Our Favorite Music of 2026 So Far, With Chris Ryan. Plus, an Interview With Angel Du$t’s Justice Tripp.

What's with this band anyway? I don't get it, can you please explain? Wait, like, Bandsplain? Never heard this band in my life. Oh, you have it? I love that, really? Why? Yeah, I love this song. Oh, I don't know that one. Bandsplain, Bandsplain, Bandsplain. I really hate this band! Whatever, I'm their biggest fan. Bandsplain, Bandsplain, Bandsplain, Bandsplain. Hello and welcome to Bandsplain. I am your host, Yossi Solak. This is usually a show where I invite an expert guest on to help me explain a cult band or iconic artist. Today's episode is about our favorite new music of 2026 so far. Also, please stick around afterward for a great conversation between myself and Justice Tripp of the band Angel Dust, a band I think is probably on both of our little lists. Is that right, my guest today, Chris Ryan? It is right. Who does not like it when I say Q1? I'm trying to bring the energy. I feel like in 1980s soundtrack draft was a little bit reserved. Well, you just wanted to like fight me over Ferris Bueller soundtrack, which was like, what a weird hill to die on. It's crazy back on Bandsplain though. It's been one week. Did you miss it? Yeah, yeah, it's just kind of like a new gig for me. You know, I feel the people deserve... The gig economy. Yeah, I just feel the people get a lot of you in a lot of different areas, but one of your greatest life passions is music and they don't get as much of you on that. So I'm here to offer an opportunity. I really like, I think this is going to be a fun one because this music year, it's still in its baby steps. It's still feeling around trying to be like, mama, data, whatever. I feel like when people are like already like three months and I'm like, no, but it's such a good practice because it's like doing a gratitude list because you realize like, wow, actually like some fucking heaters have already come out and we're only March 31st, last day of CR month. And speaking of the last day of CR month, I brought you a gift to commemorate. Did the gift come with this red ribbon or did you? No. Thanks. I really appreciate it. You can't give a gift without a little pizzazz. It's almost, it's a drug church shirt. Yeah. That's awesome. This is also the drug church shirt design that I have wanted for a while. So thanks pretty much, Yossi. It's just we're so close now, Chris. You didn't even have to tell me that because that's how best friendship works. I just knew... You see a kid holding a gun and you're like, I bet Chris would like this. It's Chloe 70. But I get why it looks like a kid. Yes, I was at the drug church show the other night and even also before you answered me on your shirt size, I had purchased the shirt. Awesome. So I knew that you were a medium. Yeah, I like a little bit of a bag these days. I don't want to be all, you know, hemmed in. Smedium. Smedium. The emo shirt. That was one of my favorite parts of my chat with Alex Ross Parry is when we both talked about how weird it is that the emo band shirt is. The 2000s, all of a sudden it's like they discovered they could print on colors and every band shirt from then is like yellow or maroon or like baby blue. We used to back in the late 90s, mid to late 90s, the big move would be to go to garment district in Boston, where it was not technically in Boston. It was in Kendall Square. And then you would get, you know, 50 shirts for $10. Yeah. And you would screen the band logo onto the side of the first store t-shirt that wasn't already a logo. Right. So you'd have like Girl's Softball and then the band on the back. Yeah, that's sick. Yeah. We have to bring those ways back. You know who did that? The last one I remember was War Paint. War Paint had these really sick t-shirts that were all from like thrifted blanks or like kind of like not really. Then we just turned into a nation of drop shippers. Yeah. There's a lot of merch, Hello Merch happening out there. No free ads for Hello Merch, but that's the only one I could think of right now. How are you feeling, Chris? Good. You made it. About music? Just in general. I'm feeling fine. This was a fun exercise to go through. How do you usually catalog or, you know, basically mark, I like this, like do you put it in a 2026 playlist? Do you just have all your like 2026 stuff? Like how do you kind of like keep your eye on stuff? I'm so glad you asked that question. I've embarked on a new path, which is front facing camera videos, as you might have noticed. Yes. And so, not every week, because I'm a busy woman, girl bossing in the Google Doc, but whenever I can, I put a little video out. Okay. With my five favorite songs, and I keep a little playlist there. So that's a good little reminder for me. But otherwise, you know what I do? I'm a big user of the liked songs function. Very smart. On our employer Spotify, our Swedish employers. And a lot of good stuff in there. As opposed to the domestic Spotify. Well, I have to assume a Swedish person came up with that. I can't explain why. It's a good move. So I go back there to be like, what was I, you know, sometimes you're just in a hurry and you're just like, I want to go investigate that artist further. But I'm on a walk or whatever. I'm time to look into this. I just have a rolling 2026 playlist now, mostly because you know, it's like a crash it in in December going back through hundreds of blog posts and pages of message boards and trying to find stuff. But I think things fall through the cracks that way. They sure do. But that's the world we live in where there's no monoculture. Specifically, there's no like every day like, hey, this record came out. It's pretty good. I mean, there are sites that do that, but there are fewer and farther in between. How did you feel about bandsplains March bandness about like the actual results or just the act of you engaging with college basketball? It's a big dance. I thought that there was some really interesting matchups. Well, it was almost weird that like your like the brackets, like the matchups. Revealed deep seated fandoms and like hatreds among people I know. Yeah, we had like a very extensive conversation with Bill Simmons about the replacements in REM. And he's so pro REM and is like trying to tell us that like the replacements pulled the wool over our eyes and only have like five good songs or something. He was really upset that anyone would even purport. He's a huge REM fan, which under listen, REM is a great band. It actually, I thought it was really funny because that just worked out. Well, I guess it makes sense because we just it was all based on votes. So even even where people fell in the bracket was based on the seating, the seating, which was based on how many votes they initially got when I just put out an open call for what we should redo and what we should do. Yeah. So that's how it ended up that way. Would you say that the voter pool is large? There was quite a like several hundred votes. That's good. Yeah, I think so. Maybe 500. Because sometimes you get like those surveys where it's like we asked 11 people. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it was limited to one answer each. So you couldn't like come vote 100 times in the replacements. Oh, you could spam. Yeah. I thought whole would certainly beat Sonic Youth, but. What do you talk that up to? Maybe Sonic Youth has more iconic albums than whole. If not, I think more men listen to bandswax. If I'm going to be honest. And here you are in the paradise that you built. It's so true. And listen, it's kind of like when you look at your feed, algorithmic feed, and you're like, why is this? And then you're like, because this is a reflection of myself. Yeah. I've created it. I built this algorithm brick by brick. I built this fan base brick by brick. Exactly. Man by man. Speaking of the fan base, I wanted to do a little fan service. Okay. I like how you guys don't do it as often. You do whole episodes around on the watch, right? Every once in a while, you'll do like a mail back episode. Yeah. We've been trying to incorporate them a little bit more frequently because I've tried to like move the communications to email. So like it's not like DMs or like on Twitter, ask us a question or whatever. So it's like, if you have like a thoughtful question, I think the downside of is we get rather long. Like I have a question, but really here's like four paragraphs about it. Yeah. So which is that's okay. But we've been trying to incorporate them more into the watch. Yeah. And I love that. And I know prestige TV does that. And I was just like, it doesn't really make sense for normal bands playing episodes. Just like, Hey, we're going to talk about the history of XYZ band. But first here's your mail back questions, but it works for, I think here. So I called a few. We got a lot actually, but I'm going to limit it. Okay. The first one is hello there. What's your breakdown of listening to old music and new music as an elder millennial? I keep up with new music. Okay. I'll find myself listening to REM's entire bill. You are not an elder millennial. Come on. I keep up with listening to REM's entire catalog for a month straight because I just read their latest biography. So no matter how much I enjoy new music and try to stay afloat, it ends up being like 75, 25 at best. Just tell me it's okay. Thanks. JC in Knoxville. Sub JC. Well, it's okay. You can do whatever you want. It's free country. I would probably put a little bit of like my own wrinkle on JC's question. I'll answer JC's question as well. But the thing that's been the biggest divide or the binary in my music listening now has become functional versus exploratory. Functional like you're learning to prep or something? No, it's like functional like what is a pleasant thing to listen to or a appropriate thing to listen to in a traffic jam or on a night walk or cooking. So there's not as much like, oh cool, a new blank record. Death goes on while I'm chopping veg. We came up against this when you recommended the band Mandy and Deanna to me, which I did like, but I tried to put on while I was cleaning my room maxing and I was like, absolutely. Yeah, it's not room cleaning music unless you're like destroying your room in the process of cleaning it. Unless you're like on meth. Yeah. So I do, I would say that like taking this last three months as like a sample size, I would probably go 65, 70% older music. And when I say older music, I would say 80% of that 70% is like listening to the wipers or a very long Japanese jazz playlist I found on Super Chunks artist profile page. You know what's so crazy? We're just speaking about colonoscopies off make. There is also an age that men hit that all of a sudden they start listening to Japanese jazz music. What is that? It's like there's like a like a built in. 48, it just happened. So I guess it's 48. But in general, like I've noticed that I'm not going into jazz the way I thought I would when I was in my twenties, which is like, I am going to learn every single thing about this. It's more just like I will put the blue note box set on and just leave it on for