PipemanRadio Interviews IN VIRTUE About Desolation & Age of Legends

0:04 Hy you have done to the censure. W wow, crazy young. I get to the top of the hill where I can see you. For this is pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio. And I'm very excited about our next guest because man, they have some pure asque music. And uh, I think it's rather funny as somebody that's from the LA eighties metal scene that my band's left LA to go to Bay Area and I had to hitchhike up to the Bear Bay Area that he actually went from the Bay Area to LA. So it's like we've gone full circle in all these decade.

1:01 You went the same path as Metallica. Then yes, well it went from to the bay Yes, well, Metallica and Slayer. Metallica first, I was at their first show ever. I was at Slayer's first show ever. And then what happened was, you know, both Metallica and Slayer couldn't play with anybody in LA. So that's why they left the Bay Area. It got ridiculous, Like I saw a striper open for Slayer. That's how bad it was. That's that's who you could get as opener for Slayer. Uh. So you know, basically once they deserted us, convert us to Thrash mellow Heads, and then deserted us. We had to you know, hitchhike up to the Bay Area to go to the real shows.

1:46 Yeah. Well, I mean then, I'm sure you saw shows at Slash, played at probably the Phoenix. I don't even remember most of them because well that's just all the all the places you know that were there back then. You know. You know what they say is if you were like, uh in that scene in the eighties, especially the Sunset Strip scene which we lived in, and you remember it, you weren't really there. Yeah, like I remember things, but some specifics O don't remember. I remember La specifics more than Bay Area specifics for sure. Yeah. But you know what we didn't get to do because we're talking about this cool shit is introduce you, you.

2:32 Know, so we should do that. That might be a good idea so people know who I'm talking to. They might think you're like the new member of Metallicers, Right. It is kind of funny to let yeah, let let's let people get you know what's funny As I just interviewed a band that Incarceration Music Festival here in the States at shawshank Prison. You know that that the band's name was of Virtue. Yeah, it was aware of them. Yeah. It was so funny because I was like, when I saw this, I'm like, didn't I just interview them?

3:14 And then I'm like, oh, no, it wasn't them. It was of Virtue. So this is Trey from in Virtue, and I think I like in Virtue better than of Virtue. Well it's it seems like a very small preposition, but it says a lot and changes the context quite a bit. Our name, that's what I'm saying. Derived from Shakespeare. Nice, the rarer action is in Virtue than in vengeance from the Tempest. Very good. See, that's what I love about metal music is people don't realize that most metal music has so much history and educational value to it.

3:59 A lot of it does. A lot of it is just dumb, which is also which is also good, can be good. There's a lot of you know, I don't I don't necessarily want smart guy depth all of the time. Sometimes I want caveman dumb two. Well that's true, but yeah, there's I think I try to put as much rich sort of depth into everything that I write as I can but also I do appreciate just a real ignorant breakdown, and just I listen to a lot of different kinds of.

4:42 Stuff, and as most of. Us, I enjoy a real good chuggy mosh with you know. On one note, right, I'm glad you said that because I was talking about that in the last interview today that you know, I come from the eighties. Eight keeper seen you know, where you can like one, even one type of metal if you liked another type of metal. And I always saw it was stupid because if you like music, you like music, and just because you're a metal head doesn't mean you only like metal. People kind of think that, and some people kind of still act that way, but it's stupid. You know. There's so many different types of music that like, if you're a music fan, I would think you would like a lot of them, not just one.

5:30 Yeah, I mean I that sort of thinking really blows my mind. It's people will apply tribalism to anything, right. I think that's something that doesn't belong in music at all, you know, because it's for tribalism is for normies. It's for normal brained people who can't appreciate the kind of depth that we were just talking about. I go beyond ormies. Sometimes sometimes I say stupid people because they just have to follow something. They don't even understand what they're following.

6:12 Well, it tribalism will lead people to It's it's just the easiest and lowest way to organize groups of people. For if you can't appreciate any kind of subtlety or you know, think of people as individuals, it's really easy to think of them in these general groups. And if you, you know, if you've got a real smooth brain, it's it's the easiest form of taxonomy for you to you know, And because the alternative is just too complicated, Like, yeah, I listen to so many different kinds of music. I love top forty pop, I love like. I studied jazz in college, I love classical music, I like. I just did a series of videos on my YouTube channel about it's called the Songs that Made Me and I just go through all of the music that really influenced me the most. And I did a whole episode on nineties alternative rock like ever Clear and Wheezer. I did an episode on early two thousand's metal Core because I was really into like Unearthed kill Switch, engage that kind of stuff.

7:29 Power metal like Sonata Arctica, progressive metal like Dream Theater, and like, you know, and it's it's not my religion or my personality to just stick to one thing, like metal is not a is not a religion or a tribe for me. I just love the music and you know. Yeah, and you know, it's funny you say that, because like we were such gatekeepers back in the eighties. I always thought it was stupid. And somebody i I'm friends with now that I've interviewed a few times now, the first time I interviewed her, I said to her, I'm like, you know, I wasn't allowed to like you in the eighties because you were a new waiver. And I'm like, but I'm just gonna say it right now that I did like you, and now I can admit it in two thousand whatever it was twenty four or three, and that.

8:32 Was a certain type of tyrannical, controlling personality that initiates that sort of gatekeeping. Yeah, and. It's like to think about that you would let someone else dictate that sort of thing. But we've all been there, you know, Like there was one person in every scene who was like, no, this is it's just this, but it's really just a it's a narcissist. Well, it's funny too, because like some of the music back then was so similar and you were still at odds.

9:15 I always saw it was stupid because, like I was a long hair, so I couldn't go to punk shows, even though I liked punk, and punks can go to metal shows because they were punks. And I thought it was stupid because the jocks were bullying both of us. We should have banded together against them instead of the separatist thing. You know. It's like it's division. It's the oldest trick in the book, Divide and Conquered. Yeah, and it's usually people doing it to. Themselves more totally totally, it's just sad. So I have a trivia question for you, based on the beginning of our conversation and based on your band. Okay, so you were labeled as quote unquote progressive power metal band. I say it like that because I hate the freaking labels.

