PipemanRadio Interviews Canadian Instrumental Prog-Metal Band Phaeton

0:04 Hi, you have done to censure w C WOW for you young. This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four C Y Radio. And I'm very excited because we have, like I do, a lot of bands from Canada because their music is so good. I never really understand you have artists in Canada that don't need nine members at a band, and we get make a fuller sound than nine members would. So we're going to talk about that with our guest here from the band Theton How are you very good?

1:04 I'm very good. Thank you very much Dean for hosting me today. Hey, my my pleasure. And yeah, it's so true. Like, okay, so I tend to think that most prague or prog metal comes from Canada anyway, because you guys are like the greatest musicians. I don't know if it's because you know, your weather's so cold for most of the year that you're just stuck inside well learning music. Well, well that's part of it. I mean, like you have to realize that you know, like, well we're not you know, an antarctic wasteland or anything like that, but still with Canadian weather, Yeah, you've got five months of winter and then you've got seven months of bad sledding, so and so again. Yeah, I mean that's the faster you can play, the warm your hands stay.

1:49 So there you go. It's like, yes, there's very much, Yes, climactic inspiration. That's a key part of it. But it's funny you should say that though, because I mean, like we take a lot of inspiration from I mean, I mean, yes, a lot of prog metal getting made here in Canada, that's for certain, but we take inspiration from American Prog Medal and European Prog Medal. See. It's always like that, I find out because like I go all over the world doing radio coverage at music festivals, and it's so wild to hear other people's perspectives, Like even at like I do a couple of festivals in the UK, and I talk about how like when I was a teenager in the eighties, all I wanted to do was go to London because of the punk scene.

2:34 And then I talked to my friends there and they're like, all we wanted to do is come to the States for the punk scene, and I'm just like, it's just so wild the perspective from every area. We always it's just human nature. We want to be somebody else. The grass is always greener on the other side of the Atlantic. Right right. And you know you brought up a good point before that I always think about too, is when it is cold out, how the hell do people play their instruments? Like, you know, if you were to play a festival and it's freezing outside and you're in an open air festival, there's got to be the hardest thing in the world to play any guy of instrument.

3:15 Oh it is. But luckily my wife's a knitter and so she knitted me a whole bunch of pairs of special fingertipless gloves. Wow, actually do for that, because I mean I live in the Canadian Rockies and so during the winter time there's lots of gigs to be had at, you know, the ski resorts, which ye have quite a bit of on the British Columbia side of the Rockies and the Alberta side of the Rockies. But of course, I mean, it's not fun when it's below freezing and you know, you're like three thousand feet above sea level. But hey, you don't have gig will travel, But yeah, you got to be able to have you know, nervous sensation below your elbows. Right, so hey, it's the frontier spirit man, improvise, adapt and overcome no doubt.

3:58 And then you know, it's funny because they're going on tour now. But I mean, to me, Rush is like probably the original, even though they don't probably consider themselves as way prog metal band to me, you know, because to me, that first album was totally metal, oh for sure. Oh. I mean like it's like how whenever you interview the surviving members of Black Sabbath, right, they never considered Black Sabbath to be a heavy metal band, right? I mean like that term was invented by journalists a couple of years down the road when they noticed that certain elements of post psychedelic you know, hard rock was moving into darker and more you know, scarier territory. And the same with Rush, right, I mean you got to I mean, Rush, of course, are Canadian legends and icons, and I'm so glad they've finally gotten their due after being crapped on by most of the so called knowledgeable critics for so many decades. Right, but no, like when they like when they first evolved, especially when you heard their first album and they were more of like a derivative led Zeppelin, who sounding kind of band, right yeah, And then when Neil Peart joined the band, that's when they became a progressive rock band. And that's when they began combining elements of seven what you know, what was nineteen seventies heavy metal into seventies progressive rock. And no, they'd never really considered themselves prog medal, but of course all of us, who well I'll speak for most of the Canadian contingent

5:28 of the metal world, you couldn't avoid Rush and again, like you were inspired by them right right, you know, I mean you had a singer that sounded like a cross between Robert Plant and Donald Duck, you know, and again and the guy redefined what you could do on the bass guitar, at least as far as I was concerned. You know, you had Alex Lifson, who was born in our neighboring town of Fernie, British Columbia. Have to nice so you know, so the Coutineys you know, take Rush to heart quite a bit. And you know Neil Pierre right like tractor salesman by day, percussion god by night, right and so yeah, I mean especially like some of their albums, like you know, there there their late seventies work like you know, like a farewell to Kings and Hemispheres, those kind of albums were really there, their prog Pinnacle moving pictures as well. But like, but it's great because to talk about how fearless a band was. That was a band that was flying the prog flag in the late seventies when most of the classic prog artists were getting their careers killed by the punk rockers. And you know, and Prague became a dare I say four letter word, right?

