PipemanRadio Interviews Fear of Water About Systemic feat Aaron Nordstrom of Gemini Syndrome

0:04 Hey, you have unto you censure. Wow, crazy young Wake up America. It's time for the Adventures of Pipe Man. I'll W four c Y dot com. West pomp Beach is number one Internet radio station. Here's your host, the pipe Man. This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio. And I'm here with our next guest, who is some badass new music. And I have to say, like, it's pretty incredible. I'm always like in awe and you guys are gonna laugh, but he's like a one man band. Okay, but he's going to talk about the type of one man band because it's not what you think.

1:18 And you know, you know, it's amazing. I'm always in awe of people that can do this without like nine people, you know, or without a whole bunch of people and just make such incredible full music. And so I'd like to welcome to the show Dave from Fear of Water. How are you? I'm good man, how are you? Thank you for having me? Oh I'm doing great, and uh yeah, let's start off right there from the one man band thing, because uh, you know, we were talking off the air and you were saying something and I was thinking it as I was saying it, and this picture of my say, when you say one man band, a lot of people think like the guy the like busker on the street corner with like an accordion and a kick drum on his back and symbols between his legs and a harmonica in his mouth, and he's doing everything simultaneously. You know, it's not even close to that, but it's it is when you look at the industry in my genre and you think about the number of like multiple member bands who are each kind of you know, specifically focused on their individual instrument and their craft, all making music together, versus how many Trent Reznor, Dave Grohl, Clint Lowry types, Wolfgang van Halen types are out there. And the thing is is that like with those four people that I mentioned, they they're like super well established and they're they're you know, Wolfy is literal like hard rock royalty, and all these

2:51 guys are incredibly talented and have like a career behind them and an established band and a label. So I'm like coming at it from their perspective without any of the benefit of like a famous family or coming from a famous band. But I have that skill set where I've just I've literally dedicated my entire life to becoming just doing everything I can to master my craft out of many instruments and the process of recording and production as possible. There will always be people better than me, and I've definitely found through navigating one of the many pitfalls of being in a creative endeavor is keeping your ego in check. And you know, jealousy and inferiority complexes certainly plague many people in any artistic endeavor, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that, like, if you want to live off of what you're doing, you have to like put yourself out there and that comes with judgment, that comes with an inevitable level of like comparison, either certainly from potential fans and consumers. There you know, there's no one out there that's like, I like every band ever, right you have you're attracted certain things, and then once you find a genre like, Okay, I like hard rock music, You're still probably not gonna like every single hard rock band, And then when you narrow it down to even like fifty bands, you're still gonna have like your top ten or whatever. So like to enter that space. As an unknown like I am, I can't help but have a certain degree of I need to compare myself to my peers. But thankfully I've been of the mindset my entire life of

4:27 like there's always going to be people better than me. And it's also worth noting that like talent is unfortunately not I'm not gonna say the most important thing, but it's certainly not a make or break. I know some incredibly talented people who will never leave their basement or will never find any sort of commercial success. And frankly, there are some incredibly popular bands that are have a average level of talent, but they well in other areas in terms of like having a commercially viable product and image and label support and everything. So you know, it's I've I've seeing people who are more talented than me just inspires me. Every time I go to a show. As soon as I leave that show, I want to go home and pick up a guitar because, like fuck man, I am energized and inspired by the way so to be like playing in the same sandbox as like when you look at the SMR top fifty. For the last fourteen weeks, my one of my current singles, Codependent Parasites featuring Elia Soriano of Non Point has been charting for almost four months, and it started at like number forty eight, and it every single week has climbed up, up, up, up, up up up, And last week it hit number ten and I'm literally up there with Shine Down, Popper, Roach, Bad Wolves, Foo Fighters, Nickelback, Metallica, Blank twenty two. All of these huge bands with huge fan bases, all have major label support, all are on octane. And then there's this like guy you've never heard of out of Texas who's making music all by himself and is now doing it with like known, you know, established, relevant featured performers,

5:57 And that is really this. You know, I've been doing this really my entire life, but the last couple of years have really been dedicated to this strategy of continuing to be this one man band, and that that is like my brand. It's a big point of differentiation for me, and it is like what I want to be known for. But every song I'm doing, have been doing, and will be doing the foreseeable future, will be, you know, no album releases. It's all going to be individual singles trying to cover as much of a range within rock music as possible while still being you know, completely identifiable as Fear of Water music. But every single song is going to have a featured performer, and I'm also going to really strive to have quite the variety of featured performers as well, ranging from the mellow electronic side of rock to the rip your face off metal. I've already been working with men and women. I want to work with the older generation of music and these new upcoming bands. I find myself kind of in the sweet spot in the middle there, and it's been really exciting, man.

