Metalheads Podcast Episode #169: Metal Mingle featuring Trevor Portz and Karl Chamberlain of Ashen Horde

George and Markisan escape the Wheel of Pain to chat with Trevor Portz and Karl Chamberlain of Ashen Horde! Trevor and Karl discuss how they connected with a little help from the Podfather, what went into creating the band’s new album, The Harvest, why they decided to start playing live for the first time and how their mutual love for Swamp Thing inspired them creatively. Plus, can Karl record vocals any place, any time? Yes. Yes, he can.

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Metalheads Podcast is a metal-themed podcast featuring George, Jay, Will, John, Matt and Markisan. The guys discuss metal news and new releases, perform in-depth interviews with great metal bands, and just generally have a blast arguing about that greatest of musical styles: Metal!

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Now, here is the podcast, Metal Heads Podcast.

Hello, and welcome to the Metal Heads Podcast.

My name is George.

This is Marcusan.

Small crew today, but we are also joined by our friends Trevor Portz and Carl Chamberlain from the band Ashen Horde.

How are you guys doing today?

Good. What's up? Thanks for having us on. Yeah. Yeah, doing pretty good. Good, good. So you guys recently released the new album, The Harvest. And without any lip service to my friends, I can confidently say that this album kicks ass. It was my album of the month. Yes, I appreciate that. I don't believe it was Marcuson's, however. No, Marcuson hates you. I do like it a lot though. Yeah, he likes Doom too much and we're too fast.

That's true. I'm not as into thrash. It's true. That's very true. That's probably the reason. But I do like it quite a bit. I texted Trevor when it came. Actually, before, well, the first time I heard it, I texted you. Yes, you did. Yes, no, I just like to give you a whole time. Between Will hating our clean vocals and you apparently just hating the album. Yeah. I was like, Carl's only okay on it, but pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't like just crazy praise, which is what I actually. Yeah, not like George. Yeah. So there was something

I think there's something different about this Ash and Horde album and I'm trying to put my finger on it and it's sort of like oh hey Carl Carl's different now we know Carl but you know you're new to Ash and Horde so yeah very new very new to it I mean it's been three or four years now but still new new in terms of long already

To the public. Wild, right? What? So this is a completely self-serving question that I already know the answer to. But how did you guys get together? I think it was Christian Mingle. Some guy named George linked us on Christian Mingle. Wow, he sounds like a real loser. Exactly, yes. He's like, I know these dudes. Yeah. You are the reason this happened.

But for those who don't know, when Stevie Boiser, who was with the group for a number of years, he just got so busy with Inferi that, you know, we just didn't make sense to keep going forward. And so I hit up George, who knows everybody in all of the metal world and said, hey, do you know someone that can do harsh vocals and clean vocals? I'm looking for a unicorn. Thought he might have some recommendations. And sure enough, you did. And sent me over some links to a couple of things.

And I was like, ooh, I think this might be our guy. So yes, you were the matchmaker. Nice. Yeah, he's not just a unicorn. He's a well-hung unicorn. I don't know about that. Well, I don't know about that. I mean, the theoretical unicorn is like, it's not just a unicorn. It's a well-hung unicorn. It's the

on the unicorn theme.

Is that something in By the Horns that I missed, Marcus?

Unicorn?

Yes, his name is George.

Yeah, must have missed that.

I'm the editor on that one.

I just pencil things in before it goes to press.

Throw dicks on things, mustaches on people.

I'm picturing now the beautiful art.

What was the artist's name on that?

Jason something?

Jason Muir.

Yeah.

It's like his beautiful colored art.

And then there's just like marker drawn penis on the unicorn. A pinacorn. Well, thanks for that image. You know, what's funny is that sometimes Jason gets requests to do art pieces, like people want to purchase commissions. And he has had some sexy requests. Really? And he's done like one or two, but he's turned down some other ones. You know, I was. And he showed them to me and I'm like, okay. Whoa. Interesting. I was just reading a book not that long ago.

I don't know if you've ever heard of John Dies in the End. They made a movie out of it. It was a book. The author's name is Jason something. But he did a book called I'm Starting to Worry About This Big Black Box of Doom. And in it, one of the characters was a guy who did artwork of like cartoons, but in porn.

So, you know, they'd be like, oh, give me Lilo and Stitch getting it on or, you know. So creepy and weird. Yeah. And that's just like how he made his living was he did like manga or something like, you know, manga porn or something. I don't know. But I shouldn't judge whatever people into. I suppose. I think it's bizarre. When I was a kid, I definitely had a thing for Brittany, the girl chipmunk from Alvin and the chipmunk. So maybe there's a market for that. I'm not into it.

I don't know anymore, but as a kid, I don't know. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm sure we all had crushes on cartoon characters. Princess Leia. Hello. Not cartoon. Yeah. Although, I don't know, maybe there was a cartoon one. But anywho, back to reality. I got weird fast. Yeah, it tends to on this podcast. Even without Will here, apparently. So, Carl, how did you feel coming into a band that's, you know,

I put out a number of releases already and trying to find your space. Was there any apprehension about filling Stevie's shoes or was Trevor just the teddy bear that we know he is and it was just sunshine and rainbows the whole time? I mean, it was pretty much sunshine and rainbows, but mostly because like I just I'm confident in what I can do. As you should be. I've never I've never felt like I couldn't replace somebody if I needed to. And not that the

Not that it's like a competition or anything like that. No, no, no, no. We have a totally different vocal style. Yeah. Like my harsh vocals are completely different than his harsh vocals. We do it differently. I just scream as abrasively as I can. He uses technique. Yeah. It's, that is what it is. Yeah. I was thinking of it more in terms of just coming into something that existed as opposed to starting at the ground floor, not necessarily taking into account the person that was there before.

I mean, it was fun. It was just a fun thing to do. So I never really thought about it in those terms. It was just like, oh yeah, that's cool. Yeah, no, the music's good. I like it. Let's do this. Awesome. I think that was what worked too is kind of like, and I know this is, I don't know if this is to paint me more as the teddy bear, whatever you call me, but like I wanted Carl to just do his thing. Like it wasn't a, hey, you know, and I, there are more established bands, maybe like big bands would want something like that. But I was like, no,

You do you. You do the thing that you do well. I think that took some of the pressure off too. Oh yeah, totally. Like I never felt pressure to try to sound like previous record. And we even did the re-recording of an old track and we revamped it a little bit to make it, you know, what I am versus what it was. Yep. Well, just backtracking a little bit, you know, when George recommended Carl, obviously you contacted

But what was those initial discussions like? Did you have to kind of get to know each other a little bit before I decided to try it out? How did that process work? We took a long walk on the beach. That's what I thought. Yes, we did. And did a video call because we live across the country from each other. And then we just talked about stuff and I was like, all right, I'll give it a go. And then I recorded a track. I think just like, I know Trevor, you said at one point it was,

It was Entropy, but I believe it was actually a scratch track for The Remnant. Oh, okay. I think that's what I actually, I just did a random, like I picked a random song off of it that you didn't have any lyrics for yet, and I just did a random scratch track, and you were like, yeah, I think this will work. I was like, cool, let's do it. Yeah, it's funny, because I know, yeah, it may have very well been that song. I just, the thing I do remember vividly is,

I was at my wife's work in her office. She worked at a theater at that time and she was doing theater stuff. And I was just sitting at her desk for whatever reason when that came. And so I was listening to it. So that's what I actually remember just being like, oh, yeah, this is going to work. Yeah. Yeah. And then Entropy was the second track that I worked on. It was the first one with actual lyrics because I didn't write lyrics for Remnant until way later in the process.

Yeah, Entropy was the second track I worked on because you already had like half of the lyrics written. Right. And that's where we came up. I think that was the first one where you really did a lot of big cleans, too. That was, yeah, that was the first one where I did big cleans, because in Remnant, they were kind of like subdued a bit. But no, that one was the first one where I did big cleans, and I just kind of went for it, and I pulled off that weird thing that I don't know how to do.

