27 May 2023

4 mins read

Photography:

Written by: Glenn van den Bosch

what's happening with Twenty One Pilots

Tales Of The Clique: The Fan Who Made A Life-Size Ned

In 2019, as a high school graduation gift to herself, a twenty one pilots fan and creative mind Lindsay Palmer created the iconic Ned costume. Little did they know that this costume would become a significant part of their life and pave the way for unexpected experiences. What began as a passion project soon turned into a symbol of resilience, creativity, and the power of community.

The Rise of #NedLives and Ambitions to Take Ned on Tour: As the fan project #NedLives gained traction, the individual’s ambitions grew. They dreamt of taking Ned to a twenty one pilots show, hoping for opportunities to showcase their creation to a wider audience. However, challenges arose as their attempts to perform publicly were consistently shut down over the next three years. The growing uncertainty surrounding Ned’s future and the increasing maintenance requirements began to take a toll.

As to what twenty one pilots mean to Palmer, she shared the following:
“Not to wax poetic, but twenty one pilots, to me, is the people. The music begs the question, “Is anyone out there?” God is what’s out there. And He gives us everyone who has helped us at some point in our lives. Family, friends, neighbors, even complete strangers. “We’re twenty one pilots and so are you” points to us as the broken people, nevertheless fearfully and wonderfully made with the duty to serve our neighbor. With this God-given purpose, we are not alone. I would not call twenty one pilots a Christian band by any means, but as a Christian, this is how I have interpreted their message.“

In 2022, hope was reignited as Palmer secured a ticket to an Icy Tour show in Kansas City, MO. They envisioned this as Ned’s grand debut. However, these plans were dashed when security declined permission to bring the costume inside. Yet, with the support of Palmer’s friends, Moon Hruska and Jessica Landrey, a meet-and-greet with Ned eventually took place a couple of blocks away from the venue that twenty one pilots played that night. The encounter with the fans, known as the Clique, made all the waiting and effort worthwhile. The joy and smiles captured in the photos taken with Ned truly encapsulated the essence of the journey.

Recognizing the significance of Ned and his connection to the twenty one pilots fan community, Palmer embarked on a mission to rehome the beloved creation. Their efforts extended far and wide, reaching out to the Clique (the fanbase) and even exploring the furry fandom. However, finding the right custodian for Ned proved to be a challenging task, as Palmer sought to ensure Ned would be cherished and cared for by someone who truly understood his significance.

Driven by determination to find a worthy home for Ned, Lindsay Palmer took an unconventional route and attempted to contact twenty one pilots directly. They reached out to the band, expressing the desire to offer Ned as a gift. Despite best efforts, these initial attempts yielded no results. However, unbeknownst to her, fate had something extraordinary in store. In a twist of fate, an unexpected email arrived in the inbox a few months after the memorable meet-and-greet with Ned. It was Cameo Carlson, who had taken note of their previous communication. Lindsay Palmer had previously reached out to mtheory, a management company associated with twenty one pilots, seeking to connect and present Ned as a gift. This email served as a beacon of hope, reigniting the possibility of finding Ned’s perfect home.

Shortly after the email from Cameo Carlson, Element1 Music & Management, representing twenty one pilots, responded, expressing their enthusiasm to welcome Ned into their fold. Lindsay Palmer was overjoyed to learn that the band would be delighted to have Ned as part of their world. A plan was set in motion, and a meeting was scheduled for July of 2023. The long-awaited reunion between Ned and twenty one pilots was finally on the horizon.

As for Lindsay Palmer, she has transitioned into freelance work. They have several client projects lined up and exciting personal endeavours, including creating a mask for the band Raccoon Tour and designing a new costume for herself. Additionally, Palmer is preparing for a two-year contract as Bruiser the Bulldog for the NAIA division at Concordia University, NE.

Check out some photos of Lindsay Palmer and the extraordinary Ned costume right below.

12 May 2023

19 mins read

Photography:

Written by: Glenn van den Bosch

what's happening with Burial Clouds

INTERVIEW: Forming, Debut Album ‘Last Days of a Dying World’ & More With Burial Clouds

Prior to the release of their debut album Last Days of a Dying World, we sat down with Burial Clouds‘ Michael Malarkey and Aaron Matthews to discuss the forming of the band, the joining of Malarkey and Matthews and of course the story surrounding the anticipated album. Today, the album has dropped. Get the story of the album right here and stream Last Days of a Dying World right after!

Strife: First and foremost how are you guys doing today?

