Welcome to episode 102 of the Bandhive podcast.

It is time for another episode of the Bandhive podcast. My name is James Cross and I'm here with Matt Hoos of Alive in Barcelona, how are you doing today, matt, I'm doing fantastic. It is finally starting to get a little bit cooler here in colorado and I know I mentioned last episode that we had a whole bunch of beautiful leaves, changing colors and uh some cold weather came in pretty early here in colorado, so we got a whole bunch of extra reds this year, which is like super beautiful.

So fall is in full swing, which I love and uh um I'm here on a nice brisk morning wearing a sweater. I love sweater weather, I got my beanie on, this is my natural habitat right here. So redheads and you know, we like to cover up the sun is not our friend. So by the time it gets cold it's like yeah more layers, you know, it's fantastic. So I am great. I am enjoying brisk morning, we had a beautiful sunrise this morning and honestly man, it's just, it's a fantastic day.

How about yourself? How's everything over there on the east side? Dude, things are good, we had a really nice weekend Now it's rainy and it's like that kind of great day where it seems like it's the end of winter and it's spring and it's just raining and melting all the snow away, but it's actually you know, October 25 but I like it, it reminds me of Germany, I think I've said that on the podcast before. So I really love days like this. As long as it's not an everyday thing, you know if it's like half the time I'm cool with that.

Not for eight weeks straight. As long as it doesn't turn into ice. Yeah, absolutely. Which it probably will at some point because I think it's gonna get cold tonight. Yeah, it's like you guys have your far enough north and I don't know what I mean. Like it's all about that ice ice baby. That's terrible. I love it. It was I'm going to put out so many puns today, you're going to be like ice nine kills man, swing swing and a miss. No, Okay, I'm pushing too hard.

That punch should be all american rejected. Yeah, no, absolutely. It should should have been put on the back burner. That's what it should have been backstreets back. That's right. All right. Yeah, this is so bad. We have a very special guest. We hope that he's still on the line. The first return guest. Well the first official return guest because we had Adam Loki from Pickwick Commons did like a bonus episode when Covid hit and then came back in the mid eighties episode 85. The return of live shows and touring with Adam Loki of Pickwick commons.

So I mean technically I guess he's a return guest but that doesn't account because the first episode was a bonus episode. So we have our first official return guest, he was on episode 81 titled from self producing artists to full time producer with Todd Barriage of the Atria, how's it going today, Todd man, it is going so good. I imagine we're having the same sort of weather over here, it's super gloomy, but like the nice kind, I gotta clean my car before winter actually hits because there's a lot of red bull cans in that thing and I don't want to pick them up when my hands are freezing.

Yeah, cold metal man, So here's my question because I've never like drank out of a cannon winter, Does your tongue stick to aluminum on a red bull can? The way it went to a flagpole? Hold on, hold on, I just want to address what rock were you raised under? What? You've never had a can in winter? What nope is an irrational fear from like having seen a tongue stuck to a flagpole as a youth and just for the rest of your life, you're, you're like, I'm not, I'm not doing that.

His favorite movie is the christmas story, it's more so that I actually only drink water and the only time I've ever really drank out of a can was Monster Tour water on Warped tour, which is obviously not a winter thing. Dude, leave it to the vegan to drop their health facts on us, Okay, geez, gosh, shoes, okay, okay, there is one exception, I've had a handful of cans of monster rehab t in my life. But again, that's not a winter thing for me, that's like summer. Like got to get some of that good energy and keep going run up the tabloids.

It started on warped tour when I was sick, cans are fantastic in winter. I'm just going to say that I can like an aluminum can is like the best way to drink any beverage because when it's cold it just like it stays cold. And there's something about like the metal pressed to your lips that just is great and then it's aluminum so you can actually reuse it unlike a lot of other metals. So like I love aluminum cans, I'm all about that life. And to answer the question, the can does gently stick to like the inside of my lips sometimes.

Okay, but not in like a stuck stuck way and it's it's not my tongue that gets stuck. You know, I'm not getting real close with the can in the marital sense, you know, I'm just just sipping some busy that escalated to the next level. And Todd knew the aluminum can. You got some real fred durst going on there. It's only funny if you speak german because dust is thirst. So this is not where I expected the first five minutes of this episode to go because it's we're not here to talk about aluminum cans, but I mean you brought it up Todd.