I was going to totally ask that question too, which is, did you just start doing cleans or it was something that Trevor wanted in the song? So I've, I've always tried to implement cleans on everything I do. Um, it's just, I like doing them. Um, and Trevor wanted cleans, but I think I, I, I, I took it a step further than what he was originally looking for. And it just worked. Yeah. That's exactly like we'd done some on the prior records, but

I did them and my range is very limited so I think even in terms of how I thought about cleans were kind of limited to what I could physically do so it was like oh let's hand it to someone that can do something way beyond that and that just changed my whole thinking about it it's like oh this is completely different yeah it's fun yeah so as you uh briefly mentioned you guys are on opposite coasts how did that work out recording the album I mean I obviously this day and age you know digital stuff blah blah blah I was

I sat in my car.

90 minutes each way.

With the exact laptop that I'm using right now.

This microphone, these headphones.

This whatever the hell sound thing that I'm plugged into is.

My words don't work anymore.

I've been up since 4 a.m.

Oh, man.

And I just recorded it.

I was literally sitting in the front seat of my car parked in the woods. Wow. Talk about, you know, atmosphere. Right. And I'd send him all the tracks and he put them into the song. And that's how we worked. That was it. I mean, you know, Ashton's been fully remote since the beginning. Well, the first two was just me. So I don't know if you call that remote or just me. But, you know, when Stevie and Robin came into the fold and Robin's, of course, in Australia. So I was pretty used to it.

And yeah, I mean, it's kind of like as long as each person is just doing their thing and does it well, it's it's to work out really well. I think it also helps that. And this was something we wouldn't have necessarily predicted, but Carl and I seem to think about things in a relatively like complimentary way, like not exactly the same. And sometimes I'll have vocal patterns or ideas or lyrics or whatever. But like, we go at the songs in a similar way. So it wasn't like he'd send something

back and be like wow this is not at all what i envisioned start over so that helps too yeah yeah

interesting so uh tell us more about the album i mean what's going on in the harvest musically

lyrically thematically i know uh you mentioned that it's not a concept album but the overarching theme is

endings so what made you want to discuss that theme yeah so yeah every record up until this point has

It's been a concept. I just, when I write lyrics, I apparently tend to think in like these big epic things. But with this one, I wanted to kind of get away from that. I think I also didn't have a good story idea. So, but I like also connecting them when I'm writing lyrics and pretty good. I like to have some kind of basis. I don't go in and just write individual songs very well. They have to kind of have grand theme that connects them all. I'm terrible. Individual songs are not my

And yet I forced you to do it. That was like the biggest thing. It was funny. I was like, oh, all of your previous records are concept records. That's cool. That's how I typically work. So you're like, yeah, we're not doing that. All right. So I think Entropy was what set off the theme because I had that song name. I liked it. I thought it was kind of funny and weird and cool. And once I kind of got an idea,

for what that song would be about is like oh maybe this is the theme let's just talk about like endings and chaos and kind of apply it against all the different songs so i had a couple i think i had song names worked out for pretty much everything but some i had ideas and some were just empty so it's like i wrote a bunch and then carl's like here you go you're the ones i haven't figured out yet take it here's your theme go crazy i like it well one of the things i really like about the album is that the musicality the melody that you

you put into it, Trevor. You injected into it, you know, but you don't really, you don't sacrifice that core black and thrash sound, but there's still a lot more melody in it than I've heard in the previous releases. So what made you want to go in the direction musically for the band this time? Yeah, I think that's something that's been creeping into Ash and Oord a little bit more with each record. Like, I still love all the brutality and the weirdness and some of the proggy stuff, but, you know,

Ashtay, as much as I love extreme metal, that's a huge core of my life, obviously, the other side of it is melodic rock and Brit rock and 70s rock and stuff. And so while stylistically maybe it doesn't touch on those, at the core of it all is I love a good melody. And so it just felt like that made sense to start injecting more into this band. And the cool thing about Ashton Horde is there really aren't any rules. We aren't a specific genre. I don't think anyone would argue

that it's kind of whatever some people that work some are like wow this is just chaos it doesn't make any sense and i'm okay with that too but uh it's kind of like yeah it just seemed logical to me and it tapped into something i'd been wanting to explore more for a while and it's interesting too to me because you know you you write well in advance from the album so uh you wrote uh these songs with these melodies in mind and then carl comes into it and he can really bring that out with his vocal range yeah that was what's kind of nuts is that was exactly that it's like

maybe they'd become 20% more melodic and then he took it and like bumped it up to 40% which was just kismet I guess is that a good word for that yeah yeah sounds very like I don't know romantic but I guess since we talked about long walks that kind of works too I would call it georgistic georgistic there you go so theme themes aside was there anything that you

you wanted to do differently this time? Did you have a clear idea going in that you were like, this is what we're going to do? And did you hit that? Or did you veer off into someplace, Carl land, that you hadn't anticipated, but you were happy that you got there? A little bit, I think, just because like, like Marcus said, like the record was completely written music wise, before Carl even entered the picture. So in that regard, it was what I had intended it to be, which to be

I never quite know what that's going to be at the outset. I just start writing and then as songs take shape it kind of comes together. But yeah once Carl jumped in it definitely took it to a different level that I had not even envisioned. But at the end it was like oh this is the record I wanted to make. I just didn't know that was what it was going to sound like. What influences you records to record though Trevor? You know are there things that you listen to that kind of influence you or read? You know what makes you kind of

each direction for a record?

Yeah, a little of everything.

I mean, ultimately, I always just try to come up with things that are new and different.

Like, obviously, things that appeal to my ear.

I'm not just trying to write nonsense.

But apparently, what appeals to me tends to be a little bit strange.

But I just like, I want to try to come up with things that don't sound like everything else.

And so for me, a lot of it's just experimenting with different chord voicings and different rhythms.

and just all that kind of stuff and just trying to mix it up and make something that I think is cool but that couldn't you couldn't immediately say wow that sounds just like x or just like y um so yeah I think that's the same kind of approach I take with each record with this again you know saying I want to I also wanted to make it more melodic but right um not you know I'm sure it's influenced by a lot of other things like you know you guys know and anyone listening like I was never listened to Voivod

until I was on this podcast like a couple years back I don't know what years whatever Synchro Anarchy came out 23 or whatever and so I can say for sure then becoming obsessed with Voivod that definitely crept in there nice because I was like oh but at the same time I was kind of like this is actually some of the music they're writing and I'm not trying to say I'm like at that level in terms of writing but I was like this is kind of how I think about music so I was like oh this is great it's like you know I love eating

this kind of food and you just gave me a new kind of that food i didn't know existed like this is exactly what i wish it tasted like so which is your favorite voivod album um i probably listened to angel rat more than anything else which is interesting because from a it's a great record but from a voivod standpoint it's not quite as intense it's not as thrashy or honestly as like proggy it's kind of this it's it's their more commercial album they did yeah i only like nothing

and Angel Rat. Those are the only two Voivod records I'll listen to. They're great. They're great. Yeah. No, I will say I've really gotten into the newer stuff, too. I mean, is it Obsolete Bings of the first track on The Wake? I think that song is pretty much perfect. Yeah. Chewy is an amazing replacement for Piggy. It's wild. Yeah. Yeah. It's crazy. What about you, Carl? What influences your vocals? I know you obviously have a confidence. Just come in.

you do anything really vocally but what influences why do you want to sing the way you do i mean it all started with cornell and patten and then just i got into death metal after that and that's basically it right so i've always been trying to sing like cornell and patten i'm not either of those guys obviously um but those were my main influences vocally that's

That's how I started singing. That's what I grew up listening to and singing along to. And, you know, now I'm here trying to do this stuff. I think that's so cool, too, kind of on that line is that Carl's, there's so many different things that he does with his voice. And it's like, there's the highs and the lows and the cleans. And then like on Remnant, there's, I think we called it the witchy vocal. Yeah. And there's all these different things. Like Alice Cooper, I remember talking to Bob Essendon back in the day.