Michael: Pretty good. Spring break so got the kids at home. We just finished playing our first shows which felt great in Portland and Seattle with Hell and Glass Goat and they were great. We had been itching to get this engine moving and the record’s coming out May 12th on Church Road. So it’s all picking off.

Strife: How were those shows?

Aaron: They were good. I think that you’re always nervous when you’re performing for the first time in front of a crowd. We’ve played smaller shows as an instrumental band in the past to shake our nerves out. But then when we had these most recent shows with Mike it was okay this is the real deal now”. It was cool, I felt the initial rush of anxiety subsided and then we continued to perform, I think it went really well.

Michael: Yeah, two sold-out crowds as well which is nice. Bunch of people, most of which probably had never heard of us before. It’s nice to play to an audience of attentive people. And as Aaron said before I cut him off, we set off the smoke alarm in the Seattle show. It was beeping throughout our last song. We had a little too much mood going on.

Aaron: I had bought a cheap fog machine off the internet and I thought there was no way that this thing was gonna create a significant amount of smoke. And we ended up not only smoking out the venue that we were performing in but the empty venue next door and setting off the fire alarm but interestingly its beeping went with the rhythm of my delay pedal. So it just didn’t make sense but people thought it was part of the show. But I just unplugged it and luckily it was at the end of the show. Hopefully, they’ll remember us as Burial Clouds because we buried them in a cloud of smoke.

Strife: You mentioned that the first song that you guys released, Cloudsplitter, that the idea came right around the George Floyd protests but that’s been a while. How long has this been in the works?

Michael: Burial Clouds was an instrumental band before I joined the band. And so Matt, who’s the main songwriter and guitarist, wrote this album as essentially an instrumental piece. And when we got on board we rerecorded it, I recorded vocals on top of it.

So these songs had been kicking up for several years, just not in the new incarnation of them, with vocals on them. What was cool about writing for this project, he had these song titles already and he said that I could change them if I wanted to. I said I’d keep them and I’d work from them as a brief and I’ve never really worked like that before. I always just write from my own intuition and whatever comes up naturally when I’m doing my solo stuff. But with this, it was having an artistic brief saying here’s the general backdrop. And then I coloured in whatever happy little trees came to mind. It’s Bob Ross right there, legend. It was a fun process and we all gelled really well. Aaron and I have actually known each other since we were kids. So I joined, I was doing demos with Matt and around that time he was looking to audition a second guitar player for live stuff as we were working on this record.

And Aaron and I had been in a band just straight outta high school. We both grew up in Yellow Springs Ohio and it was kind of a punk metal-inspired screamo-type band. And over Covid, Aaron and I were connecting and we wanted to do some heavy music again. I definitely wanted to scream again, Covid made me wanna scream. We’d sent some stuff back and forth. So I put Aaron’s name forward and it clicked. So it’s pretty crazy that the two of us are in a band together after not being in a band for 20-some years and that was the first band we were in.

Aaron: We’ve been texting back and forth about heavy music for years and during lockdown I joked about wanting to get the band back together as we were tossing ideas back and forth for a while and then just one day, I get this email from him telling me about this band called Burial Clouds which I had already known about through a Craigslist ad. And I just thought people were gonna jump on this band to play the guitar for them so I’m not even gonna bother. But then when Mike sent me this thing I was like “well shit, okay, let’s give it a try.” and so I auditioned and landed that and we’ve been a band since then. This project was made in isolation with Matt, who’s not here right now. He wrote it during lockdown of 2020 and it kind of became this fishing lure that he’d send out to people. But as soon as Mike got on there and started demoing and then I got on there and started learning the songs, we quickly within a couple of months recorded the vocals proper, then mixed the album and did the artwork and all that stuff. Then started sending it out to different record labels and shopping it around. So it’s been a process of a lot of different parts working independently of each other and then when we get the opportunities, we’ll just coalesce into a Voltron and then just kind of move forward and try and get this show on the road.

Strife: So when did you guys join? What year was it?

Michael: A year and a half ago is when I started demoing the songs. Cause it was about a year ago to this day that I went and recorded them in a cabin in Portland with the guys.

Aaron: February of 2022. Matt had spent two years trying to assemble band members and then February of 2022 is when I got in the band which means that probably January of 2022 Mike was laying down the demo tracks.

Michael: Which we hope to release one day cause they were fun. I did them over top of the original instrumental record, so there’s a slightly different chaotic sound to them. So I hope they do get to see the light of day one day just for fun. Even if it’s a band camp special edition or something like that.

Aaron: There’s something very special about that raw version of the songs that I’m quite fond of. And down the line you can look back at them and be see where this thing started. Because some of them are just Mike not even articulating words. He’s just making sounds. And then later on version four or whatever it actually turns into words which is pretty cool.

