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00:00there is nothing unique about playing a guitar or playing a distorted guitar or singing a melody
00:06there is only one thing inherently unique in all of that and that is me and my voice and my stories
00:12rock metal prog and everything in between welcome to this episode of talk and rock with meltdown
00:20don't forget to follow the audio only talking rock podcast on all podcast platforms and now
00:25it's time for today's conversation here's meltdown hey des good to see hopefully things are a little
00:31bit warmer and less snowy than uh than here where you are good to see you they're most certainly not
00:37i'll tell you that right now yeah where you at i'm in new york okay yeah that's right you're you're
00:42from that whereabouts you're from in new york queens new york okay you're from right down in the city
00:47okay gotcha yeah i grew up in western new york and people always tell me they go uh you don't sound
00:51like you're from new york well western new york is like it's almost like a different country up
00:56there you know it's definitely a different different world yeah that is true did did you grow up going to
01:01to a bunch of rock clubs and stuff in the city oh i most certainly did i grew up in the shadow of the
01:06city and that was just like my playground all the little venues at dot manhattan brooklyn queens
01:12long island everywhere that's where i lived now is cbgb's i never i was never able to get there
01:17was was that still open were you able to go there you know i closed when i was super super young but
01:23i actually did play there when i was 14 years old and i took the train to the city holding a marshall
01:30head in my hand and a guitar on the shoulder and i walked in there and i played at like 3 p.m in the
01:36afternoon and i was so young that i had to immediately leave the venue after i played oh yeah you couldn't i
01:42couldn't stay uh so i get to say i played it uh which is i guess fun yeah that's hysterical my
01:48my brother was 16 now it's like 22 or 23 and he was playing a bar same thing in buffalo and the
01:54owners wouldn't let him in the bar until they took to the stage you know i think that's just such like
01:58a weird legal fiction that we kind of all go along with that somehow you're allowed to be in a bar if
02:04you're a teenager but then you have to leave right when you're done playing music i think like someone
02:09just made this up 20 years ago and now we all abide by it yeah that's right so growing up in uh in new
02:14york like that um where did where did your influences come from did you uh did you grow up in a family
02:19that was musical did you discover it somewhere along the line no i was really like a lone wolf in the
02:24early days you know i i discovered music just by going to a cd stores and browsing and looking at
02:29what was cool and whatever i brought home i brought home and that just sunk into my dna i was also very
02:34largely influenced by a very strong diy scene that was in new york city and long island at the times
02:40and musically i was really all over the place i was like a sponge i was taking it all in
02:45the one thing i know is that the music i always made was never the music that was uh trendy or that
02:51everybody else was doing very much to my detriment you know i wish i could have made music that
02:56people really went out to hear but whenever people showed up to shows i was playing they were there
03:00for a totally different reason so a lot of my uh early formative years are spent just kind of like
03:05striking out to nobody and you know um just listening to your music and stuff uh a few things
03:11come to mind uh you're gonna probably find this a little bit weird but uh there there's some aspect
03:16of dorothy in the stuff that you play and i don't know if you've ever heard that before i was listening
03:20to i'm like who does this remind me of dorothy but uh there's also some aspect of it uh being right
03:25here in the motor city of white stripes you know and so that's got to be that's got to be
03:29something that's in your wheelhouse correct for sure you know i think like those two artists
03:33represent things that are kind of immensely fuzzy and also intense and there's a sort of intensity
03:39that i always want to bring to the music and a certain personality that i hope always shines
03:44through yeah you say fuzzy that's that's interesting that that's kind of in your that that's in your dna
03:49and your music isn't it oh absolutely i think balancing walls of distortion in a way that's palatable
03:55that's a hard thing to do you know a lot of people can overdo it um but it's a fine line to walk
04:00to use to paint with that color but also have it come out and be like a very cohesive and beautiful
04:07song so who who does that well oh i mean the white stripes and jack white do that beautifully well
04:12uh queens the stone age does that beautifully well and then early days going as far back to like the
04:17who who had like immensely fuzzy tones or the kinks you know and they put it all in the context
04:22of really beautiful songs yeah and uh just when you say fuzzy i think of the fuzz lord scott holiday
04:28of course you know oh yeah for sure yeah i've seen those guys a bunch of times um but yeah i mean
