Withering Earth

https://witheringearth.com

We hang with Florida Viking metal band Withering Earth to talk myth-driven songwriting, touring plans, and what it really takes to bring full energy to every live set. We swap the stories musicians live for, from gear wins to brutal onstage mistakes, then land on the mindset that keeps a band moving forward. 
• Withering Earth’s Viking theme, Ulfhednar imagery, and myth-based lyrics 
• 2026 show plans, Norse forged gathering (6th consecutive year), and building a regional tour 
• treating small crowds like real fans and giving the full performance 
• backing tracks setup, DI splits, and click track workflow for live shows 
• ticket links, social media promotion, and reaching international listeners 
• band dynamics, commitment, and the trust required to keep momentum 
• balancing marriage, kids, and the reality of music as a job 
• best shows so far and the shock of early big crowds 
• learning instruments, early influences, and finding the “felt it” moment 
• why comparisons to prodigies can derail beginners and how to stay in your lane 
• onstage “oh shit” stories including wrong tuning reference and tuner left on 
• recording at home, outsourcing mixing and mastering, and choosing collaborators 
• stage banter, handling dead air, and keeping the crowd on your side 
• when band politics and sabotage kill a project and how to rebuild 
Please give us comments on our on our episodes and you know hit us up. We’ve got some shirts, we’ve got merch to give away. We got shirts, we got CDs from some of these artists, we got more coming from new artists. 
Don’t forget that supports um on the on our on our pages. Um, you know, we could use a couple bucks here and there… shoot us, you know, three bucks a month. 
If you’re a band or musician, you want or club owner or producer, anything involved in music, you know, hit us up in the comments section of our of our uh podcast and we’ll get back to you.

https://franklinsgaragetostage.buzzsprout.com

franklinsgaragetostage@proton.me

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Transcript

Meet Withering Earth And Their Sound

Rob 0:31

Hey, welcome to Franklin's Garage to State Pod Podcast. My name is Rob Wardrums Franklin, and my co-host is Dana Thunderbase Franklin. What's up, man? How's it going? Good, good stuff, good, good. Hey, we always start these podcasts and end with like a little quote or inspirational thing. Mine today is uh the only clue what man can do is what man has done by RG Collingworth. Which is cool, but if I think about that, it's like this little child prodigies that I wouldn't be able to copy, but it's still a cool quote. Anyway, today we got with us uh killer guest, killer band, and my brother here is gonna introduce you to him.

Dana 1:09

Cool. All right, well, with us today, we got a uh band from Florida called Withering Earth, and a couple members of the band with us today. Um, Greg, I think I'm saying this right, Moore. And um is it Dick Whisby?

Dick 1:24

Yeah, yeah, that's me.

Dana 1:25

Okay, cool. Um, so how you guys doing? Tell us a little bit about yourself and and and what your band's all about.

Greg 1:32

Hey, my name's Greg. I'm the lead singer and um uh rhythm guitar player for Withering Earth. Uh, we've been doing this since 2015. Uh we're a Viking theme, um, a lot of death metal and some slight power metal, uh a bunch of uh like to use a lot of um mythos, Viking stories and mythology as lyric foundation. We love to use the imagery, we're based off of the Wolf Hedner, which is uh wolf berserkers of the uh Viking peoples, things like that. Viking peoples. Um we've been in a number of bands uh before this, but this is just our main thing that we do, and we really enjoy it.

Dana 2:18

Cool. Um, so I yeah, go ahead, man.

Dick 2:22

I was gonna say I'm Dick Whisby and I play lead guitar and basically everything you just said.

Dana 2:29

Yeah, we were listening to some of your music earlier and you know, and saw a couple of the videos with the whole you know, wolf skin that you guys were wearing on stage. And so did you hunt them down and kill them yourself? Did you eat raw meat on stage? What kind of stage annex you got going on there?

Dick 2:44

I don't know if I'm not gonna do that. No, we didn't do that. Uh our hunting ground was um Michael's and Joanne's Joanne's, that's what it is. Rest in peace, baby girl.

2026 Shows And Touring Plans

Rob 2:58

So the song, uh the song Uf Headnar and Oh, nice. Oh, that's very cool. So the song uh Uth Headnar, if I'm pronouncing that right. Yes. That basically means Norse warriors uh that wore wolf skins in battle, correct?

Greg 3:14

Yes, right, yes.

Rob 3:15

All right, cool. Uh so what are your what are your plans for like 2026 here? Like what kind of shows you got lined up?

Greg 3:22

Uh we actually got a Norse Forbes gathering. Um second year we'll be doing it. Um, I think it's May 22nd or May 23rd up in North Carolina, and then um we are setting up a tour. Yeah. Yeah, we're doing a tour in September, another four-day tour in September up into Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia.

Dana 3:46

Nice. Okay. Yeah, so that you guys got that show schedule uh May May 23rd in New London, North Carolina, which is about an hour and a half from where we are at, so we're definitely gonna come check it out and see what you guys are all about and fucking party with you guys, have a couple beers.

Playing Small Crowds Like Pros

Greg 4:02

Yeah, they got meat there too. All right, there you go.

Dana 4:05

Nice. So, you know, I I've read a bunch of stuff on you know, some of these other bands that say shit like, you know, when you're when you're doing live performances and say you've only got a crowd of 15, 20 people as opposed to a couple hundred, and you know, most people are like, yeah, it's like a paid practice. This you know, and I totally disagree with that shit. You know, paid practice means you're just fucking hanging out, playing loosely and not giving a shit. You know, um, I mean, we've always been on the impressions like you know, whether even if you only got one or two people there, you know, those people are paying to see you and they expect uh uh your best performance. You know, I is do you guys agree with that?