Strife: You have some themes going on in the songs and try to shed a light on the human side of political and social problems. What other themes can we expect throughout the album?

Michael: The cover image is inspired by the Catacomb Saints. Aaron can tell you more about that. But I think this as a metaphor, which he’ll explain in a minute, kind of sums up at least part of the thematic side of the content lyrically: the decay of empire and greed.

Aaron: Matt has this art book at his apartment. And in this book, it’s a coffee table book of all of these corpses that are blinged out. It’s very grotesque in which all this death and decay is surrounded by opulent crazy wealth. So the story is that it was propaganda for the church and that they wanted to parade these saints around but they didn’t have the bodies to do it.

So instead they just took the bodies of the poor, just dug them out of their graves and then bejewelled them and covered them in lace and filigree and flowers and then sent them out to different churches and each one of these nameless corpses became a different saint.

So that’s where some of that original imagery came from of wanting to incorporate that because we were looking at the way that the album represents this big division between wealth and class and life and death and decay and musically, we go into things feeling a certain way and thinking about things a certain way. And then Michael also ran with those ideas and thematically all got tied up into this theme of the last days of a dying world and we wanted our album to be reflected of that. I think one of the things that I connect a lot with the band is that we play heavy music, philosophically we’re a doom band right? But we indulge in a lot of our different influences and one of the things that is inherent in heavy music is being angry. And as I got older, I’m 40 now, I’ve realized that I’m not as angry as I thought I was. I was actually a lot more emotionally hurt than I really thought I was. And we wanted to be able to have this music as kind of a vehicle for expressing that emotional hurt instead of just being “fuck fuck fuck fuck kill”. Those are my words. But it just seemed to be more constructive to wear our hearts on our sleeves in regards to that stuff.

Michael: And I wanted to have it be a kinda collective thing because a lot of my solo stuff is first-person narrative, it’s me and my crazy dreams or whatever. But this, I don’t even think I used the word “I”. And I feel the music was inspirational in that too because it’s so epic and cinematic that I felt that it garnered having a cinematic universal poetic thing over top of it. I likt that there’s varying styles within it, that’s fun to me. It’s not just straight down the barrel and I initially thought I’d just probably scream over top of all of it but incorporating the singing too, I think makes it quite a unique record in the genre.

Aaron: Beirut Shores definitely reflects the more cinematic aspect of our sound.

Michael: It was written after the Beirut blast, obviously, a few years back but I took that and filtered it through my own interpretation of what that means to me as well. I was actually born in Beirut. And when I was initially scoping this band out the fact that they had a song called Beirut Shores was actually part of the reason why I hit them up.

It’s quite an eclectic piece, the whole record, each song takes you on a different type of journey.

Aaron: That’s what I enjoy most about it, the album has an arc in its trajectory but each song is independent of it. It’s a cohesive vision but we jump around genres not in a crazy way but you’ll just have to listen to it.

Strife: You said it’s a whole cinematic piece and there are a lot of influences and obviously the first song is a very lengthy song, approaching the 10-minute mark. Since the album has “only” five songs, are all the songs about that length?

Michael: Track number 3, Seawall, is more of a barn burner and that’s a shorter song, about four minutes long. That’s our shortest song. The longest is 12 minutes probably.

Aaron: We’re definitely in the 8 to 12-minute range song. But we also don’t entirely follow a linear song structure. We come back to ideas but we definitely don’t do verse/chorus/verse. It’s such a trajectory. In fact, when we used to play our initial shows, we would have elements where the music would reach a point where it’s chill. People thought it would be the end of the song. But then we got six minutes left. And then after four minutes they would clap again and it would still not be over.

Michael: But some of the newer stuff we’re writing is shorter too. We’re not stuck on a particular formula. So it’s whatever’s interesting in the writing process. We’re kind of running with it at the moment. So I mean there’s one of the newer songs called Ash and Altar that we’re working on which I think is a killer track, it’s just a beast. It’s fun to be able to just have no rules and see what happens. It’s freeing.

Strife: Are there any bands that kind of inspired that “no rules having”?

Aaron: I think that growing up in the nineties you have all these influences.

Michael: You don’t even know what they are, sometimes they’re just so ingrained.

Aaron: There’s a lot of grunge influence but for me personally I’m basically inspired by music. We’re trying to be inspired rather than emulate other stuff because when you just try and emulate it’s gonna be derivative. But when we take our inspirations from all over the place which has roots in grunge music, Tool and Alice In Chains, but then also progressive music like Godspeed You! Black Emperor for that cinematic vibe and then things like ISIS and Neurosis, then it’s just that we like stuff that sounds like this and we like playing in ways that sound like this.

