PipemanRadio Interviews Prisoner

0:04 Hey, you have unto censure. Wow forrare you young Wake up America. It's time for the Adventures of whipe Man on W four c hy dot Com withst. Pomp Beach is number one Internet radio station. Here's your host, the White Man. It's the Vision Dougie Sky Media and these are four flied so I'm on you know what I say, may get a homicide by your windows, hockey doors, proder my way there, patrol rag you down in cocky path, pull.

0:50 Your mind and be there at This is white Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c y RA and I'm here with our next guest who have some killer music. So let's welcome to the shoe. Marie Emrie from Prisoner. How are you. I'm doing well, thank you? How are you doing amazing? And uh so, tell us a little bit about Prisoner For the listeners that aren't familiar with you, guys, how would you the artist ribe you guys? Well, I'd say Prisoner is definitely your modern mix of traditional rock and roll and heavy metal with a fresh take on it and influenced by the modern era. Like we try to take ideas and things that you know, a lot of legacy acts started bands like Black Sabbath, ACDC, Megadeth, things like that where you can always tap your toe of the music. It's rift riven. And then there's complexity, speed and harmony to everything that we do, but in a way that is modern rather than try to be a carbon copy of these bands. And that.

1:58 Actually from me watching your video, and that is like spot on what I would think, you know, because I come from the days of like the eighties early metal and hard rock, and you gave me a vibe of that. But for twenty twenty. Four, right on, that's the goal. There it is, and I love here in the background. I love that artwork there too. Oh thank you a big artwork person. So let's and you guys, from a lot of what I've seen, have some cool artwork. So let's talk about your artwork because I think that all goes hand in hand with the music absolutely.

2:40 I mean for us, you know, the artwork to us is just as important as the music, because we want to create something that the listener can connect to in a in a complete way, in an auditory and visual way. And our artwork, so everything that we do is handpainted by our friend John Garrett, and the reason we have it hand painted is because one he's a fantastic artist, but two, you know, there's something to be said about true authentic artistry. And I feel like in a world with AI and quick turnaround artwork and like, let's just get it done so we have something to put out is in a way not as authentic as I think having something that's physically hand painted. And I mean where we're an old school rock and roll band, where you know, we do anything and everything we can as authentically as possible in starts of songwriting. Our recording is all analog in my recording studio here, and I think it's something that's just as important as the music.

3:35 I think it is too, And you know, again being an old school myself, to me, the whole idea of music is not just the music itself, but the artwork that goes along with it. Like you bought an album. First of all, you bought the album, you don't even know what it sounded like. It was the artwork that made you buy the album first. Then you listen to it, and so it was just a whole, full centory experience. Just like I love how you said auditory and visual because you got oratory, visual and canvestag people. And I think music applies to all those people when you have the complete package, like you guys do. Absolutely, and especially in a genre like hard rock and heavy metal, it's not necessarily just a genre that people casually listen to. It becomes your lifestyle in terms of how you dress, who you hang out with, how you decorate your house, your car, anything and everything. It really becomes a large part of your personality. And I feel like the artwork is very much a large part of that.

4:30 And like you say, you know, back in the day when people were going to record stores or even buying CDs and stuff in the early two thousands, before streaming, you would go and look at a record and be enticed by the artwork, and then you'd go home and listen to it. And it was kind of a fifty to fifty chance. Was it the best thing in the world or was it like, ah, man, I can't believe I spent twenty bucks on this, But you know, I think that's a part of the experience, and when you connect with an artist in that way, it's super important. And for us, this character that we have, Davy is the guy on the front of this artwork. He's a character that we've kind of created in a way that we'll be able to represent the band moving forward from record to record, because I find a lot of bands will do concept albums and it's really cool because they have an entire story, but then the next record can be completely different, and for us musically, we're consistently changing and expanding and trying new things. But having a storyline visually where one day you could put down all of our albums in a row and you can literally see the story of this character progressing from record to record is kind of the full, big idea concept that we're trying to create.