So this is great. You know, the rabbit hole presented itself and here we are, five minutes later, having wasted the first five minutes of the episode talking about aluminum cans and Red bull and how I only drink water. But dude, it's a pleasure to have you back on the show. Thank you for joining us. I'm looking forward to all the rabbit holes that we can go down. Last time. We talked about how you set up your business and how you're a full time creative because that's something that a lot of artists want to do, but they don't really know where to get started.

So it's a big topic and uh we recorded that like mid May, early june if I recall something like that, That sounds right. Yeah, it was 21 episodes ago. So like almost said that was three weeks ago because 21 days point being, let's see, that's what like 26 would be half a year. So that's like a decently long time back. So before we dive into it, do you want to just give the listeners like the elevator pitch of who you are and what you do. Sure, I'm Todd. Barry, I sing in a band called the Atria.

Sometimes I make Youtube videos a lot of the time I have a Patreon where I do mixing tutorials and most of the time, but I'm trying to scale that down as we'll get into today. I record other people's music and try to help them have the best record that they can awesome. I love it's concise and clear. Like, yes, most of the guests are like, and this is not to throw shade on any guests because I do the same thing, but they're like, uh so this is what I do and then it like comes along thing and so whatever, I'm a guest on a podcast, like don't do that, and then I end up doing that.

So that's why I say I'm not throwing shade, I do the same thing, but you've given a good example that I need to learn from. And so specifically the Youtube and social media stuff that you're doing is kind of why we wanted you back on the show because since you dropped daddy issues with the atria on, was it june 18th was Father's Day? I think 25th maybe. But june yeah, sometime around there had to bring in that memo june gloom. Bring everyone down on Father's Day. What a great coincidence.

You've been dropping at least one song in video every single week. And like, so many artists struggle to drop a song once a year. So you're just like, steam rolling all the other D. I. Y artists setting a great example and like putting everyone to shame at the same time. And I love it, but maybe I'm wrong here, but I think you have one very unfair advantage, which is most of the stuff you've been releasing since Daddy. she has been mashups. So this is something that's abstract to me, matt.

I'm sure you can chime in because obviously writing a song is a giant chunk of the time it takes in the whole process from song idea to release. So Todd, you don't have that writing a song aspect, but you have the aspect of taking two or nine or 15 songs and putting them all together in a way that sounds good and makes sense. And you don't do like the lazy mashup that most people do when they're like, oh I have the instrumental and I have the vocal, let me just put them together and you know, transpose it.

So it's in the same key and you know, we're done. Yeah, that takes a good amount of work. Like you got to make sure it all fits together, but you re record every single aspect and kind of put the original productions like very close to being in the same ballpark. I mean it is the same ballpark. If you play the instrumental, people would probably think that's the instrumental from the song, especially for stuff like the monster Mash you just released with my kim's I'm not okay. Yeah, like if you played that without the vocals, people would think that's I'm not okay without the vocals and you do that in like two days. Yeah.

How determination. Okay, because that's like the big question of that whole ramble that I just went on. It was like, how do you do it? Do you want me to go in like the long form of, of how I pulled that off? Oh absolutely. I'm determined to hear about this. Okay, so when I wrapped up the A. F. I stuff and theatrical, got our single out, we were sort of mapping out our year within the atria, the band in terms of finishing our record and we realized it wouldn't be done until like late autumn.

We were hoping for summer. So we just put a big old pause button. It's gonna come out like next summer instead because it's a summer record. So I don't want to drop it in, not summer. So with that in mind now I had this like big open expanse of like creative time and energy. So I got to work. And the first video I did was venus after uh the FBI stuff and that was just a hard branding reset to be like, I want to do fun stuff now.

Like I'm done being sad and moody um because like the FBI stuff was saddened, moody theater trias, saddened moody. I don't want to be like intensely depressed every waking second of my life. So I'm going to just have fun. So I did venus. And then the next video after venus, if I'm not mistaken, was if blink 1 82 wrote 1000 miles by Vanessa Carlton. Which there's a side story there, that's part of the greater story is on the same day that I released If blink 1 82 wrote 1000 Miles by Vanessa Carlton Alex melton who's amazing who I stole the idea of doing If blink 1 82 wrote from so like I deserved this to happen to me.

On the same day I dropped mine Alex melton releases a video titled If blink 1 82 wrote 1000 miles by Vanessa Carlton, like it was the most messed up cosmic fluke and like immediately I was just like, the universe is messing with me a little bit. And so I just went in this mode of like, I'm going to release a song every week and every week it's going to be better. And so I had this like Rage week and a half fish where I dropped like four videos within 10 days and that was like everything starting from scratch and then just just doing all these different mash up.