Dick 4:46

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Who are in the full nine, even if it's only a handful of people, who get the full outfits on, all the face paint, the whole they're getting the whole experience in the whole show, regardless of how many people are in there. Is that's just that's how we got unless you're at last night's show and I forgot my my entire outfit at home.

Rob 5:06

It happens, which we'll talk about later. Hey, I got a question about back and tracks because obviously you have a lot of keys in some of the songs. Do you use uh back and tracks and how do you control that with uh like wireless MIDI controller, or how do you do it?

Ticketing Changes And Social Media

Greg 5:19

Um it's actually just a um uh small analog mixer that we have for the for the drummer, and we run it off the tablet and into the uh to the mixer, and but if before it goes to the mixer, we have a DI box, a double DI box, one goes to his mixer and one goes to front of the house. So all he has to do is hit play and it automatically goes straight to the front of the house. And then he the drummer gets the uh the click. So it's um the backing tracks all have clicks on them, but it's split to left and right, and front house gets right, drummer gets left, left has all the click. Alright.

Dana 5:57

Oh cool. That's all you guys you just mentioned you had a show last night, uh a place called I think it was West End Trading Company. Yes. How did how did that go for you guys?

Dick 6:09

What kind of crowd? It was a really decent turnout, especially for a Friday night with a lot of options there right on that street. It was very well packed down. So we're very happy with the turnout.

Dana 6:20

Cool. Now, are mostly shows that you guys do are they, you know, were tickets in advance, and have you ever had cancelizations because of shit like that, or is it mostly just walking and you pray for the best?

Greg 6:31

Well, last time it was the first show that we've played in a very long time where we had to sell tickets. Um, a lot of the promoters around here are going to Even Brighton Ticketmaster, and you basically just share the link on your um your Facebook device or your Instagram folks or whatever. But last time they actually had in for tickets, and it's like we haven't done that in six years, it feels like a very, very, very weird experience for that.

Dana 6:57

Yeah, I mean, with you know, nowadays, of course, you know, me and my brother are a little bit on the older side, as you can see. We go back in the days before the internet and shit, and you know, you had to put up posters on telephone poles and shit like that to you know advertise your band. Though social media's got to change that shit a lot. Um, yeah, but you know, it's also done a little bit of good, too. You know, you can get your name out there a little bit more and spread it out without you know fucking calling all your friends in, hey, we're playing here next Friday, take tell everybody you know. And so it's how has the social media stuff changed, you say, you know, for you guys, and what has it done for you? Stop seeing all my question.

Greg 7:30

Oh fuck. Um in comparison to uh like my last band, uh social media's done a lot. It's just changed changed the game for promoting and um and all that stuff. Because my old band, we used to run around putting flyers up on telephone poles all the time.

Rob 7:49

Oh, yeah, I totally remember that. Yep.

Greg 7:52

Going to um high schools and throwing flyers over the over the gates after it's closed. And yeah, we've done all of it. It really opened the doors for us, especially with international fans, people who would never get a chance to see or hear about us over here with those those plastic styles promoting. Right. We have we have fans all over the world now, thanks to thanks to internet and social media, stuff like that. And it it really has changed the game.

Rob 8:50

Oh, very cool. Yeah, kind of the same for us when we started this thing. We know we just started out local and didn't really have a lot of listeners local, and then it like blew up overseas. We got like tons of bands from the UK on. And speaking of which, have you guys heard of a band called Gospels of Odin?

Greg 9:05

Um, the name sounds familiar. I think I've seen it on um on Facebook, but uh I don't think I've ever fully checked them out.

Rob 9:14

Yeah, it's a it's a band you gotta check out. And to do we talked to Jay, he's like multi-talented, basically the same kind of style as you guys.

Dana 9:20

Similar to what you guys do, exactly.

Rob 9:22

But yeah, he's from the UK, and they're yeah, just check it out because they're pretty impressive. Nice.

Band Dynamics And Commitment

Dana 9:29

Um, so you guys, you know, like you mentioned, you've been in bands before and stuff. Uh band dynamics is always you know a fun issue to deal with as far as trying to get the right members and the you know the commitment level and all that. Uh share a couple stories with you about what that's been like, not only with maybe previous bands, but with the band you're in now, and as far as going through members and getting the right people until it finally fucking clicks.

Greg 9:53

All right, well, well, we've had a lot of we've gone through a lot of bass players since we started out here. Bass players. It seems like um we've had the very worst luck with bass players up until like now, thankfully, with our with uh Raymond, who just joined us maybe about what a couple months ago? That was a couple months ago. A year ago. He's been with us for about a year now. Um it all just boils down to like um can everyone give the same equal personal commitment? Can everyone make the uh obligations that are required? And it's uh unfortunately a very cut and dry yes or no. Yeah, if you can't, the band is only as successful as the weakest link, weakest member. If everyone has the same levels going up, it'll be no issue. And so it's being able to trust everybody involved to know that they're going to give their part when it's time to give their part and not give anyone any guff about it. You'll know that they'll get it done, and it's all big, it's all a big trust game. We're all married.

Rob 11:04

Okay, okay. Yeah, we totally understand that. We you know, we've we've dealt with the band dynamics a lot, gone through different players, and yeah, it's it's a it's a struggle. It's like you know, like a lot of bands play. It's a marriage, you know. You guys spend a lot of time together, you know, a lot of emotions are shared. It's yeah, it's a it's a struggle. Uh what type of what type of people come to your shows typically? I mean, there's a lot like a lot of friends, or do you have a good following out there?

