We're back!
It's been two weeks!
I was very poorly.
Do you want to tell everybody what was wrong with you?
I'm still not right, actually.
Was it, like, full-on man flu, or was it like...
No, it was everything achy.
I don't like it when that happens.
Yeah, all tired, and then chesty, chesty cough, like, and the chesty cough is still here.
Do you know what I don't like about that, right?
If you...
Look, I've had some really serious medical conditions that didn't hurt very much.
Yeah, yeah.
And everybody, like, runs around after you, and they're like, oh, you know, are you all right?
Yeah, yeah.
But, like, sometimes I've had the flu and colds that have, like, put me on my back.
No one cares.
No.
They're just like, oh, just get over it.
Just don't...
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Stop feeling that.
But this was worse than that near-death thing.
It's nuts, isn't it?
Yeah.
It's crazy.
It's like, you know, I've done...
I mean, I've broken my ankle.
I've broken a lot of things over the years.
I've knocked myself out in a race car.
And no, like, when you do that, everyone's like, oh, God, you know, blah, blah, blah.
And you honestly, you think I'm all right.
I'm all right, yeah.
I had to hop a little bit when I broke my ankle.
Yeah, yeah.
That was very painful for, like, 10 minutes.
Yeah.
And it swelled up and went black.
And I was too manly, read that as immature, to go to the doctor.
It's not what it was.
So I didn't go to the doctor.
I just literally hopped on it for about a week and a half.
And it was broke.
And then got to the point where I was just like, actually, I think I might need some help.
So then it turned up, you know, when you get the nurse eye roll?
Yeah.
You know, you get the, what the fuck is wrong with you?
Like, why did you, like, what, what have you been doing?
And I was like, oh, hopping.
Yeah.
Mostly.
Yeah.
And then she was like, well, she's like, and then they bring the x-ray things out.
And they're like, you're just an absolute dickhead.
She said, how did you get here?
And I'm like, I drove.
So when you're not driving home, I like that.
Yeah.
Anyway, that's very, that's a very manly, like, immature.
But I don't think my generation's ever going to grow up.
No, no, but I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I don't know, are we the same generation?
We're just on the, you're millennial.
Right.
And I remember, I was saying this to a friend at work ages ago, that we used to take the
piss out of millennials.
Yeah.
Because like, they were like young.
Yeah.
And now we're like, we're taking the, you know what I mean?
It's like, we're all growing old and got backache together.
So it's kind of like, we're all, all together now.
Yeah.
But you're like millennials, I'm, I'm Zed.
Yeah.
And you're millennial.
Is that what it is?
Yeah.
But only just, I think we're kind of, yeah.
Cause I, yeah, but we're about 10 years apart.
I think we just span over the.
I definitely don't do as I'm told when it comes to medical things.
No.
That's like, that's definitely.
I had to say where it's like, why don't you cancel like what you're doing today and then
go to the walk-in centre?
I'm like, no, no, I shan't.
I'll have a, I'll have a diet Coke and I'll be fine.
We've got our red fruit pastels and black fruit pastels.
We have the correct fruit pastels.
We have the correct diet Coke.
You've absolutely nailed it.
We've got bongo cokes as well.
Hidden.
Ready for next time.
Hidden.
So for those that are new to this episode, we do this in a studio where there are musical
instruments and no one ever plays the bongos in here.
So we hide a tins of Coca-Cola under the bongos.
Yeah.
And it's so cold in here.
It's like they've been in a fridge, isn't it?
So it's really not, which is unusual for a studio.
Normally studios smell of boys and sweat.
Yes.
Yeah.
And this one is just like a, I don't know.
It's a fridge.
This is.
It is.
It's so cold in here.
Yeah.
So how was Christmas for you?
It's after Christmas.
Yeah.
We just had Christmas, didn't we?
So we are.
What are we now?
Boxing day, boxing day.
We're like the day after boxing day, aren't we now?
I'm looking at my pad.
It's 27th of December.
Yeah.
So that's the day after that's like, yeah, boxing day is 26th.
And this is the day after everyone.
This is kind of where reality comes back a little bit.
You're still a little bit in the, but no one knows what day it is.
Yeah.
I don't know what day it is.
I don't know what to do, but you're starting to kind of think, oh, do you know what I mean?
It's creeping back in a little bit that Christmas is over.
Yeah.
It was good.
I wasn't very well.
So.
No.
Did you get any nice presents?
I don't really get any presents really.
Do you not?
Not so much.
Do you not buy yourself presents?
Yes, I do.
Yeah.
That's on its way.
Oh, you bought a watch, didn't you?
Yeah, I bought the watch.
After we faffed around online last time.
That's quite good.
Yeah.
Sorry to hear that then.
Yeah.
You're a proper cough.
A proper smoker's cough.
My neighbour's got one of those.
Yeah.
You know, in the morning, in the spring, like I'll get up early.
The kids will go out and kick them out to school and that.
And then I'll often, if it's sunny, like in May.
Yeah.
I'll sit in the garden and I'll do my emails, my kind of just going answering the overnight
emails and stuff.
I often do that with a cup of tea in the garden.
Yeah.
My neighbour who lives out the back, she's got a proper dot cotton smoker's cough.
Yeah.
And she's like, properly like, I don't know.
Just kind of, I think one of these days she's just going to do that.
And then I'm going to have to call an ambulance.
Yeah.
I've been singing today twice.
I can't believe you can do that.
I like when I'm sick, I'm like, I can't, I mean, I still go and do stuff, but I don't
think I could sing.
Yeah.
I'm going to have to have a day off though.
Do you sing sad songs?
Yes, I do.
I do when I'm poorly.
Yeah.
I do.
I go for the sad ones.
Yeah.
That's very true.
Can't sing happy songs when you're feeling very well.
No.
And the other thing is, is the range as well.
I can't go very high.
It's not like a normal one.
So I have to do like lower songs.
Can't do the darkness.
No, can't do the darkness.
They're quite high.
I can't do the songs anyway.
You need to hear Matt Peach do the darkness.
He's very good at that.
Is he?
Yeah.
He does that very well.
Who's just, Justin Hawkins is having a fight with somebody.
Who's he?
He's.
Oh, Youngblood.
Yeah.
Just grow up.
Yeah.
Both of you.
Just stop being dickheads.
Yeah.
I don't get it.
I like Youngblood.
I like Youngblood and I like Justin and I just think this is good.
Just have a cuddle.
I just think this is good.
Let's do a song together.
Do a song together and then it'd be fine.
Stop.
Yeah.
Stop with it.
Stop.
But you know, I get that Youngblood's easy to pick on.
Yeah.
He's like a puppy dog.
Yeah.
But like genuinely, this current generation that are growing up now, that are teenagers
now, they will be losing their shit to Youngblood songs all the way over Christmas this year.
This will be like big.
If you've got kids that are like 14, 13, 14, 15, and they're into rock, the Youngblood will
be part of what they're listening to.
Yeah.
And honestly, that will be stuff in 25 years time when they've got a podcast.
Yeah.
They'll be coming back to that Idols record.
Yeah.
You know, with like we whinge about, or I whinge about compressors and loudness and click
tracks and all of that stuff because I don't like it.
Nearly all my favorite records were recorded with it.
But I think this whole obsession with auto-tune on his show and on his albums, I just have
this feeling that in like 20 years time, it's just going to be like so prevalent.
Yeah.
You know, I think because AI is going to be everywhere, isn't it?
So the fact that somebody actually turned up in the studio and did it.
Yeah.
You know, anyway, stop fighting.
Stupid.
This week.
Oh, we're Riffology.
Riffology.
Eight minutes.
I forget.
Quite often.
I forget that we're recording.
So we're Riffology.
Yeah.
I'm Neil.
I'm Chris.
And we are doing Wisconsin Death Trip.
Which is one of the best album titles ever, I think.
It's really cool, isn't it?
It's a great album title.
It's from a movie, isn't it?
It's from a B.
Yeah.
It's from a movie.
I think I should have known this more.
But yeah, I think it's from a, like a B movie in the fifties.
Yeah.
And that's where it came from.
I, there's something about this record.
I remember first hearing this record.
I remember being at work.
We'd gone in to do some weekend work.
In fact, there's a funny, I don't know whether I've ever shared this story before, but there's
a funny story that goes along with this.
So we'd gone in to do this work at the weekend.
And this, you have to bear in mind, this was kind of, this was 1999.
Yeah.
So like I started in IT in the early nineties.
It was getting a bit grown up by this point.
So when I started, it was chaos.
It was like the wild west.
We did what we wanted.
We all thought we ruled the world.
And, and, you know, but then by the time you got here, I was working for a bank and there
was this realization that these like IT kids could, could, they, they, they've got so much
control over how everything works.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
There's too much power in their hand.
So they, they were bringing in like change management, product managers and program managers and project.
And we had all of these managers around us that hadn't got, they brought in forms and everything
needed something.
But anyway, we, we, we got to go in and essentially clean up some of the stupid stuff we'd done years
before.
So we'd built, I'd, I'd built the mail platform and all of the servers were in these big data
centers, massive data centers.
And it was the size of a football field.
And it had like, you know, thousands, like 30 or 2,000 people.
And, um, when we would, when we were setting it up initially, um, I built one of the servers
in our closet.
So we had a rack of servers in our closet and because it was near to me, that's where I did
the testing.
Yeah.
And I forgot to take it out of the cycle.
So when people were joining like one in 10 mailboxes got added to this mail server that
was literally running in a closet there, there was like cleaning stuff in there.
It was like a rack in a closet.
So anyway, we, we, we'd gone in there to move all this stuff.
And my friend took this record in and I'd taken paradise lost.
Okay.
And, and we had, uh, essentially we had like a, what would be a ghetto blaster and we, cause
it was a lot of faffing about.
So we went in there, put that on and we just had these things on repeat.
So we had this record and we had paradise lost on repeat for, for the day while we were,
we were working there.
We were all really hung over because we'd been out the night before.