I haven't explored them all yet. No, that's what I was going to say. Like when Alice and Bob Ezrin got together, they like figured out the, I want to say it's like the 40 voices of Alice. There were all these different things. And I'm like, I think we're going to figure out what the 40 Carl's are. It's just going to take a while to get to them all. We'll try. That absolutely leads into my next question, which is less of a question and more of a statement at this point. You've got black metal shrieks, death growls, soaring cleans all over the place. Backward Momentum has this,

a snarly spoken Carl. I really don't know how else to pronounce or describe that. So how many different versions of Carl actually live inside of Carl? I don't know, man. I listen to Mr. Bungle. So like that many? I didn't hear any King Diamond falsettos. But if you add that to your repertoire, we can call you Swiss Army Carl. I did the King Diamond falsettos on the Alcyone record. I was, you know, I was like, I felt like you did. And I wanted to go back and listen to that again and see if I, if I,

I heard it but I ran out of time because I only thought of it this afternoon

I've definitely done them before and I'm sure I'll do them again sweet

it just has to fit right I try to do stuff that fits the music and for us everything that we did for us

fit the music for some reviewers it didn't but who cares

for us this is what fit the music this is why we did what we did yeah yeah well and what's

I think the first time I really heard you was with Alcyone. And obviously I had hard luck with that band. But that album that came out, it showcased the vocal range. But now you're in Ash and Horde. And obviously I think you have a brighter future because I know Trevor's got more stuff written already. So you have a chance. You did this great record and you showed us what you had, but you have a chance to build off of that.

And I don't think we've really seen that before from you. So can you tell me what it's like for you to be able to explore that with Ash and Horde now that you're in the band? Oh, it's fun. It's fun. It's just fun. Like, I like making music. Making music is fun. So, like, yeah, it's fun. And I get to try new things, even on the EP that we're working on currently. We've got an old school death metal track. So, like, I do lows that I didn't do at all on the record in this one.

track and they're just way more brutal and it's fun. That's the important part, right? Yeah. And I think, you know, what's cool now too is now that we have done the record, like as you alluded to, there's a lot more stuff written. We've got an EP, two EPs kind of working on now and the next record music's written. But this time, even though I'm not prescribing everything that I want Carl to do on it, I kind of know what he's capable of. So in my mind, I can like,

Right with that in mind. So I think we're going to see even more expansive craziness on this one. Ash and Bungle. Ash and Bungle. It'd be fun. It'd be funny if Carl just played it straight. I can't decide whether the reviewers like that more or less. Speaking of reviewers, what sort of reactions has the album been getting? It's all over the place. Yeah.

really high ratings and like middle of the road ratings huh and it all it all comes down

basically to we like clean vocals we don't like clean vocals or we like clean vocals but we

don't think they fit the music yeah but like that that was our intention is to have them in there so it

doesn't matter like that's that's what we wanted you know don't read the reviews from will

that's exactly the story even with the music um some of the reviewers just think it's too

all over the place, like, because of that kind of lack of genre thing. And so when I read that, I'm kind of like, I can't really be offended, because I'm like, well, you're basically just saying, yes, this is what the record is, which is the record I wanted to make. So like, you don't like it, that's fine. I can't be, you need to be in this little box over here, then that's, that's your problem, not my problem. The reason you don't like it is because it's the record we want to make. I can't really be offended. Not like, oh, he's got terrible musicians and blah, blah, blah. It's like, no,

That is absolutely probably the top thing that I love about this album is that this is not something I've heard. This is not, you know, metal paint by numbers. This is, you know, I'm listening to this and going, that's different. Yeah, that's different too. And, you know, as much music as I've listened to over many, many, far too many decades,

stuff that is new and interesting to me is rare. And so when something like that comes along, my antenna goes up and I'm all in and I'm all in on this album. Yeah, I appreciate it. And the Angry Metal guy, even in that review, which was kind of, you know, it wasn't bad, but it was like he said the same thing. It's kind of like, I don't know if this works, but I'd rather a band try something different than just do the same thing again and again. So it's like, you know, he appreciated what we were trying, even if it didn't quite work for him.

I don't really understand that. It's not like you added tuba or something. It's heavy metal music and harsh and clean vocals. Those are pretty standard ingredients. But it was still done in a way that I'm not used to hearing. But it's certainly not out of left field or something. So I don't know what they're talking about. I think what the problem is when anything new comes up, people are like,

taken aback by it. They don't know how to process something new.

It's also the fact that it was an established band before. So there's four other records for people to listen to and have an idea of, oh, this is what it's going to be like. And then a new singer comes in. It happens all the time. New singers come into bands all the time. And everyone's like, oh, I like the old guy better. I liked this better. Oh, that fit the music better. Even though if you read the previous reviews, it's like, they didn't like it then either.

Yeah. Right. It is. That makes it. There were, I know I've seen plenty of comments before that were like, Oh, been great with more clean vocals or all the clean vocals are. Okay. I wish you were a better singer. It's like, all right, we have more cleans with a better singer. It's still not good enough. Oh, I don't know. Yeah. You can't please everybody. Apparently never. And that's why at the end of the day, we try to please write the record. We're proud of. That's it. That's, that's all you got to do. If, if, if you like it, it's certain that other people are going to like it too. Unless you're a complete and total freak, which Carl,

It might be. But in this case, well done. Tangent of reviewers, have you ever in the past, or now, found a reviewer that made a valid point that you found yourself addressing when you moved forward? I think the only one I've ever really taken to heart was Song Link. To some degree, there's still

I'm still not short, but some reviewer back in the day or one or two had made comments about some of the like seven, eight minute songs being too long. So I wouldn't say I won't write a long song anymore. I still might. But I try to think about it like take a step back and like, does this need to be this long? That's basically the way I look at podcasts now. Yeah, exactly. It's like, does this need to go on this long? And if I feel it really does, great. But in any cases, I've trimmed songs down.

and been like, you know what, there's this whole piece and it just doesn't need to be there and it's better without it. So I try to take that approach, but that's about the one I can think of. Okay. This reviewer likes longer songs. I do too. Clearly this guy's not a fan of sleep. Closing track. I always like that. That tends to be where I lean to, like make the last one kind of a big thing. We'll do it again in the future, I'm sure. We'll cross that 10 minute barrier. Your rhyme of the ancient mariner.

Now we've got a challenge. I don't think I've ever crossed the 10 minute barrier. We've got to double digits. I've done it once. Okay. So we can do it again. If Taylor Swift can do it, we can do it. God, if Taylor Swift can do it, then we can sell stadiums too, right? That's right. We can also make billions. Yeah. And we can finally take our, we can get married in Madison Square Garden. That'd be beautiful. That'd be great.

That would be awesome if she took you on tour. Oh my god, right? Did you see that? I would not say no. There's not, I mean, there's some bands I would say no to, but not many. Did you see the thing about Twin Temple? About how they're this satanic doo-wop band, and they got dropped by the country artist who didn't realize that they were a satanic doo-wop band, and Jack White picked them up.

Yep. Jack White's cool. Great. I saw him live. They're great. They have a new album coming out. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. No, I thought that was very cool. Yeah. I'm, it's funny. I'm not a big fan of his music, but Jack White as a dude seems very cool. I like his music. I feel the same way. Exactly. His music's okay to me. It's yeah. I mean, some is better than others, but yeah. When it's on in the background, I'm cool with it. I'm not like, Oh my God, we got to turn this off. Like you can't. Right. No. Right. It's, it's, it's very competent. You know, it's no Taylor Swift.

Yeah, but there's not that much rock music in the public stage anymore in terms of new rock music. You know, I mean, like Springsteen puts out an album, sure, or something like that. But, you know, everything's gone to a weird place. Yeah. So I feel like he's at least, you know, carrying the flag a little bit. But even then, I mean, when did that White Stripes record break? That's 20 plus years ago. Yeah. Yeah.

He's actually been in the biz for quite a while now. Yeah. It's true. It's a great beard now. That's right. And he's from Michigan, so he's obviously cool. That's right. Yeah. Well, we should talk a little about the songs. Yeah. Because I have to talk about, in particular, A Place in the Rot, because it's Swamp Thing. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. So, yeah, it came from Swamp Thing comic book series, which actually I have the new series that's coming out now.

I've been reading that too yep but I just want to know I know that you're both fans of comics so can you talk about the connection to Swamp Thing for this song and lyrically I just want to know everything about Ashford and Swamp Thing so Trevor had the music written and he had a little blurb for what he thought each song was going to be about and that song he said was influenced by Swamp Thing and I'm like turns out you know I got a Swamp Thing tattoo on my

Yeah.

What are the odds?

Right.

So like I also may have a slight interest in Swamp Thing.

But so I listened to the track and then I reread a lot of the old Alan Moore stuff.

And that really inspired the lyrics like heavily.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's that's basically where that came from.

I think you and I have talked about Swamp Thing.

Yeah, definitely.