6:45 But no, hey, like it's it's better now, right, I mean with the twenty first century and the rise of the Internet, and now there's no more monoculture, right, Like, there's no more there's no more passing fads or phases the way it was in the nineteen nineties when you couldn't admit you were a heavy metal fan because all the grungeers cut your throats, you know. And it's like and now it's like anything goes and everything goes, and there are huge worldwide audiences for any style of metal, whether you're a prog artist or a metal artist or whatever. And it's great. It's you know, musical democracy at work, and we love it. I love it too, because I do come from the gatekeeper shit.

7:27 You know. The eighties was the pinnacle of gatekeeping, like, oh well you can like one band and like another band. It wasn't even just genre. It was like, oh yeah, yeah, well that kind of tribalism doesn't even exist much anymore. I mean you do come across a lot of you know, like upity and annoying metal fans that you know, say that I like metal and nothing else. And maybe to a certain point you can say that because now there are so many divisions and sub genres of heavy metal that a lot of times it's hard to keep track. Yeah, but I mean speak of the point of view of me and the other guys who are in faton. It's like we don't want to be one dimensional, right, I mean like if the term progressive rock means anything goes and proge is what you make of it, it's like you can draw inspirations from anywhere you see fit as long as you make it work. And uh, and yeah, I'm glad those gatekeeping days are gone.

8:26 To it's just oh it's stupid. I couldn't go to punk shows because I had long hair, you know, and vice versa, you know, and it was just like it's just stupid, like whatever you want to like. And for all those metal heads that say they only like metal, I call bullshit because if you really like music, there's all there may be music you don't like, but there's playing different types of music you like, depending on what you're doing, your vibe, you're feeling whatever. Oh I agree. Like for example, Colin Wrighton who is he's our drummer and he's super super good. I mean we rely on him because you know, he's always glued to you know, what's being released on band camp, you know, every three days and he's like, hey, have you have you heard Bludgeoned copra Phagist or something like that, And I'm like, uh no, and he'll say check it out.

9:18 And but Colin's also a big Tom Petty fan and he makes no bones about it. So I mean, like, you know, and you've got you know, Kevin Teeson, who is our one of our lead guitarists and he's also our keyboardist. Like he's huge into like the seventies prog bands and the eighties neo prog bands like me but he also has a soft spart because he's a Genesis fan. He has no bones being a Phil Collins fan, right, or Huey Lewis in the news or whatever. And yeah, you're right. When I was a junior high school kid, you couldn't have Metallica albums or Huey Lewis albums on the same shelf. Otherwise you just got torn apart. But again, like and you don't even need to be a prog musician or a metal musician. I mean, just be a music lover. And yeah, you're gonna and it's all subjective as far as your music tastes go. Right, You're gonna have stuff you like and stuff you don't like. But ultimately, whatever you consider to be good music or bad music, it's entirely up to you.

10:20 That's so true, because everybody has different tastes and it should be okay, you should as well as you like music. I don't care what kind of music you like. It's the people that don't like music I worry about. Well, no, like they're sociopaths. Right, You're going to stay away with those people, otherwise your severed head is gonna end up in the refrigerators. No doubt, no doubt. And it's funny because I have a brother his ex wife she didn't like music at all, and. That's why she's an ex wife, right, And she was. Definitely very emotionless, you know, And that's what sociopaths are. I think that, and I think that's music is all emotion and all passion, and like it's the best therapy there is. And as far as Prague goes to me, progue just means really good musicianship. That's really what it means to me.

11:17 Well, and that's the thing too. And again, like and here's how we get into the four of us get into long conversations about this, right because a lot of times when you talk about we talk about our identities as a prog musician, it's almost like we spend too much time defending ourselves. Right, It's all right, but again, like, yeah, okay, you need like be good at your instrument, just like be good at baking a cake, be good at be good at hanging a door. Right, Like like nobody wants to eat a badly cooked cake, Nobody wants to walk in and out of a badly hung door, and like nobody wants to hear awful music unless they're being polite at an open mic and friends friends on stage and you and then you carefully say, hey man, good set. Right, But it's like but again, like you don't there comes a time when the chops have to end and the music needs to begin, right, I mean like it does.

