PipemanRadio Interviews As You Were at Welcome To Rockville 2023

0:04 Hey, you love them too, that's one why you wake up of America. It's time for the Adventures of Pipe Man on W fourcy dot com west pom Beats, his number one internet radio station. Here's your host, the White Man. I had sing my time to get to my pime mountains. How I tie I had you by my way day because it's the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio. And I'm here with as you were. Such a brilliant band name for what you guys are.

1:03 Thank you very much. I love your shirt. Actually, that's a cool I gotta tell my son because my son's psyops. I'm like, you need to get fatigues like that, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, as you were. It's the best uniform ever. Now do they let you wear that as part of your uniform? Yes? Yes, So we we represent the US Army while we're on stage, and we there's always something on our outfits that you know, gives credit to the Army's pay him to, you know, paying our bills and sending this out here engaging with the American public. So yeah, we represent in our own way. Nice. I remember the first time I talked to you guys, call my son afterwards.

1:49 I'm like, why didn't you sign up for this job? Like, why are you doing what you do? This is a much better job in the army, definitely, probably because he doesn't have talent. It really is the best job in the army. We're very lucky. There's over one hundred and fifty different jobs and we found the best one. Yeah, Instead he's jumping out of planes into Somalia and like we'll see in six months. We don't know yet. I think me as the parent, i'd rather see in that Rockville. Yeah, definitely, I could see that. I could see that. So tell us what it's like to be in the army and in the band and playing freaking Welcome to Rockville. Well, the first time we came here was in November twenty twenty one, and that was like an experiment for us. I don't think this band has ever done that. In sept for Warped Tour when it was like really in the early stages of this band, so coming here we had like no expectations of what it would be like.

2:46 We thought we were going to be in fatigues, you know, playing like it was gonna be very army, But it was really cool seeing one the treatment of Welcome to Rockville. You get in the green room and it's like this is for us. It's crazy, and then you get to see obviously all the great music, but it's really cool to see how the crowd responds to us, especially like when we did our first show here. Tommy was like, hey, you know, we serve in the United States Army, were active duty, and the crowd just went crazy and it was like a super awesome experience to see because in the Army band, normally you're playing for community events and stuff like that, so you don't really get huge crowds like over here. So playing Welcome to Rockville and all the Danny Wimmer Presents stuff is phenomenal. I mean, and especially seeing all the people who come after the booth and they're like, it is. I do a lot of festivals.

3:31 It is the most professional festivals, and they do take care of people that are part of it, like you guys, and the fact just alone taking care of our armed forces. That's good enough for me, you know, because thank you for what you guys do for us. Yeah, we really appreciate it. And Danny Wimmer himself came up to us and said, you know, like you were great. We want you here all the time. So that was really respectful for us, you know, seeing him actually come up to us, say, we watched the show. We saw you guys like huge talent. So seeing that, I mean, that's like a dream come true. And after that, all of the other ones I followed. It's the same treatment and it just gets way better and better. So I love it. Now. A different version of this band used to play at the Warp Tour, right that wasn't any of us, but that we thought would be the apex of this group. But now that we get to do this, I think we've met the apex already. There it is.

4:27 You are at the apex, and you know, I think you guys got to tell the listeners, the young ones like all about this because I know if I thought when I was a kid that I could play music in the army, I would have joined. Probably I didn't join because I was into music. So I think it's important to educate, you know, the young people out there of like, there's another way, it's not you know, this image of what it is to go into the army, Well, yeah, that that's a little bit of my story. I can say on my unique story, I joined late from what is usually I joined at twenty seven, But I have that same say that what you say, I wish I knew about this earlier. But also you know, I don't regret a joining late at twenty seven because you know, I came with experience and a whole life of being exposed to different things. And the cool thing about it is that I can use all that that I did before right now on this job.

5:38 And that's the cool thing about what we do. We go around, we place high schools, not just festivals like this one, which is great, but also we led the joint generation the high schoolers that the Army have to offer, not just this job, but one hundred and fifty different careers. Yeah, because a lot of that, you know, cultural and movies. The perception is that the Army is all about combat, which is great, but also you can do in the army, like like I said, one hundred and fifty opportunities out there where you can serve and music is one only one of them, and that is that is great, you know, to be part of serveys, doing what you went to college for and serving people on that way. That is actually great. Yeah, that's very cool, And you know you brought up a good point because you know, like serving in the army isn't what people think it is. And I know for my son it changed his life and turned him into a man, which might not have happened. And when I say that, people could say, oh, well, you're a man when you're this age. No, you're a man when you're acting like a man. You know, it has nothing to an age. And he would tell you himself. You know, he's a totally different person than he was back then because direction, education, experience, and you know purpose. That's a great word to use because that's so true.

