verity den

In this episode of the stripdown, listen to DJ Ocean Spray chat with the members of verity den. Hear about the band forming, how they create their unique distorted sound, and more!

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Host

DJ Ocean Spray

What is The Stripdown?

WKNC's DJ Ocean Spray chats with (mostly) North Carolina musicians.

DJ Ocean Spray 0:00
Hello, you're listening to WKNC 88.1 HD one, Raleigh. This is DJ Ocean Spray. And this is another episode of the stripped down. Today I have the Carrboro baseband, verity den in this station and I'm going to ask them a few questions.

Trevor Reece 0:18
Trying to think of a joke, but I just clipped a little bit in my head.

Mike Wallace 0:24
Lego succulent,

Trevor Reece 0:25
I also don't know how to correctly.

Mike Wallace 0:27
Yeah, thank you looks really good. Yeah.

DJ Ocean Spray 0:31
You have lots of decorations.

Casey Proctor 0:33
So like, Are there are there like, other things with the botanical collection like that aren't succulents like?

DJ Ocean Spray 0:42
I think so. I know they have flowers, like a

Casey Proctor 0:45
whole line of school. Different kinds of flowers. Yeah, it's

Mike Wallace 0:48
gonna be it's gonna be good for Christmas this year. Some notes? Yeah.

Trevor Reece 0:52
Yeah, actually, this is the second time this has come up. My boss was telling me about gifts. And he's like, Oh, I think I'm just gonna give like some family some like, oh, like our arrangements.

Mike Wallace 1:03
Oh, that's cool. Because

Trevor Reece 1:05
he I guess he got something. He was like, He's awesome.

Casey Proctor 1:10
Can I touch it?

Mike Wallace 1:13
They're so cool. Yeah, I mean, like ours are wild. And like, they're really gearing towards the, you know, the adult market now.

DJ Ocean Spray 1:25
Yeah, I think we have some in our other rooms. And we have lots of little ducks everywhere. I don't know where they came from. But like that,

Mike Wallace 1:32
like that? Well, to check those out. Should have

Trevor Reece 1:35
brought something that like leave as I guess.

Mike Wallace 1:37
I wouldn't. Yeah, next time. We'll have a little calling card little.

Trevor Reece 1:41
No, I have a battery in my pocket.

Casey Proctor 1:45
There we go. We diverge. Okay.

DJ Ocean Spray 1:49
So can you guys go around and with your name and your role in the band?

Casey Proctor 1:56
Yeah, um, my name is Casey Proctor. And I, I vocalist, play bass. Sometimes I play guitar. Synth keyboard. I'm also that I also engineer our stuff and mix it.

Trevor Reece 2:20
I'm Trevor Reece. I play guitar sing. Oh, and bass sometimes do. Yeah. I do, actually. Yeah. Playing more bass lately. Yes. I play guitar and bass program beats program beats. Yeah. Yeah.

Mike Wallace 2:39
Mike Wallace, guitar vocals.

DJ Ocean Spray 2:44
Okay, awesome. And so, um, to kind of get into, like, verity den as a band. So I know, all of you have been involved in previous projects. But does your relationship with music like go back to like childhood? Like, when did you learn how to play? Yeah,

Casey Proctor 3:00
definitely.

Mike Wallace 3:02
Yeah, yeah. I started playing guitar. I was like, 14, just, I guess, getting going in high school or whatever. Because of the normal reasons like nirvana or whatever, you know, just like, but then but were you really attracted to the guitar as a vehicle to like, write and has like a songwriting thing. So compact, and you can take it and then you know, that kind of, you know, acoustic, you're playing for a little while, then you electric guitar. And I was getting into things like, Sonic Youth, and there's, you know, punk and hardcore and chorus. And that's like, you just get crazy about it. And kind of Sir, I only took a few lessons and start playing with people kind of immediately. Yeah, I'm in high school, and then kind of has never stopped, I guess.

Casey Proctor 3:51
Was your was your family musical at all. My

Mike Wallace 3:54
mom played a little piano and she sang a little bit. She was in different parts of the choir, but we were Catholics. So the choirs like, there was a choir, but it's not like exciting, necessarily. But they weren't. They weren't really particularly musical. Other than that, I mean, they were really into music. Like we had records and like, they like like classic rock. And they met at this place. My parents met in Charlotte The Double Door Inn, it was a blues rock jazz kind of club, but it was just like the 70s 80s. And that was like their hot, you know, it's just like, wherever and hang out, like, drank a ton and whatever. But that was like at the Music spot that brought them together. So I guess in that way, there are musicals, they like love big fan to music, and they still are like, my dad goes to shows and, and

Trevor Reece 4:38
you know, when your dad comes out to shows, it's great. Yeah, right.

Mike Wallace 4:42
He's like, Oh, he's just like, like, live music, whatever. You know, he's very, they're very, very supportive, I would say.