6:57 Like, it's really cool to see how people have responded. And when I say people, I mean like people on streaming sites. Codependent Parasites has you know, across the streaming sites almost a million combined streams. It debuted on Octane in December. Like I said, it's been charting on FM stations across the country, getting hundreds of radio plays every week, a huge social media response to it. The non point community has really embraced it. Again for a guy that you may have never heard of before, and I'm okay with that, Like, I get that that doesn't challenge me. I'm not like, you know, you're fucking loss that you don't like I get that you don't know me. I don't have the apparatus behind me to ensure that you know who I am, and I'm keeping a positive mentality about that that there this it's like my journey is kind of proving that there is still a pulse in running through the veins of independent music and artists. There's still an opportunity to break through without the conventional structure behind you. It's not easy. I can't stress enough how much I've been grinding it out to get to this point, and I still have so much work to do and so much to accomplish.

8:05 But if you told me even five years ago that we would be sitting here right now having this conversation about the success of my recent music and knowing the music that I have coming out on the horizon, I would not believe you at all. So it's even what can happen in one year? You and I were talking off the air about this, But in twenty twenty two, I went out on tour with Nothing More, and Nothing More was opening up for the headliner. In this moment, the band that was opening up for Nothing More was this little known English group of guys called sleep Token, and they shared a tour bus with us, They shared a trailer with us. You know, they had like a five song set. It was totally bare bones. You know, it was early enough in the set that like not even half the people who were coming that night were at the show.

8:50 And one year later, they are selling out their North American tour in minutes. You know, They're headlining Radio City, Music Hall and Red Rocks and I think they had they beat Metallica last year in terms of streams like the passes growing and most popular bands on the planet, and that happened in one year. So it's very easy to fall into the trap, especially someone like me who's like I'm going to say later in life. Once your past year like twenties, you start getting this feeling like, oh I missed it, Like I missed the train. It's like you have to get a ton of the bands that I like now have guys who are in their forties and fifties, but they've also been doing it for they've aged into those eras, but started in their twenties. So like, once I got out of my twenties, I was kind of like fuck, I didn't make it like I need just time to go get a desk job. And it's been really encouraging to see that there's just still this possibility that it's this sounds cliche, but it really is never too late. It just matters how you're you're ready to evolve and go with the flow and roll with the punches. Yeah, man, it's it's It's been an interesting journey so far, and I I feel like I'm on the precipice of some really incredible shit. I just don't know exactly what it is, but I'm very open to whatever the universe throws at me.

10:13 See. That's way cool. And one thing I've noticed about today, okay, as somebody who is old school, you know, and like, I do coverage at all these festivals and conference and concerts now, and what I'm always in awe of is all these kids and teenagers that are there to see bands like Metallica and Slip not like people that are my age, you know, Like because I remember I was at Metallica's first show ever, and you would never have a fifty some odd year old at a Metallica show back then in the eighties. Okay, yeah, but and even like on that. The flip side of that is that I was so blown away that I want to say it's either Master Yeah, Master of Upets. Master of Puppets re entered the charts, the radio charts decades after that album came out because of its placements on Stranger Things, And this whole generation is like Metallica, I've never Oh, are these guys new? It's insane how the ubiquity of other forms of entertainment now can completely revitalize art from the past. But also that also means that I could create this enormous boon for artists who would otherwise never be on someone's radar. So like, there's there's something very exciting about that. And Metallica is a great example of how it's become this like multi generational. I mean, they're the biggest metal band in the world. But it's just it is really cool how something like that is not defined by a

11:46 decade and a generation. And I want to see more of that moving forward, for sure, And it blows my mind. Or the biggest in the world because I saw him when there were twenty five of us in the club, you know, it was like who knew? And evening with Dave, Dave Mustain and Cliff. Oh well, you want to know a story about that. It was actually before Cliff. It was with Ron mcgoverney. It was with Ron mcgoverney. And I'm at this show and this dude gets off the stage and he just comes over and starts talking to me and he hands me his business card and there was no such thing as thrash metal yet, that term had not come about yet. Yes, the business card says Metallica power metal, because they were power mental for a minute, I had business cards. That's great, Dave Mustaine. It was Dave Mustaine handing me his business card. Fu. Yeah, man, Like it's just and then like yesterday, Okay, so there's a bunch of festivals I cover here in the US and UK and Europe, and two the festivals had announcements yesterday that I do and I was fucking blown away, Like I again, it's the news of the world right now that Slayer is rewriting. Okay. I was at their first show ever too, and they're my favorite band in the world,

13:16 and it's like I couldn't believe, Like these dudes are my age a little older, and the whole world is flipping out that they're going to be playing at riot Fest and Louder than Life. It's like, it blows my mind that you would think dudes in this stage of life could command that or look at Ozzy like kids still love Ozzy. I had Ozzie's Blizzard of Oz on eight track tape. Hell yeah, man, I think that there's something very encouraging about that, especially during a time because if I was a pests, I would come back at you and be like, are you aware of the state of music on TikTok and people are making literally forty five second long songs ow to work the algorithm, Like, it's cool to know that what we're talking about is very much so encountering force to the dumbing down of art as well. That's exciting to me. I can't believe you brought that up because it kind of blows my mind. Like I was even talking to somebody a few months ago about how they have changed how songwriting is done because of the attention span of half a goldfish that people have now, So instead of the old school of have an intro and then a verse, then a chorus and a second verse and a bridge solo, third verse, chorus. Now it's

14:48 like they eliminate the bridge, eliminate the solo, eliminate the intro, two versus one chorus. That's it. And I'm like, man, that's not musicianship, that's just a form me a lot. It's like I called you an algebraic equation instead of music, and the reality is just to be Devil's advocate is that the formula works in terms of if you want to if you want to achieve certain metrics, the formula works both with artists. You have like the Nickelback effect where there's videos out there there that literally takes the three song files of I'm gonna forget the names, but it's like how you remind me someday and something else and layers them on top of each other and they they're literally the same song in terms of right intro verse one chorus where the solo is. It's the same key, it's the same bpm. You can do that with the vast majority of number one country songs every year for the last fifteen years. Like, it literally works. And that's interesting that you bring that up because I'm I'm at this interesting threshold where like, let me start this by saying that there's a ton of music like that that I enjoy.