04:34fuzz is kind of like a way of life there's many spectrums uh there's many colors on like the
04:38distortion spectrum you know what i mean and uh that's why i like to paint with a lot yeah and then
04:43of course your influence uh i mean obviously uh with your look and stuff it goes back to the 50s and 60s
04:49as well so you you're you're uh your musical tastes run the gamut doesn't it oh yeah for sure i love
04:54i love everything like it's so all over the place in a good way in a hard way when it comes to writing
05:00because you never know what's going to come out um i wish i could be a little bit more one note and
05:04focus sometimes but uh but no i really i'm just a music lover in every in every regard and are you one
05:11of these guys that uh i don't know you wake up in the middle of night and and and hum into your phone
05:15or pick up a guitar and just put something down that you thought of or how does that work
05:18yeah definitely i wake up in the middle of the night with like fully formed songs very often in
05:23my head and then you kind of have this struggle right you're like oh should i get out of bed and
05:27record this or will i remember it and you will never remember it you always think you have a chance
05:32of remembering it but you never will and you'll always regret it i also get a lot of ideas in the
05:37shower like i always say i think the shower deserves like 50 of publishing on every song ever written
05:42yeah that's great so so that the lightest song this land it was used in in borderlands 4 i think
05:49i'm explain this what is that oh borderlands 4 is a really big video game franchise um and they
05:56always have these giant opening cinematic sequences that feature a song so the very first one in 2009
06:02was uh cage the elephants ain't no rest of the wicked and they always kind of look for things a
06:06little bit left of center that um played this like wild alien universe that they've created
06:12and it was a lot of fun to be tapped in to create the one for borderlands 4 so you don't strike me
06:17as a as a as a gaming guy do you play a lot of games no not at all oh uh yeah which is funny because
06:23like i think in a sense it gave me a little bit of a distance and an objectivity that i think was
06:28probably very helpful creatively and then uh you know i i i saw nobody too in the theaters but you
06:35covered uh johnny cash which seems like right in your wheelhouse and uh tell me tell me about that
06:40did you go watch that in the theaters no i haven't seen the movie yet actually really now
06:44so you invite a song in a movie i'd be out there the first day i know it's so ridiculous i gotta i
06:50gotta go see it um but no they came to me and they said why don't you recover for the finale of this
06:54movie and they gave me two songs and they said they're gonna pick one one was like a frank
06:58sinatra song and the other was johnny cash and with both i had serious reservations because the
07:03frank sinatra song i was like how the hell can i des rockify this this is a real this is gonna be
07:09an uphill battle and then the second one was a song that's already been widely covered by rock bands
07:15like social distortion so it's been done before uh and it was very tough to figure out like how do i
07:22make it sound as if it was a des rock song written by johnny cash you know i mean that was really the
07:27goal and once i kind of figured out what that was then the seas just opened up and the whole thing
07:32poured out you know it's funny i don't know if you've seen this i've gotten this in my dms a lot
07:36but there's this band out there that that does uh i believe it's ring of fire and they they they
07:41mesh it up with uh with white zombie thunder kiss 65 have you seen that no i gotta check it out
07:46yeah i've gotten it in my dms a few times it's interesting when bands take that they were they were doing it
07:51live on stage in front of a crowd you know and then it's like and then they go into the ring of
07:56fire like it was but no i i so so you don't even know where that was used in the movie i saw the
08:02movie like three or four months ago and i can't recall what when it was used maybe in the credits
08:06or something i don't even know yeah they sent me like a rough cut of the scene of the movie uh that
08:12they wanted in to give me kind of a little bit of a inspiration um but no i haven't seen the final
08:17product yet yeah it's it was a good movie it was fun i i don't i don't think i ever saw nobody
08:21won and i kind of went in cold and i thought the movie was fun you know that's that's all you can
08:25ask for i suppose it's a wild ride man it's also crazy when you make a song like uh whether it's for
08:31borderlands 4 or for nobody 2 and you think wow this song just hits so hard there's nothing that can
08:37make this hit any harder and then you see it with the visual whether it's like a carnival shootout scene
08:42or like a crazy alien world and it's like wow this actually made this song hit harder when on the
08:49downbeat like an alien's head is blown off you know it's it's like pretty intense yeah so this year uh
08:55what do you have coming up i know you got you got the show april 18th here in uh ann arbor you're gonna
08:59be playing at the blind pig which by the way is kind of a historic place um man some some great bands
