many Instagram followers does she out? Yeah, they didn't even know what she sounded like yet. Yeah, that's so ridiculous to me. Yeah, I'm sorry, but I.

23:44 Mean that that is that is the business side over the music side, because they're just looking for an easy sell. If you know, an artist. Already has cultivated one hundred thousand fans or fifty thousand fans, whatever the case might be, an audience there for them to sell to. They don't have to they don't have to go out there and market hard to win over everything. And really that's that's the art side, you know, that's the music side of businesses. That creating the art that's going to resonate with people. So yeah, you know, Rockshots have been great to us. This is this is album number three, Nice Something Borrowed, something New, Like you said that that we thought that fitted well with its part covers, it's part originals, the Something.

24:33 I love it. It's such a brilliant name, and that. The album cover has a small boy sitting with some big old headphones on in front of a stereo with a stack of vinyl, you know, And that's that's that's how I grew up, when you weren't tied to a computer, you were just you know, in the moment, losing yourself in the music. So we tried to everything about this record, the way we recorded it, the format with the covers and the originals, the outlook. We just tried to tie the whole thing together into this. Very honest, very honest vision of where we're at right now. I love it because you know, I do see the picture of the cover which is behind me here, and I remember like I would. Okay, So I lived in La during the eighties scene. Okay, I grew up in Jersey and my dad moved me to LA in nineteen nine eighty. What a time to move La. So I was like the start of it all, Okay, I was you mentioned Blackie? Like I remember so clearly going to a show on Halloween in uh Bec. It was eighty one or eighty two and it was Wasp, Armored Saint, and this band Headshaker, who they never survived, but like, I'm still close friends with Armored Saint to this day.

26:00 I used to be good friends with Chris Holmes from Waston. We used to go to the mall together. And you know, I used to go to this record store in the valley called OZ Records. I told this story quite often nowadays because it seems to come up and this is appropriate with what you're saying is and I had a friend that was a record store clerk there, and me and my friends we would go there and he would show us these albums of bands, and that's how I discovered most of the bands. Like he would just say, here, you need to listen to this, and I like today where you couldn't listen to it first, you had to buy it, spend your hard earned money buying it, and you listened to it over and over again, no matter what, and you sat I used to sit on the balcony with my headphones on look at all the artwork, read the lyrics, all that stuff, and you know, it makes a difference in like that show I was talking out with was I saw a picture of them an armored Saint in the magazine where and I'm like, oh that show because of the way they looked, you know. Well that record store clerk also turned out he had a record label, so a lot of bands that he was showing us were bands he was handling. That was Brian Slagel. Oh, Brian, Okay, Yeah, Like several years back, I saw him at some event

27:33 that we were both going around, like, you know, you were actually pretty brilliant back then, what a brilliant marketing plan. And he's so humble, he's like, he goes. I was just a record store clerk, you know, And that's really what it was. It was just like the scene. I think that's what kids are missing today, Like we were like this community and like tape trading, you. Know, and I think guys like Brian and Johnny Z from Mega Force, like they were just guys that were so passionate about music and there weren't labels, Like there weren't outlets or vehicles for that type of music to travel through and they became those vehicles.

28:18 You know. They were like, well. If I can't if I can't help this band get signed, you know, to Geffen or polygor or whatever music for Nations, well I'll start my own bootique label and put stuff out. And you know, yeah, God bless them, like it's amazing. If it weren't for those two people you just mentioned, there might not be metal today, and there may not yet, and there definitely wouldn't be metallica today because. It would it would definitely be a lot different that the metal landscape would be very different without guys such as those two. Yeah, for sure, no doubt, no doubt so. And I look at rock Records that's today.

29:00 You can put Monty Connor into that list as well, because I mean the guy that started road Runner, it was a Dutch guy and it was never intended to be a heavy metal label. They just hired this young guy that was written in a radio show, Monty Connor, and he was getting all these demos. He signed Merciful Fate, he signed the side, he signed Fear Factory. You know, they're all his signings. I mean he you know, Roadrunner doesn't even have a metal it's not like Metal Blade Records. Roadrunner Records could have been a dance Labe, could have been. Monty Connor. He was the A and R guy and he came up with that roster and then all of a sudden, by default he's branded it.

