Karl Learmont and Ashley Bad, in full

0:00Thank you. Hi, friends. I am Tash, and this is Unwritten Rules of the Road. We are joined today by two incredible artists that I'm really excited to get to chat with. Ashley Bad, thank you so much for joining us tonight. Thank you so much for having me. And Karl Learmont of Angelspit, yes. Thanks, Tash. It's so good to be here. Thank you. Yeah, it's incredible. I love the fact that I'm getting to chat with two artists that have just collaborated with each other and have collaborated for a while. I know you guys have done all sorts of creative remixes and you have more projects coming online.

1:35How did you guys originally meet? How did you guys first intersect? Ash? Yeah, so we met many years ago. I don't want to think about the number right now, but actually we met at -- my ex ran an industrial gothic fusion event in New York City called Stimulate. Karl and I hit it off back then after he had performed with his band Angelspit. And I believe that's the same place that I met you, Tash, as well. You performed at Stimulate in New York City. Yeah, so that many years ago is how Karl and I met. Yeah. And we, I recall, we don't always end up having deep conversations in random places like wherever.

2:28And I have the fondest memories of New York. I love New York. And I remember we were having a conversation as near where the toilets were and some young person had been drinking way too much. And the ambulance came in with a chair and put them on a chair and carted them out on this chair. I'd never seen that before. And I remember I heard somebody say, "Oh, there goes $3,000." Oh, I think it was you, Ashley, or somebody said, "There goes three grand." I can't remember, but it may have been, yeah. Yeah, because for me, that was just as I'd come to the US, so I was still getting used to the healthcare situation.

3:12Because if you throw up in Australia and you get your stomach pumped, it's free. That's why Australia has a drinking problem. And I said, "Why is that?" And they say, "Once they go to the hospital, once they get their stomach pumped, everything else is going to be, you know, three grand, they're going to throw their own bill." And that actually inspired a song called "Defibrillator." That was one of the many joys of the madness of New York City. Yeah, so we've known each other most of the time I've been here. Wow. I love that. So it was like instant kindred spirits. And so the remixes started.

3:53I think that was when I noticed you guys started collaborating was through the remixes, correct? Yeah. Yeah. I did. Didn't I do one of yours first, Ash? Yeah. I did one with my ex-partner with you a million years ago. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. But then when I was really hands on with remixing, you actually did one just before when the gun came out and then I did one after. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've always loved Ashley's voice because it's very, it's rough here and it's clear here. So it's got this really rough bass and a really clear harmonic. And when you talk, Ashley, you've got a real, it just sounds great.

4:42It's got a lot of attitude in it. It's got that New York, "Hey, I'm trying to cross the road here" kind of vibe. And I've always loved that. It works really well in industrial music. Actually, and it reminds me of, what is her name? Is it Anna? She did "Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll America" with KMFDM. And she also did a track on "Recoil" called "Luscious Apparatus". That amazing beat poet who's got that really deadpan, like resting bitch-faced New Yorker voice. And I just went, "God, that reminds me of Bachelorette." There you go. That's awesome. Yeah. And then we worked on this one franchise, this new Angelspit track, which is from Angelspit's yet-to-be-named 13th album.

5:34And when I was doing it, I just went, "Ashley is the only person who could pull this track off." Because it's funny that it was actually inspired by... So I did this podcast on Saturday mornings called The Art of Rock and we talk about how hard it is making music and how hard it is making art and the importance of tenacity and working on your art and all that stuff, super important. And one day we were randomly talking about Pump Up The Jam, as you do. And the crazy thing about Pump Up The Jam, and we were sort of taking the piss. But then I listened to the track and it's like, this track's amazing.

6:15Like it's really. When you listen to what that girl's voice is doing in the vocal, it's just, it's such funk. And the way she goes while your beat is pumping and she brings off the beat, then she goes ahead and then she drags back. Oh, it's great. And so "Franchised" was really inspired by "Pump Up the Jam". And I don't know if I even told you that. You have, you have. And I said like, I really love like the driving baseline, the delay on that baseline. Yeah. Yeah. So it was good fun. It was good fun. Ashley, what were your experiences of recording it here in my apartment?

7:04Well, I was yelling at you the whole time, I recall. Yeah, but you were, you were really enthusiastic and you pushed me where I needed to go, you know? And that's exactly what I needed because, you know, I was talking to you about the doubts that I have in my head. If you remember, Karl, I'm like, am I good enough? Am I doing a good job? You know, I like working with someone that's going to force me to experiment and to go outside my comfort zone and not be afraid. You know, because I, I can get in my own head and I care so much about like, you know, the opinions of others.

7:39What are, what's the public going to be thinking about? And I shouldn't be thinking about that. I need to go in and make art and it needs to come from here. And that's what I really appreciated about working with Karl. Because Karl would be like, give me more. All right, do it this way, lower, higher. Crazier. What's that? Crazier. Crazier. Yeah. I recall that we fell upon this concept of imagine in your head, see a vision of the person, the, of the ideal goddess rock star who is developing this vocal. And this is a great thing to do if you're ever doing a vocal and you can't do it and you're having trouble with it.

8:17Because as with everybody, the voices in your head are going, you suck. This is crap. Don't do it. I don't know what those voices are. Just don't worry about it. It's anxiety. Just go with it. Just make it happen. And we decided, you know, and I asked you to wear what you would wear, what that character would wear. So do your hair, do your nails, do your face and come dress for war. And I remember you did. And it was really great that it, it really helped just deliver that, that funk. Yeah. And you helped me pump up the jam, pump it up. Sorry, I'll stop.

8:56Yeah, the way that you dress is, I can't believe how much that helps with my performance, you know? Because I always feel good about myself when I've done my hair, my makeup, and I'm dressed up. My performance is better. That's how I feel. I give more of myself because I'm more comfortable with myself. And that's, that's so true. Like if you're ever in a place where you can't, where you're having trouble with the song and you feel like you can't do it, become someone else, put on a suit, do your hair, do your nails, do your face, like go full warfare makeup and work on the song.

9:34Change the lighting. Just turn it into a performance where you are the audience and the performer. Yeah, but that was a fun day. It wasn't too hot, I recall. No, not too hot. It was perfect. I drank a bunch of tequila as well. I love that. Yeah, yeah, and it's funny that when I listen to all the different takes, when I listen to all the different takes, you're like, you nail it. And I go, that's great. Do it again. Yeah. But you did good. It was a lot of fun. Oh, I had so much fun. Thanks, Karl. So in terms of the lyrics, was this something that Ashley had written or was this something that was improvised

10:20while you were recording? I came with the lyrics already done. Lyrics take me a very long time to write. And some people say lyrics don't matter. I think they do. I spent a lot of time on the lyrics and the lyrics for "Franchised" are laced. They are venom laced. And that was another thing is when I thought, I want Ashley to do this track is I thought, Ashley's character, what would Ashley's character say? And yeah, so I spent months, maybe six months. It takes me on average four months to write lyrics. And it's also really weird in my process. I can't, I'll start on the song and it's this really awful embarrassing demo that I will never play another human being.

11:13And then I'll work it a bit and it sucks and I hate myself. And then I have to put the vocals down. Because the question is, what's this music saying? Therefore, what are the lyrics saying? And then when they start all coming together, it becomes this really wicked thing. And it starts, everything starts suggesting other things and everything starts moving together. And then that suggests sounds and synthesizes and drums and loops and all that stuff. But the, there are, if you could imagine, so it's taken from the concept of Caesar just before he was executed. And you're going to have to forget my Latin "veri, veri, visi, I came, I saw, I conquered". But then I said I franchised. Because if I was going to add something, so it's "veri, veri, visi, visa". Visa card. And then the next statement is "with underpaid mercenaries who used to be allies".

12:21Which is a concept of, you know, when you're working in a situation and you're doing it for the love of it, and you're not being appreciated financially when they can afford to remunerate you, you kind of get fucked over and you start feeling like an underpaid, underappreciated mercenary. And the whole idea that the last line is, you're not lucky, you're just next in line. That there's a thought where your luck runs out only because your number isn't up yet. So the whole thing is about how it's like taking the swirl of modern life and how it doesn't matter how much you work, you can never seem to make it work.

13:13And the whole thing just falling apart into this clusterfuck before you get knifed in the back by your friends like Cesar did. And that's also another thing, I digress, and feel free to jump in, is that I remember like in the 2010s when Ashley and I met and when we were in New York, it was when everything changed. So that's the demise of MySpace, which, if you remember MySpace, everybody called it My Spam, because by the end of it, it had just, it was overrun with spam. And that's when Facebook turned up and MySpace was about the music, and then Facebook, it changed the whole, you don't really need to go out, all that stuff happened.

14:00And I distinctly remember how in six months everything changed, and it became the whole concept of the cyberpunk ideal and the cyberpunk dream. It's like how it got corporatised and turned into this massive ongoing beige backroom of clusterfuck. But anyway, that was a good rant, and that's what the song's about. Yay! And also, I will say, a really big influence of mine is a guy named Avon. Mark, Ashley's husband, Mark will probably know who Avon is, from a show in the '70s called Blake 7. It was on Channel 4 BBC, and it was this dystopian future, and it was done at the same time as late '70s, early '80s Doctor Who.

14:59They didn't have the budget for special effects, so it's very hokey, but they had a budget for script. And this guy named Avon, they were basically a bunch of fugitives who were running from the Earth Federation, who'd become this fascist federation that had taken over the galaxy, and they were trying to take it down. And they were actually all a bunch of crooks, of thieves, of mercenaries, of bad guys, of drug runners, and revolutionaries and rebels and terrorists, who were trying to take down the Terran Empire. And there's a guy who's this computer hacker named Avon, and Avon has these amazing sayings, like these brilliant one-liners.

15:43And I will admit that probably every second Angelspit song has an Avon quote in it. And Franchised, Avon has this quote where he said, they said, "Avon, you're a gifted leader." And Avon said, "Am I a gifted leader or are you a gifted follower?" And that concept also are borrowed in Franchised. I love that. I was going to say, I really love the play on words from Franchise. So I was curious like where the background was, you know, where that came from. Your delivery, Ashley, was brilliant. Like I really love, like Karl was saying, the venom. Like it felt like it needed to have that venom in it.