Trevor Reece 4:48
Yeah, yeah. I, my dad's a musician he played. I grew up with him playing the mandolin and bluegrass groups. He played guitar and some psych rock band. He gave me an acoustic guitar when I was about 10 taught me also Yeah. taught me how to play a Nirvana song. Yes thing

Mike Wallace 5:09
comes with a guitar. Yeah, right. Taps. Yeah. Yeah,

Trevor Reece 5:12
like that. And then I also just wanted to play like in a band. So like I, you know, he, he also, you know, bought me a drum kit and the bass that we just had stuff that his friends would let him borrow and whatnot. But yeah, I kind of started just dabbling in all of it.

DJ Ocean Spray 5:32
Yeah, definitely.

Casey Proctor 5:37
Yeah, both my parents were musicians, guitarist songwriters. So it was like exposed to that. But right off the bat. And then my mom found me in my room when I was two and a half years old, playing along to Cyndi Lauper's Girls Just Want to Have Fun. You know, like on my little toy piano, and she's like, Casey, do you want to take piano lessons? And I was like, yeah. And then, you know, we found out, I couldn't really do that till I was five. So I'd wait. And then started taking Suzuki method piano. But then I met my cousin, Christine, when I was like, 10. And she was cool. And she liked, you know, different kinds of music then then that I hadn't been exposed to yet. And she's like, Listen, you know, start a band. And I started playing bass with her at 11. think,

Mike Wallace 6:44
wow, that's cool.

DJ Ocean Spray 6:48
Yeah. And so how did verity den form?

Casey Proctor 6:55
Um, I moved here from Washington State in 2018. And kind of was just feeling out, like, who I might want to play music with and met Trevor, through a mutual friend. We both played this improv thing at the attic, local 506 in Carrboro. And, and I think I was like, oh, that's that person's cool, like, and then I found out he did drag sounds with Mike. And I reached out to him, and I was like, Let's do you guys want a bass player going on.

Mike Wallace 7:42
At the time, we didn't have a bass player per se, to guitars, drums, you know, but a better idea was a sort of different band.

DJ Ocean Spray 7:54
And so, like your experience as artists playing in different projects, they kind of create very different music. Like, what is it like? Because, from my research, Casey's the only one who's like, previously made music with the kind of shoegaze sound that Verity den has, so kind of what is it like going from, you know, like, a very, like, garage rock, to making something with like, the distorted noise, of verity den.

Trevor Reece 8:28
I think, you know, drag sounds had a lot of areas in our group that, you know, like, we're pretty garage rock based. But, you know, like, I think early on, like, the, a lot of the earlier stuff definitely was like, pretty, like, noisy, like, space. Spaceman three influenced? Yeah. And pretty minimal and noisy. And we kind of changed our sound several times, just based on what we were writing. It's,

Mike Wallace 8:57
yeah, kind of who was in there. But I guess I think this is something we were talking about earlier or talked about before is that it feels like the songwriting approach, that kind of core thing hasn't really changed a ton over the period. It just kind of get me it gets expressed differently. But I guess it is interesting, but I guess also, like, you know, you end up, you know, doing a lot of things that just as when you're playing a lot as a player or whatever, like you play a lot different kind of bands or experiences in different ways. Like we've been in multiple other bands, you know, like together and I think our tastes are pretty wide. Yeah, but this is, but this is definitely different. Because yeah, I don't know, I guess like, you'd kind of take those experiences and you're more able to hone them because you just have had more time to play, you know, so it's like the noise stuff. It's like it feels easier to like, incorporate that and have it not be like chaotic, or like uncontrolled.

Casey Proctor 9:56
Yeah, I don't I don't I haven't really been in a, in a group project, yeah, that that has experimented with a lot of noise. Like I've done it. Solo but yeah, I don't know, I don't know that any of my past projects have been super shoegazing I've definitely been in garage rock bands and like, more kind of like slower ambient melodic projects. Yeah, but yeah, it's, it's, I think it's pretty different and hopefully new and exciting for all of us.

Mike Wallace 10:34
Yeah, definitely. I guess it's also like, you, you may have things you want to try or do. But it's not until you've had some experience where maybe you can actually kind of do those things. Or you learn your instrument or just more about, like, what's out there and what's possible. And maybe that's also the thing where there's like, not such a distance between things like garage rock or shoegaze are kind of things that are we think of as like genres. Like, he was actually like, there's not a whole lot of distance sometimes. Yeah, you know, they. Yeah,

Casey Proctor 11:04
I agree with that, like, a lot of the songs are, you know, built on things that Trevor wrote, like, just kind of loops that he wrote and brought in. And in that form, I don't know that I would call them shoegaze. But maybe with your guitar playing and some of my production or whatever, like, it just turned into, like we didn't plan. And we still don't like, we didn't sit down and say like we're gonna start a shoegaze band. We're, we're just making making things and right, and not not really confined to a genre.

