SLEEPTALKER explain why the best art comes from life experiences

SPEAKER_01: With uh Friends with Christina and an episode I'm talking with uh called sweet callers of National Tennessee drawing influence or real life trauma and strategy to see and balance it's fine with audience and scroll melodies with technical persistents and sweet talkers merged in 2024 with those babies to full link side greens and quickly established the distinctive identity rooted instincts of green lost reflection and fruit of the 2026 with lost music and release fractured their second collaboration with Soutello and a lot of the emotionally heavy track exploring regret, loss, and fractured relationships.

SPEAKER_01: We're gonna talk about that in this episode and lots of other things that we deep dive into. Get ready and listen loud. She dreads with Rastan and Sleep Talker. What's up, Rock and Metalheads? She shreds with Rassanne here. I can't say my own name. Um, anyways, I am joined with Jamar and Cecil from the five-member group called Sleep Talker. And we're going to talk to them today. They've got a new single out and uh talk about that and talk about the band as they are out of Nashville, Tennessee. So, you guys, thanks so much for joining me today.

SPEAKER_05: Of course. Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_01: Sure, my pleasure. So, Jamar, um, are you the vocalist?

SPEAKER_05: Yes, uh, I do all the singing and the screaming.

SPEAKER_01: The singing and the screaming, all right, sweet.

SPEAKER_06: And Cecil, you are not too much, but guitars.

SPEAKER_01: Guitar.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: Okay.

SPEAKER_05: We wear a lot of hats in this band. Do you? Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01: So how long has um Sleep Talker been together as a band? And is it did it start out with all five of you?

SPEAKER_05: So we started what 2020? 2021. 2021.

SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you were post-COVID.

SPEAKER_05: Yes, but we didn't come out with our first song until 2024. So um it was me, uh Cecil, and then uh our old drummer kind of started it. And we were just real slow, you know, kind of just we were all kind of shaken off the rust, hadn't done music in a while. Um, you know, we're pretty new to things, you know, wrote a bunch of demos and threw them all away and uh kind of just iterated over and over and over. And um once like 2024 came around, we dropped our first single, we've kind of I've been going hard in the paint ever since, pretty much.

SPEAKER_01: Okay. So like what were the early beginnings for you guys um respectively with music? Like when did you start?

SPEAKER_04: You go first, Cecil.

SPEAKER_05: Yours your resume is longer than mine.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I'll try to condense it, but uh I went to a magnet school, uh elementary school, and so we had like a music thing that like every kid had to take. So I started in like kindergarten playing recorder and percussion, well like pitch percussion, I guess. Um so like I knew time signatures and stuff at like five. Sweet because I don't know them at 31. That's okay.

SPEAKER_01: Well, in the they started, yeah, they definitely started you with the recorder. I was just talking to somebody else. Oh, another band we were laughing about that because it was like you remember how like in I think it was maybe fourth or fifth grade, they would introduce those typically.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it was like kindergarten or first grade for us. And I played the Glockenspiel and metallophones, and I was also in choir. I had a very high-pitched voice when I was a kid, so I was a soprano, funny enough. Um and then my when I started actually playing, like not because of school, was I played in band uh like uh orchestral stuff. I was playing uh French horn and saxophone alto. And then I started playing at churches, guitar, drums, and bass, probably like 12 or 13 or something like that. And then just kind of mix and match as I went.

SPEAKER_06: Um did a lot of like fill-in stuff as a drummer, playing like live little gigs here and there, which is sadly the most money I've made in music.

SPEAKER_01: Sounds like you were like a little musical prodigy.

SPEAKER_06: Oh yeah. He doesn't want to. Kind of, but I also wasn't like I'm self-taught in pretty much everything that I do. Like I didn't take lessons for guitar or drums. I technically I guess had lessons because I had a music class where we like learned how to read sheet music for the saxophone and stuff like that, but it's just kind of I've always been in like in a weird in-between I know enough to get by, but it's still very like kind of freestyled. So from then I kind of didn't play music from like 2018 to like 2020 or 2017 to 2020 or something like that, and then um met these guys and then it kind of like took off.

SPEAKER_06: Um and I had to like learn a whole different side of doing the music stuff, like recording myself was a whole different skill set than being able to just play.

SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay. Did it come hard hard to you to record yourself? Did you find yourself like wanting to refine and go back and redo it or re picture?

SPEAKER_06: I literally when I when I met them, I was like, guys, it's probably gonna take me a year to like figure out how to make it sound like I was recording demos of myself, and that was fine because it was just for me. But when it's other people, it's like, man, I don't really know. I'm like listening to you know, a spirit box or someone like that, really polished and comparing my demo to that. So it's not very fair, but I mean I don't know what else to compare it to because those guys' demos sound better than my stuff still.

SPEAKER_06: So uh you've come a long way. Definitely a completely different skill set to learn.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you you know, you had the bar set high too if they were in sp, you know, if they inspired you.

SPEAKER_05: So my beginnings much more humble uh when I got into high school. I mean, when I've always been into music my whole life. Um never really like performing. I played some guitar randomly, you know, a little bit uh maybe like middle school and whatnot, but never really like took it seriously, I guess. Uh, but then getting into high school, I went from listening to like 90s and grunge and like hair metal and whatever, and I got introduced to like the world of heavy music. And um, from the moment I heard it, I was like, dang, I I want to do that.

SPEAKER_05: And I was like, well, I don't really know how to play any instruments, so I guess I'll learn how to scream. And um I started posting like some covers online, and I had um some guys on Facebook who they had a band and recently changed their vocalists hit me up. Um I was probably maybe 15 at the time, and I was like, okay, I'm guessing I'm doing that thing, and um joined their local band and was in that for maybe three or four years or so, you know, played in North Carolina a lot in the surrounding states and built up a pretty decent local following.

SPEAKER_05: Our our first show was terrible, but by the end of it, we were, you know, doing pretty alright, packing out coffee shops in the middle of nowhere, North Carolina. And um, like Cecil said, I kind of are similar. I after that band broke up, which was maybe like 20 uh 14 or 15, I really didn't do any music until meeting these guys, and then we started it, started it up with Sleep Talker, and I was like, wow, I suck. This is terrible. It was so bad. I was just running out of breath, couldn't do it, and you know, just practice iteration, you know, learning, took some vocal lessons, and we, you know, came a long way.

SPEAKER_01: Thinking of how you started out and you know, in your younger days, would you have guessed that you would be in a band with traction like you have now?

SPEAKER_05: So it's funny.

SPEAKER_01: Was that I guess maybe was that something a dream that you aspired or thought of at the time when you were younger, just starting?

SPEAKER_05: One of the shows that my band played, um, Sumerian Records, uh, pretty big label. They have like Bad Omens, Velemaya, they had Ask Alexandria, a bunch of big bands. Um Poppy. They uh had a it was like a battle of the bands, but it was throughout the entire U.S. And they would pick 10 bands from every state in order to uh basically do like a label showcase, and you get like AR feedback or whatever. And so my band, my old band, was one of the bands that got selected for North Carolina, and so we played and we were like, man, we killed it.

SPEAKER_05: We did so awesome. And we were all like 17 to like 20, I think was the oldest member. We're like, dude, yeah, all gassing each other up. We killed it. And then this band of like mid-20, mid-late 20 somethings go up there. They've got the merch booth, the girl with the iPad, the light show, and I'm like, oh, we suck. We are not even close to that. And I remember thinking, damn, I really wish that that could be my band. And I feel like we're finally getting to the part where like we're now the band that I was seeing being like, fuck, I really wish that was me.

SPEAKER_05: I feel like, well, obviously, you know, we still have a long ways to go, but I feel like we're finally at the point where it's like, all right, I could be the band that maybe wins the battle of the bands back in 2013 or whatever. They'll find out, they'll see. Yeah, they'll figure it out, dude.

SPEAKER_01: So you have arrived. Yeah, we've arrived. So you have signed on with um Tough Lock Music.

SPEAKER_04: We have indeed.

SPEAKER_01: Okay. And uh your new track uh is called Fractures that came out July 1st. Um, I was listening to that, and you know, with the lyrics, it's definitely um more of uh kind of like a serious uh melodic metal tune. Who wrote the lyrics for fractures?

SPEAKER_05: That was actually I would say a 50-50 split between myself and then believe it or not, my girlfriend as well. Um maybe not some of our more recent stuff, um, but she definitely had a pretty big hand in crafting some of uh some of our choruses and some of our scents and stuff like that. Um and that was actually something she helped me a lot with was that song. So I kind of took her foundation that she brought to me and kind of just expanded it with a bunch of stuff that I had. But yeah, definitely serious, melodic, emotional.

SPEAKER_05: That's kind of like the sleep talker lane, I would feel.

SPEAKER_06: Funny enough, she's the reason that the band even exists because I've known her since ninth or tenth grade. She was in my guitar class where we did not learn guitar. And um yeah, I I was literally told I needed to teach the kids how to play to get my grade. So that was the whole situation. But our name our last names are really close to each other, so we were sat next to each other and um didn't know that she played uh piano at all. Insane piano player, had no clue until on Instagram, like in 20 probably like 2019, she started posting like video game covers of like Final Fantasy or Persona, some of these like crazy soundtrack driven games.