Michael: It’s all stuff we grew up on so it’s just in the bones I suppose.

Aaron: I’d love to see a Venn diagram of all the bands we actually listen to.

Strife: Has everything about the record been done in-house?

Michael: No, we did it ourselves. We thought we’d do the first one ourselves and we’ll see if we end up working with somebody for record number two.

But that was part of the process, getting to know each other as well because obviously I live in Atlanta and they all live in Portland and I think that was a part of the process of bringing us together, mixing it together and shooting notes back and forth.

And it was a very democratic set-up, the writing, recording and the way we kind of seem to operate. We feel like we’ve all got equal footing in the band and everyone’s opinion matters. And that’s really important to me and I think to everyone else in the band to a degree as well.

Aaron: We have this thing where we’re gonna bust balls for a minute but we know we love each other. And then we start talking about some weird shit about our songwriting, it’s funny.

Strife: Can we expect some visuals surrounding the new songs as well?

Michael: We finished recording the video for Beirut Shores which is absolutely incredible, what I’ve seen so far. We’ve shot that and we’re editing it in the house as well. And we’ve got this dancer, Marina, who’s an incredible artist in her own way who has been happy to share her talents with us and is the star of the video essentially and I just think it’s a beautiful piece and it accompanies the song in a brilliant way.

So you’ll be able to have at least a visual aspect that may be already out by the time this comes out. (indeed, it can be found here).

Aaron: We’ve shot music videos for Cloud Splitter which some of the visuals that have been shown but we haven’t released it proper. But as fans of music and film and different art, we want those things to be different extensions of the band. So definitely being able to incorporate a visual element as well either through our artsy little music videos or stage projection, that’s where we would like to take it.

Michael: The first shows we just want to get things going but eventually we do wanna have a little bit more of an artistic live thing. Where it’s not necessarily about the band but it’s about the experience you’re having.

Aaron: The other thing about the music videos is, we’re in a band that has long songs and the attention span of a lot of people is short and as someone who tries to make music that we would listen to, we also make music videos that we would also watch. We decided we don’t want to have a 10-minute video of just us assholes sitting around playing our instruments. That would be boring as hell. So if we’re gonna make a video for an eight-plus minute song, we might as well make it worth sitting down and actually watching it and most people probably won’t get through the entire thing but for those who are into it and will recognize the work that’s put into it in the symbolism that is also put into it, I think that it’ll be appreciated.

Strife: Do you guys have anything in the works for Europe?

Michael: We’re playing Arc Tangent Festival in Bristol in the UK in August. That’s our first European festival and we’re kind of trying to focus that as our first expedition across the pond and do some warmup shows. We’ll just see how it goes from there. And also the record will be out for a few months by then and we’ll be able to gauge what people’s interest is and the response to it. Not that we care really but it’ll make a difference as to what we’re booked on or not. But at the moment we’re trying to do some last-minute planning for our album release shows in May.

Aaron: So probably just a small West coast jaunt, as many days as we can make it happen.

Michael: But yeah we all have different schedules and things so it’ll be about when we can actually get together and do stuff, but since it’s early days we’re just gonna get the record out, do these initial shows, put our focus on the UK stuff and see how the year plays out.

Strife: Michael, how hard is it to just keep all of these balls in the air?

Michael: It’s definitely gotten harder but just because I have kids, it would be pretty easy if I didn’t but I love them, I’m not gonna get rid of them. But yeah it’s one of these things where I just go where the interest is. And if something’s really exciting me at the time I’ll roll with that for a bit. And since I’m independent as far as my solo stuff goes I don’t have to be on anyone’s schedule but my own. And I’m working on my next solo record right now and that should be done by the summer. But just kind of trying to do stuff when I can and for these shows in June I’m just opening for Lera Lynn who’s a fantastic songwriter out of Nashville. And we did a Halloween show recently and got on really well. I’m gonna try to build a few more dates into the time I’m in the UK. I’ll be there for a little bit in June.

Strife: If you had to pick one moment from the whole process of creating this record, what would you pick as the most positive experience?

Aaron: I would say that there’s been a couple different things but there was a time when we rented out this Airbnb to do the vocals and I think that Matt was clicking away on his computer, Mike‘s in a corner yelling at a blanket. We’ve been listening to this music for so long and we’re sitting there and we just look at each other, Flynn and I are looking at each other and the hair is raised on our arms because we were like this is where it’s at. And so that’s for me one of those moments that we know we’re really on to something special. That means a lot to us.