Greg 11:29

Everybody, yeah. We do have friends that show up that we've met through through the journey of playing and stuff like that. Um, but a lot of times it's people we've never met. We keep getting brand new audiences every time we go, and we seem to grab people from every walk of life, every age group, every every background. People just are really attracted to what we do and the energy we bring, and we're we're very fortunate for that.

Family Life And Band As A Job

Dana 11:58

Nice. Um, with uh you know, going back to the whole band dynamic thing, and you know, we've got to talk about like families and loved ones and shit that goes along with that. Um, I mean, we can both attest to having failed marriages and relationships because of you know, always putting music and band first is like uh what how how are how do you guys deal with that as a whole? You know, are you guys you know, any of you married with kids and have to do the double life thing?

Greg 12:28

Um I'm married with two kids. Um uh Christian's got Christian's got a kid, he's married, I'm married, and Ryman's got a kid. So we um again, it's all it's all a trust and an understanding thing. You gotta be with someone who can trust that you're gonna be there for them, is uh despite the career path that you're taking. And make no mistake, it's a career. Yeah, it's a job, just as much as it is a privilege and a pleasure to do, is treated exactly as a business. And as long as there is a mature understanding about that, you're gonna dynamics are just gonna work out. So as long as you get got that partner, it's it's no issue to deal with. Because, like, what my wife completely understands that this is my career choice, is where I'm going business-wise, and she fully supports that. So does the rest of my family. They've all supported me for since I started back in 2009. They've supported me on it. They saw something and they saw I could do it, and they'd be like, you know what, we're gonna watch this and we're gonna push this for you.

Rob 13:32

That's great.

Greg 13:34

You're very fortunate to every show. She runs a perch for us.

Best Shows And Big Crowd Moments

Dana 13:42

Oh, sweet. I can't quite see you, but cool. So so to to date, which is uh what would you date? What would you think was uh say best performance or biggest performance of something that you know goes on the the wall of fame right now?

Dick 14:10

Oh man. There's so many to try to choose from on that one. I think our gore our gore show would go down in history. That's the one down.

Dana 14:24

Oh, I bet you that was uh intense.

Greg 14:27

Yeah, um I would have to say either that one or when we played with Insephorum and Corproclawny out in Tampa. And Hillstorm was also a really good one. That was a fantastic show. That was the whole weekend, yeah. But our door show was was intense. It was the it was by far the single most fully packed venue that we had played, and it was only the second show we'd ever played as a band at that point, so it was it was a real like like going from zero to 150 kind of jump. So we were we were more ready for it. It was just the immediate shock of it, it was something else, and the reaction that we got was explosive. So it was it was what you call positive reinforcement, but again, just starting out. Yeah, I think I think uh there's at least eight to nine hundred people inside the nice, nice.

Rob 15:25

That's a good way to do a second show. Yeah, no shit.

Dick 15:28

It was a great show.

Rob 15:30

We can kind of attest to that because our first show was actually a killer show, kind of like that, where the club just blew up, and there was like I think more people than the fire department actually wanted in there. Yeah, it was like 500 and a 200 seat like fucking uh venue. So we can attest to that feeling, so that's very cool.

Dana 15:47

Yeah, you know, it's nothing like having a feeling like that when especially if it's one of your first few shows that all of a sudden you got people just fucking headbanging and just really getting into your shit. It's like there's there's nothing like it.

Dick 15:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We felt right at home though. Nice, nice.

Origins And Early Influences

Dana 16:03

Um, you know, previous episodes we've talked to some, you know, some guys that you know have had experience, uh Martin Motnik from the group Except, um, Bruce Franklin from Trouble, and you know, some big name people that you know we hear their stories about how you know they pretty much locked themselves up in their room during middle school and high school years to get to the level they're at now. Um, when did each of you guys start and when did you realize that you know what, this is the shit I want to do the rest of my life?

Dick 16:30

Um, I started playing bass when I was 11. My dad taught me how to play bass, and then um every band that I was in, I was a bass player, and this guy wanted me to be the bass player of his whole band, and I just wasn't feeling it too much. And then he started up this project, and he wanted me to play bass, and then I was like, I want to play guitar. So that's that's where that started. The worst thing to say is no.

Rob 17:01

Yeah, exactly. And obviously it worked out, so that's killer. It did, absolutely, can't complain.

