PipemanRadio Interviews Holding Absence at Aftershock 2023

0:04 Hi you then too censure w SE wow crazy you why become America. It's time for the Adventures of Pipe Man on W four c Y dot com. West pomp Beats is number one Internet radio station. Here's your host, the White Man. So Simon good Will, Ma Supren it stalls Narus Sweets.

0:51 This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio. And I'm here with My name is Lucas. I sing bbacle holding absence nice right off the bat. I love your necklace. Oh, thank you so much. It's like a jewelry company called Parabellum. They're based in the United Kingdom. But they do like they do like band merch kind of stuff. Sometimes they've done like sleep token necklaces and stuff. Side topic, but I go engaged quite recently and he made my ring which was really lovely. So yeah, man, but I'm not a flashy guy, you know what I mean. So that's flashy. It's just kind of yeah yeaheah, but yeah Parabellum. Yeah, So where in the UK are you from?

1:32 So we're from Wales, which is obviously the little guy next to all the other countries. But uh, we're from a place called Pontapriez, which is in they call it the Valleys in Wales. So it's lots of hills, lots of mountains, lots of sheep and yeah, so a little little town. But yeah, we're far away from home right now in Sacramento. It feels very different. Is that why you go into music? Because basically there was nothing else? Yeah, I mean, yeah, escapism is a big of that. You know. I was lucky my parents were very into music, you know, so I kind of didn't have a choice, I think. But yeah, you're right when you come from a place where, like I don't know, bands don't come through very often. Like you've got to be the band then, you know what I mean. If you want to go to a show, you've got to play a show. So do you have the same taste of music as your parents? Yeah, very much so.

2:23 I mean, you know, they're not into metalcore perhaps, you know what I mean. But like I've got a Pixies tattoo, you know, and this is one of my favorite bands, and it's one of their favorite bands. But there'll always be a generational gap, you know. But uh, I'm always staying closer though, because like there's so many bands that are bands because of their parents and sharing the music, whereas when I was coming up in the music, no, yeah, you would never catch my dad or my mother at a metal show yeah, or a punk sure, or any yeah. And it's like the different versions of things, Like I think to myself, you know, I don't know, like Chemical Romance are one of my favorite bands, but then like I feel like they were kind of like twenty years later the qua you know what I mean. It's like they all stand for the same principles and they have the same kind of effect on people. But it's a case of as music changes, you know, things sound different. You know, Well, look at how music evolves, even metal. Okay, so I come from the beginning of it. Cool, Now you have all these different parts to it. Yeah, yeah, you know, and influences and stuff that you wouldn't hear way back when. Even the fact of having two singers, you know, one clean one unclean.

3:35 Yeah, yeah, I love that cool. But most of the people I grew up with there'll be like, what is that bullshit? Yeah? For sure, it's a lack of willingness to embrace evolution, right, you know. And I always say to my parents. You know, they got into Fugazi, right, you know in ninety eight or whatever, yeah, you know, and like that was like the original post hard core. And then twenty years later, I'm listening to the new post hardcore and they're like, ah, you know, what's all this screaming nonsense? And I'm like, trust me, you know, if you were born twenty years later, like you'd be bumping this the same way you did Fugazi, you know what I mean. Well, it's funny too, like back in the day, you had one band or two bands that would do to yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, And now it's like everybody. Yeah. I think it's become a flavor really of the music, you know. And and I think it's the same way you could say, like all bands now have back in tracks.

4:29 It's like yeah, because it's essentially become like the meta, you know. But like back in the nineties, like scream oh wasn't really a thing. You know, you maybe had a few harsh vocalists. But there's a world out there now where like people can just do this alien technique that you never would have imagined would be healthy for your voice. And you know, the music industry has evolved with that, you know what I mean? So yes, but for me, it's like my goal is to just never never stop enjoying what's new, you know, always try and understand, you know, I think so. And you know, you made a good point about, you know, technically knowing how to because I sang thrash metal. Yeah, I can't sing more than a song right now because I don't. I never had technique. So you fuck up your throat and you don't know how to breathe. It's after one song you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, undercent, you know. And I think that's that's not to be like overstated though, because that's how most bands playing today will have begun their their careers, you know. So yeah, you know, we learn as we go, I guess, you know, but but yeah, personally, I don't have it in me to do that. You know. Thrash vocals, I guess, so you're a vocalist to me already. See, everybody has their thing, right, you know, And I think too.

5:46 Another misconception that's getting shown to not be anymore is that some of these people that are singing with the growl or the scream that they can't really sing. But Corey Taylor, Ali Psykes, Yeah yeah, or proof that. Yeah, they can sing, they just choose to do that. I watch Alie and he'll be like singing normal and then he just goes yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's a different I'd say it's a different skill at the end of the day. It's like saying, you know, you can't you can't box and dance, you know what I mean, because one of them is different to the other, and it's like, nah, man, if anything, boxing and dancing have something in common, you know.

6:27 So I think it's the same with vocals. It's like, just because you can scream doesn't mean you can sing. Just because you can sing doesn't mean you can scream. And if you can do both, awesome, right you know, but you've got to have yeah yeah, yeah, exactly right, you know what I mean. But yeah, you're right, it's about embracing you know. So yeah, so what was that one moment in time that you knew that this is what you wanted to do. Oh it's a toughie, you know. I don't I don't know, because when I was a kid, there was nothing else to do in my little village, you know, So I was doing it for fun. Really, I was doing it you know as a as a social thing as much as an art. You know. But I will say when I was eighteen years of age, me and my bandmates, now all those years ago, ten years ago, we played Download festival, you know as Iron Maiden, Slipknot and Ramstein I think played as well. But it was like whoa, you know, like this is this is what the good food tastes like. You know, I never want to stop eating it, you know. So it was it was a that was the moment I think where it was like, dude, and do you know the mad thing is is that band split up two years later and then this band formed a year later than that. So I was always trying to regain that high that I felt, you know, and un fortunate.