29:47 It's like, well, this is a home of heavy. Metal, right It's wild how it worked out, But now we are. That has all led to today and this new music that you have that everybody has to listen to. Maybe if it weren't for a road Runner, we wouldn't be talking today and you wouldn't have a new album right now. That's well, there you go, And so tell everybody how they can reach out to you guys on socials, on the web, how they can get the new album, went drops, buy merch all that good stuff. You can follow us on Facebook, Greystone Canyon on Instagram. The album's available everywhere, whether it's a streaming platform that's you're preferred, or you want the physical copies. They're available on Amazon in the States through MVD. I mean, you only have to google Graystone Canyon and click shopping and there'll be a whatever you're preferred, whatever your preferred way of purchasing is or listening.

30:50 You know, it's all out there. We have a current single, which, as you mentioned. Dan, is the cover of Thin Lizzie's Suicide. It's racked up eighty thousand views in its first way to please tell on YouTube and check that out. We have a second single dropping this week, which is an original song called Stealing Our Freedom and I do believe Dan, We'll be doing a video for immigrant song The Lad's. Up Nice and you know what I love too, Okay. I think this is the difference between metal from our day and metal now. If you asked Tom of Slayer who his influences were, he didn't even know what metal was till Slayer, Okay, like one of the most profound voices in metal. Like he wasn't a metal head at all, you know, And there's so many that were like that, and we all came from the same thing. Like, Okay, we talked about Zeppelin, we talked about UFO, then Lizzie.

31:56 But then you're also doing a cover of a Neil Young song. I mean that's freaking amazing because I love nil Ya that that. Was really broad about, Like it was really broad about. By the lyrics of that song, that the whole the whole meaning of this album, Like I said, the organic way that we approached it, the cover, the combining covers with original songs to. See how they sit side by side. The lyrics to Neil Young's Hey, Hey, My My, into the Black, So we've done an acoustic version of that and it's it's darker. It's nice, but you know that was that was a lot of fun to do. And there is an.

32:40 Animated video coming out for that one, so yeah, watch. Out for that. It is. It's an interesting listen for sure, the new album, So I hope people could check it out and you know, enjoy our reinterpretations of these covers and some new Graystone Canyon original songs. Well, and that's I like the way you put the reinterpretation because I think that, like even with Mantawka, there's so many covers that they do that nobody knows it's a cover because they make it their own and a lot of dance. But it's like I always laugh because people always come to me and tell me that Nine Inch Nails covered this song by Johnny Cash called Hurt. Yeah, it's the other way around, yeah, exactly, But that that says so much though, because it says that, you know, Johnny made his own interpretation to where he you would think it's an original, you would think it's a Johnny Cash song when he does it, it doesn't sound like a nine inch nail song.

33:49 No, that was such a clever movement. I think that was Rick Rubens doing. Yeah, that is a great example. And I mean, you know, that could be said about maybe Marilyn Manson's version of Sweet Dreams. That's it. You know, they took a pop song that was played on the radio and turned it. Into this really dark, industrial, you know, kind of chaotic. Morbid song. I would say that covers that we have done, they've remained faithful for the most part. We didn't want to change them too much. And the Neil Young one is probably the one that's well, it's definitely the one that's.

34:31 The most different to the original. Well, and like I said, you did sound you know, just like Phil So I mean, and that just that brought me right in right there, because that's the other tough thing when you're doing covers is you know, it's tough to try to sound like them and do it better because they're original, or to even do it the same. Have mad respect for bands like yours that can take a song like that and you still have the familiarity of the song itself. Yeah, the people that played.

35:12 It thank you very much. I think most of the time with the vocal, you know, especially when you're doing different covers, it's it's pointless to try and impersonate people. But you need to put yourself into it and it needs to sound. It needs to sit well and it needs to sound genuine. Yeah, you can get those two things, you know, like pretty much on point, the song will come across. And you know, we keep referencing Metallica doing covers, look at all the different bands from Nick cave To. About the Beatles, Yeah, that the whole beginning of the Beatles was covers pretty much sure, and people think that was their songs. There's so many Beatles songs that people think it was their song. I mean, cover or original.

36:04 The publishing matters, that matters, but I mean to the listener, it doesn't really matter as long as it's still a good song. Yeah, if you take if you. Take someone else's song, I'm not saying you taking it making it better, but if a good song is a good song, and if you do it justice it will still be a good song. There it is. You know, there's a million variables to that, but I think, in a nutshell. There it is. So I guess one of my final questions is how do you keep doing this? Like I always wonder that with artists, like after you've been doing it for so long, can you keep coming up with new material and original music. It's like I think about that, and I'm just in awe of artists that can do that.