16:31Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Karl wants me to become this witch. He gets me to conjure spells in his songs. I love it. It's really interesting. That's another thing about vocals that like people go, I don't know what to do. I don't, you know, I don't have any, you know, vocal skills. And it's like, you've got a whole lifetime of vocal skills. Like, do you remember that time you were yelling at your brother or you're yelling at someone? There's your angry voice. Do you remember when you talk tenderly to your cat? There's your tender voice. Do you remember when you're having just this conversation and you're trying to borderline patronizingly explain something to someone?

17:14Well, there's that voice. You know that voice that you have just before you explode? There's that voice. So you're standing in front of a microphone and you know, you've got this quill full of arrows that are ready to go. And that's everyone. And you know, the trick is that you might start in the gentle explaining, then you might get angry explaining. And then in the chorus, you're yelling at your ex and then at some point you're explaining it to your cat. So, and that was great because Ashley's got a really wonderful, like when she gets angry. Yeah, it's total witch vibe. I love it. So there, um, there's more on, on deck then for you two, there's more we can look forward to.

18:00Yes. Um, well, I, I got Ashley, uh, I'm talking too much. So I'll, I'll start it off. Uh, there's a track called "You Look Good in Black". Um, and that's, uh, that's Ashley and another friend, uh, Lindsay Lemke, uh, who plays for Lost Tapes, plays guitar on Lost Tapes. Uh, and they're helping me out on the backing vocals. I have this, always have this thing with backing vocals that I want, uh, the backing vocals to sound like a squad of roller derby players, because I figured they're the most bad-ass of bad-ass. I incidentally work for the LA City Rollers, Angel City Rollers. Uh, I do sound for them. So it's great fun. I get roller derby action.

18:42That's awesome. Yes. And another one is the main next one that we're super excited about. I haven't figured out the launch date yet, but it's called the Moment of Silence. Um, and that's got Ashley on it. Once again, nailing the vocals and, uh, amazing husband, Mark. I didn't really even officially ask him. He just said, Hey man, do you want me to do guitars? And I went, yeah, all right. Um, and it's interesting with that. And Ashley nails the vocals again, but with Mark, I, you know, he said, Oh, I'll do you something. Like industrial. And he sent me a take and it was like, wow, that is, that is exactly nine inch nails.

19:19Like, and then I said, well, neither of us are really from that. Like my, if you were going to look at my influence, it's Pumpkins, Smashing Pumpkins and Sonic Youth. Um, you know, and grunge rock is where I'm from. And Mark brings the goth rock and also a lot of like alternative English rock as well. Like the guy's a fucking rock star. And I said, how about we, instead of, uh, like looking at the established concept of what, uh, the expectation of industrial guitars are, let's look at what was happening in the late eighties and in the early nineties that inspired the whole thing. That if, if like, uh, someone was going to sample some of them, they go, oh, let's sample that riff from Roland's band

20:10or from Pixies. Um, so Mark in one take did this epic, big guitar takes. And I, I actually put them straight into the song. I didn't edit them at all. I didn't even mix them. Nice. I just stuck them in there. And it's like, fucking. Mark is that good. And for people who are watching, who don't know who my husband is, um, it's Mark, that Mark Gemini Thwaites, who has already been on the show, uh, with you, Tash, um, who plays in Peter Murphy. Um, he was a member of the mission for a long time and is back playing with the mission later this month and wonder stuff. He's part with Gary Neumann. Tricky. Yeah. Mark's done it all. Mark has done it all. He's amazing. He's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Very versatile. Very, very, very accomplished.

21:06And I love that he spans so many universes and, you know, it's incredible to hear, but it, uh, it always brings me a lot of joy when I hear about how somebody who is just really, um, just in his crafts can come in and bring something really special and unique. You know, I think it makes it that much more exciting and inspiring than when you have like these collaborators where you're like, yes, this is exactly. Yes. Totally. Totally. Yeah. So I'm not sure when that one comes out, but, um, and that's another thing as well on when you're working with somebody as the caliber of Mark, it's like they do something and they throw it back at you and you go, yeah, yeah. Um, and that's always like, I don't know. It's always, and that's a really, another really good thing about Mark.

22:02Like fucking great thing about, because he's got so much, uh, experience is that you can say, I want it to sound like Sonic Youth. I want it to sound like Smashing Pumpkins. And Mark goes, uh, fuzz, rat, rat, fuzz pedal. Like exactly. And he's got the pedals and he's got the guitars. Or I want it to sound like Ramstein and he'll go, uh, uh, physical modeling. So he'll pull out his line six. And it is exactly, and actually that's another thing I love about like industrial music is, um, how, if you want to say, uh, I want to create something cause this album is inspired by like early Angelspit, like the 2007 ish, like the early two thousands. Uh, and for it, I went back to the gear that I was using at that time.

22:57And I've always still used that gear, but I really focused and honed in on that, just that stuff. Like I, some of that stuff still in Australia cause I never sell gear. Some of it's here. Um, so to go back to that and to actually rebuild it using the gear, not plugins, not just the gear. And that's like when you work with someone like Mark, they get it. Um, yeah, like Mark really brought so much to the "Coming to the Creep" remix that I did for you, Karl, because though I did the majority of the remix and I did everything within, um, I use Native Instruments Machine.

23:37And I was going for kind of like a synth pop tape on what you were doing with these kind of like Depeche Modi inspired synths. And I went, but something's missing. Something needs to drive this song along and give it like, you know, just like some humanity, I guess. And I said, "Mark, can you play bass on this?" And I'm like, "It needs some gothic bass." And he just went in and it just fucking drove that song. And I was like, "That's it." That, to me, that's my favorite part of the whole remix. Yeah, and Mark's amazing. He knew right away. And that's actually a great thing about that remix is that the bass, like real bass. No one does that. It's all synth. Don't get me wrong, I love synth bass. But it was like, wow, this is new. I like it a lot.

24:30Yeah, that's awesome. Speaking of influences, Ashley, I'd love to hear yours, actually. Oh, my goodness. My musical influences. Actually, a lot of it comes from pop music, even though I grew up being more of like an industrial kid myself. Nine Inch Nails and the like. And I'm a huge Cramps fan. But I had trouble relating to like the male vocalists and the male singers. So a lot of my influences as a female actually come from like pop music artists. So Madonna is a big one, huge one, her whole sex era. And I covered erotica and did kind of this gothic industrial take on on erotica. So, yeah, that's that's those are my primaries is a combination of like Nine Inch Nails.

25:29Bands are related to Nine Inch Nails for the industrial element. Love Susie as well, Bauhaus, Depeche Mode, you know, Madonna, Janet Jackson. Yeah, so those are primarily my favorites. And then as I got older, I was heavily inspired by a little more like the post-punk scene. And I got to work with one of my heroes, which is Kembra Pfahler and the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black. The first time I saw her was out at a show at Webster Hall, also in the 2010s. And when she was on stage performing with these girls, you know, they're naked, they're covered in body paint, and they're wearing these gigantic wigs.

26:18And the horror aspect was so shocking that I was like, this is amazing. I can't believe women have so much power. So much power, especially like in goth and punk rock and in glam. And I was like, this is so incredible. She controls everyone here in this crowd. And at the end of her show, she was like, if anyone wants to be a member or a girl of Karen Black, she's like, let me know, you can be in this van. So I had my ways and I asked questions and my ex who ran events was like, I'd really like to book her. I was like, oh, well, is there a way I can meet her and talk to her? And I asked her, I was like, can I be in your band?

27:01And she was like, absolutely. So, um, being a part of the Bluff Shoes Horror was so amazing to have that opportunity. It really was because she taught me everything that I know in terms of musical performance. She has this theory called availableism, making use of what's available to use around you. So she always tells everyone, particularly women, because aside from the band, which is made up of a lot of amazing female persons, it's also, she collaborates with her ex-husband Samoa. She tells everyone that, you know, make use of what's around you. Go out, speak to people. You can find inspiration from anywhere. It can be from a candle, from a glass in your house.

27:59You can create art from anything. So she is also one of my biggest inspirations in being able to work with her, which is amazing. Amazing, yeah. I really love that. Yeah, because she incorporates music plus live art performance. Yeah. Do you see yourself incorporating that for yourself, like, as a future vision? Yes, because I have a burlesque background. So art performance plus music is absolutely in my future. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I love how it looks like each, like, chapter, like, I feel like kind of helps evolve you into whatever future art that you're going to bring to the world, you know? Yeah. I remember one of the stories that you shared in another interview is, if I can share it, and I'd love for you to elaborate on it.

28:55I love how you got started, unfortunately, from an injury, and I'm sorry you got injured, but I thought it was so inspiring that you turned an injury into impetus for, like, creating music. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I had knee surgery, I tore my meniscus, I couldn't walk for months. And I was like, "Well, what am I going to do with my time?" And I have to be creative, that's a part of me. And that's when I started to write music. So I would just sit there in the dark at night, just coming up with, you know, just small samples. I was sampling synths, and I was putting together small songs, and that's how it happened, was I just sat there and said, "I have to create something."

29:49And it wasn't, I didn't complete many of these songs until years later when I met Mark, because I didn't think it was any good, to be honest. I sat there and said, "I have all these songs, you know, I don't know if I'm going to do anything with them." I thought, "Oh, maybe I'll just use them as background music for a show, for a latex burlesque performance." Or actually, I was using them as kind of background music for videos, social media. I was doing a bit of that with it, but I didn't think it was any better than that. And Mark got ahold of them during the pandemic and said, he was like, "Why didn't you show me these before? These are really amazing.

30:32You should finish these songs." You know? And that's how they came to completion because I did have a push from him. And sometimes all it takes is for one person who cares about you to say, "You're doing good." Because I'm a very anxious person and I'm an over-thinker. And all it takes is a friend, a loved one, sometimes to pull you out of that, to go, "Oh, I can do that." You know, because it's easy to say, "Well, believe in yourself and do your best." But sharing these hardships with your friends and your family is sometimes a good thing. You can go, "Hey, what do you... I know this is... I don't think it's so great, but could you give me your opinion on it?"