I mean, it's hard to not talk about Swamp Thing. Like I said, he takes up 50% of my chest real estate. What were you going to say, Trevor? No, I should say that was just, it was the weirdest thing. Because yeah, when I sent over the notes about the songs, you know, I put in there like, hey, this is influenced by the Swamp Thing comic. But like, I don't even know if, like, I didn't know Carl well. I don't know if he knows who this is. This character is like, what is this weird nerdy thing?

Like literally we had never had a conversation about comics prior to me reading that blurb. And I'm like, oh, cool. Yeah, this will work. Behold my chest. Yeah. Look at my tit. Swamp tit. Look at it. I command you. I still think we really, I haven't done it because we need to figure out if we can afford it, but I really want to get somebody involved in Swamp Thing to do some art for us at some point. Yeah, it would be amazing. That's a necessity.

that was geared towards Swamp Thing just because you love the comic Trevor? It, I, you know, I don't remember exactly the name, the place in the rot came from Swamp Thing, right? Because the rot and the green and all that. And so I don't remember exactly. I was probably just reading it. It was like, oh, that is a killer song name and wrote it down. And then that was that. But, uh, I don't know if it went much deeper than that. Great. Awesome. Yeah. That made me squee a little bit.

So it sounds like you both kind of did lyric writing like that. You know, I know I know Trevor you write you write all the music and apparently, you know, some of the lyrics come to you while you're doing that. But it sounds like Carl wrote stuff too. I wrote three full tracks and then entropy and ecstasy. We kind of like he had most of the lyrics there and I just altered them and put some others in to finish.

it all um but yeah i wrote uh voids in the ash remnant and uh place in the rot

and trevor wrote all the rest of them yeah yeah historically i mean the first three records i just

because i mean i did all of them and then stevie wrote a couple but i think it kind of goes back to the

long form story thing it's just since i kind of had the whole vision and alb idea i would just write

which is funnily enough i didn't even realize that carl would prefer to write in long form but uh i thought that also would kind of lend itself to splitting them up more if we didn't have to like coordinate as tightly but right maybe we're gonna have to do that now we'll get there eventually wonder twin powers activate we'll do another record of of individual tracks and then we'll we'll break out a return to form we'll call it and with an epic closer that's so we've already formulated album seven kind of the core of it

17-minute closing. Wow. That's right. Well, it sounds like you guys have a really good rapport and are working well together, so I'm really happy to hear it, to see it. Yeah. Yeah, it's fun. So we don't spend enough time together to hate each other. No. No, we've spent like a total of, I would say at this point, six days, maybe. Yeah, that sounds about right. Because there were a few days in Colorado for the music video, and then a few days

for the few shows we played. That's it. That's a big thing though because Ashenhor live for the first time. So first of all, what was it like to meet each other in person? Why it was wild. Like we literally the five of us now the current band. The first time we were all in the same room was at the first show. Yeah. People had only rehearsed in like chunks. I think they'd all rehearsed out me but like I'd only practice with the chunk of guys. So yeah, that moment in Montclair was

the first time we'd all been in the same room at the same time like playing in the meat locker literally a murder basement you gotta be you gotta be thinking i sure hope this works we're up on a stage trying this out terror yeah like what is this so you didn't get to practice or anything not as a full full unit no okay the four of us east coast boys we all we all got together and uh and rehearsed a couple of times but no as a full

It never came together before the show. But we've all been making music for a lot of years. So it was kind of easy. Everyone did their homework. That was key. I will tell you this kind of funny little story that I thought was such a surreal moment for me. When those four got together, they sent me some videos of them practicing. And the weirdest moment for me was they're playing an older song. I think it was a concert. And I'm like, no one

in that room played on that album and they're playing it without me. It was very strange, but it was also super cool because I was like, wow, this is so neat. It's finally coming to life. Yeah. So it's wild because it's... Let's go ahead, George. No, no, no. I was going to say, you know, you mentioned, I think, earlier that this started as an at-home solo project for you, Trevor, and now it's blossomed into this live, breathing beast of a band that can play live. Is this something you've always wanted to build?

towards? Realistically, no. I hit this point, I don't know, years ago, where I was just kind of like, playing live is a lot of work, right? You've got to learn the songs, you've got to book the shows, do the thing, all that. So when I started doing Ashton Road on my own, I was like, it was kind of a way to do the music without all that. And at some point, I was like, I don't really miss that. It's a lot of work, right? But time went on,

Abhoria first for me was the one that kind of brought me back and I was like okay I get it I miss this this is cool and it just was like I think it was Carl really that kind of I felt like nudged like we need to play these songs and I was like yeah okay you're right we should and yeah and it was cool because you know songs like Feral that we closed the set with off of Nine Plagues like when I did that back in 2015 I had no designs on ever playing it live it was kind of like this was never going to

And so doing it was really weird and really cool. I was like, damn, I think this song was meant to be played live. I'm glad it finally just took 11 years to get there. How did you pick those songs? Were there old songs, Carl, that you wanted to perform or from the back catalog? Not in particular. Trevor just had a list of songs and we all listened to them and we said, yeah, it sounds good. Let's do it. Yeah. There were a couple that I started thinking like, you know, I won't.

I think I would want to play that song live like that older song I knew we wanted to focus on new stuff so we could promote the new record but there were a couple that kind of jumped out I was like yeah I think this is it so it was cool to kind of touch on this yeah so we play it's like crap now I got a whole catalog I want to look at all of them right we played three songs off of the harvest and we actually played one song off of the EP we're working on that that old school death metal track I referenced earlier we played that because it

it lends itself to a live environment as well um and then it was three other older we played a lot of music quite frankly yeah we had 30 45 minutes at our last show nice we did them all yep we got all of them in that's a good amount of time yeah yeah so carl your east coast sounds like some of the other boys at east coast what's it gonna take to get trevor back out to the east coast say a

a little souther of there.

Like, I don't know, maybe D.C. area for some shows.

Because I would squeak that.

We just need to figure out a week that works for everyone.

Yeah, that's the hardest part.

And then find somebody willing to book us.

Alas, Atlas is no longer a thing.

Otherwise, will it bring you up?

Yeah, I know.

It's a bummer because that had always been on my list of places I really did want to play.

Coming to Chicago, there's tons of places to play here.

Yeah, except.

Or, you know, we'd be happy to get some festival invites. Yeah. Well, I was... That would really make it worthwhile. Yeah. I mean, I feel like I saw something on Facebook where Decibel had, like, was pimping one of your songs or something. Was that a thing? They posted the video for Voids in the Ash, but they left the S off. Oh, yeah. Void in the Ash. They kind of butchered the press release, but...

I was still happy it was up there. Yeah. I was like, you got to just removed a lot of material from it. You got to get on Albert's radar. So maybe he could bring out to like decibel or something. I'd love to do that. Decibel, death fest, whatever. Cause anything, you know, the cool thing about these shows though, is like, we proved we could do it. I mean, that was kind of the thing. It's like, it's always this big question mark. And now we're like, Oh no, this actually worked. So now it's like, yeah, let's find time to do it again and do it properly. So. And you enjoyed it.

Exactly. Yeah, it was a blast. I saw that one of our other band friends, Temple of Void, was added to Maryland Death Fest next year. That's pretty cool. I've been hitting up contacts. If there are anyone out there listening, I talked to one person. We're trying to get in there. We'll make it happen, and we'll tour around it if that's the case. Absolutely. If you come to MDF, I am all over that. And hell, if you even needed a place to stay with

within an hour's driving of it, you can stay here. Yeah, my friends in Ancient Death are playing this year. Ah, Ancient Death, yeah. I love Ancient Death. It's a dream. So has there been, you know, in my mind, The Harvest is like the greatest album of the year. Oh, did I, did I spoil her? Whoa, what? And so I'm like, are there like any, is there anybody going like, hey, maybe we should pick this up and release it, sort of like the Abhoria thing. I wish that were the case.

Not so far. I'm really hoping that maybe we'll get some momentum for the next one. Because I will admit, putting out an album independently is a pain in the ass. Everything has changed so much since the last one, which was Nine Plagues I did that way in 2015. Everything is harder and different between all the algorithms on socials and stuff. It's like, even the world that was hard then is hard.

I would love to find somebody that's interested in working with our

weird little brand of metal. Did you have a label for this album? No. This one? No. It was the Abhoria one that did. Abhoria, yeah.

