Senses Fail Talk 25 Years, Authenticity, and New Music at Aftershock 2026

0:04 Hey, you're listening to Adventure Mountain Pummeling on W4CY Radio. This is the Pipe Man here on the Adventure's Pipe Man W4CY Radio, and I'm here with. Buddy Nielsen and Steve Carey from Senses Fail. Nice. Here at Aftershock. Yeah. Oh, my God. Last time I talked to you at Aftershock was 2023. Yes. Yeah, which is not too long ago. It's nice. Good to be back. I know, right? It's hot this time, though. I don't like this. It's too warm. I've talked to you in Florida, too.

0:47 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably Rockville. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think we did something at Rock on the Range or something. That sounds about right. Yeah, yeah. Rock on the Range. That's going back. 2018. Yes. Yes, 2018. Spring 2018. Yeah. I had just joined the band. Your memory is good, man. Because it swirls in my head sometimes. Like, you do all these festivals and, like, you guys talk to so many people. It's like, you remember, but you can't pinpoint it. Yeah, that was probably, like, my first Wimmer Festival in the band playing drums. I think that's why I remember that. Nice. Yeah, we had done, well, didn't we do, after we did Northern Invasion? I was there, too, but I don't think we talked there, but I was at Northern Invasion.

1:31 Played perfect circle on that one and avenge for the other. Yeah. Nice. So, so what do you think of all the Wimmer festivals? Which one's got the coolest vibe to you guys? Dude, it's, it's got, I'm swear to God. It's not because we're here, but it is aftershock. I, it's one of my favorite, especially the one stage with the overpass over it. Oh yeah. That's pretty. Anyone can come and kind of watch the, watch the show as it's popping off. You know? Yeah, I just saw that the first time today because I didn't get to get out of here yesterday. I walked down there, I'm like, now that's pretty cool. I saw people at the Overpass. Yeah, it was cool. We headlined, last time we played, we headlined that stage. It was great.

2:12 It was like, I don't know, one of my favorite festival moments that we've had. Because we got to headline the stage at a Wimmerfest, which was just awesome. And there were construction workers watching us and people watching us. So it was super fun. I really like Aftershock. It's the closest one to where we live. Because we live in Vegas and we're West Coast based. There you go. now. Um, and it's the one that feels like I drove, I drove here. See, that's cool. You know, I feel that way about Rockville cause I live like three hours from Daytona. So I drive, I'm like, Oh good. I can drive in my own vehicle and you know, chill. Uh, but what I do love about aftershock is the vibe with the trees and everything. Like Go ahead.

2:57 No, it's nice to just have that. It feels like you're in a little forest. Right? And actual sun coverage, too. That's nice. Yeah, and have you noticed, like, for the headliners, there'll be people, like, sitting in the trees. It's pretty wild. Yeah, which is kind of not. Well, no, not with what happened. Yeah, I don't want to discuss that, but no, you don't recommend that. Don't sit in trees. Yeah, especially if you're drunk. Don't sit in trees if you're drunk, or period. I mean, I don't really even let my kids climb trees. Well, my daughter, okay, she was climbing a tree in our backyard when she was like eight or And she fell and ruptured her spleen and almost died.

3:41 Did they have to emergency take it out? No. The doctor, the surgeon was great. Saved it. Didn't have to take it out, but Like, if she didn't have such a great surgeon, they probably would have. Wow, that's terrible. Yeah, don't climb trees. Yeah, there's the moral of the story. Yeah, don't climb trees. Maybe that should... You guys are going to come out with some new music. Maybe that should be a new song right here now. Yeah, yeah. Don't climb trees. Yeah, right. I get it. Yeah. It's self-explanatory. Right. Okay, so... We got a lot of stuff going on now. Like, I can't believe 25 years. Yeah. We've been a band as February next 2027. It'll be 25 years for the band. Does that blow your mind or what? I don't even feel like I'm over 25 years old. No. Yeah.