31:16And hopefully you'll get some honesty from them. And you never know, that could be the one push that you need to get you going, you know? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I think I really do subscribe to the idea of The Village. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is something I do really love about collaborations and, like, seeing the collaboration with you two. Like, I imagine probably you both really learned a lot from each other. Like, probably you're like, "Oh, cool. There's this new thing that we can try next time." Yeah. Like, I'm sure both you and Karl as musicians can relate to music feeling very personal when you're first writing it.

31:57Karl, do you feel that way? Yes. Especially when you're writing your music, how personal it is. And then it's like, you've got to give that part of yourself away to other people. Oh, yeah. You know? Yeah, absolutely. And this is, thank you, really great point, is that there comes a point where the song, first of all, the first thing that happens is the song stops being an idea that's inside you and it becomes its own thing. There's such fantastic ideas about where music comes from. Does it come from heaven or the skies or your cerebral cortex? Where does it come from? But that's a four-year conversation for another time.

32:43Yeah. But there will come a point where you're no longer dealing with something that's inside you. You're dealing with something that's in front of you and it becomes this life of its own. And it will tell you what it wants to be about. If it wants to be happy, sad, angry, which parts it wants to be happy, sad, or angry in, how fast it wants to be, etc. Then when you release it, I guess that's why they call it releasing a song because releasing it is doing this. You're letting it go. And it goes and it grows because it's a living, existing, spiritually, multiple dimensional being.

33:21It is. And it will go to somebody else and they will add memories and thought and context and meaning to it. Somebody else will do it again and somebody else will do it again. And when a group of people hear it together, the song becomes this very strange living being. And then you talk to somebody about a song you wrote and and you might have thought that's not a very good song. I don't know if that one should be on the album and they go, it's my favorite song. It got me through a divorce or it got me through losing my job or the worst job or a breakup or something or the happiest time I met my partner or whatever.

34:04So that song becomes something really important to them. And then you hear their concept of the lyrics and you hear their concept of the music. And the really interesting thing about, OK, so you are a musician and you know that if I go from this chord to this chord. See how I did a guitar there? I can't play guitar. But if you go from this chord to this chord, you know, that's moving by a minor third. So it's going to make all this feelings and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But to somebody else, they're not going to hear a bass line and a pad and a drum.

34:43They're going to hear a feeling. And it's very important that that's something that you never let go of. That you always remember that it's not it becomes this intent. And that intent could be reinterpreted in a way you didn't think. And then answering a question before that, something I always love about when I work with Ashley is that it's a reminder that I need to push my voice harder. That because I kind of sing really monotonal. And, you know, when I'm yelling, I'm there. And when I'm singing, I'm there. But when Ashley's yelling, she's doing all this stuff. And I, I, like, she'll hit a harmonic.

35:37She'll go into falsetto. She'll do all of this stuff growly bit. And then she, Ashley's got this great glottal fry, like, ah. And when you listen to the track, in the first line, there are two types of people in the world. When she says "world", she goes into "Global Frye". "World". And it's like, "I fucking love that". And it's just wonderful things you can do. It's just a reminder to push your voice more when you hear other people. End of rant. No, absolutely. I think it's, gosh, and especially in the past, Ashley, were you producing your own vocals or were you working with other people?

36:25I was working with Mark in the studio. And that comes with his own challenges when you were working with the person you were married to. You know, there's so many bands that are duos where they're husband and wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, especially in the goth scene. And you do end up bumping heads quite a bit when you're in the studio together. So it was really delightful to work with Karl because our dynamic is different. And Mark and I, we work really well together, but you know how it is when it's someone here. And I'll just say, so Ashley's birthday and my birthday are one day apart, but technically speaking, because I'm in Australia, it's technically the same day.

37:23Yeah. Wow. And we're both super airhead-y conceptual Aquarians, so it's very easy for us to just lock, and like, like, conceptually lock. And, and I'm, I am working with Ashley, I have a bunch of things. I am working with Ashley on some of her new material. Yes. And it's fun to work at different people's spaces and paces. And, you know, when you're building a song, it's kind of like you're building a building. You're building the Tower of Babel that's going to go up into the sky. It's a space elevator, because that's what the Tower of Babel was, kids. It was a space elevator. And, see, a song is a space elevator.

38:13And sometimes you need to plan it first, and you need to think about the foundation, and then da-da-da-da-da-da. Another time it's like, you know, I'm going to start at the top and make my way down. Because fuck it, why not? And it's always nice to remember that different artists work in different ways. So, but when it comes time to deliver it to the microphone, it's also nice, like you've got to get the job done. But the way you get it done is, there's so many different ways to make it happen. And there's so many different ways to make it happen. And when you watch people like Rick Rubin, or Steve Betto, or Flood, or so many different producers.

39:01Or you watch videos about Depeche Mode in the album, who are just laughing the whole time. And then they make this really depressing music that we all love. It's really fascinating to watch how there's so many different ways to achieve that end goal. And that's endlessly fascinating to me that it's great. End of rant. I love that. I mean, I really, like you were saying, there's so many different ways to approach, like, you know, the production and the creation. And then what's awesome is when you find, like, a synergy, you know, with the right people. And things, I think that's when the magic really happens.

39:48It's like, I don't know, you find a pairing and then you deepen that. And you're like, okay, this, it's like, it'll be interesting to see what you guys end up producing together. I know you mentioned having a photo shoot as well. So you're going to be creating visually. Yes. Photo shoot for the 13th Angelspit album. And it's in a month. And, oh my God. And I think we're ready. I've got, obviously, Ashley's one of the models. And Living Hell and Nicole. Hoken Dural. Thank you. And Jack O'Brien. Yes. Everybody's got multiple names. So I always get confused. Was that everyone? Yes, I think so. Okay, there's five models.

40:39I'm using the amazing Annabelle DeFlux, who just shot William Shatner. Yes. What? Yes. Oh my gosh. Yeah. That's incredible. That's the greatest name drop ever. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yes. 100%. And Marnah, who's doing the makeup, and Yvette Tullow, who's doing the costumes, and I'm building the headpieces, and it's a very bizarre concept. Angelspit hasn't done a photoshoot in nearly 20 years. So the whole time I've been in the US, we haven't done a real full blown Angelspit photoshoot, because doing a photoshoot in Sydney in the mid-2000s was easy, because the finances was different. It didn't take a hundred million hours to get anywhere as it does in LA.

41:33And you could basically do anything for beer and pizza. And a lot of people would do favors for you because you were doing something crazy. And in Australia, we worked with an incredible photographer named Helen White, who shot for Vogue, who shot for so many, like, big ad campaigns. And because we were doing something weird, Helen went, "Yeah, I'm in!" Like, we paid her better at a percentage of her rate. And then we worked with top-line makeup artists and top-line hair. And the thing about Sydney is that you had five or six people helping behind the scenes as well. LA is difficult. And, you know, it's really interesting that I'm constantly wondering, are things different because it's America versus Australia?

42:28Or are things different because there was a massive shift in everything that happened around about, there was a pivot in 2010-ish. And that's when I moved to the US. And, you know, I know that if I went back to Australia, it would be different. But I've made this decision that I want to do this photo shoot and pay people. Because a lot of people, it's like, oh, it'll be good exposure. And I don't want to do that because I fucking hate it when people say that to me. And it's increasingly the advance of artificial intelligence and what it's like. It's like, I could do this photo shoot for free.

43:15But instead, I'm investing several months of Hollywood rent to say, I want to do something profoundly, horrifically beautiful. And it's grotesque and it's weird. And you're going to look at it and say, what the fuck? And I see so much AI stuff. And there's some really amazing AI generated content. There's a whole bunch of slop, but there's a lot of amazing stuff. And I want to do stuff that is as beautiful and confronting as the best AI stuff I've seen. That statement may or may not make sense, but I want it to look like Jean-Paul Gaultier does versus Vivian Westwood versus beautiful, horrifying madness. And Yvette, the wardrobe designer, was over last night and we were knocking stuff together and making pizza.

44:19Because I make an epic pizza, Emma, no, Ashley, that's right, you didn't eat my pizza. I offered to make you a pizza and you didn't eat my goddamn pizza. And I might make my pizza. I'm allergic to nuts, I was worried about... There was no nuts in it! There's no nuts in pizza! But the traces of nuts? You never know! There were no nuts in the pizza! Yeah, the traces, you never know! I made the goddamn joke myself! Anyway, so Yvette really liked my pizza. So did Mark and... But we were talking about it and it's really fantastic when you go, "Okay, here's the concept. Here's this crazy weird concept that set three or four alternative dimensions that way."

45:08Because it's this weird timeline and it might be set now. It might be set a thousand years ago. We don't know. And of course, it's about craziness and cannibalism and weirdness and weird, weird, weird, weird, weird, weird. And the objective, the bottom line is, I said to the artists, "No AI. Don't... I want you to do this photoshoot like it's 1992 or it's 2002, where you have to go through the drudgery of trying to figure it out. That doesn't work. I'll try this. That doesn't... Oh, wait, that works. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It's a Bob Ross painting with happy little accidents. And you take those happy little accidents somewhere and you turn up with something really fantastic.

45:50And I have given everybody permission to go fucking crazy. You know, all that wild shit you've always wanted to do in a photoshoot, but you can't because the client's not crazy enough? Well, guess what? Now you can. And Yvette's come back with fashion that is like, "Oh my God, that's crazy." Annabelle has come back with like, she's talking about wanting to use this lighting and this look and it's like, "Fuck, I would never have conceived that." And Mana has come back with makeup looks and concept that is like, because my brief to Mana is the makeup needs to look like it is a religious, it is a tribal, but like a zodiac weird religious cult kingdom.

