PipemanRadio Interviews Converge at Welcome To Rockville 2023

0:00 Hey, you love them too, that's sure. I'm from four s Why for you? Why come of America. It's time for the Adventures of pipe Man on W fourcy dot com West Palm Beats, his number one internet radio station. Here's your host, the White Man. This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe MANW four CY Radio. And I'm here with You're with Jacob Bannon. I'm in a band called Converge, and I do a bunch of other stuff. But that's why here today. Nice and you guys are badass, and you're here at Welcome to Rockville, and that's pretty cool.

1:15 How does it feel being here at Welcome to Rockville? It's nice, you know, as a band where probably one of the heavier bands and one of the more aggressive bands in an environment like this, which is why I like you. We just feel fortunate to be able to have those sorts of you know, offers and invites extended to us. We know we're not the most sort of like palatable or marketable kind of thing like that, and the fact that there's promoters see what we're doing creatively as something that they want to share with their audience is cool. And I guess Danny Wimmer saw something because you're playing here, you're playing at Sonic Temple, and he only picks bands he likes. So yeah, you know, some folks, you know, we've been doing her for a long time. So the fact that, like you know, there's folks from all all sides of the music world, both things that are more accessible and things more underground that you know, we all pay everyone's paying attention to what's out there. And the fact that you know, a promoter like that is you know, looking at an artist like this and just saying like, hey, this is this is something. It's not new, but it's new to some of these ears, and you know, I think it's time to challenge some folks and show them that there's some you know, there's something else out there. It's cool, absolutely, So wasserve this moment or muscle been, but maybe not that you remember that you knew this was what you need to do, this was the type of music you need to be involved in. Okay. So I started this band when I

2:46 was about like thirteen or fourteen years old, same bands. I met our guitarists Kurt Blew in high school around think he was probably about eighteen seventeen and we've done the same thing and just made music together, wrote albums together. You know, since then. Our last lineup change as a band was around like two thousand. Year two thousand. That's insane, okay, So like that's great. Yeah, and you know, like we've just been that the core four of us doing our own thing, you know, approaching things the way we do since then. I don't know any different. This is, this is I've spent more than half my life within this music world, in this creative world, you know, making visual art and music, and you know, I feel like that's something that I can I can do and I get you know, psychological and emotional fulfillment out of it. It gives me a place to put a lot of emotion. And you know, I'm just fortunate to have built something like that that is substantive. So I'm you know, it's it's cool. I wouldn't I wouldn't have it any other way.

3:58 It is way cool. What I thought was way cool as that you have the same lineup since two thousand, because I interviewed a lot of bands that's so rare. Sure. I mean I've even there and viewed bands that none of the people were the original lineup, which is wild to me. I'm forty six years old now, so it's been it's been a minute. Yeah, you know, now, what were people thinking when you were thirteen years old starting a band? We're people ever thinking you were going to be sitting here today? Or were they trying to talk out of it? I mean that I don't think anybody was talking to me about anything. That's probably why I did it. But I was excited by heavy music. You know.

4:38 Some of the first bands that you know that that really connected me, connected with me were heavy bands, were aggressive bands that had that basically had the sound of the ants that I was feeling at that time. And as I evolved, that sound evolved, As I grew, that sound grew, and I just happened to enter it and at a specific specific point in my life where you know, I needed something to focus on. Not much else was interested in that was was that interesting to me at that time, and so you know, I just kind of hitched myself to being a creative person and utilizing that platform to you know, to be a positive in my life.

5:19 I never thought it would be to call it like a professional life is like an oxy moron. It's more complicated than that, you know, because I do basically, for lack of better way of putting it, like multiple jobs. So you know, I own a record label and distribution company. I've had that since like two thousand. Start this band a bajillion years ago. We're still active doing our thing. We all have other bands outside of this. We had going to have a whole universe of things that are all sort of interconnected, and it's cool. They all sort of benefit each other, they all sort of speak to one another, and you know, if if it connects with people, it's it's cool. Like that's it's really what it comes down to, you know, if we can get something out there positive out of it, it's that, you know, our angst, our emotion is connecting with folks so they don't feel isolated and alone in the quarrels of their own lives. And that's pretty much how how it rolls for us, you know. And I'm glad you brought that up because as somebody that's been to heavy music forever also, you know, and who's also a positive type of person, I can't get it when people they don't even listen to lyrics or know anything about the music, and they always assume it's negative when it usually is not. And music such therapy. It's like, I think the reason people were so angry during Lockdown all that is because we didn't have live music. There's no release, not they put it out there, you know,

6:50 you know it's I think it's helped me through life well as animals. We're not made for this as it is. So this is all new, right the society function at this level of economy, of commerce, of entertainment, of social interaction with community both virtual and real. So many polarizing views, so many weaponized views and approaches to life. Things get complicated and you need a place to work that out, and music is in art is a wonderful place to do that. It absolutely is for the listener and for the artist. You know, it's therapy for me being at your show. It's just as much therapy for you doing the show. Absolutely. So you mentioned artistry before, and I wanted to bring up that you guys have some of the coolest freaking artistry with your merch and everything. I was on your website looking at all that stuff, and I'm like, man, because music is an art, and I'm also from the school that you're from, where it was a complete package. You bought an album, it wasn't just the music, it was all the artistry and the album cover and like everything went along with it. And that's what I see when I go to your website.

