We The Kings Reflect on Festivals, New Music, and Band Camaraderie at Aftershock 2026

0:05 Hey, you're listening to Adventure on W4CY Radio. This is Pipe Man here on the Adventure's Pipe Man W4CY Radio, and I'm here with. What's up? Are we the kings? This is Travis, Coley, Chuck, and Sebastian. We just played Aftershock Festival. Want to stop by and say hi? Oh, my God. Fucking Aftershock. I love this festival. It's great. What's it been like for you so far? Were you kind of shocked, pun intended, at the crowd that was out there? First day, this early, this hot.

0:46 First day, you know, we went on at 140 in the afternoon. And sometimes when you play earlier on the day, people are kind of conserving their energy, not want to give it all because they've got to go until like 10 or 11, 12 at night. On the first day, you also have the rest of the weekend. Man. It was a sea of people, wall-to-wall, front-to-back. That was special. This is the last show of We the Kings forever. No, I'm kidding. Last show of the year for us. So it was just a great way to cap off a great year. I think you should have kept it as forever, and then all the outlets would pick up the interview. Oh, yeah. And it would spread along the internet. You wouldn't have to bring that. I know, right? Yeah. Oh, man, that would be funny as shit.

1:32 Next one. I love that you're wearing a Dolly shirt. We're big fans of Dolly over here. You know? Yeah. I don't think there's anybody that isn't a fan of Dolly. I mean, she's... I learned, you know, a lot more than I. I knew a lot about her, but then I just realized, man, I kind of went down a deep dive into who she was as a person. And it makes me want to be a better person seeing what she was able to do Man, if everybody was like Dolly, it would be a different world. Here's what I think was really cool about Dolly is they wanted to put her in the rock and roll whole fam and she declined because she's not in rock and roll. That makes her so rock and roll.

2:13 That's a fucking badass thing to do. Oh my God. That's amazing. Who else would do that? Exactly, yeah. Jethro Tull should turn down the Grammy. That's the equivalent. That's tough to do. Right? I got to be honest, that's tough to do. When we got our Grammy, I just imagine saying no to that would have been tough. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Oh, man. But then she covered Stairway to Heaven. Yeah. I saw her do a thing. She was having an interview or something. And she said she was scared as shit approaching Robert Plant. Hmm.

2:56 And like Robert Plant's like, yeah, you're Dolly Parton. Go ahead. Yeah, you're good. Go ahead. So he would probably say that to you guys too, right? I think so. Yeah. Last time that we met Robert Plant, he did say that to us as well. So, you know, it feels good. I think he should actually cover one of your songs. I like that. Which song would Robert Plant cover if it were up to you, Chuck? Are you blanking on all of our. He doesn't even know your whole catalog. There's a hundred of them. Alright, Cole. Cole is going to give you a proper answer. Yeah, he's really focused on this answer. I'm picturing Robert Plant's voice and trying to find the song that would.

3:38 See? There you go. It's a tough one. Alright, Seb. I'm blanking on the name, but you know that song with the rock riff we always. Na-na-na, na-na-na, na-na-na, na-na-na, na-na-na, na-na-na. Oh, my God. Yeah, la. Na-na-na, na-na-na, na-na-na, na-na-na, na-na-na, na-na-na, na-na-na. Na-na-na, na-na-na. Kiss me now. This is all I need for the interview right here. It's called Kiss Me Last. That's the one. Wow. Okay. Anybody that's listening to this interview, that was a long time that we took to figure that out.

4:20 Wait a minute. I just have to say, we don't even need that other part we were talking about. This is going to go viral that you don't even know your own songs. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. We did a video like that, didn't we? We had to remember our own lyrics. I think so. I think so. So, I have a question about Danny Wimmer. Okay. Okay. How does Danny Wimmer treat artists? I mean, we can't speak for all other artists, but as from We The Kings, Danny's had us on a bunch of his festivals, including a couple coming up in the following year. You know, we're, we're a rock band, but we're on the pop side of rock, right?