7:12 Purpose. That's usually why kids go astray because they don't feel in need of purpose or any purpose, and that I think is something you're absolutely spot on the army Gibson. And I think that's the cool part and unique part about this group specifically is yeah, we fall under recruiting, but like kids will see us in high school one they'll say you're the first band I've ever seen, which you know that you almost feel like kiss or guns n' roses whenever you hear right. And then the second thing is like those outcasts the people who might not know what they want to do in life. I came from that. I joined at nineteen got you know, it was like my dad's I either go to college or you join the military. And had at one point seven GPA in high school, so I don't think I was going to college. So I joined the military, not as a band person, as signal and ended up reclassing. But point is, like we actually show the kids there you can follow your dreams. You can do exactly what we're doing, play music, instruments, you can, you know, be a scientist anything you want. The army and it is it really is incredible psyops, cybersecurity, you know, just crazy things that and you could go to different things. Like my son started as a mechanic, yeah, you know, and now he's like he's pretty serious. There's a lot of shit I don't know and I don't ask, you know. Yeah, and like he's so proud of it too, and he's he's definitely a military man all the way, you know. And I don't even know if he'll no way that's after he retires, because this is all he's known and it's definitely even his mentality. But it turned him to in my opinion as the dad, a

8:45 respectable man who provides for his family, is responsible and and you know basically doesn't do stupid shit to be fun. Yeah, later beat him. Like I said, you know, I thought I was I knew almost everything you know when I when I joined the military. But for me personally, it's being an experience and uh and I will say, a humble experience of learning like I was back in their garden in leadership school for example. You know, like my conception of what is leadership totally changed when I joined the army um and not just being a leader for being a boss, but actually taking care of people, taking care of yourself, your family. And like Ryan, our drummer says, you know, it gave me a purpose of I'm here to learn as well, not just to perform. So we all have, you know, different areas so to grow and some of us are way ahead in this track or and some of us like us. I'm the last member that joined this version of as you were, so I have a bunch to still learning from this guys that have been here longer than me. And it's not just music on what we do, but the military aspect of this job it's it's really interesting too if you're in too, you know, change your life acquiring other set of skills that other why will you will have to

10:18 either pay to learn them or have a degree on that or you know, it's it exposed you to that kind of learning. Absolutely. And I want to talk about the skateboard because you came up with the board and like, now you impressed me even more. Okay, their army and they're playing in a band at Rockville and skateboarding. Yeah, so one thing I know that so a lot of our bosses, you know, the Army in general is pushing this work life balance Thingum. They they're really stressing you know, they want you to find this this you know, the right the right kind of balance between being you know, being yourself but also you know, being a representative of the United States Army at the same time being professional. You know, there's something that we call the Army values that we're supposed to live by at all times. You know, whether or not you're wearing the uniform or not, right, but you know, the Army does encourage you to you know, be yourself and to you know, if everything is going well, you should be able to express yourself in that way and have your hobbies and stick to them. And me personally, the Army has been really good to me. I mean they sent me to Germany as my first assignment. I'm an Army brat. I grew up mostly overseas anyway, and that's exactly what I wanted, you know. So I got to travel, you know, and I take I take leave all the time to travel and as often as I can, I'm on my longboard, you know. Yeah, you'll find me around my neighborhood skating and fighting new spots. And then of course there's

11:50 the musical aspect as well, so we each one of us. Music is a huge passion, probably the biggest passion of ours, and we get to do that on the outside as well. We are musicians on the outside. We play gigs, and then we also get to serve our country playing music as well, coming out to you know, Rockville and other Danny Wimber presents, you know, festivals and stuff. So it's great. We're beyond thrill. That is awesome, you know, because it's not the image everybody always has of it, you know, And I didn't have that image of it while I was a kid, like my image was, Yeah, nobody's telling me what to do, and nobody's tell me cut my hair. So I'm not going in the army, you know. And so I like that you're educating people and showing them a different way. And I'd love that whole work life balancing because most of us in the United States don't have that, you know. And so if the Army is starting to teach that, I think, speaking of leadership, that's going to trickle down to the rest of us.