15:56 I don't listen to that and be like, you're working the industry algebra, so just out of principle, I'm not into this. There's actually a lot of as long as it's like well produced, like if it's still a good product and it's doing what it's set out to do well, I am capable of enjoying it. And there is a lot that I do enjoy. That being said, I hold myself to a very different standard, you know, because I've been this one man band and making music for so long. My metric for success or at least satisfaction has been I, personally, Dave Perry, need to love this fucking song when I'm done with it, so much so that I could listen to it repeatedly. I could even listen to it as an instrumental and get a lot of enjoyment out of it. And everything else past that is just icing on the cake in terms of like, is there one other person who can connect with the who could appreciate the musicianship or connect lyrically to what I'm talking about in the song. That's amazing If commercial success comes from that, incredible but that's like not my focus. And while it's interesting how those worlds come together, is that the last three producers and the next guy that I'm working with have all worked with like awesome bands and all have many number one hits signed, you know, penned to their name, which means I have many times now had that opportunity to do the formula with the guys, the fucking magicians who are like they And it's not just the it's not just like structure, it's literal like melodic choices. It's let's use these plugins, let's use this drum sample like it's it's if you

17:30 want to sound like bring Me the Horizon, you can go to the bring Me the Horizon guy and he'll you will make like the something as close to Bring Me the Horizon song as possible. I am very specifically not on that path to the point of having like respectful tension with the people that I'm working with, and that's part of like the it that should be part of the process. I want someone to challenge me. I want someone to help hone my creative vision because I'm trying to find that sweet spot of being undeniably fear of water and maintaining what I view as as what I value as my own artistic integrity, but still having something that has an aspect of like commercial viability.

18:12 It's great if other people like enjoy my music and it's approachable, but like, if you ask me to summarize what I'm going for, I would say, and this is this is overgeneralizing, but like if Periphery made three and a half minute long songs that are catchy but like have that level of musicianship that like a guitar player listens to it and like, oh fuck yeah, man, like anything any part, I want any musician who plays any instrument to listen to my song and get kind of that like stank face of like oh shit, that was like a sick riff as opposed to so many of those bands out there that are very well recorded and produced. But it's literally three chord rock and that's not me. So you will hear and more so, you've heard systemic like it right off the back. It has these like orchestral, weird syncopated elements to it that you are just not getting in other music. I'm bringing a lot of progressive metal and rock elements into what I'm doing, but positioning it in a consumable three and a half to four minute way. You know, if you really pay attention to the structure, there's variations and almost everything, like almost every course and every verse is going to have some sort of there is no like copy and paste aspect of what I'm doing, and that's really important to me as the individual artist, and everything past that is it will be refined to be, you know, like it can it be shorter? Can it be more succinct? Is there a better hook that we can do? But at its core, it's really important to me that it is. I'm not going for that formula. I don't

19:42 blame artists who do you get a certain creative output for it. It's entirely possible that I will suffer commercially career wise for that, But I'm prioritizing my individuality and my points of differentiation, my own creative satisfaction over trying to sound exactly like bring me the Horizon. I'm not saying that I'm better than these other bands, but it is really important to me that I won't compromise that. So that's kind of something I offer to current and new listeners, is like I'm telling you that I'm trying to give you something unique and different within a very well and oversaturated category of music. And I love all of what you said in many for many reasons. Number one, because I am old school. I'm from the day of the gatekeepers, and I thought it was such fucking bullshit to be blunt. Like I remember the first club show I ever went to was Motley Crue before they were a hair band, when they were horror punk at the Roxy, before they had an album. And then I went to Slayer and all my friends are like, you got burn all your Motley Cruese shit, you know, because you can't listen to Slayer and Motley Crue, and you know, and you had to be like if you were a Slayer, you had to be Slayer, if you had to be if you were there, whatever you were, you had to stick with that and nobody let you out of that. It's just like listen when Metallica did the Black album, me and those other twenty four people that were their diehard

21:17 fans are like, fuck, those posers were not listening to them anymore. They sold out, okay, and it was stupid because they're still one of my favorite bands this day. You also read my mind because another one of my favorite bands is Bring Me the Horizon. And one of the things about Bring Me a Horizon that they have done and they've caught a lot of shit for, is they just make the music now that they want to make and they don't give a crap what anybody says. And when Ali was interviewed, he's like, why do I want to make the same song over and over again? I get that if you're an artist, that's got to be boring as shit if you're making the same song over and over again. So the whole point is you experire. That's what a musician is. You experiment.