SPEAKER_06: Um and I'm like, what the heck? So then we started jamming, and then COVID happened, and that kind of fizzled out with the person we were playing with, and then she was like, Hey, my boyfriend actually sings and screams. I know you do like metal stuff, you guys should get together. And it's like the only reason it even happened, exactly.

SPEAKER_05: So she literally set up a play date because it wasn't happening, it just didn't getting literally going to this guy's house that you've never met, and you're just gonna be in his house and do music. Bye. Drop me off like a kid on like on daycare or something.

SPEAKER_01: She set up a bro date.

SPEAKER_05: Literally, yeah. Yeah, definitely. That's why it happened.

SPEAKER_01: Definitely shout out to Jamar's girlfriend. What's her name?

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, Beverly. Beverly, all right, Beverly on uh I think it's is it still BevNnap on everything? Bevnap art.

SPEAKER_05: She actually does all of our artwork and merch as well.

SPEAKER_06: So multi-talented.

SPEAKER_05: Yep.

SPEAKER_06: That is designed our symbol. So those two collaborate on that, but it's like she's like the artist. Yeah. And um all of that to say, she uh she actually has, like he said, has helped us on other songs, whether it's like a synth layer or maybe adding some pianos, because I like doing orchestral stuff and like I guess you would call it like cinematic-ish sounding things, but I can't play the piano, so I just write it all out in the software, and so you can always tell when it's me that's done something, because it's like really reverb piano, a couple of like really pretty notes that just sound good together, and then that's it.

SPEAKER_06: And then when you hear something actually being played, it's her every time.

SPEAKER_01: So that is so cool. Yeah, that's um the instrument that I wish I could play.

SPEAKER_04: Same.

SPEAKER_01: Definitely at your home, Jamar.

SPEAKER_05: Uh, we have a keyboard that she plays on, but we want to get a new one for her so that way she could hook it up to my computer, we could plug it into the DAW, and she can just start programming. So, yeah. All right, we got one, buddy.

SPEAKER_01: All right. Well, there's a couple's goal for you then.

SPEAKER_05: Exactly.

SPEAKER_01: So I usually always ask too uh the bands what went in behind uh coming up with the name for Sleep Talker. Is there a story or is it tied to anything?

SPEAKER_05: I love this question so much. Yeah. Um so our uh old drummer, we were coming up with names. I I had a bunch that we had written down. I probably had like 10 or 15. Cecil really liked one in particular. We're not gonna say it because no one's using it yet. I'm using it. You'll see. Um, but our drummer was like, you know, I've always wanted to use this uh this name Sleep Talker, you know, something that I've just had in my pocket. It'd be really cool. We were like, yeah, you know, that's pretty that's pretty dope, you know, kind of a little eerie, a little ethereal or whatever.

SPEAKER_05: It kind of matches the vibe. And then we were talking about it. This was 2021.

SPEAKER_06: It was December 2021, because I posted it on Facebook.

SPEAKER_01: Damn, you have a good memory.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_05: But we were like, all right, Sleep Talker, and then we were like, you know, there's that band Sleep Token, and they're well, no one really knows them. They're not really that big. They probably had I want to say 150,000 monthly listeners on Spotify or something. We're like, we'll be fine. You know, the biggest band.

SPEAKER_03: So it is what it is.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah. Biggest band ever. Of course. It's alright. We are we're gonna organize Snooze Fest one day. So we're gonna have Sleep Token, Sleep Theory, Sleep Woolver, everybody's token, actually. Yeah, sleep token. They can play in the parking lot out front.

SPEAKER_06: No one will come in.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, true. One day. No, super funny.

SPEAKER_06: I just I remember I was I'm not like super like I'm creative, but not in a useful way when it's for names. I can come up with really silly, like punny like names for something where it's like, oh, that'd be funny if you were like, I don't know, a dog washer or something. Something that's not something goofy.

SPEAKER_01: So what was the name that you would come up with for the band?

SPEAKER_06: Oh, I don't even know if I had any. I think I had like honey? I think I literally had one, and it was like pragmatist or something like that. And I was like, it's just too on the nose and like yeah, I'm like, you know, we should have just been called fractures at that point, right? I mean, yeah, fractures of plural noun. Yeah, so I just remember hearing it, I was like, oh, I was I was pretty indifferent, and like we had like the slashes, and I was like, Oh, I kind of like that. Then we like had the abbreviation which we still use, the TLKR, which I thought was like, oh, that's that's pretty cool, and we can make our names this or whatever.

SPEAKER_06: And uh then I remember like I think Alkaline by Sleep Token had literally just come out or something like that, and being like, Yeah, I mean, they're obviously like a notable band, but like whatever. And then they got that cult following, and it kind of now every single time I tell people they're like, Oh, kind of like Sleep Token. I'm like, Yep, that's us. You got it. I am Vessel is me. Yep, true.

SPEAKER_01: So, what all do you guys have planned for 2026? It looks like you are gonna have um a new album coming out.

SPEAKER_05: So we have, I guess you could call it multiple bodies of work we're kind of working on simultaneously. I guess like the big picture, maybe more long term, is the album that um we're working on kind of in the background. Uh, we've been pretty fortunate to have Spencer Satello from Periphery, their singer. Um, he has uh been our producer for that stuff. Um so we're kind of working with him in the background for you know maybe 2027. We'll have that full album done. But in the interim since signing to Tough Luck, um right now in the more short term, we're working on our follow-up EP, so our second.

SPEAKER_05: Um Fractures is gonna be on there. Um we have a couple more in the works that um we're getting close to wrapping up. Hopefully soon. Hopefully by the end of this year, uh maybe October, November or so.

SPEAKER_01: Okay. Any um sneak peek into any of the titles or anything like that? Or is it still kind of we're waiting until it's released?

SPEAKER_06: We're pretty slow on naming stuff because what'll usually happen is I will just name it a demo something just so that it has a name because I've done that thing where it's like I don't know, LOL 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and then you don't you don't know what it is anymore and you can't find it. And then also when you go to like stem out a song, basically when you like take the guitars and the bass and you try to do all the individual tracks, it names them all that. So like keeping it organized. Like um, we'll name we have one that's called like Cascade, but I don't know if it'll be called that.

SPEAKER_06: I just named it that because the thing the demo name I had from our bass player when he sent the first part of it to me was like something ridiculous. I don't even I don't even know what it was. Yeah, so it's like a placeholder, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's just like to, and then we just keep it it helps kind of give an identity to the song. So we have we have some like names, but it's literally just like whatever comes to mind. Normally, um the other guitar player lives with me, Alex, and when we write stuff, a lot of the times I'll just be like, give me a name, give me a name, and then I'll just like put a random thing.

SPEAKER_06: I'll just put a random name on it, and then that's the name of the song for now. And then honestly, it feels like until man, sometimes we even do music videos, we don't even have the name of the song yet. Yeah, it's just whatever the demo was called.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it'll be like final lyrics, final everything, you know.

SPEAKER_06: Then I think it's usually me and Jamar in a call, and then we find something that we feel like encompasses it, and then usually it I don't know if this is on purpose, but usually it's not so on the nose, like, oh, in the chorus we say uh Forsaken, so the song's called Forsaken or something. It's usually like a line that identifies the song in a way, but isn't necessarily like you don't hear that line until a certain part in the song or something. Yeah. Like Deathbed, even is an example, or illuminated, you know, it's a word that comes up, but it's not you wouldn't know that that would be the the chorus or anything like that.

SPEAKER_01: I think it would be super hard to try in if if people stayed in uh it'd have to be a really small box where you only named your song based on something that was in the lyrics or the chorus. Because I mean there's so many too many examples. I can't even think of one off the top of my head where the the song of the name to me I would have never guessed that, you know, or guessed that the song would have been what they sing about and you know some of the lyrics. So I guess there's there's probably so many different different conventions that are used for naming a song.

SPEAKER_01: But it's always interesting to me, especially for the like the name of the band. I always want to know what went into that because sometimes there's a story and sometimes there isn't.

SPEAKER_05: I wish we were.

SPEAKER_05: I wish our story for it was cooler, but you know. We I will say um, in regards To the EP. So with fractures being, I guess, the one of the songs that's going to be on there, that was definitely a pretty different sound for us overall. It's a lot softer, a lot more melodic, a lot more mellow, a lot more singing than like I guess our previous songs. With this EP, including fractures, it's definitely going to be a lot more well-rounded, where you're going to have like some middle-of-the-road stuff.

SPEAKER_05: You'll have something like fractures, which is a lot more on the soft side. Then you'll have some things that are more heavy or brutal than anything we've done before. So kind of showcasing a more well-rounded uh version of the band, I'd say. That's our sneak peek.

SPEAKER_01: Before I forget, too, let's mention the other members of the band that aren't here. So we've got um Alex McCown. Is it McCown?

SPEAKER_02: Yep.

SPEAKER_01: Um plays guitar, John Parrish bass, and Eugene Plastino on drums.

SPEAKER_06: Formally, yes. He's still on there for now. We don't have we're technically a four-piece right now. Um he's not in the band anymore. Um we're still friends and everything. It just didn't work out, but um we haven't changed any of that because, well, we don't have any one to put up there. So we have like for our shows, for example, we have one of John's friends filling in um on drums. And funny enough, he sent me like a long paragraph about I think it was Lakeside and uh what was the other song? I think it was Kingdom of Glass, and then our band name, because he thought there was some like it was paragraphs.