09:05have played there uh but what do you got going on besides that this year besides the touring yeah we got
09:10tremendous amount of touring coming up we have the whole new album on deck as well for this year
09:14and yeah i've heard so many amazing things about that venue that i just really can't wait to get
09:19there and play there and the show is almost sold out so anybody who's listening make sure you grab
09:23your tickets yeah uh tell me about the record oh the record is one of the greatest things i've ever
09:28worked on uh i can't wait for everybody to hear it it is just brimming with so much passion
09:35and pathos and bringing it to life almost killed me in many different ways uh but i'm proud to say
09:41it's finally done mastered mixed everything off to the plant and now it's on its way out and so where
09:48did you record this record at we made it mostly at a place called mission sound in brooklyn new york
09:53and also a little bit at the power station in manhattan and we recorded it live as a band like
09:59really legit live no copy and pasting um nothing like that so the takes you here are the band playing
10:06it from beginning to end for better or for worse so when you do something like that and i always
10:12preface this by saying i'm not a musician you know i always hate when when these uh sports guys always
10:17talk about sports and they they get you know winded walking to the refrigerator i am not a musician so
10:22do you do you work with the band on these songs like dozens and dozens of times then you go into the
10:28studio and just do it yeah absolutely we workshop every element we'll play it over and over and over
10:33again and we'll get in there and we think we know exactly what we want to do and then for some reason
10:38it's just not working on tape like when you play it back it doesn't feel right and you're kind of
10:42adjusting and then before you know it you're on take 25 and everybody wants to kill each other and
10:47they want to leave and then that ends up being the magical take the one where everybody wanted to
10:50kill each other or the first take where you're kind of fumbling your way through the song ends up being
10:55the magical one yeah i think uh i want to say uh eric kretsch from stone temple pilots one time
11:00has told me that i think a creep was the second tape that second take that's what that was that
11:05was the one that you hear all the time wow yeah i mean there's just some magic to it and like
11:09you know you never know where that magic is going to come from and you can't even define it you know
11:14you can't even say what makes take two better than take seven it's just a gut feeling and that to me
11:20is also just like such an impressive statement about the power of music now is that where you
11:24kind of uh you kind of rely on the producer or maybe other people in the room because maybe you
11:29like take three and they like take seven how does that work well i mean at the end of the day it's
11:34kind of a creative dictatorship so i i enjoy that power very much you know and uh but no i have a lot
11:40of close and trusted confidants and friends and everybody does have a say especially when it comes to
11:44their performance but we worked with this amazing producer joe ciccarelli who funny enough you know
11:50did a lot of the white stripes albums that we were just kind of talking about and referencing
11:53and uh you know he's got an amazing trusted ear and i only brought him in the room because i immensely
11:58respect his opinion and what kind of stuff uh went into this record as far as like influences maybe
12:03life events uh anything like that i mean there's a lot of significant life events that are molded into
12:11the dma of this album but also it's very much just in the spirit of taking a giant step forward
12:16as an artist you know i feel like i've said and done a lot of things that i've wanted to say and
12:20do over the last couple years and now this is very much a step into a new era and to make the absolute
12:26best most compelling music i can possibly make in a landscape that i think is just like increasingly
12:32stale and generic yeah i was going to ask you it's like what do you think is the next step for you to
12:37to reach that next level and i guess dropping this record would be the first step i suppose
12:41definitely man i mean just to make something that i think is is undeniably real and undeniably
12:48authentic to who i am as an artist again for better or for worse you know i want you to hear this album
12:54and i want you to say you know i love it i love it so much or i hate it i want you to have any like
13:00middle ground like huh sounds like uh this other artist that i know that to me would be the worst case
13:06scenario and by the way earlier when i was talking because i know that you're really a guy who really
13:10wants to make your own path and sound like your own artist i just i heard elements of this kind
13:15of stuff and let's face it in 2026 rock and roll has been around for you know 75 years or something
13:20it's hard to find something that's completely new and different but you do take elements from other
13:24artists don't you oh absolutely i mean there is nothing unique about playing a guitar or playing
13:31a distorted guitar or singing a melody there is nothing inherently unique there is only one thing