Um, and I had this really great idea while we'd got, so you have to bear in mind, this
is a bank, shiny marble floors, all of the, you know, shiny lifts, everything.
It was really, you know, big glass and steel.
Yeah.
Um, and we were on the third floor and we got to get this server, which would have been
quite heavy.
This would have been like 40 kilograms.
They were quite heavy.
They're not so heavy these days, but back then it was big, heavy thing.
And we were like, Oh, there's a lot of cables to like undo and just feels a lot of hard work.
So we decided it would be much easier if we just took the entire rack cause we shouldn't
have had the rack there.
So we thought what we'll do is we'll like unhook the umbilical from the back, wield the rack
across the car park to the next building and then we'll just take it in the data center and
it'll be fine.
Yeah.
No wonder mind.
Well, that's what we'll do.
So we did all that.
We unhooked.
We got our ghetto blaster like raging in the background.
Our push hits running and you know, it's all great.
We're all really pleased with ourselves.
Um, we, we cock this rack back and it's quite a heavy bit of kit.
So there's three of us and we, we wheel it across into the, into the, um, the lift.
And as we go in, obviously I'm going to, it's at an angle and I stand it up.
Yeah.
And as I try and stand it up, it wedges.
Oh, oh no.
So it's not, the lift wasn't tall enough.
So it literally got wedged between the floor and the roof of the lift.
And then we've got security.
We've got our ghetto blaster playing paradise lost and static X in the background.
We've got, we're all hung over.
We've got this rack, which is now stuck in the lift and the glass lift just going up and down and we can't stop it.
And it was just, you know, honestly, it was horrific.
It was absolutely awful.
We had to go and get like a special man to come and unscrew the lift and send it down to the bottom.
And then our boss turned up and it was just like, what are you doing?
It was brilliant.
Absolutely brilliant.
And it went, IT went downhill after that, I think.
Yeah.
That was like the peak.
The pinnacle.
The pinnacle of IT before we had like, before the grownups got involved.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was a good laugh back then.
Did it resolve itself, the situation?
Well, eventually it took a lot of, a lot of happening.
A man with many spanners arrived and he unbolted the lift.
Yeah.
And then, and then we, we removed our rack from it.
It had marble tiles on the floor of the lift.
Yeah.
And there was like, I mean, I was there for seven years.
Yeah.
And for at least five years afterwards.
Yeah.
There were these two scrape marks on the bottom of the lift.
The ceiling was all right.
That was all right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like these tiles that lifted up, he just wedged against the frame.
Yeah.
And then the, the lift man was very unhappy.
Yeah.
He was just, he just kept talking about weight and overloading and someone could have died
and all of these things.
Yeah.
You know, we were just, would you just, you know, we didn't know anything about that.
And it's like, well, look, there's a limit to how, how much weight you can put in a lift.
Yeah.
And we'd, apparently we'd gone along.
You'd over, yeah, exceeded that weight.
A long way over that.
Yeah.
So he was very unhappy.
Yeah.
About that.
Yeah.
Um, but then we had, after that, it was great because we had change managers who would ask
questions like what, you know.
They have a clipboard.
Yeah.
A lot of that, a lot of forms, a lot of what, um, what are you going to do if it goes wrong?
Yeah.
And have you done a risk assessment?
Yeah.
Um, and a lot of that, um, and a lot of that, which, which fixed everything.
Because we just stopped doing everything.
Yeah.
You would just be like, oh, that feels really hard.
Yeah.
Just not bother.
Let's just wait.
Yeah.
Because we, this was being proactive, like getting the, getting the computers wedged
in the lift.
Yeah.
We were being proactive just in case something happened.
Yeah.
In that closet where it was.
Yeah.
So what happened to IT after that was we all just went, well, let's just wait until it does
go wrong.
Yeah.
And then we don't need change management anymore.
We can do something called retroactive.
Yeah.
Change management.
What, what should you have done?
Yeah.
You just kind of go, well, it broke.
So we moved it and now it's all right.
So it's a lot of that, but lovely, really good times.
You know what I mean?
Brilliant times.
There was, there was like a handful of like three or four of us that really, really loved
like metal and were really into this scene and kind of the ministry and static X.
But it was that, it was that time of change, wasn't it?
Like.
That 1999 thing was, you know, you said you had a ghetto blaster.
Yeah.
You wouldn't have ghetto blasters long after that.
You know, that probably wouldn't, wouldn't have been a thing too long.
No, no, no, you wouldn't.
I remember when I started teaching in sort of 2008 and ghetto blasters were well on their
way out by then.
Yeah.
Well, this was a proper full on black Panasonic.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
It was, it was good.
Yeah.
It was a really good bit of kit.
Yeah.
Played MP3s.
Yeah.
So we'd, we'd, we'd got us, we'd, we'd spent the first hour.
Um, ripping the CD, ripping the CDs that we'd got out of our cars to MP3.
Yeah.
And then writing them back to the CD.
Yeah.
That we could plug into Adam's ghetto blaster.
Yeah.
So that means, ah, so you could play both, you could play both, um, albums back to back
without needing to.
Yeah.
Exactly.
You could do all of that stuff.
We, we did prong cleansing last week.
Yeah.
And I think there is a, uh, a, a real lineage here between that and this.
Okay.
Yeah.
There are various bits in here where I think that could be a prong riff.
You could, you could take that and that could be a prong riff.
They do it.
The production is different.
I think it's less, I think it's not as, um, it's cleaner here.
I think the drum sound is, um, particularly.
It's a great sound.
Yeah.
Particularly cool.
I think.
So, cause I can hear the lineage between things like Fear Factory in this.
Yes.
Yeah.
Cause they were a bit, they were a bit earlier, weren't they?
Yeah.
They were bigger, weren't they?
Fear Factory were massive.
Um, and then you had all these bands that kind of followed on.
Yeah.
And this was, cause a load of them went down this sort of hip hoppy kind of new metal-y
kind of rappy kind of route.
But then there was this, this sort of gang that went off more in the sort of techno and
beat-y route, wasn't it?
Cause Static X went out on tour with Fear Factory.
Yeah.
And that was like a renowned tour.
Yeah.
That was Big Old Beast.
Because you had, um, the same, you know, the, the fans of Fear Factory and fans of Static
X were really, you know, there's a massive overlap.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You had kids that were just like, it's the best gig ever, you know.
But they, I mean, they toured with everybody.
They, they went out on tour with Slayer.
They went out with OzFest.
Yeah, I was reading on that blog, it talks about the OzFest stuff.
Yeah, they were out, they, they did, they worked really hard.
Famously, uh, uh, Wayne, uh, Wayne Static didn't have a house.
Yeah.
So he'd kind of sold up, they recorded the record, he'd gone out on tour and didn't have
anywhere to live.
So he was literally on tour for the, for the year.
And then they would just finish that tour.
And then, um, uh, and then he would live, they were living in a rehearsal or he was living
in a rehearsal space, essentially.
Um, but it was never, you know, never there.
They would finish a tour, come back for three days.
Yeah.
And then, and then, yeah, the management would be like, oh, uh, Slayer touring or, you know,
somebody else with Patera touring.
Do you want to go?
And they would just shoot off and, and, and dive on the back of that.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Really hardworking band.
I think, um, you know, and, and, and did you do the fun thing about this record?
I think is, um, like how quick it happened from nowhere, um, you know, living out the
back of a truck almost.
And then within like 18 months they went, they kind of got signed.
They were on Warner Brothers, got signed to a big label.
Yeah.
When the big labels weren't signing metal bands.
No.
It was kind of a little bit gone.
You know what I mean?
You had kind of the.
The subsidiaries were doing it, weren't they?
Yeah.
But you'd had, you'd like, if you follow the nineties through, you'd had that early part
of the nineties where kind of the hair metal thing was just, just, just kind of dying out.
Yeah.
Then you had kind of grunge.
Yeah.
Then you had the kind of old rock stuff, the kind of the Pearl jams and all of that stuff.
And then, um, you kind of had what would be new metal, but metal started to change, but
it was, if you think about that a bit in the, in the beginning and, and, and middle part of
the nineties, it wasn't metal.
It was, it was heavy rock.
It was heavy radio rock really.
And then this stuff came through, the new metal stuff came through and Korn and all of that
stuff came through and it was much heavier.
It was, you know, and so to have like a major label signed something with big, thick, heavy
riffs.
Yeah.
Particularly on the techno end and not that hip hoppy end.
Yeah.
It was, it was, it was, I think it was interesting.
It's an interesting gamble.
And I think static X were, they were the first one that Warner brothers had signed back again.
Um, so yeah, it was a little bit, you see, I was, I was well out of this loop at this point
because I was, um, I was just in pumpkin land at this time.
I was honestly, it was about this time where I just went, I went, I'd, I'd gone through like
a, a big kind of British indie rock thing and then hit kind of the counting crows stuff.
Um, and then just discovered the pumpkins and didn't listen to anything else.
I don't think.
Well, yeah, um, so.
And post rock and Sigur Rós and all those sort of things were starting to come through,
I think at that point as well.
So this kind of industrial stuff that was going on, it really wasn't my palace at all.
The bit that is interesting though, is Billy Corgan off of the pumpkins.
Yeah.
Was responsible for this band pretty much.
Kind of.
Yeah.
But did you know, he played with Wayne Static and they had a, um, a band called Deep Blue
Dream in the late eighties.
Um, and, uh, Billy played in that band and then eventually Billy introduced the drummer
Ken J and Wayne, um, uh, the record store where Ken worked.
So Billy knew Ken and introduced them all together.
So yeah, Billy was kind of quite instrumental in the form, the formation involved in it.
I mean, it's, it's, yeah, it's cool.
The matchmaker.
It's interesting though, isn't it?
How, you know, the, the, um, and you've said this before, but it's just mates making music.
And there's a, there's a lovely bit that I read, um, about the making of this record, uh,
and a bit about the history.
Um, and it was like the band kind of formed and they all got on with each other, but they
didn't have a sound, which is like, you imagine when these bands get together, that's, you know
what I mean?