SPEAKER_06: I was like, hey man, no. Oh, okay. I was like, that's awesome. That's cool that you thought it was that. I should have just said yes.

SPEAKER_05: And we are not that creative, buddy.

SPEAKER_06: Not yet. I think not yet. I think when I look at our older stuff, like our first EP, I don't have any real gripes with it, to be honest. I just think that when I everyone always says this, right? What does Metallic always say? It's our heaviest album. But like, yeah, we have some stuff that's like like Jamar said, is gonna be like pretty just pretty obscene in terms of how heavy and honestly more chaotic it is. Heavy is kind of like we kind of use it interchangeably because it can mean super low note or it can mean how it's played, because we have some things that are an entire key pitch-wise, but it's actually heavier just because of how it's delivered.

SPEAKER_06: But I think some in my opinion, Cascade, for example, is very heavy, despite it not doing what maybe one of the other songs that will be on the EP does, even though that would be considered Cascade would definitely be considered more probably gent or like aggressive metal core. Aggressive metal core. Yeah. Um but I feel like it it holds weight in a different way. I feel like to me, when I when I listen back to even the demo stuff of it, I'm just like, oh my god, this is just like it's very, it's like heavy and like it it weighs on you, type of heavy, as opposed to like, oh, this is heavy, like someone's gonna get hit in the face.

SPEAKER_06: Like, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: Well, you said obscene, so that kept my interest.

SPEAKER_05: So yeah, it's it's a lot. Yeah, definitely chaotic. So we definitely have pretty nice wide tastes in music, you know, like music for the pit, is what I'm hearing. Oh, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01: What is the meme of the song? I was checking out the video um with uh it's at the funeral.

SPEAKER_05: Deathbed. Deathbed.

SPEAKER_01: Deathbed. Yeah, that had some um definitely some strong imagery in there that um just made me think about things differently, especially in viewing, you know, um a funeral for a music video, because I'm a lot of people through the years have have used that. Um but um I guess just like the progression of people and they're walking up to the casket and you know, coming and going, it just uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_06: It was just that has a lot to do with that aspect. Our videographer, um awesome guy.

SPEAKER_01: He But it I I feel like it it told it kind of like told a different story just from the the scenery a lot of things.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, he's like we like pitched it to him and we were kind of worried because we're like, yeah, we know every band has a funeral or something. And he just had so many ideas, but it's really funny working with him because he's not like he's just we call him a mad scientist because when you see him, he just looks like a dude with a camera, and then like you're looking through the director's cam, you're like, oh my god, that does not look like what I had in my brain at all. That is like beyond what I possibly thought we could do.

SPEAKER_06: And you don't even like you kind of know what the song's about, but it's like it's not your band, but you get it, and that's what's his name's Toddy Babu, and he does all kinds of stuff now. But he really like I don't know that if we would have gone to many other people, it would have turned out that way. I think that they would have been shot well, but he just knows exactly how to get the imagery down, you know. I think that the lyrics match the video.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, than what um you know I've seen in the past. And not that what I've seen in the past was bad or anything, but you know, eventually it just you know, history repeats itself.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah. So yeah, I think the uh with the subject matter too, that's definitely if you were to ask the Sleep Talker Camp, like which of their favorite currently released songs are their favorite, Deathbed is definitely one of our collective favorites. It's either one or two for pretty much everyone, yeah. And it was uh a lot of well, I don't want to say a lot. I mean, I would say all of the lyrics in every Sleep Talker song so far definitely like come from real places and like real things that have happened, real tragedy or whatever, what have you.

SPEAKER_05: And um, our old drummer that Eugene or uh Cecil was talking about, Eugene, um, that was primarily inspired by something that um happened to him. That's why he's the one in the casket and whatnot when everyone's going uh up to him. It was basically like him participating in his own funeral. Uh he was in a pretty bad uh car accident. He had left him in a coma. He had brain bleeding, you know, uh broken neck, broken back, was in like a halo. It was insane. And we were like, oh my god, I don't even know if this guy's gonna wake up, let alone play drums again or walk or anything like that.

SPEAKER_05: So, you know, best case scenario happened by the end of the year, Bro's back on his feet drumming again, and uh, which was insanity.

SPEAKER_01: That is insane.

SPEAKER_05: So, you know, we uh the lyrics were definitely inspired by that. Um, Cecil also had something happen where he witnessed like a pretty traumatic car-related vehicular thing that occurred. So it was just all these things happening where we were like, wow, I really want to channel all of this into something.

SPEAKER_06: Um I was on my move here, by the way. Oh, really? I was literally leaving Florida and I burday person out of a car on fire.

SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_06: Never thought I would do.

SPEAKER_02: So wow.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, very, very odd. It's just we don't have a good history with vehicles. We all get one, so yeah, we all get one. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01: I mean, these things, these life experiences are things that you can't make up or you can't guess that you know what happened.

SPEAKER_06: So was the person okay that you're gonna be it felt like the first song too that like the vocals match the what's going on in the song pretty one-to-one and the lyrics match each part as well. And also the thing is too, kind of to touch on the obscene thing we have coming. It a lot of people uh people don't uh realize, but Jamar kind of doesn't look like someone that can like just do all these ridiculous sounds, but like there's very few that I've seen him be like, yeah, I don't know how to do that.

SPEAKER_06: It's really every it's ridiculous, and it's loud, it's insanely loud. So like it's to show showcase all of that, and deathbed was the first time we got to like oh, we should do this technique, and then do that technique, and then do this technique, and then do that, and it's like, wow, okay, cool.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, like the kitchen sink of vocal techniques, Deathbed was our first one where it was like, okay, there's a little bit of everything, and then the obscene one is kind of gonna be that same kitchen sink. I'm doing all these different styles and technique of vocal, but from like the heavier spectrum of metal music. So you'll see like some death core stuff, some death metal-y things, you know, just crazy sounds that you you would hear fractures, and then you would hear this and be like, I cannot believe this is the same band doing these two songs.

SPEAKER_05: If we do a video for it, you should wear the same thing.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, we should we should wear the turtleneck.

SPEAKER_06: What the heck?

SPEAKER_01: I want you to do it. I love that idea of a turtleneck. Well, maybe one of a couple of you wear a turtleneck and then a couple of you wear like um the ugly Christmas sweaters, or at least or just an ugly sweater. It doesn't have to be Christmas, you know, but you know what I'm talking about? Just something that yeah. Or like a stock vest or something, like a Jillian fabrics vest.

SPEAKER_05: Yep, definitely.

SPEAKER_01: Oh goodness. You shouldn't you shouldn't have mentioned that, Cecil.

SPEAKER_05: This Christmas. Yeah, coming this Christmas to Jimney near you.

SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness. Hey guys, quick reminder before we keep the music going: if you're digging she shreds, make sure you're subscribed to She Shreds with Rassan on YouTube and all major streaming platforms, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. And come hang out with me on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Just search She Shreds with Rassan. That's R-A-S-A-N, and you'll find me. Interviews behind the scenes, new music, and plenty more from the rock and metal scene. All right, enough housekeeping. Let's get back to the music.

SPEAKER_01: Collectively as a band, where would you say that you guys have uh drawn your inspiration from?

SPEAKER_04: Oh man.

SPEAKER_05: By artists. Musically, you you mean? Musically. I mean, we're definitely kind of like all over the place. I think where like individually, I think where we kind of meet in the middle is kind of like the more atmospheric, uh genty, progressive metal core.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it's back volumes, mud volumes.

SPEAKER_05: Which we we actually did a song uh on our last DP with one of uh their vocalists, which was a crazy moment for us. But bands like that, like volumes, like periphery, like Spirit Box, like Veil of Maya, bands that kind of in that genty, heavy whatever is probably where we all like meet in the middle, but then outside of that, like with individual member tastes, I mean more different pop, tech death, death core, you know, symphonic music, video game music, rap, like it's all uh electronic music. It's it's very all over the place with like our individual tastes.

SPEAKER_05: So one of the things we're trying to do, we were kind of spending the last little bit maybe like trying to find, okay, we're doing music as a collective for the first time. What is the sound? Now it's like, okay, now we are experimenting with taking those individual influences and being like, okay, how do we make this more unique and showcases some of the tastes that aren't the spirit box volumes, periphery, veil of Maya, whatever? What are some of the more eclectic stuff that each person likes that we can bring to the table and showcase, which is cool?

SPEAKER_01: Um, how did it feel when you actually did sign on with your record label? And um what led to that? I guess. How how would you explain that to say a DIY band that is, you know, up and coming? They've got potential.

SPEAKER_05: Be consistent and don't be afraid to reach out. A lot of the connections that we have made, uh, anywhere from like having one of the vocalists of our favorite bands feature on a song to our producer to even the record label. Sometimes this is a random DM or random comment. You know, you're at the right place, catching the right person at the right time. You know, um, you got to just be proactive, participate in the scene, you know, connect with people. Um, that would be what I would say to answer the first part.