Greg 17:07

So we got oh go ahead. Sorry I started out and I was um I started taking interest in guitar at 11 years old. Uh I watched, I believe it was uh we had just got an internet and I kind of started discovering some metal bands. Um Iron Maiden was the first one. There you go that I actually got to see live video of. And it was the live video of them playing the trooper from like um the um from like the um camera um photographer section in front of the crowd. And it was like very obviously it was like potato quality video, but the way just being able to see like the way they make guitar playing look so effortless and so comfortable and look so like they look like they enjoy what they do. Exactly. And I was like, I'm so much fun to do. I wanna I couldn't get the idea of those guitars out of my head. I was just like, I was thinking about it, think about it, think about. And then a year later, my mom at that point was like, okay, you've been you've been going on about this for a year, I'll get you one. And so we got me a uh a Johnson AXL Stratcaster tobacco verse. It was a um a beginner set, came with a little 10-watt amplifier, a cable, some picks, a strap, and a guitar. And I got some private lessons for a year where we taught me uh he tried to teach me chords and like some basic. I'm like, I don't know what this is supposed to sound like. I've never heard this stuff. I don't know. And so he's like, I'll tell you what, what music do you like to listen to? And I was like, um, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, uh Hendrix. And he's like, okay, let's let's learn some stuff you like to listen to. Stuff you already know how it sounds. Oh, okay. And so he taught me uh some simple Black Sabbath riffs like Iron Man, we did paranoid. Single finger on a single string, just pluck pluck pluk pluk pluck. Super easy, just so I can get an ear and a feel for the music on a guitar. I highly recommend anyone interested in getting into guitar, starting with a baby step version like that. I can't tell you how rewarding it is immediately when you hear your favorite song coming from your fingers, even if it's just on one finger and one string at a time, it is the most reinforcing thing you can do as a beginner player. Highly recommend that because that has taken me to figure out how to learn uh music my own way. Uh, I learned how to play all these other songs I love to listen to by ear. That gave me more confidence, and then once I started realizing just kind of how these guys write music and how music kind of feels, things started changing, and I started uh feeling comfortable with writing my own stuff, and then it just sort of snowballed from there. But 11, 12 years old, Iron Maiden, live of the trooper, I'd say that's where it all started for me, where I'm like, I think guitar will be fun for me. I like this. Yeah, I'll take that. And I just don't questioned it. It's just been like just let it take me wherever it's going, and here we are. Cool, very cool.

Learning By Ear Versus The Internet

Rob 20:40

When was that like magic moment when you like stopped thinking and actually felt you're playing? Ooh. Everybody hits that like that wall and knows like when. It's like, oh damn. I don't have to think about this. I I know what I'm doing, I feel it, and it's like it's gelling with the rest of the band.

Greg 21:02

I think it would have to be. I think it was my very first show with the very first band I joined straight out of high school. There's a band called Fool's Haven. I remember I found a flyer at Hot Topic at the Melbourne Mall down here back when I was still saying, they actually had a little billboard thing, they were selling CDs at the time, so if you could believe that. And there was a flyer advertising they were looking for another another guitar player. I had only played before, I'd only performed for people one time before this, and that was at my high school, and that was a completely fluky event that I wasn't expecting to do. But got such a great reaction, I was like, okay, why not? And then that sign popped up very shortly afterwards, and I'm like, okay, well, this seems more like more providence towards my decision. Let me go try it out. So I get there, I do rehearsal with them, I learn their songs, they like it, they want me in, I get gear, and we get the show book in Orlando at this place that's no longer there called the dungeon. It had this god-awful pillar in the middle of the uh the pit area, too. It was like a like a deep by eight pillar just right in the middle of the pit area. There was three there, there were three stages. Walk with me for a second. So you pull in, and there's just a third gravel road that comes up, and it's an angular property that's fenced off. It's like a diagonal fence on the shape. On the far end is the indoor venue, and yes, it does have like three pillars in the pit area on front of a stage that's maybe like two feet off the ground, but it's in the bar in the back, there's an On the outside of that venue of that building, next closest to you, there's an outdoor stage against the wall there that's maybe five feet off the ground, made of wood, and just dirt. Just like dirt rocks for the pit areas. Then you go in the farthest back to the left, and it's like a traditional kind of like honky talk, country bar, pool tables, the whole line, the on moon, everything. And we're playing, we're playing there, and it's the first time I'm ever really experiencing what it's like to be in a band at a show. And by the time we go on stage, it's like maybe like 10 o'clock at night. This was an all-day festival. We got there maybe like two in the afternoon, and we're getting on there, and we finally start playing. I'm in, so we've we thought we were tool Russian circles, we thought we were uh porcupine street, just what we thought we were. And so we got we got these under armor shirts that we had used like neon fabric tape to paint designs on, and we had black lights hooked up to the to the support beams of bump's face for us. I can picture it. And so we're we're in black light garbage. But I remember I'm just standing there during one of the like the like heavier, mellower parts of one of our would-be tool songs, and I'm I'm just I my mind just melts away in the entire vibe. I completely forget where I'm at, and I just completely lose myself, exactly what you mean. Melted away in this silly goober black lay highlighter fabric paint outfit as I'm playing this this fun, heavy, goofy music, and I never turned my back. I was like, I need to have this the rest of my life. This is all I ever wanted to.

Rob 25:06

Dick, how about you? When was your that first moment?

Dick 25:11

It was it was before I was even in a fan. It was when I was just learning how to play face and stuff like that. Um, I just picked up the bass really quickly and I started learning some of the hardest songs I could possibly, possibly learn, which is um Matt Freepett's face facelines from the band Ranson, and I was able to play almost for your entire discography. And I it was at that moment that I was like, this is this is what I want to do. I just want to play music. I just love doing it. And seeing people moving in a crowd just gives me that that that that joy to keep doing it. I love I love that more than anything. Yeah, I mean, how can you not? I love how nice to start off with the simplest way to do it for guitar, and he's like, oh, I just went it's a it's a bass. I want to play guitar here, not bass, guitar. And like I I I remember I remember my dad. Um my dad was trying to learn a Ransom song uh that I haven't learned yet. Um, but he was trying to like impress me and my brother, because my brother's a guitar player, and he's been playing since he was also like 10 or 11 years old. And um, I walked in on my dad trying to learn it. I was like, what are you doing? I'm like 14 or 15 at this time. And he was like, I was just trying to learn this song, and I was like, well, I was like, much fun. He was like radioed by Rainson, and I was like, okay. And I was like, let me give this trying real quick. And this is before like you had like um uh autoplay tabs, like how song stories and stuff like that. So you just pull up the tablature and you have to read across it. And um we turned up, we turned the song on and I just started playing, and he was like, I fucking walked out with that. We tried to learn it for like a week, and I picked it up and and did it like first try. He was he was really upset.