12:52 Yeah. Absolutely, yeah, it's really Yeah, that's a very important thing, very important thing. Yeah. So is there any goals of as you were, that have not been reached yet that you're still looking at? I know, I know our our drummer has mentioned that, you know, hitting the Apex, you know, getting getting to the high point, and we've been laughing, and you know, me and and Ryan the drummer here, we've been here the longest and we've been saying to each other for years like, oh, it can't get better than this, and then it does, and then oh we get to another festival and it can't get better than this, and then it does, and then enter in Ohio. That was the Apex. I think he's joking, he's joking. Way still waiting to go to the Caribbean and help some kids there, you know, and uh living experience nice. Yeah, I think I think getting to Puerto Rico and playing some shows there would be um that that's a dream of ours for sure.

13:52 And there is there is an opportunity that that that does exist out there. You know, there are there are yeah there really honestly at this point, nothing would really surprise us. Well, you know, it's funny, okay, you talk about Germany and like my son was Station Germany. My son in law was Station Germany. And I'm thinking you guys need to play like kin play where Waking which is the a big metal music festival in Germany. Yeah, and you could represent the US in Germany. Yeah, music that you know, Yeah, because I mean and and actually if as you were, was, if we were based out of Germany, we probably would get an opportunity to the you know, the Army maybe would consider sending us out there. You know, they have bands actually there there is an Army band that is full time stationed in Germany. Wow. Yeah, And so that's that's another thing. There's a there's an there are Army musicians that are stationed full time in Belgium as well as well as Japan and Hawaii. So there are international Yeah, there are US Army international musicians out there who are stationed around the world, you know, serving their country. Like I would never think of any of this stuff that's going on, you know, And that's the misconception that maybe most people have of the armed forces. Like it's not what you think. It's you know, you're living life doing what you want to do. Listen, you're in the Army and you're playing music and you're skateboarding and doing whatever else. Like I mean that to me, that's

15:26 the apex I would say that's true, is if you get ahead of it and figure out what you want to do before you join the army, and then use the army's career path to get it. Is what you want, That's what I'm doing. Like, I just drumming. That's my purpose. So I'm using the Army do that, and when they kick me out, I'll do the same thing. And I love that you're wearing your dog tag and your drum key on the same necklace. Yeah, you can even hear it. I mean love it. So how do people reach out to you, guys, connect with you. Is there merch that they can get because we know bands need merch to survive and uh, you know everything else.

16:07 Well, the coolest part about our merches is free. So we just released our fourth album. It's on Spotify. We have vinyls we hand out at all the festivals, all the high schools. So whenever we come, that's typically what we do is we'll play a show, meet us at the tent, we'll sign it. How you can reach us as Instagram, AYW Music, Facebook is Army Musical Outreach. So we have a Spotify of all of our albums and we have a website aywmusic dot com as well. Nice. Every time you say high school, I'm just thinking myself, what a brilliant way to recruit, Like, why didn't they do that when I live in Nice and you know, I was a recruiter prior to this thing, And I'll tell you we used to do like table setups and all that stuff.

16:48 And you know, you're not getting a lot of interaction with the kids because it's the uniform and they're like scared. When we go and play, they rush the tables, stay rush in. They're like yeah, well, we'll sign up next week. We'll go, we'll go. Most of my friends have probably needed to go into the Army would have reacted to a band being there. They would have never reacted to the table. Actually, I have a pretty cool story that recently happened. The other day. We had a day of and well, I'm the bass player, but I went with Austin, who's the lead guitar player, and Tom, who's the singer and guitar player. We went to a local store here. I guess I'm not supposed to mention names, but you can't mention who every well, we went to the addict the guitar attic um in day Tuna, and uh. It was funny because we were talking to him and he asked us, like, who are you guys? Of course it was day off. We were not in uniform, you know. But Austin mentioned to the owner of the store, who's also of course a guitar player, that you know, we're an army band what we do and apparently a version of as you were before this name was established, went to his high school. What year he's saying, in the eighties, because that's when I went to high school. Exactly. So apparently this assisted, but it wasn't established like or being run like it is right now, where it's structor eyed, you know, and we have a

18:18 whole support, a battalion and you know, a whole structor behind us. But back then, in the eighties, you can see the Army was trying to do something like this, which which is really cool. If they did it more like today, maybe like Metallica, we've been an army band. Yeah right, Oh my god, that would be so funny. Yeah. He was just saying. He was saying the same thing you're saying. He's like, you know, and I never I we didn't even mention we were in army. It's like a saw an army band. They were like, great, they inspired me to pick up the guitar. And I was like, oh, well, it's just a regular army band. He's like, no, this was a rock band. Man. They were playing in UFO like all kinds of stuff. And I was like, that is crazy to be here, Like what a simulation, right right? And I didn't even know that existed way back then. Yeah, so the Armies do a better job of putting you guys out there. It's very cool, is there anything else you guys want to share that we haven't covered a rate that people need to know. I would just say, you know, we we want you all to be happy and successful. If you all have a plan for what you want to do in life, we wish you the best of luck.