It's like, um, you know, Metallica get together and it's just, it's just Metallica.
Yeah.
Um, you know, and, and like, I don't know, like the pumpkins, like the pumpkins get together
and just the pumpkins appear, pumpkins comes out of the, out of the speakers.
Right.
Um, it's interesting for me, this one, because they all got together and they were like, they
were playing thrash.
They were playing really heavy music.
They were playing, um, you know, kind of more, more rhythm based stuff and then not really
finding their feet, you know?
And then, and then as they were practicing more and playing more covers and doing some
more stuff, they started to lean towards this industrial techno, uh, kind of sound.
Yeah.
And it was like, it started to make sense for them that they were like, actually, this
is, you know, this is where, and it took, I think it took a few records for them to get
there.
But by the time we got Wisconsin death trip, cause they did some stuff before it, but by the
time this album was recorded, um, it, it, it feels like fully formed, but it misses the
fact that there was a bunch of stuff happening before that limited live shows and a bunch of
things that they were doing just to find themselves.
Um, but it's rare you, it's rare you find bands that are so transparent about that journey.
Yeah.
When they're just like this, it didn't, it didn't start like this.
This is not where it began.
And then we weren't copying somebody and we weren't, you know, it was just us, um,
trying to figure out what kind of band made sense, what kind of music made sense for us.
Um, which is interesting because I, when, cause I, I've been listening to this record this
week and in between dying, in between dying.
Yeah.
And then looked on the blog and it said debut.
And I was like, it doesn't sound like a debut.
It doesn't, does it?
It doesn't, it sounds like a pretty well honed, well produced third album.
Yeah.
This feels like a third album.
It's well produced.
Um, it's, I've been, uh, I've been doing some, uh, decorating, uh, over the past couple of
weeks.
You always, that's all you do.
Oh God, honestly, I'm trying to do, I'm trying to do upstairs.
The kids have made, you just don't have children.
If you, if you want like anything to last, don't have children.
They destroy everything.
Um, yeah, I'm trying to just got to repair loads of like, just mess really upstairs.
Anyway, um, I really like decorating cause it's quite, I find it quite mindful.
I kind of, I don't like the term mindfulness, but I, I find it quite, um, like I don't have
to, I don't have to analyze what I'm doing.
I can just be in the moment and focus on the painting or the sanding or the, whatever I'm
doing, I can focus on that one thing and, and, and I really enjoy that.
Um, and I like music that, that is like, I like Pink Floyd and I like suicidal, I like
kind of music like, normally it's kind of quite, um, don't know how to describe it really.
Like doing some bits of decorating, like if I'm, if I'm glossing, I like Pink Floyd.
Yeah.
Um, if I'm like sanding or roller in, like a little bit of suicidal tendencies, a bit of
boost up in there.
But one of the things that's hit me with this, I was listening to this album, the same as you
this week, this is quite hypnotic and I loved it.
It's got this kind of thing where you, like before you know it, you're, you're just engaged
in the album and it's just, it's almost like being like a conveyor belt.
Yeah.
It's like a flow.
There's a flow.
You're kind of hooked into it and then you're being taken through and it's such a cool record
for that.
That's a really good way of putting it actually.
The, the bit where I got to that was Love Dump.
Yeah.
I love the bit in Love Dump where it kind of starts off, it's got this kind of, it's
riffy, it's prong riffy, right?
It's just, just full on like staccato riffy, you know, it could be straight of a prong record
and then you're like a third of the way in and then it just changes like the, and it's
like you're suddenly in this like rhythmic melody and it's, I think Static X do that so
well, where it's just, it gets into this, like this groove and it's kind of, you know,
it's like this proper kind of groove where it's, it's just repetitious like techno music,
like dance music, it's kind of in this proper groove and then it will just like burst out
of it and I just, yeah, I think they're so, all the way through their catalogue they do
that.
So there's a thing about the, the East Coast, isn't it?
Where there was a few, like, they were really exploring this stuff at this time, weren't
they?
So these were in Chicago.
Yeah, I think so.
And then there's the New York thing.
Yeah.
So prong were New York, weren't they?
Prong were New York, yeah.
And so Rob was Rob Zombie and.
Prong was earlier though, prong was kind of earlier in the, in the, in the time zone really.
I think prong did influence this massively.
Yeah, I think, you know.
But the point I'm trying to get at is like, Seattle had a sound.
Yeah.
The West Coast had a sound.
And it feels like this might be, this kind of more industrial style sound might be a
little bit more of the kind of East Coast.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm with you.
Yeah.
I mean, this is kind of mid, mid America or like where these guys were, but yeah, it was
definitely that side, that East Coast side.
It was, but harder and, and yeah, maybe that's where the producers were as well.
Yeah.
There's a lot of that, isn't there?
Because it was Grandmaster Studios.
Yeah.
Because this is done in Hollywood, wasn't it?
Recorded in 98.
Yeah.
But the interesting one, there's a doc, an interview that we put on, because they were
after Terry Day, because they wanted the prong sound.
Yeah.
So that's, so you're right.
They did, they were after the prong thing.
Yeah.
But instead they, they landed on somebody else who was actually the engineer.
Actually about a month after, after we put our names to paper that we were in the studio.
So we kind of, we made this wish list, this producer wish list, and decided that we wanted Terry Day, because
he had done all of, you know, the Pantera stuff and prong, and we really liked what he did.
And then we found out that he's not available.
So we went with Ulrich, who was his assistant on all that stuff.
When I first heard their demo, I got to the first chorus, and I was, I was ready to do the record.
You know, surprisingly, the whole thing all the way through was, was actually almost so good that I was a little worried that I wasn't able to improve on it.
But I did.
Ken, really, really great drummer.
We did live overdubs of cymbals.
So Ken was lucky enough to, to play the record twice.
Koichi, he's a crazy man, really.
His brain, I think, operates differently from the rest of us.
I hear something like this in there.
A day later, an hour later, he'll come back with something that's totally amazing.
Wayne, really great, because, you know, he plays it twice, and it's pretty much doubled, a couple of little punch-ins here and there, and, you know, he's ready to go.
Same thing with vocals.
Very proficient.
He just nailed it.
Tony, a lot of groove in that band.
He actually does a lot for the band.
He, he really holds things together, down, down in the low-end, and, you know, just glue, he's definitely the glue.
And we went out and just cut the record in four weeks.
Just knocked the whole thing out.
Go in, nail it, leave.
Because there's not much second-guessing going on, and there are imperfections of it, it sounds like a real record, as opposed to something that could have been picked to death.
That, um, happens too often nowadays.
Best two-month vacation I ever had, and then when we got done, uh, I went back to work.
Orrick Wilde.
Um, yeah.
I, I, there's a lot of clever things here.
Like, they use drum triggers.
So I was reading an article about how they did the drums, and they wanted, um, like a, like a, a perfect drum sound.
They wanted this, like, really powerful drum sound, but they didn't want to program it.
They didn't want to use, like, a programmer.
Which, Prong, Prong had always done a mixture.
There's bits of real drums and bits of programming in, in Prong.
And, and, uh, they didn't want that for this album.
So they built, together as a, as like a band, they built this wooden drum rig with microphones set up.
So, and then, um, and then Ken J, who was a drummer, would play the drum parts on this, like, wooden rig.
So not a drum kit.
This kind of, like, weird wooden rig.
And then they used those as triggers to play back these kind of samples, recorded samples.
Yeah, yeah.
That they'd taken elsewhere.
So you ended up with this, like, uber clean, um, you know, massive drum sound.
Like, really, like, a digital drum sound, almost, but without it being programmed.
So it was kind of, so it was this, like, played drum sound.
Yeah.
So it was, it was played from a timing perspective and, and feel perspective and not programmed.
Um, but you ended up with the sound of, like, a programming kit.
I was going to say, which is probably where this more techno-y kind of industrial thing comes from.
Yeah, I think so.
Because, obviously, they're all going to be, if I'm getting the idea right, that they're sampling single hits,
they're probably not, they're probably not going to go for, like, MIDI and, uh, velocity, you know.
So, the way MIDI works is you've got a velocity value of up to 127.
Yeah.
So it's 128 values, effectively.
Of how hard you hit it.
Yeah.
So the higher the number, the harder the dynamic.
I don't think that was done at all.
I think this was all just, like, shot triggers.
Yeah, I think that's all it was based on.
But, like, really rudimentary.
And then fed into the software.
It wasn't Pro Tools.
I forget what it was.
It's in the blog somewhere.
There's no chance of me being able to find that.
I've forgotten my glasses.
Yeah.
But, yeah, they used, um, it was some, I've forgotten the name of the, I'm looking to see if I can see it quickly, but I can't.
Um, yeah, they used it, like, I'd not heard of it before, the software they used.
Yeah.
Um, but, yeah, and then, but essentially they were like, hang on a minute, we could look at what we can do.
We can, we can take that microphone feed, the spike.
Yeah.
Into our, uh, you know, our, uh, uh, workstation and then use that to trigger this, uh, you know, this, the drum sound that we want.
And then we can change it.
Yeah.
And I, like, it's 99, I think, I don't know whether that was, like, a common thing.
It wouldn't have been.
I mean, I mean, now it's quite common because you put their, you know, their velocity as well.
So you'd have a trigger kit and you'd use your slate triggers or your easy drummer or whatever it, whatever it is you'd use.
And, and yeah, that, that's quite, quite normal now.
Um, but the main reason for that and the main reason that I would assume they'd have done that is so they could get the separation between the drums and the cymbals.
Oh, yeah.
So they can mix it and they can get, you know, a really nice, tight drum sound that has, that isn't saturated by bleed with other things.
Cause you, you'll have no bleed on that.
So you can, you can mix the tom like it's a tom.
You can mix it.
Yeah.
So there's no, there's no bleed through it all, is there?
No.
I quite, you know, um, there's a few albums that I've got, especially for the snare.
Yes.
Yeah.
You know, when you can hear, you can like in, in the, in the bleed, if you've got headphones on, you can hear the bleeder of the snare, you know, the chain rattling.
