Shadow Company on Bloodstock, Metal Community, and Breaking Down Scene Barriers

0:04 Hey you then to ars true for Wow, pra you your. This is the pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio and I'm here with Mighty and. From Shadow Company. Nice here at Bloodstock. Yeah, it's unreal and honestly, we did it was still processing it. We played yesterday and I'm still like, how did this happen? Right? And that's what I want to know, how did this happen? We came through a competition called Metal to the Masses, which allows grassroots bands to basically be in a competition and those who win get through to the New Blood stage and it kind of it gives people leg up if anything, but not only that, it helps you network.

1:03 We banned as well, like even if we didn't win, the friends we made along the way. Honestly, bulletproof, bulletproof. That's the one thing about Bloodstock and Metal to the Masses, Like, yeah, first of all, what I love about Melting Masses is that you're in a competition. Yeah, in the States wouldn't be so friendly, but here you guys all support each other, friends, and like you're happy for the band that wins if it's not you, And that's fucking corns. Out to be fair, we're all in the same boat, like we're all wanting to kind. Of live the dream of doing music as. A full time so it's like it's synergy if anything.

1:49 Anything you want to say, Well. Last year we made it to the final of Melts to the Masses last year, but we didn't win, unfortunately. The guys are from Syria one. But even though we were upset with and when, we were so busing for those guys because they're just great musicians, such friendly guys. So yeah, even though we didn't win, we were still so happy for them. See that proves my points. Like every band I talked to they have such mad respect for the other bands, which makes all of you great musicians, because I think it's assholes that don't have that respect for other musicians that are great. And that's one thing about Bloodstock I found. I do this every year. You've never found an asshole here, No.

2:30 You will. You will get the odd odd few in a local scene that I think the best things in slices spread. But generally the scene around where we're from is friendly. It's local enough that that well, some of the people we've played with in Metal to the Masses competing. We're now doing to tours. No, we're doing shows with them, like we did a show recently with a band called Preempted and Nerve Agents and they were also in Metals to the messes and from there again networking. It's just basically like he's.

3:11 Putting things together, making it all kind of a community thing rather than just being oh, we're the bigger octauty. You know what. Eagles can stay out of it. For me, no doubt. Yeah. And somebody that was in the Sunset strip scene of the eighties, there was playing of that asshole gatekeeping bullshit going on back then that I always thought was fucking stupid, Like even between punks and metal heads, like we were a small community, each of us game bullied by the jocks, yet we're fighting with each other. If I couldn't go to a punk gig because I was along are and punks can't go in metal gigs because you'd get your ass kicked, and it's like, it's just stupid. Let's just all be one big, great love family community. And that's what Bloodstock is exactly.

4:03 That's what that's what I found that this is my third year at Bloodstock and walking around you see so many different types of people, different types of metal, and everybody's just so happy to be together. It doesn't matter what you look like, where you come from, how you dress. Everybody's just happy to be here. You know. Well, you know it's funny because I was talking about this earlier and recently there was nos I don't know if you guys saw it, but about this old school hardcore band that like, there was somebody a banana in the crowd and he called out the banana and had the crowd go and rip his banana suit off, and they're saying, kill the banana, kill the banana. And I was just fucking having the most fun in my life the other day in a pit with a bunch of dinosaurs. Fuck that bullshit, Like, let people just have fun.

4:50 This is where they can escape all that bullshit. Who cares what they dress up as or what they do? You do you and if you're having fun, that's all that matter. Yeah. I don't get them. I don't get the mentality to be fair. I mean, live, you know, Yeah, why does it bother you that during a banana life coming, I meant to swear you could say whatever, fuck you want, life, life, life, can be ships at times, So just live and let live in it, you know what I mean. Yeah, too many people spend too much time worrying about things that don't affect their life in any way, shape or form. I don't care who you are, what you do, any of that stuff, as well as you're feeling good about yourself and you're not intentionally trying to hurt anybody who gives a fuck exactly. You know, like, let people be people.