10:05 Like musicians shouldn't just the same as we were talking about the gatekeeper, musicians should just play whatever they want. They don't have to be stuck in some label and my trivia question will show how ridiculous the labels are. So, what band in the eighties was called power metal because the actual type of metal they were didn't even exist yet? What band was called power metal? I know, they even called themselves power metal. Pantera had an album called power. Metal earlier earlier than that.

10:46 Earlier than that. Hmm, I'll give you one more hint. It's metallic. Metallic. Yeah, so they were power metal for like a minute only because there was no such thing as thrash metal, so they just lumped them into power metal, which to me made no sense because they didn't sound like I like power metal, but they didn't have a power metal sound, So I don't know why they were power metal. But that shows how ridiculous the labels are, because they had to lump them in somewhere. Those kinds of genre tags and things like that exist for two types of people. Number one for journalists, because you got to have something to write in some way of classifying this music. And number two for like fans who are trying to find similar music. It's sort of like Pandora before Pandora existed, right, like right, you know, Pandora like finds music based on traits of something that you like, right breaks it down These days, like it's become a lot more restrictive because you know, because of like this, like the tribalism we talked about, like those sorts of things, when in reality, how dumb is it that you would go, hey, I only like X style, and therefore I make it just becomes this like instead

12:19 of making art as musicians, we're making just these a copy of a copy of a copy. And what when you do that, what you wind up with is something far, far worse. It's sort of do you ever see the movie Mister No Multiplicity? He figures out how to clone himself. It makes a few clones, but then his clones make a clone of themselves. Uh and it uh, it's like really stupid and like messed up because you know, you make a clone like a copy of a copy, if you've ever made a xerox, and then yeah, exactly that you get the degradation, which is can be a cool effect musically and artistically. But if what you're mad, if what you're trying to do is just copy someone else and make a facsimile, you're not really making good art probably, And and there's no new music being made instead, and you know, in the same way that a you know, for example, genetically, when you the way you create like a robust dog type, okay, right, Like a purebread dog is a fucking medical disaster. Right. Anybody who has a purebread dog will tell you how much they spend in

13:49 vet bills and like they wind up with all these terrible problems. But a mutt will live forever, you know, you get you get a mutt that's like ten different types of dog, and they're unkillable because it's just because you you know, yay, there's just this strength that happens from combining different aspects of things that. Are I love that and I'll tell you why. So to your point, one of the things that bothers me today about music, And to add there's one also one other very important people company, not people, but types of companies that love the genre labels, and that's record labels, because they can't sell you if you don't have some genre label. You can't be like I was managing ours ones that she basically was all different types of genres, and Sony was like, well she's got to pick one.

14:57 Yep. You know, there's a my favorite new artist is. Her name is Chinchilla from the UK and in one of her songs she's talking about this and she literally uses the line pick a genre like that. You know, she's been told by record exact same thing a genre, And like when she's saying that, I was like, like, yeah, that sucks. That's right. I understand to a degree the sort of business, right, it's rough. I think a lot of. People, like, for example, when you think of certain record labels, a lot of them have like a sound and like, I don't know.

15:44 That's why it was really funny when Slayer was on def Jam Records because it didn't make sense. But what you're saying, you know. But you so then you go like, okay, well what's for the av consumer for someone who's trying to who finds a kind of music that they like and then they're like, holy shit, this is amazing. Where do I get more of this? Like imagine hearing Slayer for the first time and having no context right right, you'd go like, what is this? What do I call this? So that I can find more of them? And then you're like okay, oh thrash okay, you know, you find a bunch of other thrash bands, and you'll probably be a pretty happy listener.

16:29 But if you are Slayer and you want to do something else you have, like you want to grow artistically, you might have some very sad listeners. But I have a perfect example of that. Two perfect examples. Actually, one is a recent one, Bring Me to Rizon, you know, because people were giving them so much hate over the past few years of you know, making all this different type of music, and Allie was like, why do I want to write the same song over and over again? And I agree with that. They're a great example because they got a lot better.

17:11 Right, That's what I'm saying, is. Way heavier, way more metal, and it's not good. It's more melodic now, it's more catchy, it has a lot more meaning to it. His lyrics have way more meaning now. But here's another perfect example Metallica. When the Black album came out, Me and the twenty five original fans were like, fuck them, posers, sellouts, blah blah blah, you're not thrash anymore, blah blah blah, bullshit. You know, But meanwhile, there's the biggest metal band in the world. And if it weren't for them that we went, we might not have a lot of metal bands we have today. Now.

17:51 The negative part that I find from this other negative part of because I agree with you wholeheardly, I think or should not being boxed in, Like as you get better at your craft, of course, you're going to experiment and explore, you know, and try see what you can accomplish. But the point is is that nowadays I find there's so many subgenres and micro genres of metal that within those stupid little genres, every band sounds exactly the same because they're using a formula like if you do post metal core hardcore, it has to sound exactly like this, you know, type of thing. And I find it's so ridiculous how these labels have become that when I go on tour and I do coverage at festivals all over the US, UK, Europe, and one of the fun things I do is I have the band tell me if they were gonna make a genre that was just for their music, what would they call it? Because that's pretty much how ridiculous it is nowadays, so finite that it could be maybe just a couple bands.

19:07 I think there's realistically two types of artists. There's innovators and imitators, okay, and I don't want to I don't want to exist in a preset genre because I'm trying to create something new. It doesn't have a name yet, but I want to be I want to be making something that inspires so many other people to copy me that eventually they name a whole genre after us. Virtue metal, I don't know something like that. Well, there you go, virtue core.

19:47 Like it's you know, everyone starts out as a copy of you know. Imitation is how we learn, you know. I copied Dream Theater you know for years because it was just my favorite band. I just wanted to be like that until I discovered what I was, you know, And it takes a long time to get there for a lot of people. I really did for me, you know. This is our third release, and I finally feel like we kind of came up with something that's cohesive. It feels like one thing, even though obviously as you listen it's not just it doesn't feel like all one big song that's the same thing over and over again. There's a lot of different influences and different sounds and sort of smaller like styles. But I think we came up with something that's very unique, but doesn't but doesn't it doesn't feel like we're just trying to make something new, you.