That record's coming out with Black Lion. Yeah. Right, right.

So, all right, well. So, yeah, anyone listening, anyone knows, like, hey. I'll try to talk to some people.

Yeah, George, work your magic. I will try. See what I can do. All right. Get up your budget. I don't know, Metal Blade or let's go big. Go big or go home. Why not? So speaking about individual songs, something I noticed today as I was playing the album all day long on repeat, in Apparition, around the one minute 20, one minute 30 mark or so,

There's this little guitar line in the background. You can barely hear it. Oh, I'm glad you hear it. And I was like, it reminded me of Rush's Tom Sawyer solo. Sort of this like, did you get it? Did you hear it? I was like, was that intentional? Was that dumb luck? Am I just crazy? You know? No, I don't think it was intentional. It may have been subconsciously done, but now that I think about it, I'm like, yeah. But that said, I did think it sounded very 70s when I was working on it.

And so that kind of would tie to that. And I was just like, that kind of weird riff that's under it. I was just like, that's what I heard. And so I was like, I'm going to throw that on there. I kind of wish we'd made it a little louder on the mix. But it was loud enough. I heard it. There's definitely a 70s influence. And maybe it was Tom Sawyer. Yeah, I it took me a bit. I was like, Tom Sawyer was the first thing that ran through my head. And I was like, wait, maybe it's subdivisions. So I had to listen to both. I listened to Tom Sawyer. And it's like, maybe and listen to subdivisions is like, definitely not that. So I went back and listen to Tom again. I was like,

I don't know just what it sounds like. It's just one of those things that you're you know you're you're doing something and it's playing and it just kind of sneaks up in your ear and it's like hey look at me. Right right. I'm glad you spotted it because yeah I thought that part was really neat and kind of weird so I'm glad you kind of jumped out for you. Cool. Well George has only listened to the album 750 times. Yeah. I mean this week. We'll send you a new copy next week. I do have the vinyl. Yes. All right.

But when you wear that out, let me know. I have plenty of copies to send your way. Yeah. I mean, that's high praise. George does not buy a lot of vinyls. Oh, no, no. Only the good stuff these days. I've got, you know, I don't have room for anymore. Yeah, I have a lot of stuff. Yeah. So a Trevor question. Do you have go-to guitar tones that you return to with each album, or do you spend every album auditioning different tones and deciding what to use?

because I know I spend a ridiculous amount of time auditioning things and I'm not even recording albums. So I am. No, I'm very, very lazy with that stuff. I have for each band. I basically have two tones left channel, right? They are now that's using my old 11 rack, which is like a digital amp modeler that I've made. And I've got them. I've got Abhoria left, Abhoria right and Ashen left, Ashen right. Those are my go to. However,

the last couple records, both Antimony and this one, other people mix them. And I think in both cases, they ended up reamping stuff. I've kind of like, let that leave that to the producers at this point. Like, I'm happy with my tone. And if they want to use it, that's great. But oftentimes they want to either take that and blend it with something of their own or reamp it themselves. And I'm kind of like, like Ricardo Borges, who did the last one, he, you know, works at Fascination Street. I'm like, they're going to get the best tone they can get. I'm just going to let him do whatever he does.

And so yeah, so no, in that regard, I am not crazy tone guy. I found tones I like, and I just stick with them because I don't have the patience to find others. Yeah, that's fair. I like to play with them, but I always kind of go back to my go-tos. So yeah, yeah, that's it. Every now and then I will say the one thing I'll do is I'll randomly like mess with them. Sometimes they will inspire like a riff because they make you play differently, right? You're like, oh, this sounds weird. And you kind of come up with something you wouldn't have

I love how you guys just have you know go with the flow Carl's recording in his car you know whatever works and you you would never know by listening to the album like because it just sounds great but that's what I use I use audacity for my daw oh yeah wow I use audacity for podcasts I use audacity for kind of amazing and weird and cool about this like that record right

There were three of us on it. I recorded everything in my old apartment. Carl did his in his car. Robin, if you guys don't know, his drum set is in a buried container on his property in Australia. He's got it like sunken. So it's a big old thing. And he's got drum kits set up there. That's where it all happened. And then it was mixed in Sweden. But it sounds super weird. It's just like it's super weird that we were able to make a record that sounds. And, you know, the whole like car in the woods thing.

That makes for great stories for the album. Oh, yeah. It's a bright red Prius. When Ulver did that record out in the woods, do you think they were actually like, man, I wish we'd done this in a bright red Prius? That would have made this even more cult. You should just do random things. You should be driving and you just see some sewer tunnel and you just go down there and just record in that to see what it sounds like. I mean, at the end of the day,

the car is just such a it's such a good sound booth like i don't get any bleed

i mean it's honestly shocking it helps that i got you know the sm7b which you know is the

standard death metal vocal mic and podcast mic um it's it's just the industry standard because it

works so well didn't you tell me you had the ac on in some cases oh yeah yeah yeah during recording

In some cases I had the AC going. It was 90 something degrees. Middle of July. Yeah. George picked up on that actually. Yeah. That's how he channels those true black metal vibes. The 90 degrees summer heat. Yep. Yep. It adds the icy tone. Yeah. The truest tone. You know it's hot as hell out there these days Carl. I hope you're appropriately unattired. He's got a full shirt on right now. I know I don't get it. Disappointed.

Yeah, it's a sun shirt because I was in the sun all day. Oh, nice. That's smart. Yeah. It's not a podcast without Carl Nipple. I know. It's awkward. It's awkward. You made it to the official band photo. Yep. Yeah, I busted out my Mr. Bungle t-shirt for the official band photo. Nobody knew I was wearing it until I pulled it out. Until you were. No way to say no. Yep. In the middle of the pictures, I took off my over shirt.

And then nobody had a say. It was done. Like, we're here. Were you wearing shorts that would make Lemmy blush? No, I was wearing my leather pants. It was still a little on the chillier side. All right, a couple of silly questions for you. If you were forced to put a warning label on the album, PMRC style, what would it warn the public of? Oh.

I would it would just say warning 98% of people are going to hate this record warning only 12 people will listen to this record 98% of people that hate it aren't of that 12 because that's really limiting our fan base and we're two of them yeah yeah warning Carl's swap nipples yeah right warning all right if this album were a meal what would

Gordon Ramsay call it. Silence. I don't know what he listens to. Okay, so the appropriate Spinal Tap-themed response is, shit sandwich. Oh, I was thinking it might be like, because of the weirdness of it, it might be like that episode of Friends where Rachel, like the pages of the recipe book are combined. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like a trifle, and it's got like lady fingers and whipped cream, and then beef.

for whatever it's like i think he might be like this doesn't go together yeah

that's the answer beef jerky and ice cream yeah exactly like i'd like to think he'd be like well

that makes no sense and take a bite and be like okay you sold me i would i this is all right yeah

so it would he would be nice to you instead of yelling at you i'd like to think so yeah i'd like to

He'd be nice while yelling. Yeah, that's right. What is this? What is this? Are you an idiot? More likely. Yeah. So I know you've alluded to it and Marcus has mentioned it as well, but how many albums ahead have you written at this point? Only one ahead. So we have the EP we're doing now, which is, we're calling it

It's three new songs and three cover songs we did. That's in the midst of being recorded. We're getting pretty close to being done. And then the next record six is done. However, I do have a folder on my laptop called LP7 with a handful of riffs that I have dropped in there. Nice. Yes, it is happening. I know you're not going to tell us the covers, but now I'm wondering. Would you rather? Okay, let's see. What do you want to tell them? Should we just tell them what the artists are?

I think they should name 10 artists and if you get any of them we'll say yes. Well you got at least like pull a style like if you're like yeah we're doing this cover of this 80s pop song but you know. I'll say there are no death metal songs. There are black metal songs? No. No. It's going to be like rock songs or something. It's going to be like baby hit me one more

Oh my god. It's not that pop. We didn't go that far. I do want to hear Carl sing that though. I do. And I think we got 80s, 90s. When are there two 80s and 90s? Is there a Judas Priest song? No, because he doesn't like Judas Priest. I love Judas Priest. No, but. I'm not. I like them, but I love them. I don't want to waste guesses. Yeah. This is a fun game. Yeah.