12:14 Here's the deal. I went to music school. You know whooped de do? Okay. I went to the same music school that Kevin Teeson did, and you know, we were like ten years apart attending it. But still it's like, you know, jazz was the curriculum because it was complicated and harmonically deep and all the rest of it. And I'm not a jazz fan. Kevin isn't a jazz fan. We appreciated the you know, the structure of it and gave you know, respect to the people who were doing it. And it's like anything else, right when you're going to an art school, you take what you want and you leave the rest. So it just made us better, well badest, better metal players. It made us better you know, prog players, because again, like I got into actually taking the step from being just a music lover as a kid actually being a musician because I was inspired by Metallica's and Justice Farrall album. And I was inspired by you know, the Pink Floyd albums of the nineteen seventies, and I was inspired by you know a bunch of other things, like a lot of like the rising thrash metal of the nineteen eighties. Plus like that's my bands and bands like Rush and all that kind of stuff. Like that's what made me want to learn how to operate one of these stupid bass guitars. Right, and you figure, ah, four springs, no chords, how hard could it be? And then you find out how deep of a well it actually is. Right, But again, like and I mean, I'm not the best bass player. I'm a good bass player, and I do my best to play my best, but

13:45 I'm also you got to be musical. You got to be melodic, and when you're writing stuff like this, you've got to you have to have an idea for song structure, and you have to have rise and fall. You have to have dynamic pulse. You have to have you know, the tide goes in, the tides go out. Sometimes, Yeah, you got to pound people on the head for five minutes straight, but sometimes you can do an atmospheric you know, an atmospheric interlude or what have you. And with us because we're an all instrumental band and you know, our songs aren't written as vehicles for lyrical storytelling. It's just like any other instrumental rock band you've ever heard in your life. Like, the instruments have to do the singing. Yeah, the instruments have to make memorable melodies which hopefully the listener will remember and happily hum away under their breath, you know, like when they least expect it. And just I mean, yeah, there's a difference between masturbation and music, okay, and you know, and it's just like and again like and again like that not what we're doing isn't alien or weird, right, I mean you take a look at like modern modern artists like Animals as Leaders is a good example, right, or scale the summit or intervals among others who maybe be more maybe are more underground. But again it's just like if you have I guess, yeah,

15:18 if you have an ear for all whatever styles of instrumental music, but if you like hearing you know, rock band format, a drum kit, a bass guitar, two lead guitars and maybe an occasional keyboard. Then you've got a good chance of understanding what we do, and hopefully you'll go beyond just understanding what we do and you'll just enjoy what with the music we write. Well. To me, like music without lyrics a lot of times takes you on journey and you're not really distracted by the lyrics. You just lose yourself. Like you mentioned Pink Floyd, you take a lot of Pink Floyd and you'll forget there's lyrics because it'll go through this whole instrumental phase, you know, and you're just like you're off somewhere else and then all of a sudden the lyrics to them in or like with Rush in twenty one twelve, you know, it's like by time Temple of Searings comes into play, you've already been on pretty long journey without any lyrics, you know. Type of thing.

16:21 Well true and again like yeah, it's about creating soundscapes. I mean, you take a look at a band like Pink Floyd, who was you know, the first band I fell in love with when I was fourteen, right, and I was inspired to buy all their recorded output and just you know, lived with those albums for like a year or two before I discovered heavy metal for real. It's like, as far as the prog, as far as the classic British prog bands of the seventies go, the guys in Pink Floyd weren't necessarily the most you know, technically wizardish of the of their instruments David Gilmore notwithstanding. But again, like they knew how to create somepes, and they knew how to create you know, like a they they knew how to make repetition not dull, and they knew how to create again take you on an emotional journey. Yeah, and you know, and some of their best work like again like Animals, their nineteen seventy seven album that's probably still my favorite of.

17:18 The first one I got exposed to. But it was because of a girl. All road to a female. Well there you go. And again like and especially because you know, everyone like a lot of they're more you know, a lot of the more snarky critics of Prague like to write off Progue as being pretty much a sausage fest and you know, and like a you know, no girls allowed. Well, yeah, the girls are allowed, and the girls do like Prague. You know, it's like you know, it's got to open your eyes and realize, oh, there's a female with a black T shirt at this concert, which is wise of the black T shirt at this concert. You know it's a but yeah, yeah, animals stupendous right, Like they're their angriest album, their fieriest album, their most politically charged album. As far as the storytelling, you know, again like using Orwellian metaphor to describe the human condition.