So I did like uh it was like first date kind of mashed up with there she goes by the laws all star with anthem part two by blink 1 82 I'm sure there's another one in there, but I went on this like little rampage of just like doing these mashups because I was just so mad that the one I had tried to do, got crushed by the universe, you know, Because in my head when I was doing the Vanessa Carlton one, I was like, people will want to watch that concept, so I did it and I was right, people did want to watch it, they just didn't want to watch mine, which is fine because like, Alex is great and his is like, I think his is a better video.

Mine had like, cheesy green screen fake your production is better. Well, I mean, yeah, for audio, for audio. Yeah, I mean, that's that's its own separate conversation, but like, his is really good. Still right. Like, I just, I go that extra mile that no one should ever go, well, it's not that no one should ever, but like, clearly you don't have to, the thing to me is with Alex melting stuff. I agree. He's really talented. It's not at the quality level though, where I would be like, oh yeah, I'm going to toss this on a playlist and listen to, it's like, okay, I listen once for the novelty and like, I'm amused by it, but with years, it's like, it sounds like a pro record and I'm like, yeah, I'll put this on a playlist and listen to it.

This is great. It doesn't sound out of place in a playlist where is Alex melton's kind of, there's that 5% drop in quality, the youtube quality, I call it youtube quality, right? And even if it were on Spotify, he's putting out the minimum viable product, which is fine, I call that youtube quality. So there's like lots of really talented cover artist, but like their production is just good for Youtube and that's all they need to be. And for me as a viewer, that's all I expect. But when I'm being a creative, you're right.

I go the extra mile because I'm a recording engineer. Right? So if I'm making a song for Youtube, it's going to be the best song I could make from a production standpoint. That rampage I did after the universe kind of shad on me. I didn't realize it at the time, but I was developing a process wherein I could consistently and reliably record a song in two days. And so that's sort of just laid the foundation for, Well, I can definitely do this on a weekly basis now because I can record a song in two days.

That was basically, it was just getting it all whittled down to a science of as long as I can get the instrumentals done day one, get the vocals and mixing done day to film day three, I can do that every week. And so I told all my clients like I don't exist to you from monday to Wednesday. If you need a mixer vision, that's cool. I'll do it when I can, but probably not in those three days and then, you know, I'm yours the other four days of the week or whatever.

So I, I just decided all, all of a sudden, I was like, I'm gonna be a Youtuber, I'm just gonna do it. I'm not gonna wait for a break or the opportunity. I'm just gonna force it as part of that. You say, day one is the instrumental and having spoken with you on like Messenger all the time about the ideas you're coming up with. I know your ideas exist before that day one sometimes how much of the actual arrangement is coming on that day one? So with the I'm not OK one, I had been slowly working on that for about a month by like ripping the instrumental off of Youtube and ripping vocal tracks from other songs and just trying stuff.

And so I would say arrangement wise, that one was half arranged by the time I had started work on it. But then other ones, like for today, for example, I don't know right now, like today's Monday, I don't want to break the immersion for whoever's listening, but today's the day I start and I have no idea once I'm off this call, what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna pick up my guitar and noodle around and see what happens and in three days I know I'll have something but I have no idea what that's going to be.

You seem like the kind of person who that pressure of being like, hey, I'm releasing something on thursday. I don't know what it is, but I'm making it happen. Like, sparks that creativity, is that right? Yeah, I've tried working ahead, but I get lazy and this stuff comes out a little like uninspired because the pressure isn't there? I thrive exceptionally when a deadline is like looming behind my shoulder with a knife. Well said, Oh yeah, it's like having that pressure. I think I don't like pressure. Like with the podcast, This episode comes out on November nine.

I was reading it backwards like September 11th. Wait, that doesn't make any sense when I don't have the podcast done like three weeks in advance, I'm freaking out inside. So to me, three weeks its pressure to you, three days is pressure and I don't feel the pressure until day two. I don't feel the pressure today, I'm just going to work on something and bounce some ideas around then tomorrow it's like, well I have to commit to something and finish it. So it's really that two days is the pressure because I also have to film and edit the whole video.

So it's that kind of When you're doing the instrumental on day one you're just like, okay, I have the instrumental, I can put whatever over it on day two is that kind of how you're looking at it. Yeah, or like sometimes I'll start to instrumentals or three just so I have a rough bedrock of of something to build off of and then whenever inspiration hits, I just follow it and then I always have a copout idea kind of in the back of my head. So whenever I do a normal cover, those are my cop out days, I couldn't get a mash up to work, but I could cover any song I want, I have the technical ability to do most things.