Yes, next, George. Sorry, I'm just curious. My fan just sort of stopped. Oh. I'm like, I have power, so what's up, dude? That's what we do. We lose fans. Yeah. It's like, it's getting warmer in here. All right. I mean, I don't even know where to begin guessing. How about, hmm, I mean, Iron Maiden?

No, we already did that. We did a Maiden cover already. Oh, yeah, that's right. Back in the Village, yeah. Hmm. But is that like the... What we could drop is a hint. Well, I mean, do you not want to reveal that? Because if you don't, then we'd want to guess. No, no, it's fine. We're going to reveal it if we guess it, which is weird. We're not doing a good job. They're kind of obscure songs by the artist, too, which is fun. That's always nice. So the bands that were picked,

It's not like big hits either. So it's like deep cuts from bands you probably wouldn't have expected. Are they metal bands though? So the one I chose is a B-side off of a single. No other releases. That was a big influence on Carl. That's the hint. Soundgarden. Absolutely. Ooh. Okay. He loves Chris Cornell. We know that. Yes, indeed. Nice.

So is it like a rockin' one, like Spoonman, or are we talkin' like... They said it wasn't a hint. No, it's right, right, it's obscure, okay, obscure, that's right. It's way obscure. It's a single from the Ultra Mega Days. Oh, shoot. Wow. Wow. That album is in the Decibel Hall of Fame. It's a metal record. Ah, so you do consider it a metal record? Or it is considered a metal record? Decibel does, yeah. They definitely do.

I got the one they just they like remastered and put out a new version a couple years ago now I think my god yeah I've got them all I love I'm big big Soundgarden fan too yeah yeah they're my all-time favorite band uh I like I love the Chris Cornell solo albums too oh yeah yeah yeah I do too I I I don't have a negative word to say other than he can't make more music before your morning is like one of my favorite records ever actually

I would love to cover something off of that. Yeah. That would have to be a different project. Yeah. That's like even too far for us. We couldn't do that. The song we chose, it's Toy Box. And if you listen to the riff, you'll be like, okay, I get it. Yeah. Okay. And I think we did a really weird kind of interesting job where it's like it maintains the core of the song. I wasn't that familiar with it. I had the single. I had the flower single. So I'm like, I know the song. But like, I think we did it. We preserved it.

All of the songs are not as they were written. So they are Ash and Horde playing the songs. They're not us trying to replicate it. Not doing the Weezer, Weezer Toto kind of thing. That's a really good version though. Oh, spot on. Yeah, I mean it sounds exactly like the original. What's the point of that? There's no point. It's almost like a novelty to be like, look what we can do.

Yeah, I'm a big Weezer fan, so. No, no shame in there. I think it's kind of odd that they did it that way. True. I remember hearing it and going, wait, this isn't the original. I just watched, there's a series on YouTube where they have bands and they bring them in cold and they give them a song and the band has to figure it out. And I love the band Thursday because I was big, led to emo and post hardcore stuff. And they did the famous

this four non blonde song they just gave him that song okay and uh it was awesome you should look it up on youtube because they show them working it out like how they're gonna do the riff and how and it's such a simple song and their songs are a lot more complex so it was really interesting and they only have a certain amount of time to do it so like put together an arrangement and then yeah it was really cool yeah i can't remember what it's called but i'll send you the link uh when i find it because i have it bookmarked but the only time i've ever seen it but i think they've done other ones

I just happened to see it because I saw Thursday and they were all over my feet. So nice. So I got one at least, George. You had to get a guess. So that's the 90s one. That could be the 80s actually. No, I guess the other two are both 80s. Okay. Was Ultra Mega in the 80s? I think it was. It was 80s. So they're all 80s. I didn't even think about that. All the 80s. Girls just want to have fun. So that what year did Ultra Mega come out? 87?

I was going to say 87. Maybe, yeah. Okay. So then the others are, one's another 87 then, and an 83. That's probably got to be heavy. Did you say 83? 83. One is an 83. Ooh. Hmm. A lot of good stuff in 83. Yeah. Okay, my hint there is, if we want to do it true justice, we will sell it for $100,000 for the song itself.

If that gives you any kind of hint about recent events. Somebody, I read something about that. Somebody just did that, yeah. A lot of people have been doing that, basically. Yeah. Deftone sold their catalog. Iron Maiden just sold like half their catalog. Oh, they did. I saw it today, yeah. This is a little more extreme of someone thinking their single song is worth that much money. Oh, a single song. I don't know. It doesn't make me think of the 80s, though.

Okay. You might think of the 70s when you're thinking of the band. Yeah, you'll probably think of the 70s, the band itself. The track just happens to be from the 80s. Yeah. You went through a big transition in the early 80s. Transition. Boy, I'm feeling like the dumbest person ever. It is weird. Where's all that music knowledge we supposedly have? I got one, so I feel good.

Oh, so you should have got that for sure, George. Wow. Vinny Vincent recently tried to sell his songs for like 100 years. Oh, that's right. That's right. Oh, that's, yes, I did hear that too. Yeah. I'm not a fan of Kiss at all, but you are. I am, yeah. We'll be after this. But yeah, so we did Exciter, which is the opening track on Lick It Up. Wow. Not Exciter by G.D.S. Priest. My favorite Kiss song. And then the last one is from 87.

87 is a thrash year. It's also a B-side from an incredibly huge 80s record. So not thrash. Bon Jovi. Close-ish. You're in the ballpark. Cinderella. Poison. Bon Jovi's a good one in terms of level. I would love to hear Bon Jovi. Level of fame. Def Leppard.

Bingo.

Yeah, I was thinking, you know, I was thinking Def Leppard for 83 too, because Pyromania was so huge in 83.

I was kind of thinking that too.

Yeah.

Now this is from, it's called Ring of Fire.

It's a B-side from Hysteria.

Killer.

So I'd also made an appearance on Retroactive, that comp album, but yeah.

And something I'd wanted to do for a while.

Our version is quite sick.

Nice.

I'm excited to hear these songs.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So our own little take on a couple of obscures.

So we'll see. Excellent. And sounds like there's going to be some sung vocals on there for sure. Some clean. I haven't actually heard the vocals yet. Carl's recorded them and I have not listened to them. Oh my gosh. The big reveal is coming. There'll be a couple, but I'm not going to sing the songs all the way through. Yeah. There's, I can pretty confidently say at this point, I don't think there will ever be an Ashen Horde song without a

harsh vocal in it. Yeah. Even the Maiden cover we did has harsh vocals in it. Yeah. I mean, not a lot of our thing, like, not a lot, but like, yeah, we, we do a mix of them. So we'll keep doing a mix of them. It's not like we're trying to go radio friendly over here. Sure. Right. Even though you totally could. I mean, you know, like, it wouldn't be the same band. No, no, I'm not suggesting that you should. I'm saying you have the,

ability to do so and choose not to. Yeah. There you go. Right. Yes. So what you're saying is we're just continually fighting against fame and standing up for artistic integrity. Exactly. By making stuff nobody likes. You're fully capable of being rock stars, but you choose not to be. Thank you for calling me a nobody. Until Carl starts his new band Euphoria Morning. Yeah.

where I only cover Cornell's own. Only Cornell all the time. You could do mashups of like Cornell and this, Cornell and that. I could never. I could never. Recording that one cover has nearly killed me. It's so difficult. Yeah. So difficult. Yeah. I saw it live. It's actually funny, though, recording the cover, because we play in a

a different tuning than they do.

And I've listened to the original so many times that I can sing along to the original,

but then singing the slightly different key of what we record in has been an absolute feat.

Because it feels wrong to you, right?

Because you're like, this is not how it goes.

It feels wrong.

It sounds wrong in my head when I'm doing it.

Like everything about it is my body fighting me. It's tough. It's tough, but it's fun. That's awesome. I saw him live when he was on his like solo tour. And I tell people this, I may have told you, and I'm sure you know, Carl, but one of the songs that he did was my favorite thing he's ever done. And that was he performed U2's song one, but he did the Metallica lyrics from Metallica.

That was awesome. It was so good. I have not heard that. It's on YouTube. You can find it there. But it was amazing, that mashup. It worked perfectly. It's wild. I saw Soundgarden. I don't know if it was like the King Animal Tour or if they were just doing stuff. That sounds right, though, because where I was in my life at the time, 2012, sounds about right. But it's something with Mars Volta.

in Virginia. And glad I did. Yeah. I think that might have been the year before King Animal. That might be. Because they came back, they did the reunion tour, and then they released King Animal and did the King Animal tour. And I saw both of those. Nice. Yeah, that sounds right. Because I don't recall there being an album, and I just was like, Song Garden, I'm there. Yep.