18:11 And yeah, it's like again that we're not a burst of singing. I mean, I mean I sing well, and Daniel sings well, Daniel Earth, our other lead guitarist. But again, at the moment, we're just happy to let our instruments do the singing. And you know, and we've got lots of good music on this third album that we've just released. And you know, I gotta say the first of all, you mentioned jazz and you mentioned thrash, and it makes me instantly think of that Megadeth could easily have no words to their music because Mustain's jazzy metal guitar playing says a whole story in and of itself.

18:58 I agree with you completely. I mean again, rust in Peace was a huge album for me in my formative years and it's still my favorite Megadeth album like to this day. And even when you just like take a look at a song like Holy Wars the Punishment do if that isn't a prog metal song, what is right? And again, like you know, especially when you have when you have a counterpart with Dave Mustaine, again a brilliant guitarist unto himself, but when you're working with a god like Marty Friedman as well. You know, again my favorite lineup of Megadeath. And again like if you know, if if that irascable Dave just you know, just was probably a little easier to deal with, you know, I mean, like you if he had kept that lineup alive for you know, half a dozen more albums, who knows like what those guys could have created. But again I'm happy for rust in Peace. And yes, you're absolutely right. I mean Dave Mustaine certainly didn't lack for imagination during you know, when he wants to be imaginative, right, And you know, and again like you know, there's when you hear his guitar playing, you know it's him.

20:11 Oh yeah, no doubt and for sure, and yeah. I wouldn't be doing this if it hadn't been for Megadeth being one of my early influences, that's for certain. Well, yeah, I was at Mentauka's first show ever, and actually my Stan came off the stage and started talking to me and. Well, are you talking like you're you're talking like. In La in La and like eighty one one me to something like that in La. It's all it's all like a swirl. So many years ago, five years old, I was actually probably thirteen maybe, and no one checked you.

20:55 No one I d do you, No one car died you at the door. No. In fact, it's funny when I go in Rainbow nowadays and I look at the guy card and everybody at the door, I'm like, Hin the hell did I ever get Because I was in the Rainbow like every night, hanging out with Lemmy and Motley Crue and people like that. That's awesome. I'm like, oh, I know how I got in. I just walked over there with Motley Crue and you just walked in. It's a different time way back then, for sure. Like I couldn't imagine some of the shenanigans of those years that I lived being available to kids today. No, definitely, different times. Tell me a little more about that show, though. Ron mcgoverny was on base with Yeah, with that, how were they?

21:40 I instantly became a thrash metal head and there was no such thing as thrash medal yet. So you know, I my dad moved me to LA in nineteen eighty, perfect time. And you know, my first club show ever was at the Roxy on the Sunset Strip. That was Motley Crue before they ever had an album. They were horror punk. They weren't glam yet. And then so the Misfits. Pretty much, and they tried to light the Roxy on fire to bring Satan in. And I remember going to that show, I know, right, and I remember going to that show. Coming at her. I'm like, oh my god, I'm never going to a real concert again. Like that was my first club show. I was like, I'm only doing this. But then you know, LA got weird with starting to go to the glam and all that, and and so you had bands like Metallica up here, Slayer up here, you know, and that's the bands that I got into. But that first show of the Metallica is it's it's funny shows. How stupid your as far as value of things when you were a kid. Because Mustaine comes up to me, starts talking to me, and he hands me a business card and it said Metallica power Metal because they were power metal for a minute, there was no thrash word. Dave Mustain and like everybody always asks me when I if I tell that story or like do you have it today? I'm like, fuck no, I could throw it away. I'm like, well I need

23:11 this shit for you know, because I was a stupid kid, you know. But who knows. I mean, you didn't know that you could sell that for five hundred bucks on eBay, you. Know, right, there were only like twenty five people at that show or something like that. You know, it's probably opening up for London or a band like that exactly. And that's what happened is these bands had to play with the glam bands because there was nothing else in LA and that's why they went to the Bay Area. I mean I saw a striper open for Slayer. To give you any idea, well, there's a there's a dichotomy, right, that's awesome. So it's kind of how mixed up it was. But you know, Slayer ship probably been playing with bands like Dri and stuff. But you couldn't because they were punk and Slayer was metal. It was just stupid that shit. Ever.