19:23 You know, we work under recruiting command, but we're not recruiters, you know. All our job is to spread the message of the opportunities that are out there. So we just want to encourage people if they don't really have a plan, you know, to consider some of the options, some of the career opportunities that exist. And like I said before, we want you all to be successful and happy, and you know, find your passion and follow it. And if that is the Army route, if the Army route helps you all get there, then you know good, especially nowadays where education is so freaking expensive, and you can go in the army and you can get a GI bill and you can get in that vacation without having a few hundred thousand of the rest of you I had. I had sixty five thousand dollars of student debt paid, and then I also got a master's degree that was almost completely paid for by the Army, and I still have education.

20:14 But I still have my post nine to eleven GI bill completely untouched. So if I wanted to, I could even go back to school and get a doctorate and have the Army pay for it. It's amazing because most people wouldn't be able to get a doctorate without a without the Army the right because I can't afford you. Yeah exactly, and yeah I have no, I have no I'm debt for you because of that. That's amazing. See there's more stuff that's good about it, Like I never even realized till my son got into military, like the benefits of it. Yeah. I was more on the other side. I was like, you joining the Army for it? Yeah, you know, and h But now I see what it's done.

20:57 And listen, I look get him and his family, and it's the dream because he created the stability that every parent wants their kids to create. That something I probably never had even and I credit the Army for that because he was definitely on a bad path before that and he went the exact opposite of the pendulum. That's good. Glad to hear that. So there it is. And then we could just play music. Yeah, like yeah, and then the only thing I guess I would say is just you know, follow us on our page. We have a great year of festivals and other shows coming up. So AYW Music, like Austin had mentioned, AYW Music is where you'll find our page on Instagram, on Facebook, it's Army Musical Outreach.

21:45 And then also on YouTube. We're just type in as you were or Army Band as you were, and you'll find us. We've actually just dropped a music video not too long ago, about a week ago, So yeah, we have some music videos up there. Check it out. And yeah, if you stream music, Apple Music, Spotify, wherever you stream it, you'll find us. As well. Being in the Army too, you probably have access to some of the best technology for doing the videos and the music and everything. Yeah, I think, and the Army has been really good to us too. I mean they've sent us out to some world class studios to record our music as well. I mean we did our first EP, we did it at a small place in Louisville called Downtown. Recording the second album they sent us out to Sonic Ranch outside of El Paso, and then the third one we actually went to Sweetwater Studios up in Indiana. So I mean we've we've actually been given some amazing opportunities to make use another thing too, especially in this day and age. Like back in the day, record labels would throw moneys at bands, so they don't do that anymore.

22:45 So now you know, this is an avenue where you know, it's like you're getting the highest of production and get stuff that a band not in the Army would not be able to do it. Right, we're actually building at we're our own studio and everything's you know, faith for m by the Army. So wow, yeah, it is free, cool experience. I love it. Well you guys rock, uh, you definitely rock. Welcome the Rockville and there it is. Yeah, thank thanks for being on the Adventures of pipe Man. Thank you picking us here at Welcome to Rockville, Rock and most of all serving our country and protecting all of us to be able to have this interview. Well we just have to thank you all. I mean, without your love and support, you know, without the American public, you know, giving giving us this opportunity, we wouldn't be here.

23:41 So we really we come from a place where we're very humbled and we're very honored. You know, we feel very honored, and um, I love it. Thank you. And I'm also of an opinion that listened. You can be against war but pro soldier. Yeah, and that's that's kind of like who I am. I'm not a big war person, and but that doesn't mean against a soldier because the soldiers, the way I look at is you're doing something I wasn't willing to do to protect my right to say whatever I'm saying right now. And that's that's the way it is, that's what it's all about. Absolutely, Yeah, and we thank you some badass rock and roll. Yeah, absolutely, thank you for listening to the Adventures of plate Man. I'm W four CUI Radio