4:25 It's a long time to do anything, let alone be in a band, you know? Right. I feel like this industry in general is always trying to kind of push you out. Just not on purpose. It's just sort of a, you know, what's new, what's next type thing. All kind of pop culture is. So if you could stick around for 10 years, let alone another, you know, that 15 after that, I don't know. It's hard to quantify. That says something about your band, though. For real. To withstand the valleys, you know, the peaks and valleys. Oh, no doubt. We were just hanging out with the drum tech of Limp Bizkit last night and he was talking about how Limp was way up. Then he was way down, then he was way up again, then he was way down, and now he's playing all the festivals again.

5:15 Yeah, I don't know. If you give up or leave, if you don't do that, especially if you have records that people love from their youth, It's always something that's going to be there, you know, for a section of people. If you're lucky enough to like connect with somebody, an artist or like a fan when they're in their like formative years, that kind of never really goes away. And you kind of are hopefully can always communicate with those people. Well, and what I found too, well, what we were talking about and he says like we were talking about this.

5:55 I think with all the new bands doing this formula for making music, that there's been a resurgence of the nostalgia of going back to that time. Like your band, like anybody else that was making music for real back then. No AI, no music. None of this other stuff. There's an imperfection to the genre, even in Limp Bizkit. They influenced me, and specifically the guy who recorded all that stuff, Ross Robinson. I mean, there's an imperfection in the way, in what he did, that people are latching onto now because it sounds real. And that's what younger people are like, oh, I want real. Whatever that is, I'm going to go look for that versus... it's just everybody's getting fed everything to your face and you don't really have as much control over what you like and I think a lot of people are pushing back on that.

6:48 Yeah, it's benefiting bands that lean on authenticity. Yeah, and I love that because it's been bothering me for a while. it's almost like they take an algebraic equation to make a song to me and that's weird. Like, you go back to like when you guys first started, you just experimented and made what sounded good to you, you know? Yeah. I mean, that's still sort of what we do. And I try to, I try to keep that as much the center of it. Like I don't really want to do anything that doesn't, that I don't feel inspired by. So I try to retain as much of that in the way that we continue to make new music, which is why with a new song sound a little, they don't really sound like a formula. Like you're going to hear these songs and you'll be like, They don't sound like we did because.

7:37 You can't redo what you did. And why would you want to? Why would you want to? And that's not what even our fans want. No. But it's got to feel authentic to the band and inspired. It has to feel like inspired. Nobody wants to hear music from people who are uninspired. Right. Exactly. And I heard somebody in an interview say something about if you want so-and-so album go listen to that album like and so and speaking of which like so you can go listen to the 20th anniversary because you have a 20th anniversary that's wild too. Yeah yeah this is our 20th anniversary of our biggest record, Still Searching, and we're doing it.

8:20 We're traveling all around the country. We're going to Florida. We're going to St. Pete playing... Where are we playing? Janis Landing. And it'll be awesome. And then we're going to. It's like our last hurrah and our nostalgia for a minute. And then we're going to celebrate our 25th anniversary by releasing a ton of new music. I love it. And so how can we compare the new music, more so than you've already said, to... What you were still searching for at the time. I mean, we're dabbling in a lot more heavier technical styles of music, but it's still Senses Fail. Right. Buddy's always going to be Buddy, no matter what type of music that you throw under it, you know? But yeah, there's some chances on there that we're taking.

9:03 Yeah, we took a lot of chances, because it's like, I don't really want to... I'm never going to play it safe. I've never done that. And sometimes you swing and miss. I think this is a home run. I've done this enough to know when we make a record that's going to work versus when it's not. And sometimes that record doesn't work, and that's fine because that's the music I wanted to make. But this is not that time. I feel like it's the music I want to make and the music I know people want to hear. See, I think that's more important than anything also. And then going back to the point you said, like, Isn't that what you did in the beginning, 25 years ago? It's like you're not doing anything different. I think that's how you still get the juice for doing it. Well, it's obvious.

9:48 You can tell music that's made for X reasons and music that's made for Y reasons. And generally the bands that really succeed and succeed over time are the ones who make music. that is the music they want to be making. Right. Because, listen, if you don't like your own music, how are we supposed to like it? I mean, it's a transfer of emotion. We can tell. Of course. You know? And then when you're going to play live shows, like, If you're not playing what you want to play, it's not very fun. And that's supposed to be the most fun part of the gig. Never assume the listener can... Well, you'll just put one past them. They will tell if you're not authentic. And I always say, you attract your own tribe then.