three hours. Yeah. I mean, that's really good chopping vegetables music. Sure. And it's just really going to be a live music when I was cooking, even though I don't know Dick about jazz. So I do that. And I I've just been really, really, really into the wipers recently. I know you've talked about it multiple times. I think it's so cool. Well, it's like a really cool thing to get re-intended. It's not even re-int to. I was I never you never like, no, I actually missed whatever like my wipers phase is supposed to be. And then I put it on one day and I was like, oh, this is where hot snakes got all of it. Phenomenal. Yeah. Also like some of the catchier songs. Awesome. Yeah. I've got a couple of songs, but I don't I don't think I ever was like time to listen to three wipers records and I have been doing so. They're quite short. OK, love that. What about you? Do you do mostly listen to old stuff? Do you mostly because I think the reason I said functional versus exploratory is for you, I imagine it's like two to four week blocks of that's mad chester in order to pot about it. Right. And then when you're not listening to that, you're probably listening to like room tone. Right. Well, I got low five study beats. It's sleep playlist. Yeah. I do have to listen to music for the pod a lot. So that takes up a great deal of my listening time. I've switched to listening to music on walks. I made a very public declaration around the new year that I was going to try to do raw dog walks and have not succeeded yet. I'm just like not there, but I'm I'm still working towards that. But I was like, OK, that's enough. Do you have a raw dog drive? Sometimes, not often, but sometimes I just like can't listen to podcasts anymore. It's also I was like telling my roommate, Bree, that I was like, it's extra bizarre that I'm like, OK, off to walk and listen to like people I know talk to each other. I'm sure as you experienced this as well. So I just needed a break from podcasts. So I've been listening to music when I walk and I've been trying to pepper in new stuff. Good. I'll give a shout out right now because it's not going to make it onto my list because the music came out in 2025. It was like so cool. I was in Boise, Idaho, a town that I deeply loved, got this Adidas school. Adidas sure. Nice find. A vintage store there. But this band, while I was there, DM'd me and was like, please come to our show. And I couldn't because it was only there for 36 hours, but I was like, I'll listen to this band called Deep Heaven and they're amazing. And I fucking love it. And this first song I heard was like Echo and the Bunnyman. And I was like. Do you wish you had gone to the show now? I couldn't know. They played on like the days that I was only there for 36 hours. So I wasn't there. They came to my live show. You guys cuties. So that was really fun. I do really love discovering new music. Like still to this day. It's the best. It hasn't lost its like sheen. I also like there's something about that charge because like I think because if you have a streaming like a streaming music account, like you're kind of barrier to entry for music has now disappeared. So we obviously come from an era where there was a lot of consternation over like you had 20 bucks, you had these five CDs kind of like laid out in front of you. And like, all right, it's going to get like one or two of these, which one you're trading in and out. You're selling you CDs to buy new CDs, etc. By you're hitting up the dollar. And now you can just kind of like check out everything. And I think it's probably worse for your relationship for music, but better for your exposure to more music. Well, I think it's like anything like you have to have you have to have rigor and discipline around. I know that's not a cool thing to say about music listening habits, but like you have to like give a song a chance and like listen to it a couple of times and listen to an album if you're actually interested in seeing if you like it or not. You can't just like, you know, next. So I mean, like I've listened to a bunch of stuff from this year. I think the stuff that wound up making out on my list of and we're not even ranking this, it's not like best of it's just like great new music or whatever. But the stuff that wound up making it is the stuff that kind of separated out of, but it's pretty cool. I'll like it. You know, I like it. I put this is stuff that I just feel like I've now started to return to gravitate back towards play like constantly. So that it almost now it's like, even though it came out two weeks ago, it feels like it's part of my life. Okay, well, I hope that helped. JC, you have to develop a spiritual practice around new music, rigor, discipline. Okay, next one. Dearest Yossi and Ciar, my question about new music, I'm in my late 20s and in my lifetime, the modes of discovering new music have changed a lot from burning each other CDs in high school to the Spotify and Instagram algorithms today. Although I do find stuff on social media, I find myself clinging to the ways I used to discover new music, college radio, pestering trusted friends, local openers, etc. Because you guys have been privy to so many different routes for new music in your lives, what are the ones you've remained attached to? Do you still find them effective? How do you hear about new bands from scenes you aren't close to? Great question. Because, you know, as we were alluding to this is getting a little bit harder. And this is the thing I think with the age probably becomes a little bit more difficult as if you're not going to see bands like once or twice a week and you don't see the openers and you don't see somebody wearing a t-shirt and you're like, what's that band? Like that kind of thing. We went and saw Angel Dust two weeks ago and we missed a bunch of the openers, but like what we heard was awesome. And I got so into that band mid-rift as the band. I realized I was a little late to that point. And that was like a really big way to find out about bands is just like, you know, for as much as people roll their eyes, I'm like, oh my God, there's five openers. But like that's how you would find out about like an up and coming group. For me, I pretty much lurk on some message boards in our Reddit. I really love a podcast called Ax to Grind, which features Patrick from Drug Church and our boys Bob and Tom. And when they do new music recommendations, I find them to be really good. Honestly, also like there are just some labels that I really like like Run For Cover and Convulse. Julia's War. Julia's War that like I just give a shot to whatever they put out. So old school, right? Because that used to be totally a thing where like a label had like an identity and now it's not as much, you know? Or at least it was like, I trust their taste. So if Maddador or Touch and Go or Merge or whatever youth attack, like put this out, I'll check it out. So yeah, that's basically the way I find it. And then I am a big believer in if they do them, the playlist that artists make that they attach to their like streaming music profile. So even if it's not always new stuff, I am always finding new music to me from those things. And they're also like really fascinating. I was find it like this is my new way of interacting with an artist. Like rather than read a review, I'd rather see what they like. Yeah, totally. And then I'm like, oh, I really like that stuff too. Or I've never heard this before and this is really cool. And so that's that's my sort of practice. I think I echo almost all of those things that I don't I don't do message boards. Oh, I have one more thing. NTS, which is the online radio app, which has like hundreds of different radio shows you can listen to. NTS radio not asked me on you to come in. I'm really a best friend set. I was available and let us do one in London. Oh, yeah. But that's like, I will listen to that all like for most of my driving. I'll just like let NTS rip and like call it radio. Basically, it's like, like kind of taking that place. Yeah. Love that. I feel like I'm on board with almost everything you said. I'm shout out, Axiograin. We also met in Boise, Idaho. That was fun. Big link. That's right. I'm also going to say the uncool things. Going on the artist's Spotify profile and then scrolling down to like related artists related artists recommended if you like skip like the first five because they're the obvious ones and then just like get deep in there and then also pick their song that you like and go to the radio function. Lots of great stuff buried in that radio function because as much as like we can hate on the algorithm, sometimes it gets it right. You know? I also like there's a couple of sites out there. There's obviously like Stereo Gum and stuff like that like Star Wars and then there's Post Trash and there's a sub stack called Hex that I really like and they do like monthly roundups of stuff that's come out. So. I love that. They didn't check out Hex. And also still listen to your friends. I just want to mention that there is a whole other paragraph of this where she talks about how our last episode about new music, which was the year end one, came out the day before her best friend introduced her to Ketamine and she was anxious, but our podcast helped put her at ease. Nice. And they listened to, we will annihilate our enemies, cade the fuck out. Let's go. We don't support drug use on fans lane. No. Okay. By the way, like two of the, or three of these people were from Philly. Nice. That's right. And one from Boston. Okay. Number four. Hey, I recently moved to Philly. No, it's number three. Go birds. Yeah. And was super stoked for the music scene here. Maybe I just haven't made enough connections or found enough things going on, but I'm a little underwhelmed. I'm curious where you guys think the hotspot for new music is at this current moment. Here's the thing. I've never been to Philly. I'm almost 50 and I live in LA. So I mean, I would say like the first Unitarian church, but I don't even know. You know what I would recommend? I don't know what this person likes to listen to. So get on mannequin pissies Instagram, lurk down and see the places that they've played and done things at. Maybe even shoot them a DM. They might answer because Philly legends. And I think definitely would point towards the cooler places there. I think you probably do the same thing for getting a body of water. Yeah. I think that's a good, just like maybe look up a couple of cool Philly bands and just see. Yeah. Follow Philly artists and then just reverse engineer it basically. This last one was really just for me, but I'll see you here. You're welcome. No, I don't think it's just directed at me, but I just don't think you're going to. I was driving the other day when a Matchbox 20s one came on the radio and I thought, I wonder what, I guess it was kind of is exclusively for me. I wonder what Yossi thinks of Matchbox 20. I'm a relatively new listener, so apologies if this has already been covered, but do you have Matchbox 20 thoughts? I'm not crazy. I'm just a little unwieldy. I love Matchbox 20. I think that's like big link. Big