22:03 When I was younger, I played drums, I played guitar. I sucked at both. I also sang thresh mellow. I probably sucked at all three. But my dad when I would be experimenting on the guitar because I wanted to make like cool sounds, and he's like, you give that up, you suck, and I'm like, you don't get it. I'm not trying to sound like anybody else. I'm trying to create a sound and create something different. And that that's why I think you're doing And I gotta tell you you have all these cool guest appearances on your songs, and I think that adds to that because they're all different. So that means every song is gonna be kind of different if you're bringing another element in which, by way, the picture behind me the new song systemic. I have a question for you.

22:49 The whole time we've been sitting here talking, I didn't think about why I saw it before, but I'm looking at it, okay, and I'm going, hmm, is that Aaron that is standing me? They are in the picture. No, so this is the first time I've told this story, and I'm confident that he would not mind me talking about this. So so no, that's not that's just that's purely an illustration. I work with this guy, Ryan Barrier. This guy actually like grew up with Corey Taylor in the suburbs of Des Moines and has close slipknot ties and is very active in both the photography world and graphic design world. Him and I got paired up and he's done a lot of my photo shoots and has designed all of my cover art for like the last several songs. Really love working with him, so he created this thing. He's really I appreciate both sonically and visually.

23:41 When I can work with someone who is a master of the craft and I can, I would like to think that I'm pretty good with words and articulating myself and I and I know what I'm not good at, so like I'm definitely I'm fucking terrible at design. But if I have a vision in my head, I am able to articulate it succinctly and in a very descriptive as well, and answer your questions and give like actionable feedback. And when I work with someone who's able to be like got it, Like I'm gonna do exactly what you told me, that's a there's a huge value to that, yes, and both the from a sonic standpoint, all of the producers I've worked with have been really great with that, and Ryan has been really great with that visually. So this image is very much so reflective of what I wanted and we were able to concept on that together. But that is a totally digital that's not a real human. He did a really great job of putting that together this song. When I wrote this song, I've been a Gemini Syndrome fan from the from the first album. I'm very attracted to not only like good in my mind good music, because good music good songwriting is good songwriting. On top of that, if you do have some sort of unique point of differentiation, I'm very attracted to that. I think part of the reason why I like bands. I'm a kid of the nineties, I like I love Smashing Pumpkins and Eddie Vedder, Eddie Vedder or sorry Pearl Jam and Smash Pumpmins. Eddie Vedder and Billy Corgan have very unique voices that are an acquired taste too many and probably wouldn't sound super awesome if you took them out of the context of the bands that they're known for, but they

25:14 have this like unique flavor that I really like. So anyways, I think Aarin very much So has a unique flavor. Again, in an industry, especially in modern times, that you have bands who are dying to sound exactly like bringing the Horizon because in their mind it means success and acceptance within a category and a fan base, which again no judgment, but not the path that I'm on. And I've always felt that Aaron very much So has sonically not done that, and like, if you haven't seen him before, he's just a very unique looking individual. Well that's why I thought it was him, because of a suit even I believe, I don't want to talk out of school, but I believe he is albino. So there's just a visual.

26:00 He just looks unique, and he sounds unique, and he's I think he's a musical savant. But anyways, when I was writing this song, before i'd even ever met Aaron, I was envisioning Aaron in my mind for this song, and I was fortunate enough to get introduced to him. I sent him the song. He really liked it, but as he dove deeper into the lyrics, he's like, A I'm gonna be honest with you, like, if we're going to be in a creative endeavor together, I need to if I'm going to have my name attached to this, I need to be at the very least okay with it, let alone, you know, proud of it. And he is a I would say, you know, everything I say from this point for is just my opinion. I'm not like officially speaking for him. But he is a spiritual guy. I would not subscribe that to any sort of established religion or text or anything like that.

26:41 But he is a spiritual being, and the song specifically is about it was. I started writing the song the day that Roe V. Wade was was overturned. And the song in and of itself is not taking a political stance in terms of like a party affiliation, but it is very much so making a statement about the you know, objective abuse of organized religion, specifically Christianity within our political system to put forth an agenda that frankly targets and victimizes those who don't subscribe to your faith. And when you have elected officials whose job it is to specifically like represent the electorate everyone, like a Republican's job is to also represent the Democrats. They were just the one that was elected.

27:34 A movie becomes so partisan that it has also become parts. It's become such a team sport that it's been about like, not only am I not going to represent the opponents, I'm going to fuck the opponents. And I think that regardless of your this should be regardless of your faith. This is textbook like separation of church and state. If you are using your faith and your religious doctrine to determine what fifty percent of our population can and cannot do with their body again, regardless, I'm not saying that Christianity is wrong. I'm saying, as it relates to our country and our political system, that is by definition, by the founding Father's intention, fucking wrong, and it is becoming more and more normalized, and it's disgusting, and that is a This is a I mean, there are many examples of this, but that is a monumental example of it. So it's about using that religion as a weapon, which, by the way, is maybe one of the least christ Like things that I can think. There's so many layers of iron that are woven into the abuse of Christ's teachings to ostracize and punish people who are not, you know, true believers and are not on the same team as you.