Yeah, no, it was amazing. It was incredible. It was a religious experience for me. The first time I saw them was at Mohegan Sun. Ah, nice. And I was in the fourth row. And that was, I couldn't even believe it. I was just like having an out-of-body experience. And then the next time I got a chance to see them was at the Worcester Palladium. And I was front row center, just up against the rail for the whole show. And it was only Soundgarden. Like, there were no opening bands.

I think Coheed opened the other one and I've never listened to Coheed I have no idea

they're weird it was fine like Mars Volta they're weird but I like Mars Volta I like

the Bedlam in Goliath by Mars Volta which is a record that most people don't like I guess but that's my that's the one I like

um I try I try to like them and Coheed they they're interesting bands but I just it's a lot of work

Yeah. I only ever listened. I listened to them for the first time because I read an article about how they wrote the Bedlam and Goliath. So then I bought the vinyl, which at the time was out of print and way more money than I should have spent on a vinyl by a band I had never listened to before. But, you know, that's what you do. And it was cool. I liked it. It's kind of crazy how many of the 90s people aren't around anymore. It's wild. Yeah. Yeah.

I didn't get to see Stone Temple Pilots. Nope, nor did I. But I saw Song Garden, I saw Nirvana, and I saw Alice in Chains. Damn, you saw the big, I didn't see any of them, and I'm bummed about it now. Yeah, those are my go-to stories from the 90s. Yeah, I didn't see any of those bands either. I feel like that's something, if Carl and I lived on the same coast, I've had visions of us doing just a set of

90s songs like i would want to do sea of sorrow fell on black days um i don't know what stp song but like

if we lived in the same place i think i would force that be like not an astronaut thing we're just going out

and doing a whole set of 90s i would love to hear fell on black days that would be awesome

i think that would be awesome honestly i i would love to do that song at some point it's in my and i'm not as

big a soundgarden fan as you guys i mean like i love them but that song i think i'd put in my list of like

Perfect Songs. I love Down on the Upside, too, actually. I always love albums that come after the big one. It's got similar tones, but it's a little bit different. They try something a little bit different. They don't want to do the same thing again, so they change it up. I think there's some gems in there that kind of get overlooked.

because it's after the big record and it's when they all hated each other yes the tension yeah yeah another obscure one i don't know how obscure it is but bleed together is a soundgarden track i thought would be a really fun cover yeah you get a lot i mean cold would be a fun one oh right that's got that's got arguably some of the highest notes he ever hit well we'll tune it down so it won't be as hard

Yeah, you'll tune it down to, like, F.

What are you trying to do to go?

You need to do, like, Rhinosaur or something.

That would be a lot easier.

Speaking of tuning, I recently hit Carl.

Carl.

Not Carl.

Sorry.

Didn't hit you, Carl, or hit you up.

I hit up Trevor asking about the Evertune bridge.

Oh, yeah.

And I purchased one.

We're still trying to assemble this guitar.

The bridge is...

Are you doing it yourself?

Not me.

My dad is, I'm the designer and the money bags. My dad is an engineer, was an engineer, and has been building things with wood his whole life. He's made five guitars so far for me. A couple of them in the background here. That zebra-striped one in the corner he did. And I was like, I sent him the plans. I was like, I hear this is complicated. You think you can do it? And he looked at the plans and he's like, yeah, sure, why not? So I dropped the billions of dollars.

that an Evertune bridge costs. And then another like $300 or something like that for the templates. Yeah. And now he's like, yeah, I don't know about this. I love the engineer, though. My dad was the same when I told him about it. He's an engineer, too, or was also retired. And he first thing he's like, would you let me take this apart? Yeah, because it's like it's like layered, apparently. It's like stepped.

And so he's trying to figure it out. He's having issues with the bridge impeding upon the pickup space. And I'm like, I think it goes under the pickups. It does. It kind of like, yeah. I've had a couple of mine retrofitted and the shops I've gone to have been very verbal, like, we'll do this, but we hate doing this. Yeah. It's a lot of work. Yeah. Well, if he can't figure it out, I'll just get a different bridge and I'll take that and one of my other guitars.

in somewhere and have them do it just so that i can have one because you know warned once you do it man i did it i bought a prs that had it just because i was like my the guys in nevoria had rated about it and i was like oh shit this is the greatest thing ever and i've since then retrofitted three other guitars with it because it changed my life yeah yeah i'm building a seven string i've never even played a seven string but he was just sort of like what don't we have and i'm like well i get like every

Every guitar Known to Man. There's only like 10 of them behind me, but

I was like, I don't have a 7-string, and so I'm going for like

a Strat-style 7-string with an Evertune bridge

and, I don't know, just like

high-end cool stuff, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

But it all kind of revolves around the bridge, so we'll see what happens.

Well, good luck. I hope you get to it, because I think you will absolutely love it, though.

They are brilliant.

Yeah, if it's as good as you say, I could see myself destroying a lot of good guitars. Yep, exactly. That's the thing. I have others that I haven't played in many years, and I'm like, I don't know if I'll ever play them again unless I do this to them. Right. It's addictive. It's like tattoos or heroin. Like you said, it's a little bit expensive to be that addictive. Yeah. All right. Well, I'll let you know how it turns out if it turns out. Great.

Well, I have a couple fun questions. Are we getting to the end, George? Do you still have more questions? I am out of scripted questions, but I can certainly make things up on the fly. So I got a couple fun questions. So the first one, actually, my wife does this like hot wings challenge at work where they interview the staff, but they eat the hot wings. And she had a question on there that I thought was really good. And they were asking him.

And it is, and I tailored it to you guys, what is the one skill that another musician has that you're jealous of? Playing instruments. You know, it's funny, I was going to ask if you played an instrument. No, I don't have to. Your instrument is your voice. It's your voice, that's right. For me, it's, I guess, similar in a way. I wish I could sing better, but that's secondary.

I cannot sing and play at all. I'm terrible at that. I don't know how people do that. I'd love to be able to do better. You're a fine singer, Trevor. If I could do that, if I could sing okay whilst playing, I would be really happy. I can't even talk while playing. If I start talking, my hand is just like, what are you doing? It just stops. Honestly, I don't even know how you remember all the songs to just play them.

at all. It's funny when we talk about having not played live for 15 years or whatever it was for me. That was my biggest fear. Not that I couldn't physically play them for however long, but it was like, can I remember all of this? I was terrified. Turns out you can, but it is not easy. It's like, what's his name? The dude from Winter Sun, Yari, I don't know how to say his name. And he stopped playing live guitar for that reason. He's like, I can't remember all of our material and write new material.

So he's just like, I'm not going to play live anymore. Yeah. I get it. I sympathize. It's a good one. I also want everyone to buy me a sauna. I'll take two. Did he ever get that finished? I know he finished the album, but I don't know if he. Yeah, I don't know. That's a great question. He took a lot of crap for that. If you finish the album, we finish the sauna. Can't finish the album without the sauna. If you don't have your pudding, how can you have any meat? Or if you don't eat your meat, how can you have any meat?

How can you have any pudding? That's how it goes. That's right. All right, what else you got, Markson? Yeah, and then the last question I had was, because George is not forthcoming, what kind of special perks does George get for putting you two guys together? Yeah, I'd like to know that, too. Now I feel like this is like a subtle way of shaming us for not giving him some sort of finder's fee. The silence is deafening. No.

Just the fact that it worked out is all I need. In fact, it's more than I could have ever hoped. I was like, you guys are like peanut butter and jelly from the look of it. And that's just awesome. I was going to say you could go to, what is it, blastbeats.us and buy a signed copy of the record and then you'll be one of 19 people that have one. If I buy two, I could be two of 20.

That's right.

Now I'm trying to think, though. Did I give you a shout-out in the liner notes? I don't remember. I feel like I might have.

There's a shout-out to George on the press release, for sure. I saw it.

Oh, really? I did not know that.

Yeah, yeah.

Did I get the press release?

I don't know, George. You don't really look at those too much.

I've not been looking at them as much as I used to now.