SPEAKER_05: I mean, it was pretty sick, you know. Every band wants to be signed, right? I feel like that's the one of the goals. So it kind of just fell into place from just a random social media interaction. Uh we were looking for a distribution company. Um, our videographer that Cecil is talking about, um, he's in a band as well called Coma Waves, and his band works with uh a distribution company called Arson Theory. And so we were trying to reach out to them, and then the owner of Tough Luck um announced that his uh the label um partnered with Arson Theory.

SPEAKER_05: So I was like, oh, funny. We were looking to connect with those guys, and then the conversations just started, and he was like, you know what, I'm I'm just gonna sign you guys and distribute the music that way. So kind of funny how that stuff works out. It's kind of random.

SPEAKER_06: I think also um the advice on like the label stuff is really, really, really there's like boring answers, right? Because it's like you have to give like a politician type of yeah, it's different for everyone. I think that some bands 100% absolutely need a label to come in and offload costs if that's what they offer or help promote them or tell them what to do, maybe provide a manager. It's so different, especially nowadays where bands are expected to do so much on their own that it really depends on what you're going for.

SPEAKER_06: We are signed for a particular reason, and if we weren't, you know, we would still continue as usual. It's just that we can get some support in some areas, or maybe we don't know how to do certain things, or trying to just get to that next level. There's obviously a level of legitimacy to being signed. It's kind of like having a diploma, right? Like it doesn't mean everything to some people, but it's something that can help you stand out because you're already in a smaller pool of bands. You know, I I think Jamar looked up a stat one time on Spotify where it's like if you've had over some amount of streams or this many monthly listeners, you're already in the top like like 10 or 15 percent or something ridiculous, and it's like, oh wow, I never really thought about it that way because you get so used to seeing numbers be a certain thing that you're kind of expecting.

SPEAKER_06: Sure, we call it a flop if a song doesn't perform a certain way, and we're not like down on ourselves, but we're like, oh man, we thought it would do XYZ. And when you sit back and think about it, it's like, well, 10,000 plays on a song is that's a lot of plays to be, you know what I mean, or whatever. And somebody somewhere is probably like, dang, I wish I had 10,000. And when we first put out Lakeside, the first song, I remember we were kind of like, dang, I'm not gonna lie, if we got a thousand on this, I would be like that would be awesome.

SPEAKER_06: And it was like 10,000 in the first two weeks, which you can't there's a lot that you can't control, and because of that, you will the label side can help in some ways, but at the same time, I would say like at least from my perspective, I wouldn't worry about it too much. It's one of those things that it will kind of find you. I think distro can help a lot of people because while distro kid is wonderful, I think that you gotta kind of be a certain type of person to even understand how to get the most out of it.

SPEAKER_06: And I I hear some friends' bands and stuff that like they don't know some of the features that are on there, and it's like, man, you guys just it'd be much better for you guys to just go with a distro and let them handle that because this was uploaded wrong, or you didn't give us enough time, like yeah, it's stuff like that. So I think distro is probably honestly more important and more relevant to most bands at our level, whatever that is. Um the label thing is obviously cool. I mean, I kind of forget sometimes, like yeah, and let's not forget.

SPEAKER_01: I mean, you guys have uh made it to over 500,000 streams too.

SPEAKER_04: I didn't know.

SPEAKER_01: So you know, you've which is yeah, and and talk and talking and going from 1,000 to 10,000, you know, that's that's an accomplishment too in a world where that's what uh sometimes you know gets the most traction. Do you feel like do you feel like there is more or less gatekeeping when it comes to bands being able to move up and say, let's say in your example, you know, be able to get in contact and uh get signed to a label?

SPEAKER_06: Uh honest, I feel like in general in music right now, especially in metal and rap, those seem to be the two most popular that are enticing for people to try. I feel there's not enough. I don't know if gatekeeping is the right word. Um but I feel like you when you go back and like me and Jamar, almost every time he comes over to my house or stays with us for some amount of time, he'll pull up YouTube and we're like listening to like Foo Fighters, The Script, Three Doors Down, Three Days Grace, like this band.

SPEAKER_06: I was like, oh my god, like be I I kind of forgot being a fan of music back then was like we were so spoiled. Every band was like world. Genre defining. Yeah, like every single band. When you look at Warp Tour in like 2006, it's like 2007, like, oh my god. And now it feels like because there's not a person in the room with him going, like, well, hold on, don't release that yet. Yeah, you guys don't do that yet. Like, let's refine this, give it a month, and it'll be right, and I promise because we get it, we've had to sit on music, it sucks.

SPEAKER_06: Like, it's the worst feeling because you're like you've been putting all this effort into something and you can't even like let it go yet, technically. But I don't know if that's why I don't know if gatekeeping is the right word, but I think with not only releasing music, but also there is so much nebotism, and we have benefited from some of it as well. So, you know, not to you know, throw stones at a kingdom of glass, but uh but uh I think that there's a little bit I would argue it's a little bit too much of that going on right now, and it's it's honestly just hurting the artists themselves because they're getting thrown into situations that they're not ready for.

SPEAKER_06: And when I look back on like you know, when we were a little confused on what to do like in 2025, or even when we put out the first CP, it's like well it's kind of a good thing that this didn't catch on because oh my god, we were not like even just for the live show stuff or like understanding how to how to post or how to make things look, promo pictures, what we're even looking for, you know, how to craft songs, like I think there is some amount of like time that you just have to put into it like intentionally, yeah, um, with like a North Star.

SPEAKER_06: Otherwise, I think there's a lot of bands that are gonna kind of fizzle out that are kind of cool, and it sucks because I think that there's not either a person steering the ship or there's not like enough everyone kind of talks about the stuff at shows or they're like six set, bro. And it's like, well, that's nice of you to say, but yeah, we have friends that come up and they're like, hey bro, I couldn't hear this. Yeah, you guys were a little sloppy on this part, you kind of sound like a local, but and it's like we don't need you to be mean, but it's like now, okay, when we go to practice, hey, we got to tighten up on this, and now when the right person sees us, student nepotism or something, it's like, oh, well, now we get to show off for the Sumerian whatever showcase thing.

SPEAKER_05: Um I think now too, because the barrier of entry is so low, I feel like the quality across the board has kind of gone down because, you know, early 2000s and prior, you know, you couldn't just I couldn't just sit at home and just write my Magnum opus and record it with the best plugins ever and churn out a song every day. You know, it took time, money, energy, effort. Where now I could go and write some shit and just upload it tomorrow. And if it blows up on TikTok, now everyone's gassing me up and I think I'm the awesomest you know artist ever.

SPEAKER_05: You know, and I'm not trying to, you know, be an elitist or anything like that. I just care about the genre. I care about music in general, and I feel like Like I again, I don't know if gatekeeping is the right word. I see a lot of what I would say like toxic positivity, where it's like gassing things up that maybe you don't actually mean or that really maybe could use some honest feedback. And um I feel like now it's just too much and not enough of it takes the time because we have social media.

SPEAKER_05: I want instant gratification. I just wrote this song, I want to release it now. We recorded fractures over a year ago and were sitting on that song for well over a year before it came out because we wanted to do it correctly. We wanted to make sure it had all the assets behind it, that you know the stars aligned and it made sense. And I don't think a lot of artists do do that. Um, I do think it's awesome now that you can kind of just be self-made. You can just whip some stuff out, come up with something awesome, post it on TikTok, and have a career.

SPEAKER_05: But I think when those things kind of happen, like Cecil said, you don't maybe have the structure or uh the scalability to actually capitalize on what happened. You came out with two songs, now you're playing louder than life, you don't even know how to run a live show. You know, it's where you're kind of getting the cart before the horse. So gatekeeping, I d think is bad when it goes to like keeping secrets and whatnot, you know.

SPEAKER_01: But I was thinking more towards, you know, the the industry contacts when I asked about gatekeeping. So, you know, trying to get in contact and even get in front of the right people. Um I'm guessing was even like 2000 was I think that is too gatekeeping.

SPEAKER_06: If we were talking about that, I think I just misunderstood it. Then yeah, I think right now people are looking for followers. They're looking for, and it kind of goes with Jamar saying, because the barrier of entry is so low, now labels can't really entice you by providing money to record you because well, I can just record at home. I mean, I have good enough stuff, so there's that. Because I can record at home, you're expected to just have so much music because what do people care about right now?

SPEAKER_06: Content. That word gets thrown around like anything else. Yeah. So you need to have people will say things like, you should be putting out a song every 90 days.

SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, that's just not like that is something I do like to ask too um all of the artists, you know, how do you feel about putting out single releases versus you know, multiple tracks at one time or even a five year old?

SPEAKER_06: I think it depends. I think I I I like both. I think that if you want to just put out music just to put out something like Kingdom of Glass to me, didn't really I just didn't really see it going anywhere on an EP personally, and I don't know. I'm assuming the guys felt the same way because that's what we ended up doing. Um we we vote on all this stuff, but sometimes it's nice to just put, hey, this song's a good single. I would like to just put this song out so that we can play it live, people could possibly know it, and I think it's got traction, fractures is kind of that because we put it out before we had an idea for an EP, but we would also like to have it be on a body of work.

