The Artist Interrogations podcast. How you doing, my friend? Good. How you doing, Mark? I am good.
I just wanna make sure everything went off smooth. Great. Got another person connecting here. What's up, guys? I didn't know Mark was gonna be here, man.
Oh, just making sure everyone would, you know, was here. I mean, I'm down I'm down with Mark hanging. What's up, brother? What's up? Where where where is this, where's the radio station located?
We are in East Idaho, Idaho Falls. Okay. Beautiful. Beautiful state. One of the best radio stations in the whole country.
Oh, thanks, Mark. They must play pretty heavy music then for you, Mark. Right? Yes. Alright.
You guys go do your thing. I just wanna make sure everyone everything was got connected. So I'm gonna go silent here. Alright. Cool, Mark.
See you. Hey, man. Really appreciate you some time to chat with me today. Long time fan. Cool, man.
I appreciate you having me down here, man. Hell yeah. Anytime. So, yeah, when Mark hit me up, I don't know, week or 2 ago, you know, asking me if I had heard about the, you know, new project you've got going on, I am. I got very excited, you know, long time typo fan, dig your stuff with Silvertomb, and then, you know, crowbar as well.
Another just legendary band. How did that project come together? Well, it was kinda like it was never direct talk between, between me and Kurt about it. But, what happened was my, Drew Spalding, Hypo's merchandise guy used to tour with us. He toured with us like toward the last maybe, 4 years of, Typo touring.
I had met him when I was, when I did the Danzig Black, instead of Black Run. He was Danzig's merch guy. And, we hit it off really, really well together. I think the first night I had met him, he, we're at the Park Hotel, and I ran into him in the lobby. And I was like, hey, you know, what are you doing tonight?
And I'm nothing. I said, oh, I got a bottle of vodka once you come back to my room. And that's how I met Drew. We finished up a bottle of vodka. First night we met, and we hit it off that sit with fast friends ever since.
And, it just so happened. Now I knew Kirk for years years, you know. I met Kirk back in in 1993 or 94. I think the first time we played the place called The Basement in in in Dallas, he came down. Or it might have been in New Orleans.
I don't know. It was a long time ago though. So I knew Kirk for years. Kirk was a big, like, carnival fan, type of fan, you know. So I had met Kirk as a part of that camp or Pantera camp before I even met the Pantera guys.
So we're friends Fuse, knew each other Fuse, but, you know, we never talked about playing together. And what happened was, Drew also lived in New Orleans. And he, of course, hit it off really well with Kurt, ran into him with a in a bar one night, and then they got really close. And, you know, he loves Kirk's stuff, and he loves the stuff I've done and we're we're fast friends, drinking buddies. So he was like, you know, I really would love to hear what would happen if we threw you guys into a studio together.
You know? Which, you know, nothing ever really came of it for years until just recently. You know? Drew really started getting on it. You know, he moved to Florida recently.
Like, I guess he got itchy. He wanted to start his own label. And, he was like, dudes, I wanna start my own label. This is my thing. I've always dreamt of doing it.
And the first thing I wanna do is exactly what we talked about, throwing you guys into a studio together and seeing what happens. So he's really, Drew Spalding brought it together. You know? He's just like, when you guys bid when you guys free, when you got free time, he booked the tickets. He booked the rehearsal studio.
He booked the recording studio, and, you know, the rest is history. Well, it was a great idea, man. And, I mean, maybe for people who are only vaguely familiar with, crowbar and typo, it might seem like a weird mix. But, you know, when when Mark told me about it, I'm like, oh, yeah. I mean, 2 bands known for some of the best sludgy riffs of all time.
And then when I got to hear the single, dreams always die with the sun, it wasn't what I expected it sound like. A little bit more of a rocker track. But, I mean, it was great, man. It was great. Was that something that came together, you know, jamming together in the studio, or did you guys kinda work on pieces here and there and it, you know, was kinda built that way?
You You know, it's funny you used to say that because I agree with you. It's it's not what you would think it would sound like, combined us, which is what I like about it. But, I just did interview recently, and the guy who had the opposite opinion, he was like, well, it's exactly what I thought it would sound like. It's like a it's it's a total fusion of, like, typo and crowbar. I was like, really?