Dana 27:02

Oh yeah, that brings me to another thing. It's like, well, I mean, as a bass player, I I get what you're saying there, Dick, because I you know, and and going back to Iron Maiden, it's like you know, it was one of the first bands that I really started listening to, and Steve Harris has fucking blew me away. So I'm like, that's what I want to do. You know, and that's how I started learning. So it's like, you know, everything after that was fucking easy, you know. You learn how to do that shit. You know, and it you like I said, we we're a little bit older, so we go back to the days before the fucking internet, and there are no tabs or nothing. You had to learn everything by ear. And you know, and it made everybody better musicians back then. You know, you don't rely on shit nowadays. You know, you got these kids coming out and they just hook up their phone and stuff and learn. It's like no, man, learn the shit by ear.

Speaker 1 27:46

It would have made everything so much easier. Oh, yeah, yeah, it definitely would have.

Dana 27:50

But you know, what how would have that you know affected your you the way you you know your music ship? I mean, it's like you know, it might have made it easier, but you know, it I think it probably would have changed your style a little bit, maybe, or you know, I don't know. I think just learning the old-fashioned way was yeah, is good.

Speaker 1 28:08

I know what you're saying exactly. Absolutely. So, like when it comes to like that musical influences, that's that's the big crux of that whole thing. It's the internet giving everybody everything ever at your fingertips, just whatever you want. The amount of options you have is enough to overwhelm somebody into like putting it down, never want to touch it again. Like, I was very lucky um to get the ass end and the beginning end of both the end of analog, the beginning of digital, right? And right that cool sweet spot where I just figured out enough on my own classically, and then was able to see the beginning on flux of all this content being brought in gradually by the bands who could afford to do it at the time, like Iron Maid, could get a website built and stuff like that metallica. They got websites built relatively early on. So being able to get exposure to those guys at that time of the internet's history when it was just trickling in was the the nice little intermediate jump for me to get uh into uh more complex music and uh doing more with my writing and stuff like that. So that's a really big step. If you didn't I didn't have the constant options I had now, if I had them at the time, I would be absolutely overwhelmed and I wouldn't have such a well-funneled musical background.

Rob 29:46

Good point.

Dana 29:47

Uh you know, and I like what you said when you learn you know the one note song, and you know, and you just you know it gives you but okay, so so hear me out. Picture you're you're your new kid now trying to learn that shit. All of a sudden you put on some of these YouTube things with these fucking six-year-old Asians that are just fucking going off. I mean, does that make you just want to throw the guitar away? I mean it's a little disheartening when you see some of that.

Rob 30:12

That's kind of what my quote was all about. Yeah.

Speaker 1 30:15

I think at first, at first I did. At first, I just wanted to throw my hands up and be like, I'm done. But I honestly uh I I enjoy seeing seeing that now, and it's just it's crazy how like how talented some of those little kids are. I always uh I always urge people like, hey, listen, if you're if you're learning, don't look at that. That's not a comparison, it's not really a motivator, that's an aspiration, but you don't understand where that comes from. Natural talent is not the same as work talent. You have to make sure you're comparing in your lane. There you go. So I'm like, no, no, don't look at it. Don't look at it. Don't look. Not working. That kid's a fluke. Don't look at it.

Onstage Disasters And Oh Shit Stories

Rob 31:06

All right, well, we have a second thing called Oh shit. This is a moment when something's happened like terribly on you know, terribly wrong on stage or during practice, or just one of those moments where it was, oh shit. We've all had them if you played for a while.

Speaker 1 31:25

So this is actually uh the freshest one. This happened yesterday. On top of me leaving my backpack with my entire outfit, right? Um, we just started using uh nano cortexes. And um my guitar was slightly out of tune on the first song. Not a big deal. Finish the whole song. Um we have uh a tuner on the the app, right? Right. I go to put the tuner on. I if this is in between uh in between songs, so we only got 20 seconds, 30 seconds at max. And I get my entire guitar in tune to 440 hertz. We played 432.

Speaker 4 32:08

Okay.

Speaker 1 32:10

So um I realized it right before the song started, and I put it um as close to 432 as possible because you it's like you have to drag your finger across it. I got it at 433. I was like, that's that's close enough. I got the the uh the E A and D uh string in tune. The song starts, I start to play, I forgot to turn the tuner off. So I got nothing, I need nothing coming out of my cortex at all.

Rob 32:40

Oh, damn. That's definitely no shit.

Speaker 1 32:43

Yeah, I think that was like the one time that we we actually stopped the song so I could turn my tuner off so we could start the song over again. And one of my buttons was saying he was just like, You never stop the song.

Rob 32:56

Yeah, that's that's a hard moment right there.

Speaker 1 33:00

Oh, it was that was rough. That was rough. I didn't make fun of them though. If you don't acknowledge it, there's just ways to go. So I was like, no, no, no. We're gonna make a goof of this, and this is gonna be part of the show now. This is part of the show now, and people loved it. Who cares? That was hilarious. I have I have two. One of them uh was with my previous band called Another Life Spare. At the time, we had got uh we had uh participated in a battle of the bands to uh get on a show at the House of Blues in uh so we got to do that. We won and got to do that. Um this is my very first time on a like massive stage, like a properly massive stage, and um it was really blown away by like uh they had Disney crew there to um basically roadie all of our gear for us, they set it up for us, they hooked everything up for us. We didn't lift a fucking finger out. Like, oh wow.