Underneath the, the drums.
And, and like modern, modern recording engineers would whip that out in a heartbeat.
Um, I really like that.
I like the humanity of it.
There's something lovely.
There's like, there's an, um, uh, so we talked about Rolling Stones records in some of the early mono recordings.
You can hear people walking around the studio.
Like if you put headphones on and turn them up pretty loud.
Yeah.
Um, you can hear people like, you know, they're just like, they'll be sitting down and, and, and, you know, and, um,
Uh, to, to, to play.
And it's not done live.
It's done, it's done tracked still.
Um, but in between, like as the song's playing, a quiet part, like you, there are people moving.
You're the people doing stuff in the studio.
Um, and it's, I don't know.
Something, I think there's something really nice about that.
Yeah, I do.
Something quite, um.
And I think as we, I mean, you've alluded to this already, but as we get more into the realms of AI creating music and technology, you know, auto-tuning and everything and all that, I think there's going to be a resurgence of really raw records that, that are just put a mic in a room and capture something.
You know, I, I had an online debate with somebody this week and I, and I have to say, I didn't, I didn't start off by taking the position that I took, but I just, I kind of created the position as I was reading it.
Right.
But, um, somebody was, and it was because I saw, I read two things really, uh, uh, not far apart.
So, so the first thing that I read was somebody whinging about AI slop and just about the, the general, um, uh, like downgrade of humanity.
Right.
And that we, humans can't think properly anymore.
We're all stupid.
We believe everything it tells us and we forget how to write.
And it's just this, like, like the amount of words generated is higher and they're all crap.
Right.
That was kind of the, the thing from it.
And I kind of thought, yeah, I kind of, I think I kind of agree with that.
I think that's what, that's certainly what I'm seeing in the real world.
Yeah.
And not everybody and some people, you know, are using it to change the world.
Right.
But I, you know, for the vast majority, um, it's, it's not making things any better.
And then I read this other article.
So, so in that case, like if somebody said, for example, um, I've just written a novel,
I've just used AI to write a novel.
You'd think that was crap.
Yeah.
I've just used AI to write an album.
It's crap.
Yeah.
I've just used AI to create some album art.
It's crap.
Yeah.
I've, you know, insert anything here.
Right.
I've just used AI to create, um, uh, you know, a piece of artwork.
It's crap.
Right.
And once you put AI involved in there, it's rubbish.
And then the next thing that I read was about this company making rocket engines, 3d printed
rocket engines.
They have used AI to create organic designed rocket engines and they look organic.
So they don't look like, you know, like we would design things with geometric shapes.
Yeah.
This thing isn't, this thing's kind of very flowy and it's got kind of like webs in there
and it doesn't look like, um, it looks a bit alien-esque.
Yeah.
Um, but on that article, the best thing ever.
Yeah.
Like AI designed rocket engines.
Yeah.
Brilliant.
They're the best thing ever.
Yeah.
So like, yeah, AI involved, um, novel, terrible.
Yeah.
Awful.
AI involved, um, music.
Terrible.
Yeah.
AI involved rocket engines.
The best thing ever.
Yeah.
And I was just like, where, where's the line?
Yeah.
Why, why is it good at doing rocket engines and not good at doing, like, why, why can't
it not write a ballad?
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, cause in the real, I'm like in the real world, like, like designing a rocket engine
from scratch, that's quite complicated.
Do you know what I mean?
Writing four chords in a ballad, that's not, it's not that complicated.
I mean, you know, there's variations to it, right?
But you'd, you'd assume a thing that could go into a rocket engine could plug four chords
together.
Yeah.
And it just, it kind of blew my mind a little bit.
I was just like, I got to the stance where I was like, I'm not sure that we're judging
this well.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Like, if it's so bad at all these other things, surely the rocket engine's bad.
Yeah.
I don't.
But it's about function, isn't it?
It's been used there for a function.
A magic.
Yeah.
It looks, it looks, I tell you what, it does look magic.
Does it?
It's like, yeah, this thing, it's like, it does, it looks like if someone, if someone showed
at you and said, this has fallen off an alien ship.
Yeah.
Like, you know, half of the internet would go, oh, yeah, totally.
Yeah.
I mean, there wouldn't be a lot of pushback.
It looks a bit weird.
But I don't know.
I don't think we're in a good position.
I don't think we, I, it doesn't feel to me like we are adapting all that well.
No.
As a civilization to AI yet.
Yeah.
Which is, I mean, it's like an industrial revolution, isn't it?
Yeah.
It takes time.
But it did, it did hit me.
I did, I did, it did hit me that there is, like, there are some things where it is like
so cool.
If you said, I did AI.
Yeah.
I used AI with this and it's like, oh, that's mega.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And there are other things where if you say if you use AI, it's the worst thing ever.
Like, so like doing an app, that's quite cool still, isn't it?
I don't know.
If you use AI to build an app.
But not in software, in software engineering circles, that's not cool.
Is it not cool?
Not cool.
No, we don't like that.
And also, if you, like, genuinely, the models in the last month or so write better code than
I can.
Right.
A lot.
I mean, I've been doing it for 30 years and it genuinely will write better code.
It will write much worse code.
Yes.
And it will write the wrong code.
Yeah, yeah.
But if you ask it to write.
If you do the, ask it the right thing.
Yeah, if you ask the right questions, it will do it better.
And I think that's where the wheels come off a little bit.
Yeah.
You know, you can't just say, go and make me an app.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
You've got to, you've got to go and divine the framework first and then you've got to go
and do all of the thinking about data structures and how it's going to connect and the backend
and the architecture and all of this stuff.
and then you've got to design all of that and then, and then give all of that to the model
and then say, write me this little bit.
Yeah.
And then write me this little bit.
Then write, and then, and you're checking it's done exactly as you wanted as you go through
the different steps.
Yeah.
And then you end up with a thing that, that works.
Yeah.
Maybe that's how they did the rockets.
Maybe.
Yeah.
They 3D print them as well.
Yeah.
Out of copper.
Yeah.
It just looks well cool.
Yeah.
Maybe I thought that was dead cool.
Really, really cool.
And do you know what I did after that?
So I did that and then I was feeling a little bit sad.
Yeah.
And then, uh, uh, Giza Butler is signing a bunch of, um, Black Sabbath records.
I bought one of them and then I ate some sweets and then I went and watched telly.
Yeah.
So that's the way it is.
Yeah.
But yeah, AI is complicated.
Yeah.
Do you, uh, do you know what we'll, I'm going to tie it back a little bit to, to this time
because this was 99, Wisconsin death trip.
Um, so you're just about in peak.
Napster season.
Well, this was peak CD.
Yes.
Download.
This, this was like CDs with people bought CDs.
Yes.
And, um, the internet was getting big and people were MP3ing.
And so you had this, this, um, the storm of like you say Napster and LimeWire and all of
these other tools that were just set up for sharing music and pirating music.
Um, and it didn't like the music industry didn't like, like, like,
we don't really know how to deal with AI today.
Yeah.
Um, I don't, the music industry didn't know how to make sense of the internet and how it
was going to do all this stuff.
So you had like Lars Ulrich, um, you're threatening to sue every single person on the planet, but
basically, um, and you know, and, but it was, I remember this, this, this period of time
and, and I remember listening to Lars speaking, saying, that's my music, you've stolen it.
And I was thinking, I, I taped like Master of Puppets and kill them all and ride the lightning
off my mate's record player when, you know, when I was in my teens.
Is this any different?
I don't, I'm not, I mean, the scale is probably different.
Um, you know, in the, and, and I'm sure that the number of records got impacted massively.
The people, you know, people that are buying CDs, cause you could, everyone was just downloading
them and playing them in their cars.
Whereas back then we had to buy tape.
Something like one of your mates would have to go and buy the, the thing.
Yeah.
And then you could take, you know, you, you, you'd like tape a copy of it.
Um, and there was definitely like a, you know, oh, he bought the last one.
I better buy it.
You know, you know what I mean?
Like with, with, with our mates, it was like, well, Tony bought like, you know, ride the lightning
and I better go and buy Master of Puppets.
And it was, you very much knew it was kind of like a round that you were, you were in.
Um, but I kind of thought, is it any different, um, at the time, but the impact was catastrophic
because no one just like overnight, no one bought music.
No, because it was the source, wasn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
And the, and the quality was so good.
Go!
I'm not just right off the butt, in a circle of meat to the end, giving up all or need or none, and we're looking in from the hood.
I'm not just right off the hood.
I decided I was going to move to California
because I was tired of the cold weather in Chicago.
Just moved there and started looking for people to play with
and started this band just to have a good time really.
I had pretty much given up on trying to get signed at the time.
Just found some cool dudes to play with
and tried experimenting with a bunch of different stuff.
And after about a few years, we kind of turned into what we are.
I was playing in this thrash metal band in Chicago at the time.
And we had come on to LA to do a record in '93, in November of '93.
So we made the record and then we drove back to Chicago in a van.
And we got back to Chicago and it was like 10 degrees and an ice storm.
And I was like, you know what?
Fuck this.
I'm fucking out.
I'm done with this shit.
So I fucking noticed that work.
I went up with my credit card and I bought a pickup truck.
And I took everything I could pack into my pickup truck with the cats in there.
And drove across the country.
And I knew one person in LA.
So they let me stay at their house for like, you know, a week or whatever.
Where I was to live.
Had all this massive credit card day.
So you know, I was broke ass, you know, musician.
I didn't have any money.
So I, I, what it is, I got two credit cards.
I bought a truck with one and then I lived on the other one for a while.
So we've come back after a little break because you had to go for a wee, didn't you?
Let's go for a wee.
Now, while you were weeing, I did some reading.
Oh.
And the software that I couldn't remember that they used was called Opcode Vision software.
Never heard of that.
And it's used, they used piezoelectric.
Oh, really?
Uh, which I think is really interesting.
Yeah.
Cause that's what they use on transducers for guitars.
Hmm.
The pickups.
Oh, I thought that was really interesting.