5:47 You know, we're not all the same. We shouldn't be all the same. It seems like in this world now, because we have these political leaders trying to divide us, that everybody has to be a clone of each other to get along. Fuck that. I've learned a lot more from people that disagree with me and become a better person than the people that agree with me. Oh yeah, my personal experience, Like when I when I was younger, I'm not gonna lie I I wasn't. I wasn't the most social person. So it's like anyone that kind of disagreed with disagreed with me, I'd like, right, that's it cut off, So yeah bye. But nowadays it takes, it takes more of a mature thing like you learn as you go, and it's it's horrible realization sometimes, like why did I do this before? You know, the type of things. It's all about maturity.

6:46 Like, yeah, no doubt because that was probably an asshole at times as when I was younger too. You know, there's there's no need for a great divide with anyone really. Usually you're an asshole though, because of the influence of the people you're hanging around with. True know, because especially in the metal scene back in the eighties, you know, you could like a band and then if you started liking this other band, you weren't allowed to like the other band anymore. And it was your friends. They're like, I remember, like I saw Motley Crue before they had an album. They were like horror punk, they weren't glam. But then I went to Slayers first show ever, and then now I'm a Slayer fan. All my friends are like, yeah, you get you get like Motley Crue. Now you're a Slayer fan. You need to burn all your Slayers. I mean, you're Motley Cruse shit, And it's like fuck that, you know, and as metal heads, we don't just like metal anyway, it's just what we love. But we like all kinds of music, and if it's good music, it's good music.

7:46 And depending on your vibe, man, it doesn't matter. Yes, we pick metal as our music of choice, but that doesn't mean I'm not out there listening to other types of music to pain on how I'm feeling at that time, or just because it's a good song. Yeah. I think as a prime example, like you can have they'll have discos here going on two o'clock in the morning, right, all sides, all sorts of music, and everyone's having a blast. Like why does it matter, you know, just enjoy it together, Like there's no point in having a divide, Like, just have a good time. Oh yeah, that's what it's about, having fun and who cares? Oh yeah. It's like a genre doesn't define a person if I'm honest, Like I've been listening to metals since.

8:26 About twelve years old. Maybe found Ramstein. First, and that's a cool one. Let's start with. Oh yeah, out of nowhere, I just I found this random thing saying Ramstein Rise Rise, and I'm like, what is that? Clicked on it? My whole world got melted in fire. No, but it's it's not just that you can hear different elements of different genres inside a metal and if you've got you go backwards from it, you've got like lousy roots pumped where you stuff like that. You know, absolutely, and listen, from my generation, there wasn't the type of metal you have now, like we created it. Yeah, so we had influences that were far from metal to begin with, because that's the only choice we had. Yeah, but then you look back, we were talking about this yesterday.

9:22 There was metal, we just didn't know it. Helter Skelter by the Beatles. As far as I'm concerned, that's a metal song as one example, and there's so many like that, you know, but that one led to the other ends the evolution, and now you have people in certain subgenres and micdenres. It's like, oh, you can only like this. It's the only real metal. And I thought that those days were over, but now that you have all these micro giants sub genres, they're being ridiculous about it. It's just all metal and rock period. The gatekeeping is is just it's silly, especially how far like metal has come as a genre. To get keep one specific subgenre is a bit is a bit silly in it.

10:07 No doubt, and why do I want to just listen to the same thing all day, every day? Exactly? Yeah, it's the same, it's the same kind of stuff. It's all metal. It's all guitars, drums, some pretty cool, screamy vocals, a bit of cool bass. Why does it matter? Exactly? A couple of. Extra chugs in the riff, like what what? Why does it matter? You know? You know, like a perfect example is you take death metal and black metal. How different is that? Really? They make it like it's a world apart. Yeah, you know, I think it's take quality, right. I think you threw attle bit of corps paint on and do whatever kind of metal, and then you take the corps paint off and play the same music and then your death metal and. It's just like right, you know that used to happen to Possessed back in the beginning, like, oh, they're just a Slayer copy. Can I was like, no, they're really not.

10:56 And I'm a huge Slayer fan and I didn't ever think sounded like Slayer, yeah, you know. And then it's like you take certain black metal bands from back then, and these black metal bands today are like, oh, that's not black metal, but you wouldn't have black metal if it weren't for them. Pay tribute to the bands that started. Maybe it's different now, but they were the foundation. Yeah, exactly. Everything evolves, doesn't it, And that doesn't That doesn't change when it comes to music. Everybody's got to start somewhere, and everybody's got to build the way up and make changes and write new still fight somewhere. You know, everything's already been written before, so they've got to make changes someway to write something new.