I don't hear that one either, you know. I mean, there is. Obviously, the outro riff, which is Kirk's riff, you know, is very crowbar. You know? Yeah.
But it came about let's see. We had, like, a couple of weeks before we were to meet in Florida. Right? And I knew our buddy Drew was spending a lot of money on this. So someone went away and got a lot of down.
Right? So I'm like, oh, god. I got to come up with refs now. You know? So I just fucking have barista.
Just with my phone, I got, like, a bank of of of riffs and ideas on my phone going back for years, you know, thousands of ideas. And I pulled that one riff out, which is the the whole intro riff to that, to change over there with the sun and a couple other ones. And, I started sending ideas to Kurt. And, like, I he he said he ideas back to me, but he couldn't get his phone to operate or something. You know, he couldn't get ideas back to me.
You know? I was like, alright. Well, whatever. It's gonna be one side of it. And so, you know, I sent him ideas, but he was he was working on stuff at the time.
I just didn't hear anything he was working on. And I think I had I had, like, 2 main riffle ideas before I got on the plane, and I before I got on the plane with some vocal loose vocal melodies. That was one of them, one that ended up being part of it. But it wasn't the original idea that I wanted to go with the song. The number 1 I I idea I had that night when I went to sleep, I realized I had already used the idea of my other band.
I was like, oh, shit. I'm We're getting on a plane around 6 AM and texting Kirk. Oh, we can't use idea number 1. You gotta use idea number 2. You know, meanwhile, I haven't even heard any of his ideas yet.
So it was really just, you know, hope and a parent going for it. Right? Just send us some of our sales, see what happens. And, when, we landed we landed in our Orlando, and, Drew had, a rehearsal space for us, which is a really cool studio. I don't remember the name of of the studio.
He's actually recording studio 2. And it was just me, Kirk, Todd, and Johnny in a room. Okay. This is the riff. And, because, well, I got 2 riff ideas that go off of that.
Yeah. One one was there was a hardcore part originally in the song. Nice. He had a hardcore part, and he had the dirge part on hand, you know. And then Johnny jumped in.
He was like, well, the opening real estate sounds like Sly and Family Stone to me. So we just did this double time upbeat thing, you know, and, you know, the rest, we just worked out organically right on the spot. One rehearsal night and no solid vocal melodies yet. No lyrics. So, we just had kind of a loose arrangement.
You know, I had debated the intro riff or the theme riff and the verse. And then we broke into Kirk's sturrage riff. Nice. It was slight riff for the end. And that's what we had, you know.
And then, the next day, we, drove to Gainesville to, Roger Lima's studio. He's the, bass player for and singer from West and Jake. And he has he's got an awesome studio in the middle of the jungle there called the moat house. And it really looks like a moat house. There's like a there's like a creek running around it with by it with a bridge crossing it in a jungle.
And you you you cross this bridge in this path and you find this house. And it's it's like, recording, so it's been totally converted into a recording studio, a house. It's really, really awesome place. And, from now, we just, like, you know, we plugged in direct our instruments, me, Todd, and Kirk, and Johnny was playing live in in in in the live room. And we just started jamming through it.
You know? We jam through it. We had it was originally this whole outro jam session that went on for, like, 7 minutes. You know? And, you know, that's what we had the first day.
That's what that's what we get down the first day. It was just no really solid guitar tracks, but just the drums. And it went on for John Wilkins, like, a live jam session for a long time. And then Johnny was out because he had to go. He had to fly.
He had it, a show to do, he had a he had a I showed to do that weekend. I forget with with who. So we were left with just the drum tracks and the next day. And, we did, you know, raw guitar tracks. We did rhythm guitar tracks.
We did the, the intro riff. And it had to figure out me and Lima and and Craig to figure out how to edit the ending down to a 4 minute song. You know, you choose the best parts of the jam that went down. It all came together really, really organically, you know? And the next day I was literally writing lyrics in in a band on a way to the studio to do to do vocals, you know.
3 days. That's it. Wow. Awesome when tracks come together so easily like that. I mean, it does when you listen to it, it sound like you guys had been jamming and working things out for a long time.
I mean, it it just came together very tightly, and everything worked so well together. You know? And he did a killer job on the vocals as well. You know, in future tracks, you know, Kirk gonna jump in on any of the vocal action? You guys gonna mix it up?