SPEAKER_06: But I think the album that we're do trying to do in the background, to me, I would never ever want to just put out like eight songs or six songs from it if it's ten songs, presumably. Yeah, I'd want to put out two or three strong, like these are definitely singles that will get you know some type of traction for the album, but they all kind of they don't have to be a concept, but they all sound like they should go on a collective piece of uh music together. Like it doesn't sound like you know something we wrote ten years ago and then something we wrote yesterday.

SPEAKER_06: It's like, oh, this all feels like it's relevant to each other. Like, man, they were really exploring that like darker side of sounds or way more um maybe heavier subject matter, even if they're not related to each other at all. I I like having an album to you know digest because it it follows some type of like theme in a way, I guess.

SPEAKER_05: I I think like as a newer band, it kind of sucks because in a way you kind of like have to feed the algorithm, right? Where it's like if no one knows if I just no one knows my band and I shadow drop a 10-song album, well, you know, probably no one's gonna know that that even exists, right? I probably do have to waterfall some songs or whatever. So I definitely do get that. Um, and I think that's like a viable strategy, especially for smaller bands, you know, and that's I mean, we did that with our last DP.

SPEAKER_05: Um, but I think when you do take your time to have a more cohesive body of work and you do have something like Cecil said, where hey, maybe it's 10 songs and we only release four of them as a single, it kind of creates a more, I would say for lack of a better word, a timeless body of work because then it's like people are gonna be like, wow, these four singles were awesome. I really have to check out the whole thing now because I want more. And they're not just blasting it every day on TikTok or Instagram.

SPEAKER_05: I have to go out of my way to go and listen to the whole thing. And I think that's how you get people more invested. I think that's how you get um more like actual fans and followers and create something more timeless because it's not just and TikTok single, and there it goes. 30 days TikTok single, and I already forgot the last one. Which, like I said, you know, I get it for younger bands, and it's definitely a viable strategy, but I think a hybrid approach.

SPEAKER_01: And the word that you said too pretty sums it up is cohesive. So, you know, the idea where you're talking about you've got a few songs that you put on there, but maybe there's a reason that it's those, you know, these three or four compared to the others.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_05: No right or wrong answers. There are bands doing the exact opposite of what we're saying right now and having way more success. So, you know, it's it's all just tickets in the lottery, pretty much.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I mean, there's just like so many ways to skin the cat, right? It's just yeah, obviously there is no right answer. And honestly, where we normally find ourselves when we're having conversations like this is like, okay, well, what do we think? Why do we think someone will listen to us? And it's like it's very tricky because yeah, we have 500,000 streams or whatever, but we don't have that much feedback. We're starting to really see that now, like with posts and stuff.

SPEAKER_01: Um, so you're seeing some like actual true engagement?

SPEAKER_06: Yes, unfortunately, it's like all positive, which like I don't want to get roasted, but like I would like to be a hater out there, you know? You know, I would like to have it even if I disagree with them, like the end of Deathbed has a guitar solo, if you want to call it that, but I purposefully just did not rip it into a solo because I was like, I did that first part, and I'm like, you know, I had a whole idea of doing like a little run and all this after that. That would sound really cool, but I'm like, I kind of like that it ends like this.

SPEAKER_06: I feel like I want to constantly go back and hear that little five-second clip, and we've only seen maybe two people react this way, but um, at least me personally, where they're like, Oh, I wish it went into a solo, but it's like, yeah, but that's kind of the trick, you know. I now you have to come back again and listen again to to hear. I there's so many songs that I have that are like that, where I'm like, why did they only do that part one time? Why did they only do it for 10 seconds? Oh my god.

SPEAKER_06: But then you start to there's this weird thing where it's like you kind of earn that, where it's like, fine, the song's three minutes, I'll just listen to the whole song, even though my favorite part's at two minutes and twenty seconds, I'll just whatever. And you start you end up liking the whole song because it's the the contrast. But um what I was gonna say is uh other than that, we haven't really had any like negative feedback. I mean, there's like random trolls on Instagram that just literally say the most random shit that like oh singer sucks.

SPEAKER_06: Okay, cool.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like gotta love those comments.

SPEAKER_06: It's just like I wish you would say something like, yeah, his technique, he's not doing this proper. It's like, oh okay. And then use whoever we have at our disposal, but it's like the metal is such a weird genre, anyways. People are miserable and their songs.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like to go in and read the comments, even just uh just even like around here, you know, like the local news posts and stuff like that. Because oh man. Where where are you at? I'm in Ohio. So I yeah, I live in Mansfield, so we're right, we're situated uh directly between Cleveland and Columbus.

SPEAKER_06: So they're an hour north or south from our first DP was entirely done in Cleveland, funny enough. Yep.

SPEAKER_01: Oh really?

SPEAKER_06: Yeah. Our first producer was uh Scooter Allen out in uh in Cleveland. Cleveland, Ohio. I think it was Cleveland Heights. That's where he was, near Cleveland Heights. Like a little Italy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you're an hour away from me. Awesome. Nice. Yeah, we're the the state that has four seasons, sometimes four seasons in one week.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it snowed. That was my first time seeing snow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_06: Oh my god. First time on a plane, first time seeing snow.

SPEAKER_01: We had a blizzard last winter, and um, yeah, it shut everything down.

SPEAKER_06: We lost power here for that January thing with all the frozen trees and stuff falling over was insane.

SPEAKER_01: That's not cool.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, that was that some people like I had friends that were without power for like three weeks. So we only lost power for like a day.

SPEAKER_05: So it was whatever for Florida, we only got one season just hot.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, hurricanes, hot, muggy, and hurricanes.

SPEAKER_01: Oh, I know. Yeah, I have family that live in Orlando, and my dumbass decided I was gonna take vacation down there um in July, forgetting how stinking hot it is.

SPEAKER_04: Brutal. That's a different it was.

SPEAKER_01: I mean, there was no relief, and we ended up going to like four different damn beaches thinking that the water's gonna be different. That didn't happen. It was all 90 degrees and over. So, I mean, really, absolute warm water was either sitting in a bar or once you step back into the AC.

SPEAKER_05: Yep. I'll be ready to have four seasons here in Tennessee. Thank God. Yeah, the fall is coming. It's just the best.

SPEAKER_06: I'm ready to be able to do it. It'll be beautiful there. No, it's been hot here this year. A lot of heat wave stuff.

SPEAKER_05: Feels like Florida. I moved just in time for it to be just as hot, literally.

SPEAKER_06: No, we did the Kingdom of Blast video a year ago in August in Florida, and I was like, why did we pick August? I am literally dying.

SPEAKER_04: Brutal. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: Like as soon as you walk outside, you're sweating.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: Indeed.

SPEAKER_01: What is something that you do want a new fan to take away when they hear Sleep Talker?

SPEAKER_06: Hmm. That's a great question. For me, assuming that well, I'm probably just gonna see it through my perspective, but um my favorite thing about bands is a couple of two or three things. The main one being like, I want it to be authentic. So it's totally fine to like play around and have silly songs and goofy and whatever, that's fine. But I want it to like I like when people lean into whatever the subject matter is or whatever the theme of that song is. So again, if a song is supposed to just be insanely brutal, like just take it as far as you possibly can, because that's gonna make it, in my opinion, the best.

SPEAKER_06: Um same with like if something's supposed to be sad and you know, very almost depressing, like let's let's hear that. I don't want to just hear the cookie cutter, okay. We said something about a breakup, uh whatever. I want it to be like some like dang, I didn't go through that, but I kind of feel like I went through that. Like I want to be able to put myself, I want it to be immersive, is probably the other word. Um and then I just like when I I really like progressive. I it has kind of a negative connotation because like prog rock kind of it's just hard to listen to for a lot of people, right?

SPEAKER_06: Like everyone can't listen to a dream theater or even Rush or bands like that, even though obviously they're insanely talented. A lot of people can't listen to it for one reason or another. And uh, you know, it's just even for me, I love progressive music, but I can't always just go turn on a 22-minute song. Like it's just not it for me. Yeah. Um, so I I would like progressive or just when I I like the fact that when people ask me what the band is, I just tell them progressive metal core because I don't really know what to tell them.

SPEAKER_06: So I I'm hoping it's that kind of answer.

SPEAKER_05: My answer, I would be I mean, kind of going off the first one, you know, kind of like I touched on uh earlier with like deathbed and like the lyrics somewhere that came from or whatever. I definitely would want someone to listen and like have um a moment of r relatability, you know, not maybe maybe it didn't make them feel better, but it made them feel like, oh yeah, I I felt what he was talking about, or I felt the emotion they were trying to capture, or I went through something similar. I also had XYZ happen, something that like builds a sense of camaraderie, I guess, because that's like my favorite part of music is like how it makes me feel.

SPEAKER_05: So if at the end of the day someone can listen to a sleep talker song and they feel something, whether it be like what we intended them to feel or their own interpretation of that, then that's like mission accomplished. Like we we got that. Um and yeah, just like the authenticity, you know, we're not uh trying to be anything we're not. We're just doing what we enjoy and and what we want out of the music that you know we're all music enjoyers, we all listen to it for you know certain reasons, and just having that same feeling reciprocated, maybe when someone listens to our band that we get when we listen to things that inspire us.