link, me and big Rob Thomas. I totally would forgive you for not knowing that if you're kind of a newish listener. Matchbox 20 rips. And I think they deserve a reevaluation. Allah, Goo Goo Dolls, Counting Crows. They've all kind of thrown a blind. Everyone's kind of had this so far, but people have not really spent time putting respect on Rob Thomas' name. I never really spent much time with them, but this question was an address to me. It's 3 AM, I must be lonely. Oh, that song's okay. Yeah. She says, baby, it's 3 AM, I must be lonely. How do you want to do this? Do we say our first shared one? Yeah, should we talk about some shared ones first and then we can go off on our own? I brought that because I have it and also because Justice is on this. It's Angel Dust's Cold to the Touch album. Cold to the number two, the touch, shit rules. Fucking rips. It goes crazy. I love it. It's an increasingly rare occurrence for a band to just continue to evolve and perhaps even get better on what is this album, or like six? I think so. Five, six. And if you get a chance to see them live, they are now a two-guitar monster. It's one of the best shows you can go see. And this record has elements of all the stuff that they've been kind of messing with for the last couple of records where you still get something like The Beat, which is just like a fucking awesome hardcore song, but then really beautiful, tuneful, pop rock songs, garage, yeah, man. Yeah, sexy. Pain is a must. It really makes me want to have a band because like how fun must it be to just get to yell your band name? Yeah. Pain is Angel Dust. It's fun. I love this album. I think it's really cool how much, I don't know how much diversity there is throughout the album, but how it still feels of like one piece, like nothing feels like out of place or like you're getting kicked around. The coolest thing about seeing them live is that like they can, like they'll play something that absolutely levels the whole space and like people are flying all over the place and then they'll play like kind of like a tuneful 60s R&B style song and you're like this goes hand in hand. Yeah, it works perfect. Yeah. I feel like Justice Tripp also like the president of hardcore running on a posed term after term. Yes. Yeah. It's really, we can't say enough. We can't say enough nice things about it. Get into it, as I like to say. And then we also really love the, so we've heard one new song from the band, How Much Art. Oh yeah, so good. So this is... Secretary Lee Chiu, one came out last year. Last year. Yeah. And we have an EP coming soon. So for people who don't know, this is Pat Flynn and Sean Costa from Fiddlerhead. Yes. They're buddy Darren, plays guitar, Maddie from Jell is in this band and it is a rageful but hopeful new wave punk rock band. People are always talking about like the return of Indie Sleeze, stay with me. And I'm like, this to me almost sounds like I'm in like the house of jealous lovers but in the best way possible. Do you know what I'm saying? Like there's like a real 2000s feeling to it. Interesting. But for me in like a really positive way. I think for me it's like... Maybe it's just a sense. Yeah, I was like, these guys really sincerely like Depeche Mode, the cure, psychedelic first kind of thing. Pet Chop was, sure. And then I think they also are experimenting with, I mean we saw them live, Pat referenced a target teenage riot up on stage. But it's really like this song XO is my favorite of the batch so far and it's like the anthem of this year for me. It's really great. And also another band that I really enjoyed seeing live. Yeah. That was like so good. And maybe a third one is another, I guess we have four that we overlap. Another one that's just one song, first song in five years from Ice Age. What a fucking band, man. Another band I guess kind of like we were just saying with Angel Dust while Angel Dust is pretty consistently released records like over and over again. Elias from Ice Age has done some solo stuff. He's done a record with Dean Blunt. Every Ice Age album is pretty different than the previous one. But they all sound like Ice Age, which is kind of I think a mark of a pretty great band. And this is like, how would you describe this? Like kind of a little match. It's a little power poppy. A little match history too. Yeah, I don't like, yeah, yeah. It's so catchy. I feel like that's like the first word that comes to mind. Yeah. But a little Brit Poppy for sure. Like there's like a Brit pop put through a weird, I can't know if they're Dutch or Danish because I would have to Danish. Thank you so much. No, like it's not that I don't know where they're from. It's that I don't know if where they're from is called Dutch or Danish, but it's Danish. It's Danish. Where are Dutch people from? They're the Netherlands. Got it. Yeah. That was Yossi's geography corner. Like the Attenway, Luciana, Luciana, Luciana. Love it. It's Louisiana. That's what they say, Louisiana. Do you have a favorite Ice Age era or sound so far in the course of their career? I really loved like God, what was the album that came out in like 20? Was the sowing the seeds 14? Yeah. Plowing into the field of love. Is that the one you were thinking of? Little Nick KV. I really liked that one a lot. Also, I might be like a little biased because I saw them play a lot during that time. I really liked it. But also the one before is really good too. I still love those first two albums are fucking perfect to me. Those are like some of the best punk rock, I think, of recent memory over this era. But Sonic Boom produced Seek Shelter and it has gospel-y, stonesy, space band 3e vibes. They're just a really fucking good band. Like an old school good rock band with like a cool singer and just, it's giving. And Star is just fun. Yeah. It's oddly long, but like it never feels long. Like Project Hail Mary. I did not think that was too long. I don't know what everyone's talking about. Did you like that movie? Yeah, I loved it. I was delighted at every turn. I just like that kind of movie. I like when they make a movie that is filled with jokes and about a person. A cute alien. A cute alien, a person who's trying to like stretch the edges of how good they can be. It's like a little corny or whatever, but they just don't really make movies like that anymore. It was crowd-pleasing. It's wonderful. Why can't we just go feel good? Do you have a feel-good thing next? Feel-good piece of music? Yeah, nothing. A short history of decay. The song Cannibal World should have played over the end of it. They're awesome. Like really beautiful, as you would say, tuneful. Kind of like romantic songs on here that are not drowned as much in Shugae's good-tune. For sure. It's like purple strings. The rain don't care. Those are like really lovely moments, obviously never come, never morning. It's kind of, in a weird way, reminded me of the last Def Heaven record in so much as it took their sound and kind of like, it feels like they put like premium gasoline in it for this record. And it's like really, really beautiful. Nine dollars a gallon right now. Yeah, thank you, DJT. I didn't need to drive anywhere. It's not overly polished. It's like they have explored the fullest of their sound. Yeah. That's on Cannibal World that I was talking about. It has like just insane drum and bass breaks playing underneath like absolutely gorgeous Shugae's guitar. And it's a lot of my favorite things coming together at once. It's so good. Shout out Bob Bruno, who joined Nothing recently. I told you this before, but this is my first real tapping into the world of Nothing, even if I've probably been to like 28 Nothing shows in my life. I was always just really fucked up and not really paying attention to socializing. And I apologize to Nothing. This is really good. Okay, I feel like that's- Those are our shared passions. And then those are our shared passions. And then now do what would you like to bring to the table? Yeah, so yeah, those are like four. I got like four or five more I can throw out there. I'll start by shouting out probably one of the songs I've played the most in the last months, which is this song Rolling by by the band Antenna, which is Tim Shogun's new band After Royal Headache, which is obviously like huge. I always kind of like thought of them as Soul Garage Punk, but he's obviously like a star of the Australian hardcore scene in Australia. It's a really big country, but Sydney- It is big, but I'm sure the hardcore scene is quite small. And you know, this just picks me up, man. When I put the song on, I feel 2% better than I did before. This is one of several things that I've noticed that the boys internationally, They're in a Got It by Voices era. And I feel like they're processing the catalog of Got It by- I don't know if Tim Shogun likes Got It by Voices. Who doesn't like that in my voice? But there's an element to his voice that sounds very Robert Polarty on this song, Rolling by. And it's just a really cool evolution from Royal Headache. It's still, if you like Royal Headache, you'll like Antenna, but it's got more and more hooks on top of it rather than just that relentless drive that Royal Headache had. There's so much music that I forgot Antenna existed with Love and Remorse Back. And then I was like, oh yeah, I loved Cubes. So much. I listened to it so much that year that it came out and then just didn't remember them at all. They're awesome. So good. I hope they have an LP coming soon. I think Ian Shelton from Military Gun maybe showed me them. Really good stuff. Yeah. Great choice. Thank you. Chris Ryan. That's why you're here. My first one. Do you know this band, Kola? I've heard of them and I think I've listened to like a record a couple years ago. They've put out two records, an album in 2023 called Deep In View and one in 2024 called The Gloss. I think I listened to Gloss. I didn't know about them. It was another one of those like random clicking adventures that got me here. But they put out two singles this year, one called Confligration. Okay. Does that say that? Confligration. Confligration mindset and one called Hedge Sitting. They're both so fucking good. And so I kind of went backwards listening. I was like, this band is amazing. Apparently they used to be another band called Ott. And then I learned from them. Oh yeah. Do you know that band? I do know Ott. They're Montreal based post-punk outfit. Okay. Did a little Googling and learned that Tim Darcy of this band also lost his home in the Los Angeles area of Fires. Tiny man. And he wrote Confligration mindset a little like based on that displacement and feeling out of control of the world. And then I was like, no wonder. That's interesting. You were drawn to it. Yeah. Shit hit. I really like it. And I went back and listened to the other albums and it's really good. And I'm not as good at just describing music as you are, but I will say that. I'm pretty rusty. I don't know. You're kind of nailing it. Do you miss being a music journalist? No. Never. Because writing is hard. I really, really like having music as just like my passion and not having to worry about like, does my advocacy for this band, can I get like published by advocating for this? Like all that stuff is really hard. Right. Their album coming out is also called Cola Cost of Living Adjustment. Let's switch it up a little bit. Yeah, please. Let me tell you about. Throw me a curveball. Pruma blue. So I don't remember how I found this. That's my first question. My message board sporking. How did you find this? This is a definite like 12, 30 AM, put it in a playlist and then go back and be like, who did that? And so there's a bunch of different ways to describe this group. What's my group? It's really a guy from South Island named Jacob Allen. He's put out a couple of records. I would describe his earlier stuff as jazzy. But as in honor of like talking about artist playlists, like artists making their own playlists on their pages sometimes, I'm just going to read. A bunch of bands or artists that he had that that that Puma Blue had on a list of influences for an early record swan baby. Okay. And when I say these bands, you're just going to be like, shoot this pure uncut black tar into my jugular. We don't support drug use on this podcast. Dilla, deaf tones, Portis head, Sampfa, broken social scene, Joey Mitchell, Jeff Buckley. Yes. But Jeff Buckley is actually the thing I heard. Like when I was listening, I was like, oh, it's giving. It's giving of Jeff Buckley fronted Portis head. That's like, that was like my thought. Come on, dog. You don't want this. I was a little bit like, is this what would happen if Prince came out? If like you were to be a Prince type figure now, would your music kind of sound like this? Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I think, I mean his, this is the records called Croaked Dream. That's the name of the LP. So vibe. It's my, it's my headphone record of the year so far. The textures of the beats that they come up with or he comes up with. And just like the way that he like layers sounds and then there's like a crescendo, like it'll be the crescendo in your headphones, but it's not necessarily like a hugely cathartic emotional moment in the song. But like, he's just so good at building tracks. And I love it. It's not dissimilar from real lies in terms of my relationship to it. Like, I, I, it just transports me, you know, and this is real dawn breaking music or like Sunday Scaries music. It's really, really beautiful. And he's a poet I learned. There's makes a lot of sense, but I feel like the lyrics are pretty poetic. So shout out. Like this is, this is really cool stuff that he's doing. This is probably my favorite of all of your discoveries that we pre-shared with each other. I was like, the fuck did this come from? This is incredible. Love just, it makes me kind of sad thinking about how meticulously some artists layer sounds and stuff. And then I think I told you previously that recently I got the chance to go to Bose has this like house of sound in New York. It's like basically a showroom for their high end sound preamps and Italian speakers and stuff. And I was like, this is what music sounds like. Apparently laptop speakers is not the intended, the way that God intended you to hear music. And like, I think I asked for like the, the let you pick songs and I was like, can you put on Bjork's hyper ballad? And I was like, oh, I can hear every single part of this all at the same time. And I was like, Matt, just like, and then these people spent all this time, then you just fucking put like little white dots. Little like wireless. Hell. All right. That was a good one. Okay, I'm going to, I'm going to go with power snatch power snatch power snatch is the new three song EP. It's Haley Williams, this new project. Paramore Haley Williams. Paramore Haley Williams. Okay. So she did this with her producer, Daniel James, who it's the two of them. It's like a little band. He had helped write and produce a bunch of tracks off her solo album, ego death of the bachelor party, which I also really liked. But that's like really pop. This is so cool. It's three songs, DMs, this one does the other and hole in the ceiling. It's, I just love Haley Williams. And I think she has really good taste. And I feel like she clearly like has wanted to make so many different kinds of music for so long and it's coming out in every way. And this one's like zero belt, you know, like obviously she has this like phenomenal, insane instrument in her voice, but it's not here. This is like, I don't know. It's like really like, I was kept being reminded of like Tom's diner. It has like a really kind of nineties. Oh. Like it's just, it was really unexpected for what I thought I was going to hear. And I really, I just love it. And the lyrics are so great. There's a lyric that's like, I think about Wayne's world the way some people think about the Godfather. Also, I think about menopause and my sex life. Same sister. I really dig it when big artists are like, I am going to experiment with like doing other new bands or new projects and stuff like that. And I wish there was more of that. I think obviously like there was like a, there was like a production line element to a lot of our life where it would be like you make this record, but then it has to get pressed and then it has to get like ready for distro and PR and stuff like that. And now I think, especially for somebody like Haley Williams, like she can just be like, I'm putting up a fucking Instagram. This thing is auto platinum. Well, famously she also recently got freed from her at landing. That's right. So I think like while obviously I don't think that she doesn't love Paramore, you know, and those many great Paramore records, but it does feel like someone who is doing the same, not the same. Paramore albums are very different. You know, they have a lot of growth, but starting at like 13 years old and then, but this whole time loves American football and like hardcore and all these other things. And it's kind of able now to like experiment. It's just, I really like it. So that's my power snatch EP one. Okay, I'm going to go back to Australia with mine. This has just been a mind blowing LP for me. The station model violence self titled, which is, I believe the singer from the punk band Total Control and a member or maybe the main guy from RMFC, which is another Australian kind of garage pop group. When I tell you that Total Control is one of the best bands that's ever existed and that I have worn every day that they are not putting out music anymore. They're awesome. And this is post punk, but via Crout Rock and and this is the crucial shit for me and the first rock scene music record. Let the sax fly. I love when you just, you're like, it's post punk, but we do have horn. It's post punk. We have a little bit of glam rock and we have a little bit of like pure noi Crout Rock stuff. Well, that's what I feel like I loved that. I like totally forgot about this because I've been closely following tabs on Total Control. So knowing what's happening. I totally forgot about this. Actually, even though I talked about it with Shad DeSousa earlier in the year, because we were talking about Total Control and he told me he had heard that there's going to be a new Total Control. This year, but I've not heard one word about that. But it's like this is post punk, but it's not like steely, cold industrial because it has like you said that glam rock element and it's just propulsive and joyful. Yeah. Yes. It makes it okay that they're Australian. It's like these bursts of drone that also sound kind of glammy. You know what I mean? Like, and that's the thing that you know, and Roxy kind of like their collision was like so powerful when they did that. This is fucking sick record. So I've been listening to this a lot. And if you are a fan of like various post punk or post punk revival waves, like you would definitely dig this. Yeah, there's no way you wouldn't like this. Yeah. Like I mean, like if you like, I'd say like if you like Satisfact or whatever, but if you like like Interpol or something, you would dig this. Or Dora Division. Yeah. Yeah, it's a great pick. Thanks, bud. You're welcome. This is again, it's never a dull moment with you. I will go fly on over to Ireland. I resignism. Do it. Just kidding. Blanket ride. Blanket ride. We move Blanket ride. Yeah. Right on over to Cork, Ireland. I lived there for six months. You lived in Cork? Mm-hmm. Doing what? Was this your abroad? Yeah. Did you like it? I loved it. Were you like, I'm home? I wasn't like I'm home. I think in my experience as a teenager or late teenager in Ireland, like the Irish while very wobble were like kind of like a closed loop, you know, they weren't like, oh, homie from Boston is here. Let's hang out, you know. So it was a little tough, but I was there with. You mean they were like enamored with Americans? It was just like a hard, that part of it was hard, but I loved Cork and I loved the Irish people and I loved being there. You loved Guinness? I did. I also really liked Murphy's, which was Brue and Cork. Okay. So this band is called Cardinals. I've been following them for a little while. I really, really like what they do. The album that they put out this year is called Masquerade. Kind of hard to describe because they have a lot going on. A little post-punk, but a little like folky. I hear a little Power Pop, but as much as I don't trust my self to describe music and everything I read, no one said Power Pop, so I was like, okay. But it is definitely catchy. They have an accordion player. Hell yeah. I did not know that. I liked this Cardinals record, but I didn't. It's really fucking hell yeah. Because it's giving that extra kind of like you were talking about the saxophone. It gives this unusual flavor to it. The album seems, I mean, you listen to it. It goes between kind of like a few two polarities, maybe more intense sort of like post-punk-y stuff. That kind of like better is like the really ear-wormy poppy stuff. That's like love songs, you know. They are grand chatting from Fontaine's DC's favorite band. Can I tell you somebody else who likes them a lot? Who? Killian Murphy. Loves Cardinals. And if so, if you don't want to take Yassi's word for it, take J. Robert Oppenheimer's word for it. There's like a couple actors where I'm like, oh, I didn't know you knew ball like this. Do you know what I mean? Killian Murphy is one. Right now my top one is American Psycho. Christian Bale. Christian fucking Bale. Did you see that interview he did where he was like, oh, I think my favorite album is bummed by the Happy Mondays. And I was like, okay, sis. Like what? Like, okay. I was like, and then my beloved Dr. Abbott of the television program, The Pit. Look at this, the watch bands we've crossed over. Yeah, Sean Hatticey. Sean Hatticey. As we've maybe talked about off mic, I recently learned that he was himself in several bands in the early 90s, although even with my FBI skills, I could not find any recordings. If you guys were in a band with Sean Hatticey in the early 90s that sounded like two or like eighties. Maybe he spent a lot of time and money suppressing this information if you thought about that. Doesn't mean I won't get