South Florida’s Own Cut the Cord Talks New Music, Authenticity, and Breaking Social Norms

0:19 This is the pipe man here on the adventures, pipe man, W4CY radio. And I'm very excited about our next guest. Cause I don't know. I didn't put two and two together till recently, but, uh, I was up in Montreal for Warped Tour and their publicist was talking to me about their band. And there's so much like weird similarity going on. Cause first of all, as soon as I see their new single, I know exactly where they are. So let's welcome to the show. Cut the cord. How are you? Hey man. Great. Thank you for having me. My pleasure. I mean, listen, First thing I thought of when I saw about your debut single is going to Fun Depot.

1:05 Yeah, I forget it's out that way, isn't it? Yeah, right off of 95 right there. And it's funny, we were just talking a little bit before the interview about the weather. And yes, my studio during this time of year, we have a power outage and an internet outage every single day. And I was just chasing a chair from flying off my balcony a A few minutes before the interview. Yeah, I work in restaurants. So when the rain comes, I go, all right, well, I'm not making not making much today. So just. Yeah, right. Exactly. South Florida life. But yeah. And so my studios up until recently were in Wellington for 20 years. So next door neighbor to you. And now they're in Palm Beach Gardens because I moved away from the West to get closer to the ocean and away from the more storms because Wellington, that's like a black cloud. It's like Linus. Yeah.

2:00 Well, you're definitely, you're closer to me now. I'm actually in gardens. Oh, there you go. So like I'm on, I live on Singer Island. My studios are in the garden. So yeah. And then it's so funny around here. what you bump into accidentally. Cause like I had to go to Montreal to find out about your band. Okay. And I'm actually really good friends with, uh, Paul's mom, Denise from fame on fire. Oh, nice, nice. And, and it's funny cause I do a lot of the festivals, like all the women are festivals and obviously welcome to Rockville. And so one day I was in yard house and, here in the gardens and downtown.

2:45 Of the gardens. Yep. Yep. And, and so this dude comes up to me, pass me on back. Hey, what's up pipe man. And like, I like being away from Wellington, Wellington. That would happen everywhere. I went here. I can say it, stay a little incognito. Yeah. But it turned out it was the dude from the singer from afterlife. Oh, I literally had just interviewed like, A couple of weeks before that. So it's kind of a small world here in South Florida, even though a lot of bands don't like that aren't from here, don't like to come down here because it's like a hike to get down here and back up. You know, it is nice that we do have this community here. Yeah.

3:28 I mean, that's something I've always said to myself. If like, if the band, if when the band makes it that like, I'm, I'm definitely always doing shows in South Florida. Cause like, I know what it feels like to be South of Orlando and being like, God band, just come here, please. Like, I know. Right. It used to be cool when we had the buzz here, but ever since then, like, I remember like, One week I was doing one of the festivals and Slipknot was headlining and there was like a hundred thousand people. And the next week I was covering their show at the amphitheater here in West Palm beach. And there were 5,000 people. Wow. I'm like, Whoa, you know, but, but, uh, yeah, some of the venues that you've probably been at, I've been at a lot and, I do love the concept, the whole concept of your band, your band name. I don't talk about band names usually unless it's something really cool.

4:21 So like it definitely, I think the name of your band name is more appropriate in 2026 than ever. I think I've blocked more people on Facebook this year than the whole time I've been on since 2007. Yeah. It's the time for it, man. It really is. I just, I've gotten to a point in my life where I'm like, why are we, I don't want to get like too pretentious about it, but like, you don't have to live your life adhering to social norms just because your friends do just because your parents do just because your siblings do. Like I've gotten very like, Hey man, I'm not going to, I'm not going to be uncomfortable anymore with like the shit that goes on in my life. I'm just, I'm going to be comfortable. I've, I've gone through too much. I've had too much happen. Like I'm not, I'm not here to make other people feel comfortable all the time at the expense of myself.

5:04 So. That's the way it should be. And like, kudos to you for learning that early. Cause that's what most society norms called midlife crisis. When you finally do shit for yourself and don't care what other people's thing. I don't know why that's a crisis. I think before that is more of a crisis. Definitely. You know, because at the bottom line, everybody's going to do what's good for them. So you might as well do what's good for you. And what make, as long as you're not intentionally hurting people or doing bad things on purpose, my philosophy is you do you. I don't care what that is, okay? Like, because, you know, so many people nowadays, they spend so much time focusing on things that don't affect their life in any way, shape, or form that somebody else does.

5:54 Sure. And that kind of blows my mind. Like, what do people care what somebody else does if it makes them happy? Yeah, I'm even of the kind of like, maybe semi-controversial opinion that I don't really care about what anyone else thinks, even down to like, if they have some kind of like bigoted nature in them and it's, it's something that they just hold to themselves. It's just like, it just doesn't affect me. Like I'm talking about like my close personal friends, but like if someone said something near me that wasn't like the most tasteful thing, I just go like, well, that's their journey to figure out that that's not okay. Like I'm not here to educate people all the time. Like I just, I just, I have really come accustomed to like my square of my life is just, that's it. It's like, it's my people, it's my career, it's my, mental, spiritual, emotional health, and everything else is out of my control.

6:35 Like I cannot control anyone else. And I love that philosophy because I'm also a motivational speaker and I always teach, you know, you can't control people or what happens to you. You can only control your own attitude towards it. Yeah. You know, and so many people like they get upset about things that they can't control or change. Just like what you said, I don't even think what you said was controversial. I think it's, it's good mental health because you're not going to change people's mind most of the time. So you just get frustrated. It doesn't help anybody. It only makes everybody upset. And like I said, just do you.

7:18 And I'm, and I'm open to having like the uncomfortable conversations. That's the other thing. It's like, I'm very, I love like, like to me, what's, what's been so lost with phones and screens since I've been a kid up to now is like the, the kind of like almost like social autism, my generation and younger has like become because of screens. Like I, as a, as a waiter in, in several restaurants for the last like 10 years, I mean, the younger kids are getting, the less they can look me in the eye and place their order without arms and nerves and like looking away and nervously laughing. It's like these, these kids, they're, they're, it's hard. It's a hard time to be a person, but a lot of that has to do with what I said before, like adhering to social norms that don't make any fucking sense anymore. Exactly.

7:58 Exactly. And that's the key, what you just said, making a sense a more. I think the world is always evolving. Humans are always evolving. And something that was cool 20 years ago doesn't mean it's cool today. Sure. Bottom line, you know. And so I love that you're speaking about that in your music, because I think music is the greatest therapy there is, you know, for you. Yeah. And for me, the listener, like you get to get stuff out by writing it. singing it, performing it, and I get to get something out of it by hearing it and watching it. Yeah, I think that's actually something I've really gotten better with.

8:40 When I was a kid, I always was like, and I'll do it from time to time for curiosity, but I was always like, I need to know what this song means. What did the singer mean when they said this? Who is this about? What relationship is this? Is this a metaphor? Is he being for real? Is she talking about someone for real? And I was like this quest for knowledge kind of thing. And as I've gotten older, I'm just like, I want the song to mean what it means to me. I've heard that before. I don't know who said it, but it's like once I release the song, it is the listener's song. It's no longer my song. The coolest bands say that. I had a couple at Warped Tour that said that in interviews. It's the bands that, the artists that they want you to get the same thing out of it. Maybe somebody won't. As long as they get something out of it, if it makes them feel good, let people put their own meaning to it.

9:27 You're playing your own meeting, playing it out there. They're not stopping that. And you know what? They don't, it doesn't need to be the same meaning. And I, I do agree with your having those conversations. I think we learn a lot more from people that we disagree with and who we agree with. And I'll even go a step farther of that's the only way that you could have any kind of influence over somebody is listening to them and And maybe showing them that maybe that, and not showing them physically, but just how you act. But that may not be the case. I'm a Jew. I've literally sat down and had a conversation with a neo-Nazi and basically asked like, why do you feel that way you do? And what I learned is this person was just locked in a bubble that only was influenced by the people and never even had any experience with a Jew. So, you know, he would say certain things. I'm like, well, do you see me acting like that?

10:26 Right. And he was probably my, my thing with people you disagree with that, that I've really learned as I've gotten older. Cause I've, I, I have beliefs on like kind of both sides, both sides of the spectrum. I don't really think there's actually one or the other. I really hate the like two party belief. I love that you're saying that. Yeah. Yeah. I think my generation's waking up to this shit. Cause it's so like, it doesn't make any sense that there's only two options and you're good. If you choose one and bad, if you choose the other, I don't buy that. life is way more gray than that. Yeah. So, so when I disagree with someone, what I also kind of have found in my, in my age now is that like, like everything that's a belief is really just limited amount of information that they were given at a certain time of their life by certain people with certain parents and certain environmental factors. So to cast judgment that they're a bad person, I, again, that sounds really rough.

11:09 He's a neo-Nazi and that anyone would be like, that's a bad guy for sure. But you know, It could just be a lost kid that gets into the wrong crowd with the wrong lack of parental lack of leadership. And then he's just like, yeah, whatever about Jews or blacks, whatever. It's like that's it's not that hard to end up there. It's not as hard as you might think. So there's just because I didn't attack him and because I listened and then had a conversation, he did change his viewpoints. You're not going to change people's viewpoint to arguing with them. Finger wagging has gotten no one anywhere forever. I mean, I don't know the last time someone talked down to me and I went, they're right, I'm going to change. It's like I've never worked. Even if you think they're right, you're not going to fess up to them.

11:50 The only time someone agrees with you when you're finger pointing at them is so they get you to shut up and stop talking about it. They are not agreeing with you because you changed their mind. It's never happened in mine. It's never happened in my life. No doubt. I don't think it's happened in anybody's life. And I love what you said about The two party, because I'm all about that. I don't think you need to be left, right, upside down, whatever. You could be a little bit both. I think it depends on certain things. And I think, you know, being locked in, even with music, like when I was in the 80s, you either had to be could go to metal shows or punk shows. You couldn't do both. And I always thought that was stupid. I liked both. Why couldn't I go? And that's what's cool about now with music is that we can have all that going on.

12:39 That's why I disagree when people are like music today is so awful. I'm like, yeah, maybe top 40 is a little annoying, but this is the best time to be a music fan ever because you could go back as far as classical and come up to hyper pop and like modern rap and modern metal and modern house and modern EDM. It's like, how could today be worse? You have the most choice. You can find yourself in any kind of music now, whereas before you were limited to the money you had for CDs, vinyls, Walkmans, the shows that were near you. And now I travel out of state all the time for shows. It's like, this is the best time to be a music fan in the world. I hate that argument. It's so stupid. No doubt. And I love your music too. But I love how it is that it's both therapy and it's great music. So tell me more about the new album you're going to be dropping. You got the new single.

13:27 Tell me more about the new album. I want to tell you too, one of the things I love that I checked out is that You had actually as an intro, when intros aren't even cool anymore, that you had intro that was your therapist. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is the coolest shit ever to me. Thank you. Yeah. You know, it's funny. I wrote a, I wrote an instrumental track like years ago in the first band. And I remember being like, I think I'm going to make the first track on the next project and instrumental thing. And I had a friend be like, really, that seems like such a, that seems like so lame. Like what if someone turns on the album for the first time, they don't want an instrumental track. I go, they're listening to the wrong band. So like when this project drops, I imagine that people will not listen to the project front to back all the time because they may not want to hear the spoken word thing, but it was important to me. And, um, so yeah, uh, I think I'm at liberty to say everything. I mean, we're two months out. So yeah, we've got about two months before the project drops. It's called Blush. It will drop everywhere the same way 10th Avenue dropped everywhere. And yeah, the first song, I just kind of titled it, kind of my name here today, I just titled it CTC, Cut the Chord. It's a spoken word, I guess poem, I guess it would be considered with a guitar behind it that me and my therapist kind of wrote together. Um, I gave them the, um, like the layout of like, this is what I'm trying to say. And this is like what I'm going for. I want to convey this feeling.

14:51 I gave them a draft and they sent back like a hair. I edited it to look like this. I think we only did one edit and then I had them record it with their partner. They live up in, uh, uh, Illinois, Chicago area. Uh, they used to live here in West Palm, but they moved up there. So yeah, just kind of can be, uh, conversing with them through email, getting it recorded. And then, um, they did it in like maybe two, three takes and it's now, uh, final things on the project. So super happy with it. I love it. I love it. And so tell people a little bit about how you, how you got into music and how it's benefited you by writing this music. Yeah, absolutely. My mom tells me that I've always been musically inclined, that I was, I was two and a half and maybe three years old when these two songs dropped.

15:38 But when I was little, I was headbanging to Last Resort by Papa Roach. around the time I could walk. And I was trying to sing Bodies by Drowning Pool when it dropped. I probably didn't know. I didn't probably have the vocabulary, but I was trying to yell it. My mom was like, oh, this kid really loves music. And then kind of fast forward to fifth grade, like 10 years old. I saw Blink-182, a rerun of the 2000 Video Music Awards. And Blink-182 came out and played all the small things with a bunch of little people. And they had all their like skate, they're wearing their Atticus. And they're like, Tom DeLonge had the fringe and Travis had the Mohawk. And I was like, these guys are sick, man. What the hell? And, uh, Tom had painted nails and they had the big cargo shorts. I was like, dude, I gotta do this.

16:19 This is so sick. And I've literally never in my life, I didn't want to go to school. I didn't, I've never, I've never cared to do anything for a job that wasn't just trying to fund the band. So music has been like my whole life. Um, And I think the way that, like, I think coming to this project now, what's so great is that I was in a band for a long time where I was, and this is maybe going to give like the wrong impression of me, but like, it was a little more democratic. So like I had to bring something to three other people where one of them would always kind of vote like, yeah, that's fine. The other two, I always kind of had these issues with of like creative control and they, they're not in my head. So I understand like they don't see the vision, but I'm like, guys, you got to try. I've been playing music the longest of the four of us. Like you got to trust me. Like I'm the voice. You got to trust me. I didn't have any trust there. So, when it came to cut the cord, I'm the only member like on paper. And like, I hire guys for live and this is a lot easier. Cause I got to go, Hey, you're playing this part. Cause I know what vibe I can create and what emotion I'm pulling out of it. So this project is just like that.

17:15 I recorded all both guitars and the bass and then program the drums with Jacob at boardwalk. And that control is so great because I get to just be like, no, this part is supposed to be slow. This part is supposed to be this, like, In my body, this is how I feel this music is supposed to be. And it's really, yeah, I just, I'm very, very proud of these songs. I think that makes you a better musician in the respect of that you can have the passion for what you're doing and not feel that you're doing anything less than what you would do on your own. And that's how you attract your tribe, which includes the people that play with you, but also your audience by being authentic.

17:55 So tell everybody how they can reach out to you on socials, connect with you. And then, uh, also get the EP when it drops, it drops on October 23rd. So that that's cool. And that's close to my birthday. Nice. Same. It's a week of my birthday. I'll be 28, like four days, five days later. So nice. Yeah. Uh, yeah, yeah. We're, uh, we're cut the cord dot, I think on both tech talk and Instagram. Uh, we post mostly on Instagram for like announcements and stuff, but, uh, we're going to get a little more active on both. Um, yeah, mostly, mostly Instagram is where I'm on. That's where my manager kind of handles things too. Blush drops October 23rd. It'll have the song that's out 10th Avenue. It'll have some other things on it, like the spoken word intro we talked about. And yeah, we have, we just have as many, like we're trying to just book shows now. We're just trying to be like out and about as much as we can. Our first show will be Swampgrass Willies and Palm Beach Gardens a month from today, actually September 26th.

18:54 So come out support. That's so funny. Cause I was just talking to somebody else. That's going to be playing there too. I know the owner there. Yeah. You guys should play at respectable street too. We're working on it. Yeah. So that's cool. I love it. I love your new music. Everybody's got to check it out. And I think it's really authentic because it's authentically you. I like the whole concept of what it is. And if you were to take one thing that you would leave the listeners with that would kind of give them an idea of why they should check it out and listen to it what would you say as the artist. Great question man i think if you're looking for someone who is so willing to be open and vulnerable even if you don't like the music like let's say you don't love like rock music or like fast kind of punkish whatever my voice like even if you don't love it if you're looking for an artist who's not like I'm not like corporately ran I'm not trying to push an agenda I'm not paid by anyone I'm self-funded like you're looking for like an authentic person you were looking at my room where I write all my songs this black guitar I wrote every song you hear you're gonna hear from a couple of chords written on this in this room I've lived in this room my whole life I am me like I've always been me And I actually feel more like myself at 27 than I ever have before. So I think if you're just looking for authenticity in music, I'm trying to be that guy. I'm never trying to write something that I don't feel.

20:21 Well, I love that because that's punk in and of itself. It doesn't even matter what the music is. That's punk right there. Exactly. And you're a true musician and a true punk. So thanks for giving that to us. And thanks for being on The Adventures of Pipe Man. Dude, thank you so much. I'll run into you at Yardhouse. I'll say what's up. There you go. Or any of the other venues around there. Maybe I'll see you if I'm around at Swampgrass. Come to Swamp. I'll get you in for free, man. Please. I would love to have you. Sounds good. Have a good one, brother. You too, brother. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pikeman on W4CY Radio.