So like if things go super downhill, I'll just do a straight up cover of Helena by my Chemical Romance, you know, or something like that. I think matt isn't that one of your favorite songs? I actually love that track in my opinion. I think M. C. R. Was like super overrated. I mean I really enjoyed a bunch of their stuff but like we just got canceled. Yeah, you're right compared to a lot of other emo bands. I would actually say that like M. C. R. I put them on like the same plane as like Hawthorne Heights, wow.

Yeah, I mean, I mean I've got a couple of songs that I really, really love, just like I have a couple songs that I really, really love Hawthorne but like I like census fail. I like a f I I mean anyone of like kind of them appear Weininger bands, I tend to like the more I like the ones who are a little bit more angry. It's all about that self pity. Oh yeah, as I said like the silkiness is like not so much my thing, but like I love the senses fail because buddy Nielsen was angry and it was like, oh yeah, instead of being like my life's so hard, I'm gonna kill myself.

It was like, oh my life's so hard, so I'm gonna kill you and you're like, wow, you are so dark. Like that's what I like about the first used record too. That's another perfect example. Like you know, you can go through a lot of their music and I don't even think it was until whichever. The album that had the bird and the worm lives for the liar. Yeah. Yeah, that's the one. They were even more poetic about it because it was like, they would tell this really dark story, but even they wouldn't be like the subject of it.

It wasn't about silkiness of being sad, it was like, no, he'll crawl like the worm from the bird and you're just like, oh yes, like this is so dark. This is, this is like if Edgar Allan Poe were still alive today, like dude is definitely getting turned on by your music. So I really like that stuff. But when it's, you know, even my chemical romance, it's like down to the, you've got, you know the name is a drug reference, all of his music videos, he's pale, he's like, and he, he didn't do the pale white thing as well as Davey Havoc did in my opinion, he just looked strung out like Davey havoc kind of looks like a girl, but Gerard way always looked strung out and the branding was perfect.

I mean their band name is called My Chemical Romance. They're dropping music videos about meeting dead people when both our cars collide. I think it's poetic and I think it's awesome and and a lot of their stuff, the ghost of you is in my opinion, one of the best songs and music video combos like ever released. The rhetorical effectiveness of that video was incredible. The war scenes just, it was so like this, the cinematography was just exquisite. But like there's probably like four or five songs of M. C. R. That I really love.

And then there's like a F I who have like two or three albums that I love and there's, you know, they used to have two or three albums that I like. You know, it's like I can name 10 songs of the use that. I'm just like, oh dude, yeah, box full of sharp objects. Like oh, buried myself alive. Like, like it's just, there's so many awesome tracks that you can rifle through. I like all of it. I mean if you can find a great song that you love to cover and that you can bring out like your own cool spin on it.

Like I love that you even pushed to try to put out a song a week because like myself as a songwriter when I'm in my writing mode, I do a five minutes a day and if that five minutes yields something creative, then I go with it. I like where you're at Todd because you kind of have like multiple different places that you can pull that inspiration from, because you're making videos to your working with mash ups, you're working with other people's music and so it's like, okay, there's a cover inspire me or does a mashup inspire me or maybe I've started on a couple of these projects, nothing's really getting going on auditory aly or you know, like I'm not hearing anything that makes me inspired, but maybe you have a vision that you're like, oh, but I can make a video that focuses on this theme.

It's nice because those work together. So then you can take that video inspiration and a lot of that translates over into music, I think that's brilliant. The video I did last week I mashed up. You are a pirate with the Blitzkrieg bob was great. And the inspiration for that was I have this pirate lady costume that I just love wearing and I just wanted an excuse to wear it. That's perfect. It was the video inspiration, like the thesis was taught in a lady pirate costume. Cool, how do I make this punk?

Then I love it. Okay, Blitzkrieg bop is pretty punk, wasn't there a previous video? I used that as well or am I just remembering like a photo or something? No, I, I wore it on my wedding day, Right. That's what it was. And you managed to put out a cover that week too. Like, you got married a month and a half ago and 9, 11. The content never stopped. No, my bachelor party was a mash up of sugar. We're going down in Mambo number five. Right, Right, Right. Right.