His voice is on there. He's he's he's singing harmonies with me. Are you really part? And then on the end, we do an counterpoint. Dreams always start with the sun.
I say it once. The second time he says it. Your voices fit together way better than I do in the United Cyclone. Well, he's on there. He's definitely on there.
And, originally, I wanted him I wanted to sing one verse then have him the second one, but he didn't wanna do it. He was like, no. You sound good there, so you do that. And so, really, we did it very, utilitarian. You know?
Alright. You sound good here. You do that. Oh, he sounds better with this rhythm part over here, so Kirk did his rhythm part on the end. I did the intro with him.
You know what I mean? Cool. And then, with the whole lead breakout on the end, Lima was like, see if you come up with a lead for this. So I was jamming around with something while we were while we were, laying down the drum tracks and stuff. I said, alright.
So I started riffing a lead, and I was like, oh, Kirk, you tried this. He tried something, sounded way better. He did it. So that's how it went down. You know?
Whoever had it quick quick, and it sounded best, did it. Yeah. I mean, I've listened to the track a number of times, and I guess I don't know if it's I've just heard your voice with so much Silvertomb and then, you know, the backups and typo back in the day. I've I didn't catch it, man. I didn't catch it.
Yeah. And I heard, that you guys are going back into the studio end of next month and gonna start working on a full length album or EP. Well, it's gonna be probably I wanna I want it to be since this came out really well, I wanna do the same process. Right? So, yeah.
The 26th 20 the 22nd June. Yeah. I fly down there. I'm I'm coming up with a wrist now. I'm in the studio right now.
Right? I'm gonna come up with, like, again, a riff in a verse or a verse in a chorus or maybe just a riff, you know, and just come up and never finish anything and just start sending these ideas to Kirk and the guys. And so to go down there with I might write some lyrics and some vocal melodies, you know, and I wanna put everything, you know, to chance to be in there. And, come down, throw the stuff together, and see what happens again just like that. I really like I loved the organic way it happened, you know.
And it there is something, immediate sounding about it and natural, you know, un more or less contrived as when you, you know, rehearse albums in preproduction for months months months. You know? I think there's there's there's something to it that that adds a special talent. You know what it you know what it is? Even when you record, like, I always find that when you record an idea for the first time, it's got this liveliness to it, this immediately, this newness, and then you'll try to record it better and better over.
You never really capture. You might get it more precise, but you never really capture that. And I really love the way that element that's in this recording. You know? So we do it the same way.
And whether it's gonna be an EP or an album, depends on how much stuff we come up with that we like, you know, and that comes out good. So, you know, if 5 songs come out good, it's gonna be an EP. You know what I mean? If 5 songs 20 minute long songs come out good, then it'll be a LP. You know?
If 10 songs come out, then it'll be an LP. You know? Maybe we'll just come up with another couple of singles. I doubt it, though. I think we could at least come up with an EP.
You know? That's what I'm hoping for. Well, I can't wait to hear more. Like, so, I mean, I've been a longtime fan and, you know, I I was stoked to hear you're gonna be doing more silver tomb stuff as well from what, Mark says. Yes.
I I'm right now, mixing. You know, he's been waiting for mixes forever for Mark. I know he wants to kill me right now about it, but I'm gonna get it out to him with him by tomorrow. Excellent. So, yes.
Yeah. Yeah. I have a whole record. It's it's recorded. For the most part, there's there's 3 other songs that, you know, I gotta get Joe, James, my guitar player down for my bass player, Hank Hall in for.
And, Aaron Juice too. He's gonna put some ideas down on it. But I have, 15 minutes of solid music right now mixed that I'm gonna be sending in Mark tomorrow. So, yes, I wanna get that off the ground. And, it's really it's it's not I'm so much like the I am, so it's very dark and very dirty.
Hell, yeah. Looking forward to that too, man, for sure. And I mean, it seems like you're you're keeping really busy. I mean, with these projects and then one of the things I love about, you know, typo is even with how long it's been since Peter passed and stuff, for for the fans, you guys still do really cool typo stuff pretty regularly. I mean, there there was a new typo video that came out yesterday.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The AI video.
Yeah. It was pretty cool. Did you did you watch it? I did. I I I thought it was really cool, man.