Speaker 34:05

This is how the shit gets used to that, huh? This is what big guys get to do, and he's still complaining.

Speaker 1 34:13

Oh so uh we're getting we're getting ready, uh curtains closed, it's about time for the show. I get my wireless system hooked up. It's my very first time using a wireless system, I got this job before the show. It's basically brand new tech at this point, and I realize my tutors on.

Speaker 34:36

I have to be playing the song before I'm walking out on stage. That's the kind of the whole cool thing we have playing. Alright, I get it. So not me going sprinting across stage, tonk, tom, tonk, tonk, tonk, tong, tonk. You can hear what's as our intro is going, and then stop, all the way back, and you can hear people going, huh? So the song starts or curtains open up, we come running out on stage. I get to my side, and I get I'm like real anxious, I'm really like, I got all this energy, uh tense up nervous energy.

Speaker 1 35:19

I'm like, yeah, I come up to the front of stage, I'm in between the monitors, and my foot lands on a very thick round cable. Uh oh. And only the cable. And my foot just goes rolls about half a foot off the front stage to nearly a four-foot drop. And I download and just very gingerly walking right back. Because I'm like, I don't want to fall over. Like the Homer meme. Literally the Homer bagging into the edge. I I landed my front foot with all of my body weight on a round cable that was thicker than that that prevented me from landing on solid ground. So I just rolled all my all my body weight were whoa! Almost pulling me right off this fucking four foot stage to my probable injury with the guitar at the very beginning of the song of the very first time on this masking spade, right after I had to sprint across there previously to turn off a fucking tutor so I could even play the song.

Dana 36:34

That's an entrance.

Speaker 1 36:35

Then second thing, second worst time is maybe about six years ago. We were doing a uh uh local band right here was doing a reunion show, a one-off reunion show, and uh I had recently gotten sick with mono. Maybe like a month prior. Yes, oh yeah, I remember that. Yeah. Thank you. This was right up the road for me, thankfully, at the time. I I couldn't have been maybe like four blocks away. Um, I was sick with mono at the time. I was having very bad, like my body was just shutting down randomly. I was like losing all energy, nasty pain in my stomach. It was just awful. And I'm like, oh, I we have a show in a month still, and you're not gonna be better in time for him. Like, can you get me well enough to perform? And they're like, No, you can't perform. Oh, okay. Well, I guess I'll perform without being well. So I get on stage. I'm in probably the most amount of stage gear. Yeah, so at the beginning of the so at the beginning of uh of our stick with uh the Viking gear, I had made my own um I had made my own coat, sort of surcoat thing that was based off of Thorn Oak and Shield from the Hobbit movies at the time. Okay, for reference, and it came out like a fur, a faux fur tuxedo, actually. You live and you learn. I'm wearing these massive black, like heavy leather shoulder pads with another thing of fur on top of that, wrist bracers, black boots, and uh and a leather help. Oh, I remember your leather helmet. And it's I don't I don't have a fan on me, there's no air circulation, and we got like 18 microwave ovens cooking me from above the stage with the lights. I'm passing out nearly every other line of vocals I'm trying to scream, and where you have a 40-minute set, and I'm just finally get all the way through. I don't know how I push through. I think I actually blacked out through most of it. We get me off stage. I actually have to be carried off stage to sit in the green room while the rest of the boys get everything off stage because I'm just not I'm not well enough. And then I finally I drive home four blocks away. And first thing I do when I walk in the door is I throw up a vicious black liquid, something I've never seen before, something I've never had or sense. Just to put it in like a black pile of some sort. It turned out it may have been like some sort of clot of some sort. I don't know, but it was like I I growled out the mono demon from me.

Dana 39:38

Now, if you could have done that on stage, that might have been cool.

Speaker 1 39:44

Some TG Allen stuff right there. They're gonna be like, that's the best effect ever. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dana 39:55

I was just getting ready to I was just getting ready to ask you like what maybe like one of the worst ideas that you ever did was you know, that that might pull it off right there. Worst idea of the play while feeling that and wearing all that shit.

Speaker 1 40:09

That was a rough show for him. I I I vividly remember that show. I know it was wild. I I think because I was so sick, I wasn't thinking about all the shit I was wearing. I'm like, wait a minute. This is that goes back to our point earlier. Like, it doesn't matter who's there or what for. Yeah, the whole mind, they're getting the whole performance. And uh yeah, I said the hell with the health, the show must go on.

Dana 40:31

There you go. Nice.

Speaker 1 40:33

I think it was I think it was a pride thing. I'm like, I I gotta do it, I gotta know I can do it to know I can be a professional here.

Dana 40:40

Yeah, well that's you know that that's pull on commitment right there.

Speaker 1 40:44

I don't want to do it again though.

Dana 40:46

No, I know no no repeat performance.

Speaker 1 40:48

That's what we've been doing then. Again, it's not it's not an aspiration, it's the example.

Recording Mixing And Mastering Choices

Dana 40:57

Hey, with your guys' recording of your music, do you guys do that yourself, that and the mastering and all that, or do you actually go into a studio and have it done?