Michael: Yeah, definitely the recording and getting it done because it was a long process in the end, being able to make that happen. But I think for me,the first song that I demoed for Matt was Ether Fields which is still probably my favorite track on the record but I remember recording that and finished recording that and the end of that song is just heavy and super intense. And I remember listening back to my first demo of that and having chills myself knowing he’s gonna love this unless I’m completely insane but I’m only half insane I think.

But just pressing send and having that feeling of having done something that you’re proud of and think means something is always a cool moment. And being able to share this stuff live and finding out what it feels like to present this live because it’s a different experience right? When you have to actually physically share something in a space with people. yeah. The performance of it is part of that, of why we are doing this.

Aaron: And to see the heads bobbing and people vibing in the crowd for the first time was a moment like “wow okay, we’re not in the practice space anymore. We’re actually making it happen and people are feeling it.” And that was really validating.

Last Days of a Dying World is out now. Stream the brand new album right here.

8 May 2023

1 min read

Photography: Eva van den Bosch

Written by: Glenn van den Bosch

what's happening with Sum 41

Sum 41 To Disband Following Upcoming Album & To Be Announced World Tour

Sad news coming from the Sum 41 camp. After 27 years, Sum 41 have decided to call it a day.

Fortunately for Sum 41 fans everywhere, the band will still be releasing their double album Heaven :x: Hell, and have announced that a new world tour will be announced as soon as possible.

Sum 41 have garnered quite a few highlights throughout the years. They are known for their high-energy music, catchy hooks, and irreverent humour. They gained mainstream success in the early 2000s with hits like Fat Lip, In Too Deep, and Still Waiting, and have continued to release music and tour to this day. Sum 41 are also known for their live performances, which are often characterized by their energetic and frenzied stage presence.

Sum 41 will be on the road in Europe and the US this summer/fall, on which they will be playing festivals and club shows. Make sure to catch their set, as it might be one the last chances you’ll get.

pic.twitter.com/WRuKkfnvpe
— Sum 41 (@Sum41) May 8, 2023

4 May 2023

1 min read

Photography:

Written by: Glenn van den Bosch

what's happening with Bring Me The Horizon

Bring Me The Horizon Release New Single ‘LosT’

Today’s a good day, as Bring Me The Horizon are back with a new single for you! The new track LosT is part of the globally acclaimed Post Human series and follows the singles DiE4u and ‘Strangers‘, which have been streamed over 150 million times to date.

LosT comes along with a cinematic music video, directed by Jensen Noen. The video, filmed in LA, is a shocking, medical-inspired Gorefest, starring frontman Oli Sykes and Kevin from American Pie.

Stream the brand new single via Spotify below and stream the new music video right below.

5 May 2023

4 mins read

Photography: Eva van den Bosch

Written by: Glenn van den Bosch

what's happening with Sabaton

CONCERT REVIEW: Sabaton Play Biggest Dutch Show To-Date

Heavy metal band Sabaton recently played their biggest show in the Netherlands, together with BABYMETAL & Lordi as part of their absolutely massive ‘The Tour To End All Tours‘ Tour.

Our night would start with the eccentric Finnish band Lordi, who are known for their over-the-top costumes and theatrics on stage. But, as it turned out, the wild theatrics and over-the-top stage show, the musicianship of the band was undeniable. The guitar riffs were razor-sharp, the drumming thunderous, and the basslines groovy and infectious. The lead singer’s vocals were exceptional and the crowd was already hugely present, even if Lordi was the first act to play.

Following Lordi, Japanese kawaii metal group BABYMETAL took the stage. BABYMETAL’s unique style has garnered them a large and dedicated fanbase both in Japan and around the world. They have performed at some of the world’s biggest music festivals, including Download Festival and Rock on the Range, and have shared the stage with notable metal bands such as Metallica and Slayer. BABYMETAL’s live show is a sight to behold, one of a kind, with focus on a dance choreography that blends metal with J-pop, all the while the musicians delivering heavy riffs and pounding drums. While the group only performed 7 songs, they have managed to feature 4 albums on the setlist, including the popular self-titled album, as well as latest effort THE OTHER ONE.

While it’s not necessarily relevant for fans of the band, it is important for us to note that Sabaton and their crew were one of the most friendly we have ever witnessed. The photographers got a proper and often humorous briefing from the tour manager, who also made sure they were well taken care of throughout the show. Big props on that front. Now, on to more pressing matters. Onstage, Sabaton delivered a high-energy performance that left the crowd of about 17.000 fans completely enamoured. From the opening chords to the final note, Sabaton brought their signature brand of power metal to life with confidence and precision. Fans were treated to a selection of classic Sabaton hits, as well as songs from their newest album “The War To End All Wars.”