36:52 It's it's just total inspiration, you know, And and inspiration. Is all around us all the time. I guess the great thing about music now, even though we're saying, you know, the music industry sucks, but we're not looking for the next trend now. Most of the time we're looking backwards and digging into catalogs. So you're just. Endlessly inspired by maybe something that's been around for fifty years but you haven't heard it before. So it's just that endless inspiration. It's also for me personally a little bit about the continued musical growth. Like I had some music theory lessons a few years ago. I knew music theory, but I wanted to know more, and that creeps into your playing and you're writing and you just start or you just keep expanding, you know.

37:45 That's how it is. That's how it is for me. It doesn't mean everything. You're right, it's going to be better than the last. But you know, it's like cooking. You might keep reinventing your dish, but your wife might say, hey, it's not as good as last night's dish. But it doesn't doesn't mean you don't stop trying. Just take right. And I think it gets harder and harder, doesn't it. Like so I think as you get more and more into you know, into your calog like it, it has to get harder to try to outdo yourself. And not because of any other reason, but like if you got ten albums as an example, to try to outdo all ten of those albums opposed to trying to outdo the first album and with the second one, man, it's gonna be tough. Yeah, I mean, I think it depends what you mean by outdo.

38:45 I think when people get really caught up in the music business, outdo means. Out sell, you know, and I don't think of it that way, but yeah, I. See that, Well, that's out That's how libels would be looking at it. You know, you creatively, you might feel that you've surpassed everything that you've ever done. But if it isn't embraced by critics and fans, it's deemed as well, you. Know, it's an underachiever. Yeah. So, and a lot of the times when you say out do, if outdo does mean popularity in sales, you might have to dumb something right down, so you're really not out doing it, you're underdoing it.

39:26 And to me, the how and to me, the outdoing as any artists or like what I do or anything is like you're always trying. You're in competition with yourself. It has nothing to do with anything else. And because we are our own worst critics. Like you know, I can't tell you how many times I've gotten off an air review and the artist was like, man, I was like the best interview I've ever had, and I'm thinking, my head, really that kind of sucked. I kind of sucked, you know. But where you know, we're doing this out of a passion, right, yeah, And I think that's where you can separate yourself from that trying to outdo anything, because if you're passionate about it, you know the paths that you're going down chasing that passion might change and you can't.

40:23 Compare the two. It's just it's it's another interview or another song, and you know, if we've enjoyed it, fantastic, it's. Yeah, no doubt. And yeah, as you you know, get more experience at the craft, get better at the craft. You know, I think as an artist, you know, you do go down different paths, Like you're not going to write the same stuff you did when you were fifteen because different experiences and outlooks and perceptions and all that gain. We're going back to that. You know. Maybe the industry sucks, but I keep using that as a juxtaposition for a positive. Is whilst all of these little independent labels like the one I'm with getting our music out to people, they're not controlling us.

41:17 You know, I love it. You can put out anything you want that no one's saying the song's got to be three minutes, the song's got to be one hundred and ten bpm, the song's can't have an intro that goes longer than fifty You can do whatever. Like so if we choose to try and write, you know. One song that's maybe a bit instant and a bit of a toe tabot could be a you know, it could be an instant. Hits or favorite songs, or you. Want to write a twelve minute epic or a whole album of twelve minute epics. No one's telling you you can't wear I love that biz. It's controlled. You know, if someone's pouring loads of money I eat a label into a producer to make this record, well they're going to want to oversee it.

42:03 That may be. That may be difficult for a creative person. I wouldn't know about that because we're just kind of we're just you know, we're independent band. We can just do whatever we want. I remember in the eighties on the Sunset Strip sitting backstage with some of those bands and watching the record labels telling them how their music had to be from now on, how they had the dress from now on, and I was like, this is bullshit. I actually left the whole scene because of that, because I was like, I don't want to eat part of this. So I love hearing about today artists like you and talking about having the freedom because my whole viewpoint is let the business people do their business stuff and let the artists do the creative stuff.

42:46 Absolutely, And look, I'll be honest. In our league, the stakes are fairly low, you know. Like I mean, if on this album we sell a few thousand copies and and the videos get half a million views or something, that's a big win for us. But in the grand scheme of things, that's it's just it's small. But it's important to us to to create the best music we can and their role in it, i either labels, is to get it to as many people as they can, and if we both do our job, it's a win. You know. We don't have to be on top of the world or on top of the mountain. We're just here doing what we love and that's working.