Speaker 1 41:06

Um we um so our our TV was done in the studio. Um our first full length, um, that was actually done at our old drummer's house. We recorded everything at our drummer's house, and uh he did he he attempted to do some of the mixing, but we actually sent the mixing off to um uh uh a friend that we met that lives in the UK, his name is Show Side, and he did all of our mixing on our um second album, and then this one is being recorded at another buddy's house. So we do it all ourselves for our last five. Uh we have other people uh mix and master. Um our previous drummer Keith did that for our last for our first album for a little bit, and then we had our UK friend Josiah Nolan. Hi buddy! He did it, we just semased our our first LP. And then we have uh our good friend uh Cody Nordine of um uh of Nordic Nordic Hamster with uh Indian Remember Music Company, where um uh he's working with us to get our newest album produced and everything.

Speaker 4 42:15

Alright, cool.

Speaker 1 42:16

That's it. All these missing masterings, uh somebody else can have that.

Rob 42:24

Yeah, I've tried. I'm a drummer, so all that technical stuff. I mean, I love learning it, but yeah, it's it's beyond me. A different pay scale right there.

Speaker 1 42:31

We stick to all what we know uh exactly.

Handling Dead Air On Stage

Rob 42:34

Exactly. So hey, so Greg being the vocalist, uh, how do you cover dead air? I mean, what's your what's your go-to when you have dead air?

Speaker 1 42:44

Um well, there's two things. Uh one, you can always give appreciation to the crowd. They always love that. Uh, it's always important to make sure that you thank them many, many times. Let them know who you are. It's just always good to have a certain couple things in the back of your mind, of things that you want to talk about, like talking about how the show has gone in terms of um uh being a good turnout or uh great sound or it's a great atmosphere. We have this is a really great energy, especially for tonight. Thank you guys so much. Um, and then if it's not that and there's still some dead air, it's always always entertaining to then yell at the crowd away from the mic. Make people have to listen. Because when they're having to listen, they're distracted by what's uh from whatever else is being done. So anything you can do to keep your audience distracted and or entertained in that sort of way. Um, our last show, not last night, but the previous one. Um oh my god, who was it with left one? Arcona outfits and um I guarantee other bands. So with Arcona, uh there was still some dead air. Uh, I think you were having an issue with your guitar thing. I'm not coming through with your cording. Oh, yeah, his wireless one out. So uh his wireless is going out, and the sound guy's up on stage trying to figure it out. I already done all the things I can think about, I'll think of the crowd, and I'll look over and I'm like, Oh, it's still not fixed. So I tell, I just tell a joke. Sometimes you just gotta tell a joke. And regardless of if the joke succeeds or fails, you let them know if they want more that they could go somewhere fucking else. To a comedy club, if that's what they came here for, if they don't fucking like it. And it's very funny. That in and of itself is very fun. Exactly. You have to be able to then appear to be uh caught off guard with them, it makes them feel like they're in on like something special, yeah, without it being uh and takes completely. And takes all the what would look like maybe technical malfunction. It's just a part of the show. You can make it feel like an interactive experience, they love it. That's the best thing I can recommend. Interact with them and make them feel a part of the show, and they're on your side.

When People Sabotage A Band

Dana 45:15

Have you guys ever had um okay okay in one of our past bands, we've had you know cops come and pull out our guitar player for doing shit, um, and and you know, taking them haunt them off the jail. Have you had any instances with you know other band members or family members of uh you know that have pretty much destroyed the band, or you know, to where you've had to change something up seriously?

Speaker 1 45:43

Not that I could really figure up, but you might fire anybody or unfortunately, yes. Oh my last band broke up. Uh we had uh two vocalists. We had a uh male and female vocalist, and uh unfortunately with her, uh she wanted to she was surrounded by people who were determined to make her a solo career and decided that they were going to sabotage the band from within and make it look like it was the band's fault to gain her a sympathy uh sympathy type. Unfortunately, there and it wasn't just our band that she had tried manipulating, she tried manipulating a whole bunch of like more or less all the bands in the scene at the time. Wow, so when the story started corroborating around, everyone was like, Okay, you were the problem. But at that point, the damage had already been done, and the rest of the guy the rest of the guys were just like, you know what, we really just done. It's just it's just not it's just not a vibe anymore, man. It's just kind of really a bad taste in the mouth, and it just dissolved from there. And then whether more or less, uh, it was about three or four years later, I kind of came back. I was like, you know what, I'm really fucking sick of how everything went down. I feel like I went out on the long terms. I feel like I was held very much back in both bands I was in at that time, and I was like, this is this is horseshit. I need to make sure that what I'm doing next is going to be for me and that I can live with it, that I can be expressive and make sure everyone is expressive, so nobody feels like the fuck way I've been feeling here. Anyone else band under right under right under here in an original band being like this that's the worst, yeah. Everybody's gotta be a part of it, or else it doesn't fucking work. So I I mean got sick of that, and so I'm like, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this now, and every it's gonna be a family, and it's gonna work, and then immediately it does, it does, so go ahead.

Planning A Live Podcast At North Forge

Rob 48:14

Hey, one of the things we really want to do is do like a podcast during a show, and I know you guys are coming to North Carolina. Would you be open to doing like a little pre and post like show podcast?

Speaker 4 48:26

Yes, yeah, before you get to stay.

Rob 48:28

Show part of your you know, show part of your performance and all that shit, you know, just do the whole thing.