46:43And it's been done by monks. And it's this two or three day process to make this person look so beautiful before they go into battle to eat someone. Yes, Angelspit's all about cannibalism. And when you say, because like in our corporate environment, and because everybody has corporate fucking trauma, where the corporation tells you how to think, or you can't do that, you can't think that. You gotta stay in your lane. Don't think outside the box. And when they say think outside the box, they actually mean think outside this box, but inside this box. So there's no fucking box for starters. Maybe that's why I can't get a fucking job, because I keep telling everyone I work with to fuck off.

47:37If you want genius, you have to think like genius. Boldness, genius, power. And they all go, oh, Steve Jobs, Tesla. Like, oh my God, these people had no Mozart. These people had no fucking boundaries of them. They could go where thought and imagination took them. Oh no. So, one thing I'm always trying to do, and Angelspit has always tried to do, is to figure out what are the limitations that have been placed on a person. My dad taught me this. So did my mom. And you have to say, that's the box that you have to be outside of. That is the limitation. And you have to get out of that limitation.

48:17You are allowed to freely fuck up, make experiments, and take risks. And I want to create something that people go, look at it, and they go, "What the fuck? That's what I want." And when you look at some of the cover art and everything of Angelspit, it's always been, "What the fuck?" And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And that's, it's the freedom to experiment and the freedom just to be a wild child who is playing. Yeah. But the, the photo shoots are on September 8th and I'm super, super, super excited. Very, very nervous, but very excited. I was actually going to ask you as you were talking about the boxes, if you still feel fear, because obviously you've confronted you all,

49:16your boxes throughout 13 albums at this point. I'm sure that there's always new boxes, I think, that we discover. So, do you feel that kind of fear still? Yes. I am, so I have a problem with, fuck who doesn't, anxiety and depression. And I, I, I'm not medicated. I, it's not at a level that requires medication. But I am really cautious of what I eat. I found that pizza helps. And I actually fast. I, I do, every month I'll do a three day fast. Just, and it clears my head out. And it deals with anxiety and it deals with all the depression and all the craziness.

50:06Ashley was mentioning at the beginning of this how there's a voice in your head, excuse me, that says you suck. This is dumb. Don't do it. They're going to laugh at you. I don't know what that voice is. I think I've decided that the voice is just an expression of anxiety or energy. And what you have to do is turn the energy into "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" and go. And I am constantly second-guessing songs and I won't play someone a demo. Because if it's in the demo stage, like, I am so fragile that if somebody told me something during the demo of a song, it would probably destroy me.

50:56Like, I would go, "Oh, okay, I'll do that." If somebody said, "Oh, you need more fucking wolf whistle," I'd go, "Oh, more cowbell," I'd go, "Oh, okay, I'll put more cowbell in it." Because I have no fucking confidence. And it's only once the song is done. And the song, by the way, some people, songs magically come to them and they magically just fill their head and fill the bloody computer. Mine don't. Mine are a fight to the death with a machete. And I have to, it either kills me or I, it either tames me or I tame it. And that's why it takes me six to 12 months, nine months to write a song.

51:42Because, and the songs will get up to draft 20. Because it is constantly smashing away at it. And smashing away at the brick walls that are in my mind. Hey Karl, I wanted to go back to your topic of anxiety. Because I wanted to speak on my perception as a woman. Please, yes. Because I find that, like say I do a show and it's good. And I know it's good, I'm told it's good, everyone tells me I'm good. Even with being told that, I as a woman still go, well, because I'm a woman, I'm expected to not be good, I have to be great. I always feel that if I'm out with like my husband, he's proven so much, he's so relaxed when it comes to his performances and things that he does.

52:43But I always find that even if I do something good, there's gonna be someone that goes, eh, wasn't that great. And it's like I have to be on this, I have to really, like for instance, Mark and I will DJ together. Mark can kind of do whatever he wants, he just strolls in there, does a, you know, a good DJ set. But if I do good, it doesn't compare, it doesn't compare. As a woman, you have to be great. We have that extra pressure, you know, and I, I'm trying, that's the one I'm trying to get over. Because I love everything you said, and it's 100% true, but I think for women, I don't know why society puts this pressure on women can't just be good.

53:27If you want to be as good as a man, you've got to be great. That's really, really hard on me. Tash, do you, do you get that as well? Do you ever feel that when you're, when you're performing? Oh man, I've had some interesting comments, especially in the South. Yeah. So when I was, when I was singing with "Mankind is Obsolete", which is a lot more aggressive vocals. So you would play with a lot of metal bands. And, you know, it's a very male dominated, you know, a lot of times scene where we'd be playing. And so I get, I'd get the comments of like, you sing okay for a girl.

54:05Yeah, yeah. Or they kind of look at you like, "Oh, you were good, but not that good", you know. Exactly. You're, you're, how you look, you know, you're like, "Oh, okay. So it's for you to see past that. I've got to work even harder to prove every time I'm out, every time I do a show, I'm like, I really have to prove myself." Mmm. Yeah, I run myself into the ground, you know, because I'm like, I, I've got to prove that I'm worthy. And that it's not just, you know, smoke and mirrors and the way that I look. And, you know, I, I, I can tell where people go, "Oh, well, you, I'm sure your husband wrote that song."

54:42Mmm. How can you say he wrote that? I understand. I mean, I think it's, it's really, I think what's great to surpass that is like when we surround ourselves with, I think, people that are more evolved, right? And that are like, you know, they see, they see past all of that. And I think it's like, it helps to have that encouragement where, because I think at my own expense, when I was first like touring with MKIO, I used to like blow out my voice because I felt like I had to go that much harder. Right. You know, I was like, "Oh, I have to push that much harder. I have to scream that much louder."

55:18And then at a certain point, I was like, "At what expense?" And then I was like, "Actually, I mean, you were mentioning Mark being relaxed about it." And I was like, "I think if I'm just in my own state of being, that the right people will come to me and the right people will resonate with that." Yeah. I think you're right. Yeah. May I ask it? I'm sorry. Oh, I'm sorry. No, go ahead, Karl. No, you finish. I want you to finish. Oh, no, I was just saying, all I was saying was that that's something I need to tell myself, you know. Yeah. Do you feel it's changed, got better, got worse?

55:51I'm sorry, say that again? Do you think that this has changed or got better or got worse? I find that over the years, it's the same. I don't think it's ever really changed. Yeah. Yeah. There are some women who might say, you know, because of the climate that we're in right now, that maybe it's harder, but I have always seen it kind of be, I've been treated the same way, you know, for a long time. And as well as like some of the women that I work with, too, you know, so it's just like it's a fight that continues on. I think it depends on the field. So I had the opportunity to work with Sylvia Massey. She's an incredible woman producer.

56:36She produced Tool, Bjork and just really amazing artists. And I really look up to her because she's like a woman in a field where it's mostly men, actually. And I was like, it's amazing that I see people like yourself that are like I'm producing my own music and I feel that's really empowering. I think that it gives hope to other like women that are up and coming where they're like, oh, I see that there's other people out there and we're empowering each other and we're supporting each other. And as a result, I feel like there's a strength in that, you know? Yeah. Can I shoot my mouth off?

57:18Please. Always, always. That's what I do. Yes, please, please, please. We love it. I think it is critically important for women in music to produce their own music and not be held, not to rely on a guy to make the music for them. Yeah. Because the problem you're going to have is, so you're working with this guy and his sound greatly affects your sound. Then you're working with this guy. His sound greatly affects your sound. It's really important that if you, as a female, you learn the path, you learn the machine or you learn the software. Because your choice of, will I use this snare drum or this snare drum?

58:20Will I use this sound of bass or this sound of bass? Will I select these notes or these notes? That's core to your sound. Those tiny decisions make the big picture. And when you give those tiny decisions to someone else... I work with an artist named Maymay Graves. And for Maymay's first album, I basically kind of redid everything on the album. Actually, maybe not. Although Maymay's vocals and Maymay's vocals and lyrics are great. But I said for the next time around, you will be doing 80% of this because you cannot rely on... You can't put your sound in the hands of another person. And we spoke briefly before about how within industrial music, there's a lot of boyfriends, girlfriends or husbands and wives who get a band together.

59:19And then they break up. And that's difficult because... Well, they don't always break up. They often break up. And that's difficult because then... It's not just about the band, but it's about the creative expression of each person. What then happens to that person? Because did they rely on each other? So she bought the voice, he bought the music. What happens then? So my advice would be, learn the tools and become, like that's part of the empowerment, is to, you've got to push through it and you've got to, you got to do it. You got to do it. And there are most, there are many of the artists that have greatly inspired me are women, and obviously one of the big ones is women.

1:00:18It was Kate Bush. And every photo I have of Kate Bush is she's draped over a fair light. And that's what I absolutely loved about Kate, love about Kate Bush is that she made decisions. My God, her voice. Those samples were hers that she built on a really complicated machine in the 80s. And then there's Bjork, who's, I think Bjork might be genius. And when I say the word genius, I go Tesla, Mozart, Sagan, Bjork. Bjork could be genius. And she does all that stuff. So you've got to learn the stuff. You've got to do the hard yards. You've got to, you've got to either get up early or stay up late, stay off the internet, because it's a drug. And you've got to learn the software. You've got to learn, you've got to do your scales.

1:01:18All that stuff. Um, you must be empowered and getting empowered involves really boring, monotonous, hard work that fucking sucks. Yeah. Can't agree more. Yeah. I said, I can't agree more. It's true. And PJ Harvey. Yeah. Um, so, and I could go on. Um, yeah. And that's also really interesting that I, uh, I used to work for the LGBT Center here in Hollywood and for our, um, uh, orientation, which is one of the best things. I wish everybody could do the orientation. I got this three day orientation and, um, it was brilliant because it went into trans health, gay health, lesbian health. For example, on Hollywood, on West Hollywood, there's 40 something gay bars. Would you like to guess how many lesbian bars?