Trevor Reece 11:50
Yeah, yeah. I didn't think about it being a sort of shoegaze II thing, until sending out some demos to a friend like, Oh, I love it. Man Carrboro needs more shoegaze bands. Like, oh. Like, I guess first you guys.

Mike Wallace 12:08
I don't think it's like a bad thing. I guess. Right. It's that thing where like, you don't know what you sound like until someone else tells you. Yeah, necessarily like, which has been an interesting. That's

Casey Proctor 12:20
what happened. Yeah,

Mike Wallace 12:22
kind of experience. Yeah. I

Trevor Reece 12:23
love that. I love all of that music. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And it's fun to play. I like being distorted and noisy. And I love feedback a lot. Yeah, yeah.

DJ Ocean Spray 12:34
Yeah. Genres are very interesting. I feel like they come up with new, like, oddly specific names for like, genres all the time. Because like, now, there's something called countrygaze which is like, shoegaze, but kinda country because

Casey Proctor 12:47
a lot of that is happening right now. Yeah, it's

DJ Ocean Spray 12:50
just like, I don't know, I guess they don't really mean much at the end of the day. Right.

Casey Proctor 12:54
Right. It's just as shoegaze with a list slide guitar. Yeah, that

Trevor Reece 13:00
sounds great. I mean, it's like guitars. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, at the end of the day, like you kind of just have to put put it somewhere to play bass. Yeah, can

Mike Wallace 13:12
be helpful. And

DJ Ocean Spray 13:13
so how did you guys come up with the name verity den?

Casey Proctor 13:18
Um, I kind of keep like a little journal of like, when I hear a word, like, oh, that's, that's an interesting word. I want to learn about the etymology. Or if it just sounds good, you know, like certain words, like, the words, the word knife is a cool word, or like scissors or something. It just is, like pleasing to say, I guess I'll write it down. And so I think I had that had them down separately, you know, the word Verity from Veritas, or I think it's a Greek word for truth. And then, of course, is, you know, pretty self evident what that means. And then, I don't know I don't remember the point at which I combine the two words. I just texted these guys. And we were trying to figure out a name and they're like, Yeah, that's it. Yeah.

DJ Ocean Spray 14:27
Um, so do you guys make music full time? Or do you have other jobs?

Mike Wallace 14:33
Lord

Trevor Reece 14:38
I have a couple of jobs that are pretty full time. And then I try and spend most of my time not doing that making music. So it's all works together. Yeah. Stay pretty busy. Right after you,

Casey Proctor 14:59
you know had a three jobs. Yeah, two. Yeah. And if you count this as a job, it's I have four jobs.

Mike Wallace 15:09
Yeah, really? It adds up. Yeah. Like I'm a full time. Other other job as well. Other Other thing. Yeah. So this Yeah, this isn't a full time. thing really? Yeah, that's a that's a I mean, people are people out there doing that. That's just crazy to me. Yeah. I've never done that before. but yeah, something to think about. But that balance of like, yeah, like having to make money, or pursue or learn about other things, you know, and then make music. It's like, that's just like, the life challenge. Yeah, yeah.

DJ Ocean Spray 16:10
And so you release it recently released your album? And I wanted to talk about that a little bit? Um, what was your recording experience? Like?

Casey Proctor 16:25
We have a little home studio. And it was all kind of what's the term piecemeal? Sure, yeah, the correct term. Some of the, a lot of the tracks were, had been recorded at various times by Trevor. And we kind of fed that into Pro Tools, and did a lot of overdubs with guitars and stuff. And then some of the songs we wrote, you know, just kind of playing together and then recorded, you know, after after we kind of worked out ideas. So it was all a little bit of everything. But yeah, it was all done, done. DIY.

Trevor Reece 17:25
Very easy going. Sometimes just tracking guitars after band practice or apart. Yeah, you'll get about practicing. We would, you know, turn it down a little bit and mic up some stuff for a couple of hours.

Mike Wallace 17:41
Yeah. Yeah, this kind of unfolds over time. No kind of rush. I think we're the recording wasn't thought necessarily you're gonna be you know, be at the time.

Casey Proctor 17:52
Yeah, we didn't think it was going to turn into they were just demos. But I guess, for the sake of listening back and feeling like you like something like they had to be good demos. Turned out they were they were great demos and good enough to release. So.

DJ Ocean Spray 18:18
Yeah. Um, so priest boss was the first track that you guys released? Is there a reason you chose to release that song first.

Trevor Reece 18:30
And that was Matt's idea. I felt like I agree. Whenever Matt decides. That was the one. That's

Casey Proctor 18:36
the label person that he's he is Amish records. Okay.

Trevor Reece 18:43
Yeah. That's, that's the one they wanted to do. But I think that's what I would have done. I think like, yeah, it makes sense. Like, it kind of pulls together a lot of the sound in one song, I think, right?