21:04 Know, and it shouldn't. It should just be you being an artist. And that's what I like about what you said earlier. I find the best artists nowadays are the bands, especially that everybody in the band has different influences, because that's how you create something unique, you know. And so like you mentioned jazz and classical, and like, first of all, a lot of people don't realize that metal is a derivative of classical, so it makes sense. And then look at somebody like Mustaine. His guitar playing is jazz fused with metal, you know. It's it's a lack of to me, a lack of understanding of how music works, and like not really knowing that the we're all using the same basic building blocks, right, and there's actually a lot fewer possibilities and options than you actually think that there are. Like we're basically working with twelve notes, right, We're all like in Western music, more or less, we are all working with the same twelve notes. The relationships between those notes is finite. Between any two notes, between any three notes, four notes, et cetera.

22:28 And then rhythmically, you know, there like it's a it's a smaller palette than we think it is, but there's also still so so so many possible combinations of all of these things. And when you have like a some sort of genre leaders, right like melodic death metal, okay, I immediately think in flames, you know, and they put out these like four or five whatever albums in their like early output that really defined what that was going to be. And now we have all of these people who loved that and just tried to sort of recreate it and did it. They didn't learn about the building blocks of music. Instead, they just learned how this music was made, and that's their whole vocabulary, and so it they sort of limited themselves to their own box. And like it doesn't necessarily mean that what they make is bad or anything, Like tons of awesome music came out of it. But I didn't want to be limited to that at all, which is why I studied music that, you know, the foundational ideas of all of it from a sort of objective, analytical way. And it's not that

24:00 that's the way for everyone, but I feel like I just have so much more freedom and ability, a larger palette to express myself with. Well, you know, the thing is, too is one thing's true about music. It evolves, okay, And that's why music now is different than it was in the two thousand tens, the two thousands, the nineties, the eighties, the seventies, the sixties, the fifties. But and I love how you put that foundation because I look at like even a band like the Beatles as a foundation for music today, even metal music today. To me, Helter Skelter is a foundational song to metal music in my opinion. You know, or you take, but you take like as an example, going back to what we were talking about before of you know, the original like okay, Venom was the original black metal, and if you listen to black metal now, they would never consider Venom black metal now. And that's not because they weren't black metal. It's because black metal evolved. You know, death metal evolved. They all have evolved, and I think that's what creates unique music too. Me. Even think about we were talking about thrash metal, not a big four of thrash sound the same. You wouldn't think they were in the same genre because they don't sound the same because they evolved from what they were into thrash metal.

25:35 Same thing. Yeah, and how do you how do you evolve? How do you grow as a musician? People don't talk about it a lot because well, especially in heavy music people, you know, fans get really pissed when you change. Oh yeah, they get bored if you don't, but they gets if you do. But what actually instantiates that growth is or instigates it, I guess, is exposure to new ideas that you think that you gravitate towards. Right, Like you, I view taste in music and taste in food as being kind of similar because there's not a lot of objective, rational ways that you can figure out why it is that somewhat why you like a certain piece of music or kind of food, Right Like I put a piece of food in my mouth, and my brain either goes good, accepts it, or goes nope and rejects it like spit it out right, that's it. Like, there's probably a whole deep reasoning behind why I would why I can't eat fish without you know, like I just hate seafood of all kind, and why I love cake? Right like cheap

27:10 fucking yellow cake like a who makes it like a Duncan Hinds yellow cake with a chocolate frosting in the jar that you get right next to the mix. Right. That's my favorite cake on earth and I could eat that every day until I died. But I don't know why. And it's the same with music. You either like it either resonates with you or it doesn't. And there's probably some really deep reasons, but I honestly think we will never find out why. I don't think we'll ever really understand what it is about these vibrations in the air and the combinations thereof that stimulate our brain and make us go crazy, right right, Like a mosh pit is an insane thing. I took my girlfriend to a Death Course show this week and like the singer for one of the bands spit fucking beer into the air and people were just like killing each other in the mosh pit, and she was like, what the fuck? And I was like, I was like, honestly, I don't know, Like I don't know why does it make us do that? But like, why do these just vibrations in the air.

28:23 I think you're totally right, But I also think if you understand why a band is playing the music they do. And I'll explain what I mean by that. Just the other night, I was out with my brother at this venue that had some live music. We were at two separate venues like that were right near each other. The first venue had this like, you know, cover party band. You know, like they're the kind that gets everybody all having fun. You know, nobody's taking it too seriously except my brother, And he goes to me, he goes, do you like this band? I'm like, yeah, they all right? Now, did I think they were the best musicians? Not necessarily, you know. So then we go over to the next place, and this band was tight. Okay, Like if you were gonna analyze them from musicianship and just how they were, they were really good. And they were like a jam band.

29:22 They were doing stuff like Floyd and things like that and just jamming shit. And he really loved them. But he loved them because of one reason, because he thought they were very good musicians. I saw something different. I liked both bands, but they were different vibes. The first band, maybe they weren't great musicians, but they were just allowing everybody to have a great time and have fun. And they were just a fun cover typical band that you would see at a bar or whatever, whereas the other band, they took themselves very seriously. The first band didn't take themselves seriously. The second one took themselves very seriously of their musicianship, and it showed they were really good. I don't think that I didn't dislike either one of them, they were just different vibes.

30:19 Yeah, totally. There's also different functions, you know, different purposes in making music. For example, Like it took me a while to figure out that people really make music for very different reasons A lot of the time. They you know, I run a whole YouTube channel that's sort of aimed at helping people make music better, right for in various different ways, a lot of songwriting stuff and all that. But like what I realized is that, like I say, everything as if everyone is trying to be a very creative musician to write music and release it and all that. And I've realized that there's so many people that just really want to play an instrument for fun. And then also there are a lot of people who just love to play, even at a very high level, but they're not like particularly interested in the creative part of it.