1:02:18One or two? It's like two. Well, there might be one now. Yeah. But, uh, when I did my thing there, there, and they, these are dedicated lesbian bars. Every seven days a week, 24 hours a day. It's a lesbian bar. Um, and it's interesting how male privilege has, uh, is there too. Um, but we, um, uh, they also looked at by health and all of these different amazing elements and and I remember the, um, we, we had this conversation about feminism and I'm a big fan of Jermaine Greer. And when I went through university in the nineties, everybody studied Jermaine Greer, the great Australian feminist. And, um, and, uh, and, you know, everybody was listening to Katie Lang and PJ Harvey and, oh yeah. Um, and at that stage, and it's interesting because I remember maybe it was Australia, if a woman

1:03:17stepped up to the mic, you shut the fuck up and listen because Australia had Chrissy Amphlet, um, who's from the Divinals, who was a fucking legend. Um, and she talks about a lot of the fights and a lot of difficulties that she had and she took no shit. Um, and anyway, so we went to the, uh, at this, uh, orientation at the LGBT center, they're going, who likes feminism? And everybody goes, yeah, yeah, sure. Of course we like feminism. And he goes, well, you know what? Some people don't. Um, and some of those people work in feminism. And the reason they don't like it is because there's been so many different cycles of feminism that even from the nineties where there was the Sinead O'Connor, PJ Harvey, Jermaine Greer thing, then there was another one. Then there was the, um, uh, uh, the, then, then I'll call it the Amanda Palmer cycle. Then there was the Miley Cyrus cycle. Um,

1:04:17And all of these things are experimenting, asking the questions of what have the elders put down? What do we want? What does society want? What a, what bullshit is society throwing at us this time? How do we, you know, say no to that? And it was really interesting how my takeaway from that is that it goes in waves and, um, it sucks. And my, my advice to female artists is that look, I don't know when it's going to be an up wave or a down wave, but what I know is you got to make sure that your surfboard is awesome. So learn how to surf, learn how to swim and learn how to paddle. Yeah. Um, yeah. Says the man. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I love you. Thanks, Ash. I love you too. Um, yeah. But I, I agree.

1:05:17Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. One of the interviews that I, I heard from you, Ashley, um, you were talking about your background, um, coming from, uh, like a conservative Catholic, um, uh, schooling and you, you're, you chose to like, I guess as Karl would put it, fight the boxes, like break through the boxes in your, in your ways that you have. Um, and I think that's, uh, it's a very, very beautiful and inspiring, um, you know, choice to continue to break through those boxes. Um, and I, I like Karl, how you put like sort of the, the, the way of putting it of like, also like checking in with yourself, like what is the current box? Like what is the box that we're fighting now? Right. Cause it's like, that's going to change. Right? Yeah. And that's really interesting. You say that because at the moment, it's funny that there are so many damn boxes being thrown at us every week and it's

1:06:17seems to be a, every week it's a different box. Um, which goes into another blah, blah, blah, blah that Angelspit loves going on about, which is the whole concept of distractionism. Um, and yeah, sure. It, it feels like it's distracting us from a bigger political issue, but it's also distracting us from a, who are you issue? And why are you spending so much fucking time on your fucking phone issue? And you say you don't have time to fucking contact your fucking friends, but you're doom scrolling all the fucking time. And you're, say you're too busy to be, not learn how to use the fucking technology, yet you're doom scrolling and looking at stupid fucking shit. Put the fucking phone down. Um, I think that's a really big issue. That the, um, the distractions and everything else are pulling you away from what it is to be human.

1:07:17And that's why your art is so important. That's it. Yeah. Rant. And I got to say fuck a lot. Well, I think that, um, yeah, I mean, it's, it's interesting because everybody makes art in their own way. I'm, I myself actually am a very analog kind of person. I prefer. I prefer pen, paper and piano. Very simple. Tell me more. Really? That's awesome. It's very, very old school analog. But you have a piano. Yeah. I do. I'm a piano player. Like an actual piano. Yeah. Like a spinet. Yeah. So you've got like pieces of paper with lines on them and shit. I know. Wow. That's awesome, dude.

1:08:13That is old school. It's super, it's super nerdy. Oh, yay. I'm glad I'm not alone in this. And this is a sheet I use for, because a lot of the gear I use is super old gear. And it doesn't have the memory and all that shit. So I have to write it all down. But it's, I will argue that the way you were doing it is better. Because I have a keyboard. No, I want you to finish. I'm not going to fucking railroad this. Go. No, no, please. No. No, no. End of rant. No. So I have this keyboard. And I wrote everything down, like, on paper on this keyboard.

1:08:55And my mum and dad got me this keyboard in Australia. And they got it for free from a Goodwill. And I've written five albums. It's like this piece of shit. Yamaha, like, plonky plonky thing. And it's got a samba bass and a foxtrot. And Ashley and Mark came over. And do you remember I wrote you that amazing fucking song? How could I forget? It was the greatest fucking song ever written. But then what was funny is that it actually, I think it worked in with a song that you are currently working on. They don't. Yes. And because I was being an idiot. Me? Idiot? It actually turned into something that I thought worked.

1:09:39And it's on video. And one day it will be used against me to, like, take me down. But, no, I think that writing with pen and paper on a fucking, on paper with a pencil, rubbing it out, and then going, "Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck," and then getting it right. It's the best way to write. And then taking, printing out your lyrics, because I do a lot on iPad, taking it to a cafe, Ashley, taking the lyrics to a cafe, using $20 that a very good friend gave you to spend money on a goddamn drink, on a mocha at a fucking cafe, and work on your lyrics, and sit there for an hour.

1:10:24You're yelling at me. Yeah, I am. I'm yelling at everyone. I'm always yelling at everyone. And actually scraping stuff out that doesn't work and getting in there, and trying to make it work with a pen and paper, pencil and rubber and paper is the best fucking thing. And can I just really quickly, so have you seen "Armadeus"? Yes. All right. Many years ago, many years ago. Watch it again. It's mind-blowing. I also work for LA Opera and I do their podcasts because I'm a bit of an opera nut. And their previous maestro, Maestro James Conlon, who was fucking phenomenal maestro. Guy won a Grammy. And he had this book that was this thick and this big. Fucking huge book.

1:11:20And it was these high quality scans of Mozart's actual manuscript for The Marriage of Figaro. And there were two books. And I actually opened it and very delicately flipped through the pages. And it was the first draft. And I went through it and I counted two areas where there were blotches. And they were because the ink pen exploded. There were no mistakes. He was, because the thing they say in the movie is, it's what it was like he was dictating from God. And it's like, this guy is dictating from God. It was phenomenal. So yes, pen and paper, or pencil, in cafe. And what you need to do is on the bottom of every... I used to do this, actually. I used to, I would go out to have a coffee and I would spill a bit of coffee on the bottom corner and rub the glass into it like that, so you got a coffee ring on the bottom of every final lyric, when I thought it was final, just to say, "It's analog."

1:12:29Tash, I want to hear more about this. Oh, no. It's nothing interesting at all. Pen, paper, piano. That's it. Candles. Candles. Listening. Just lots of listening. That's how Depeche Mode do it. Oh, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. Acoustic guitar. Martin Gore has an acoustic guitar and apparently very badly strummed. Well, in the, like, up to Songs of Faith and Devotion, I think he did it like that. And then he would pass it on to Ellen Wilder once he was happy with it. But the whole idea of the song's got to sound good on an acoustic guitar. Yeah. That's the fucking truth. Yeah. I write on guitar as well sometimes, but I tend to veer towards the piano.

1:13:25So is it lyrics first or music or music then lyrics? Depends on the song. Yeah. Sometimes it comes all at once. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And sometimes I'll hear other people's voices, like, when I'm creating the music around it. And I'm like, "Oh, I hear this voice." Like, I'll hear, like, a, you know, a higher voice or a lower voice or whatever. So, yeah. And I'll hear stacks, like vocal stacks. Yeah. Wow. That's great. I'm trying to push myself musically now. I've never been a seventh or a ninth guy, but I'm trying to use more without it, like, I actually have a degree in jazz or contemporary music, which was jazz and samba and bossa and foxtrot.

1:14:17But I don't really use it much. It's funny, after my degree, I spent six months trying to forget everything I'd learned. But I've always gone, I don't want to go into sevenths or ninths because I don't like the jazzy thing that's going on. But I'm learning how to, in the context of Angelspit, and also in my, I do another side project, which is an ambient thing. And using sevenths, ninths in that, it makes a lot of sense because it's this big swirl. And when I say sevenths and ninths, I think I'm specifically thinking about, for example, in Star Wars, after the fanfare, there is that huge magical chord that gets played, which is the camera pans from the scrolling text down to the planet.

1:15:06And in that moment, that beautiful, beautiful fucking chord, and I think it's a sus six, sharp eleven, something, something, something. And it's the most beautiful fucking thing. And I'm learning how to build, I don't know. Music's a fascinating language because it's like, "Wow, I thought I knew this shit and I don't know this shit." I have so much to fucking learn. It's endless. I agree. It's, it's a lifelong. Yeah. Many lives, I think. Many, many lives. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think what I love about both of your musics, though, it's like, it's like, there's something very powerful, you know, and it's like you have a very strong grasp on like, feel, it's like you feel the music in your body.

1:15:56I think since both of you come from like, like environments where it's like, the music is being spun, you know, the music is, it gets people moving and you feel it. Like, there's something very powerful about that. It's like, not just the notes, it's the groove. It's the, it's the base. It's like all of it together. Yeah, thanks. I, I, Ash, who do you listen to that's funky? Who do I listen to that's funky? Yeah, who, who, uh, inspires the funk in you? Oh, so much funk because I grew up in a household that was all, um, Motown, disco, you know, so all the classics, you know, I'm a big Michael Jackson, Prince fan.

1:16:40And yeah, I listened to, I've listened to a lot of seventies disco in my spare time. I do. That's just, uh, at my core. That's great. That's great. Don't listen to it all. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mine is really similar. I actually have 1999 on my vinyl right now. I was listening to it before we came on. Um, Stevie Wonder. Earth, Wind and Fire too. Oh yeah. Yeah. Uh, Blondie's in that category as well. Blondie's fascinating because Blondie was a whole bunch of different things that came together. Um, and same with Devo. Um, but, uh, yeah, Stevie Wonder, Bernie Whirlwell, uh, Bootsy Collins, obviously Michael Jackson.