And again, that, that was another one of those. The concept wasn't necessarily sugar, we're going down. It was okay, I'm getting married. So, I need to have a bachelor party. Well, lou bega is kind of like the bachelor of the nineties. A little bit of Monica. Exactly. So, like, how do I do that in a, in a punk way? I think the angle here for artists who are listening is take inspirations and run with them. And this is for me to, even though I'm not really a songwriter, there's always that self doubt, like, imposter syndrome, that kind of stuff.

And that's what slows so many people down. That's like one of the reasons that I haven't released the band, I've tour management course yet. Like, I have everything in place, but it's just like the fear of pulling the trigger and like putting this thing out there and being like, so I did a thing and Todd, you're just like, I did a thing. I hope you like it cuz I don't give myself time to doubt myself because I've just got those three days. It's like, just do something and run.

There is no time to look back. There's no time to ponder just do something and if I screw it up, there's next week for anybody listening. Those are words to live by. Yeah. So you just say run baby run. Don't ever look back. Those are absolutely words to live by. I agree. Check yes, Juliet is an amazing song and I don't know if that's where you're going Todd. But that was literally like two of the lines from the course and like this has to happen. Run baby Run.

Don't ever look back. Like I said, I don't know if it was intentional but I was just ripping up what you were ripping on. Know that that's it wasn't intentional. But it's I mean it's true. Yeah. And that's like what I want to pivot this is for artists who do originals only originals. How could they adapt your system? Because I mean, I know you do originalist too. I'm sure this is going to affect how you write from now on since you have this. So what should you know the average artist who wants to just Put the pedal to the metal and go, I mean it's it's sort of the groundwork for this mentality was laid when we were doing the theatrical record because we wrote about 50 songs for that thing within the span of about a month. Okay.

So that's almost two songs a day. Yeah, exactly. So you've got 50 songs and then it's just a matter of like, okay, what are the best ones? Because a lot of them are dogshit. That's the biggest thing is you need to just make stuff and a lot of it's gonna suck but don't get like precious with everything and hung up on like every song and every chord in every song has to be perfect. Like no, just write a bunch of bad songs and some of them just won't be bad and you'll get more done in less time.

Like we wrote our record In what, two months, even if we didn't write those like extra 50, even if it was just the 14. We wrote that in two months. Which 14 by itself is a long album by modern standards and maybe it'll be less by the time it comes out and we'll like drop some off as like singles or whatever. But we have 14 fully functioning songs that we're proud of that we wrote in a really small window. Just using that same mentality of just go like have an idea, see it through to its conclusion, whatever that is.

That's what it is. Next time you want to write a song, don't make the last song better. Just make a new better song. Yeah. So don't focus on what you've already done. Just rolling ahead. That's so great and we actually matt and I did an episode pretty much along those lines. It was number 57. Why quality over quantity isn't always true. And basically we said for what you release quality over quantity is absolutely true. But when it comes to writing songs that you're just tossing ideas around right as many as you can like Todd you know as well as I do.

That's what the FBI does matt. Your example that you brought up was red hot chili peppers. That they had like What 80 songs I think for stadium Arcadium they do 40 per album minimum of 40. And stadium Arcadium they just they were only able to whittle it down to 26. But their other record, I mean that's why every single one of their albums has like 15 songs on it because they start with 40 and then rick Rubin is who goes through them individually with them and says like yeah use this, you can literally listen to just as much chili peppers B sides as you can regular albums.

It's truly insane. You should look up there be like their B side discography is massive and honestly has some of their more popular tracks like soul to squeeze. Which is actually a pretty popular chili peppers record was never released on an album. The only album that you can pick that song up on is the coneheads soundtrack because it was a B. Side and you've all heard it too. Like if you hear the song soul to squeeze, you're like oh yeah like I've heard this chili peppers track because it's played on mainstream radio was a B side single and it's because they literally record 40 tracks with every album and then whittle it down.

It's it's insanity if you have the ability to do that stuff, you know, the jam bands, the jam bands are the ones that can do this kind of thing really, really well. Like Dave Matthews and stuff. Like, like, oh yeah, we've got like 70 different musicians who are always willing to, you know, the mars volta Like bands that can literally just be like, I'm gonna write here, here's 12 people. Let's all get together and we're just gonna jam and you're literally going to make the most ridiculous music ever.

And oh look, we could have chopped that up. Like this whole jam session that we played was like 40 minutes and really it tells this crazy story, let's chop it up into 10 different songs. See if we like any different places out of this. And then it's like, that's absolutely fantastic. Guys, dropped 40 tracks and then we have nothing but gold. Nobody does that anymore. That's the way to do it. I see a lot of artists and Todd, I'm sure you've probably seen this with your clients as well. A lot of artists say we wrote five songs, were recording five songs were releasing five songs.