31:17 They just love actually playing it. So you know the kind of people that will like join a band where all their parts are like written for them, or maybe they just have to, you know, they just basically want to perform. And I think that that's it's this, you know, it takes all types because if everyone was like me, concerned primarily with the creative process of writing and composing and all this stuff, we'd have nobody to play the music there right right, you know, like or it would just be too many cooks. And you know, like as I was writing this album, like I can't play all of the instruments, you know, like I need a drummer, like uh, you know, and like I can like program a lot of things, but like that, you know, like I can't. I'm not going to go up there with all backing tracks and play like so anyway. But it's it's very important that we have all of these different ways of creating music and reasons for creating. And you know, music has such a it has so many different functions in our society, and like you know, like a cover band is like a like a great super fun night of of hanging out at a bar with your writings and like dancing with you know, uh, with people and

32:47 like it. That's obvious. There's no there's not like a. There's no rare. Yeah, that's not really. They're not like super duper making art, which is whatever. It's a little it's more like entertainment, you know, and then taking yourself super seriously for I don't know, like just a more yeah, just for for something that's a little deeper like this this other band you described, maybe like something a little bit feeling more I don't know, uh, a little just a little bit more like important, I guess or whatever. And you know, different types of people are going to gravitate to different versions of it. And for me, when I create music, the reason that I even put it out into the world is to find what I call like souls, Okay, to create connections between myself and other people that exist.

33:53 Because if I make something and somebody get picks up what I'm putting down, if they're really if they understand what I'm trying to say in the song and they relate, that makes me feel like I'm not alone in the universe. Yeah, you know, and like. You know, I've also played like Narls Barkley Crazy in a cover band, like and that's fucking fun. Like it's not it's obviously not the same, but I did get a great reaction and it was fun. And like it's you know, two different sides of the coin. For me, the creative, the generating new things that didn't exist before, is the thing that excites me the most. Building it the process of writing and composing, Like you know, I do all of this orchestration, like like a lot of these songs, especially our new one, Desolation Throne, has like all these layers of orchestration. There's not super up front, but like I love going in and like tweaking the second flute part to make sure that the articulation is correct, and like, you know, all these little things that are like not as fun as like banging out a four

35:25 chord pop song in front of a bunch of drunk MILFs at a bar. But you know it's funny because I was just I just binge watched Nashville on Netflix, and to your point, there was one of the characters who was a songwriter but not a very good performer, and then there was another artist who was an amazing performer, not much of a songwriter, you know, and and the one that was the performer realized, okay, listen, I'm a performer. That's who I am. And he tried to teach the other one how to become more of a performer because to the performer, he was like, you know, you have to feel the music.

36:17 You have to create the emotions so the people that are listening and watching will feel it too, you know, not just the words. Whereas the songwriter dude took it very seriously, like and so you could tell on stage he was very serious mode on stage. And what was cool about them performing together is I think you need both parts. Yeah, because you have to. You have to actuate the composition, right the it's you could write an absolute masterpiece, literally write it as notes and words and like compose the whole thing, every part, and if no one ever performs it, then what you have created is not music. It's just ink, right yeah, But you can't perform no composition, right, So, like you know, it's you're you're those are the kind of the two important halves of it. You're you're always I call it like selling the composition. It's not selling selling, but you know, like, yeah, you gotta sell it as a performer. And I think that, like I mean, I might be biased because, like I said, I'm much more on the composition side, but I think that if you write something that's like truly great in the composition, then

37:52 the performance becomes somewhat less important. Yeah. For example, like if you write a real just a fucking white hot banger, somebody who's trashed singing it at karaoke isn't gonna ruin it. You know, people will still be like, fuck yeah, brother, fucking don't stop leaving whatever, like, still have a great time. But if you have some if you have a song that's kind of whatever, you can, like you can kind of get away with if you have a real just like a really amazing singer and performers, you if you really sell the performance and the production and the whole works, you can people can enjoy it.

38:37 But when you know, when you break it down to it, like to a shitty karaoke performance or like the h the campfire, you know, around the campfire, stram a couple chords and singing along, if it doesn't hold up there, then it's you know, then it's not a great song. It's just a it's like it's just a polished turd. But if you can have both, you're it's you're unstoppable, right, write a great song, perform the ship out of it. If like for me, I'm writing things that I believe in so strongly, it's I'm writing songs about things that I care about that like there are it's basically autobiographical in a roundabout way, like I've I believe in the that they're really great, and so when I go to perform them, which hopefully i'll get to do soon, it will be easy for me to to sell it because I believe in the whole package. And I'm not just like, I'm not just like what is it? Oh baby, oh baby, oh baby? Like I don't know. I think of people like who sing for commercial jingles like with with such saw, like What's Good in the Zone AutoZone, like that guy felt like he was really feeling AutoZone, Like right, I guess,

40:10 I guess if you're paying me enough, I could fake it pretty good. But see, that's what I would be good at. That's what I would be good at. But now the songwriting process. I wrote one song okay that actually was recorded and and it was a collaboration with my head engineer at the radio station and his duo partner because they were a country rock duo, and I came to him with this song. Now, I'm a radio personality, i'm a speaker, I'm a published author. So what I wrote was not a song. It was a book, okay, Like I wrote it in book style, okay, and this to him and he's like, what the fuck is this? And he's like, this is a book, man, and he goes, we need to trim this down. And then he starts going is this important and everything? As you know, like it's so hard to cut up your own shit. So I was like, yes, that's important. Like he's trying to cut stuff out of it to make it into a song and I'm like, no, that has to be in there. But anyway, the final product was, you know, a minuscule fraction of what I gave him, but it was a song and it was a great song. Oh good. I didn't have to fix the blind. I was going to say before, I was gonna let you say something while I fix the blind,

41:41 because I didn't realize that I had to blind open with the sun coming in and I know, and did you notice I was trying to move away from it, and I didn't want to get out of the screen. But now the cloud is hiding it, so I have to close the blind now, which I should have done beforehand, but I never had that problem, so I was like fuck. In the middle of the interview. I tell you that I wish I didn't notice that, But as you can see, one of my many hobbies is lighting. Like a new video, I care about lighting, and I saw the beams of light across you. I wasn't judging you for it, but I noticed, Oh. Yeah, I knew you know this. I was trying to figure out a way how could I get out of this scenario, which without actually jumping out of the screen to you know, and it's funny. So now I feel much better because I am a perfectionist too. I'm like, fuck me this sun, you know. But uh yeah, I mean, so what ended up happening is there's a difference between writing something and writing a song and understanding how composition is.