24:00 But that's the thing though, the weird thing about how the origins of thrash metal were because again, like they took like the ferocity and a lot of like the riffing like from hardcore punk influence. Yeah right, I mean, like you take a look at like like when you listen to kill Them All. Okay, Okay, there's a bunch of zitty eighteen year old kids who, yeah, you could tell they had Judas Priest albums, and you can tell they had you know, Motorhead albums and all that, but they also had you know, they also had Dead Kennedy's forty five's right, also had black Flag stuff. Right, So they. Discharge all of. The hardcore stuff, all of the turn of the eighties hardscore stuff, right. And I think about that too. And as far as like you know, when people talk about prog metal, and again, like a lot of people talk, they talk about it as sort of like this adversarial bastard child sort of situation where it's like, oh, prog plus metal, Oh, east is east and west is west, and narrow the rain shall meet, you know, and it's like, actually metal, especially metal, how it evolved in the eighties.

25:06 It became progue's angrier cousin, Okay, because again, like I said, like listen to Holy Wars the Punishment do That's that's an intricate progressive rock song structure and arrangement that goes through all sorts of rises and falls. I mean, the next time you listen to the song Master of Puppets, if you don't hear progressive rock in that, then your death. Well that's the point too. They would and again like they would do Metallica, they laid a lot of that groundwork, right. You take a look at like early instrumentals like the Call of Catulhu co written by Dave Mustain, you know, you take a look at again like just how they took the prog metal thing to really angry angular efforts with and Justice for All again one of like my top ten favorite albums.

25:58 And again that was the first time I ever saw a rock band in an arena was when Metallica was on tour for the Damaged Justice Tour with opening act The Cult playing the Saddledom in Calgary, Alberta. You know, June third, nineteen eighty nine. I remember it well. It was the night of the Tieneman Square massacre. It was the night that the Ayatola Coomani died, and it was the night that I saw Metallica. And when I finally got home it got back to the motel room, I just thought, this is the most poignant date ever. And I was right, oh yeah again, like again, like. When you listen to like songs like the end Justice for All song or the or listen to dire Z Eve or listen to the to Lives to Die instrumental suite they put together, I mean, yeah, it's like where does Prague end and where does metal begin? Right, It's a huge gray area and it's like looking at a spectrum.

26:54 The colors just shift and fade into each other. There's no hard divisions, there's no separate camp. It's all about, you know, in terms of thrash metal, it was all about adventurousness, imagination, ferocity, and you know and technical blistering right now, and so we have we bring those elements and we bring like whatever softer melodic stuff as well. But again, stuff like that provides about provides half the backbone to what we do. In Faton and I and I agree with you because you know, listening to your latest music, to me, it brings me back to eighties with a little modern kick to it, like to me, thank you. A lot of metal has that prog influence. I think the difference between metal and punk back then was a prog influence because punk was just straightforward, you know, chord chord chord and you know, no leads, you know, just pure like raw and whereas metal did mix in that prog musicianship into it.

28:05 Like so you did have a mixture of punk, metal, prague all in one. To me, that that describes Megaath actually for sure. Or I mean even in Canada, like one of our favorite bands is No Means No, and it's like you take a look at them, like I had the privilege, you know, like I know those guys personally, and I've you know, I've shared stage at them in previous bands and all of that. And again there's a band these That's what happens when you're like with a band like with No Means No, who combine punk rock energy and ferocity with prog rock sensibilities to create their unique sound. Again, like if I guess punk can be anything you want and progue to be anything you want, but again it's like, uh, just stunning, or to look at the Dead Kennedy's for example, like the Dead Can all those guys were pop notch musicians.

29:04 East Bay Ray like again like a blistering like a surf rock guy, like sort of like Dick Dale on forty five rpm speed right, Klaus Fluoride one of my bass heroes again like all the energy and dig dig digg in the world, but also like melodically sensible, right right. You hear when you hear that Night of the Living Rednecks jem that's on them. That's that's on the Give Me Convenience or Give Me Death compilation, the one like where you know, Jello Biafra is just talking about, you know, running away from Rednecks and hiding in a phone booth while while while the East Bay Rays changing his string and so d h Peligro on the drums and Klaus Fluoride start doing this jazzy improv thing. It's really really good, and it's like, uh, so, I mean, you can be minimalist and be ferocious like the Ramones or what have you, but you can also be ferocious and get your punchy point cross and you can have chops too. It's like again, it's good music versus bad music. What do you consider good music? What do you consider bad music?

30:12 And that's always subjective, and it's because it's a vibe. It's what you feel. Like what I feel when I listen in metal is not the same as what other people that don't like metal feel. You know, it's an energy along with the music. There's an energy there, and I think that's what's beautiful about instrumental music is it's all energy. That's what I'm That's why I think of when I think of no distraction from lyrics, because it's just it's just energy put into the musicianship, like you're in a zone, you know, type of thing, and it's and as a musician, you do get in the zone when you're doing stuff like that. How could you not tell me? You know? It's like sure, So I think that's where that journey comes from. You're going on a journey first, which makes us take the journey with you, is the way I look at it.