7:41 I think we've played Download five times now, maybe four times. You played this year, not this year, but we played last year and the year before. I was there last year. This year though, yeah, did you hear what happened that Download this year? No, there were complaints from fifteen miles away about metal could be in too loud? Really what out out of the festival? Yeah, fifteen miles away from down you know why because they design this new stuff where their system. No matter where you are in the festival, you hear them as if you're up front. Of course, it was windy as the UK get I get a yeah, yeah, so it just whipped over the people fifteen miles away could hear Metallica clear as dead.

8:24 The thing is, though, it's like the UK is like infested with like farmers and people who live in the middle of you know, we've got every field you go to is someone's got a farm or whatever. Right, So it's like download in Donnington Park, you know, it's like it's kind of in the middle of nowhere. But yeah, you're right. I guess these farmers somewhere. All it takes is a little bit of noise and they'll complain, you know what I mean, say they do bloodstock, okay, yeah, bloodstock spread where too? Yeah? Yeah, that's the goal though. I mean we I don't know where we are today, but I guess we're probably in the middle of nowhere, a little bit behind the Yeah. So yeah, not like that, no, yeah, you're right. Yeah, and you know the weather's a little better here. The weather is too good, right, Yeah. I'm not built for this. It's not it's not drownload, right, yeah, it hasn't been drownloaded for a while, fortunately, I know. But the weather you're I don't even know. I'm from the Northeast and here and I can deal with cold, but your weather's like bipolar. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, like glass here was doing download and every ten minutes I was putting my hoodie on, taking it off, and yeah, and now the sun goes down, like I live in Florida. Now the sun goes down and gets hotter. Okay, day the sun goes down and you're freeze dark and is cold. Maybe. Yeah, I know, I know, I know that being said, though, you know, I mean Blue Ridge just happened, you know, so you know, I think, if anything, I'd rather have cold. Then you know all the crazy things that kind of happened over here. You know how many times I've been evacuated from festivals like they do them in Florida. We have

9:56 a hurricane, tornadoes, and then you said Blue Ridge. Okay, So I was evacuating and there's this band Heartsick, and we're walking by as the storm's really starting, and they had a canopy over all their equipment. So I ran over there and helped them to hold the canopy down. Okay, that fricking wind lifted us off the ground and we're just like fucking lego. And then we grabbed one of their other canopies and we're getting pelted by hail as we're trying to hold this canopy down and not die. And it's tough because you don't you don't sign up for that, right, you know what I mean? If you lived in Russia, maybe right, you know, But yeah, it is a tough one. But this is only our second ever American festival, so we're very new to how it is out here, you know. And in the UK we've played every festival we could possibly play, I guess. But yeah, it's trying to get a grips with the same with touring America versus tour in the UK. You know, it's horses for courses and there's and there's a lot of different different beasts you need to try and wrangle in different ways, you know what I mean. And if you're going to pick a festival to do in the United States when you're from the UK or Europe, it's a Danny Wimmer festival because okay, he tries to pattern these festivals more like you guys have cool because most of the festivals here suck compared to Europe. Okay, yeah, because they're just huge, like there's too much going. Yeah. But and I hear from all the arts like it's all organized. All the artists praise it, and that's my gauge. Okay, yeah, of course, of course, you know how it is as an artist. You have shitty experiences and your sound isn't right,

11:28 things are not organized, or you have a good experience, which it's your job much easier. Yeah, And I will say today has been really great. I will say, you know, it's like we've got a nice little I don't describe a trailer, I guess, you know, with a shower. And you know we've been on the road for five weeks now, so a shower is that's very right? Yeah, And look at this, it's just the artist media lounge. Yeah yeah, yeah. And it's a vibe, it's nice, it's totally yeah yeah yeah yeah and free alcohol ah, I didn't know that was the case. Yeah, all that stuff up there's free. I'm in singa mode unfortunately, so yes, I'm gonna be after your set. Yeah, then you could do like that's what the artists will come back here after the set and then and then get it. Yeah, it happened. So we we played. We were the first band on today. So I'm in the you know, I'm in the I'm in the market. How was it planned so early? Because normally early on the first day is not a great thing. But you guys have a pretty badass crowd, right, thank you? Yeah we did. You know, We've been very fortunate. Our fans are very passionate people, you know, and and the type of people who will come early to a festival and stuff. But it's tough because at the end of the day, someone has to open the day, you know. And I think, more than anything, if you put all the people who saw us today in a small club, it would have felt insane. But because it's such a gigantic field, you know, there's a lot more space than you know, people, right, So but it was great, you know, and more than anything, we still pinch ourselves that we're out here and being put on these posts with bands we grew

13:01 up listening to. So we'll, you know, we'll, uh, we'll be grateful for this no matter what. You know, Well, I love it. Tell everybody how to connect to you guys on socials, on the web, by your merch all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So our name is Holding Absence and we are you know, we're reachable on Instagram, Twitter. Our website Holding Absence dot com is probably the one. But yeah, we'll be touring America again soon, so coming out, you know. Nice. I hope you will see a lot more of you. But if not, I hope you're a download next year. Yeah. Maybe maybe you gotta get on bloodstock. Yeah, I don't know about that. It is too cool for resenting. Yeah, thank you man, it's a pleasure. You guys are cool. Thank you for being on the Adventures of Pipeline. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipemin on w for CUI Radio.