5:01 Right. Um, sometimes we feel like we maybe don't have a place here and Danny gave us a chance and was able to see the crowds and be like, all right, that, you know, they're making their own lane. It's their own thing. Uh, I feel super grateful that we're even in the conversation and able to share the stage with some of these bands that we've been listening to for a long time. So, uh, I honestly have nothing bad to say about that guy. He runs an incredible festival. Fans are always happy. Bands are happy. I wish all festivals were like that, to be honest. I love hearing that. And I've never heard any artists. I've done all the Wimmer festivals since the beginning. I've never heard an artist say something bad. And I think that's so important.

5:42 Yeah, because it's a stressful, you know. No doubt. You very easily could, like, lose your cool, and then that kind of gets around. Not only that, but to me, I think, like, if loading is stressful, if food sucks, if soundcheck is a pain in the ass, you're not going to be in the right mode to do your set the way you would normally do it. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Happy artists make happy art. Yeah, there it is. So that's cool to hear. I love hearing that because I think it's important to take care of the artist. And what I always hear, too, is it doesn't matter who the artist is. Top to bottom, they're all treated the same.

6:25 Yeah, we're one big family. The community that we have with all the other artists who also flew in or drove in, we have so much more in common than we really have. than we even know about. So to bring us all together, the fans can say the exact same thing. They have a lot more in common. In a world that we live in where it can be very divisive, it's nice to have this family, this organization, this community brought by people like Danny. There you go. I also wanted to ask you why my Jeep is on your arm. And where it's going, because you have a whole roadmap there, it's probably better than the GPSs we use. Yeah. So for those listening, I have a Jeep.

7:08 Wrangler tattoo on my arm. I bought it for my wife. When I met my wife, I bought her a Jeep Wrangler because it was her dream car. Nice. A very long story. I'll make it short. The city of Los Angeles stole my car. It was parked in front of my house, but I was living six months in Florida, six months in L.A. In Studio City. And when I was in Florida, they towed it because the registration was expired, but it wasn't on a street cleaning street or anything. It was legally parked. By the time that I got back, I saw that my car was, but it was a Wrangler, so I just figured somebody stole it. But I went around, checked some tow yards, found it. And it had been in there for three and a half months. To get it out would have been over.

7:53 $ 70, 000. Yeah, buy a new Jeep. I bought it for $ 4, 500. So it wasn't about the money, just the principle of they stole my car. Oh, my God. And then I was like, I'm not going to pay you that. I could go buy 12 of these Jeeps for. What you want. And they were like, well, we're going to send it to collections then. So then they kind of held me like prisoner. I ended up having to pay them $ 500 more than what I bought it for. So I paid them $ 5, 000 not to send it to collections for them to keep my Jeep. Wow. Now, that happened in Florida, right? No, this was in California. In Los Angeles. That doesn't even surprise me. Yeah. As somebody that lives in Florida now and has lived in LA, that doesn't even surprise me.

8:37 Yep. I have a grudge against Los Angeles government. I don't blame you. You know, because I don't think that would happen in Bradenton. It would not. That car would be there. I saw that on your route. Right away. I was like, well, Runyon Canyon's not in Bradenton. No. I started off life in Florida and then moved out to California for 10 years. Now I'm in Tennessee. Now I'm just making a tripod of homes. There you go. And so. How about your tattoos? Is there any bad story like that on your tattoos? Yeah, no bad stories. Everything's pretty meaningful. Daughter's sonogram. Daughter drew it. All my tattoos are drawn by my kids at the bottom. That's cool as shit. So, nothing bad. Like, that is the ultimate cool.

9:26 Show them the one below the waist. So, for those listening. It's a little tramp stamp. But he did it, like, on the front side. It's really cool. It's like a Chinese word. We're not sure what it means. It's a butterfly. Oh. It looks like Chinese script. It does. It's a Chinese butterfly. Yeah, it's a Chinese butterfly. Oh, I like it. I like it. There we go. We met in the middle on that one. Nice. I love you guys, man, because you're like, this is the vibe that makes good bands live on stage, Cause you're, you're like the best buds fucking with each other. And I just want to tell everybody that can't see this. I appreciate you saying that we, we do. I, yeah, we fuck around a lot. We also put a lot of work into our live show. Um, Fans are spending a ton of money to come out and see bands.