it. But what if that like is the deal breaker of him joining you on bandsplain? I don't know him, but he feels like I am cringe, but I am free. I'm joyful in the world and this is who I am. And I don't think he would hide it. But he posted, I don't know if you saw this, it was actually last year, but it just got surfaced in my algorithm. He posted a playlist that he made of what he imagined Dr. Abbott would listen to. And what is it? You really need to come on and say it. Doll parts by whole, pretty pink by the psychedelic furs, only you by Yaz, drowned by the Smashing Pumpkins. My favorite Smashing Pumpkins song, bit of a deep cut, not a deep cut, but it's the single soundtrack one. Yeah, it's the cool girl pick. Waiting room by Fugazi. The fear by pulp, the fear. Anything about you, Radiohead, he has a lush song on here, a morphine song. So Dr. Abbott was just college rocked out. Yeah, I mean, I guess Dr. Abbott has some darkness and likes to listen to Fugazi and Doll parts by Whole because he's an ally. Is he your favorite doctor on the pit? I love them all so much. I think probably my core wounding is that I would still take a bullet for Dr. Robbie. Like, yeah, like this is why like I need, I need years of therapy because I'm like, I can fix him. Yeah. I'm still like, oh, I can fix him. Sure. Yeah. Anyways, I don't know. Would you let him ride a motorcycle without a helmet? Let him. He's a grown man. Sure. You're kind of falling behind on the fixing it part then. I know, it's true. Okay, well, that's been the pit corner here on Bandsplain. Also we should shout out Nurse Jessie. What do you think Dana listens to? Fleetwood Mac? Early 80s Madonna. Oh, hell yeah. I think we've only thinking about that because we're doing Madonna Month. I feel like Dana listens to like Hart. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like magic man, Bercuda. Magic man, Belinda Carlisle solo records. Sure. Like, yeah. But Nurse Jessie has an album called Blood Work. Why, it's so rude that I can't remember his name right now. It's been interesting to come across a couple- Ned Brower. It's here. I'm sorry, you're always Nurse Jessie in my heart. Blood Work is his album. Please go on. I just found out that Luke Grimes, who plays Casey in the Extended Yellowstone Universe, has an album called Luke Grimes. Fleetwood. Wasn't he a country artist first? Yeah. Yeah. I knew that because of like osmosis. I've never listened to it. Have you ever watched Yellowstone? No. Well, I still haven't even finished Landman. I'm still like mid-season two because now we had to stop. You got us on Paradise. Yeah, we did. Get you on Paradise. Which, bro. Now we're at the part where I'm like, oh, now we got time travel. Did you get season two? Yeah, we're in season two and it hasn't like fully came out yet, but me and Brie were sitting there and I was like- These nosebleeds. He said quantum physics. It's going to be time. She was like, why did he see that person that he's never met? I was like, I don't have to get in the time travel. Yeah. So I'll pull up, but I'm there. I'm in. All right. I think it's your turn. It is my turn. Yeah. I got to be me and I got to say that the Zach Bryant record is just really good. Speaking of Yellowstone. With Heaven on Top is the name of his most recent album, came out I believe in February. This guy never stops putting out music even before this. Heaven on Top is him in collaboration with an NYC indie rock band that I personally had not been familiar with. What are they called? Heaven on Top. Oh, okay. And you wouldn't really, I think they add some nice flourishes, but it sounds like a Zach Bryant record for the most part. This is a real breakup jam, real collection of breakup songs. Breakup from Brown and Chicken Fry. He's had some public romantic fallouts. This is like, it feels tighter than the last couple of records. I'm not like a completist or like I don't have any Zach Bryant lyrics tattooed on my body. Do you have any lyrics tattooed on your body? I have the Cranky Records logo on my arm. And I have a book cover of All the Solid Melts Into Air. It's just a book about modernity. And I have that book cover on my other arm. I have a tattoo of a heart that has books in it, like mom, like a sailor. Wait, this is books? Yeah. Nice. Were you beginning any Zach Bryant lyrics tattooed on you? I think I'm a lyric tattooed out. I have a pavement one and a replacements one. And I should probably just call it a day. Plastic cigarette on this album is the fucking anthem. You played it a little for me before we started recording and I was like, God fucking dammit. I know. It gets me every time this guy, whenever I think I've quit you. Yeah. James's Street or a Road talks about smoking cigarettes and talks about regret. It's just like so mournful, but in my exact flavor of mournful. So let me go, I saw you on the real estate, dragging on a plastic cigarette. But I don't support his treatment of Brianna Chicken Fry. Okay. That's nice. I support women. Yeah. I don't know the details. I don't either actually. You want to rattle off a couple more? Yes. Some honorable mentions. Well, I have a couple more real ones. Okay. You already finished your real ones? No, I have two more. Yeah, I have two or three more. Two of these are, I've talked about so I won't go into detail, but one you guys already know, I'm a Joyce Manor stan. Those are my boys. That's my Torrance Brethren. I used to go to this bar as a really good album produced by Brest, Brest, I don't know how to say it, Brett Gerowitz of Bad Religion, heard of him. There are many great bangers on here. I'm really partial to all my friends are so depressed because it's kind of twangy. The album Closer, Gray Guitar is just kind of a God tier song. It's just catchy and hooky and kind of sad and has a weird, I think Brett Gerowitz called him like the Bacowski of punk rock because of the way he writes lyrics. That's good. Yeah. And this Gray Guitar is kind of that short story thing. We're doing a lot to support bands in their middle age. Their mid-career. I think it's because we're in our middle age. Well, I think it's because it's something that we appreciate is like a band that can be like 10 years, 12 years, 15 years deep and still making cool, interesting music is really, really awesome. Well, to just to counteract that, I'm going to tell you about Lightress. Okay. This song I'm fucking living for called Up Down. It's shown to me by Carrie Battan, the queen. You said this is smooth brain music? It's absolute smooth brain music. It's lobotomy music. I kind of coined this term when I started getting really into blade. Do you listen to blade? Yes, I do. I love blade, but for that exact reason, I put that on brain off. Do you know what I mean? And it's like so wonderful. It's just like a little switch. It's a Wisconsin, he's a rapper from a Wisconsin collective called Run Along Forever. The other guys are Aiu Lee, killed on 414 Big Frank. Just incredible. Mano Sunderson of Pitchfork put it this way. So I'm just going to use his, I think it's a man, their words. The internet is still occasionally truly beautiful because how else would we end up with a white kid from Madison, Wisconsin doing drain gang vocal flutters over Milwaukee low end beats? It's just brain off. When I really wanted to turn my brain off, do you know what I listened to? Japanese jazz. An eight hour white noise playlist of spaceship sounds. It's sick. That's so scary. That's like you might as well- It sounds like you're in hyperspace. It sounds like you're like hypersleep. You might as well put the grippy socks on and go full because that's like commitment level. I'm going to shout out to Philly bands or to Philly artists. I want to say what's up to the, no say what's up. Say what's up brother. Say what's up big lady. Nick's Nick's habitual relax EP. This is NYX NYX for people playing at home and who are looking this up. These are like, I believe they are getting a body of water described, NYX NYX as your favorite bands, favorite band. There's like a legacy of bands from Philly like that like Bartle Pond or whatever. He was shouting out some of those other bands as well, some kind of stealing that tape. NYX NYX is fucking gauzy, nearly young via Kevin Shields just like peeled out anthems of depression. I've really loved it when Madeline from Midwife sings in this band, but these are just awesome tracks. My favorite on the habitual relax EP is the song called Nirvana. It's called Nirvana. I love it. The real lilting Shugaezy. It's like running from the cops because it's giving buffalo Tom. I'm not just saying that because we earlier spoke about buffalo Tom. I talk about buffalo Tom almost every day, but it was giving me that warm buffalo palm. This is the other example of like, I feel like the GBV influence is really appearing. The other Philly artist I wanted to shout out was Greg Mendez who is a singer-songwriter from Philadelphia that I love. He has a song from a couple of years ago called Bike, just the fucking goat saddest KMS song I have. He has a new single out called I Want to Feel Pretty and there's an album coming in about two months that I can't wait for. If you like, like Smith or like Quiet Big Star or out G, just fucking cry it out. And then put on Light Trist. Then smooth brain. This is when you take a Xana Xana line. Okay, those were great. Ringing is a band that is also on Julia's War that I found via PR email roulette, which I like to play sometimes. Do you still get PR emails? Sometimes. But you just like open one up and be like, I'll give it a chance? Yeah, I get a lot. So like, I love and respect my publicists, but like I don't open them all. Do you have a publicist? Me personally? Do you? No. Really? No. Sierra month happened just by on the strength? It's a word of mouth. It's just a word of mouth. I'm dead. It's just a word of mouth, brother. Yeah, I loved, I just opened, I think I just liked the name. I was like, that's a cool name. Ringing. It's a weird band name. And it's really good. I don't know how to describe it. It's just, if you like Julia's war type music, get involved. They're an actual New York band, which is like kind of. Increasingly rare these days. And mom Donnie's Big Apple. And mom, well mom Donnie, I think is trying to bring back. Did you see the latest, one of the ladies who's running for mayor here? Yes. Not Nithya. But somebody was like, I'm bringing nightlife back to LA. And in what, and is that nightlife in the room with us right now? They just close, they just close takes. What, what are we doing? I don't know. But I'll just like stand open, having, having shows, I guess. I don't know, going to the hills for after parties. I'm like, that's not, that's been available. No, they don't crack down. I don't know. That you can't go to after parties. Yes, not, it's not. It's a guy called Dean Dull's house. Just because everybody decided they're going to get up at 5.30, you know. Yeah. And, and drink wellness shots doesn't. Oh, I think I need a mayor to run on the platform of like, we're going to clean up the influencers. Clean them up. Do what with them? Like, like criminals. Oh, criminalize