42:49 And he understood that. I didn't understand it. I mean, I did understand it, but not to a point that I was willing to eliminate anything that I wrote. You know, it's a. Lot of. Yeah. I think of composition as being pretty universal across different mediums in a lot of ways, like storytelling good, storytelling good, you know, solid composition. There's there are some points that are very very similar and universal, but there's every medium has its own little uh quirks and limitations and everything, you know, Like you can't put all of Lord of the Lord of the Rings right into one song.

43:40 That's the point. It's there's different types of storytelling. There's a storytelling that you do in Desolation Throne, uh, you know, that makes it a song. Then there's storytelling me as a speaker, when you know storytelling as a public speaker, you drag it out. Storytelling it's a radio personality. You drag it out. Like I can take a two minute story and turn it into a forty minute story and it be really engaging. But if it was a forty minute song, it wouldn't be engaging at all. Yeah, But you can have a forty minute album yes, with chapters. Yeah, And it's you know, but it's it comes down to how big of a story do you want to tell? And what is the actual point. I used to take a much more kitchen sink approach. Maybe, I mean probably because the format of progressive music always really appeal appealed to me, and they did a lot of different things within the same composition. But what I figured out was that it's it was all alas when they were doing it really well. There's always a lot of variations on the same motif, the same musical ideas, and there was always this main quest throughout it. They

45:15 took a lot more side quests than the average, like you know, pop music or whatever, but there was always this main quest that they're always getting back to. And after doing like a lot of things, a lot, you know, a lot of different types of things, approaching things many many different ways, and and really taking the long way around, I came to the conclusion that like, life is very short, and you really only get to say, like you might only be remembered for saying one really important thing, you know, having one core idea, and you even if you're have a lot of life what I would call musical filigree, right, a lot of you know, a lot of sort of decoration or a lot of side quests or whatever. If your music is very complex, it's still all there to serve some kind of very specific core idea, and like the journey of sisiphis in this story is that thread, and it's it's all about basically these two characters. But the growth and character developments of this really terrible person starts out as a like a you know, a truly awful tyrant and his journey of self forgiveness, and this

46:47 idea of self forgiveness is the is the core idea, and Sisyphis is there to sort of demonstrate that idea. And like, it's a fifty minute album with how many fourteen to fifteen songs on it, and each song is just another step in that journey. And if you listen to the whole thing and you don't get that out of it, it's totally fine, because each of the individual songs I think stands on their own. But I tried my absolute hardest to really distill that idea and to always be pointing towards that. And it's not Lord of the Rings. It's like, I'm not going into detail about the taste of the ale at the at the it is one hundred and eleven toy hundred and fifty what is eleventy first birthday? You know, like and the color of every leaf on every tree of the whole journey. Uh, those are cool details if you're writing a book, but yeah, in a sase, like you've got to really get to the point, unlike what I just did with that very long sentence.

48:14 And it's even more so nowadays because like it's kind of ridiculous to me. I took, you know, songwriting classes in college, and songwriting then compared to songwriting now is totally different in certain respects because of the attention span of people nowadays. And like I've talked to some songwriters and they're like, yeah, nowadays we have to cut out an intro, cut out a verse, cut out a bridge, cut out solo, or else people won't listen, you know. And it's really sad because I love how I use the word journey, because that's the word I always use. Like every album I ever had, it was like a journey.

48:58 You put your headphones on, you listen to the whole album cover to cover. Here comes the Sunlight again, and and and then and then uh, you know, basically you would read the lyrics, look at the artwork, which, by the way, that this is a perfect chance for me to fix that. Look at this artwork. Right here is badass of maybe you could tell him about this album and the person that did the artwork. I will talk about that while they look at it while and you fix the blinds. So Niklaus Sunden is the artist Swedish dude. You will probably know him best as founding longtime guitarist for the band Dark Tranquility, a band that I love dearly. He's no longer in the band as of I think twenty twenty three, but he created that many, many, many of their album covers. I'm not sure if it's all of them, but the one that he did that really hit me like a ton of bricks, great job was for their for their album Oh no No, Now I've drawn a blank on what the hell it was called. Uh. I think it was not the most recent one, but the one before it.

50:26 I should look it up in the moment and anyway, it was like, it just hit me so hard, and I was like, if it hadn't already been it's called moment, if it hadn't already been a cover, I would have straight up bought it off of him for this. But what that gave me was the opportunity to commission him to make something unique and something that was really exactly what it needed. And so you know, I don't know if you know that you can just do this, people are like, well, how do you get someone to do like you find somebody who's done the thing that's your like your favorite, and then you just pay them to to to make something for you like uh now, obviously like they have doneand but you gotta yeah, yeah, yeah, they got they they gotta pick up what you're putting down. Luckily, he was extremely easy to work with, really great. He just obviously delivered the goods now in this case, like it was straight up like a commission. Like I gave him the idea, the pretty specific idea of what I wanted.

51:51 But I'm not in this kind of artist. I don't do like a like visual art like this at all. So I have a very broad general idea of what I want and getting a real artist to interpret what I'm saying and deliver it in such with all of this stuff that there's no way in a million years I could have possibly thought of, you know, the picture of like the the actual backside of this dude. I sent him a photograph of myself in this pose and and it's basically exactly that, but art, you know. But the rest of it is just things that I like kind of described to him as if it was a dream, and he just made this beautiful thing with the colors that pop in such a such a great way with the contrast like that.

52:57 The colors are totally cool. Yeah, wildly good. And so what it depicts is Sissyphis on the mountain. The boulder is rolling back down because he's abandoned it. He is tearing apart the fabric of reality so that he can break out of his you know, his supposedly eternal torment of pushing this boulder up the hill. You can see the vines and shackles trying to hold him back, the snakes coming after him, and then we see the world Earth, America, New York City. Actually that was just to like really show that he's you know, coming to some modern version of the world, you know, and that we like in our last single that we released before this one was Gunslingers of the New American Desert, so like it's he's in he is in the United States.

53:59 But you know, all of all of this stuff is things that I you know, had these conversations with him about what the album was about, what it was, what I was really trying to depict, and like it's a you know, maybe like a little on the nose in a sense, but I think I just really wanted to tell enough of the story in one static frame that people would be able, would be intrigued. And I and I think also, you know, like we said, composition, it's it's different across all mediums, but you're you still want storytelling and this single frame tells such a story if you know what to look for. And you know, I I don't yet have it as a large scale piece of art to on my wall, but I'm getting I'm getting getting there well.