10:13 It's also the competitor in us. We want to put on a great show that outdoes all the other bands. We love the other bands. We just want to outdo them. I think that's fair to say. And we want to give the fans so much more than their money's worth. We want to really make it an experience. And we also want them to come back when we do come back through town. There's so many reasons why our energy backstage translates to what we do on stage. I think fans can see that. And that's why I say that. Because you can tell if a band is really not wanting to be up there together or if they're loving each other and having plans. It's a much better show when you're... Fucking with each other, having a good time. We like each other. Yeah. We do like.

10:54 Carly, actually, so he just shattered his whole right shoulder in Japan at a show for the U.S. Military. Wow. He's really not supposed to be here today. Kind of against doctor's orders, but that's, you know, the punk rock in him. And all today, he was, like, jumping around, moving. And he broke his arm on stage. Like, the stage was wet. He slipped, fell, all on video crazy. Got. Rushed to the hospital and then basically rushed back to the States for emergency surgery. He came out and just like was moving around. I kept looking at him like, man, stop. Like the music was taking control. I can't help it. Like I'm in autopilot at that point.

11:35 Nobody could have predicted that he was going to stand there anyway. So, I mean, he was just. He's like an energizer, but he just never stops. It's so good. So even the fans who shouldn't have gotten Cole Weiss performing, they got something special today as well. That's cool. And, like, I like what you said earlier because. Stop trying to make me break character. I love what you said earlier because it's like, there's bands that go out there and they just play. I'm like, I could stay home and listen to the album. Yeah. I come out for a show. I don't care if you fuck up. That's more fun too. You know? And it's funny you say that we, we talk about that all the time. Genuinely all the time. Like we obviously want to be good, right? We want the music to sound good.

12:18 We want to play the right notes. I fuck up. I love it. I look forward to it. I've messed up lyrics all the time. Right. Uh, I try not to, obviously, but it happens. I get in the moment, I start looking at something happening in the crowd, and I just black out. I also prefer to go see a show than I do listen to the record. Different experiences, right? We want to give them something. And we've seen bands, and I won't name any, but we've seen bands be so good at playing their music live, but kind of like watching paint dry. And we were like, man, actually, I could have stayed home for this. There's one band that all the media always jokes about.

13:01 They're not playing at this festival right now. But, yeah, it's like they all say it's the most boring band in the world to watch, but we all like the band. Yeah. So it's not like we don't like the band, but it's like. There's people there because they like the band. Yeah, yeah. You know, maybe you have to tap on the band to see if they're still alive or something. Autopilot mode. Right? You know, and maybe their AI up there. Well, all to say that we really like making it different, making it fun. There's stuff that you can't convey on an album that you can convey live. And it makes it more fun to us. I think about one of my greatest memories was the 1983 Us Festival. Van Halen was headlining Heavy Metal Day.

13:49 They started playing Talk About Love. And Eddie's looking over at Dave because he's not singing. And I've told this story a bunch of times because it is wild. And he goes. And he just goes into the mic. No shame. 300,000 people. I fucking forgot the words. And the whole place roared like it was the best thing that ever happened. Yeah. Except one dude who decided to heckle him. And he just turned to him and he goes, I will fuck your girlfriend. Now, to me... That's a front man. Like, you fuck up, you own up to it and make it a funny shit. You know? That's tough because he's got a microphone, so it's not like the heckler can talk over 300,000 people.

14:34 No. That's tough to deal with. He's on right there. You're kind of. What are you going to say? It's David Lee Roth, his prime probably would. Probably did. Yeah, the guy's just like, nuh-uh. Yeah, right? And the girl's like, uh-huh. So, what's the worst thing that's ever happened to you on stage? Oh, man. Probably close with a broken arm. We've all fallen. We've all fallen off stage. And I think that's probably... I don't. Know if I can think of anything. I think that's like, I don't think people realize, that's like the easiest thing to do. Because you're like in the zone and you don't really pay attention. Yeah.