And the other thing is, you know, I said it was named after a fifties B movie.
Yes.
It was named after a seventies book.
Oh no.
I'm poorly underneath the car.
It comes from a 1973 book by Michael Lessie.
Uh, Wayne static found this obscure book, uh, which chronicles bizarre deaths and disasters
in nine, in 1890s, rural Wisconsin at a flea market.
Uh, and he was fascinated by it.
Um, and initially they were going to use it as a band name.
Really?
Uh, it'd be good.
Bad name as well.
Do you know why they didn't call it that?
Because the label Warner said it was too long.
It would, it would be all right now.
I bet if they called it now.
Yeah.
It'd be absolutely fine.
And it'd sound like Kubla Khan TX.
That's what that's, that's what that band would sound like.
Yeah.
Anyway, they're the two facts that I discovered while you were weeing.
And now we're back.
Very good.
Um, so we, we were, we were talking about all kinds of stuff when we were talking about,
um, that change in the nineties and record labels dealing with, um, manic piracy.
Yeah.
And not knowing how to deal with that.
Where's all the money come from.
Yeah.
When you're dealing with that.
And it turns out it comes from selling t-shirts.
Yeah.
And gigs.
Yeah.
It's suddenly gone up like 10 fold.
It's gone crazy.
Yeah.
Because everybody pirates music.
Yeah.
Or, or gives, or no, they pay for music, but they, they don't pay the bands.
They pay streaming.
Yeah.
Because then you had that like 10 year weirdness where, uh, there was this kind of like all
out war with where you got your music from and nobody had physical, like in, in that
early part of, uh, the millennium, like 2000 to 2010, no one had physical.
I don't know.
You couldn't, it's hard to get physical media.
Yeah.
Um, and, uh, so, so like everything was kind of like you had iTunes and.
See, I remember because I worked in music retail for a little while around that kind
of early two thousands point.
Yeah.
Um, and I probably left maybe, I don't know when it would have been.
I'm not very good at time, maybe mid to, mid to, to, to late sort of early two thousand,
you know, like that sort of 2006, 2007 sort of time probably.
Yeah.
Um, and that was the time where music shops started to deal with other stuff.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Phones or they started to sell books.
Yeah.
Or they start.
Yeah.
Or merch.
Yeah.
And that I've never put weirdly, I've never put like really bizarre.
I've never put those two things.
That's what was going on.
Yeah.
So people weren't buying physical media, but the, but the shop still needs to be there.
So they need to sell other stuff.
Like if you go into HMV now.
Oh, it sells everything.
It's crazy.
It's like bananas, really.
You buy air fryers, elders.
But yeah, no, you can't.
Yeah.
You're right.
There's tons of stuff in there.
Yeah.
Um, but yeah, it's interesting times that, for me, that, that decade was really weird.
It was this kind of the record labels and the industry trying to figure out how to make
money.
Uh, people are like, well, I used to get music for free.
Why am I?
I'm not paying for it anymore.
Yeah.
And then Spotify.
Well, then you had iTunes selling, selling tracks for 79 P.
Yeah.
And then you had, which was great.
I mean, I always thought that iTunes model worked really well for me.
I kind of had my, I had like a, a library that I could use anywhere I was going, which
I always really liked that.
But, um, looking back on it, you know, not having the physical, I really like physical
media these days.
Yeah.
Um, but it was like really that, I thought that was really quite cool at the time.
And then you had Spotify.
Yeah.
Like just give us 10 quid and we'll give you, yeah, you can have any music you want whenever
you want to.
Yeah.
Um, I remember the point around that conversation where it was around, um, I was quite quick
to dump physical media.
Right.
And, and files on hard drives and just have it streaming.
Yeah.
All my stuff up with all that stuff.
Yeah.
Um, I was really quick to that.
Um, and I remember everyone going, what do you, what, what are you doing that for?
It's like, well, I'll sell everything.
Yeah.
I don't need it now.
Cause that, cause that's there.
Um, and I remember everyone, everyone was so emotionally connected to their physical stuff.
Yeah.
Like even their iPods.
Yeah.
You know, they'd be able, they'd built a relationship with their iPod and their playlist and that,
and that thing that they take in the time to put in place.
I don't think I, I don't think I was like that.
I think I was a bit like you.
I kind of moved, I moved fairly quickly.
Yeah.
Um, but then we're both quite shiny thing people, aren't we?
Yeah.
But it's interesting, but I've, I've, I've very much gone back to, to that kind of,
um, and it's the emotional connection that I don't get quite as much from.
Like I bought myself a copy of 15 over cause I buy my own Christmas presents cause my family
are all useless.
And so, uh, but they did signed copy.
I saw some signed copies.
They were, they were discount, you know, in the EREC do discount stuff.
So there was like 18 quid or whatever.
I'm having that.
So 15, which is like one of my favorite records.
We're definitely going to cover 15.
Yeah.
Uh, from Buck Cherry.
And I thought, uh, you know, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get that.
There's a radical difference between like taking that off the shelf and putting it on and smashing
it on, on, on Apple music.
Yeah.
It's not that it's sound.
I mean, everyone's going to be screaming at the thing, but, but it's not about the sound
of it.
It's the, I don't know this.
There is a thing.
There's like a physical thing making a physical noise.
Yeah.
And I feel like an emotional connection to that.
And I, and I get a different experience when I listen to music that way and CDs too.
So I've got, I've, I've got a, you know, I don't know how many, not that many, 50 CDs
or whatever.
Yeah.
Um, and again, it's like a different experience.
It's, it's really weird for me because when CDs were around at the time, I, that was just
how it was.
And it wasn't that.
Yeah.
But I wonder if it is that connection back to those things.
Which is really interesting because my, my sort of era of really connecting with music
and finding my own identity music, not just the stuff that I thought that I needed to
like, because that was the fashion.
Yeah.
That was the stuff that, you know, I, I dressed like that.
So I needed to listen to that band really.
Yeah.
The point where I sort of really stepped away from that and got into all kinds of weird
and wonderful things.
Yeah.
Um, which, which culminated in a massive, um, CD case.
Yeah.
Your crazy CD case.
Yeah.
World music.
It's got loads of stuff in there.
It's quite cool.
Uh, but that was like doubt, downloading a million things from line wire, smashing it
on a, or, or, or borrowing stuff from the library and burning it or, you know, that sort
of thing.
Yeah.
And there was a whole point in my life probably over a couple of years where I was just stockpiling
music.
Yeah.
And collecting it from different places and almost archiving it in my own little thing.
Um, both hard drive wise and physical media wise.
Yeah.
And it's interesting that I remember doing the same sort of thing with line wire and downloading
a load of back catalogs and not having the same connection to those.
Yeah.
I, you know, the music I've got connections to is like, I can almost think back to, I had,
um, like at this point I'd saved up tons of cash and I'd got like a Nakamichi tape drive
and I'd got a Marantz CD player.
I got this Denon amp.
Um, and I can remember, I can remember the sound that that CD player made that clunky clinky
sound and the noise that the tape player made and stuff.
Um, now at the time, obviously they, they, they were new and shiny and I thought they were
the best things ever.
And now, um, I don't know when I, I'm sure there's something about that, you know, when
you go and put a CD on and it kind of connects back to that time.
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, but I do have like, there are albums I absolutely love, like recent new, new albums
that I really, really love.
And I don't have that emotional, I have a, like a, Oh, that's a great record.
And I go and listen to it, but I don't have the same emotional connection that I would do
to say this record.
Yeah.
Or to prongs cleansing.
Yeah.
Or, um, you know, even the Slayer rain in blood and those, you know, the kind of a Metallica
back catalog, the kind of, you know, the, um, but there's a real, like quite cool thing.
And I, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll go and take, you know, ride the lightning off the shelf and
put it on.
And it's, I dunno, there is, there is very definitely a different connection to, to that.
A lot of the time here for me as well was like, we were going out a lot.
We're being clubs and stuff.
We're going to rock clubs and things.
And the, in this like static X would be a big part of that ministry and, um, um, and prong
and rock house.
Yeah.
There would have been, please would have been played like over and over.
And again, those memories come flooded back and car and listening in the car as well.
But that would have been CD.
Yeah.
You know, that would have been, um, at this point in time, CD off.
I mean, this would have been, I'd have the, like, I remember buying a Wisconsin death
trip on CD, copying that CD.
And that's the one that I'd put in the car.
Cause I was growing, I was mature enough by that point to realize that I wasn't, I couldn't
be trusted with things in the car.
Yeah.
So I knew that it was going to live in like the glove box or the boot.
You know what I mean?
I had my, I had my CD changer in the boot.
Yeah.
Um, and I knew that it was probably not going to get treated very well.
So I had those gold CD.
Yeah.
Um, but, but yeah, it would have been, but you had to make that choice.
You only had six in your car.
Yeah.
You know, you had to go and make those choices about what you.
I was just thinking then about, about mini discs and you know.
I love mini discs.
Yeah.
I used to sit and make mini discs and get the dial and put all the text in and do all that.
And I was thinking about it.
I've, I've got a bit of a soft spot for that era of my life when I was doing all this stuff.
Yeah.
And I, I reckon if I set, if I like just for the cracks set, set it up now to do it again.
I reckon I'd last about three minutes and go, I've just put, I've just put on Apple music.
It's so boring.
Yeah.
There is.
I read not that long ago about a mini disc.
Um, and the only reason it failed was because Sony refused to open the licensing.
Yeah.
They, if they'd, if Sony would have just gone, well, yeah, anyone can have it.
Mm.
You can all just use it or made the licensing like pennies.
Yeah.
Like made it dirt cheap.
I reckon mini disc would have been.
It would have taken off.
Yeah.
Cause they even had it.
It was a, it was a, it was a form of mini disc that was used on PSP games, wasn't it?
Yeah.
You know what?
We're talking about games.
Um, this, and I, and there must be other albums that go.
I'm sure Prodigy is probably similar.
Yeah.
It hit me how broad the use of the tracks on this album on computer games were.