43:28 That's the key right there, because at the end of the day, that is the true key to life is just being happy and passionate about what you do. Because if you spend your whole life hating your job or what you do, what good is it? What good is the money? What goodness? The success? It's a waste. It's you know, Yeah, there's no read through on this thing. We're just here on the journey and you better make every moment count. I was fortunate enough. I'll give you a little story. I was fortunate enough to play guitar on the last Paul Deiano tour, who as you knows, Wow.

44:12 I'm tall all on Team Giano. Killers is one of my favorite album. I got to do this the last Australian tour with Paul Deano. We're playing Killers and I made him self titled in its entirety. Man Ever since he was out of Iron Maiden, which is like nineteen eighty one, he never really made any money, but he never stopped being passionate about music. You know, like he's passed away now, God rest his soul. But it just goes to show even decades since he'd had the success going out and playing club shows to people sing it along to Running Free and fanom of the Opera and Rothschild, and he had the biggest grin on his face and he was in a wheelchair and you know, inconsiderable pain most of the time. But his spirit for doing it was was just it wasn't I love it?

45:11 Oh, I love it. It's like Ozzie too. Like I knew Ozzie was going to go out after that, because, like I said, for years when they Sharon was talking about him retiring and I'm like, if he stops performing live, he will die because he lives for that. Like he just lived for it. And all he had to do is see the look on his face at that back to the beginning, and he went out on his own terms for sure, because that was like probably one of the best trimes with his life that night.

45:51 That that is so amazing. It got to happen too, because I mean, imagine if that had been a couple of weeks later, it wouldn't have happened. I think I think he purposely stayed alive. He was like, screw you, I'm not going till I do this show. I believe that too. And you know, watching the watching the footage of him desperately trying to get up out of that chip, because. Oh my god, oh my god, that was getting to me right there, because I've seen Ozzy every year since nineteen eighty. I saw Ozzie with Randy Rhodes and like, I was there he did. There was this festival called Moonstock several years back, like right before the pandemic, where we had that total eclipse throughout the whole world. It was like one of the biggest ones and it was at the epicenter of it, and he was performing Bark at the Moon during the solar eclipse, and I got to shoot it, Like I'm not normally a photographer, but they give me a photo pass and I was standing right under him shooting him. I have the pictures like that.

47:02 They're amazing that it looked like it was dark out when it was daytime because the soar eclipse, and just an amazing experience. And like you think about all the things that he's done in all these years, and how amazing is it too that he got kicked out of Sabbath, thought it was the end of the world, and he ended up bigger than he ever would have been in Sabbath. It's such a triumph on so many levels, Like Sharon Ossie as attained, Yeah, against the odds, that first lineup that he had in those first two records, Like how special they were in not only for his career, but the evolution of hard rock and heavy metal and just guitar, and then that every guitarist.

47:57 That they managed to find was just this like it's like, how. Can you you know you think all there's only one Eddie van Haylend, and you know, of course there is only one Eddie van Halend, but you go for Randy Rhodes to Jakie Lee to Zach Wilde. It's like, what's like, well, not only that, okay, think about in one year. In one year I saw Ozzie play with Randy Rhodes and then he had for a short stint filling in Pat Travers after Benny Rhodsi and then Brad Gillith Gillis like, like how many musicians this man has collected through the years, and then the final album all the people he was singing songs with like Elton John and like just amazing.

48:47 Yeah, absolutely, what a fantastic career, what a huge life, Like that's a life well and never to be replaced, never to be forgotten. I mean it's it's fairy tale stuff, you know, no doubt. Yeah, huge, huge influence and huge part of my life too, Like, yeah, amazing. And this new album that's very tale stuff too. Everybody's got to buy it. You're your new album. You know, they can't borrow it either, they gotta get it new.

49:31 Yeah, well, I mean honestly, like, listen to it, let contact us, let us know what you think, share it around and yeah, dang, that's that's the best mate. That's a that's a nice plug there. Thank you very much, you got it. Yeah. They final words for our listeners. No, I really appreciate the opportunity you're talking to me in sunny Melbourne, Australia, gray Stone Canyon. We're all just about honesty and integra and tipping your hat to the legacy of everything that's hard rocking heavy metal and just just be safe and you know, keep. Love in life. Love it you guys rock. I love what I've heard off the new album. I can't wait till the rest of it comes out. And thanks for being on the Adventures of paint Man.

50:20 Hey, this is Darren Cherry from Graystone Canyon on the Adventures of the Pipe Man. Thank you very much for having me and God. Bless you all. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of pate Man. I'm w for CUI Radio.