8:13 I look at all the merch there because I'm like, it's all part of the art. But the art there it's badass. Thank you. You know, it's to me, it's all it needs to be all cohesive. Yeah, And it's a it's a place to just let, you know, explore those ideas, you know. I know when I was a younger kid going to two shows, going to see music in a live setting, I always wanted a band shirt, you know. I collected band shirts more than I collected records, you know, And that was just like the way I did things. So I've always I've always valued that. I've always looked at that as something that's important to this community. So I and I have fun with it. It's fun and it's exciting for me to do. In terms of the the visual aspect, it's like, you know, I look at being in a band as a big collaborative art piece, you know, like we have the sonic part of the music that we all work on together. We have the lyrical pros. We have then the visual the visual presentation of all that, which is a serve like a loose interpretation of all of those those other parts I mentioned, and you get them to work in a big, cohesive sort of ball of energy. It's pretty it can be pretty powerful stuff.

9:26 I think that's a it's a wonderful collective collective art form. Absolutely. And you mentioned about T shirts, like I have a whole closet at Homo concert t shirts that I wear, and then I still have storage like bins of the ones that don't fit me anymore. But I can't get rid of them because they're too cool. Yeah, I'm not that materialistic of a guy. So I'll collect for a bit and then I then I purge them all and get rid of them, and I start over. I just do that. I don't know. I just feel like sometimes it life gets complicated with it, like with a lot of stuff. True, but yeah, no, I agree, and I I think I don't know, that's just it's just part of the lore of what this aggressive music world is. I think it also too, is it brings back memories at least it does for me.

10:09 I see some of these shirts and I'm like, it just brings me back to memories of so many things. Well, it's nostalgia is a funny thing. They can be, it can be a nostalgia factory. But more importantly, it reminds you of a piece of yourself that that you felt energized by at that point in your life. So and that. And it doesn't have to be a band shirt. It doesn't have to be a record. It can be anything, but especially within the confines of the aggressive music world, you can do that. You know. Like I was folding my laundry before we left because I didn't, you know, pack some random stuff to take with me yesterday, and I was like, oh, yeah, this.

10:52 I bought this Slayer shirt in nineteen ninety two. Still have it. Nice to wear it, you know, Like, and it reminds me of It's not like a particularly incredible design. It wasn't even one of my favorites at the time, but not even like the not specific memories, but it reminds me more of the time and place in which I entered the aggressive music world and what I felt found to be welcoming about it. And so that shirt has a different kind of value to me. That's the way it works. Like the other day I had I had a shirt from a record label that I got in Japan a bunch of years ago, and I when I tour with it it's playing, took it off after we played and somebody stole it. I was bummed out because I liked it. It meant a lot to me. It was a rare thing. Whatever, get past it.

11:52 About a handful of years ago, maybe three or four years ago, a guy from another band reached out to me and it's like, Hey, this has always eating me alive. I stole your shirt from you fifteen sixteen years ago after you played because I wanted it so bad and I still have it and I want to give it back to He's like, what do you want to do? I said, just send it back to me. Wow. I sent it back to me. I have it, I packed it, it's in it, and it's in my stuff today. That's so wild back to me. So that's story dat. Now that shirt has an entirely new story for me, right. I have a shirt story too, so armored saying I was really close with them back in the day in the beginning, and yeah, and and Joey Verro is a good friend of mine for many years, and we were talking one time. We were actually doing an interview, but our interviews are different because we've been friends forever. And he's like, we were talking about how they didn't have a merch in the beginning.

12:52 So me and my bro who were like fifteen years old, were like, hey, can we make shirts and pins and sell me at your shows and we'll give you like half the money And they're like sure. So then he goes, yeah, you guys were our first official merch company. Yeah, deals right now. So here's the best part. He goes, but I'm gonna tell you something. I bet you didn't know. He goes, you know that famous shirt picture of Lars holding a guitar he was like fifteen years old with the armored Saint shirt on. I'm like, yeah, he goes, that's your shirt. I'm like, no, a fucking way, I don't even have that shirt anymore. He goes, neither what And I was like, and this was a conversation we had like three years ago. I'm like, holy shit, like that is like an infamous picture in my mind, and I didn't even realize it was my shirt. I'm like, wow, Lars was wearing my shirt. There you go, musical history there.

13:48 It is so right there. So how do people reach out to you guys on socials on the web, hind us. We have all the handles of our band, like you know, it's usually Converge or Converge cult and all the places google us, you'll find us. And yeah, that's about it. Thank you for time. Hey, thank you, And I love all your merch, Like I said, so, I'm gonna tell everybody you need to go to their store and buy their merch because it's the only way band survived nowadays and it's cool merch. Anyway, Absolutely, well, thank you, appreciate your time. Hey, thank you, and thank you for being on the Adventures pint Man. Right, thank you. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of pint Man on w for CUI Radio.