Um, yeah, there's a whole bunch of, uh, uh, you know, do it in Duke Nukem.
Um, uh, Omega boost brutal legend.
Um, yes, it was in like tons of, of games.
Yeah.
Uh, you're in the PlayStation era.
I wonder, I'm just, again, connecting dots a little bit.
I wonder if that's where the money was.
Oh.
If they weren't selling albums.
Yeah.
When I was young with computer games.
Cause you couldn't really pirate them.
We all had C60, C90 tapes.
Yeah.
With, and you'd have like 30 games.
Yes.
On that.
And it would just be copy.
Yeah.
And then, um, you would, it would give you the start and finish.
Mm.
You know, the counter on your tape.
Yeah.
It will tell you where it started and stopped.
And then you would fast forward to that point.
Yeah.
And then you would load the game.
So we used to copy them like all the time.
I, I, you would buy some games, but like the vast majority would all be like copied
on, on tape.
Um, whereas by this point, PlayStation and consoles.
Yeah.
You couldn't do it.
It was all, it was pretty locked down.
Yeah.
So the specific discs.
Yeah.
So they were saying that you could get them chipped.
That was a thing.
Wasn't it?
Yeah.
I remember that being a thing.
Yeah.
And, uh, we all used to, we used to hack them so we could put XBMC on there and play,
play, uh, like movies.
And was it so you could do DVDs?
Is that, is that the, is that what they were?
They were DVDs at the time.
PlayStation.
Yeah.
i think playstation was wasn't it yeah and then playstation 2 would have been blu-ray
oh bigger games and yeah yeah yeah but i just think that you're probably right because i think
the money the money making from the the games would have been making money yeah whereas you know
the music industry is struggling a bit so those tie-ups mtv this um uh reminded me as well when
i was researching this it said the the vast majority of airtime for wisconsin death trip was
mtv too really and i'd completely forgotten that they did multiple yes uh channels well i think we
were somewhere the other night uh for christmas christmas eve i think it was um and because we
haven't got skype yeah um and the the place where we were at they had sky yeah and they were watching
mtv and and jenna was like i didn't know that was a thing anymore still a thing yeah yeah it's cool
though isn't it but it hit me that like this this album got got wicked airplane yeah yeah on on mtv too
um and i'm you know there's obviously got to be there's money to be made yeah right there were
because there were ads and other bits and pieces so there's like money to be to be made back from that
kind of stuff so yeah i think the whole industry was just just scrabbling trying to figure out how to
make money when the when the physical album that you've just recorded the that's not making money
anymore yeah you've got to make money some other way yeah um i remember going to see linkin park
actually in the early 2000s and we bought the tickets and you could you could pay extra i can't
remember how much it was like an extra tenner or whatever yeah to get a digital live you essentially
get the sound desk yeah recording of your gig yeah so when you finished like we went to the gig went to
nottingham arena came back like three or four days later i got an email through with a link and in there
was that mp3s and it was it was the exact yeah uh gig that you'd been to wow um but you had to pay
extra for that kind of thing so yeah there's a lot of that kind of stuff where you know and boxes a
lot of i remember a lot of lots of you know box setty type things that were um i don't know like
you know what i mean where there was more stuff to it than you could copy if that makes sense you know
like kind of the like postcards and photographs and posters and things like that yeah yeah that you
you you couldn't you you couldn't you couldn't you couldn't get without buying them um yeah industry
in turmoil at this point i think yeah um and also yeah i think it's kind of quite interesting with this
a whole genre as well because they um like yeah so static x didn't i don't think they really knew
what they were doing they kind of helped like build the section out of of kind of techno yeah
the evil uh disco they call it evil disco yeah which i was just so cool
yeah
I'll be alive
Really, I'll be alive
I'll be alive, I'll cross my side
Really, I'll be alive
I've always loved you
Loved on me
Just like chocolate cake and
Your ass smells like a rock
I really hate you
Loved on me
Melt my bow, I hate you
I can't believe I'm letting you do this to me
Drop down in the line
Really, I'll be alive
Happy in the last, last time
Really under to me
Have me in the light
Really have me in the light
Have me in the last time
Drop Tony the lane
Really have me in the light
Happy in the last, last time
Really under to me
Keep your disco evil
That was it, yeah
But then as it kind of develops
Because you've got like this 99
And then you had like Numa, Alan Korn
And Slipknot
And then you've still got
Like ministry doing stuff
They go on a bit of a hiatus
For a while, don't they?
But do you know what I mean?
It's like
Yeah, yeah
It was like this melting pot of
Like if you think about it before
It's all quite clean
It's kind of, well this is grunge
And this is alt rock
And this is hair metal
Yeah, they're playing on there
At this point
Yeah, we get here
And it's like, whoa
Do you know what I mean?
And we talked about this before
Where the genres
Do you know what I mean?
You had like thrash metal
And death metal
And you had like alt rock
And you had grunge
And you had hair metal
And you had like classic rock
Yeah
And heavy metal
And that was about it
Do you know what I mean?
You didn't need like all the genres
Yeah, yeah
But then you get here
And it's like, oh god
We've got like funky metal
And we've got power metal
And we've got, you know
But I wonder how many people
Just thinking back to what you said earlier
I wonder how many people
Went out to do that
Or they just found their thing
They found their sound
I think, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
In fact, they didn't go
Oh, let's do a funky thing
Yeah
It was just
What sells?
I listened to that when I was little
So I've got that kind of feel when I play
Yeah
And I wonder how much of it is that
That it's just
The byproducts of your diet
Of listening when you were younger
And then how that translates through
When you're in a room with other people
Who also have a similar sort of thing
Yeah
Could be
It could be
It could be that
It's always that
The genealogy, isn't it
Of what you were influenced by
But yeah
I don't know
I just think it's a magical time this
Yes
For rock music in general
Whether you liked it or not
I think if you were kind
If you were brought up on
Like 80s heavy metal
This would have been a horrific time for you
Yeah, yeah
But I think in general
Looking back on it
It was incredibly creative
Yes
The stuff that was coming out
Like may not have been
Like I think this is a really great record
This is a really great record
There were some records
That came out around this time
That were less
Yeah
Like Slayer
Slayer should have just gone on holiday
For 10 years
They did some horrific things
Yeah, they tried to do like a grunge
Yeah
That did not work
No
At all for them
And there was a few bands
That were just spiralling out of control
And just not quite
You know
Where they should be
You know
Metallica were just bashing out
The same
Yeah
Boring crap
Yeah
They'd kind of lost their
Biscuit Tinsnares and all that
Well, they'd done
It was like load and reload
So they did the black album
Then load
Then reload
And it was all just
Biscuit Tinsnares were later
Yeah, were later
Yeah, this was all just a little bit like
You know what I mean
It was making so much cash
Yeah
The record company
Yeah, just do another
Do another one like that
Do re-re-reload
Re-re-reload
Yeah
So they were under pressure to do that
They were kind of
They were not being particularly creative
I don't think
But when you scratch beneath the surface
There were records like this
That were just massive
I mean, this is excellent
It's phenomenal
This is really excellent
There were proper genre changing records
That came out here
Slipknot
Were kind of
That was kind of forming
And starting to get a
You know
A groundswell underneath it
About this time as well
Which was really, really cool
But it's interesting
Their journey
The Slipknot journey
Is really interesting
Because they went from
This kind of like
Underground garage punk thing
Yeah
To like
Megastars
Yeah
Yeah, that was really fast
And it was really nasty
Sound of music as well
It's like
I don't think anyone saw that coming
No
You know, I think that was just
That was just like a train
Wasn't it
You know, it feels to me like that
We're on this
Like music to me
Me feels like
It's not
Like I don't see anything
That's super innovative
Yeah
Like you see people like Ghost
Yeah
Doing really cool things
Youngblood doing really, really cool things
But it's not innovative
I don't feel like
It's quite derivative, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Exactly
I mean, you've got Youngblood doing
Stuff with Aerosmith
Yeah
And it sounds great
Yeah, yeah, yeah
But it sounds like Aerosmith
With Youngblood on there
Yes, yeah
I mean, I really like Aerosmith
So that's great
Yeah
But it isn't
Do you know what I mean?
It's not like Wisconsin Death Trip
Came out
Suddenly
Yeah
Like, whoa, that's really cool
You know, I remember hearing this
The first time thinking
That's cool
Yeah, yeah, yeah
And I was like
Oh, it sounds a bit like Ministry
But not quite
And it's got
It sounds a bit like Fear Factory
But not quite
And it sounds
Do you know what I mean?
I could hear the prong
Kind of riffs in there
But not quite
But it's his own beast
Yeah
And I kind of
They were innovating
You know, you said about it earlier
With the drum thing
Yeah
They were innovating
Doing things
Yeah, yeah, yeah
I kind of can't help feeling
That we're on this verge
Of something
Somewhere's going to go
And probably not in rock
If I'm honest
I can't see that
But, you know
I think this
I think AI
Has got to be
It's going to be really disruptive
I can imagine this generation
Of, you know
What would be pre-teens
At the minute
You know, by the time
They start getting into music
AI tools are going to be
You know
And they're going to be
So pervasive and easy to use
That you're going to be able
To produce whatever you want
Yeah
So there's the barrier
To producing music
Is going to disappear
So, I guess
I don't know
I just have this funny feeling
That they're going to start
Because you think about it
Once you've got that
That barrier
The physical instrument
It's not in between you
And producing music
You can do things
That you can't do with
You just couldn't possibly do
So, I think
We're on this verge
Like a punk rock
Yeah
Do you know what I mean?
That kind of thing
Where we're all like
Oh my God, what's that?
Yeah, yeah
Do you know what I mean?
Just make that
Because I quite like
All music
When I say I like all
I don't really like country music
But I like most music
Maybe that's where
The innovation's going to be
Yeah
Country
Industrial country
There's a big country thing
At the minute
Is there?