SPEAKER_01: I think that's one of the cool things about the metal community is um everybody has a sense of belonging, and it's it happens through the music and you know, just um what the fans pick up and how it relates to them. Um, but sharing that with, you know, the either the person standing next to them or sharing it with the artist and the band. Uh you know, it all those all those little types of communication, you know, still connect the dots and and make the metal community really strong.

SPEAKER_05: Um and that's my favorite thing too. We're like, you know, as much as the metal community and the alternative community can be Devi Downers or, you know, we all talk shit online or whatever. But you know, you go to a show, it's like, okay, we're all here because we like the same thing, you know. And if you like this genre, you're probably a little weird and you're in a sea of a bunch of other weird people. So I feel like that's the whole point, you know, it should bring people together, you know, differences aside.

SPEAKER_05: Hey, we're all here to feel something and experience this, you know.

SPEAKER_01: Exactly. And we're not nobody's here to compete with one another. Um, you know, I just think of all the the millions of friendships that have been formed just from going to a rock or metal show.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah. Which is all very it's very niche still, somehow.

SPEAKER_01: So how do you separate your day job? I'm assuming that you work somewhere outside of the home or you know, something aside from the band, how do you separate that from you know being a musician and um the duties that you have for the band?

SPEAKER_06: Uh I don't. My job is basically.

SPEAKER_01: What do you do, Seagull? Hey guys, quick reminder before we keep the music going. If you're digging she shreds, make sure you're subscribed to She Shreds with Rassan on YouTube and all major streaming platforms, including Spotify and Apple Podcasts. And come hang out with me on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Just search She Shreds with Rassan. That's R-A-S-A-N, and you'll find me. Interviews, behind the scenes, new music, and plenty more from the rock and metal scene. All right, enough housekeeping.

SPEAKER_01: Let's get back to the music.

SPEAKER_06: My second job is Sleep Talker, basically. Uh, but I do a lot of I I don't know how to explain it, but basically audio live production, we'll call it. There we go. For other bands and for a place called Soho House um as well. I do freelance and I've done a few corporate gigs as well for like camera conventions and stuff, where you're either it could be something as simple as like running lines to a console, um, or it could be setting up routing scenes, stuff like that for another engineer to come work on, or mixing a live band.

SPEAKER_06: Um for a few bands now I'm doing I started doing playback. Um as you probably know, a lot of bands play with a laptop now live, including us, and uh I make the sessions for them, make the set list for them, time it, and then maybe even some automation for either their guitar pedals and or lights. So basically what I do for literally our band already. But yeah, um yeah, that's turned into my job, so it's pretty cool. One of the perks of moving to Nashville. Yeah, huge part. Camera stuff as well, and then because Jamar tagged me in one of our good friends from Orlando's um band post.

SPEAKER_06: Uh I'm supposed to talk to him later today, actually. I might be helping them track slash engineer produce five songs for them. I don't really do studio stuff as much, like as like okay. I do it in the band kind of because it just needs to happen, but I I prefer the live stuff a lot more. Makes a lot more sense to me. Um more satisfying too.

SPEAKER_01: So okay. So yeah, you're definitely uh pretty much parallel with the band then.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, then I was overseeing Valley Trash, which was garbage. So quite literally. Yeah. That was I literally quit that job while I was at Spencer's, well, with Spencer recording. I was like, why am I doing this? I don't want to do this anymore. They're calling me on my time off.

SPEAKER_01: Like oh no. Yeah. If if that's not part of the uh compensation package, then it's not worth it. What about HMR?

SPEAKER_05: Um well I'm hoping to eventually uh catch up to Cecil. You know, he's got a year and eight months here in Nashville on me. But um, you know, I do a lot of like the social media and um, well, all of the social media pretty much uh that you see online for Sleep Talker, our website, you know, all of that stuff. Um, so I'm finally branching out into helping other bands be able to do that, you know, help them with their socials and editing their videos and managing their brands and posts and whatever.

SPEAKER_05: So dipping my toes into starting to work in more industry-related fields. But I am pretty, I guess, lucky for lack of a better term, that my girlfriend got me into the service industry. Um, so I get to be extremely flexible. So it thankfully is not too difficult to be able to separate. My shifts are relatively short, and um I make enough to be able to do this, thankfully. You know, Nashville is a big thing.

SPEAKER_05: True. I got me I get to interact with people, literally hundreds of people, you know, every week. So it's it's kind of nice being able to connect in that way. But you know, obviously there are days where it's like, oh man, I don't really want to do this. I wish I was doing the music thing, but I've at least gotten to a point. I feel like to do music, you kind of have to tailor your life to be able to do it, right? Like our other guitar player, Alex, he secured a remote job so he's able to just be at home, and then it's like, okay, when I'm done, I can go upstairs and work with Cecil or whatever.

SPEAKER_05: You kind of do have to tailor your life to make this your job that you work for free until you can make it your job. So not uh not too difficult right now, thankfully, but hopefully one day we get to the point where you know it can kind of I would say our goal that we have decided uh now is to get to the point where the band can kind of just be self-sustaining to where whatever we put in kind of pays for itself because being in a band and doing it right is supremely expensive. So yeah, it definitely requires a lifestyle to make it work.

SPEAKER_01: Well, and I wrote down a question that I was gonna ask the one that I kept forgetting. Um so you kind of touched on it earlier. It's where basically, you know, bands are having to market themselves, you're having to do a lot more of that work. So, you know, um, with the social media managing that. The outreach, trying to get engagement. Um what are your thoughts on that? Do you think that that is uh just going to be the new standard going forward?

SPEAKER_05: I believe so. I think unfortunately, just like I was saying before, with the barrier of entry being so low, everyone has a thousand dollar camera in their pocket at all times, right? So everyone can just make something in post. Um, I think unfortunately, that is like the meta, you know, if you will, kind of like the way to go about it. I think the way that you, as an upcoming band, you kind of like it's a blessing and a curse, right? Where it's like, oh, I can do everything myself, but then it's like, damn, I have to do everything myself.

SPEAKER_05: Where we are a very DIY band, you know, that's why Cecil's able to do the lighting and the mixing and all of that. When we started this, we knew none of this at all. And we had to learn all of this ourselves. So many skills and so many fields we never thought that we would ever even remotely have to do when we were like, I want to make metal music with my friends. Uh you know, just like 10% of the time. Yeah, music is like this percentage of it. So, like, it is unfortunate, but also it gives you the opportunity to where you at any moment can do what you can to separate yourself from the pack.

SPEAKER_05: You know, you have to be creative in a sea of everyone posting five times a day. And I think when you are genuine, when you are authentic, when you are not just trying to be like, ah, I see popular band A is doing this. I should do it too. Well, there's no reason that they should listen to you because they already like popular band A. And I think content is a way that you can kind of push the music in a more interesting route. And the stuff that is more unique, that is more genuine, more authentic, is the stuff that is just going to kind of rise to the top.

SPEAKER_05: Still a war of attrition, still, you know, tickets in the lottery, but we at least are equipped now to be able to where we don't have to rely on the label. A label would have to come to you with something and be like, hey, I see what you're doing, I can fill in the gaps in your strategy and help you elevate what you're doing, as opposed to, well, I just make music, I don't know what to do, I need a label to do everything for me.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah. So instead of coming to a show and saying, We're gonna sign you, they do everything else, those days are gone.

SPEAKER_06: I think also very daunting right now. It's the same with like streaming. We'll call it like alternative, I guess, occupations. Like being a streamer or a YouTuber or something that's like not a conventional, you go work at Walgreens every day. It seems very enticing because it's not in the same old boring, tried and true. Go to work for eight hours, your break's in the middle, and you go home. Yeah. And it looks great because it's an alternative thing, but just like with any other alternative thing, especially the alternative lifestyle is like a whole aesthetic now, it's because people see the other thing as boring, but they don't understand that there's stability in that.

SPEAKER_06: And they're trying to make music or media in general stable, and by the nature of it, it's not. That's why we consume it, right? Like, if we knew that every single football game was just gonna turn out the exact same way, well, we wouldn't watch it. Like, the whole point is they're amping it up because they're like, who's gonna win? Who's gonna this? Who's gonna and every team thinks they have it figured out, but they don't. They they do until they until some freak of nature shows up that does the everything opposite that you're supposed to do, like a kid on um, there's a there's this guy who I guess he I I guess you would could call him the band.

SPEAKER_06: I guess he's an artist because I don't know his actual name, but it's um Scarlet House. I have never followed him on TikTok. I see his post every single time I'm on TikTok. Every single time. And the way that he does it is very what you probably would call meta. It's a dude wearing alternative kind of like vintage clothing with a bandana, and his music sounds kind of like deft tones. And I mean, we could do that in two seconds, right? Like, but it wouldn't be authentic to us. Now, it might be to him, and maybe that's why it's catching on, but then after him, you'll see 20 other bands do the same thing.

SPEAKER_06: It's because everyone is hoping that you get to a certain point and then you're gonna just be able to just you know kick your feet up, but realistically, all of the best bands don't do that. Like there's this delusion that me and Jamar especially have where it's like, okay, well, once we hit this milestone, then we can like it'll feel so much better, and realistically the work is just piled on because it's just different work. It's just how it goes. Like I we had a guy doing camera stuff for us, and I started doing it, and now it's like, oh my god, it's a whole other like, oh, once I get this camera, yeah, then I'll be fine, it'll be easy.