31:05 Well, it's true again, like we want to fascinate the listener. We don't want to bore the listener or anything like that. But it just says we want to fascinate ourselves and we don't want to bore ourselves, right, I mean, and again, like what we're doing, we don't consider it to be anything, you know, explosively new again, Like one of my favorite albums is The Inner Mounting Flame, which is the first album from the Ma Vision Orchestra. You know that goes all the way back to the year of my birth nineteen seventy one. And you listen to a song like Vital Transformation, they're blasting away in nine to eight time. Billy Cobham is as attacking as drums and the riff like killer like it's a you know that to me sounds like a riff that again Daniel earth Hereon would have written, you know, and what you say is completely true the Dean I mean, like with all instrumental music, whether you're going all the way back to the late nineteen fifties and you're talking about people like say like Link Ray or Dwayne Eddie, you know, or the Ventures or Dick Dale and his Delltones, right and you know, or you know Johnny and the Hurricanes, or you go on through to the more the more familiar, I guess guitar driven metals like yeah, Joe Satriani, Steve VII, all those shred Eye Nights as I call them. You know that Mike Varney signed to Shrapnel Records back in the nineteen eighties, right. And again, like even even the punk

32:37 subculture though even in the nineteen nineties where you had bands like Don Cavallero who were guitar driven and doing like lots of like odd time signatures and creating lots of really cool moods. There again, getting back to Canada, you've got Godspeed You, Black Emperor, which is basically like an underground punk squad guitar orchestra with nice christ knows who many how many members. But again they've got you know, ten albums and they're revered worldwide and all that good stuff. And again even now, like if you want to look into what prog metal has coalesced into in the twenty first century, animals as leaders again like you know, Tosin Obasi and the boys just brilliant, genius stuff, you know, scale the Summit intervals, you know, and we just consider ourselves part of that seventy year timeline.

33:31 And you definitely are and like that Theaton should be in that list that you're listening off, except I can say it. You said it. It might be more egotistical, but I'll say it, and I mean like it says it all too like you have it. On the new album, you have a guest appearance from Derek from Dream Theater, Like you must be really really good if somebody like Derek wants to play with you. Well, here's the story how that happened. And we're still pinching ourselves to make sure that that was actually real and that actually happened. Well, we had talked, we've talked about it, like ever since we came up with the second album Between Two Worlds, about how it would be nice to collaborate with people and you know, not necessarily trying to you know, automatically shoot for you know, like brand name superstars, you know, as far as brand name superstars gets in the worlds of progressive metal or what have you, but still just trying to like just to just to make friends with like minded musicians. And so when we were when we were getting to the tail end of the recording sessions for for the songs that would end up on the Neurogenesis album. You know Colin wrighten our boy Wonder, he decided to reach out to Derek Sherinian and just said, hey, would you you know, this is we're Phaeton. We you know, we come from a small town in the Canadian Rockies, and you know we're always been impressed with you and the work that

35:02 you've done over the years. Would you like to guest on our songs? And to everyone's surprise, you know, Derek came back. He's like, well, yeah, well thanks for sending us, Thanks for sending me, you know, like your first two albums, and yeah, you guys are really good. And it's like, yeah, for sure. I mean Derek Sherinian does a lot of session work, but again he doesn't just jump at any Tom Dick and Harry that rings him up, right. I mean like we would like to think that you know that he's happy to be part of it. And again, so we we figured that the song Isochron would be the one of the one of the seven album seven songs on the album Pardon Me that he would best be featured on, and so we sent him the raw tracks and like, honestly, like like the next day, the following day, like we're talking like a nineteen hour turnaround all of a sudden in our inbox. He came back in with half a dozen different sculpted takes throughout the entire song, and he was doing stuff like like he had listened and just sonically analyzed and was able to match like all of the riffs that all the guitar riffs that Daniel had written, and all the guitar riffs that Kevin had written, and matching Colin's drum patterns or whatever bass figures, and so he had six. It was dynamite like again, like like we could release half a dozen different versions of Isochron just featuring the six different

36:35 takes that Derek did. And so Kevin, who is our in house engineer producer, he's brilliant, like one of the best you know, without without pumping smoke up him or anything like that, Like like even if I wasn't his friend and wasn't in a band with him, he is like by he should be one of like the first call engineer producers in Canada. Kevin just said, hey, I'm just gonna I'm going to make a composite track and take the best at what he did from these six takes and just basically like spread it out like mayonnaise on a chicken sandwich, you know, and like and just and just bring this song more to Glittering Life. And he did.