10:30 If you're just being yourself, you'll get your people. Yeah, it might take a long time, but that's generally the bands that are like, where'd this band come from? Everybody's like, what's this turnstile band? I'm like, dude, I've been. I used to manage the drummer in another band. They didn't just come from anywhere. They've been doing this for a decade. You know what I mean? But sometimes it takes 10, 15 years. I always say, in order to become an overnight success, it takes like 20 years. Yeah, exactly. And you think of bands like Metallica, okay? I saw them from the very beginning. Like, for ten years, they ate bologna sandwiches with no bread and slept on the floor.

11:11 Yeah, I mean, even Injustice for All was, like, clubs. It wasn't massive. No. They weren't this massive band. No. Yeah, it wasn't really until the Black Album that people outside of thrash, like, caught on, you know? Kind of like my vest here. Did I ever show this to you? You had a DRI? What do you got there? Whoa. All right, let's talk about it. Look at it and talk about it. Who would you want to tour with that's on here? Let's talk about that. Well, Metallica. Metallica, yeah. I'd be afraid to play open for Slayer. I've heard it's just really tough. Slayer fans or something, I love Slayer, so I can tell you that. GBH, I would tour with GBH. Suicidal Tendencies, I would do it.

11:51 There's Battalion of Saints. All right, all right. I don't see any. M.D.C.? We got M.D.C. On there? M.D.C. Is somewhere on there, actually. What do we call it? Millions of Dead Cops? Or whatever you want to call it. Oh, Murder Death Corporation? It could be that. There's like millions of dead Christians. I think there's eight. There are? I think there's eight names for M.D.C. I had no idea. Right? I mean, Dirty Rotten Imbeciles, don't they have a couple names, too? What about JFA? We got JFA on here? I don't have that on here. I know a lot of old punk, as you can tell. I love that you said MDC. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because, like, everybody can say DRI. Everybody can say GBH. But not many could say MDC.

12:32 You got to know. You got to be. I got way down the rabbit. I love, like, West Coast, early West Coast skate punk. Nice. Obviously, adolescence. But I like the, like, I loved a lot of that, like, ignorant, stupid, teenage, trash punk. Oh, you know, I don't fanboy often, but it was at Aftershock one year that there was somebody here not performing that I had a 45-minute conversation with. Jello Biafra. Oh, cool. I mean, and it was just like, I don't care if you even believe in what he says. Like, just the fact that I'm talking, we were talking for like 45 minutes about politics. Like, and that's the person to talk to.

13:13 Yeah, you want to talk to someone. Yep. He's a guy. Another great moment, the exploit that I was interviewing Waddy. Yeah, yeah. And so I asked him right, it was right before he was going on stage. I knew what I was doing. I'm like, so Waddy, what do you think about pop punk? Oh, yeah, he went off. And then he went out on stage and he started yelling. Oh, you riled him up? Yeah, I riled him up. It was fun. It was fun. I totally riled him up. Coxbar is one of my favorite bands ever. That's another one that most people wouldn't know. They're one of the best skin bands ever.

13:54 How about this? How about this? I'll name a couple. I'll name a couple, and I'll be really impressed, okay? Okay? Infra-riot? My grandson was in the car with me one day, and I turned on a band, and it turns out it's his favorite band, Operation Ivy. Oh, of course. One of the greatest, yeah. Right? But my grandson, I was like, how the fuck do you know Operation? I didn't even teach that to him yet. I just put it on in the car. Well, they're one of the greats. If you hear that, you're like, oh shit, that's cool. All right, how about... Flux of pink Indians. You know, I never really got into it. I know, like, Flipper.