28:41 And you're basically subscribing Christianity as the official religion of the United States, and you're saying, fuck separation of church and state. I'm on a holy mission. I'm you know, it's I have a problem with all of that. So with Aaron being a man of faith, you know, he taught me about what his faith is rooted in, and it's more of it has like pagan roots in the idea of Christ is actually more of like a universal concept and not specific to like Jesus Christ and the Man of Christianity and the Son of the Christian God. And he's like, I just want to make sure that as like, we literally went through and dissected all of the lyrics and decided who would sing what, and but we came from a place of like, I don't know if I'm comfortable with this. And then once we actually like workshopped it a bit and we had like really direct, frank conversations about the meaning of the song, he was totally on board with it. But anyways, I'm all of that as I'm saying that, like for him to be the literal cover of the album would be a big step for him, because he started off with like, I don't know if I'm comfortable with this song, and I've already had like you know, the song's been out for a couple of weeks and it's gotten a really good response. It's getting picked up by playlist, it's being sent out to all of the FM stations that have been supporting Codependant parasites. So we still hopefully we'll start getting airplay next week. Gotten overall a very good response, but I've definitely already gotten an initial wave of complete strangers telling me that I'm going to go to hell and this is clearly like the Devil's work through this music, and that I you know, it's it's kind of proving so point. Yeah, it's very very

30:12 stupid. Again, if you want to want to part this song, like key part of the song is that the like what our country is based on, and what the men and women who gave their lives to defend democracy and American values and everything. They fought for your right to express yourself religiously and believe in your God, just as much as they fought in my rights to believe and know God. Yeah, and Founding Fathers. Escape that ship. That's literally escape that ship what that literally faced death and just one made one of the most harrowing journeys a human could make, you know, crossing the ocean and going into the amount of the lengths that these people went through to escape not only religious persecution but religious doctrine. In just the way that a community and a civilization is governed and ran and evolved. As it's just the direction that we're taking. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen on both sides, but it's a little bit more dominant on one side than the other, and it should be rejected across the board. And your faith absolutely has no place in making decisions about our entire almost four hundred million population, which is inclusive of it could be fellow Christians, it could be Athists and exhaustis, it could be of religions that you think are actually like apocryphal and in direct you know, spitting in the face of your God because you have the right God, of course, and everyone else is wrong. And even within Christianity there are sub sects who disagree with each other. It's like, you guys

31:45 can figure that out on your own. In the meantime, we're all living on the same set we all have the same government, we're all living by the same set of laws. So how fucking dare you spit on the intentions of the Constitution and our founding fathers and just throwing away separation of church and state and basically making the proclamation of we are a nation founded on Christianity, and of course our laws at everywhere from the state to federal level should be based on Christian beliefs and teaching It's like it's powerfully fucked up, and I felt very you know, political music can be trite or purposely divisive, and this is not like fuck Republicans or anything like that. This is a This is a universe. This is a universal concept that I believe anyone who actually believes in. Yes, Yes, it's an American ideal that I feel people should be on board with. So have you heard Have you heard the newest, most ridiculous shit that I just saw the other day that in the state of Texas there try and pass a bill to get rid of all guidance counselors in school and replace them with chaplains that you don't need any education to be a guidance count or they don't need any anything, They just need to be a chaplain and like, so they're gonna deal with these suicidal teens and teens that have all these issues and there their solution is going to be to pray.

33:14 I mean, like, come on, yeah, it's exact same. So I live in Austin, Texas, so I'm very acutely aware of these laws that are being pushed through. There's also legislation that's already been improved, and it is moving forward in terms of like having funding put to it that all public schools will have this like designated statue of the Ten Commandments position, like there's going to be at this uniform statue of it of the Christian Ten Commandments in front of all Texas public schools. Like this is fucked. So like the super Bowl, this happened the last couple of years too. But the the CEO of Hobby Lobby, who is like a devout Christian so much so that it is reflected in his company policies. Employees of Hobby Lobby are not like he somehow because of the I'm I'm forgetting the name of the legislation.

34:00 But within our lifetime this this federal lag I put through that corporations are people, and is so the personal beliefs of a corporation are federally protected, including the religious beliefs. So Hobby Lobby is able to exclude any sort of birth control coverage from their healthcare plans for their employees because it directly conflicts with their corporate religious beliefs, which is so I believe it's the Citizen the Citizens United Act truly truly truly fucked. Anyways, that guy puts in hundreds of millions of dollars for Christian advertising, and in the Super Bowl this year, as with other years, they have had like big epic spots which they've spent like tens of millions of dollars on. And there's two you know that basically it's like a recruitment ad. And there's two things I want to point out about that. One, those tens of millions of dollars, again from a christ like perspective, could have helped so many people in need instead of thinking it's Christian like your christ, Like, why aren't you putting that money towards the poor homeless people that needs shelter? Yeah? Yeah. And then the second thing. The second thing is is if uh so the punchline of that ad is Jesus wash his feet. It was about being like, Jesus isn't raffle or whatever. If that exact same commercial existed, but it was talking about Mohammad instead of Jesus. In an air during the Super Bowl, people

35:31 would lose their fucking mind that this is, Oh, you're you're forcing through Sharia law And I can't believe that my children saw this, And I was like, dude, are we all in the same country right now, Like this is incredible to me. That's why I'm in Costa Rica right now. Well, yeah, I have to escape the madness over there, like when I'm on the off season, because I live in Okay and it's I think, more insane than Texas right now, you and you know here here's the latest. Okay, so parents in Dade County where Miami is, I have to sign a permission slip to allow an African American author's book to be read in class. Like what the fuck? Yep? Yeah, and again, I think it's very easy to conflate a conversation like this. Uh uh.