55:03 And to your point, it is it is so crucial to find an artist that can understand what you're explaining, because like I had the same scenario. I have a published book. I had the idea of what I wanted to cover to look like. I gave it to the artists and I was absolutely in shock and what I got back because I don't even think I gave too much specifics. I did what you did, like, gave my my vision, but my vision could be a different language to whatever. Yeah, that person was hearing and came back and there wasn't even an edit. I was like, that's exactly what I was thinking. I'm like, that's exactly what I was thinking. That it's perfect, and that became the album and the book cover. You know. So so yes, like you need to. I think it's true in all art too. You need the people that specialize in the different areas. You know, like, obviously lighting's not my specialty.

56:09 But here, okay, you're ready for this to what I noticed? Your lighting in your background matches your album cover. Oh that's true. Did you notice that I did not? Yeah, right, while you were talking, I was looking. I'm like, I'm looking at the different colors and I'm like, they all match in the album cover. It's you know, it's a lot of like color theory, contrasting and uh and stuff like that that I've sort of like been forced to learn about so that I can make my videos and streams look better. Uh. But like, yeah, you know, so that outs the album cover is something that of course we outsourced. Nobody in the band paints draws, like whatever, Right, But I think that sort of potential disconnect between yourself and the person that you're commissioning any given piece of art or thing or whatever. A craft's person has led me to learn how to do so many things because a lot of the time I've asked for something and gotten just not the right not not something usable or whatever, or just something that doesn't match. Like, that's part of why I started learning how to sing,

57:41 because I didn't want to have to describe to someone else what I wanted. Literally, just like I was like, no, now, I'm just going to sing the songs that I write so that I can sing them how I think they need to be sung. It's not about this, that's not even about whether or not somebody else was going to sing them well. And you understand the meaning behind the words, and if it's not your own words, sometimes it's not as easy to express those words the way the writer means them. Yeah, there's definitely that too, And that's just that kind of goes for every instrument. But the voice is the one that everyone will like pick up on those little subtleties and stuff, right Like if you most people aren't going to be like, oh the guitar is a little flat on this. No here, like I wasn't really feeling that particular expression of it. But they'll be able to detect honesty in a sung vocal performance or not like that you can tell if you mean it, or or even some kind of real specific expression of feeling that you're trying to get across. They'll they'll get those those things.

59:11 So it's it's you know, it's just the four it's just the tip of the iceberg kind of, but it's the part that the largest number of people will be uh understanding or not. Like we have a song on uh oh on the our old album Embraced the Horror. There's a part where like uh oh, I say gasping out its final breath in this one spot because I you know, I did harsh vocals on the last two and in that part, I like sound like I'm running out of breath. And a friend of mine, who's, you know, not really a musician, was like, like that feels so real, and you know, it's like wh fuck, and it's it's key.

1:00:04 That's key right there. And you know, I think too, Like, so I have a question for you, would you say, because I think everybody is I think like I think the whole narrative of self forgiveness, transformation, rebirth applies to everybody in their life and everybody that you know. It's breathing basically, So do you feel like when you're singing these songs, you're singing about you? I wrote, and that's key. It's it is in a kind of roundabout way, very autobiographical.

1:00:49 And also it became kind of like life imitating art. Like I started writing. When I really figured out what the story was about, it was because I felt like I was so bogged down in my own like this, I had created so much obligation for myself to that I couldn't move forward, Like I was so frustrated at myself for not achieving certain things that I couldn't even set new goals and move forward at all in my life.

1:01:33 And I had this expectation of myself that was so unrealistic, and I really was not being kind to myself, not being forgiving because of all the mistakes and that I'd made and dumb things. And it's really the sunk cost fallacy in a lot of ways. Now I am not a tyrannical king who's killed thousands of people and like oppressed, you know, like obviously in that sense, I not like Sisphist, but also that example exists just to be like in a sense, to sort of polarize it for you, because you go like, well, are you a tyrannical king who's killed and oppressed thousands of people and tortured people, Like, well, maybe you should be a little nicer to yourself than like it's you know, you made a mistake, you did something wrong or bad. You don't have to go fucking Walter White right like you. So for me, it was working through this philosophical and ethical idea that I think a lot of people don't consciously or address, which is like this idea of like am I a good person?

1:02:51 Am I a bad person? And that dichotomy fucks people up, And I think that's a terrible way to look at everything because people go like, Okay, well I did some things that are bad or wrong. I guess I'm a bad person, and then they just go Walter White right like you. Just you just keep you're just like all right, well I guess that's who I am. But that's that's not a real thing. There's no no one's good or bad. You you just you just are constantly faced with choices, and you can either you know, there's not a lot of very hard objective good and bad, and most of the choices that we make on a daily basis, you know, and if you make a bad choice, you do something wrong, it might really cause people pain or extreme joy or whatever.

1:03:49 But if you do something wrong or bad, like, the only thing that you can do is forgive yourself and move on and other because otherwise the choice that usually winds up getting made is that you continue to make these bad choices, no doubt. And like you might think, well what about justice? What about like should you feel bad about things that you did badly? Well, yeah, of course you should, But that guilt can have the opposite effect. It can backfire so hard, and it often does. And people like these tyrannical Sissiphis type characters, I think, wind up there because of a really bad philosophical idea, no doubt.

1:04:45 And there's something that you said, a quote of yours that I saw that I really loved because it just it says it all, and it's something I say all the time as a motivational type, self help type person. And you said, it's about releasing ourselves from guilt and regret and regret, because until you do, you can't do any good in the world for yourself or anyone else. And that is such an important statement. Thank you. I like being quoted as when I say pithy things. And you know that's not like a the kind of thing you expect to get out of a metal album. I know, right, But you know I have to want it to want metal to be like an escape, and there are a lot of times that I do too.