5:35 So that's pretty cool. So how did you come up with this concept? So ironically, I had a guitar strap that I had gotten when I first started playing guitar with this gargoyle on it, and I thought that that image was really cool, and we wanted to create a character similar to Eddie from Iron Maiden or Henry from Sabbath or Rattlehead from Megadeth that you could use in a way that would create a story around this character. And the idea and the name actually came from my twin brother that didn't actually make it out of the womb. His name was supposed to be David, and so that's where the name came from. So it was close to me and my family and things like that. And this character kind of follows the dream of the band and it just kind of gives us a way to create a structure around our creative outlet.

6:28 Wow, that's pretty cool. And so what was that first moment for you that you knew music was just part of your blood. Well, I got the opportunity when I was just turning eighteen to go down to LA and play at this rock camp thing at the Whiskey. You go go with Zach Wilde, Paul Gilbert Dey, Mustain, a whole bunch of these other extremely high caliber musicians. And I got to play at the Whiskey and I got to play Into the Void with Zach, and my dad came out with me and filmed the whole thing, and he was like, you could do this, And that was kind of the moment where I was like, yeah, like this is everything I would ever want, So let's go full steam ahead.

7:16 I mean, I picked up a guitar pretty late. I started at about fifteen, and it became an obsession. But I had just been a basement guitar player. I never really played in front of anybody. I was writing music for Prisoner, like all of the music from the first record and his EP was written previous to twenty twenty, and just finding the right people in the right time and developing my skills as a vocalist and stuff like that. All kind of just snowball to now, But it was kind of right around then where I was like, all right, this is something that I could potentially pursue full time. And then that's where I pursued everything in audio, like my full time job as a recording engineer. So nice. And see that's cool too, because not a lot of musicians are good that being sound engineers. You know, it's like two different people. So I love that that because that means you're a true artist because you know the whole craft.

8:12 In my opinion, absolutely well. I feel like this industry is one of those things where like you can't necessarily go for a four year degree like a doctor or a lawyer or something like that, or accounting. It's very much like spread out and you can kind of go certain avenues, whether it's management, tech, learning the science behind music and go a place like Berkeley or Musicians Institute. So it's kind of like you need to get a full circle understanding. And especially nowadays, you know, artists are their own content creators. They're doing anything and everything because of the way this industry is gone. So for me, you know, I knew it was going to be difficult to be the guy that was going to play guitar for the rest of my life. So I wanted to build a career within the industry so that I could help myself in any way, shape or form, but also always create music, whether it went somewhere or not. And I get to be a part of that community.

9:03 That's brilliant. And I love how your father was the supportive factor because a lot of times, you know, our parents are like, oh, get a real job, but your dad is actually the one that propelled you to do this, So that's cool as hell. Absolutely. Yeah, both my parents, my mom and dad, had been extremely supportive and they were like, you know, when I was about eighteen, They're like, okay, so you want to be a guitar player, but you need to understand that that's difficult. So I ended up going to a Community College here in Calgary and took a broadcast system tech program to learn how to fix audio and video equipments and radio and TV stations so I could learn the tech side. I can take apart my own gear, fix things, and at least have an intelligent conversation with someone in that side of the industry. And then I moved to London, Ontario, where Prisoner originally started with a full lineup, and I found the people where I went to audio production school, and then from there moved to LA and had a reiterating life up of the band, just kind of just trying to understand the industry, the scene and how people were working, why LA was the place to be at the time, back in the day, and then ended up moving back to Calgary here where I built my recording studio, which is we're sitting in my control room right now and that's what I get to do full time. But at the same time I get to pursue music. So it's all kind of come full circle in a way that Plan A Metplan B and now is just my life.