Yeah
Big country thing
Yeah, yeah
Maybe
People love it
There's like
Honestly, the people walk around
With like cowboy hats on
Stetsons
I'm not joking
I like cowboy boots
Yeah, I like cowboy boots
Don't like the hats
No
I like the hats
Do you?
I like the jeans
They're like jeans
I like the boots
And that's about it really
Yeah, no
I like the hats as well
Yeah, I'd go full cowboy
I would
Full cowboy
Yeah, yeah
Yeah
But there is definitely
I think
A space where the world
Is going to
I think
Something innovative's got to happen
Like Taylor Swift
That can't be a peak
I think we are overdue
We're overdue a punk movement
Yeah
And I just can't help thinking
That AI is going to be
This thing that
Like it'll get used to
Copy and paste
Yeah
Stuff
Right
Yeah
But I think it's only
A matter of time
Before some sharp
13 year old
In his bedroom
Yeah
Or her bedroom
Just suddenly
Hopefully her
Yeah
Hopefully her bedroom
I kind of want somebody
To kind of go
Do you know what
I don't
I want to listen to
This is in my head
And I can't get it out
And then they find
A tool or a way
To get that out there
Yeah
And that becomes
This movement
Yeah
Of kids out there
But we're overdue that
I think it's all a bit
Stayed at the minute
Shall we do some facts
Let's do some facts
We've talked about
A lot of facts already
So I've got facts
In two places
So I shall go through
Quickly
Artist name
Static X
Now you said
The name of that
For a reason
Static X
They were called
Static
They had a bunch
Of different band names
Eventually settled
On Static
And then
Had to be changed
Part of the record label
Said that you have to
Change the name
Because you can't
Like trademark
Common names
So Static X
You can trademark
But Static
You can't
So they had to become
Static X
They wanted the
Band to be called
Wisconsin Death Trip
But the label said
It was too long
So they go
Release date
March 23rd
1999
Which was
Obviously good
I spent most of
1999
Rolling my eyes
At people in suits
Talking about
The end of the world
Because of the
Millennium
And they were
Talking about
They were genuinely
In meetings
In boardrooms
Saying
Should we
We had like
An underground bunker
And they were really
Concerned that all
The planes would crash
So they were like
Should we
Take all the
Executive staff
And put them
Underground in a bunker
And then we were
I mean
Facetious
Like 20 year olds
I was like
If I was you
I'd go to the pub
But there you go
Recorded in 1998
At Grandmaster Studios
In Hollywood
Label Warner Brothers
They paid for it all
This is like
A proper return
To heavy music
For Warner Brothers
They didn't have much
Else on their roster
And they were
Getting back in
Heavy music
Was starting to
Make a bit of a
Comeback
But even though
Warner Brothers
Had taken them
Back on
They couldn't
Afford
Terry Date
As their producer
Didn't have
Enough money
So they wanted
Terry Date
Had done
Deftones
Prong
Everybody
Basically
Terry Date
Was like a
Mega producer
They couldn't
Afford him
So they ended up
Producing with
Ulrich Wilde
Who was
His protégé
He was
Terry Date's
Gofer
In the studio
He'd studied
Under
Terry
And it's
Interesting
He really
Embraced the band
I think
And had a
Big impact
On them
Which was
Really cool
Genre
You see all
Kinds of
Different genres
For Static
X
I think the
Industry
Referred to them
As industrial
Metal
I think they
Got thrown in
With nu metal
Although Wayne
Always described
Them as evil
Disco
Which I
Think is
Excellent
Length
43 minutes
So it's the
Correct length
There are
No songs
Well there
Are some
Quite long
Songs
Yeah
But no
Too long
Songs
Well the
One we're
Going to
Finish with
Is very
Long
Actually
Eight minutes
Isn't it
Interestingly
That
Was it
Discovery
The song
December
Oh December
That track
Was written
Before
Static X
It was written
In the previous
Band
Which I think
Is again
Really interesting
Album peaked
At 107
On the
Billboard 200
So it didn't
Chart that well
Although it did
Go platinum
In 2001
So that means
A million
Sales
Which is
Quite a lot
Key singles
It was
Push It
Which is
The one
I remember
That
Being just
Huge in
The clubs
And then
I'm with
Stupid
And Bled
For Days
I think
This album
Some albums
Have got
Really notable
Singles
On them
Where the
Melodic
Impact
Is immediate
This record
To me
Is just
Full of them
Yes
I was going to say
If you were
If you were going to say
Which songs are going to
Release as singles
It wouldn't be those
For me
Yeah I don't know
I don't know quite how
You would
Push it maybe
But the others
Yeah
Yeah I think
It would have been
A difficult one
Where they
You know
Warner
Warner would have
Tried to figure out
What to
You know
What to do
With the singles
I'm not
100% sure
That would have been
An easy
Conversation
The album
Was named
After a
Creepy
1970s book
Called
Wisconsin Death Trip
Which was about
1890s
Deaths
In rural
Wisconsin
Which
Wayne Static
Found at a
Flea market
And became
Fascinated with it
And then
You wanted to
Change the name
Wanted to
Call that
The name
Of the band
That's just so good
I love things like that
I mean love that as well
They just stumbled across it
Yeah
And that became
The thing
It is what it is
I read a graphic novel series
Called Harrow County
Yeah
Which
I don't know
I'll just get the same vibe
From that
Yeah
That phrase
Wisconsin Death
Death Trip
Are you going to
Write an album called
Harrow County
You should do that
Billy Corgan
Helped bring the band
Together
So
Smashing Pumpkins
From Billy Corgan
Played with
Wayne Static
In a band called
Deep Blue Dream
In the late 80s
And he introduced
Ken Jay
To Wayne Static
And then
That's kind of
How
That kind of
Core
Nucleus of the band
Got formed
Which I think
Is
Yeah
It's interesting
The Smashing Pumpkins
Existed then
Yeah
But then
As Static
Ex was kind of
Forming
Billy Corgan
So
Wayne's trying to
Recruit Billy
Into Static
Ex
And Billy's
Kind of
Actually I think
I'm going to
Carry on with
This pumpkin
Yeah
Epic
Really
Epic
Backstory
I think
Talked about
This a little
Bit
But the
DIY
The drums
Were recorded
On like a
DIY
Wooden drum
Kit
Thing
With
Triggers
Kochi Fukuda
Built that
Just designed
It
And built
It
And then
Used it
Into their
Software
Really
Innovative
Really
Quite cool
I think
Albums
Full of
Hidden samples
And movie
References
So
Sweat of the
Bud
For example
Has got
The sample
From
Planet of
The Apes
So where
The spaceship
Crashlands
At the
Beginning
That's kind
Of what
You can
Hear there
There's
Tons of
It
I love
Stuff like
That
Stem
Is on
There
Stem
From the
Film
The
Begotten
From
1989
This was
Like a
Big deal
For them
That the
Band
Really loved
These kind
Of pop
Culture
References
Of taking
Like what
They felt
Were like
Cool
Movies
And stuff
And then
Sprinkling
Bits of
That
Through
There
Yeah
I love
Stuff like
That
I love
Anything
Like that
Very
Cool
And I
Quite
Like it
When they
Capture it
From other
Things
I know
When we
Did
Operation
Mind
Crime
And there
Were almost
These things
That were
Generated to
Be like
Film
Things
But for
The
Album
Which were
Really cool
But I
Actually like
The bit
Where they
Go
And find
Something
In reality
And then
Repurpose it
That'll do
Yeah
To make
It part
Of the
Song
I quite
Like that
I quite
Like that
Too
Speaking of
Pumpkins
Did it
With the
Doom
Explosion
Right
On their
Records
Yeah
It's on
One of the
Songs of
Melancholy
They used
A doom
Explosion
And sampled
It
I read
Something on
Fesshole
Today
That said
I am a
Producer of
BBC
The fart
Ones
Yeah
BBC
Children's
TV
And over
The past
10 years
I've been
Mixing in
My own
Farts
Into
The
Sound
And no
One's
Noticed
That's
The best
Thing ever
I just
Think that
It's just
Epic
Yeah
It's
Very
Cool
But there's
Also like
Things like
In films
There's easter eggs
Isn't there
There's like
The whole thing
Like they'll
Use
There's a
Particular
Soundbite
Yeah
That you
Have to
Use in
Your film
Somewhere
Yeah
You know
And it's
Like a
Thing
There's
The
Oh
And I'm
Gonna get
This
Wrong
Now
I think
It was
Pixar
There's
Like
Numbers
That get
Used
All the
Way
Through
Them
And a lot
Of names
Run all the
Way
Through
Them
As well
Yeah
I absolutely
Adore stuff
Like that
It's wicked
It is
December
We talked
About is
The last
Track on
The album
It's too
Long
It's eight
Minutes
Long
It came
From a
Previous
Band
They recorded
It feels
It does
Feel different
It feels
Like a
Different
Thing
Yeah
It comes
From a
Band
Deep
Blue
Dream
That they
Were in
With
Billy
And
Yeah
I don't
Know
It's
An
Interesting
One
It doesn't
Fit the
Record
Particularly
It's
Really
Obvious
Now
You've
Said
Yeah
But
It's
Quite
Cool
It's
Cool
Track
Yeah
Closes
The album
Quite
Nicely
We're
Going to
Kind of
Close
With
It
As well
But
Yeah
It's
Yeah
Interesting
I think
Where were
Some of
The other
Things
Oh
Yeah
We talked
About
Most
Of
This
Of
This
Stuff
Right
So
Yeah
The
The name
Changes
We've
Already
Talked
About
So
Yeah
They
Were
Called
Static
They
Went
To
Record
As
Static
They
Were
On
The
Roster
With
The
Record
Label
As
Static
And
Then
It
Was
Only
When
They
Started
To
Put
The
Record
Out
They
Had
To
Go
And
Change
It
Was
Changed
Quite
Late
In
The
Day
When
The
Album
Went
Out
I
Think
That's
About
It
Oh
Yeah
Oh
And
Actually
They've
Just
Done
A
Bunch
Of
Reimagined
Stuff
Where
They've
Taken
Vocals
Yeah
They've
Gone
And
Found
Old
Wayne
Vocals
After
Wayne
Died
In
2014
And
So
I
Think
About
2020
The
Band
Kind
Of
Got
Back
Together
And
They've
Done
All
Kinds
Of
Interesting
Stuff
But
One
Of
The
Cool
Things
They've
Done
And
They've
Only
Just
Released
It
Actually
Over
The
Past
Few
Weeks
Is
Gone
Back
And
Found
A
Bunch
Of
Like
Pre
Like
Old
Studio
Stuff
That
Was
Never
Done
And
They
Redid
Wisconsin
Death
Trip
So
They've
Kind
Of
Gone
Back
And
Unnecessarily
I
Will
Say
Reproduced
And
Re
Messed
With
It
Sounds
Perfect
As
Slightly
Louder
Than
They
Did
But
What I
Love
About
It
Is
They've
Got
All
These
Kind
Of
Like
Just
Old
Pictures
In
The
Studio
Of
Wayne
And
The
Band
And
Like
Vocal
Footage
From
Wayne
Back
In
The
Day
As
Well
And
I
Like
That
I
Think
That's
Really
Good
So
They
Did
That
Too
So
If
You
Love
This
Stuff
They
Did
Some
Lovely
Vinyl
Actually
Some
Beautiful
Vinyl
Of
Wisconsin
Death
Trip
The
Current
I
Think
They
Redid
It
I
Think
Of
When
They
Redid
It
But
I
Think
They
Did
It
In
20
There
Been
I
Think
That
Gatefold
Thing
That
They
Did
It
Just
Looks
Phenomenal
And
Like
I
Say
It's
Got
All
These
Really
Cool
Photographs
In
There
Which
I
Love
I
Don't
Like
Mucking
About
With
The
Sound
But
I
Like
To
See
Stuff
Like
That
You
Know
When
You
Got
Like
Stuff
That's
Kind
Of
In
A
Vault
Somewhere
I
Don't
Know
I
Like
I'm
Not
Such a
Big
Fan
Of
Hearing
Demos
Sometimes
It's
Interesting
But
I
Do
Like
Seeing
Behind
The
Scenes
Photographs
And
Stories
And
Interviews
That
Just
Never
Made
It
Out
Or
In
This
Case
Like
Recordings
Songs
And
Vocal
Recordings
That
Just
Never
Made
It
Out
I
Think
That's
Quite
Cool
But
That's
It
For
The
Facts
For
Wisconsin
Death
Trip
Yeah
Doing good
You're going to ask what's next
I am in a minute
But first we're going to play December
And then we'll discuss what's next
Yeah go on let's do that
Right
We'll be right back.