1:17:29Um, yeah, it's really interesting how everybody has a funk in them. And that's one of the reasons that you have to practice and practice going dugga, dugga, dugga, dugga, dugga, dugga, dugga, dugga, dugga, dugga, dugga, or whatever, so that your funk can come through. Because you might not be going dugga, dugga, dugga, dugga, you might be going dugga, dugga, dugga, dugga, or somewhere between those two. Um, and that, that funk, especially when you use it in electronic music, is so important. Um, because in some place, some places you want it to be a robot, in other places you want it to be funk. Um, so in answer to the question, always trying to figure out how can I, how can I listen to the voice of Michael Jackson or, uh, Herbie Hancock or Bernie Warwell here?

1:18:25And how can these people teach me from what they've done? Yeah, and I think it's, it's so important to, uh, always expand your tastes and to listen outside of your normal genres of music. Because, um, that produces some of the best outcomes. You know, one of my favorites, uh, I love Bauhaus and their incorporation of dub is what makes them so special, you know? Yeah. And what's affected so much of, of, uh, post-punk and goth rock, you know? So, but really, you know, quite a few of their songs, they're dubbed, you know? That's really interesting. I've never heard about that, but they are. Yeah, they are.

1:19:05They've got that big crank, crank, crank, crank, crank thing going on. Yeah, dub, dub music, yeah. Huh. Yeah. Fuck. Yeah. Okay, interesting. That is really interesting, yes. I love it. So what, um, new music are you guys listening to? How do you, how do you discover new music? Ash. So, for me, because I, I DJ in all of the, the modern, gothic industrial clubs now, um, I have to search. I've got to search. I have to dig. I, I, I do a lot of like YouTube and Spotify where one band leads to another. And I just sit there and I do a lot of, a lot of research, um, on what's new, what's happening. Um, I'm also though going backwards in time more often than I realized.

1:19:58I said this in another, um, podcast I did recently about, um, there's so much great new music in clubs, but I'm seeing, um, but I'm seeing that the younger generation as they come through, they're actually not familiar with a lot of the older stuff because I don't even want to date all of us. But think about how long, how long ago it was, um, when the Gothic industrial classics all came out. So, you know, I'm playing some new music, but I have to layer it with all of the old stuff again, because a lot of these kids have not heard it. They only hear, um, the new stuff.

1:20:35So, yeah, I know there's a lot of goth clubs that are unchanged and they don't play, um, anything but the oldies. But in the newer goth clubs, like what I do, um, especially, um, I do a lot of, like, LGBTQ nights, and, uh, I'm the resident DJ for lesbian goth night and the vampire ball and stuff like that, where the focus, um, has been a bit more on, like, the modern, um, new dark wave and stuff like that, that I am, I'm doing, I'm trying to keep both alive, I'm trying to swing old to new. And it can be very difficult because production on newer music is so different from the older stuff.

1:21:17So I have to find a way to blend the two together. That's really interesting because, like, um, modern music has become, uh, yeah, the production and the mastering is so really slammy, whereas the old stuff and, you know, like Bela Lugosi, if you put, look at the waveform of Bela Lugosi, it looks like it's not even mastered. Yeah. Um, and that's what's beautiful about it. Yeah. Um, it's same with, you know, that my favorite example of this is, uh, yes, uh, owner of a lonely heart. Um, you know, there's that snare in the beginning of it. Um, that snare jumps right out and then the whole rest of the track goes on.

1:22:00I am desperately trying to find new music. And I mentioned the illustrious Drag Queen Maymay Graves before. Uh, they have helped me find a lot of really cool music. Uh, when I, um, I, yeah, I, um, I don't know. I, I, I try so hard to, uh, listen to new music and there's a lot of new music I love. Um, I like the weirder experimentation stuff. I'm getting into a local band in LA called, uh, Dread for Stephanie. Um, and she's, uh, she's from, uh, Long Beach area, Orange County area. And it's really dirty industrial with chick, angry fucking chick. And it's great. Um, and it's really nice sound design.

1:22:55Actually, there is a library. There's a fem electronic, uh, library in LA. Uh, and it's free and you join up or do you pay like $10 joining, joining fee or something? I can't remember, but it's really fucking cheap if not free. And you get to borrow synthesizers from the library and Moog, Moog and Korg and Roland and so many others. And now there's modular stuff in there where you can go in and you know, there's only so much you can take per week per month. You take home a Volker or a fucking sub 37 or something. Um, and you fuck around with it. So you guys need to look into that.

1:23:34And I think it's called the fem synth library, but it's on Instagram or something. Yeah. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. That's awesome. Erin from Dread Persephone is a part of that. And every time I'm working with someone who is a female identifying, I always say, "Gotta check that shit out." I have a terrible habit of, I always fall back on my vinyl and my vinyl is pre-1986. I suck. I listen to too much Devo and too much Depeche Mode and too much Duran Duran and Jean-Marco Jarre and Vangelis and Blondie and Human League and Jean-Michel Jarre and Stevie Wonder. But interestingly, a friend of mine just gave me a whole bunch of CDs, like a hundred fucking CDs from the 90s, and it was all the shit that I never got into. Like, I didn't get into Green Day because I went,

1:24:42pfft, Green Day. And it's now, it's like, fuck, these guys are amazing! Like, and also Beck! I never got into Beck! Because I went, fucking I don't care about Beck. It's like, oh my God, Beck's really fucking good. So I'm discovering this music 30 years later. And I'm trying to, I don't know, also get into anything random, like Brazil. There's this guy named Herbio Mendez, and he did this Brazil '66, and Brazil '77. And it was like the coolest, funkiest shit you've ever heard from 1966 and then 11 years in 1977. And it's just great to listen to something that is completely different because you go, wow, listen to what those drums are doing. Like, that drum is really fucking good. Like, so it's like you said, Ashley, it's really good to like, to push it outside.

1:25:42Even E-L-O. I love E-L-O. And Enya. Enya is another Guilty. And it's funny, it used to be a joke, listen to Enya and clear the club out. And then I actually started listening to Enya and it's like, this is amazing! Once again, another woman who does it all! Fucking Fairlight Series 2, Emulator 3, Juno 60, and everything else, in a castle, full with cats! Yeah, yeah. When you listen to her vocal layering, why didn't Enya and Kate Bush do a track together? They both own fucking Fairlight! When you listen to her vocal layering, it's profound! It's insane! No one does that shit! Like, big, moving, massive fucking chords! Oh, it's wonderful!

1:26:46I didn't answer your question! Tash, what are you listening to? Well, I've been listening to Angelspit and Ashley Bad. I mean, no joke, I really, I really haven't. I always really, it's awesome to get to dive into these universes, you know, and to really immerse myself in your musics. And so, I actually wanted to ask you, you're working on your 13th album, and we were talking about, like, you know, modern production versus production from the past, and I was just curious, like, what your approach is, like, now, like, in the present day. Like, do you feel like you're pushing, like, pushing yourself to try to do something more modern, or are you going back to your roots?

1:27:33Absolutely not. I suck. That's it. I've got an Emacs there. That's 40 years old. There's another Emacs. It's also 40 years old. 40 years old in May. I have another Emacs down there. And what's really interesting is that these old synths, people are now using AI to crack the OS, the firmware of these 40-year-old synthesizers to get them to do more shit. So they've done that on the Akai S900 series, on the Emacs 2. They're working on the Emacs now. On all of these different synths, it's fucking great. There's a Moog one here. There's a K2000 there. There's a Voyage there. There's a Mini Moog reissue there. There is a bunch of shit down there. And there's a seven-foot

1:28:23tall modular synth there. And it's like, if I want to go, okay, I want to replicate Frontline Assemblies or Tactical Neural Emplant, 2Dock Park or Pretty Hink Machine, that's an Emacs and a Mini Moog. If I want to do this, this, that's a Moog one and that. Or if I want to get anything in the 90s, that's the K2000 and the Voyager. We were saying before about how music is this endless thing that is like, fuck, you're never going to learn that all the different ways you can use extended chords, 7s, 9s, 11s, sharp, 11s, suspended folds, all that shit. There's so many different ways to use them.

1:29:08Same goes with technology. I am a big fan of a guy named Alex who does this stream called Vulture Culture every Wednesday night, and on Vulture Culture's stream, he will get into a synthesizer and do shit with that synthesizer that I've never fucking thought of. So you're working with the synth that's... the Moog, the Mini Moog is based on a 1968. Holy shit, that's nearly 60 years old. A 1968 synth. In fact, that is basically a loom for loom, absolute analog replica built by Moog of a synthesizer that they made nearly 60 years ago. And there's all of these people that are still going, it is so incredibly limited, but there's all of this shit you can still do on it. The K2000,

1:30:02which is the middle one behind me, is mid-90s. And it's like, there's so much you can do. And yes, there's Omnisphere. Yes, there's all of these new amazing pieces of software that go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that's fucking great. But I am constantly being reminded, and you can get a K2000 off Craigslist for 300 bucks. I've owned three of them. The first time I bought one was in the early 90s, and it cost me five grand! Best five grand I spent at the time though. Back then, five grand was like a million dollars. Maybe a million dollars and 37 cents. I don't fucking know.

1:30:43But I am still getting into this K2000 going, I had no idea it could reach this level of sonic complexity. I haven't even scratched the surface of the Mode 1. I've been using Emacs since 1992? '91. I bought my first Emacs in 1991, and I still have it. It's right fucking there. And look at this. Look at this. Oh shit, I moved my camera. Floppy disks. I can't get the floppy disks unless I ruin everything. Um, and it has fucking floppy disks. Oh, I've got a floppy disk in there. Um, and my point is that, uh, like sure, I'm going to use modern. Um, I will do as much out of the box as I can. I will do as

1:31:27much in hardware as I can because hardware makes me, it presents problems that I need to work around. For example, to put a sample in the Emacs is a whole bunch of fucking around. Whereas you can just go drag and drop on atmosphere, blip blip blip, there's your sound and it sounds incredible. On the Emacs, you have to fuck around. And there's a lot of fucking around. But when you are fucking around, there's all of this extra stuff that you're thinking and contemplating and working and creating all these new things. Um, and that's one of the areas that I think where music's lost, it's the depth of the creative process. And it's like when you say to Mark, I want you to do a guitar.