36:30 Maybe someone of devout Christian faith could listen to this and immediately think that we are we are saying that they can't be Christian or they I don't think I'm not. I don't want to speak for you, but nothing. What I'm talking about is saying that like Christianity should be banned or those people should not be able to talk about Christianity. Do you think that's what Jesus was teaching or meant. I mean he was a rabbi. Okay, so like come on, and this is these are teachings, not to have Christianity or the bib. Well, these are teachings out of Hitler's playbook that there are many objective things that you can point to that verify what you just said. And it's become a political trope to be like, oh, everyone, you know, if you don't like someone, you call them a racist, and if oh, you know, Trump's immediately a Nazi because he said X y Z.

37:20 But there are like a literal objective tactics that you can point to that were textbook moves by the Nazi Party to establish dominance and then eventually let up to the Holocaust and doing things like book bands and doing things like specific like doing like a Muslim travel band where you're specifically saying the people of a specific faith are not allowed to come into this country, or specifically identifying entire groups of people of a sexual orientation and limiting their rights, what they can and cannot do, where they can and cannot go, what they can and cannot be called, and then saying who you can and cannot read and what cannot be taught in school is like, these are all deeply problematic things that are being sold through to our country in the name of patriotism and protecting our children.

38:10 When if you just again you look at the parallels between the tactics of dictatorships and fascist regimes, and again I'm not prescribing this to a party, but if you just look at it's happening in a certain area more than others, we should all universally have a problem with this, and those two things can coexist. You can be a devout Christian who loves the Lord and wants the best for everyone and not believe in other religions and hate sins and all of that, and you can also be a huge proponent of democracy that is representative of four hundred million people of the melting pot that we are in the variety of backgrounds and immigrants and natives alike. Those things can coexist. But we're getting further and further away by treating all of this like a team sport.

38:52 And how about we can just be frickin human beings that care about other human beings, regardless of what they believe, regardless of what they are, as long as they're not intentionally hurting anybody. Then people should be individuals and be human beings and you should care for them equally. Okay, totally agree, and that's why we need music. That's why we need your music because music is the ultimate uniter in a time now where we're so freaking divided. I go to a music festival with one hundred thousand people and these these problems don't exist there because music is the ultimate uniter and that that's what I love about. What you're doing in your music is badass. And you know, I love that you're even uniting the music community by bringing all these guests together.

39:42 And like they're talking about, you know, before the interview, we're talking about too, like one of my favorite vocalists is good is doing a song with you, Heidi, And you know, so it's just and these are people that you know, although within the same genre, they're so fundamentally different. The people that you're working with and their sound is so different. And to me, that's what makes your music cool because you know, you're not writing the same song every time, number one, number two. There's a lot of diversity in the music and musicianship. That's the key, going back to what we were saying earlier. To me, that's the key is musicianship and people like you, quote unquote one man band That's what I've always found is that's where you find out the true musicianship. And also when you're bringing these other people like there's no ego involved, Like you mentioned Gorole earlier.

40:42 Okay, Gorole had no ego about Taylor Hawkins being drummer, Okay as one example, you know, and he has no ego to begin with. He's like one of the coolest dudes in rock and roll, you know. And we need more of that, not just in music, but just in America in general and people, you know, you want to make America great again, make people actually give a shit and the zero fucks given attitude. I really can't stand like you should give a shit. You should you should about other people, You should give a fuck, and you shouldn't be such an asshole. And that, you know. That's why I learned here in Costa Rica, their thing is pure a beta. It doesn't matter what you believe, what you think. Everybody is nice to you, gracious to you, help you all this stuff. And I'm in a third world country.

41:32 But let yet the leading country in the free world is acting like Nazi Germany. I was. I definitely wanted to bring up that. So I've been I'm familiar with to pure beata've been to Costa Rica, and the third world country thing is I wish it was mandatory for all American young adults or adults to leave the country for two weeks. When you it's very, very easy to be at a level of ethnocentral where you just think the whole world is like America or wants to be like America. And that's a bad trap to fall in. So that's coupled with if you need to see abject poverty and suffering up close, you need to go to a place like the Dominican Republic and see that there are these billion dollars all inclusive resorts and literally writes outside of those gates with armed guards is mounds of trash and people living in actual like shanty favelas and roaming packs of dozens of dogs, and like these resorts throw out enough food to feed the country every single day. Like you need to understand that that is the dynamic of enormous portions of the world.