1:05:44 This one's a lot more like therapy. I think all music is therapy number one. Number two. Listen. You know I've had people say to me before, how can you be a metal head when you're a motivational speaker? That makes no sense? And I called bullshit. It makes all the sense in the world. I actually driving to a seminar that I'm gonna give I will listen to like stuff like Slayer to get me all motivated and pumped up. You know. Now, somebody that says that to me, they're gonna be like if I tell them that, They're like, well, that doesn't make any sense at all. But it does make sense because going back to the beginning of the interview, everything full circle is you know, it's a vibe, it's a feeling, it's energy, it's not necessarily about the words.

1:06:36 It is about the meaning you put to those words. It's not about necessarily the music, it's the meaning you put to that music. I think people who think like that would criticize you for something like that just really don't catch the vibe of not of what metal is about. And like, no, I mean honestly, like those are the kinds of things that make me not really identify with metal culture. I always tell people like that, I'm a I'm proudly opposer, Like if that's like I handed it in my metal card long long ago. I still mostly listen to metal, but you know, like I, it's stuff like that that I just don't identify with metal culture or like tribe metal tribalists thinking, because it's I mean, you just wind up with people saying dumb shit like that.

1:07:36 And it's real limited thinking. Okay, like you gotta look at the big picture. Like even for me, it's funny you were mentioning the mashpit before and I go into the mashpit. To me, the mashpits very motivational and very positive. And the reason I feel it is is because that's where I get my shit out. So I don't beat the piss as somebody in real life, okay, ohing it what it is, you know, like, and you're not in there to hurt in main people, it's idiots that don't understand ma washing that do that. It's about a community, a family helping each other, picking each other up and getting out. Like we all have darkness with us, no matter how positive we are, we all have negative things going on and we need some kind of release. For me, the mash bit is a perfect release because I just get all my adrenaline pumped up and feeling good and get stuff out. I'm not hurting anybody. I'm just simply getting out my darkness or pain.

1:08:43 Yeah. Like I said, I brought my brought my girlfriend to a Jest Court show this past week and she was like, she was like, I like the music, but like I mean, I didn't like the people were pushing each other like I wouldn't make that. And I was like, I can understand how from the outside that probably looks like like they're not having a good time or something, or like you're but metal causes you. There's this physical sensation that gets you amped up and you get this energy and like this very specific kind of aggressive energy, and the mosh pit when it's done right, when it's like a good mosh pit and not like something where somebody's gonna get sent to the hospital, you're getting that feeling out, you're actuating that feeling that you're doing something that it's sort of driving you to do without actually hurting anybody exactly.

1:09:47 And I'll go a step further. So I was doing coverage at Hellfest this summer and the person that was my media helper, she had never really seen me in a p okay and so Exodus was playing, and so not only was I in the pit, but I started the pit and I was in the pit for their whole set, damn. And after I came out, she was like, I have never seen you smile so much. And I'm somebody that does smile, so it's not like I don't smile, but she's like, oh my god, you were just grin ear to ear the whole time. And I think that's what people don't get, is that's what the pit does for you. It doesn't make you an angry person a depressive person, and the adrenaline that you get from it is like such a euphoric feeling forget taking drugs, just going a pit.

1:10:44 Yeah. I mean basically, all music gives you some kind of a physical sensation, like dance music like em you know, or makes you like, makes you want to dance. It's a certain way, like reggaetne makes you want to shake your ass, like uh it, it doesn't seem weird to me that metal makes you want to do this other thing that also a kind of dance. Well, we worked. We did call it slam dancing before there was ever such thing as washing. Yeah, exactly. So the you know, it's all just this physical expression of this music, and it doesn't really make any logical sense.

1:11:31 But I think people don't get things unless they experience a perfect example for me as I was covering this festival here in Florida called Okachobefest one year, and they had Scrillis and bass nectar, and I was one of those people like I don't get why people go to a concert for a DJ, like just go to the nightclub. And I didn't get it. I really didn't get it until I was there, Yeah, and I'm like, oh my god, how I get it? Like it doesn't even have to be my jam, but it was just so cool and the energy was so cool and it was a lot of fun, you know, And but you have to experience it to get it. I think that's what it comes down to.

1:12:16 Yeah, I didn't really I didn't really like Saboton until I saw them live and then I was like, oh, yeah, that's fucking sick. Well, you know, it's funny. Is the band for me? That was that I didn't like maybe unpopped their opinion was God's smack until I saw them live, and then I loved them. They had such a great live show. And live shows art of different. There's artists that I really like their music and don't really like their live show. There's the opposite too, Like again going back to what we were talking about, you know, and so it goes both ways. And yeah, Sabaton does put on a really good show. I almost got I almost got smashed in their review by their state age one time.

1:13:01 Oh my god. Yeah. So I was interviewing them back behind the stage after they got off and it was the end of the end of the festival and they were taking the stage down and literally the back part of the stage fell right where I was sitting. Like he he pointed, it to me and I got out of away and the scene came slamming down. It was right, it was It's like in the interview. It was in the middle of the interview. Uh, but yeah, I mean, but the point is is that, yeah, like you do definitely have to experience things before you pass judgment on them, because you just never know that, you know. I talked about bringing Me to Rise, and I didn't know who they were back in the Death Core days. I recently discovered them like before a couple of years before COVID because I was at festival and they were doing a live show and I was like, oh my god, and they're like my top five favorite band now And it was cause of that live show right there. And then you talk about composition, like Ali is one of my favorite songwriters ever, Like it just his lyrics kind of speak to me, you know. And that's what it's about too.

1:14:24 It's you know whether the lyrics speak to you or not, and you put your own meaning to it. Like I think a great lyricist and a lot of them will say this is yes, I'm writing it for me and it's about my feelings. But I also am very good with the fact that anybody else can put their own meaning to. It doesn't have to be the same meaning I have. Yeah, I teach a lyric writing course. It's you know, I mean, it's like a you know videos you can get. It's called how to actually write lyrics. And there's a concept that I talk about and they are called the universal personal. And to me, if you're writing something that's very personal, most people go through a lot of the same basic things during their life. Like, we're not all super different. So if you're writing something that's really super personal, that's actually more universal than something than you trying to find something that's very universal because you're a person and the people that you're talking to are also people, and like the very the specific details of their life are going to be very different. But you know, we all like go through a lot of very very similar things, so, you know, regardless, like obviously a Sabotan song about a

1:15:56 specific battle during World War Two, like no, I wasn't there, I didn't storm the beach at Norman or whatever, you know, so that's like a bit different. But like the you know, the there's a lot of things that you write about yourself that other people are going to be able to relate to. And yeah, that's no matter what you write, people are going to view it through their own the lens of their own life and experiences anyways. Yeah, so even if they're not getting exactly the thing that you're saying, actually, even if they did understand exactly what you're saying, they're going to apply it to themselves in a certain way.