37:15 And it's I mean, all the songs we consider to be standout songs because we love all the songs we've put on a Neurogenesis, but to have Derek Shrinian on there was a real treat for us. And I mean we have no idea whether or not, you know, that's going to give us any more clout or credibility in the global prog metal eyes for what have you. But still it it meant the world to us. It proved to us. Yeah, it proved to us that, Yeah, where as good as anything that Derek Sharinian has ever worked with before. And Derek, if you're out there, thank you again, and yeah, we'd love to work with you again.

37:57 Yeah, I mean listen, he probably could. You can perform with anybody. So the fact that they chose you, guys, says it all about your music and about how good this new album is that drops on the twenty fourth of October here in a couple of days, it does, and uh man, that's pretty exciting. So how do people get the album when it drops? Can they pre save it? Now? How do they connect to you guys? That yeah, they can, they can. They can reach out to us either through well www dot Fatonprague dot com, or they can reach us on Facebook at you know, Facebook dot com, forward slash Faton band, or they can go to our band camp and uh, you know, Colin's the one that handles all of that, you know, like like technical gobbledegook, I'm just a bass player.

38:52 But no, if people want the album, yeah, you can get it for sure. You can if you want to. If you want to pre order, I'm sure that can be done at the very least. If you just want to wait until Friday the twenty fourth, you can just buy it for your own digital little grubby hands and get it yourself. And again, like we're planning on releasing that a hard copy as of vinyl pressing in early twenty twenty six, and so when that comes around, we'll be doing another round of hey look at us well to help promote it and all of that. But yes, we're very excited. It's like we had a bunch of delays. I mean, look our. Second album for example between two worlds who we're very proud of. And again it's probably our heaviest album of the three that we've made so far. We had that ready to go and we were and what do you know, what was our release date, March sixteenth, twenty twenty, and what happened on March sixteenth, twenty twenty. The world put on the closed sign and so we had to wait for the pandemic to run its grinding, grueling course before we could do anything. And then Colin got sick, and then Colin got well again, and then finally from twenty twenty three onward, we've regained the stride that we've lost and so it's very This has been very cool for us in the post pandemic world that we live in now to finally get new stuff written and new stuff recorded,

40:22 and new stuff released and really ramp up our live performance game, and which we were trying to do before the pandemic you know, erupted. But now we're just we're regaining ahead of steam on that. We're touring quite a bit all throughout the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia. We're looking into what we can do, say in the Pacific Northwest States and California, which are the closest American audiences to us. And again looking into, you know, looking into European opportunities as well, because playing in Scandinavia and playing in Germany, we seem to be getting quite a lot of critical acclaim already for for you know, advanced listenings and advanced reviews of Neurogenesis. And so I mean, if we're gonna, you know, if we're gonna think about starving to death in a van trying to go to some remote town and mosquito ridden northern Ontario, then we should see about starving in a van going into the mosquito ridden wilds of northern Sweden.

41:23 There you go, or play in Vakan. Wouldn't that be nice? I mean, like we certainly, we certainly want to throw our hats in the ring to you know, to play the local Vodkan metal battles that happened in in Edmonton and Calgary and Vancouver and all of that. And yeah, I mean with the with the stuff that we're gonna be recording and releasing after Neurogenesis, which we're gonna get hot and heavy with in the in the weeks and months to come. You know, this is where we're probably gonna end up shopping around to a label, because we're at the point now where we need label support and order to do any grandiose stuff. And it seems to me that the people who can get picked for Vodkin, even if you are just playing you know, a side stage at that massive, wonderful event, the ones that are on a label are the ones that get picked first for the team.

42:15 Yeah, it's a true story. Well, you guys are good enough to be on a label, and now we just gotta get out there so that right label notices and then who knows, we'll go from there. Inside out is one of our you know, our prime hopfuls we wish to you know, as far as knocking on doors, you know, Season of Missed of course, you know, like these are the labels that I think would understand us the better. You know, We've always like talked about wanting to keep you know, we're control freaks, so we like to like, you know, try and keep it. We're trying to keep it as much a a of an in house cottage industry as we can, but there's only so much you can do. In a day. That's what I love about Season of miss is that they are really good to the artists and give the creative control over there.