42:38 You also need to understand and accept that there are countries who are better than America in many metrics, in terms of like their healthcare system or literacy or drug addiction or teen pregnancy or suicide rate or whatever like, and that's a good thing we should aspire to learn from them. And I've had that experience by a way, because I've had two heart attack surfing, one in Hawaii, one in Costa Rica. The one in Hawaii caused a second heart attack because the medical shit was shit. They charged me four hundred thousand dollars Costa Rica. My insurance company would not give them approval to do a procedure to save my life because it takes seventy two hours of their bureauca and bureaucrack bullshit to approve the claim. So Costa Rica put me in their social security system as if I was a citizen and treated me one hundred percent for free.

43:31 Yet we're talking about people that are living like with death around them every day trying to come to our country, and we're making a big fucking deal about them, like there's some criminals. Yet I go to a country like this and they're gonna treat me one hundred percent for free and I'm not a citizen. And I'll tell you to your point. You know, I grew up being my age. You know you're told, oh, don't leave them America. It's scary out there. And I remember the first time I went to Europe, I was like, what the frick were they talking about? I felt more free over there than I did at home, and I just looked like I call it the big lie because like we're you know, and people of my generation and generations before never did a lot of them, never did leave the country, so they don't know. They only know what they're being told and what they're being fed. But you're right, there's a lot of great countries out there. There's a lot of great people out there, and it's usually the ones like that have the ultra poor people that are living the way you were describing that are the nicest, most gracious, welcoming people anywhere.

44:44 Yep. Absolutely, that's there's so much that we should learn from and emulate and aspire to from the vast majority of the rest of the world. And we can still be like the coolest, best country, but we can actually hold ourselves to a higher standard. And again, if if you want to look at this through a religious lens, like that would be the christ Like thing to do is take care of your neighbors and your community who are able to help each other and those more neither. There literally is like a trickle down component of this when you take care of your population and you don't privatize the most essential things that people need to live. Like, no one in this country should die because of very treatable medical conditions, And it just comes down to, well, you don't have money, it's you're you're gonna just be uncomfortable until you die. Now, Like that's criminal, Yeah, it's it's it's wild man, that's crazy. That's crazy, dude. Heart attacks while surfing, Like, were you cognizant of while you were surfing that?

45:36 Like? No, So what happened was the first heart attack? I brought my son and his family away. I was surfing that an hour later, I had like this little tinge in my arm. I didn't think anything of it. I thought it was just from paddling. Turned out add a heart attack. They put a stent in. The idiots put in a stent wrong. So during the year of recovery that you have, I never knew. The doctors never knew because they don't give a shit and they don't look. And the stent was floating out into my main artery and healing over so my cardiologists. For god, dude, yeah, the cardiologists released me. He goes, okay, you're good. I decided to celebrate. I go to Costa Rica. I go surfing, and at first I felt this feeling from like my head all the way down, like this weird feeling. I just thought I was tired, you know, a year of recovery. I wasn't used to it, you know, and it's paddling and stuff. So I surfed probably like three four waves while having a heart attack. Didn't know it. The fifth wave had the massive heart attack on top of the wave, and I got back to shore and like twenty tikos and ticos for listeners, that's what they're called here in Costa Rica ran over to help me, called the ambulance, got me food, got me water. If this happened in Florida, people have stepped on me and kept going okay, And and then just the way they treated me from beginning to end was just like I

47:06 love these people, you know, they're like the most amazing people. And it's a shame we can't learn from them, because now even the people I used to like in Florida I think are Pos's because I don't know that they've gone insane, they've just like gone over the edge. And it just blows my mind. The people I think that would least likely be that are the ones that are the worst. Yeah, lows my mind. And like the fact is is that first doctor caused me to heart attack in the second doctor for the second time, and you know what, they just cared about another human being, so they made sure they saved my life without a red tape bottoms incredible. That's incredible. Yeah, man, I'm very happy for you that the decency of others and that that that's a part of culture and that you benefited in a literal life saving way. It's I'm I'm happy to hear that. And if I never left the US, like you're saying, I would never know that. I would never think that. You know, you hear stories about like you hear stories about stuff here, and it's like I wive I would believed those stories and never known. So to your and to your point, I recommend every American has to go visit somewhere else outside the US and not at a resort, not at a resort, yeah, and get into the culture. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, I went to I went to Cuba two weeks after the border the travel

48:40 restriction was lifted, you know, several years ago. I think that was coming out of Obama's administration, and yeah, you know that was forbidden fruit for my parents' generation, their entire life. And it's right there. It's a ten minute flight from Miami, and it's fascinating. Like going there was incredible. It's like stepping into a time capsule. And again you see this like abject poverty. You see you can see it's physically represented the government corruption, the way that they're essentially it's a really dumb it down pocketing tax dollars and it's clearly not being put back into the city. Havanas is this really interesting pocketed mess up. You'll have this like couple of houses together, like duplex type things that are you know, they're clearly old, but they're well maintained and they're vibrant and they're full of music and dancing, and like literally right next to that will be totally collapsed rubble of their neighbors houses that hasn't been addressed in years or decades. All of the cars. You hear this as a stereotype, but this is a absolute truth. Ninety eight percent of the cars are all classic, incredible things that you would see in like a James Dean movie, because that's the last batch of cars that they were able to get from America before these embargoes were put on, and they've just kept on like updating. You get in these cars and they have like window air conditioners zip tied to the bottom of that, and like they've just basically used kept those cars alive for decades. And it's so cool to like walk down the streets of these classic Cadillacs and corvettes. And but these people are in