Sabaton’s stage setup at live shows is known for being epic and immersive. The band often incorporates military props as part of their stage design, adding to the overall theme of their music. This show was no different, with a tank, actors acting out various historical themes, gasmasks and the display of an aeroplane being featured on the stage throughout the band’s extensive set. They also use a lot of pyrotechnics and special effects to enhance their performance and engage the audience. Sabaton’s stage presence and energy, combined with their impressive stage setup, create an unforgettable live experience for their fans. The Amsterdam show lived up to fans’ expectations, with their largest crowd of 17.000 fans enjoying the aforementioned epic and immersive performance to date.

Check out some shots from all 3 bands on this fine night in the galleries below and make sure to catch this awesome bill on the road if you have the opportunity to!

Lordi:

BABYMETAL:

Sabaton:

10 May 2023

1 min read

Photography: Eva van den Bosch

Written by: Glenn van den Bosch

what's happening with Girlfriends

INTERVIEW: Upcoming EP ‘Over My Dead Body’, Touring With Avril Lavigne & Much More With Girlfriends

Pop-punk duo Girlfriends are quickly making a name for themselves in the music scene with their high-energy, infectious sound. Comprised of Travis Mills (vocals/guitar) & Nick Gross (drums) the band has been praised for their catchy hooks, relatable lyrics, and dynamic live performances. With their debut album Girlfriends released in 2020, the duo has been gaining fans all over the world and is poised to take the pop-punk genre to new heights. In this interview, we’ll talk to the band about their journey so far, the massive European tour with Avril Lavigne and their upcoming EP Over My Dead Body.

Strife: First and foremost: how are you guys doing?

Travis: Excellent, man. We just finished soundcheck and everything sounds incredible.

Nick: Yeah. We got a secret surprise tonight during the Avril set, which would be pretty fun. The first night was Travis getting kicked in the face for his birthday. The second night is going to be a little different, but it’ll be fun. Good night one for sure.

Strife: What was the first show like? We can imagine it being kind of insane.

Travis: It was my birthday. It was the first night of the tour, and it was our first time playing Europe ever as a band. So just a lot of firsts and like to walk out on stage and there’s 10,000 people is pretty surreal. It was insane.

Nick: Yeah, it was awesome. It felt like 20 years of building up to a show of that magnitude. With the kind of people that we’re playing with and this rad circle of music stuff we grew up on, back when we were teenagers kind of coming in. Now getting to go overseas to play shows in different countries and then you add the layer of Avril and all that. It’s been pretty exciting.

Strife: You guys have been in the industry for a while. You’re seniors, so to speak. Is there a particular artist that you’ve toured with that really inspired you?

Travis: I don’t know about people that we’ve necessarily toured with, but the Blink live album is one of the best live albums I’ve ever heard. The Mark, Tom and Travis Show and like, I know that record front to back. I know every kind of break. I know every banter in between songs because when I was a kid, I used to lay down in my room and look up at my Blink poster when I was falling asleep and put that record on and pretend I was like going on tour with them. And it was crazy because after Paris, we all went out and we were with Avril and Phem and we put that record on and we were just listening to it and quoting it. And it’s just wild, it’s like a full circle moment.

Strife: You guys have released two albums in the three years that you’ve been a band. That’s quite a lot. We’re on 39 songs, including the most recent release, Life’s A Brittany. Can you tell us something about that?

Travis: We started the band in December of 2019. That’s when the idea of girlfriends formed. We got into a studio and then the world shut down and we kind of used it to our advantage. Obviously it was horrible that no one was able to leave and stuff like that. But in a way, it was a blessing for us because it forced us to really go inward and focus on who we were as a band and what we wanted to sound like. And we got to take something really negative and come out on the other side with an album and start releasing music that people connected to during a really dark time. And Nick and I just haven’t stopped.

We were one of the first bands to go back on tour. We were kind of like the science experiment, August of 2021, no one really knew what tours were going to be like and how to do it.

Nick: We were doing that one show, I think in June 2021, in that downtown warehouse in LA.

Travis: Our first show was in this underground warehouse in June of 2021, super weird.

Nick: We played it 2:00 in the morning. It was really weird, sweaty.

Travis: It was crazy, but it was cool. We just made the best out of our situation, when the world kind of changed, we just adapted. And I think that’s what Nick and I both do really well in our personal lives too, and stuff outside of the band. It makes sense that we did it with girlfriends and yeah, we’ve just been focused on making music. I think the songs come first.