The sun shines through ways.
I put my thoughts toward future days.
It's no surprise.
I close my eyes and close the door.
We'll be right back.
This past five days has been changing so many ways.
My eyes perceive, yes, I believe in nothing more.
I close my eyes and close the door.
We've done it.
Now, that, this, that, this is the last show of the year.
Yeah.
We've done loads of cool stuff this year.
We have done loads of cool stuff.
Yeah.
I was going to do like a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a, a recap.
Yeah.
But I can't be bothered.
So if you've enjoyed this, then just go back and look at what we've done.
Because we've done some cool stuff.
We did a bunch of like, like UK stuff.
We did a bunch of grunge and, and alt rock stuff.
We've done kind of industrial.
Yeah.
We've done, we've done up until the last part of the year.
We were, we were weekly as well.
Yeah.
I think we go through phases.
Don't we?
I think we were a bit sick earlier in the year where we both got sick at the same time and,
and skipped a couple of weeks.
But we've done all right.
I think we've done like 40, 44, 45.
And we stuck to the same rules.
Episodes.
Largely.
Yeah.
We've only got one rule though, to be fair.
Well, there are two rules.
We need to like the album and it needs to be more than 25 years old.
Yeah.
And I think.
And we've stuck to that.
Yeah.
And I think, you know, if, if, if I'm, if I'm going to give guidance to anybody, if you
want to do a podcast and you're going to do something like that and you're going to have
rules, don't have many.
But, but yeah, it's been a really good year for us.
I think the show, looking at the stats, the show is twice.
We have twice the listeners that we had than we started in January.
Yeah.
Which given that we only flipped to Riffology.
Yeah.
That's true.
Because we were monster shop at the beginning of the year.
So we've not even been Riffology for the, for the whole year.
It's been great.
So thanks for coming with us.
Thanks for spending time with us.
It's cool to, to have you with us.
And I, you know, looking at our stats, you know, the vast majority of people that listen
to the show, you know, are, are of a similar age and background to, to us.
And I don't know, it just feels quite cool.
Yeah.
It's nice.
Cool to have a bit of a, bit of a following in a bunch of people that listen to that's cool.
So as for what's next, I, I want to do Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here.
Yeah.
So that's, that's one that I really want to do.
But I'm very well, we've not done any Smashing Pumpkins for ages and we've talked about it.
And there's a very real link from this.
I hadn't realised until we did this.
It is a strong link, isn't it?
There's a really strong link here.
So I wonder if you would pick a Smashing Pumpkins album that we could do next week.
Yeah.
And then we'll do Wish You Were Here after that.
Yeah.
So what are you going to pick?
We're going to pick, you're going to go.
The problem is like the one you, you love Melancholy is five years long.
It's like 18 albums in one album.
Yeah.
And I was, I really liked the, I was listening to that.
I was like, it's really good this first.
And then it's like, it goes on.
Yeah.
I know.
So what, what are you going to pick?
I wonder, I wonder if we should do Siamese Dream then.
Yeah.
Because that's got some big tunes on it.
It's Cherub Rock, it's Today, it's A Disarm.
And it's not too long.
It's around this time.
Yeah.
So as this was being developed in the sort of mid-1990s, obviously Static X was kind of
getting going maybe towards the end of that, the end of that.
So it might have been a bit earlier to be fair.
Yeah, but I think it kind of fits, right?
It kind of fits with where, with where we are.
And we just haven't done Smashing Pumpkins.
No.
We've not, we've not really, you've talked about them in loads.
Yeah.
And Melancholy is a big, really obvious one to do.
Yeah.
But actually it'd be nice to dive into, because of the Butch Vig thing as well and things like
that, you know, it'd be quite nice to dive into Siamese Dream.
Yeah.
So Siamese Dream is one of my, it's one of my more favourite ones.
Do you know the, I can't remember the name of it, but the thing that got me into Smashing
Pumpkins was Lizzie had this box set, CD, physical CD box set.
Yeah.
With like the black and white.
Oh, the aeroplane flies high.
Aeroplane flies high.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And that's what got me, that was it for me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That was, because she loved that and that was in the car.
Yeah.
So we would, we would have that and that we would go on road trips or whatever else.
And that was always what we would listen to.
I don't know if I'm changing my mind now.
Oh, oh dear.
I don't know whether we should do Adore.
Oh, and I'm on Siamese Dream.
Yeah.
I like, there's some bangers on there.
Yeah, yeah.
Adore can be another day.
It's a very different album.
It's a very, very different album.
No, it's not.
When was Adore released?
99, I think.
What was it?
98, 99, something like that.
I don't know.
I actually don't know.
Let's do Siamese Dream.
I think that's easy.
Let's do it.
That's where your first, that's where your heart went first.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's do it.
Let's do it.
Because that's got what, that's got a 1975 on it.
No, 1979.
But it's got Cherub Rock and it's got.
Yeah.
Yeah, 1979 is melancholy.
Disc two.
Right, well, let's do it.
Well, thanks for coming with us.
I hope you had a good Christmas and a year and all that stuff.
Yeah.
Oh, I've added a third rule, by the way.
What's the third rule?
No Christmas songs.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah.
I don't hate Christmas, but I don't like it.
There's a thing, isn't there?
Like, I don't, I don't.
Just a bit meh.
When it's happening.
Yeah.
You know, it's all right.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
It's all right.
You get to see people you don't normally see and you get to live off sweets.
Yeah.
And like, I don't know, sausage rolls.
It's a lot of drama, isn't it?
Can be, yeah.
Yeah.
There's a lot of mess.
A lot of, and you know, oh God.
And the kids always get over, like, do you know what I mean?
They're like overstimulated, so they turn into dickheads for a week.
And then I have to go and tidy up all the mess.
And I don't like that either.
So there's bits that are good to it.
Yeah.
Musically.
And this is a hill I'm probably, I'm prepared to die on this hill.
I don't think musically it's ever given anything to the world.
No.
August Burns Red did a cover of Carol of the Bells.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which is like peak Christmas for me.
But it's pretty crap, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's pretty crappy.
Def Leppard last year did a Christmas song that was horrific.
Awful.
The Pretty Reckless have a Christmas album that doesn't suck.
Yeah, yeah.
It's okay.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
It's a solid, not as good as-
Because she was in the Grinch, wasn't she?
She was, yeah.
That album's really good.
It starts with the song-
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, I forgot the name of the stupid-
It starts with her singing the song from the Grinch
in her, like, actual her baby Taylor Monson voice
when she was in the film.
And then it morphs into the rock version,
the cover that they do.
And then the album evolves, and they do the album,
and she's recorded, she's written like four or five tracks.
And then at the end, it kind of rolls back out into the thing.
Really well thought out, really good.
And she is a great, I think she's a great songwriter.
Lovely voice as well.
Shame we can't cover any of their stuff.
Way too modern.
Yeah, yeah.
But I love, I really do love what they're doing.
I can't think of another good Christmas record.
No.
So, but that's the third rule.
Yeah.
We've got to like it.
It's got to be more than 25 years old.
Yeah.
Which means we can do, I think we can do Buck Cherry and a bunch of others.
We can do, because we're into 2001.
Yeah.
As of a few days.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I like that a lot.
Yeah, we can crush the threshold.
Ooh.
And it can't be a Christmas song.
Yeah.
It can't be a Christmas album.
And that's good.
Yeah.
All right.
Right.
Rock and roll.
Let's do one.
See you next year.
See ya, bye.
Bye.