Casey Proctor 18:57
Like, there. There are some, like instrumental tracks that are obviously not singles, you know, I think yeah, priests boss, prudence and like, other friends are pretty, pretty much the song songs on the LP.

DJ Ocean Spray 19:17
And so like, with your, um, I guess, like journey, writing the songs for this album. There's a lot of different approaches artists take like some I feel like, you know, they take, like, dedicated time to sit down and like write songs specifically like for an album, whereas other people kind of maybe like build off of songs or ideas they've kind of already come up with previously. Where does verity den kind of lie with that like, was it like, specifically you guys were writing for this album, or I guess, that it just kind of happened? It was

Casey Proctor 19:59
both a little bit of both Yeah. Oh, a little bit of all of that some of it was old ideas. Some of it was newer things that we came up together. Came up with together. Yeah,

Trevor Reece 20:14
I think the first two were like, originals of us three writing together, and then like, right, like, and then maybe like pulling back like, oh, that's, that sounds cool. I think I have something else like I've been holding on to that would work with this, you know? And then what else can we throw in there? Let's go play some guitars in the living room. Okay, you know, land of all of that. Like, yeah, it started out with collaborating on some song ideas first? Yeah.

Mike Wallace 20:47
Well, it's interesting, because starting to record and through the recording process, as you're layering, I guess we kind of have there was a kind of me that kernel or that nugget of an idea, then you're layering it, then I think you're missing or you're writing, as you're recording. Yeah. Or you're hearing it back and be like, Oh, that's the part actually even if it's like, just kind of trying some stuff. I was like, oh, that's actually that seems like it works. That's the part now. So we've written it really? You know, it's a simultaneous writing recording thing. And

DJ Ocean Spray 21:18
so do all of you guys write the songs? Is it like, a situation where, like, one person might write a specific song or all of them, like, really collaborative?

Casey Proctor 21:32
Sometimes one person might write the bulk of a song. Yeah. And then, and then the rest of us will add to it. And then some of them are more more equally collaborative, I would say.

DJ Ocean Spray 21:46
Yeah. And so um, with like, making your specific sound, what do you kind of like us to make those noises? Like I don't know, I've heard of a lot of different bands having very unique tactics and strategies, when kind of making different distorted and interesting noise.

Casey Proctor 22:15
We, we use, like there's a Casio beat in there,

Trevor Reece 22:21
there's some Casio beats, broken synthesizers broken, like literally fed through a looper pedal that we'll take with us to put us live. And yeah, various guitar pedals. Yeah.

Casey Proctor 22:37
Lots of pedals. Lots of Yeah, synthesizers that have applied distortion already. Or we're running them through something that has that. That effect

Trevor Reece 22:51
makes incredible guitar playing to kind of like, yeah, save the day, a lot of times.

Mike Wallace 22:58
I mean, you know, listen, turn all the pedals on, and then let them do the work, you know.

DJ Ocean Spray 23:06
Um, and so how does the music you consume on your own compared to the music you guys create with Verity den? Like, would you say it has, like, similar sounds? Or are there pieces of like other artists that you really admire? And try and like, add into your music?

Trevor Reece 23:27
There are probably some things that I've influenced by that. Like you could hear. I listened to so much music. Yeah, and

Casey Proctor 23:41
yeah, I would say I don't I don't listen to shoegaze that, like, and I haven't, historically, yeah, that much. But I definitely do listen to like, a lot of experimental stuff at home. And a lot of the various types of pop music. Yeah. A lot of stuff from the 80s I think that's that comes through a little bit. Yeah,

Mike Wallace 24:12
I think I think my tastes as of lately, we've kind of since the pandemic, I've got just got more into kind of ambience, New Age, fourth world, whatever, whatever the ones are, guys, but like, so I think that kind of has been maybe not a conscious influence, but something that's just like, I'm just kind of enjoying and so I'm, I like the I'm interested in space more than I was maybe before and I was kind of into more and some other stuff. So it's something that's something that's this band maybe is maybe what they want to know is a little different than some of the projects is that it does feel like there's a lot of space kind of in the sound or in the songs and in the performance of them and write stuff which is which is very cool as well. fun to play with.

DJ Ocean Spray 25:00
Yeah. Um, and do you have, I guess

Casey Proctor 25:10
so totally.

DJ Ocean Spray 25:13
Do you have any favorite musicians of all time or any particular artists you'd like to listen to a lot?

Mike Wallace 25:24
I'm going to make a list of all-timers

Trevor Reece 25:31
Alex Chilton is one that Yeah. Still like I don't listen to Alex Chilton a ton, but that's like he's been he's been around for a while. And like, you know,

Casey Proctor 25:41
I like and we're big Martin Newell fan.