1:16:45 Absolutely, and that's good music. You know. I remember when I was taking that one of those music classes in college that they talked about what it takes to write a hit song, and they used one specific song, an example that at that time was considered the perfect example of a perfect hit song. And basically what the professor said was, and you know this goes into motivational stuff. I talk about motivational stuff. There's three types of people. There's auditory, visual, and kinesthetic, and if you can appeal to all three types in the song, then it's a hit song. And the song that he used as the example was Stairway to Heaven. Interesting because if you take the three parts of Stairway to Heaven, one of the parts is for visual people, one is for auditory, and one is for k aesthetic. You know, So now go listen to that song again and you'll see, you know, you have because there's distinctive three parts to the song and they do fit those three different personalities like perfectly, which is why it became so big, you know, is because everybody could relate to it.

1:18:04 Yeah, that's that's a cool perspective on it. I never thought of it like that. Right, that was like wow. When when I heard that, I was like, that makes so much sense. And now every time I listen to that song, that's all I hear is like I hear the progression of the auditory to and the visual and the kinesthetic, and it's you know, it's kind of amazing because it is true, like every single person on the face of the earth would feel some type of energy from that song. Yeah, that's awesome, just like Desolation Throne. Just like our song Desolation Throne.

1:18:48 So let's tell everybody, right, and you rank as one of the I think top three or four longest interviews I've done, so that says a lot. That's a that's a good thing. I even start feeling bad, like I wonder if you go somewhere else, But you know, and there's been no deubt Air got. You know, dinner with the Queen, gotta jump on a my private jet to I don't know, right. So let's tell everybody, okay, Age of Legends is set to release November twenty first, and so tell everybody how they can get the album, how they can check out the singles, check out all your stuff, and even even your website, which we didn't even get a chance to talk about. That might take another hour. You know, your your gear, No you're oh gear. Oh no, that's a whole yeah, that's what I was saying that that that's a whole nother end. But give up to your info and contract.

1:19:52 I think the best way to get the real and virtue experience is to go to our YouTube channel and watch our music videos. And underneath those music videos in the description you can find links to where to pre save on your favorite streaming service and all of that and to get all the information. But the to me, the the music video will give you the full picture. If you've never heard us before, you don't know what we're all about, you'll get the full you know, we have how many now five five total music videos I think six actually one for a cover that are there on the channel. So it's like YouTube dot com slash at in Virtue, I think, But whatever, just search, you know, just use the search.

1:20:43 Bar that sounds that sounds right, because yeah, that's why I screwed up with something today with my own It was like, oh, I forgot to put that at sign. Yeah, people know how to search. We're the only band called in Virtue as far as I know, there's another band, as you pointed out, called Virtue. You're used the right preposition. Okay, they're also they're also quite good, so if you fuck it up, you'll still be hearing good music. It just won't be us. But yeah, our new music video, Desolation Throne is out. We released one last month called Gunslingers of the New American Desert. And on the day that we release, I don't know if should I is this a secret? I don't even know. We have another video coming out that will drop on the day of the album release that I don't know. Maybe there might be a publicist watching this right now, going like I don't tell them that I know, right, But it's fine, Like I'm sure they probably could have predicted that. Anyway, I've got another one coming and you know that's and those are all just a a small view into this entire album. That's fourteen fifteen tracks. I don't remember how many tracks. It's somewhere between thirteen and sixteen tracks, fifty minutes of music, and it's a complete journey, a tale of just what I think of is being very heart wrenching character development. It's actually a little difficult for me

1:22:18 to listen to the whole thing because I get very emotional about it. If you want a really deep story, you dive into the whole thing start to finish. Read the lyrics Age of Legends, out November twenty first. Nice And you know, it's funny because every time I hear that album name, I can't even help it, but I just think of. Marvel mar Oh yeah, it's a it's it's a reference kind of in a roundabout way to the Wheel of Time series, the books Robert Jordan.

1:23:01 But I see, you just prove something else too that I know to be true. But a lot of these people out there that think metal heads are not intellectuals, first of all, this interview proves that. But the fact that so many metal songs albums are based on books, Oh yeah, I mean Iron Maiden exactly. You know, you took that out of my head. Bro just goes through his his library. He's like, hey, oh, time to write a new album. Just like, what are the books that I've read? Right?

1:23:41 So anyway, Yeah, the music's badass. Everybody's got to check it out. And you know, as I say many times, if they don't get the album, they can't listen to my show. Yeah, that's the ticket. That's the right and there it is. So do you have any last words you want to share with the listeners that we haven't covered already because we've covered pretty much everything except you know, the part two, which will be about your gear. Oh man, Well, just that we appreciate you all very much and we, more than anything else, just want to hear from you. So please leave some comments on anything you see of us. Let us like, you know, you put a lot of work into a thing and you put it out there, and the number one thing that you want is a response, like a really honest response, like I want to know if you're picking up what we're putting down. You know, watch the video, read the lyrics, listen to the music, and just just populate the comments section.

1:24:55 There you go. And if John does listen or watch this. Okay, don't worry, John. We won't tell anybody about the secret we weren't supposed to talk about that we talked about before. Nobody will know. We won't tell a soul. Well, thanks a lot for making us some great music. Oh my pleasure. Me just absolutely yack about it. I know. Well, see I like that. See there's two types of interviews. There's types like this that that I would be getting yelled at at a tour manager at a festival because it went too long. And then there's the type that you mean, I still have five more minutes left of this.

1:25:44 Yep, try patting it out to fill the time right exactly. So that's why it went so long, because it was engaging, great and everybody should listen to the whole interview because it was definitely we covered a lot of ground and it's badass music and that's all that came to exactly. Well, thank you for being on the Adventures of Pipe Cook. Oh yeah, thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipemin on w for CUI Radio.