15:18 There's also flashing lights and every stage is different. A lot of it has been like trying to step out onto like a subwoofer and there's like a triangle hole. And yeah, that was mine. Charles, you were going off the side of the stage where the staircase and... And he went, we missed him. He was gone. I was gone for a while. I will say, being in a band with this one, there was one show where I didn't see it coming. I just saw him go behind me, and then I felt something hit my head, and it was his head hitting my head. Oh, my God. How did you do that? I went behind him and headbatted him. Oh, nice. Yeah, yeah. Oh, on purpose, too. That's even better. It was a good time.

16:01 You got to keep us on our toes. So we have Body Count playing at Aftershock, and I saw Vincent Price, the guitarist of Body Count, Jump off the stage. It was a pretty high stage. I think it was one of the Wimmer festivals. Broke his leg and was still playing on the ground until the meds came and got him a chair and put him on a chair. Played the rest of the set. That felt like Coley. Coley fell and then he got back up. He was still playing on the ground. Granted, it's his right shoulder. He's a right-handed guitarist. So he's still playing. And his every tendon and ligament, everything holding that bone together is gone, just shredded. So it was popping up through his skin.

16:44 He gets up and continues to play guitar and playing piano. And I'm looking over like, hey, like trying to like telepathy, telepathically say like hey should we stop what do you want to do and he was like just shaking his head like keep going he's playing he turns like a shade of white I've never seen and I was like I think we need to get him like some medical help I look forward I'm like okay I'm gonna say it now I look back he's gone disappeared we don't hear from him for two more songs and that he was being raced to the hospital. So we finished as a three-piece for the rest of that tour, which was sad. But also badass that you did that because there's some bands that would just end the set right there.

17:28 They went on as a three-piece and crushed it. So fucking A. Hats off to you. Mad respect for that, for sure. Going back to giving the fans a show, it's tough. When it's four of us, when one of us is missing or something crazy happens, it definitely feels like we're giving them less. But because, like you mentioned, because we're doing it, I think that fans are like, That's awesome. They're like, holy shit. You know, I feel grateful that they're doing it, so let's give it all to them, you know? Exactly. I love it. Is there anything else you want to let the listeners know we haven't talked about or anything coming up you. Want to tell them? New album. Oh, we got a new record coming out. Yeah, there you go. Let's talk about that.

18:09 Well, we're 20 years into this. Next year will be the 20th year anniversary of our first album. Wow. Feels crazy. Flies, right? Feels crazy. Oh, my God. But we decided, you know... and we're going to honor that record in different ways. But, uh, beginning of next year, I think like January next year, we're going to start dropping new music. And it is obviously we're all biased, but I would still say objectively, it's the best thing that we've. Ever put together. I should hope so on a creative or artistic thing. There was just some magic there, uh, that hasn't maybe been in Southern, you know, some of the other albums. I don't know. It, We're going to have a really, really awesome 2027.

18:50 I love it. And, you know, the magic probably comes from, like, you just kind of went back in your mind to those times, those initial times. Because I think some, like when you're a baseball player, what do they do? They send you back to the minors to go back to the basics. Right. You know, and I think it's kind of the same thing. And the other thing is, is that, you know, fucking 20 years, man. That just blows anybody's mind. Like, where does time go? And the fact that you can write new music after 20 years, I always have mad respect for bands because it's like. Thank you for saying that. You just think, fuck, how can you keep coming up with new material? You know? I mean, honestly, some of it is probably recycled in a way that, you know, we're writing about this. We're also different people, you know, than we were 20 years ago.

19:38 So we're able to write about things that we didn't necessarily know about when we were writing those albums before. So. That's exciting, but just. To feel this passion, to feel the excitement this late into our career. I feel lucky. I love that. I feel lucky that we're about to give the fans a whole new era of our band with this record. That's badass. And I think we feel lucky that you're here at Aftershock. Yeah, thank you. And killed it. And thanks for being on the Adventures of Pipe Man. Appreciate you. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipe Man on W4CY radio.