And I mean, I've always loved that track. I mean, the whole discography from typo, I got into typo when I was, like, 14. And it was just such a unique band that there's yet to be another band that sounds like typo. You know, is there a cool band that, you know, is a metal guy. It was still cool to listen to, you know, these big, love songs or, you know, just dark gothic thing.
You can listen to them with your girlfriend, take her to the show, and just That's important. Yeah. No. It really was. Really was.
I mean, if I'm if I meet a girl and she's not into typo, it's like, come on. What's going on? Yeah. I mean, typo was one of the the first bands that I saw live as far as bigger bands go. I went to, Ozzfest 97 in Vegas.
And, man, what a lineup. It was, you know, Sabbath, You know, you guys Pantera, and I I was 14. And a funny Pantera related story at that show, you know, I'd never really been in a crowd like that. It's in an arena, and I was really small, so my buddy is like, yeah. You can get up front real easy.
Just weasel through people. And and as I get up front during Pantera, I'm on the rail, and this big guy behind me just threw me over the rail. I was so mad. Just watching Pantera kill it. And so I got mad and I went outside, and I'm just kinda standing there.
There's nobody outside. I think at that point, the second stage had shut down. But I see Peter, you know, like, outside the fence, you know, he's got nice looking lady with him. He's walking off, and I wouldn't do this now, but, you know, 14, I'd never seen rock star in person. So I yell at him, Peter.
You know? And I I go In that voice, Peter? Probably. I'm pretty young. And I go running over to the fence, and, I mean, he was quite a ways away, but super nice guy.
He turned around, came all the way back, chatted with me for a minute. I actually dug this out yesterday, signed my ticket, and, he ruined me meeting rock stars for a long time after that because I met so many others that were just jerks and he was so nice. Oh, that's a shame. Really? I mean, yeah.
Peter was always a great guy like that. I mean, we were always very personal to all of us. You know? I always felt, you know, gifted. That is a gift, you know, to have fans and have people who listen and and appreciate what you're doing.
You know? It's a rare gift. And you guys, man, just so good live. I one of the first, like, band videos I bought was it was a VHS tape. You know, I had all the music videos and stuff.
I can't remember the name of it, but it had live performances as well. I killed that VHS tape, and there's so many great videos, live videos up online. He put out a really cool version of love you to death back on Valentine's Day. I just love how you guys keep putting stuff out there this many years later. A lot of this stuff is bootleg too.
Don't forget. A lot of that stuff, people are just they're they're they're pulling stuff from archives and then putting it up. You know? We've rereleased all, I think, all the records so far, but we might have a few left. But, yeah, we like to keep it going, keep it flowing, you know, and and try to keep it in the public consciousness.
And, you know, the fans love it. They love radio issues, and they love seeing stuff to haven't seen before. You know? And the music's timeless, man. I mean, we still play plenty of typo tracks here on the station and not just at Halloween.
I believe Mark said the 20th anniversary of, life is killing me is coming up and the 30th anniversary of bloody kisses. Are you guys doing anything special for those anniversaries? I don't have anything personally planned for the anniversaries, but I think we are putting out life is killing me a weird issue of it. Nice. Well, looking forward to that, man.
Anyhow, just wanted to thank you again for taking a few to chat with me today. I will definitely be playing the I am song, dreams always die with the sun. I'd play it right now, but Mark says I can't. Can't play it. Oh, you can't.
Till June 2nd. So I'll I'll definitely be given that, lots of good air action. Yeah. Thank you so much. Nope.
No problem. Same thing when I get new Silver Tomb, you know, that that'll be getting out there as well. So, real nice to meet you, man, as a guitar player myself. I mean, you inspired me a ton growing up, and throughout the years. I was listening to creepy green light on air this morning and just the the sludgy glory of that that track.
I mean, you're a big influence, man, and, one of my all time favorite guitar players. So I've always wanted to get a chance to talk to you. So well, dude, keep tearing it up. I can't wait to hear more new music and, honored to get to talk to you, man. Really appreciate your time.
My honor. Thank you, man. Have a good one, Kenny. Thanks, Mark. And we have it on record.
You're gonna get me that silver tune. No. It figures your mouth is the biggest mouth. Yeah. You're blowing me away.
I'm working on it right now, man. I'm I'm actually dropping it down right now. As soon as I get out of here, I'm gonna work on it. The artist's interrogations podcast is a