Strife: Now that you have to tour again and life is back to normal, is that why this is an EP rather than a full-length?

Nick: It felt too soon to put out a third album and we just wanted to give fans something to have during the cycle of when we’re touring for the next four months and using this year to kind of put out new music that we’re super excited about that we were working on all of last year. I think taking the time to really focus on a potential third album for 2024 after this touring cycle is kind of done for us at the beginning of the year. We’ve worked on a couple of songs with our friend Andrew Goldstein and they turned out really great and we just thought “let’s just put it on an EP”.

Strife: Do you also write on the road or do you keep it very strictly apart?

Travis: We haven’t really on this. We’re only on day two into this, but we were talking about it. We have a lot of touring ahead of us and if we want to start writing songs on the bus, we could bring some stuff back here. But that’s not something we’ve really done in the past. It seems like we make all of our records at people’s houses, which is kind of a throughline that we noticed today, which is cool. We just crash on their couch and make records.

Strife: Speaking of creating music, you’ve worked with John Feldmann in a different capacity, but now he’s also producing your album. What was that like?

Nick: Working with Feldy was another one of those full dream come true things, we always grew up watching that first initial Ooze DVD, the Maybe Memories DVD and watching The Used make that record and Feldmann being such a big part of that first record for that band and to see how that was documented and shown to the world. That was my first introduction to John Feldmann and back in 2018, I would do anything to meet John Feldmann, trying to figure out who was within his circle just to meet him and talk to him.

And I did a first initial phone call with him for a previous band and I was pitching him on a song that we did. And he just shut me down. He said “no, I wouldn’t work on something like this. This isn’t my thing.” And I was so bummed. But then we figured out a way to meet each other through something else and then ended up starting a record label with him, which was just a super cool, surreal kind of a thing because he’s never had a label for himself. He’s always just signed bands to other labels and worked on those projects.

And so when he approached me with the idea with one of his other partners, it was just a cool moment where I was like, “Dude, I would love to do that with you.” And so that was just a surreal thing.

And then I started playing drums a bit with Goldfinger. Travis saw me playing with Goldfinger, I think at a show, he hit me up and said he wanted to start a band in 2019. And then we started our project and Feldmann did the first album right in 2020 with us. So it’s just been a cool universal thing where Feldy just got brought into our world, I think through our energy around wanting to attract that. Seeing that kind of happen was really cool.

Strife: What other band did you have that wasn’t in his corner?

Nick: It was a band called Half The Animal, it was an alternative rock project. But I think the style was just a little bit different than the stuff that he normally likes to work on.

Travis: I worked with Feldy on my solo project, which was crazy, back in 2015 too. That’s right. Which is nuts.

Nick: So he had already been in his universe.

Travis: Then when we started this we were like “let’s work with Feldy.”

Strife: Going through some of your songs, you pointed in the direction that it was created during a very weird time in the world. In the lyrics, you come across as a bit frustrated and angry maybe.

Nick: Why are you so angry, man?

Travis: Dude, I wake up angry. I’m inherently negative. I’m an inherently negative guy, and I have to do a lot of things to get myself out of that. And writing music is one of those things.

Strife: So it’s cathartic? A way to give it a place?

Travis: Yeah, 100%. I think I say things in songs, so I don’t say them in real life. That’s where I can truly just say anything that I really want to. And writing is definitely one of those places that I go to when I’m either in a dark place, in a frustrated place, in a weird place, I can always turn inward and reflect on how and why I’m feeling certain ways. And I think the cool thing about having music as a vehicle to express that is that other people can connect with that as well.

Strife: What kind of other themes can we expect on the upcoming EP?

Travis: Our most recent song, Life’s A Brittany, that’s the most fun that I’ve had writing a song in a really long time because it felt wrong while we were writing it. It was too easy, if that makes sense. It was just something that came out of my mouth, you know? Life’s a bitch, her name is Brittany, like, And I thought sorry, but we can’t say that. And Andrew Goldstein looked back from his chair and was like, “Yeah, you can. Why can’t you say that?” So that’s the song we wrote and we wrote it in like 30 minutes. For me that song is a testament to me getting out of my own way, getting out of my own head and having fun with music, which is why we started making music in the first place.

Strife: You guys have a certain kind of vibe surrounding the artwork as well. Funnily enough, with the Barbie movie coming out.

Travis: Dude, we didn’t plan it. Everyone’s been asking us.

Nick: We didn’t plan it.

Travis: That was like the universe either being like, “you’re in the right place.” The movie didn’t pay us to do this or anything.