Trevor Reece 25:44
I love Martin. Oh, he's the coolest still. He's such a he's such a sweet internet presence, you know? Yeah. Right now,

Mike Wallace 25:53
it was a it was a the place in Baltimore, where it was like the it was the cleaners place in Baltimore. Oh, it

Trevor Reece 26:00
was called the venous cleaner. I

Mike Wallace 26:01
mean, it's cleaner used to live

Trevor Reece 26:02
in a neighborhood in Baltimore around the block from a clean it like a dry cleaning storefront called the venous cleaners where he got the

Mike Wallace 26:19
remark Newell gets his gets his gets his slacks his neighbors, his knickers ironed. You know?

Casey Proctor 26:29
There's yeah, there's so many. Yeah.

Mike Wallace 26:32
I mean, yeah, it's stuff. I mean, we were talking. We played with Ryan Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse band and Chapel Hill was in January, February, that was late January, or January, almost, yeah, I guess it was like 31st name or something, or whatever was then yeah. And we were talking, some people in his band have just been playing for a while we played with them and other like, together and st bills and traveled and book shows and just known each other for a long time. So we just thought about, like, the idea of like, kind of life or ism, or life or stuff. And I feel like, as important in some ways, like, you know, people you would have heard of maybe you know what I mean, like anyone would have heard of, it's like those people who have, like, kind of been, we've just been doing this since we were teenagers. And we're still doing it, you know, as we endorsed, you know, 30s, late 30s. Their influence, I think it's been very important. Both like sonically, but also like the, the perseverance to just keep doing stuff. And that's, it's been very cool to kind of have those relationships for a long time.

Trevor Reece 27:46
Yeah, definitely. Um, with homies,

Mike Wallace 27:49
yeah, the homies,

DJ Ocean Spray 27:50
with your experience, like, within other projects and stuff, was it is it's still kind of, I guess, in the beginning, not difficult, but you know, do you still have to kind of really find your rhythm? Or do you feel like you can kind of go into projects with a bit more like, I guess, confidence and like, clarity than you used to be able to?

Casey Proctor 28:19
Um, the, I guess, the, like, the playing of the instrument, like skill level and stuff. Yeah. Like, it's easier to like, know what you have to bring to do a project, I guess. The longer you do these things, but as far as like, making art, I don't know that. I don't, I feel like I'm always a little bit confused, and I think that's a good thing. Like to not really know exactly what you're gonna do or Exactly. Like, I don't ever, like, pre plan. What something is gonna sound like, it just, it has to present itself, kind of. So, but yeah, you have, you know, you have your toolbox. Yeah. And then whatever's whatever's coming through. Like you just try to use those tools to the best of your ability. If that makes sense. Yeah.

DJ Ocean Spray 29:31
We're gonna take a quick break to listen to priest boss from verity den's self titled album. Enjoy

And so do you guys enjoy the kind of like writing and producing side of making music or or kind of more than, like, the live performance aspect of it.

Casey Proctor 35:06
This completely different world. Yeah.

Trevor Reece 35:09
I like Like, like, playing live, and I like recording. But this point i, i and I enjoy my time in the studio a lot more than I used to. And I love playing live. But yeah, I like capturing something and documenting what we're working on a little more than the work of performing live, I guess. Yeah.

Mike Wallace 35:36
Yeah. I mean, they're, they're so different. Yeah. Yeah.

Casey Proctor 35:44
When you're able to, when you're able to, I mean, a lot of bands, you know, they just they practice practice, they get their songs ready. They go into a studio. A lot of the time, they're paying all this money to do it. And then they have to slam out the songs in a couple days sometimes. Yeah. And it's like, we're not doing that. Yeah, we're, we may never do that. I don't know. But the ability to like, take your time. And kind of do it as you're writing is like, it's, it's really fun. Yeah, it's

Trevor Reece 36:20
pretty thrilling to like, back.

Mike Wallace 36:22
Yeah. Yeah, great. I mean, it feels like such a luxury, because what you just described is exactly how it has been 95% of the time, because you don't have access. Because you know, for a long time, you don't have access to the tools of recording or the time, mainly, it's money to of course survive, but even on your own, having access all this stuff, and then having the expertise which you know, Casey, really like to have that all come together to give you that space to be let things unfold or to try things. It's just so valuable. It makes such a difference. Yes, like things that like, of course, you can make a great record in an hour. Yeah, it does. Not necessarily, it's not determinative, but like, I think a lot of the things that feel really off the cuff or feel like Wow, you really captured something. It's because they did it for the two months or two weeks. You know what I mean? Or, or like the the classic Beatles thing. They did it 90 times. Take the birds, you know, swirl the rodeo, take 101 Clap. Yeah. So there. So that's, that's kind of how you get it is a little perspiration as much as the other thing, right? Yeah. Which is I guess it's an everything live is so different because you get one shot, which is thrilling in some way. Especially

Trevor Reece 37:35
if you're improvising. Yeah. A lot. Like that's rad. I love doing that. Yes,

Casey Proctor 37:39
that's true. Yeah, there. Yeah. If you're an improv band, or if you have large segments of sort of, you know, within a song that you're just playing, whatever. I mean, that's, that's a totally new, you know, that's a different thing, too. But yeah, if I have any advice for any band, or any musician out there, learn how to record yourself and learn how to produce yourself. 100%

DJ Ocean Spray 38:11
with like, um, I guess the way you kind of take little clips and kind of slowly build your songs. How, like, what's kind of like, the timeframe for how long it took for you guys to piece together the album?