SPEAKER_06: It's like, well, no, we want to keep going.

SPEAKER_05: And I I got this um this Instagram reel the other day, different genre, but uh the rap uh group, I guess, Suicide Boys, you know, they're like alternative edgy email rap or whatever. They're huge now. And um they were interviewing them and they were like, you know, what would you say to like a younger artist that is trying to do this? And they were like, you literally need to be a psychopath about this. Like, you need to learn everything about it. You got to do it every day, every week. You have to be creative, you have to be weird, you have to learn all these things, you have to adjust your lifestyle in order to do it.

SPEAKER_05: Where, like, yeah, it looks good. I post my TikTok, and ah, yeah, it's like, no, you really have to do it all. You have to live and breathe it. We have meetings every week, we're talking in the group chat every day. Like it really has to be your job until it becomes your job, essentially.

SPEAKER_01: If you that's really there's actually a lot of purpose and intent behind it, and um that's I think that's one a big part of the art form for those that do go viral too, is they make it seem like they just came and stood in front of their phone and recorded and you know, hosted it, and you don't know everything that went in behind that, you know, just coming up with that, creating it all that stuff. So I heard people that make it look easy, and everybody wants, you know, a lot of people want to, you know, either make money real fast, not have to put in a lot of hard work, and so there's a lot of, I guess, um unreal, unrealistic expectations that people get from what they see, not realizing what went in behind it.

SPEAKER_05: I I saw a really great quote, and it was it takes 10 years to blow up overnight, and it really does. Like you don't see everything, even people like Sabrina Carpenter, everyone just woke up and Sabrina Carpenter was on their timeline. She had been making music for years and years, sleep token. They blew up in like 2020, 2021. Their first EP was like six, seven years before that. But it's like you don't see that, you don't see them grinding away, playing to 50 people, having to learn all this shit.

SPEAKER_05: How the fuck do I do a light show? I don't know how to work a camera. I'm trying to sing like you don't see all of that. So if they're making it look easier, then mission accomplished. They probably did all the hard shit five years ago.

SPEAKER_01: Well, I think too, like it happens all the time.

SPEAKER_06: There's people that do blow up doing nothing, and unfortunately, it blurs the lines. It only takes one person to blow up that way, and then people go, Oh, well, that's how it's just this formula, and it's like, hey man, you could honestly be doing everything right and still it doesn't happen. That's why you have to be the psychopath, and that's why at the end of the day, for me, I would be doing this whether I'm in a band or not. The band just gives me like a a north starter, like, okay, I can funnel these ideas to here, and it can be filtered through this, and then also playing the live show to me is the at the end of the day, it's still the most important thing.

SPEAKER_06: People become actual true fans, I think, after seeing a band live. I think you could love the music as much as you want, but seeing it pulled off live or executed live in a way is what makes it really why I think the whole AI thing hopefully will die down. Because I think when people realize that yes, this is great that it's blowing up and whatever, and maybe you're getting clicks from ads or whatever, people are gonna realize like, ah crap. People want to see bands live. Like it's just a different experience, especially in this genre in particular.

SPEAKER_06: Like it's so that's why I was saying earlier, like with the rock and metal stuff, like I've been to a few rap concerts, I didn't make any friends going there, and it wasn't like because everyone was mean, it's just like it felt very isolated, you know, like there wasn't really a reason for me to have a conversation with the person next to me. Whereas if someone sees, I mean, shoot, if you're wearing like a cool band t-shirt or something, or whatever, people just be like, Yeah, man, you walk up to them, like, hey man, your band's awesome.

SPEAKER_06: They're like, Oh, cool, are you in a band? Yeah, I I am actually. Um, we're gonna be playing whatever day. Oh, yeah, I'm gonna come on and check you guys out. Like, that's what it's been, especially here. Um, but I think, again, to bring it back, I think a lot of people see the either they see Sabrina Carpenter, whoever, essentially blow up overnight, or what they think, or they see someone that literally has blown up overnight, but maybe the quality of music isn't there, and for whatever reason it just went viral because it was so bad that now it like poisons the well, and now all of music is suffering because of some guy that was just essentially shitposting music.

SPEAKER_01: Well, we have uh like um shows like American Idol would think for the the real bad uh auditions that would go viral, you know. I mean, before that, we were we really weren't entertaining ourselves with people that were just horrible and you know, boring the song and that we got entertainment out of it until uh American Idol. But these days, yeah, it's it's pretty much you really don't know what will happen. Um with TikTok, it seems like there's a lot of individuality there, but there's also a lot sometimes too much of just um copycats.

SPEAKER_02: So a lot of low effort.

SPEAKER_01: If you yeah, like the the FYP for you page, and everybody will go and try and record the same video and post it out there, and it's just like, oh my god, come on, people, stop. You don't have to.

SPEAKER_05: We had uh a moment where where and you know, we are all influenced by things, right? So some level of copying in some capacity will go. I think there's a quote where it's like it's it's I don't know if it's Picasso, fact check me, whoever's watching this, but it's uh it was like good artists create, great artists steal. There's always some Yeah, there you go. And it's uh I saw a caption and I was like on TikTok of a post, and I was like, oh, that's kind of funny. I kind of like that. I so I took the caption, I changed it, I made it like fit to what we were doing because I thought it was was funny, and I was like, it would be cool to take one of our videos and put like a similar style caption on uh one of our TikTok videos.

SPEAKER_05: And I posted it, it did okay, did decently good piece of content. Literally the next day I opened my phone and a band that we kind of know posted my caption verbatim didn't change anything, and I was just like, oh man, we're cooked. Come on, guys, come on.

SPEAKER_06: Well, again, it's like let's say that like and this is why you know I'm the very like long haul, like down the road. That's how I look at things. Obviously, I want things to be great in the interim, like right now, but but what's the future? Yeah, so like when I look at stuff like that, let's say that band blew up and they got like 10,000 monthlies, 15,000 monthlies because of that post. Sure. If we're just being honest, and it's not to like, I don't think we're the nicest, goodest, you know, whatever, the best band, whatever, but it's like I know that our music sounds better than theirs because their music is it's not up to snuff.

SPEAKER_06: So even if it was to blow up because it got attention and clicks, it's not gonna last because people are gonna see through that.

SPEAKER_03: Right, right.

SPEAKER_06: And so it's it's very easy for us. Like, I feel like if that happened to us like two years ago, we'd all be like, oh, this is bullshit, da da da da. We'd be like way more upset about it. And now we're just like, dude, come on, man. Like, you guys are we're on, you need to focus on this first before you even shouldn't even be posting right now because what you guys are putting out, it's like it's not because we've we've heard them perform and it's like, man, this is not adding up to like what we heard.

SPEAKER_06: Like you guys are not capturing what you have like in a in a good way. It's just not it's not translating well, and it's yeah, fortunate because they are they are they are actually talented. It's just not being it's cutting corners because right now you're you you're expected to record yourself. I don't record us, um, you know, for better or worse. Like I probably can. I don't want to. I know that it's gonna stress me out because I'm gonna want it to sound a certain way, and I'd rather just go to someone and I'm just holding the guitar for once.

SPEAKER_06: I don't want to be behind a desk. I don't like doing it.

SPEAKER_01: So you're listening to yourself though, and that's good, instead of you know, just in sixing and you know, trying to do something that you know would wreak havoc.

SPEAKER_05: Or also like we try so hard and we're so annoying. That's why I think it takes us so long to come out with music because it's like every detail takes so long. We're not just like here's a cool riff and a breakdown, and I'm saying darkness in the undertow, you know, burning bridges, cut the ties, you know, like it's like I want to actually be uh be as original as I can be in such an oversaturated genre. And then I feel like, yeah, a lot of bands just like breakdown, pig squeal noise, uh pain, suffering, misery, ship it.

SPEAKER_05: We'll have another one next month. See you there.

SPEAKER_06: And it's like Yeah, I mean, also like going to some live shows, like because we've had a lot of internal like back and forths, you know, not anything bad, but just like really heavy disagreements on like, well, what are we? Why should people listen to us? And then it's like, oh wait, okay, I kinda see it now. The level that we're at, we are to bring it back to what Jamar said in the beginning, like we are that band that he saw, you know, and that's the way to look at it. I think a lot of people that are in, especially in metal, is we're all the kind of doomers and whatever and down on whatever, but they look at it and they start to hate on the band that's doing that.

SPEAKER_06: And there are people that I, you know, associate with or whatever, and they have a band and they don't do the try hard stuff because they're worried that there's gonna be people that hate on them. And I'm like, why? You guys deserve to like try hard, like you should just go the extra mile because I think you guys have the it factor that a lot of these bands don't have. Not only do you sound good live, but you have like original songs, like I feel something, which is like I'm the most annoying person to write music with because if it just doesn't feel like anything, I'm gonna be the biggest hater on it.

SPEAKER_06: And that doesn't mean it won't get used, but it's gonna be a pain point while we're recording because I'm like, guys, it's not I gotta play this song, you gotta play this song. Like, let's make it actually like there's songs that aren't my favorite. Opaque is my least favorite song, I think, that we have. I actually kind of like playing it live, funny enough. Because when we go to play it, I'm like, oh, okay, I get it. I just don't like listening to it anymore, you know. But it was also a demo on my computer for three years.