13:37inherently unique in all of that and that is me and my voice and my stories there's no other person
13:43who's lived my life or who will sing with my vocal cords and that's the thing that i'm always kind of
13:48leaning into the most you know and using everything else as these beautiful tools like the guitar and the
13:54drums and everything you know i'm so standing on the shoulders of giants with respect to the
13:59instrumentation and the production so i want to take everything they've done and tap into that same
14:04energy without recreating it you know what what do you what do your parents think of your career
14:09uh i mean i think it's confusion mostly you know i think it's so foreign to them like we didn't know
14:17anybody in music growing up i didn't have anybody who i could talk to i just had to kind of figure out
14:23everything myself and just make every single mistake somebody could ever make uh in the most
14:30embarrassing way as possible you know just kind of fumbling my way through having the final product
14:35in my head of who i wanted to be and what i wanted to do on stage but having no idea how to get there
14:41yeah it's kind of the same thing with me i didn't grow up in a musical family my dad went to work you
14:45know like everyone else's dad 40 hours a week and came home and my dad would have never done some of
14:50the things i've done in my life you know i just went and watched avatar a few weeks ago and i'm like
14:54my dad would have never done this 20 years you know uh you know before my age let alone at his
15:00age you know it's like it's just wild it's kind of like a different generation that we've grown up in
15:04oh for sure i mean i also had so many um just having accessibility to venues in new york city
15:11like i just had resources available to me that weren't available to my parents to pursue my passions
15:17and my dreams i'm very fortunate for that yeah you know growing up in new york city like i said i
15:21haven't spent much time in new york city but i did grow up in you know buffalo and i've lived 30
15:25years here in detroit and there's a there's a certain grittiness to it that um you know that
15:30new york has as well and it kind of bleeds through in your music doesn't it oh yeah man i mean i've had
15:35some crazy shows in buffalo i remember playing this one place maybe you know the name of it
15:38but it's like a complex with three different rooms and i was in the basement obviously the smallest
15:43possible room and they had a pipe up top a plumbing pipe and obviously that's like the lowest
15:49hanging fruit for somebody to grab onto and swing into the crowd but they kind of uh wanted to
15:55preempt that so they covered it in broken glass and it was it's like the most dangerous thing you
16:00could possibly do it's also the most buffalo thing you could possibly do and i remember jumping up
16:04during the show and slicing my head open on this broken glass and i was like there is a a grittiness
16:10to this part of the state that i think is very much mirrored in some of the places that i spent my
16:15time as a kid and uh yeah i mean like that's just such a crazy a crazy thing i even forgot where
16:22where we started with me telling the story but yeah buffalo is crazy no just the whole grittiness of
16:27like where you grew up where i grew up and stuff it's like you know there's certain parts of the
16:31country i probably couldn't live in because it just wouldn't it just wouldn't be me it just wouldn't
16:35be real and i think you're kind of the same way oh yeah 100 i mean i love seeing the whole country i
16:40love getting out there but like the tri-state area of new york city is my home and it always has been
16:45always will be yeah and um you know speaking of uh here in detroit though you you you were you
16:50played riff fest a couple years ago that was a fun day a nice afternoon thousands of people
16:55watching you on stage i don't know if you even recall that show oh of course i remember it vividly
16:59because there was a ski slope next to the venue and my bass player and i decided that it would be a
17:04good idea to go for a hike before the show so we walked up this giant ski mound all the way to the
17:09top when we got the top we realized we were on stage in like 35 minutes so we ran down this hill
17:14like very awkwardly and i was in leather pants and a leather jacket and then we ran right on the
17:18stage um so yeah i remember it very well by the way i i think that is that you're right it is a ski
17:23slope but i think it used to be a dump a garbage dump i think that's what happens here in michigan
17:29we make the dumps in the ski slopes that's also very new york and it's grittiness so i appreciate
17:33that well i'll tell you what des we'll let you fly here uh any word by the way when the record is
17:38going to drop uh soonish soonish when the weather gets a little less snowy and cold a new album will
17:46be on its way and that sounds like a riddle but it's not well i'll tell you what uh april 18th and
17:53ann arbor looking forward to seeing you at that historic venue and uh safe travels stay warm and
17:57thank you for your time thank you my man take care check out talking rock with milk on all podcast
18:03platforms and wrif.com
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