Yeah, that's almost every project I've ever worked on. Usually I have to prod and poke a little bit to see if we can get something extra going. But yeah which I don't mean this in any bad way to any artist. But that is the local band mindset and that is what keeps bands local bands for all the reasons that both of you are just saying like if you put out good songs that will be recognized and the way to do that is what you were saying, write a bunch of songs and pick the best ones.

Take the cream of the crop and use those. So as part of your process Todd now that you've been doing this with the covers and mashups when it comes time to write for the atria. Again obviously it's different cause you have to ban there with you. But do you envision theater tria after this next full length moving to more of a style of like hey we're releasing a song a week or a song a month maybe he's more realistic or are you going to stick with the traditional album format or E. P. Format if you put something in between.

I mean I'm so fly by the seat of my pants that it's impossible for me to say. But it depends how the record does right? Like if we drop this record and it flops because the times have changed and records are no longer viable for the foreseeable future. That would be the last record we do in the traditional sense. But I mean like it would be easy enough for us to do the song a week. Like the next single will be dropping granted. That's like six months from now.

It was demoed out everything except for the final vocal takes from conception of the song to a finished instrumental demo with the chorus hook was four hours. So like it's not unreasonable to assume that we could write a song a week and do what I'm doing now. But instead of analyzing, you know, different pop songs and figuring out what goes together with lego or analyzing different riffs. But it's the same, it's the exact same process. Like you just, you pick something that sounds cool, you put something else that sounds cool with it, Congratulations.

You wrote a song. I mean that's literally some of the most popular songs in history to what you're describing. I mean, there's, there's entire genres of music that it's all about recording stuff over the top of samples. Well, I don't even mean necessarily samples. I just mean like when you're writing a song you have your chord progression, then you have your vocal melody. That's like a cool thing. And another cool thing. So it's whether or not it came from your head, it's the exact same process. Well, and if you actually take a step back and realize that there's only so many chord progressions, there's only so many ways that those can be played.

You know, somebody this last year released and patented every chord progression known demand. So that way anybody could use them without people having to sue each other and like bringing it back to red hot chili peppers. You know, like you're saying all it takes is you take one good part and another good part goes together and that's awesome. Butterfly Come My Lady Come Come My Lady. That song that is a song that samples the red hot chili peppers. It samples a four bar section of, of red hot chili peppers, Pretty Little Ditty which I believe was on there, either on Mother's Milk or on blood sugar, Sex Magik albums that came out in like 1989 and there's just like a little four bar instrumental part that they switched to into their song.

That little part was the whole inspiration for Butterfly, which then in turn became way bigger than Pretty Little Did He ever did, but it was just they found something good catchy, that was just like this is so good. I want to use this and I want to take it. I'm inspired by this run with your inspirations. I love it. I love how you have simplified this Todd. I love how you have like dumbed it down so easily. Some people need to get so artistic and so next level and so meta with their art that it's like, oh yes, we have to, you know, this needs to be transcendental in and we need to be impressionists and everything has to have this deep meaning and you, you're the exact opposite.

You're like, I wanted to dress like a lady pirate, that is art. I mean that's the essence of art, that's what's beautiful. And the thing is, you don't even know what you will then go on to inspire creatively in other people as well. Like when I look at you and I hear about you dressing as a lady pirate, I just think frank zappa, I just do and I just like, dude, yes, this reminds me of like when frank zappa like used to like wear like speedos on stage and just has this crazy awesome hair and this crazy awesome mustache and he's insane.

And everybody that ever talks about frank zappa will say like, oh yeah dude is one of the most intense, awesome, crazy performance I've ever seen. There's never anything like, oh, that guy is a psychopath, I never would want anything to do with what his creativity is. It's like, no, this guy has inspired so many people, you know, to the point where like even the guitarist for the red hot chili peppers, the first band that he tried out for was the frank zappa band and so like you're talking about generational inspiration.

I think that finding that creative hinging point is a lot simpler than people want everybody wants to say like, oh let's be cohere and Cambria, let's write 10 albums that are all about these two characters, Let's make this super intense and beautiful and it's like yeah or you could just like look at the sunset and be like that's really pretty. I'm gonna write a song about it. It's all about what comes natural, right? Like clearly with co heat, it comes natural to them to write these crazy concept records because it's what they do like and that's the big thing with trying to model yourself off other people that a lot of mostly younger artists but kind of everyone does, they try to be something else and that's something else may not be natural for them.