Casey Proctor 38:29
Let's see. We started in like, October, up. Five, six months. Yeah,

Trevor Reece 38:39
some things took longer than others, I guess. Yeah. I don't know. presuppose came together and like an afternoon.

Casey Proctor 38:48
And then other songs. Other songs took a little longer tests. The acoustic instrumental track on the record was recorded in whatever time it took to play that we just sat in a room with one microphone and played all played acoustic guitars. And then I think I you know, just put some reverb on it. Yeah. And yeah, but yes, the other songs.

Trevor Reece 39:19
I mean, we don't know. Yeah. When did we put the cassette out? We probably wrapped up everything, like a month or so before doing that. Yeah,

Casey Proctor 39:35
it was when was that was like March or May last year. It was May May. Yeah.

Mike Wallace 39:41
Right. That sounds right. Right. May Yeah. So it was like yeah, like I said, was finished. It was finished. Yeah, we

Casey Proctor 39:48
were we were Yeah. Yeah. At shows. Yeah. And we we had started I think we had started in October or November replay. I'm sorry, What month is it now?

Mike Wallace 40:04
Where are we now? Where? When are we? Yeah.

DJ Ocean Spray 40:07
No, I think that's so awesome. I feel like some of the best music I hear, especially from local bands is stuff they, you know, record in their house. There's a band, I think they were recording in Durham. I think they really bring you on trash cans for part of it. And I just think it's like, so awesome. Like, I, I really don't think like, going into a studio and having like, I guess the crispest equipment really doesn't make the best sound. I really enjoy kind of how you can kind of you've made it yourself in your house. I think that's really awesome. Yeah,

Trevor Reece 40:50
I agree. I love that music. I've always been a fan of for track recording and using tape. I think. Yeah, it's cool. It's just a cool sound. And it's fun to do.

Mike Wallace 41:00
Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, you've you've gotten super good at tape. And like, I mean, you've been working with it. So I think that's, that's also a part of that. That's like this underlying element. It's like, even though things are happening, like in Pro Tools, there is like the sort of

Trevor Reece 41:14
every, every word is on to either cassette or reel to reel before dumping it into the computer to send off. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, there's that. And then, but yeah, yeah. human, human, and kind of love is like, record is mixed. And, like overdubbed in on the computer, but there's analog elements and that we keep. Yeah,

Casey Proctor 41:40
yeah. Yeah. It's yeah, they contain a sort of magic. I think. You can definitely lose that. If you're, you know. Production is super, super high fi everything's like, on 10 compressors. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I really love pop music, too. So yeah, you know, I guess it just depends on what you want. But I think what, what we're doing is, yeah, so has more of those DIY elements, for sure.

DJ Ocean Spray 42:23
Is there a, like venue that you specifically like to play at? Like a favorite?

Casey Proctor 42:33
So I work at cat's cradle. Oh, audio engineer there. I love the back room.

Trevor Reece 42:40
I love the back room, too.

Mike Wallace 42:41
Yeah. I said great room. It's really cool. That sounds good in there. And it's fun to play. Yeah,

Trevor Reece 42:47
I like playing there. I don't know.

Mike Wallace 42:51
Yeah, I mean, I guess it's as a band. We haven't played a ton of places outside of even the triangle. And we haven't we haven't played everywhere the triangle. I mean,

Trevor Reece 43:03
I guess historic. I don't know. Like, what were greatly nightlight was great. Nightline. We played there. Like this band never really played there except for recording some stuff. But uh, but playing there and other groups was always the best. I think just it kind of had a good feel to it. And yeah, they didn't overdo it with the, you know, the engineering and like,

Mike Wallace 43:27
really special, right? Yeah. Likely in the cave. Oh, the

Trevor Reece 43:31
cave is great. I love playing the cave.

Mike Wallace 43:33
Also in Chapel Hill. Yeah. 60 years old, or whatever says yeah, that's always

Trevor Reece 43:37
fine. It's just like being in a room with like, a cozy room with your friends. Yeah. Like being able to be a little louder than you are at band practice.

Mike Wallace 43:44
Right? Yeah. And it's also yeah, pretty bare balance. Like microphone engineering. Yeah. So Mike, and I just play it well, in Raleigh. I would we were played here. But I do like Neptune's Yeah. It was a venue that would be fun to play there with this band sometime. But in Raleigh, that's probably my pick, I

Trevor Reece 44:06
guess. Yeah. I was listening at the pinhook.

Mike Wallace 44:09
Pinhook is good to great actually. Yeah. We'll

Casey Proctor 44:11
be there in April. early April. Yeah.