10:25 There you go, and do you think the sound engineering and recording has made you a better musician? One hundred and ten percent because I get to work with so many people from varying genres and for me, you know, I get to kind of put on a few different hats in terms of the producer, the engineer, things like that. And for me with Prisoners specifically, like I bring in friends that are other engineers to help record and do a lot of the mixing, like I do the rough mixes and things like that. But I just get to step back and be the band guy with the rest of the guys Prisoner rather than trying to do everything myself. But it's great because I can have those conversations with these engineers and things like that.

11:08 So yeah, I would I would think that puts you a step above the rest because, like I said before, knowing both parts of the craft. You know, so tell us about Skies are Black and that's a cool video. Thank you. Yeah. So that song was actually the first song that was ever written for Prisoner. I was sixteen, and wow, it was something that just kind of happened. And the song to me was more just kind of talking about technology because I grew up very old school like everything that I like in terms of pop cultures from the seventies and eighties, things like that, and of course music and things like that just kind of consumed who I was, But I was writing more so about technology and how the idea of you know, the people that are running our world and some people above that and whatever you want to talk about or believe in that regard, you know, how they kind of control ma manipulate people and in a way that will benefit them.

12:11 And it's more just kind of like a comment on our societal and like social construct because when I write lyrically, I always try to just talk about something or create a story rather than just be very blunt and straightforward so that people can interpret it in their own way and kind of connect in a way that makes sense with their worldview. But the music video was just something that we wanted to do because it was super raw, it was pretty quick, just to kind of fit with the theme of the song, like it's two minutes and forty seconds, it's fast, aggressive, a large starring chorus with the vocals and things like that. So we thought, you know, to go out to Banff and we ended up going on the rooftop of the main mall there, so we got a cool background with the mountains and everything, and as nice as it did look outside. It was cold and raining everywhere around us, but where we were, so the skies were about as dark as it could get.

13:10 And you know what, it did look cool, you know, with the silhouette of the mountains and stuff. But no, I wouldn't have known that you guys were freezing. Oh yeah, it was. It was coold. I always wonder about musicians when they have to play when it's freezing, like, how hard is that? Because it's hard enough doing normal things, like especially if you're you know, playing guitar. It's hard enough to move your fingers when it's like freezing out, much less to play guitar. Absolutely, yeah, it was definitely one of those factors. I mean, the one nice thing is that we weren't sweating our brains out on with those leather jackets, which we usually are.

13:52 Yeah. Well, and I'm in South Florida, okay, and I think about the fact of wearing the leather jacket in the heat here would be like unbelievably terrible. Oh yeah. You know. We've used to start our shows where we were like, oh, we're gonna wear our jackets the whole time, and then halfway through we're like Nope, this is not happening. I always when I go and I do coverage at festivals and it's a really hot one and I'm doing an interview with band and I see that they're wearing stuff like leather jackets or overcoats and stuff like that. I'm like, how do you even perform up there like that? I mean even in short sand t shirt, it'd be hard to perform much less like that.

14:38 Oh yeah, definitely speaking. And performing anything that you want to talk about. As far as tour dates, shows, you're playing stuff like that. So as of right now, we're just doing a bunch of Western Canadian stuff. Are The only show we have announced right now is in Edmondston on September seventh, and then we're announcing a local show in Calgary and then the surrounding area because right now kind of coming up into the fall time of the year and of course, getting up north, we start to get snow around October November. So we're actually just got out of the studio. We've recorded two more songs that'll be out later this year, and then we're heading back into the studio in the winter to start working on our second record, which will be out next year at some point to follow up all of this and then hopefully we're going to use that as the fuel to try to get on a full tour in place many shows as we can next summer.

15:30 Lovin tell everybody how they can connect to your website, your merch, your socials, all of that. Yeah, so you can check us out at www dot prisoner band dot Ca. That's connected to our merch, all of our streaming platform social media as. You can follow us on Instagram at prisoner Band Official, prisoner Band on Facebook, things like that. So if you get through our website you'll be able to find everything beautiful. Well, thanks for giving us great music, looking forward to a lot more, and thanks for being on the Adventures of Pete Man awesome. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. You got it, brother, Take care. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Patemn on w for CUI Radio.