Where with these cover mashups that I've been doing for the whole time. That theater has been a band. I've been a massive troll on stage, like we have a song called, it could be worse that one day I realized I could sing the entirety of make damn sure over it. So whenever we played it live, you know, that's what I was doing. So I've been doing these mashups for over a decade without thinking of them as something that I could put on the internet for other people's entertainment.

It was just for my entertainment. I I did it to troll myself and try to throw my bandmates and 10 years later I'm like, you know what I do this all the time. I should just do it all the time. You know, like I'm already doing it. So a lot of it's about just doing what comes natural what you're good at. So like with the lady pirate thing, the inspiration was I want to dress up like a lady pirate and somehow that became blitzkrieg bop, but I'm singing You are a pirate from lazy town, which like, is total nonsense, but like, it's what I do.

Yeah, that brings me to another question because I had asked earlier about, you know, how do you avoid imposter syndrome and all that kind of stuff? I don't well you just charged forward and that made me realize something else though, in my mind, I'm either imagining that one. You don't have a comfort zone or two, you just love pushing the boundaries of your comfort zone. That's really what it is. Number two, Okay, I can tell you right now, Todd is the kind of person that very clearly defines the line in the sand and then does whatever he can to pull vault across it. Yes.

In every aspect of my life, it takes one to know one. So just go all in, be like, we're doing this, like, so when it comes to writers who are struggling with putting their music out there, putting themselves out there, obviously it's easy for us to say just do it, go do it like, but for somebody who has the mental block, let's say they're afraid of stepping out of their comfort zone of making that leap with a pole vault. Like what advice would you give to those artists to help them get out of their comfort zone.

It sounds like such a cop out answer but literally just make stuff and put it out and just immediately start making new stuff. That's the biggest, the biggest thing is especially anyone's first record. Like there are so many first records that have taken years and years and years and a lot of that is just self doubt and fear. And then you put out that first record that was entirely powered by self doubt and fear and it does nothing because there was nothing actually inspirational about it. You know, it wasn't really born of a creative motivation.

It was born of a fear of rejection. It's like when you go out to like a bar and you can see that dude who's clearly there to pick up chicks and he just reeks of desperation. Don't be that guy as a band. Don't be that guy as an artist. Like you don't need other people to like your stuff. You need to like your stuff. Then you need to put it out because you like it, you're proud of it. Then you need to get on with your life and I don't mean stop making music now you put the record out.

I mean like start making the next record and don't let it take eight years. Yeah because like even the first theatrical record took like a year and a half and I would never do that again granted this new theatrical record is taking a year and a half. But like I'm not working on it for most of that time and I'm very open about it like the records done, I just have to finish mixing it and I'll do that closer to when it's due to come out because I'll be a better mixing engineer by then.

But realistically the theatrical record was made within a couple months. And so we're gonna put it out and move on after that. You even have the album art right? Oh yeah it's ready to like was that the single art? No. Yeah the album art is good, everything's good, everything's good. We just have to make a couple music videos and then I was just like sitting on my thumbs for the next eight months till till june hits again. Mix and master and send it. I also I want to point out that you came up with a great album title powered by self doubt and fear.

Oh yeah the lyrics and everything. I'll say the album title. I actually have it on a skateboard. Oh yeah all that's left is rope. There you go. And that's it's born out of like that feeling of isolation and desperation where there's nothing left and whether that's like a noose rope or a rope to just bail and get out like in Pokemon when you're stuck in a cave and use the escape rope, escape rope, Yeah, whatever the rope is. Um there's sort of this feeling during the pandemic and everything where it was, there's nothing like our whole society is built on lies, you know, that sort of thing.

All that's left is rope is kind of how I felt and so instead of being like, mopey and sad about it, it's like this very forward sassy and angry record that creatively, I was, you know, very confidently, I'm going to be sassy and shitty and awful. So like that dude in the bar trying to get chicks, like, I'm not trying to seem depressed, you know, I'm pulling from a place where depression is, but I'm it's, it's an honest expression and not an aesthetic, I guess. I think that's a big thing, a lot of younger bands get hung up on too.

It's like, oh we wrote this song, we really like, what does it matter aesthetic? It's like, does it have to, does it have to like, can you not just tweak what the aesthetic is to include this cool, great new thing you've made well, and, and, and you don't have to be completely in line with everything all the time. The plot in you is an incredible band, Landon tours always dropping music, they released Crows before, I don't remember what album it was, I want to say it was like happiness and self destruction, It might have been the one after that.