Mike Wallace 44:13
That's speaking of Yeah. We got some plugs.

Casey Proctor 44:16
We're not allowed to plug things. Oh, no, plugging.

DJ Ocean Spray 44:20
You have to be like no call to action. Yeah. No. Like we are playing. Yeah.

Mike Wallace 44:26
I'm not telling you what to do. Here's the information, do what you will. Or don't you know? Yeah, right. This. I remember. I remember. I was in college radio in Greensboro. I went to Guilford College. Okay. Yeah. GFS. You know, it was just a wonderful years.

Trevor Reece 44:46
I'm sorry. I thought you're cursing whatever

Mike Wallace 44:49
they may have. We Yeah, that's still we were doing that back then. Yeah, I still doing that. Yeah. Anyway, I love WKNC I love college radio stations. Yeah, and important.

DJ Ocean Spray 45:01
They definitely are. Um, do you guys go to a lot of concerts yourselves? Like to see other artists?

Trevor Reece 45:11
I do like I've been. Yeah, I've been going to shows for a long time some like there's probably a period where maybe felt like I couldn't stay out as late, you know, or wake up early for work missed. There are definitely some good shows. I feel like I've missed. I live pretty close to the cradle right now. So if there's something cool happening, like, hey, if I was six or the cradle like, I'll definitely we'll make an effort to go to those shows. But yeah, as I don't know, maybe I'm getting older. I don't travel too. I mean, you know, working 40 plus hours a week, it's sometimes like, yeah, yeah, but yeah, I try to go to plenty of shows.

Casey Proctor 45:56
mike plays a lot of shows.

Mike Wallace 45:58
Oh, yeah. So yeah, somebody ended up playing. I mean, I haven't played a couple other things. You know, I but it's, I mean, similar. Like, I don't get, I don't go to as many as maybe I did a different time. I work also like at a venue. I think when you work at a venue, you end up just being at shows. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We're not going to them because they are because it's your job. You know? Yeah. I mean, I wish was a bartender or whatever. But so I used to see see a ton. And of course, we've I think collectively, we've been to many, many shows. So many shows. Yes. But a nice nice one. Yeah. Nice, much. I don't know, maybe it's a little older, just yet more stuff going on. The pandemic was a weird period for shows. Yeah. Right. I think it's kind of coming. It's mostly back, but it's also just like, different, you know, there's like a little bit or some of this conversation some of the night but the some of that like connective tissue between, you know, bands, who were then and then it's just stuff just some venues aren't here. Some of them have changed. Staffing or ownership or and some things happen. Right. But like it's there's a little bit of that. That's like, and maybe that does influence my attendance a little bit. Yeah. But yeah, we trying to get out there.

DJ Ocean Spray 47:08
Working at the cat's cradle, do you just get to like, show off to any of them that you want to?

Casey Proctor 47:14
Yes. Oh, that's so awesome. In a word. Yes. It is awesome.

Trevor Reece 47:19
I've yeah, I've definitely asked for some favors a couple of times. Maybe?

Casey Proctor 47:22
Yeah. You want to go? Yeah, all the employees there get to go to as many shows as they want. Yeah.

DJ Ocean Spray 47:34
Um, where can listeners find you online?

Casey Proctor 47:42
Bandcamp. Google, Google, Google. Google. Google, Google.

Mike Wallace 47:50
Do you Google

Trevor Reece 47:51
Bandcamp is a great place to check out stuff that we're selling and are playing where we're playing music

DJ Ocean Spray 47:58
we have I guess, it's just barely done on everything. Yeah.

Trevor Reece 48:02
And there's not really any other very dense. Yeah.

Mike Wallace 48:06
I have found any right. It's like It's like there's actually another band name that which is rarely the case. Even as weird as your band name could be. But yeah, that's weird. What Instagram the records on all the streaming? On Deezer. And or I don't know what Deezer is, is that it's one of them. It's like I always see it. It's like Spotify. Apple Music title. Deezer. Deezer Oh, that is from music. Right, YouTube? Yeah. You find YouTube. Oh, we'll do some live stuff on YouTube. Some

Trevor Reece 48:38
live stuff on YouTube. The entire record is on Yeah. Oh, yeah. When that Clark took at the Asheville show. Yeah. That's a fun little video. I've watched it. It's actually cool. Yeah. And so if you want to, you know, some put all of our songs in YouTube. I guess that's

Mike Wallace 48:51
cool. Oh, yeah. Oh, like the record like individual.

Trevor Reece 48:54
But it wasn't Amish. Oh, really?

Mike Wallace 49:00
Where we'll talk about that, because that was a Discogs thing, too. Yeah. Where to find us on the internet. We there's more things we don't know about because there's just things that pop up. Like, that's the thing you're just talking about? Like we don't know where it came from. We didn't do it. So yeah, I don't know. I guess. We're finding out where we can find ourselves. Yeah, just strange. One of one

Casey Proctor 49:23
of the disk overlords decided we were worthy of existing.