1:32:12Mark's going to go, Oh, will I use a Fender or an orange? Will I use the, uh, what guitar am I going to, should I restring it? What pedal should I, and all of these patchings and all of this analog decisions and thoughts and questions and experimentation. And yeah, that works or no, that doesn't work. Um, it's like, I, I, I mixed live sound. And I remember there was a band that had a great big fucking Marshall stack and blah, blah, blah. And they sounded like gritty, fat rock and roll. And then another band came along with a line six digital thing and it was fantastic.

1:32:46And it sounded great. Just plugged in and it sounded great. And that's fantastic. And from my perspective, as the guy mixing this shit, you've made my life a lot easier, but in the studio, you wanna fuck around, which is something Brian Eno always went on about. It's a sandpit and there's buckets and shit that you could make sandcastles out of, or maybe not. Maybe we're just gonna fuck around and be like Bob Ross and make a whole bunch of mistakes. And from that, potential is going to happen. And that's why I don't like being limited to this. Like, I like doing this. Oh, fuck, what did I just do? Like, I was using a thing the other day and I bumped the tuning

1:33:35knob. And it was this weird third, but it wasn't a third. Like, it was out of tune by like a third or a flat, but halfway between a flat third and a minor third. And then I played it and I went, oh, that's awesome. And then I used it to like modulate and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was like, fucking great. What am I doing? I have no idea, but this sounds dope. I didn't answer your question so well just then, but I will use in-the-box compression and shit. I was on the journey with you and it's very inspiring. Awesome. It reminded me actually when you were talking about like the happy accidents that happen.

1:34:17I went, I was at a Bjork concert and both of her computers went down, but she was traveling with an orchestra and so they ended up playing everything like acoustically. So we had the experience of getting to, and I went to another Bjork show and had like the full electronic experience as well, but it was really special. I really loved that there was that happy accident. Like I never would have gotten to experience that side of Bjork otherwise. So I thought that was really special. Yeah. I had a similar experience when I saw Jeff Buckley in Brisbane in, I'm really dating myself now in 1993. So if you don't know who Jeff Buckley is, you need to know who Jeff Buckley is. Jeff Buckley

1:35:04wrote possibly the greatest album of all time, called Grace. Jeff Buckley left us too early and he had live, I watched him scream, like scream, like rip your throat to shreds, scream. And then he came out on this beautiful pure note and it wasn't hoarse, it wasn't, and I went with a whole bunch of guys from the uni and they were vocal majors and they were going, human voice can't do that. Like, if you scream, it's going to be hoarse. And this fucker screamed. But during his show, And he was rocking out too much and he bumped his guitars and he broke something. And then he said, "Oh, fuck. Well, it's going to take 20 minutes to fix this. There's not much of a black gospel culture in Australia, because Australia doesn't have any black gospel churches. Got all sorts of churches, but not like specifically when you think Southern Black Baptist Church, because Australia doesn't have that population."

1:36:08"Yay immigration." And so he said, "I'm going to teach you a gospel song." So, and he sang this thing and I'm going to start crying. He sang this line and he goes, "You're going to sing this line back to me." So we're singing the line back to him, like 5,000 very drunk Australians are singing it back to Jeff fucking Buckley. And then he just said, "Keep singing it. Stomp your feet like this. Boom. Boom. Don't speed up and sing that line." And then he soloed. And he went crazy. And if you've ever heard, like, if you haven't heard Jeff Buckley's "Grace", you must hear this album. And it's a great example of, wow, mastering as an art, as a beautiful art. And I have, I have, yeah, it was one of those moments where,

1:37:05oh, shit, we fucked up. What are we going to do? Let's do this. Turns into a magical thing. And, you know, isn't it crazy how music is, music is about trying to harness, record, remember. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it kind of trips me out. Like you were talking earlier about Mozart and the manuscript and just how we get like a piece of an archive as a piece of paper. And then, you know, we translate his music now, like, right, we try to interpret it, but we don't know what it actually might have sounded like back hundreds of years ago. And it's so cool that we get to have these modern recording things now where we actually get to represent our visions exactly how we want them to be represented, you know.

1:37:54I think it's fascinating the way I was watching your interview with Curse. And I think Curse needs to change his name to Blessing, because he really is. And I was watching his masks, and I was going, "I fucking love this! This is great!" And I was really reminded how the, also, I forgot the gentleman's name. He had a whole bunch of synthesizers, and he was in a barn, and he was over in the Boston area. I was watching that interview as well. I watched quite a few of them. But I was watching Curses, just thinking how that spark of idea, how it travels. So, by the time you actually hear it on your system or streamed or whatever,

1:38:44the journey it takes from this nether region, other dimension, and the work that you need to do to pull this thing through this dimension. Like, I always imagine that there's this membrane of reality that's as thin as a dream. And on the other side of it is a song. And you have to somehow magically push your hand through it and pull this fucking thing out and release it into the world. And what you see through this bubble, this membrane, and by the time it's out there is this multidimensional moving sphere orb of music because what the fuck is music? There's such different things. The way they grow from this strange higher dimensional life energy thing into this.

1:39:40And it's like, wow. And the way it changes you. And the way you have to face those voices that say you're shit. And you gotta face them. Yeah. Yeah, you do. You do. Yeah. It was something that, did you guys ever see "Waking Life"? It was a Linklater movie. It's like a, it was like a rotoscope animated. Yes, I did. So there's an idea in that movie that talks about how like, there's this super consciousness of creativity. And if you don't pluck it out of the ether, somebody else will. But it's always there. It's like, there's an idea that's moving there for any one of us to pluck it.

1:40:27So it's just up to you to pluck it and translate it in a way that only you uniquely can. You know? Yeah. And thank you. I, another person who is massively inspiring to me is Heliandro Yarawaski, who made a movie called "Holy Mountain". And if you ever get a chance, watch "Holy Mountain". I love it. Oh, yes! Yeah, I've seen it. And if you get a chance, he did a documentary about Dune. He was going to make Dune. Oh. And it was going to have Mick Jagger in it and Pink Floyd were going to do the soundtrack. And Geiger was the original, like Alien, because Dune didn't happen, Alien happened.

1:41:13And Star Wars happened out of the Ashes of Dune. But you can watch, I think it's for free on Tubi or buy this fucking movie. It's Yadawaski's Dune. And if you are ever in a rut, if you are ever in a place where you can't make art or you're out of energy, this guy, and when he did it, I think he was like 85. Wow. He is, when he did this documentary about, when he was going to do it, he was like in his 30s or 40s or something. He is on fire. This guy is this passionate, funny, driven man who hates Hollywood and hates all the industry of movies.

1:42:02He hates money. He believes in art. And if you've seen Holy Mountain and it's this beautifully weird grotesque, like it's grotesque. It's actually, there's areas of it where he was trying to evoke feelings of disgust. And there's areas of it that are disgusting. Like, oh, I don't want to see bunny rabbits, dead bunny rabbits crucified. Watch it. Even though it's got that, watch it. Although apparently the rabbits were already slaughtered from a market. Look, it's a long story. Just the end of it. And it's about these people who are trying to find enlightenment. And these people are basically the gods of each planet. Like, and this one is industry.

1:42:51And this one is this. And they're all kind of quite sadistic. And there's an area in it where he's turning shit into gold. And you just need to see the movie. But at the end of the movie, spoiler alert, it is the greatest breaking of the fourth wall I have ever seen. Because it ends with the realization of it's all a joke. It's all an illusion. The whole thing is an illusion. And he looks straight at the camera. And he goes, it's an illusion and I am lying to you. Pull back, pull back. And the camera pulls back and you see the catering tent. You see the sound people.

1:43:36You see the crews. And you see everybody with microphones and light. And he goes, it's all an illusion. And everybody starts laughing. Spoiler alert, just before that. Massive spoiler alert! Like that is the biggest. But you've got to see it to get to that point of, holy fuck, he just did that. Like he just spent two hours creating this incredible illusion to smash the fucking mirror. And that boldness, that fucking craziness. It's like, man. Wow. Ranch. I definitely will watch it. I will definitely watch it, for sure. I have my homework. Holy mountain. And John Lennon and Yoko Ono put a million dollars into it.

1:44:23Wow. They're legit. Did you guys see the Yoko Ono exhibit at the Broad? No. I have not. I would love to, though. Oh, man. It's so inspiring. I didn't realize like how much immersive art she made, because you actually have the opportunity to interact with like different pieces that she did. So, yeah, highly recommended if it's still in town. Yeah. Oh, hello. We have a fur friend. I don't know if Toki has been on camera, but this is our other cat, Toki. Hi, Toki. Hi, Toki. Hi, Toki. Boy, it's really cute. Hi, Toki. Tulip's already been on your podcast, but that's the first time I think Toki's been on it.

1:45:07It was Toki's time. Toki was like, "Excuse me." Oh, it's time. Finally. It's time to shine. Yes. Yes. Frank did the rounds before. I don't... Normally, everything's covered because Frank jumped... Oh, there he is. Frank's a big guy. Yeah. And he likes to jump on stuff and go, "Why are you paying attention to this synthesizer and not me?" So, normally, there's cardboard and a rug on top of everything. And he came out before, and as you were talking, I was watching him, because he just went, "I'm going to jump on that." But then he didn't, but he's right there asleep. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Toki has woke up, and I'm hoping he...

1:45:52He's been so good. He's not... He hasn't been speaking, but he's really loud when it comes to food. So, I'm really happy. I fed him just before, but you never know. He does ask for snacks. That's funny, because Frank is on... He's on "Franchised". There's an area where you're talking... And I think he's on "A Moment Silent" as well, where you were singing, and Frank just bellowed... Because Frank's very loud. Yeah. And he just bellowed in the background. I went, "Fuck it. I'm leaving that in there." Our cats are singers. We've got two singers. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love it. I love that they have found their people.