No, the press release is good because they actually talked about individual songs and stuff on it.

It was pretty thorough. And then you're on there. And I was like, where did that come from? We'll send a printed frame or a copy for you to frame. Oh. I'd like to see it. Asher is who we worked with for it. Oh, Asher? Okay. I haven't seen anything from him lately. He might have dropped me. Oh. What'd you do? Well, I don't respond to many of them anymore.

For a while they just drop you. So. I'm on most of them now. Yeah. I got one from Metal Blade today. Which is occasional. But it was an interesting. I got the Transformers Metal soundtrack. But I can only listen to it. I didn't get the actual MP3s. I heard that was coming out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I read the decibel. I was very confused. I never saw the movie. I was just a little too old.

for that when that first came out the soundtrack is legendary for the movie you got the touch especially so yeah that's the first song on there and um so they did a like an anniversary version of the soundtrack but they got different metal musicians to play on the songs and you know they had sort of a metal edge yeah original soundtrack but now it's a little heavier it's not funny i remember a weird connection there when we were kids there was a contest

when that came out and we entered and my brother won a seven inch single of that song um and i

remember that was like that's the only thing i remember ever winning in our entire lives but i got like a

bumper sticker and he got that seven inch and i was like holy crap we won yeah i once won a year supply of

diapers from the march of dimes wow i could use like adult sized or like child kids kids stuff i just like just draw again

I don't need that and I was young I think I was maybe 12 okay did not need that in fifth grade I was the kid that guessed the number of jelly beans and got the thing of jelly beans that's the only thing I've ever won but I'm impressed it's pretty good yeah well we're all winners tonight because we have what have you won Carl we need to know if you want something I won last place in a golf tournament

I won first place because I was the only one in my division. I was like, you know, young, young. I hope you weren't the only one in yours, Carl. No. There were so many people, but we got dead last. That's an achievement. I like to think it was because we were the only honest team. The truth is we sucked at golf. Last time I played golf, I got the golf cart stuck in the sand trap.

Do you like golf, Carl? I love golf. You do? I like driving around in the cart. You basically just walk and then hit something and then drive. Sometimes it goes the way you want it to go. Sometimes it goes sideways. My dad is a big golfer. He played in the Senior Open in 2003. Not bad. Carl, you need to record vocals in a golf cart.

I mean, I'm sure I could. This rig is very portable. I feel like we need to do like a whole Happy Gilmore themed video now. Yeah, that would be great. It's just like driving the car. It's got to be like the most brutal song though. Yeah, we'll do it for Sentenced to Rot. That's the name. But you guys got to get the whole like golf attire and everything. Oh yeah, no, it's got to be like

I have tons of golf attire. I play golf. Poorly. Is it, you know, like, what's the word? Ironically bad golf attire? Always. Like, all golf attire is ironically bad. Well, some of it's more neutral. You see what I wear regularly. Yeah. This is not the guy to ask about fashion.

That's why you're not welcome back to most of them. They all let me back. That's the thing. I've never been kicked out of a single place and I don't know how. I mean, I swear people have seen my testicles. Yeah. Well, that just reminded me of the last season of the boys. Oh, yeah. That's a good tagline for something. Even if we can see your testicles.

Also friends. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Also friends. It all comes down to friends. Yeah. Wow. Anything else, Marcus? I think I'm good. This is great. I love catching up with you guys and such an awesome record. Really happy that you've come together and it seems like it's going to be a great partnership with you and the rest of the band too. So, and hope you get to play live near me and George. Yeah. That'd be fun. Yes. It's definitely on the to-do list.

And again, because four-fifths of the band are East Coast, that's where it's going to be. It makes a lot more sense for me to go out there than drag them out here. That's the idea. If we can get this EP done and on its way, we'll try to get some shows going. I was actually hoping to come out your way this summer. My brother-in-law lives in LA. Oh, yeah. And so we come out there once in a while. And I just recently, for the Stairway to 11 podcast that I do with John and Jay and TR,

We did a documentary episode and one of the documentaries I watched for it was Norman's Rare Guitars, which I'm sure you're familiar with. Sure. I've got a shirt sitting out there in the closet. Yeah. And after after drying all my tears from watching this documentary, I was like, we're going there. Do it. Make the pilgrimage. I'm like, you know, I bought I bought that 355 right there in Austin at a cool like Austin guitar shop.

I was like, I gotta go to L.A. and go to Norman's and buy a guitar. Gotta do it, man. So that is my bucket list. So if we do come out there, I'll mention it and maybe we can hook up. Please do, that'd be great. Maybe you can go and stop me from doing anything stupid. I don't know about that. I might be the bad influence. I was gonna say, or you might influence me to do bad things. Yeah, exactly. So. Oh my gosh. All right, well, just sort of a wrapping up question.

Is there anything going on that we haven't covered yet? Like, you know, do you have any shows thought out? Or is there, you know, I know you're working on other music, working on EPs. Is there anything going on that we haven't asked you about that is going on that you should mention? Or are we just so damn thorough? Yeah, go. No, I think we were pretty thorough today. All right. Yeah, we just, I mean, I guess I can mention we just had a lyric.

video for the harvest came out yesterday or monday what was it on a heavy vlog is heavy

premiered that so check that out we're still promoting the record it's only been out for

two and a half months yeah so i'm just trying to get it out to people and it's harder than ever so

you know anyone here's you get you get the big pop at the beginning and then everything tapers off

because you know oversaturation exists yep and the algorithm is just yeah well i'm going to be

Picking Up The Flag for sure and championing it as hard as I can. Is it the best place to get it on Bandcamp? Yeah, Bandcamp's great. Like Carl said, there are signed copies on Blast Beats, a handful of those, but yeah, Bandcamp is the place to go. Or if you're in Southern California, Radiation Records in Anaheim has it. Oh, cool. Very cool. Nice. Awesome, boys. But yeah, thanks for having us on. Yeah, thanks for coming. I'm sorry it took us a little while to work it out, but I'm glad we did.

Yeah, likewise. And looking forward to the EP. Yeah, me too. I'm excited. I think it's going to be right. And it's going to be the first one that features like the whole new band. New drummer, new bassist, new guitar. So yeah. Do you have any timeline for when that's going to happen? When it's going to drop? Let's see. We're really just waiting on bass to be wrapped up. Frank's working on that. So I'll have that. So ideally get it mixed in the next couple months. We're trying to just figure out the release plan for it. But I'd like

to see something come out in the fall, ideally. We'll see. I think I'm going to do one of these where I would like to do digital release and then a physical release later to coincide with the tour kind of thing. Excellent. I look forward to the physical releases. Yes, as do I. But they're expensive, so. They cost way too much. Spread them out a little bit. Yeah. The last physical release cost me 18 years. Did you impregnate someone?

Oh, wait, you did. I have a nine-month-old. 17 and counting, then. Achievement unlocked. That's right. And what a cute little fella he is, too. Oh, he's the best. Yeah. Yeah, congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. It's fun. Do you play him metal? Yeah. Yeah, he screams just like I do. Nice.

So we got a backup when Carl wears out. Yeah. Yeah. Bring in the Carl clone. That would be pretty awesome. Yeah. Right. Oh, I can't wait for him to start like actually talking so I can tell him to keep doing that. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Well, Trevor, you could put him talking as a child and Will would hate that as well. Yes. Put all the things into Ash and Horde that Will hates. Yeah. Can you guys give me a list?

Like, I'll start making sure we incorporate all those things into the record. Yeah, you know, one of the notes that I wrote that I didn't really find a way to incorporate was that I was basically just going to be like, you know, this album is freaking amazing. And the ending part was, it's like you said, forget Will, I'm writing this album for George. That's exactly it. You know, honestly, you're not totally wrong. Will gets Evhoria.

We use zero clean belt. He's about that. Passion horde is yours. You put us together, it's yours. All right. That is my claim to fame now. All right. We got to make a doom record. Well, apparently we need to do something doomy for you. I like doom or post-metal. Those are probably my two favorite things. Let's do a post-metal doom record. All right. I like that. Ideas are spinning. 20-minute songs. Let's go. Yeah, we'll just do one 20-minute song and be done. No, that's an EP. I don't want to.

All right, boys. We'll have a good night.

I'm sure we'll talk to you again soon.

All right. Appreciate you guys.

Thank you. Talk to you soon.

Bye.