11:37 Yeah, and even as a band, perfect example, me and my twenty five friends that were the only Metallica fans in the beginning at their shows when the Black album came out, were like fucking posers, sellouts. But you know what, if they didn't do that, we probably wouldn't be sitting here today. And if you talk to them, they just learn or craft better, you know, and went to a different level. Why do you want to play the same shit you played when you were first picked up an instrument. You weren't good at it yet, and as you learn more, you want to experiment more and find your sound. What band finds her sound in the very beginning, Well, I.

12:24 Know, we certainly didn't like. I know, we certainly didn't. Like. We always say we've been a band for about eight or nine years where anything pre COVID doesn't really count because we were still finding our sounds. Yeah, Like if you go back and listen to our first DP, we sound nothing like that. Now we've have all so much that we've all got better playing our instruments, our songwriting confidence has got so much better. So it's yeah, it's the same for any band, like whether it's Metallica or on the group like under underground music. Like yeah, and you learn certain things on your instrument that you weren't able to implement in the beginning, so that will change. Do sound automatically? Yeah, I originally played bass in the band. I was based on vocals. Then I kind of just put the bass down and I'm like, I want to do full singing talk and focus on it. Nowadays, I feel a lot more confident on the stage than I did with a bass in my hand. You know, we've got We've got a lovely guitarist brother Zach, to play play bass.

13:30 He does a better job than I could ever imagine. You know, you've got days of us at absolute fucking demon on those drums. Nice, you've got me who's shouting at people don't know whether they like it or not. They seem to smile, so going on. Then you've got. Shamus absolutely if he if he's not, if he's not chugging heavy ass rifts with his octaviories melting pass off. We saw us, so that that's how it's been for us. It's like. When we're writing, it's kind of like ould steam ahead until we break and we haven't brought yet. So nice to Now for the last question, based on what you said, I have a trivia question for you. Okay, who's the most famous Bassis ever that only plays bass?

14:21 Because he drew the short straw they were already to guitarists. Shit, I was thinking of Megadi for some reason. Go further backbike guitarists. Yes, met no metal, no mail. I thought you said mail, but no, not metal. But I did mention a song by them Beatles. Yep, the Beatles. Paul McCartney, he was a guitarist. He Now if you go back and was in Beatles songs and you hear his bass, it's like, that's what happened to me. I went back because I always loved the Bea. I'm like, holy ship, he's like playing it like a guitar.

15:11 So I suppose that's why Lemmy as well let me absolutely just beat out of his instrument. Cliff Burton unbelievable, like that dude was. Without him, there'd be no Metallica too. I saw Metallica before Cliff, you know, big difference. It was like yep Ron McGovney. I saw their first show ever with Mustaine. There wasn't even a word thrash yet I saw a Slayers first show ever, you know. But like Dave Mustain, great guitarists, but I think he's a better guitarist as Megadeth because that's more his style. You know. He was somebody that was classically trained and jazz trained, and you could hear it as guitar playing, you know. And I also think there were too many egos with him and have Field and Lars that it would have never lasted.

16:17 He would have exploited one day or another. One hundred, one hundred percent. But now we have two great bands, so. It's well with the sacrifice. If I list no doubt, no doubt, Well, you guys rock tell everybody how they can reach out to you socials and buy your merch because they can't listen to my show. And let's say buy your merch. Cool. Cool. We're on Spotify, We're on all streaming websites. We're on Instagram's Shuttle Company Underscore, We're on Facebook. You can give us just Shuttle Company, you'll see r Okley Monk's.

17:00 Yeah. Other than that, we have a band camp. If you search up Shadow Company, it'll link you to our band camp where we sell most of our merch. Nice or I or. If you're in the area of northwest anywhere we're playing last and hyphen Bury. I've been told to stress the hyphen. On. When was it first of August eight o'clock? And then we've. Got a gig in diewing at. Sunbird on the eleventh of September. Nice. Well, I'm glad you're here at Blood Start. You made it and welcome to the family. Thanks for being on the Adventures of Pipe Man.

17:48 Thank you for having us, Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipe Man. I'm w for c UI Radio.