43:03 Well, and that's the thing, like, and they do really good stuff for our friends in Ancients. The Canadian metal Bound just won their second Juno Award for their latest album, Beyond the Reach of the Sun, and they're currently undertaking a very triumphant American tour. So anyone out there listening to this who sees Ancients pop up on their feeds, go check them out because you'll be suitably blown away. And they've been with Season of missed for well over ten years and you know, no complaints from them, So good enough for Ancients, good enough for us. If they'll take us, well, let's put it out there. I do a lot of them with them, so let's put it out there, and uh, we'll put that out in the universe. Then I could interview you at like Hellfest or something.

43:47 Yay, wouldn't that be wonderful? Man? Right, have a memorable event, will travel there? It is, well, you guys, definitely rock amazing musicianship amazing music. Everybody has to pick up Neurogenesis or else they can't listen to my show anymore. That's right, And I have one last have a trivia question for you to end the interview, only because you're a basist. I asked the same trivia question to every basis. Only one has ever gotten it right, and that was literally a couple of days ago, was Will from Collective Soul, and he got it, like first guest, Okay, yes.

44:29 I am collective, Yes I am gainfully employed. Is that the question? No? Okay, okay, sorry, yes, okay, okay, I'm ready for the actual basis question. Who is one of the most famous basis in history that was not a basis and had to be a basis because there were already two other guitarists, so he drew the short straw and had to be the one that became bass Paul McCartney. Nice, no hesitation there, And speaking of. Paul McCartney, I mean, like you want to talk about the Beatles being you know, some of like the Big Bang progenitors of what became progressive rock, when they started getting out of their Beatlemania stuff and moving into their more psychedelic experimental stuff during the second half of their career.

45:14 You take a look at Paul McCartney as a bass player. And again, if that isn't prague, I don't know what is, because I mean before Paul McCartney, Look, most rock and roll bass players were just juggling away on blues patterns, right. But Paul McCartney came from a he was a piano player as well, right, And his dad was a well known jazz band leader in Liverpool. And so when Paul McCartney would play his bass, he played it with the sensibility of a guy using the left hand of a piano. Nice. And I didn't know that, and it blew my mind when I heard about you know, they wasn't originally a bassist because I was a Beatles freak from a young age. And you know what I tell us, Stute.

45:57 Stuart Sutcliffe was the original bass player for the Beatles. There's a really good nineteen ninety three Have you ever seen that nineteen ninety three movie Backbeat. I'm pretty sure I have, because I've seen I remember seeing a Beatles movie all about Stu, you know, and that's the. One like it takes place like in Liverpool. I'm not in Liverpool. They're playing in Hamburg, right. It's during their Hamburg days from like nineteen sixty to nineteen sixty one, when they're you know, they're playing eight hours a day every day and they're all jacked up on precedence and beer in order to keep the energy going. And yes, Stu Sutcliffe was the bassist, but he left because he was an artist, a visual painter where he was a musician.

46:40 And so McCartney, you know, yeah, he drew the short straw. But luckily for the popular music that happened from nineteen sixty three onwards, we're all lucky. Yeah, Paul McCartney drew that short straw. Yeah, because now that I know it, and I listen to Beatles' songs now, like I listened to it, I'm like, oh, I hear it, you know, Like I didn't really notice till it was told to me and then I really listened to Beatles music. I'm like, wow, Like I he played the bass like a guitar basically. Well, yeah, because he wasn't just he wasn't hovering on roots, which is important when the song calls for it. Again, he was spelling out you know, scales and melody and like and spelling out the chords and doing going like being fearless all across the neck, right, I mean like, and yeah, that's the thing that once you actually realize that about Paul McCartney, you go back and then you listen to something new and the Beatles songs all over again.

47:38 Yeah. Oh yeah, the shortest straw was drawn for him. There it is. There it is, and the longer straw is drawn for Neurogenesis, because again, everybody's got to get the album where they can't listen to my show and they'll draw the shortest straw and be kicked off my show. So you see, people, if you want to keep listening to Dean by our album. There it is. There it is. Guys. Support artists, man, especially great musicians, because man, it's great when I hear somebody like you as so much passion for being a musician. Because the days of the rock star and then getting thrown a bunch of money and everything are over.

48:18 So hey, man, we're Canadian musicians. We're making tens and tens of dollars. At a bad conversion, right yeah, I know, I mean, like. I know, it's almost like a getting paid in lira or something like that, right, but hey, it's an onward and upward and full on Fathon. Well, full on love it and I thank you for being on the Adventures of pipe Man and I hope to see a lot more of faithOn. Thank you so much, thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipe Man. I'm w for CUI Radio.