SPEAKER_06: So it's like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: I think the what I'm hearing though, too, from you guys is you're able when you're out there and you're playing your songs, you're gonna be able to give off energy and your fans are gonna be able to pick up on that because the song is yours. You've made it yours. So instead of just releasing something um that you were talking about, just come up with the lyrics, the chord, the chorus, whatever, and you're done. You're making it part of you. So that's the energy that you're going to give off when you're playing live.

SPEAKER_01: Um and that it's not something that you that you can see or hear, but it's something that is felt.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I think energy is like the perfect.

SPEAKER_01: The and yeah, the energy that you carry because of the song that you've made yours. Yeah. And not something that you just quickly produced and put out there.

SPEAKER_06: I think the thing that we and this was funny because that was one of the words that I used when we were talking about because we played the Fourth of July, and we hadn't played a show in a year. Uh, but we played a show 4th of July, and even with a fill-in drummer, everyone that came up to me at least had said something like, yo, man, your guys' energy, like, and then when I was looking at back at the videos, it's like, yeah, we didn't play perfect, but we're not ever trying. I mean, I want to play perfect, I guess, but I don't really care that much.

SPEAKER_06: That's when I care the least, to be honest, is when we're playing because you know, you're moving and me and Jamar bumped into each other the last time and dealing with whatever issues that happen at a live show that you kind of don't really care about, like, was this perfect? It's more of like, did it give off what it was supposed to? You know, when we watched um, there's some bands that I probably would never go out of my way to listen to in my car, but when we've seen them at some of these shows live, it's like, my God, that was fun.

SPEAKER_06: Like that guitar player was like all over the stage. Yeah. Like they the drummer just like the way they're hit, it's just it literally is just energy. Like they bring a lot of energy, and it's like I need that, at least in this genre, it's a visceral genre. It can't be lazy. We need like we need hard hits, we need it to be loud, we need we need to be fun.

SPEAKER_05: Doubly so now in the era of you know, everyone wanting to pump out a song every 90 days or 60 days or whatever to keep the algorithm going and AI music and shit like that. It's like I feel like eventually those strategies won't be successful because everyone's gonna be fatigued because it's like, well, I don't want another riffs and breakdown song. I've heard this exact song 30 times. I'm not gonna listen to this in five years, you know, where it's like something that's more real, organic, authentic, you know, made by people is gonna be something that is remembered because that other stuff isn't felt.

SPEAKER_05: It's listened to, it has a viral moment, it's a drop in a bucket, in five years no one's talking about it. But even if it didn't go viral, someone's gonna remember something that they felt, and that's gonna be on their playlist for 10 years, you know what I mean? If not longer. And I think we're starting to get to the point where there's a little fatigue. I think it's still gonna take some time, but um, I think that's gonna be the outcome eventually is people are just gonna get tired of the mass-produced slop and they're gonna go back to being like, I want real, authentic, organic music that makes me feel something, not something that we're just we wrote a three-minute song, and this 30 second is the part that we know is gonna go viral on TikTok, so we're just gonna spam post that and whatever.

SPEAKER_05: No, and that's that's never even been on our brain. If that happens organically, we're like, oh, that would be you know, that part probably will blow up on TikTok, but it's not what's the craziest goblin noise I can make over the sickest, dumbest breakdown ever, and then just fuck the other three minutes of the song. No one's gonna listen to it once the hype.

SPEAKER_06: When that stuff happens organically, it's the best because it's like, oh man, like, yeah, that's gonna hit really hard. I'm glad that this idea that so-and-so had that we just leaned into again, we just follow the thread. Sometimes it's gotta get ridiculous, sometimes it's gonna be so pretty or unpredictable or whatever. But I just I hate the formulaic stuff because it kind of just like dilutes it for me. Like if we know that, oh, I just need to write a song that's three minutes and 20 seconds, it needs to have a breakdown, I need to have Jamar, don't forget that lyric that I can post on Instagram and TikTok a bunch, and then we need to be let's just post the same song eight.

SPEAKER_04: Bridges burned in the undertow.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, like are you creating music or are you just writing commercials?

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and I think because while I understand there is a balance, we gotta have some amount of something. Yeah, let's pick the best part of our song, you know, the breakdown, or let's put a silly caption, like, bro, was going ham for real, for real, or something stupid. Like, okay, fine. Like, sure. But like, whatever. We'll lean into it however much we need to to get people to hear us. But like our biggest fear usually is like, oh God, I don't want to be that band that's just like the you know, heavy breakdown on TikTok core.

SPEAKER_06: I don't want that because that's not where I I'm trying to play shows. I don't want to I don't want to play TikTok. I want to play shows. And TikTok doesn't translate to shows always. You know, you might get put on a festival and there's a lot of people there, but that doesn't mean those people are there to see you. Those people are there to see some other band and you just got tossed on and they may or may not care.

SPEAKER_05: Something that we've been hearing now, you know, now that we're all together and networking here in Nashville, playing more shows, talking to people, that's something that people in The industry have been telling us where it's like, yo, there are bands that have a hundred thousand.

SPEAKER_00: What are they telling you?

SPEAKER_05: That there are bands that do have like a hundred thousand monthly listeners, or they've gone viral on TikTok or whatever, and then they played a show with that band and no one showed up because they only cared about 30 seconds of one song of their 20-song discography. That all sounds the same. And it's like it doesn't, it doesn't translate.

SPEAKER_01: It is a horrible model to follow if you're only going by like the um, you know, the likes, the views, all that to gauge an artist and their success. I mean, it's it's more vain than it is anything.

SPEAKER_05: So it's vanity message.

SPEAKER_01: Um something that really annoyed me when I started on TikTok, and um it's before I even started my podcast and everything, was I kept finding all these people that were just singing along to their favorite songs. So it could be, you know, it could be hair metal to the current genre, but they were just melding the words to it, and it's like everybody was got on that train and was doing the same thing because some people got a lot of views, they get thousands of views for it. And you I just to me, it would just, oh god, I found that so cringe.

SPEAKER_01: It's like in a cringe if you want to bring if you want to bring back the music or something like that, just fucking talk about it. The bands don't need to see you mouthing the words and driving your car at the same time. They know the song, they came up with the goddamn song. Yeah, so it wasn't creative. That's that's my rub.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah. Yeah. Also, the problem is that even if if it were getting 10,000 views or likes or whatever, cool. I could see why. But right now we don't even know if that stuff's authentic anymore. There's so many bands we've like like clocked for uh botting, you know, and it's like yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's kind of insane because it's like, well, you're dude, you're not getting anything from it.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah. They were like charging uh subscriptions and things like that, and come to find out that they found a way to create bots that were subscribers. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_06: So they they'll do comments and stuff now, too. Crazy. But it's like, dude, you spent all that time and now you're gonna have to fight allegations all the time and lie about it all the time. And you could have just taken six months to just grind it out, just do it the right way. Yeah. Like do some marketing, be creative. Getting the thing is that getting 10,000 likes on something isn't that unique anymore. What?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, we could go on and on.

SPEAKER_04: True, true, true. We're grumpy old men. So yeah, grumpy.

SPEAKER_01: Something that I do like to mention for my audience is, you know, parents and guardians, if you have somebody who is young that you're raising and they show an interest in music, whether it's you know, joining the choir, the band, playing a musical instrument, uh, singing, doing setting something up on their own, support them in that because music changes lives and it does so many things for us that we can't even realize. So that's something that's near and dear to me is you know, support the kids and our future generation, but um definitely let them go down that path and support them and help them in any way possible.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, 100%. Or the world would be uh very boring without music.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah. Sadly, it's free now, so he says with a yawn.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, all right. So fun.

SPEAKER_01: All right, all right. Well, it's been a pleasure in uh getting to talk to you guys. I feel like we did a deep dive on uh some really good topics. And um yeah, I I can't wait to to hear uh more of your releases that come out. So if you get a chance, everybody, Sleep Talker, they're on all streaming platforms, and you want to go out and definitely listen to their new release, Fractures. You will be glad that you heard it and uh keep an eye on these guys as they have been recently signed with uh Tough Luck Music, and their going place is located in Nashville.

SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much for joining me guys, and we'll have to stay in touch. And um, I'm definitely a new fan as well.

SPEAKER_05: So thanks so much for thank you so much for chatting with us.

SPEAKER_01: Absolutely. All right, everybody. This is She Shreds with Rasan with Sleep Talker and Keep It Loud.

SPEAKER_02: Hello.

SPEAKER_01: And that is going to do it. Thanks for hanging out with me, discovering some new music, supporting these artists, and keeping things loud. And hey, this show is created by a fan for the fans. So I want to hear from you. If there's a band you think I need to hear, an artist you'd love to hear on the show, or you've got suggestions, comments, or something you'd like to see me add, send it my way. You can reach me at she shredswithrasan at gmail.com. And my name Rassanne is spelled R-A-S-A-N. And don't forget to support these bands.

SPEAKER_01: Follow them, stream their music, buy the merch, go to the damn shows. That's how we keep this scene alive. I'm Rassanne, and I'll catch you next week. Until then, stay loud, support the scene, and keep shredding.

Tonight's Episode