1:46:31Yeah. Yeah. Their fellow kitty lovers in the chat as well. Dusty Chalk says, "Yes, I am ready for my close-up." Thank you, friends in the chat, by the way, for hanging out. It's been such a joy to get to share all of this inspiration with Karl and Ashley and catch up with you guys. So is the photo shoot the next thing that you guys are focusing on since that's next month? Or is everything happening simultaneously with the next music as well? Yeah, for me, for Angelspit, the next big thing is the photo shoot. There's a couple of songs here and there that I'm working on.

1:47:17There's a lot of work just on the costumes and the look of it. But the next thing that I'm personally excited about is aiding Ashley with her material. But that's a very organic kind of situation. But I'm really looking forward to that. So, I don't know, just trying to stay busy. I just pulled up YouTube and I'm looking at the comments. Oh yeah, because I can't see them myself. I know, they're lovely. I love everybody that comes on here. Hi Dee, welcome. Thanks for watching Dee. Yes. And Dusty and Phoenix. Hi everyone! Oh, I could actually put them on my television to see. Let's see.

1:48:17These guys. I don't know who's there. Ashley, I know you have some DJing performances coming up. I do. Oh, there's everybody. Cool. Yeah, I do. Actually, I've got the Lesbian Vampire Ball coming up. I've got Torture Garden. I've got the Midnight Masquerade Ball in Las Vegas. So I'm going from Las Vegas to I'm going to fly to the UK to see Mark play with the Mission. We've got those shows coming up. And then I'm flying back for Torture Garden. So that's the next lineup of stuff that I'm doing. So some Goths, Dark Wave, New Wave, Industrial, Fetish. And the Midnight Masquerade is actually a celebration of Day of the Dead.

1:49:18So I am going to be doing some Cumbia and some Spanish Gothic rock as well. So that'll be really cool. That's awesome. Yeah. Very cool. A lot going on. And after Torture Garden, I fly back straight to Karl. I'm going to do that photo shoot after that. So I have a very crazy month of October going on for me. It sounds crazy and amazing. Yeah, I've had the privilege of watching you DJ now, like, multiple times. And I see how much love you put into it and how much energy you put into it. So I know you definitely put a lot of, like, really great energy out into the world in that universe as well.

1:50:05Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah, it was lovely to be on the same bill with you for Goth Pride. That was really amazing. I loved it. I loved it. Yeah. I love the full circle of everything. Like, it's just amazing how small our universes really are and how we weave. And then, and it's funny because it's like, you're like, oh, oh, wow, we met, you know, here in New York City, like you guys met in New York City and we're all converging here. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, if there are any questions, last minute questions that anybody would like to ask, please feel free to drop it in the chat.

1:50:49Yes. Yes. Yes. Any parting wisdoms or inspirations, Karl and Ashley? Karl, this one's you. Oh, okay. Because I'm trying to see the comments. I think, so on Saturday mornings, Angelspit does a stream called Art of Rocks. And it's 9 o'clock LA time, Saturday morning, or 12 o'clock New York time. And we talk about making music and making art and overcoming writer's block and production and gear and lyrics and everything. And if you go to Angelspit's YouTube, it's there. And you say, "Fucking follow this shit." I'm really proud of this stream. We've been doing it for like three years now. And the stuff, some people have written several albums, some haven't written any albums, some have released a few songs, some haven't done anything.

1:52:00They're not ready to release anything yet. But everybody brings a wisdom. Because everybody's got something really important you can learn. And it doesn't matter if they've written something or not. They have a really nice opinion. And they have, they might have a trick on a piece of gear that you've never thought of. Or that I've never thought of. And I've actually, I have totally changed the way I write based on these streams. And based on what I learned from other people on these streams. And I'm increasingly trying to, I'm always trying to change, because I'm a creature of habit. And I, there's certain things that I do that I don't want to do them anymore because it's time to try something else.

1:52:57Excuse me, so these streams are, I really hope they help you like the way they help me. So we also talk about marketing and managing. AI always comes up, as some of the guys used to work in AI development. And I think it's really important that, that the, you embrace the difficulty that it is to write music. It's meant to be hard. It's not easy. This is a cathartic, this is a cathartic experience. You're mining for gold or something, and digging in the dirt isn't easy. It's hard. I, as a rant quickly, so I have a friend who's, he's a Taekwondo champion. And he has a mate, one of his crew is with learning Shaolin from monks in Nepal.

1:54:03And they beat the shit out of this guy. But he learnt, you know, it was a part of the training. And he said they'd get up at 4:30 every morning, and, and, and, and, and. And now another guy who I met through Angelspit, who's a Navy SEAL, he wanted to be the best at what he did. He got up at 4:30 in the morning and boom, boom, boom. And it was always about pushups on your knuckles and the really fucking hard yakka, hard work. So I went, you know, I want to be a ninja martial art level musician. So I get up at 4:30 in the morning and between 4:30 and 8:30, I will get a massive amount of work done.

1:54:44And maybe it's because there's no interruptions. I don't know why. Your brain works differently at different times of the day. Like later in the night, it might be super creative. Early in the morning, it might be really good at putting stuff together, whatever. Different brains, different. So it is important if you want to be a ninja, if you want to be a black belt motherfucker, you've got to get up either early or late. I think early is better because it requires discipline. And the part of your brain that regulates discipline or helps with discipline is going, yeah, get up at 4:30 because that's going to be helping everything.

1:55:30You have to do the equivalent of push-ups on your knuckles, which is scales, which is learning how to use your gear, which is reading manuals, studying the manuals, which is learning from other musicians, which is when I work on music. So my music computer isn't connected to the internet, so I cannot go on the internet. My phone will be in the other room, so there is no, the only thing that distracts me is Frank. And Frank is incredibly, Frank my cat is extremely good at distracting me. And it's interesting, because Frank has his crazy hour, which is from 8am to 10am, Frank is crazy. So my thing is that between 4:30 and 8am when Frank starts going crazy, I have to get the music done.

1:56:21So that is, because playing with Frank is very important. Frank keeps me in the now. That would be my closing thoughts is, like you said before, the music that is being, that you have access to in the nether, in the magical realms, you get first call on it. And if you don't grab it, someone else is going to grab it. So grab it. And to do that, you have to be disciplined and skilled. And that skill is as per your definition of what your skill area is, because everyone's different. Go and make music. Don't use a fucking AI. Make music. With a pen and a paper in a cafe and a piano and a dinky keyboard that's got a boss of beat.

1:57:13Rock. Did you know that Michael Jackson, he would work at all crazy hours because he said, you know, yeah, I've got to get up at 6 o'clock in the morning, 4 a.m. to go write that song, because if he didn't do it, then Prince would get the idea. Yes. Have Prince taking his idea. God is going to give that song to Prince, so he's got to act now. But how incredible is it when you know that you are the shadow of Michael Jackson? Knowing that, like how, what does that say about Prince? That Michael, he was the guy that kept Jackson fucking genius. Yeah. Because Michael Jackson was a fucking genius.

1:57:54Yeah, yeah. God dammit, I want to inspire someone like that. Yeah, yeah. Competition always keeps me going. Yeah. Yeah. Especially competition with yourself. Yes. Well, that's number one, yeah. Rant. Ashley, did you want to add anything, or Tash? I keep getting your name wrong, I'm sorry. It's the Australian accent. Tash, do you want to say anything incredible besides fuck you, Webster Elementary? No. Well, actually, I was going to ask Ashley if you had any, like, like, wisdoms or inspirations that you wanted to share. Especially for, I guess, people that are looking into, you know, getting started as a solo artist and, you know, like, how does one start, you know?

1:58:58Yeah, for me, I would say the easiest way to get started is in those moments when you feel the worst about yourself. You know, taking that power that you have and harnessing it into something creative. Because that's when I started writing music was when I was at my lowest. And maybe for some people that might be when they're at their happiest as well. Just take that emotion, take that storm that's inside of yourself, whether it's a happy storm or a sad storm. Whatever that intense emotion is, that's the time to put it into something creative because it was very cathartic for me to, as it is I'm sure for every creative, to write these songs and to get them out there.

1:59:50And yeah, that's not even the hardest part I find. It's then getting it out there to other people. So, I would just say, as afraid as you are, don't worry because we all are. We're all feeling the same way. Don't be afraid. It's gonna be okay. Even if it feels like it won't be, it will be. That's the advice that I've always needed, you know, as a very anxious person, as an anxious creator, is that sometimes I just need to remind myself, it will be okay. Even at my worst, it will be okay. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I really, really love that. Yeah. You'll feel so much better getting that out there. I have to remind myself.

2:00:38Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Such a good reminder to like, almost, it's almost like, gosh, if only we could have like, you know, the little angel on our shoulder, like our super self, like, hey, remember. No, that's what I need. That's what everybody needs. It'll be okay. Yeah, absolutely. Well, Karl and Ashley, thank you both so much for taking the time, for being such a joy. And like, really, you guys both are putting out incredible music and art. I'm really looking forward to this photo shoot. It sounds epic. Yeah. Do you, I know that there's probably like a big editing process afterwards, but do you guys have a rough idea of like, when you're planning on putting it out?

2:01:27Nah. All good. Well, we'll, we'll, we'll stand ready for whenever you're ready for that. I don't know. I want to, normally with a photo shoot, it's like, I don't show any photos, but now it's like, I, I actually don't mind if everybody's taking photos during the shoot. I don't mind. Um, but we'll see probably the album might be due, God, I don't know, next year. Yeah. We shall see. Yes. Well, um, thank you both again for your time. For mine. Yes. Yes. It's been such a joy to get to chat with y'all. Um, and thank you friends in the chat, always. Thank you so much for being here, for being present, and for supporting Unwritten Rules of the

2:02:13Road and our incredible artists that we get to have on here. Um, we hope you all have a wonderful, beautiful night. Thanks again, guys. Oh, and it's 23, uh, Sunday at three. So, um, that's the next one on deck. But, um, anywho, yes, I hope you all have a wonderful, beautiful night. Thank you. Rock! Thank you