50:13 object poverty and they were so excited to be to welcome Americans back into their country, and they took really good care of us. They were very appreciative of our business. And again there was like they those people have much more reason to hate us than we do them, and they showed us nothing but love and generosity and welcoming us into their homes and sharing their culture with us. It's like we need to do the same, Like we need to be better arbiters of civilization and better stewards of humanity in this country. And I think I think that can start or should start with art and hopefully gets reflected, you know, throughout other facets of civilization. But we're not in a good place. Man, It's not things are not going well in that regard.

50:58 It's it's unfortunate, it's concerned. It's kind of scary, and it's kind of scary that people are buying into it. Is what's scary, you know, It's like, oh, but that's why we need music. We need we need voices like you, talent like you. And I want to add one last thing before we go too, is I am absolutely in awe of you because I'm also a motivational speaker, so I'm a big believer in nothing can stop you from achieving your dreams. And I'll know that the listeners noticed. But you were continue you're clinically deaf, you were born clinically deaf, and yet you're making great music. So I think that's also a message everybody needs to know, is like, just follow your dreams and forget the excuses that are there or the excuses that other people give you. Just do If you have the passion and do what you want to do, then just do it. Absolutely. Yeah, my suffering has made me more empathetic to other people suffering instead of using it as a crutch and being like, woe is me, I wasn't dealt the same hand as everyone else, So that means I got fucked over. So I'm going to pass the book and take that out on other people and feel entitled to whatever. Like, every hardship that I've faced in life has made me more empathetic and in tune with the needs of others. And there's always like, suffering is absolutely subjective. There's always going to be in someone in a worse position than you, and probably someone that you can help directly, even if it's just treating them like a

52:28 decent fucking human being, even if they believe something completely different than you, even if you don't like them as a human Like, there's still you can disagree with someone and still treat them with respect and decency. And Yeah, if starting with the way that I started my life and still even now dealing like entering a very oversaturated, complicated, convoluted industry with no label support and just you know, believing in myself persevering being a good human like that is a huge part of this. Yeah, I've formed really good, genuine relationships and like people vouch for me, and people trust me because like I invested in like frankly like friendships and strong professional bonds that when you add the music on top of that, the business acumen and the just integrity as a man on top of that, like have led to very fruitful outcomes despite this being totally unconventional because I'm not an established band. I don't have a record label, I don't have contacts at radio stations, I don't have this enormous social media following. It's to your point, if I, if I can do this, so can anyone else. If you're facing currently things that feel insurmountable, I assure you not to invalidate that feeling. I'm sure use that feeling, Reposition that feeling, put that fire into your belly and overcome. And then once you get there, don't close the door behind you. Help others there. It is. I love it. Tell everybody how the can connect to you, guys and you on this on social else, how I can

54:00 get your music all that good stuff. Sure aver every major streaming and download platform you can find, you can stream and download Fear of water. That's fear of water. It's not you won't find me by my name Dave Perry. It's fear of Water. And then also on all major social media sites you can find fear of Water. I'm very like something I'm actually really adamant about. And maybe I'll hit a point where this is not sustainable, but like I respond to every single message, I talk to every single comment, like I am truly social about social media. I am here to actually build a community of like minded people of whom which I am appreciative that they're there for my music. So like, come talk to me man, Like I'm happy to do podcasts, I'm happy to talk to you in direct messages.

54:42 I'm happy to engage in a comment thread, even if you don't like what I'm doing, Like, let's talk. I am here to be connected, build a community. Music is all about coming together with people. I have a lot of collaborations that are available to listen to and stuff coming up, including on Tuesday, the twenty seventh, One Day featuring Heidi Shepherd, A Butcher Babies is a I'm obviously biased, but I think it's a very powerful ballad that showcases Heidi's incredible range. There is a power and an intimacy to her voice on this song. That you just really haven't heard in other areas before, and she has elevated the emotional currency of this song to be to reach its full potential. And I'm truly excited to share that with everyone.

55:28 And you know, you know, request Fear of Water to your local radio station. Let Octane know that you want more Fear of Water. Whatever you can do, add Fear of Water songs to your playlist for someone, as an independent artist at my level, all of those small things, any one off thing that you do on social media or streaming site or with your local rock station, actually really fucking matters. And I appreciate it. Well, we appreciate you forgiving us this great music. And you actually do qualify app after like over three thousand interviews of probably of my longest, but that's because of a reason, because not only do you have great talent, but you're a great human being and your voice needs to be heard. And I thank you for being on the Adventures of Pipe Man. I appreciate that. Man.

56:15 I'd love to talk again sometime. You got it, all right, Jude, have ever go on. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipe Main. I'm w for CUI Radio