Speaker 1 48:32

Yeah, that'd be great for North for North Forge, yeah. That'd be really cool. And then you're gonna have all the band members there in the live setting. So we're gonna have a booth there, aren't we? Um, yes. We just had a chance to have a booth last year, too. We just didn't have this stuff. Okay. This year we we yeah, yeah, we just gotta get a tent for it. All right, we're gonna do that. So we're gonna have a tent booth set up for us that way. We have like a whole base operations that we're gonna be hanging out with all day. People can come up and say hi, get to know us, whatnot. We can socialize sell much. Uh you guys could totally come and we can set up shop at our tent and dop right there. That would be dope. Yeah, it would be good.

Rob 49:12

I'm real sick.

Dana 49:13

How how are you guys with the the other bands, the other bands that you're playing with? Uh how many how many bands are there that day? Is it like a festival type thing?

Speaker 1 49:21

Or there's like three last time with with us included, two traditional Viking acts and then us doing our OG Viking metal nonsense.

Speaker 4 49:31

Nice.

Speaker 1 49:31

There's um the Viking to be there. Um, and there's a couple other like solo artist people that are that are playing. I can't remember their names off the top of my head. I think he's trying to get a couple of other like metal bands to be there, but I'm not sure where he's at with that right now. It'd just be us again.

Rob 49:52

Yeah, take the whole the whole time, yeah.

Dana 49:54

Awesome. That would be a lot of fun to do uh in live type thing and just you know hear that get the audience included and the people around the yeah, fuck yeah, that sounds like a deal.

Advice For New Musicians

Rob 50:07

So in in closing, you're kind of we're kind of running out of time. We scheduled this for 60 minutes, but uh this show is all about from garage to stage. So do you have any advice for like new musicians to get to the point where you're at right now? Both of you.

Speaker 1 50:23

Um the best way to do it is to enjoy what you do. Yeah. If you find find find the style that you want to play in, and the more you enjoy doing that, the better it is, and the easier it will be playing live and getting from A to B. Alright. If you try to force force a genre of music that you're not really into just to play music, it's just not gonna work out for you. Yes, you got you gotta enjoy what you do. Break down the stuff you like to listen to so that way you can enjoy what you're doing while you're doing it. It's that way it's not it's not like it's not like a struggle to get into it. You wanna be able to know that you're gonna have a good time with it. Even if it's a simple single stroke, single finger, single note, that's that's perfectly acceptable. There's no wrong, there's no set pace that you're supposed to be learning at. You learn at your pace, but learn what you love, and you will love what you learn.

Dana 51:26

Nice, that's deep. I like that. Awesome. Well, it was a pleasure having you guys on the show. It's a fucking good time, definitely.

Speaker 1 51:34

You guys are a killer to talk to. Thank you. Definitely good times.

Dana 51:38

Um, but yeah, we'll definitely uh hook up with you guys here in a couple of months when you come to North Carolina excited to see the the live performance and the the raw energy that's gonna go with it. Can't wait.

Speaker 1 51:49

Yeah, uh, don't forget that it is a um a Renaissance festival style thing, man. So if you guys want to come dressed up however you want to, or just normal, you're horn beloved.

Rob 52:00

Oh no, you gotta dress up or Germans don't have to come up with those like German things. Not those funky shorts, though, you know. All right, guys. Hey, it's been a pleasure. Thank you very much, and uh we'll talk to you later, man.

Closing Quotes Listener Thanks And Support

Dana 52:17

Thanks, man. Definitely. Well that was fucking awesome. Those guys were really cool. I can't wait to see them. Um, so any of you guys that are listening to this podcast in the next month or two, uh, while it's still fresh, you know, check them out. They'll be playing in um city called New London in North Carolina, uh, May 23rd. Um, I'm not sure what the venue's called, but you know, Withering Earth, check it out and um, you know, come see us. We're gonna be hanging out at their booth. We'll do a fucking live broadcast from there. Um, so in closing, you know, I've got a closing quote here, which definitely fits with what we've been talking about today. And it goes like this it's like, make sure your life is full of can't believe I did that moments instead of shit. I wish I should have done that. You know, I mean, how perfect is that? You know, don't don't don't be afraid to go out and try new shit and do stuff that you know if you always wanted to try to do. It's you know, it's life is too short to not not try anything at least once, right? Exactly. Uh what what's some of those uh famous phrases? Um over overdoing, there's nothing wrong with overdoing shit or something like that. All right, well, uh once again, thanks to all the listeners. We've got tons of new cities and countries, and we're getting really close to 100,000 mark, and we appreciate everything and all of you. Um please give us comments on our on our episodes and you know hit us up. We've got some shirts, we've got merch to give away. We got shirts, we got CDs from some of these artists, we got more coming from new artists. I mean, we've got stuff to give away. So hand us out a comment, something really cool, and we'll send shit to you. And um, and don't forget that supports um on the on our on our pages. Um, you know, we could use a couple bucks here and there. I mean, we we do all the shit ourselves, so you know, two, three bucks. It's like, come on, you waste that on a fucking cup of coffee every day. So just you know, shoot us, you know, three bucks a month. What's what's that gonna? It's like what half a gallon of gas now? Come on, help help help a brother out. Um that's pretty much all I got to say. What do you got to say there, brother?

Rob 54:17

That's all you you covered it, man. Hey, I just want to say that was a great episode. Cool dudes to talk to, and looking forward to doing a like a live podcast like we talked to. I'd be that'd be sick. Um but in closing, I mean, thank you very much for you know listening. We've got uh our listening base is expanded. Uh, but we do need referrals. We still want to get some you know guests. So if you're a band or musician, you want or club owner or producer, anything involved in music, you know, hit us up in the comments section of our of our uh podcast and we'll get back to you. But thank you very much, really appreciate it. Bye.