Nick: Yeah. All we need now is Margot Robbie to come on our bus for two days and we’ll be all right.

Strife: So how did you come up with the idea of this kind of artwork for this EP?

Travis: There’s a song on the EP too, called Plastic, that kind of feeds into everything. Nick and I wanted to create a world that was cohesive around the music. And we felt like telling the story through inanimate objects was the way to do it. We didn’t want to do another photo-based cover. And so we just started throwing things at the wall and turning us into dolls is what stuck nice.

Strife: You guys are creative, but you’re also business oriented. How do you maintain the balance between the two?

Travis: I don’t think there’s a balance, dude. I mean, Nick has the dude from his company on the bus with us, I’m doing my Apple music shows from the bus. Everything in our lives starts with music and ends with music. It’s just who we are. That’s just inherently who we are as humans and entrepreneurs and musicians and creatives. And I think that’s how it has to be for us to be able to do all this stuff right. If we were to sit here with calendars try to schedule out times and do all this stuff. I don’t know if it would work. A lot of people wouldn’t be able to do what we do. And I think that’s what makes it so cool that we’re able to do what we do.

Nick: I think it’s a kind of personality as well. Not everyone has to feel like they have to do five things at the same time. At least for me and I know for Travis too, we like being busy with different things and having multiple fires happening at the same time and seeing where things can help each other, like his Apple Music Show, helps girlfriends so much. Whenever we release new music and his MTV show influencing stuff that we have going on as a band and just trying to see how our universe of things that we have can help the project. It’s recording at my studio or putting the records out through my label and having the creative freedom to do what we want with that. So it’s cool to see it all work together in the same kind of ecosystem.

Travis: I think, for us too, it’s also being the most unconventional, going against the mold. A lot of people think that if you’re in a band, you’re just going to be wasted all the time and sleep till 3 p.m. and we’re the exact opposite of that.

Nick: Got up at four instead of three.

Travis: But why can’t we show people you don’t have to fit into one box of thing. You can do multiple things and do a really good job at it.

Strife: Does it ever get overwhelming at all when you’re on the road and you don’t have everything?

Travis: Sure, but I mean, people get stressed out driving. You know what I mean? It’s part of life. Life is fucking stressful. We were just talking about this because we chose to do this No one’s forcing us to be here. We get to do this every single day. All these artists that bitch and complain about touring and how hard it is for them, I don’t get it. You literally wanted this your whole entire life. And, now that you have it, you’re complaining about it.

Nick: You gotta figure out a way to make it work. Everything has downfalls, you know? Nothing’s perfect out here, but it’s worth it at the end of the day to play shows.

Travis: The most annoying thing that happened to me today was I had to walk 50ft to go to a shower that wasn’t at my house. There’s definitely far worse things that could be happening. Or maybe I had to sleep in a bunk on a moving vehicle or eat food out of a microwave. But life is very good, right now. I’m not going to complain about it.

Strife: To just stay that humble and grateful, isn’t that hard sometimes?

Travis: Nick and I, this isn’t our first band, you. Life is long and a career span in music is very short. So the fact that we’re able to be here right now, 34 years old, it’s rare, man. There’s so many people that we came up with, touring and stuff, that are out in the real world, not doing music because they had to what society would call grow up. The fact that we get to keep doing this, we’re so incredibly lucky. It’s insane. So I don’t want to fuck this up, you know, we’ll fucking work harder than everybody else. And I think that’s why we’ve been able to have a lot of success for a relatively new band. And I don’t feel like we’re successful. I think we’ve done some cool things, but I want to do more. That’s what motivates us. We just want to fucking help people. People have a connection with the music. We want to break the mold.

Strife: We got a lightning round now. The first one would be: favorite song to play live?

Nick: I’ll go with Jessica.

Travis: I think on this tour it’s a new song, this is the first time that we’ve been playing it. But Brittany is really fun. Jessica and Brittany.

Strife: What band do you listen to most right now in your spare time? Which one is being most played?

Nick: Pierce The Veil. New album.

Travis: Uh, I’m going to go with Drain. They’re a hardcore band from California. They’re about to put out a new record, but I’ve been listening to the first one. It’s called California Curse. It came out in 2020. Army of One’s a really good feel. The whole album is great.

Strife: Artists you’d like to collaborate with as girlfriends?

Travis: Yungblud, I think would be super sick. Yeah, it’d be cool to collaborate with Dom. That’d be awesome.

Nick: I want to do a collaboration with Tame Impala.

Strife: What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?

Travis: Coffee for me.

Nick: Cookies and cream. That’s mine for sure.