I don't, I don't really remember this was quite a few years ago. But Crows they wrote this song absolutely incredible song. Really dark, Really simple music video. Really well done. But when they wrote it, they were like, hey, we want to release this song, but it doesn't go on the album. And they were like, huh, everybody was really confused because it's like, how are you, how are you releasing this single that doesn't go on the album? And when they released it, everybody was really bummed that it wasn't gonna be on the album.

So then the band had to make another statement that was like, hey, don't worry, the reason this isn't on the album is because every other song on the album is better. But we really loved this one. So we felt that you guys would want to hear it. And if you listen to it, I mean like it's super dark, super angry, like a lot of the old plot and you stuff is and the music video is very simple, but they said, you know what? This is a good enough song.

It doesn't fit with what the branding of the album is. It doesn't fit really musically with what the rest of the stuff was, but they still released it as the same band with the same members with the music video and were willing to commit to that. And I thought that was a powerful move and it's a great song and I'll always remember the song Crows, even though it's not on any one of their records, that's gonna be us with daddy issues. I'm we can't say for sure, but I don't think Daddy issues are Theatre's latest single is going to make the final cut.

Even though it was like the first single of our new material for that exact same reason. I just think the rest of the records better. Yeah. Which by the way, Matt, you mentioned senseless failed earlier when I first heard Daddy issues. I said to thomas like this is amazing. This sounds like you've been inspired by senses fail. Which it wasn't at all. Like I think Todd, you said like you'd never listen to senses fail. I still haven't, I'm afraid that I'll lose my magic if I listen to them, the the only record you need to listen to is let it unfold you. Yeah.

And matt, you should absolutely listen to Daddy issues because I think you'll love it sounds like I need to and that goes for the audience listening to the podcast as well. If you haven't listened to Daddy issues from when we talked about it on episode 81 it's out now. Go back and do that and listen to Todd's other stuff Todd. Why don't you tell everybody where they can find all your various talents. Oh yeah. So I'm on instagram, twitter, youtube, Tiktok as Todd Barriage. That's T O D D B A R R I A G E on basically every social media platform.

I got my name. Ha, that's the perks of having a unique name. Yes. Uh and same with Spotify, I released, I don't release all my songs on Spotify or all my covers rather. So, you know, maybe once a month I drop a single there. So if you follow me on Spotify, there's gonna be a pretty consistent stream of goodies there. But Youtube is really where it's at all the other platforms are just a watered down version of what I post on Youtube and if you want to, you know, have some fun little merch.

There's Todd's face on a shirt dot com where you can get a hello, my name is venus shirt, I'm looking this up right now. Todd's face on a shirt dot com. Did you actually buy this domain? Let's see. It's loading. Oh yeah. Oh, it redirected to your studio page. Okay. I was like, did you make a site for this? I mean, I just bought the domain and it's what goes to my merch. That's amazing. Yeah. And there is your face on a shirt as well well, dude, thank you so much for hanging out with us today.

I'm going to let you go and do your day one stuff so you can figure out what you're posting this week, but before we go, do you have any, like, final closing thoughts that you want to share with the audience? No, not really, man. I feel like I got it all out throughout the course of the episode. Just stay strong, do you? And stop hating yourself? Dummy? That's to the listener. Obviously not to you guys, so we're not dummies, but the listeners are, I don't know man, I would put it the other way around.

If they're just sitting there hating themselves, then yeah, I'm just saying, you know, stop being so hard on yourself, because I feel like as musicians we all are. I feel like anyone, you know, at the 52 minute mark of a music podcast is still here because they doubt themselves a little bit. So cut that out. Todd. Thanks so much, man, I hope you have a great day. Good luck putting together you're covered for the week. Thanks ma'am. And whatever you end up making, we'll link it in the show notes because it will be out by the ninth so people can hear what you made in three days after talking about it on this episode.

It'll be something All right, well, thanks again man, have a great day. Have a good old guys. Mhm. That does it for this episode of the Bandhive podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening and thank you Todd for joining us on the show once again for all your listeners out there. If you haven't checked out Todd stuff yet, whether it's the atria or his covers and mashups, there's great stuff out there, so please give it a shot. Just go to Bandhive dot Rocks slash 102 to find our full show notes with all of the links to Todd's stuff.

We'll be back next Tuesday with another new episode right here in your favorite podcast app, it drops at six a.m. Just like always. So until then, I hope you have a great week, stay safe and of course, as always, keep rocking.