14:35 I used to work at the bass player of Flipper's Vegan Donut Shop. Wow. So I'll go, I could go deep into weird punk, but flux of pinks, I just, I don't know. How about gay bikers on acid? Yes, of course. No, no. But I need to listen to Gay Bikers on Acid immediately. Right? They used to play in L.A. in the 80s. Yeah, yeah. The 80s punk scene is insane. Original hardcore. Like, West Coast hardcore. Totally. And my dad, I grew up, I was born in New York, grew up in Jersey, and in 1980, I was 11 years old, he comes up to me, he goes, meet your new mother, and we're moving to California in three days, pack your bags. And, and, I wouldn't be sitting here right now if that didn't happen.

15:19 I was pissed. I didn't want to leave Jersey, but I was in that whole scene. Like the original Karate Kid. Yeah. You left. You got me a great character right there. I love that. Yeah. So, is there anything else we want to tell the listeners that we haven't covered already before you guys go? Steve, this is... So, our new music.... What? We got new music coming out. We're really excited about... This is Steve. He's been in the band for 10 years. This is his first recording ever. He played in this amazing band called The Call of Morale before joining Senses Fail.

16:00 He first saw the band as a fan in 2008 at Chubby Rain, which is pretty much a Hooters named after... a Prince song it's a Prince song Chubby Rain and all the girls would get up on stage if you played there the owner would make the girls get on stage they were called the Chubby Girls and they'd have to dance on stage we didn't want them to but we also thought it was hilarious that's where the first time Steve ever played saw the band play and now he's in the band yeah yeah hooked hooked from the Chubby Girls. Oh my god that's what did it that's what did it Chubby Girls and here we are at Aftershock. So all these years later, yeah.

16:41 All roads to Aftershock start with Chubby Girls. Exactly. So the next time we're at Aftershock, we'll have one. I love Chubby Girls. I do. The look on the face, priceless. Yeah, yeah. She's appreciated. All right. Fine. We did it. We did it, Joe. Okay, so one last thing. Yeah. Now let's see if you can get me on a band name. Punk? It could be anything. Punk, metal, whatever. There's a band from New York. They put out a demo, and I believe it's... I don't want to say 81.

17:23 I could be wrong. They're called Breakdown. That one I don't know. All right, check it out. You did good. It's so good. It's so ignorant. It's like original pre. It wasn't 81. It's a little bit later. People are going to roast me because there's a demo. It's the original demo. Check it out. Was it like the Tape Trading Days demo? Yeah. They ended up releasing it as a CD, but Breakdown. Oh, I have another one for us. Okay, I'll say what mine is after you guys say yours. Number one band from the 80s that would be canceled in 2026.

18:04 They just played, so they're obviously not canceled. They should have been, but they're obviously not canceled. Damn, we've read the books. We've watched the movies at this point. Poison. Bret Michaels is still a thing. Kind of. I don't know. Ricky Rockets around talking all sorts of trash. Have you seen all those interviews where he's like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Well, I was around all those people, and they're exactly what everybody thinks they are. The Mentors. Oh, of course, of course, of course.

18:45 That would be the pre-canceled version of GWAR. Well, their logo was the Ku Klux Klan. Well, but it was a joke. It was all anti-racist. They weren't racist at all. They were anti-racist, but they were definitely misogynistic against women big time and did all kinds of bullshit like that. Yeah. Trivia for you, you might not know this, but when Armored Saint first started, because Joey and I have talked about this, they used to come out in the Mentor's hood. Oh, shit. Yeah. You can't do that. Yeah, you can't do that. You can't do that. Yeah. You can't do that. Well, thank God. Yeah, of course. Thank God Senses Fail has not been canceled.

19:26 No, no, no, no. That's not possible. And you're just going to get bigger now. Yes. Like, I can't wait until I interview you for the 50th. I can't wait until we're headlining. I think it's going to happen next year. That would be great. I'm telling in this interview to Danny Wimmer that he has to have you guys headline next year. at any of the Wimmer festivals. Yeah, let me know. It doesn't have to be here. Any of them, you guys are the headliners. I appreciate it. Or else I'm not promoting this shit anymore. Okay. I'm not doing it anymore. Well, thank you. Well, thank you for being on the Adventures of Pipe Man. Yeah, thanks, dude. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipe Man.

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