Trevor Reece 49:31
Yeah, I think I was like, I guess I'll go ahead and I was put the LP up on like, Discogs. Just, you know, because that's what you would do if you have a record. And one morning I was like, Yes, I'm on there. I'll do it later on this evening. And then I went to like, put it in a lesson probation and something popped up like a similar release. I clicked on it and someone had already listed the record, like two hours before me.

Mike Wallace 49:55
I mean, this was, I mean, it's still the record hasn't been after. Yeah, right. I click the Record and you know, it hasn't

Casey Proctor 50:01
even been Oh, it's been like a little over two weeks. Yeah.

Mike Wallace 50:04
That's wild. It's like, feels like forever. Really? Like it's, you know, it was much longer two weeks.

Trevor Reece 50:12
I can't believe we don't have another one out yet.

Casey Proctor 50:14
I know. I know. We're really working on it. It's getting there.

Mike Wallace 50:19
There's, there's much to come.

DJ Ocean Spray 50:20
I'm going to ask you guys this earlier, but, um, where did the picture for the album art come from?

Casey Proctor 50:30
That's me. It was taken me when I was on my 15th birthday. Oh,

DJ Ocean Spray 50:39
okay. Yeah. Is there any reason like you chose that specific photo for the album, or?

Casey Proctor 50:47
It's hard to explain. It was mostly kind of this. It has this essence, I think of youth, obviously. But also just like, growing up without a lot of money, and just kind of trying to figure out how to navigate the world when you're in a pretty isolated place. Yeah. And I, I felt like some of the themes from from the LP, kind of fit into this kind of like, it's like, the beginning of something, you know, it's like, you're just you're starting to figure out what, what you're gonna do. But it's still a little confusing. Yeah, I mean, you got your refrigerator. You got a solo cup with some, whatever. I don't know. What was there. Mellow Yellow? I don't know. Probably. Yeah. And like, you got your like, what? For that Puma do shoe background is just just appropriate. That was a terrible birthday. Like, I don't even think it was like at a cabin and like, at a lake. And I don't even think there were beds in there. It was like me and some friends. And I don't know.

Mike Wallace 52:33
That's interesting, because I know all that all. Like, at least that last part of the context. Yeah, that photo, but it is like, I mean, I was gonna say it feels like a memory. I mean, a photograph, right, which is a type that informs your memory. But like, it's one of those things. I know there's a quality to it when you look at it, and it's like, I have a memory. Kind of like that. Like, yeah, okay, everyone did everyone. Yeah, hopefully. It is like, there's hopefully right now ever, but like, you know, just, there's something in there where it's like, yeah, the solo got the red solo cup with like, the blue drink in it. Yeah. Just wonderful thing and the

Casey Proctor 53:07
crappy, like, like Walmart cake. You know? Yeah, that probably spelled your name wrong. And you're just like, you're blowing out these candles. And you're like, I just, I hope everything's gonna be okay. All right. Yeah.

Mike Wallace 53:24
Really capture something in there. And, yeah, yeah,

DJ Ocean Spray 53:27
it's really I agree. Well, obviously, I guess my opinion doesn't matter. I'm not in paradise. But I feel like it. It really does. I feel like capture kind of the sounds that you've produced in Verity, then it's very, I don't know. Because even if it's like, it, I don't know, then histology and kind of, I guess, like fuzz of like, you know, like a Polaroid. Like, it's kind of, I guess, created again, and the sound you guys make? And I love asking people about the album art. I feel like it's very interesting. Because some people, I guess, don't, you know, don't really care about it. And then other people. I don't know. It's just, it's an interesting little story, I guess. for it. Yeah.

Mike Wallace 54:14
Yeah. 100% I mean, it's a choice that's made either way, right? I mean, it's an opportunity to say something or be part of the art. So I guess it's, it's cool to care about it. Also, I get people with like, whatever. Yeah, they can read. I don't want to kind of mention that, but I'm sure.

DJ Ocean Spray 54:32
Um, and when is your next show?

Trevor Reece 54:39
I guess our next show here. pinhook. Yeah. April, the sixth six, six. Yeah, that's our next show in this area.

Casey Proctor 54:50
We play Asheville the night before. And that's kind of the start of a little mini tour that we're supporting. Rosalie on yeah wrapped up the East Coast. Yeah, yeah,

Trevor Reece 55:06
I've been down yep right back down.

DJ Ocean Spray 55:09
Shout out again to Verity Den for coming into the station today. You guys are really awesome. Like I mentioned before our listeners if you enjoyed their music you can find them on Instagram Bandcamp Spotify is just Verity den. v e r i t y d e n. I will be sending the listeners off today with one more song for verity den other friends so please enjoy and thank you for listening to this episode of the stripped down with DJ Ocean Spray.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai