Traverse the Abyss Bring Chaos and Heartfelt Stories to Aftershock Festival 2026

0:04 Hi, you're listening to Adventure on W4CY Radio. This is the Pipe Man here on the Adventure's Pipe Man W4CY Radio, and I'm here with. Traverse the Abyss. Nice, here at Aftershock. Yes, sir. So, how fucking hot is it to be at Aftershock? It's cooking. It's nice because it's not like very humid where it's sticky and you feel like you can't breathe. But it's definitely cooking. Yeah, it is. And my heart always goes out to artists to perform in this weather. I don't know how you do it. It's hard enough doing an interview, much less putting everything you got out on stage.

0:57 You feel it when the adrenaline dies down. Well, that's the point, right? You know, like. You don't even give yourself permission to feel it, and you're in such a zone. But then as soon as you're done, it's like you have permission to die. It's like the cool-down period. You're running at top speed, adrenaline's going, you ain't thinking about it, and then those endorphins start dying down, and it's like, oh. Today, none of us ate breakfast. We were running around doing the thing, and we gunned it on stage, and we're packing up, and it's like. Do we eat heat today? Oh, my God. Yeah, well, I think, too, like, sometimes I do that with interviews. Like, I don't want to eat until I'm done with my interviews because I don't want it to slow me down, especially in this heat. So, like, you know, and you go over to catering and you stuff yourself, and it's like you probably don't want to do anything the rest of the day.

1:55 That is true. That's fact. So, I don't know if I brought it up last time. And if I did, I'm bringing it up again. Your tattoo on your right arm in Hebrew. Did I bring it up last time? I don't think so. Give him the mic. Sure thing. I'm almost certain that you did not. I'm surprised I didn't notice that. You might have. Yeah, I'm surprised I didn't notice that. Me too, because I'm always wearing sleeveless shirts. Yeah, and it's like right there. So tell me the significance of that tattoo. Because I'm a Jew, and I know it's the Hebrew, so I want to hear.

2:35 So, can you read it? Hold on, I got to see it better. Hold on, let me move. Because you got it in Torah, too, because there's no vowels. I can't tell if that's a tallit or a. It's a pretty bad tattoo. Yeah. Avraham. Or close. It's hard for me to tell. So, basically, I grew up in a church. Okay. So, it's a long story. My family was very Christian. We got time. We got two minutes. Yeah. I'll do it in like 30 seconds if I can.

3:18 There you go. My family was very Christian, so I grew up playing music in the church, and I was a big part of it, which is why the other side has the three crosses and everything like that. I still believe in all that. I'm not as hardcore. But, like, I'm not, like, I'm not, like, one of the typical people you'd meet. But, basically, when I was in college, I had a stupid idea where I wanted to dye my hair white because my last name's. White, and I rode a white pickup truck. Oh, yeah. So I thought that would be cool. I would do that, too. Yeah. Like, that makes sense. And then I made another dumb decision where I was like, I'm going to get a tattoo. And where words derive from, you know, Michael... The original language, you know, that it derives from is Hebrew.

4:02 Yes. And what it means is who is like God. And I was like, you know what? I want that on my arm. So I got like the original, you know, like where my name derived from. That's very cool. I like that story. Yeah. That's not a dumb move. Well. You know, and you can always like, you know. Put crosses around it. No, I don't want. You to do that. No. I'm going to do some stuff to it. But I can tell you a funny story of stupid teenage logic. So I asked my dad about getting my ear pierced. And you're talking the 80s when it wasn't like now. Like it wasn't very often guys got their ears pierced, okay? It was only like in the punk or metal community. And he's like, over my dead body, blah, blah, blah, blah.

4:51 So I did anyway. I had long hair. I got away with it for a while. Then the Santa Ana winds hit one day. And my hair went behind my ear. I walked in the house and my stepmother saw it. She ratted me out. And my dad was like, freaking out. But then it was really freaking because of what I was wearing because I was wearing a dangling upside-down cross. Oh. Okay? But here's the teenage logic. Get that fucking cross out of your ear. I'll pull it out. I'm like, Dad, it's not a Christian cross. It's an upside-down cross. It stands for Satan. I'm not going against my religion.

5:31 So there you go. And it really isn't, if you think about it, because in Judaism, we don't believe in that. It's perfectly 100% great to be a metalhead and a Jew, because we can praise Satan all we want, and nothing's going to happen to us. So are you trying to convert me? No. I can't even. You know, that is another thing. I can't try to convert you. It has to be your own idea. But I'm just saying, maybe you could convert to You know, going in a mosh pit and praising Satan and not worrying about going to hell. Yeah. That's a good concept. See? There you go.

6:12 So what was the end of the story, though? Did you get it ripped out? Did you have to take it out? I did have to take it out, and then I had to figure something out later. Some damn stepmothers. Yeah, fuck them. Yeah. No, I agree. What a douche. I had the same problem. Oh, yeah. My stepmother was a douche. Yeah. She still is. But I don't have to see her or talk to her. Mine served in prison for a while because she tried killing her ex-husband with a hitman. You know what? That's Kyle. It's a true story. Well, my mother didn't go to prison, but she did send a hitman to the door after my dad. But that wasn't the stepmother. That was the mother.

6:54 Oh, the real mother. The real mother. So I was blessed with two psychos. Oh, perfect. And there we go. I'm wearing the Harley Quinn shirt. I was wondering why we hit it off so well. See? It's because we had bad moms. Yeah. And I do have bad choices that I pick in women. Yeah. They're all batshit crazy. I agree. I like it that way. Yeah. See, he likes it that way, too. How about you? Do you pick the batshit crazy ones? Brother, you have no idea. Oh, I have a real good idea. Harley Quinn's the love of my life, and I'm not talking about Margot Robbie. I'm talking about the character. All right. Like, you're a little fucked up if a character's the love of your life. Heard that.

7:34 Well, uh. Oh, yeah. Sorry, I forgot. Um. Yeah, no, Chaos and Carnage, not the festival, even though that was a hell of a fun time, is kind of the name of the game. We look for trouble wherever we can get into it, find it, extortion it. And amplify it. And then play it on stage. Oh, absolutely. Little short story I'll try to condense really fast. Uh, Joel Berrios, very, very good. I don't want to call him friend cause we don't really hang out, but like acquaintance, very respectful man. He, yeah, yeah. He's a friend. If you were a girl, he'd be your bestie.

8:17 Uh, Oh my God. Yeah. This, he's, he's like the number one sought after photographer for like metal injection, metal insider and all that. Nice. Like the news pamphlets. Well, He got us to get half of us on top of the Louder Than Life stage and then half of us on the bottom. And he, like, tried to shoo away someone and then it turned into this whole thing. But we almost got him kicked out and banned from DWP things. Whoa. But, yeah. And yet you're playing it aftershock. A level of. Chaos to, like, simmer the pot for you, if you will. So what kind of chaos are you going to cause at Aftershock? We can't disclose that for legal purposes. Okay, good. Because we want Danny Wimmer to put us back on stuff like this.

8:58 There you go. What's your crazy story? Did it happen at the Rock Tower? No, the Babel Rock Tower is actually absolutely incredible, though. Tell me about it. We went on a Japan tour earlier this year in May. And this was the second to last date was Babel Rock Tower, which is in Tachikawa section of Tokyo. And we were staying in Nishitachikawa, which is west of Tachikawa. So we actually got to walk over there. And the guy's house that we were Airbnb-ing at, he was a roadie with Iron Maiden and Ozzy and stuff like that.

9:39 He wanted to help carry the gear for old times' sake and everything. I'm usually wearing black and white stuff. A lot of the checkerboard. I guess my.... Your thing. Yeah. And, uh, so I saw this one and I was like, that's a good conversation point. because it's you know and uh yeah that was one of the coolest things we're going international for the first time. What was it like playing in japan. Awesome um the venues are called live houses And they're more small and intimate. And they're like a combo live music venue rub and tug?

10:20 Oh, those are called Soap Land. Soap Land and the Girl Bars. Nice. Out in Shinjuku. The cool thing that they do at the Japan venues is they'll have a little powwow before the show starts. So right before doors, like a half hour, You'll gather all the bands in a circle, and they'll congregate, and the promoter will come forward, and he'll do it bilingually. He'll come in and say, like, hi, I'm so-and-so, I'm the promoter, thank you guys for being here. And then we have, from the United States, Traverse the Abyss is their first time. In Japan, Onigashimasu, and then everyone clap. Okay, right here, hometown, we have... Insert band. You know and love them. And they'll go through all the artists and introduce everybody. And then on the other side, they'll talk and introduce everybody that works the show. So, this is me.

11:18 I'm the promoter. If you need something, talk to me. If you need a question about sound or lights, that's those two guys up there. They're waving. If you have anyone guest listed, that's the person for the door. So, like, you get a visual of who your coworkers are for that evening and everything and who to talk to. Like, Oh, we want to throw something on the video wall. Okay. I'll talk to the guy with the spiky hair. You know, you get, it's locked in. It's a go talk to Daniel. And it's like, cool. I have no fucking idea who Daniel is. This is my first. Time here, you know, but Daniel's the man. Yeah. Daniel sounds great. So what about you? What kind of story do you have?

11:59 Because that was a good one. Yeah, I mean, it's hard to top that one. It's hard to top that one, but. Can you top the chaos one? You have three topics you can pick from so far, or any other one that you like. You could have batshit crazy women, chaos, and Japanese... What are they called? Soapboxes. Soapboxes. What were some. Of your favorite festival moments? We can go in the chaos category. We could bring in Quacky Chan. Oh, tell me about Quacky Chan. That sounds like Japanese chaos.

12:44 No, this was hometown chaos. Hometown venue right in downtown Scranton. We did our EP release show, and we were able to sell out the venue. Why weren't you guys on The Office? They were done for, yeah, probably before we even started. Oh, man, like timing. What bad timing. You're the perfect band for that show. That's the backdrop we used. Oh, there you go. That's cool. That's funny. Well, Quacky Chan was the big, giant, inflatable duck that they threw out into the crowd, and the crowd started riding the duck on top of everyone. Nice. It was very, very, very dangerous.

13:24 Very dangerous. Is it more dangerous than stage diving off your stage? I would say so, yes. People get up there and the weight becomes so displaced that it just immediately would flip over or people would try to stand up on it. That would make it even worse. Yeah, I was on stage for Sublime yesterday and the dog, the inflatable dog, kept trying to attack me. How about the actual dog he had up there playing fetch? Oh, that was cool as shit. That was awesome. That dog was cool as shit. And I really dug. I wish I had my skateboard because the guy told me I could have if the skateboarding and the little ramp on stage. Like, that's so sublime.

14:10 That would have been really cool. They did that. Did you see they had a guy up there doing that? I didn't catch the skater. Oh, yeah. He was skateboarding, and there was a little ramp up. And he was going up the little ramp and down and around and stuff. Yeah, it was pretty cool. That's a Sublime show right there. Yeah, Sublime was awesome last night. What would you guys incorporate in your show that they would say, this is a Traverse the Abyss show? I would say everyone's personality-wise, too, kind of is like part of the show. Like, nick is always running out and getting into the crowd and stuff we have always some kind of chaos like a lot of the photographers are they'll tease us and be like you guys are tough to shoot because everyone it's like a bomb goes off everyone goes everywhere all at once uh we usually are running a six piece but our one guitar player had a new sex trophy so he's on parental leave right now so we're rocking with just the five guys but uh.

15:15 I didn't know you were going there with that. I heard sex trophy, and I didn't even think in that realm. I love it because everyone I say that to when I talk about children, they go, oh, my God. Once it settles, you always see that click in their eyes, and they love it. Yeah, that's the prize you win at the Carney game of sex. So I would say, yeah, to make it a Traverse the Abyss show, you know, Justin's going to have Mike on his shoulders. Nick's going to be running around in the circle pit in the crowd. What's that? Pens. Back home, there's a venue, and our buddy was outside, and he goes.

15:55 You know what? I come here regularly, man, and ain't nobody got the weed pens. But when you guys play here, everybody got the weed pens out. See, you can have your own weed pens. You could be like Wiz Khalifa and just hand it out to the crowd. We'll be featured in high times like Signs of the Swarm was. Yeah, see? There you go. They could probably count, almost definitely count on me saying our band name from Scranton, PA a million times. Fun story with that. A long time ago, it was a Cottonmouth King show we saw in Poughkeepsie, New York. And the opening act was Snow the Product. And she kept repeating her name in between as much as she could.

16:37 And it was towards the end of her set, and she's like, yo, I don't care if I sound like a broken record. I get 20 minutes of you guys actually paying attention and listening to what the fuck I got to say. I'm going to drill my names because you're going to fucking remember it. And that stuck with me, and it was not shortly after we started doing this band, and that's usually the name of the game. That's what you got to do, right? It's like when Motley Crue first started, you couldn't go anywhere in LA and see a telephone pole that didn't have Motley Crue flyers on it. They were like the master promoters. We were at the gates. As soon as they opened, these cards right here, we were bumping them. Cards, stickers, boom, boom, boom, boom. Just running it.

17:18 Look at that. We'll set up like a seven-card stud. Oh, look at that. But we'll run that for, like, at the Louder Than Life and Incarceration, like, the campgrounds. We'll split up, all five, six of us, whoever's in the crew, all cards, stickers, go around, just talk to everyone, soak in the festival vibes. Because it's like, as much as we're artists, we're also those guys, too, you know? Well, that's what you got to be. I think you're not a good artist if you're not a fan first. Absolutely. And that's where the art and appreciation and the passion comes from, too, is because you love it as well. Like, I. I'll sometimes get requests to interview bands, and if I don't like their music, I can't do the interview, not for a judgy reason, but my job's to promote the band.

18:06 How do I promote something I can't get behind? Yeah. That's the bottom line. People can tell. They can tell real from trying to fake it. Manufactured. Mm-hmm. And why would you even do, as an example, why would you do this kind of stuff if you didn't like metal? If we didn't love it we wouldn't have crammed each other in an rv and traveled over 40 hours across the country to come perform nice but that's this is one of the craziest and awesome festivals too and so grateful for danny wimmer and the space zebra team for having the battle of the bands and allowing artists like us to get these opportunities.

18:48 Yeah and because like You're out there. It's not even the weekend yet. It's the beginning of the day. It's fucking hot out. How does it blow your mind that there's a massive crowd at that time under those circumstances? Feels good. You see the hard work pay off and you're just grateful for everybody that goes out of their way to catch the band. You know what it's like. It's hot, like you said. It's early in the day. There's going to be a bunch of people that are just skimming past on the schedule app to see a band name that they know. Yeah. But you're on the other side of that coin. You have a bunch of people that are hunting and going, yeah, I saw this band a million times. I don't know who the fuck these guys are. Let's go find something.

19:34 That's the way I am. I want to see all the bands I've never seen because you never know. It's like Ozzfest 99. I saw on third stage, the little teeny stage... In this moment, Mudvayne and Slipknot. you wouldn't go to that stage because some other bigger bands playing you would never know who those bands are yeah you just never know who's who and like you may like it you may. Not and We're super grateful and appreciative of all the festivals from Incarceration, Louder Than Life, and now Aftershock. Everyone that took the time, checked us out, and has stayed with us since. And now you've got to play Sonic Temple because that's in a stadium, so you can take all those cards and stickers and just throw them.

20:20 Everywhere. And then we've got to go down and hang out with you at Welcome to Rockville. Yeah, no doubt. And drive on the Daytona International Speedway. It's crazy stuff. Got to put the good word in for us. There you go. What's your story? Yeah. Oh. You had plenty of time to prepare, just saying. Yeah. No, my favorite, one that kind of holds dear in my heart but is also extremely chaotic, is when we played at Louder Than Life. And we told everyone, hey, well, we talked to the guy that was a DJ for karaoke in the camping area. Because they had a whole thing set up for tables where people can eat, karaoke, whatever.

21:07 And he's like, yeah, you guys should definitely play. At night. After all the bands are done, we'll do a little pop-up show. People were sick of karaoke and they wanted an actual band. That makes sense to me. So we were hyped about it. We went around everywhere telling everyone and anyone, yo, campground, this time at the karaoke dining section. when we get there, it got shut down. And we're like, you gotta be kidding me. Like we told all these people and we're like, we're not going to stop. Like we told everyone we're going to do this. We're going to fucking do it. So how it works is with that, there's two sets of security. There's the festival security, then the campground security.

21:49 That was still kind of technically the festival security. So we were like, all right, how are we going to go about it? There's a camp called camp butthole. Um, Oh, they have one at Rock, Lahoma, except it's buses, boobs, and buttholes. Oh, there you go. So, yeah, Camp Butthole was amazing. They're like, all right, they had a whole area. You want to tell us what you did at Camp Butthole? I don't want to know. Well, no, I'm about to. They moved all of their shit. They took down their tents. They moved their vehicles, everything. Made this huge area. Well, the festival security didn't want us playing up there at that dining section. The camping security was like, we will help you guys out. So what they did was drove us around in golf carts, drove us to our bus to get all the gear, took it up to that low camp section.

22:42 We had a speaker. They gave us power. And then they drove us around the campsites just to promote. Like even them on their own was driving around saying, yo, go to Camp Butthole, this area. Traverse of the Abyss is going to be playing a pop-up show at night. We ended up doing it. A shit ton of people came. I mean, I truly couldn't believe it. It was late at night. It was hot ass day. Everyone was partying. Everyone still showed up. Um, we did make a note, no moshing because, um, at that point we're going to be held liable. So what they ended up doing was just making this insanely, disgustingly big rope pit and everyone just had a blast. So for me, that all time favorite and chaotic memory.

23:26 And I'll never forget that. Love it. That's great. That's a great memory. All the people were donating generators. Oh, also a shout out to Moe from Quest Security because without him, most of that wouldn't have happened. So if you somehow hear this, thank you for making one of the best memories of my life. Gotta go to Moe's. Yeah, all the campgrounds, all the campers were like, nah, they're all scavenging. Oh my God, if I could speak. Then uh getting their generators to donate so we could have some kind of power nice to run to the stuff and yeah like nick said like we were like don't please don't mosh not that we don't want to get everyone hype or anything but that everyone was loaning us their campsite and their personalized stuff and we're like yo just like so we're like yo chill vibes smoke drink do your thing grind on your girl whatever you need to do respect like no know your surroundings you know what i mean.

24:25 No doubt no doubt And so, what's going to be going on the rest of the year in the beginning of 2027 for you guys? Cool. This is a fun one to talk about. We're going to link up with our friends Nail Bite. Oh, man, that's cool. And we're going to play Pennsylvania Date with those guys. And then at the end of the year, this is the third annual Sled Dog Entertainment Mosh for Tots. So, we own a production company where we book shows and such in northeastern PA. Okay. And Mosh for Tots. Sorry about that. Mosh for Tots is our Toys for Tots charity event. Admissions either $ 10 or an unwrapped toy. And we do it festival style.

25:11 I think back to when I went to mayhem fest the first time and I came in and they had the stages parallel to each other. So we, we rip it like that. Or this year is going to be more like a warp tour with the monster stages next to each other. Yeah. Yeah. We gather bands, local bands and bands all from around the, pretty much the country. Last year we had bands from Florida come down, Michigan and everything. And, uh, it's all on charity this year. We get to do it at the Ritz theater in Scranton, PA. So that's kind of like our, uh, end of the year send off. Like, In PA, there's Christmas Burns Red, and then we got, like, on our scale, we have Mosh for Tots. See, that's where you got to reach out and get all of the actors from the office back and take part in it.

25:57 That would be fucking incredible. Go look for that. Aside from that, during the holiday season, we'll be taking time to spend with the families. We've been writing a bunch of music. So we're going to, like, falcon eye, lock in on that, get stuff prepped, get into the studio, start rolling out. You know the drill. Music, video, this, press release, spit to that, Spotify campaign, cross your fingers for editorial, rinse, repeat. So new music should be coming in 2027. And then this year we're going to finish it out in our hometown state. Nice. Well. What else has been your experience here at Aftershock you'd like to share with the listeners, anybody?

26:42 The lights at night with the trees is, like, breathtaking. Our friends, as soon as we got done with incarceration, the day after we parked in the truck stop, and this car next to us, they got out, and I think it was Nick was wearing Blackcraft stuff, and so were they, and we're like, hey, Blackcraft. And they were like, oh, my God, we work the tents. At the festival. Nice. We played at the festival. And they were from California. They moved to West Virginia. And as much as they could, they come up for all of our shows and such like that. So... Oh, my God. My brain's gone. That is way cool, though. No, that is way cool, though. Because, like, listen.

27:27 Any way you can get yourself out there in anything that you're doing... That's part of it, man. The best bands that make it, it's because they have the passion so much to do that, and then they just keep going. You've got to experiment and try different things, too. Yeah, just keep yourself open to it. This is our 10-year anniversary of being a band. Wow. Yesterday, October 1st. Does that blow your mind or what? Yeah, we're going to get our touch of gray and grab our walkers. Yeah, there you go. You've got to get the Just For Men. Yeah. Honestly. You definitely need it. I need it bad. Salt and pepper. Oh, yeah. Well, but, you know, it's funny. The women, they all say that they like it. But I'm here to tell you, I don't know. I get more attention from women when I don't have the gray hair. So, I don't know. But, you know, hey, you're musicians. So, you got that. Basket case stress, man.

28:30 Anything we do, it's an artistic decision. There it is. 100%. Anybody else have anything they want to share? Follow Traverse the Abyss on all social media platforms. On Instagram, it's Traverse the Abyss Official. Hit us up. We're all friendly. We all like to chat, especially Nick. He's probably the most talkative besides Eric. But you can really only get Eric to talk with a mic. But yeah, follow us. Follow us on all platforms. Thank you. Well, thank you for being here at Aftershock and kicking our ass. And thanks for being on the Adventures of Pipe Man. Thank you for having us.

29:12 Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipe Man on W4CY Radio.