it. Like, let's, let's like, we need to lower the rate of influencers. Yeah. I think we should also maybe ban lines for stores and. I'm so glad you brought this up. I'm actively trying to re-fall in love with my hometown of Los Angeles. I mean, I'm from Torrance, but you go what I'm saying. And I've been like, having some good luck with it. You know, I've been researching these LA bands, the germs, the runaways, giving me this warm feeling of the old LA. I'm like, okay, they're still here. They're still pockets. I'm back. And I'm trying to go to yoga, drive down Melrose on Saturday, a town of lines. It's just a three blocks of lines. And of course they're always lining up for some dumb ass shit, right? Yeah. And it's fine. But the last one I saw broke me. And I was like, this line is really long. What is it for? Oh, I see a sheen pop up. Oh God. I'm sorry. Do they not just like mass produce that shit? Like there is no shortage of sheen product. But maybe you have the line. Was it like a Nathan Fielder fake pop up? I hope so. Okay. And I hope when each of them rolled up, they got punched in the fucking face. I'm done. Yeah. I want to love it here and you're making it really hard when you line up for sheen pop up. Yes. The fucked up ones I see are when, and this happens in New York too, people line up for like pop ups restaurant like food stores that have the graphic design sensibility of repo man where it just says like bagels. And then there's like a line to avenues long of people and I'm like, but there's another bagel place. There's three bagel places in the line that is waiting to get this like influencer Instagram pop up. I don't understand that part. The most hated things broadly speaking is hotspot. Like a hotspot restaurant. Miss me with that shit. I don't care how good the food is. I'm not going. It's too hard. Leave me alone. I'm upset. You've upset me now and I need to get back on track. That's how you gotta put your smooth brain music back on. You're right. Down, up, down. Okay. Just a few honorable menchies, new Tigers jaw record. Honestly, not even an honorable menchie probably in the main list. It's really fucking good. I'm late to them too. Like I'm so late to things like third, fourth wave emo. I don't know, fourth wave emo. I don't know. But we saw them play in something in the way and just incredible stuff. Yeah. Good to two singers, have a woman and a man, really nice stuff. And then I got a shout out, my new discovery that everyone apparently already knew about, but I'm 43 and late, which was big ass truck IE. You did not respond when I sent you a big ass truck IE song pushed beyond the brink. Tell me all about it. I'll do you one better. Push beyond the brink. Lots of fucking go bro. I just, you know. Now you're back up. Yeah, I think. You forgot all about the lines for bagels. I want to be so respectful to big ass truck IE who I don't know anything about, but like that's also kind of smooth brain hardcore and I'm so there for it. Oh, I like the rap boys album a lot too. Sing into an empty chair. I have not. It's really good. I'll check it out. It's really good. We'll put a link to a playlist with all the music we mentioned in the show notes so you guys can go revisit. Christopher Ryan, it's always a pleasure and a delight to podcast with you. This feeling is mutual and thank you for so much for the t-shirt. Thanks so much for having me on bandsplains so frequently. Thank you so much for making the time. What is the future hold for us? What's the next show on the horizon? That's kind of really up to you, I guess. Do I have to wait for the band, the bandness results? Do I, what's the, what do I? The results are in, but do you want to do R.E.M.? No. Would you like to do Sonic Youth? Maybe. Okay. I feel like maybe the next- That seems like a lot of work. Welcome to hell, babe. Welcome to my life. I was like- My pleasure zone is Jimmy World. You know what I mean? Like where it's like let's be real, we're going to do these four albums, but then- Don't you feel like Sonic Youth is going to lie about me? No, I'm in here with the fucking Jim O'Rourke experimental EPs. You might have to do it because you're like a truther. Like you actually believe it's all good. They're performance of the sprawl from that, the basement YouTube show or like, you ever see that? It's like the single greatest rock and roll performance I've ever seen in my life. It's funny because everyone thinks I don't like them and that's not really true. It's just I've never like delved deep. Like I really love washing machine. I know that's random, but it was just that was the album that was out when I was 12. I think they're better than The Graveville Dead. Well, fine. I can say that without even listening to one single more song. Yes, they are better than The Graveville Dead. And I obviously love stuff off Sister and Evol and like whatever. Yeah, I would just think isn't your entire personality based on the song Schizophrenia? Like- It's grippy socks. What'd you say? Grippy socks. But yeah, I just I haven't it's like something I haven't dove that deep into. So that's why. And just so you guys know, one of the best shows I've ever seen in my whole life was Sonic Youth, even without having the deep love and knowledge because they headlined the lullapalooza I went to. And it was incredible. Still a show that I feel like might have been a dream was Sonic Youth, the roots in Parliament, Funkadelic for the roots, Spring Fling. Stop it. Like in 95 or 96. Also the roots, man. Recently for no reason, I don't know who put it on. The one with Eric Waddu saying. And I was just like the fucking God tier song. You know what else? Jay's playing the roots picnic in the summer. Jay Z. Z. You're a good friend. Yeah, I think maybe the next thing you'll come on is hopefully my new best friend, William Simmons will join us and we'll do something. Oh no, I'm not getting in the way of that. That's just going to be you two, pure and unadulterated. Just me and Bill Simmons' best friend time. Yeah, but what are you going to have him come on for? I was thinking like a draft of a prime 80 year. He's really, really knowledgeable about all music, honestly it seems, but that specific. You should do college rock draft with him. How do you define that? 87 to 92. Please now stick around for my interview with Justice Trip of Angel Dust. You guys, what a fucking treat. What a pleasure to be joined by just the Justice Trip of the band's Angel Dust and Trapped Under Ice, most notably, but also several projects at any given time. This man stays booked and busy. He is not resting. He's not sleeping. He's girl bossing at all hours. Justice, welcome to the program. Thank you for having me. It's such an honor. I am such a huge fan. I know you're very busy. Like I said, you're always doing like 19 things at once. What you got on the burner right now, what you got on the back burner now that while you're on tour for your new Angel Dust album. I feel like life's been coming at me so fast. I don't even have time to process the back burner so much. It's like always kind of like what's immediate, you know? That's a good way to be. It's a real be here now vibe. Yeah. And we've like established more of a team with Angel Dust in the last couple of years that helped me to facilitate that for better or worse. I feel like my brain is just like so focused on being creative and being a performer that again, I don't know what city I'm going to be in tomorrow. Most days, I don't know what city I'm in right now. We're in Los Angeles. Welcome. We're so happy to have you. I'm so into Cold to the Touch. It's such a good album. Just you guys, for the record, I'm obviously not a scholar of hardcore music. So give me a wide berth here a bit. I want to ask some questions. So I really got into the last album as well, which brand new soul. Yeah, I always want to call it Love Slime because that's the song I like off of it, but it's brand new soul. I like all the songs. So I've just been listening to the Ark of Angel Dust and in general, just sort of like monitoring the situation with hardcore, if you will, as is my job. And correct me if I'm like missing some like historical strain of this that I just haven't picked up on, but I feel like something I really respond to in Angel Dust. And I feel some other bands are doing this too. But like to me traditionally, hardcore music, like very traditional hardcore music isn't very libidinal, right? It's not what? It's not like it's not about fucking. Not that your music is about fucking. There's not sexual. There's not like a group like and I'm not talking about like it lyrically or like thematically just like in the music. There's like a sexual element. You know what I mean? Like the difference between like a good example is emo music. Emo music is not sexual. I feel like you're going with this and I like I like where you're going with it. But I feel like I hear that a lot in Angels. I hear it in Turnstile, obviously. And there's other bands that are like in in in and around the genre that have sort of like incorporated this strain. And you can if I was smarter, I could type musically, but it's like, but it is like a group, right? It's like, it's like how I hear 311 and Red Hot Chili Peppers when I hear some Angel Dust songs and some turns out song. I don't know if you take that as a compliment or not. I do for sure. Yeah, that's cool. That's what I really fuck with. But it's obviously there's also traditional hardcore elements. Do you, is that something that you are aware of or that you set out to do in the music? I never thought of it like the sexual elements of it. What's the word used? Libidinal. Libidinal. Yeah. I will never use that word again. It's like having to do with the libido. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I'll watch I'll watch this back and I'll be like, make a note, but that's a chord. Sorry. Sorry for a big word hour over here. Big nerd. I think like the thing that kind of separate separated my camp from hardcore music and just to be fully transparent, like I love and we embrace the hardcore title. You know, it's like so much of who every member of Angel Dust is. We all come from that, you know, but I think like a thing that separated our team and the bands that we kind of came up with is like acknowledgement of pop music within what we're doing, you know, and I think for Angel Dust specifically, so much of that comes from Prince and David Bowie and E-pop. And I would never say that Angel Dust sounds like Prince, but like Brand New Soul. Yeah. You know, since we just referenced that the song Brand New Soul is a reference of a Prince song, I believe it's called Sister. That's a good one. About fucking his sister. Yeah, sure. Okay, listen, we didn't say it was a good topic when we said it's a good song. I mean, our song is not about fucking his sister or anything, but just the energy of the music and the sexuality, I guess. I never really thought of it like that, but yeah, when you're doing pop music, there's a sexual nature to it, I guess. I saw you guys play, I guess this is like a month or two ago, at something in the way of FES, and the way you can dance to it. And you do dance to it. That's something that there's like an element into it that lends itself to that kind of expression. Oh yeah, absolutely. And this is like no shots of terror, I love terror, but I don't think you could dance like that to terror. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, definitely you could dance, but it's a different type of dance. It's a different type of dance. Very violent way of dancing. Maybe more staccato. Like I read you mention Prince in a couple of interviews, like that's like your number one guy. I always say he's my number one. He's like just hugely important in I think all of culture and where we are in modern time. Iggy's my number one guy. Okay, interesting. That's my special interest, I guess. How do you feel about the doors? Oh, I love the doors. Okay, good. That's the correct answer. LA Woman is my favorite. Yeah, that's the correct answer. I feel like there's people that will be like, oh, I love Iggy Pop, and then you'll be like, oh, you like the doors and they'll be like, oh, that shit's trash. And you're like, then you don't like Iggy Pop. Yeah, so much cool things that came out of punk rock music, I think are directly influenced by it. This is my greatest theory is that the first punk band was the doors. Wow, I've never heard that. Spiritually, because like they were so inspirational. First of all, Jim Morrison was like so punk in his like stature and like the way he like approached the world, but also they directly influenced Iggy to start the Stooges. Like he saw the doors and was like, I want to make the Stooges. So it's like, you got to give them that credit, you know? Absolutely. Do you think Danzig, this might be like, I don't know the frame of reference, but I always assumed that was a doors thing, you know? I think Danzig was Elvis too. Elvis, yeah, yeah. But Jim Morrison? I know what you're saying though, like because of the like kind of crooner, vibey element. I don't know, that's a good question. We did the Misfits episode a long time ago, so I haven't retained all of the information, but I don't recall coming across much doors stuff. But I know what you're saying and I can hear it. Yeah. There's some moments that I speculated, you know? Yeah, yeah. Tell me about the guest vocalists on the album. Like were you just kind of like these songs would benefit from an additional voice? Did you just want to include more people that you like respect and love? What was kind of the impetus behind having guest vocalists? Such a fan of music. Yeah. And everybody who appears on the record is somebody that I'm a big fan of and you know, when you make music, you're always kind of doing an impression of somebody on some level, you know? Totally. And it's like, you need to have the self-awareness to say, okay, this is where this is coming from and this is where I'm going to take it so you're not recreating the same thing. You know, I think that's something everybody could benefit from more and making art is like more self-awareness. Totally. But I'm referencing a lot of my friends and like, for example, like Scott Vogel and like doing Pain is a Must and like what that song's about and like, I just like hear, I was like hearing his voice the whole time I was, you know what I mean? I'm like, oh, I got to deliver this message and I can only hear it in Scott's voice. So it's like, I kind of need you to do this thing. Can you really cool if you could? And he lent himself to it and Taylor Young is like the coolest evil. I think he's like, to me, he's like the embodiment of like where hardcore meets metal in an authentic way to both genres. But like, that's like the most metallic angel dust song I would say, the beat with Taylor and like, just for me and my favorite reference when I'm doing something metallic when the hardcore song, it's like, there's Taylor, I can hear him in the song, you know? I think that's really cool that you are willing and open about like giving credit to like those kinds of inspirations because what you just said is one of my favorite Jim Jarmusch quotes, you kind of paraphrased it, maybe intentionally or by accident, but it's like, he said it's not where you take it from, it's where you take it to. Oh, wow. Because it's basically what you just said almost verbatim. It's just there's no making art in a vacuum, right? Like everyone is kind of like, we just talked about Iggy in the door, it's like Iggy was taking Jim Morrison, but you'll kind of will never, you could never copy someone, it's impossible because it's coming through the prism of you and you're a different person. And I think it's a lot of people bristle. Like, I can't help it. I always describe music using other music. That's, that's my only language for it usually. And I feel sometimes people get a little like sensitive about it, but it's like, it's a great compliment, I think, and it's not like, oh, you ripped them. It's more. Yeah. I mean, some people compare us to things all the time that are like not what I had in mind. But it's like, I think genuinely most music that people get to hear has value. Just if you don't get that value, it doesn't make it bad. It just means you missed it. 100%. It doesn't. It's like, I think to be the guy that's like, my taste is built on what I don't like, you're just saying that I keep missing it. I keep not getting it. I'm calling myself a musician, but all I do is lose. You're a loser. That's like, if you just don't like anything and you say that you're, you're uninspired, you're going to make trash music. Yeah, you have to love, you have to have a love and a passion for things outside of yourself in order to like have the inputs to make an output. Yeah. I have so much that I can say and there's so much that needs to be said that I don't have to offer and like there needs to be, I've referenced Sublime all the time where it's like a band that's like so far from what I do, but there's good at what they do. And like, it's a polarizing band. There's people who like really want to make sure that you know that they don't like or they do like Sublime. Yeah. Yeah, they have a lot of value and like, I couldn't, I couldn't do that, but I love to, I love what it gives to people and it's awesome to listen to. It's funny. I talk about Sublime so much just because of this. This exactly. That idea. But that's significant. Sublime Trither. So, I mean, you got produced by a fucking Paul Leary from the Butthole Surfers. You guys put some respect like you think Sublime is not cool. You have not done your homework. It's okay if you don't like it, but like, don't, don't misunderstand. I think it's not okay to not like it. I think you're wrong. I think you're, I think people are absolutely allowed to not like things. My fucking beef is when people presume to have the correct opinion. There is no fucking correct opinion, you know? I think the only time that I'm like, this rubs me the wrong way is when you can tell that it's inauthentic. Yeah, absolutely. Like when you're trying to grift me because you just wanted to like get it on a trend or like whatever. Okay, then I'm probably not gonna be like, yeah, this sucks, you know? But if someone, that's what we always talk about in our band's main room. Like I love doing every episode because every artist pretty much is so interesting because they set out to like do make something and they, you know, like it's all like, it's fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I think I talk a lot about that as somebody who represents hardcore to a lot of people and it's like what defines hardcore. I think it's the same thing that defines rock and roll, punk rock, metal. It's like this chain, but it's all the moments that we really care about and are substantial and keep the thing moving or begin with authenticity. Yeah. And it's like, if you do it authentically and you add something to it, you're given longevity to the genre. Totally. You're the mayor of hardcore. To some people, yeah. Like I don't, you know, I don't know if I'm the best representative, but I do love it. I would say I probably love it more than most people do. Yeah. And part of loving it is, to me, is contributing to it and not just reliving it. And to some people, like hardcore purists, some people have a mentality of like this is a tradition and this is how it has to be explored. And I don't believe in that. I don't think that's the opposite of the values of hardcore music. And I'm just, I know I'm correct about that. All the bands that last and mean something, they all bring something new to it and do it authentically. Yeah. I mean, genre is not a prison, right? It's like, it's a mutating organism if it's done right and then should continue to like grow and change. But I guess you must come up against that a lot, right? People being like, this is the hardcore. Sometimes, like times are changing. You know what I mean? It's like there was, the generation before me was very strict, very rigid about what hardcore is. And like now it's like, on this tour, we're playing with, to a lot of really young people who are really open to be like, we love this thing. What is hardcore? Show us. And it's my job. And, you know, the job of artists everywhere to fill them in, I guess. Yeah. I think that is one cool thing. Although by and large, I do like to be an old man shaking my fists at the sky about the present and as it relates to the past. But one good thing that I do like is that like, even when I was growing up, it was like, you couldn't really be more than one thing. Like, you just weren't allowed. Like, it's like, oh, you like rap music? You like rap music then? Oh, okay. You like, you're a raver? Didn't you can't listen to rock music? It was like really like segmented like that. And they will call you a poser if you stepped out of line or whatever. And now it's really cool because I think you're right. This younger generation doesn't have that mentality. All they take from everything and they can enjoy everything, which is really cool. Yeah. I mean, there was something fun about that. Sure. Being a kid and being like, the term was when I was in middle school, you were headbanger. Yeah, totally headbanger. I think some areas called it a grit. Yeah. Which is funny. Oh, it's a grit. A grit. Yeah, I think that was like the rocker terminology in maybe like, you know, the year 2000. Oh my God, you were in middle school in the year 2000. I don't know if I was in middle school. I guess I would have been. No, I would have been in high school then. But it's like, it's not that time anymore. It's not Dungeons and Dragons. You don't pick the character. No. It's like, we all are human and feel a lot of different things and relate to a lot of things. Yeah. I think you should incorporate all of your story and what you're making with art or what you're experiencing. Yeah. This leads me to actually my next question kind of perfectly. So I did, I did phone a friend a couple of times to get some like help on this interview. Nice. We'll start with Ian Shelton of Military Gun, my son. Love him. He's the best. What a little angel. Yeah. He said, I think it's interesting to talk to Justice about how he's been around consistently for a long time and seen a lot of phases while always doing his own thing. He always consigns with a wave. Sometimes he's going opposite, but he's always releasing something and being really supportive of younger artists. So sorry, that's not a question, but this is, this was his backstory. And I was like, oh, that's such a fucking cool thing to be known for. I guess the quite, my question is how do you, because you are seeing like such a sponge and you are inspired by so much of what goes on around you, how are you able to still, when there's like certain waves going one way and that's not your wave, make something different? I have a drive in me. I don't know, it's not like just to find something, you know, and I think I get that from hardcore. It's like, I always reference Bad Brains as being the first hardcore band. Totally. You know, different people have different opinions about that. Bad Brains, libidinal music. Oh yeah. Yeah. In Patient Zero, it's there, right? But then it kind of goes away a little bit. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I think like their story is so based in exploration and that's like always been my thing is like trying to find what's new and like, I've done some things that have influenced people and I've seen younger people take something that I was doing and make it theirs to so much to the point where I'm like, is this mine? Right. And I used to kind of struggle with that where it's like to second somebody to do something that felt relative to what I was doing. I was like, I got to get away from this. And only, I think Cold to the Touch is like the first time maybe ever in my life where I was like, I did all these things and they're all authentic and they feel real and I can do these things in one place and it's, you know, I don't have to run from the things that make me who I am as an artist or things that define my friends as artists. So maybe a little more organic of a process than like a, I don't know, like a goal to like rewrite or to reinvent the wheel. Yeah. You know, again, you can't, everything's referenced to something. Right. Nobody's reinventing the wheel, but. No, but I, it's, I'm so glad you said this because this was like totally something I was thinking about and theorizing while listening to Cold to the Touch and I was like, I feel like, I think all your albums are successful, but I feel like this one's just like a kick up for that exact reason because listening back to the discography, I'm like, oh, I can hear in all these ones, like I can hear you trying new things. Right. I mean, like, oh, I want to try this now or I want to try that now or this is going to sound like a replacement song. I don't know if you were thinking about that, but. Oh, for sure. Yeah. But, and then it feels like this album is like you brought all your toys home and put it in one box and you're like, okay, the like kind of more traditional hardcore element is there, but all the other toys are there too. And it just like makes it so texturally rich and interesting and also probably that authenticity just like, it makes it so good. Sorry, I'm just like, I'm just here to gas. I appreciate that. That's, it's good to hear that. It's like, I'll say what brand new soul that was kind of the first of my head, that goal in mind. I want to bring all these things together, but our team wasn't entirely established in the capacity that it is now. And it's like, my story has so much to do with exactly the line of people that I'm playing with in Angel Dust. That's where it's like Jim played in a lot of like the influential bands just a couple of years. He, you know, me and Jim both got into playing and touring really young. Jim Carroll. For you guys. One of the only men on earth who can wear pigtails and look hot. Because you just like, no other man can pull that off. He's great, but great musician too. Not just, not just handsome. Jim, as he's known in Massachusetts, makes a lot of sense. It's funny. He's got a different nickname in every city. And when you talk to people or every state, maybe he's got regional nicknames. Like a criminal. And if I'm talking to some Massachusetts, they'll be like, Jim, Jim Carroll, handsome. I'm not going to do that. But no, he's, he's great. But I've been referencing music that he's made since I was a kid. And that's an important part of everything I've done musically. And second Steve have been a part of our team for a long time. They've been like touring with Angel Dustin in different capacities. And they come from a lot of what I come from musically. Steve's bands have been influential to me. Nick, I met when he was a kid and he like came up. He's the youngest. He's the baby in the band. But he like came up in this world that I've been a part of. And it's like, it's very intentional. Yeah, I don't feel like anything on this album was my mistake. It's it's exhilarating. It's a really, especially the live show, you guys, you've got to check it out. It's it's like it's really exciting, you know. And I know that I think not every band or musicians. Intention or thing is to exhilarate or excite. That's like, you know, of course, like you don't go to like a cat power show to be like exhilarated. Like it's something else incredible, right? And you you feel very many things. But what you guys do is like electric. And I this is not even a question. This is just me telling you guys, you need to see in Jules does live and this line of musicians is like so tight. I mean, again, I haven't I didn't see the last iteration. So I don't know. I can only speak to this one, but. I appreciate it. It's awesome. And that's I think a very definitive quality of hardcore music. It's made to be digested live and to be interacted with. Yeah. And again, not to just I try to like pat myself on the back. I can't. You know, it's like pat the team. It's like, but I think we made a record that we're like playing almost the whole record every night and it works. Yeah, people are giving you the feedback that you so desire. And it's like, I don't know. That's what got me into music at all is like. Seeing mosh pits on TV and MTV when I was a little kid. Yeah. And then experiencing your first mosh pits. When I was for me, I was like 11, 12 years old and being like, oh, I just want to do this for the rest of my life. Yeah. And. That's it. That's all I've done. It's I think about that a lot with like. Why there's been a new draw towards hardcore in the last like, what would you say, like five ish seven years? I don't know. I feel like I felt it creeping up precovid and then yeah, Kovac gave it a kick in the ass and turnstile. Yeah, exactly. Turnstile gave it a kick in the ass. I felt that same way when I saw turns out and I hadn't felt that for a long time. I mean, obviously I stopped going to as many shows as I was before, but I wonder if it's about the aspect of physicality and community. Right. Absolutely. You're touching other people, like literally physically touching other people if you're doing it, right? You know, and like while genre wise, I think hardcore is obviously expanded all its like boundaries musically. One through line that hasn't left it is it's so pro community, right? It's so much about being in community with other people and like that's these are two things we've severely lost in the internet age is physical presence with others and community. Yeah. I love I love the idea of. We plan a tour. Yeah, we announce it. The main place where you're going to find out about that is on Instagram. Yeah. And it's like, I'm on Instagram. Everybody's doing it and we're scrolling and you see the thing and you're like, oh, I'll buy the ticket. I don't know. I was a kid. We'd go wait outside of. Oh, 100 percent. For sale and. Virgin Megastore Tower Records, you'd stand in line. Yeah. Camping out over nights and times. 100 percent and camped out for Bush tickets. Yeah. You guys weren't there. It's scary. It's scary. Like, you know, you're in the middle of the city. It's like throughout the night, there's questionable things happening. Yeah. You take it for the show and it's like you can cut that out of the equation. And there's there's all these ways now you can bypass the physical realm. Yeah. But then for the people who need that, which I think we all need. I think we all need it. Yeah. What a better way than to squish into a little, you know, whatever the depending on the show you're going to. Yeah, it might be in a in a bar. You might be in a warehouse. And with hard cores now, you might be in a stadium. Yeah. You know, but you're packed in tight. It's gonna be a lot of shirtless, sweaty beef all over your body. Smelling people. Yeah. Like I missed smelling human bodies when I was in Highland Park, locked in COVID years, you know, and. Just longing to smell terrible men in the mosh pit. You can get that and you can get the microphone. You can sing along. Yeah. You can give me your cold. I will. I will carry your cold for an entire tour. That's beautiful. I'll take your germs. I'll take your germs. Super spread. I don't know. It's like we're here to live and we do need the phone for a lot of stuff. We need the internet for a lot of stuff. But I need the reminder sometimes, you know, it's like I've gotten pretty beat up on this tour. I like dislocated a finger and had my front teeth not on this tour. Thank God, but I've had my front teeth kicked out seven times. Is that why those are gold? Yeah. Okay. Got a couple other fakes. Looks really good though. Thank you. Thank you. But like the physical, it's like, yeah, it's like, I don't know. You know, being a little kid's hard, being a human on earth, especially right now is hard. And I can just look at my phone all day and be terrified of. You know, war, war. Just yeah, it's dark. I could I could go on pretty billionaires. The Illuminati. I like to not like, you know, I don't like to. Again, we can all see this stuff on our phone. We know what's going on in the world. I tried to as an artist, I don't want my imprint to be, Hey, here's how awful the world is. Totally. I do. As experienced through the phone. Yeah. Yeah. But here's the alternative is getting to this room of people who are afraid and maybe don't feel empowered and jump off the stage and catch each other and make a new friend and fuck it. Get your front teeth kicked out of your head. You know what I mean? It's like, it's better than the alternative. You know, I'm glad. I'm glad that's happened to me. I don't want to get my teeth kicked out tomorrow. Right. Seven times, I think, is probably enough. Yeah. I'm, I'm at the approaching what we call a mosh retirement. You know, my body's pretty battered. I retired. I skinned my knees in the last than Jake Pitt when I was 12, you guys. That's the only thing that wasn't a real one. Okay. I was in there. I've been in less than Jake Pitt too. Hell yeah. That's good. I was just, I could not stop thinking about not that we respect kid rock on this program, but getting the pit and try to love one another is really an iconocline. Yeah. He's he went off this deep end a little bit in a way that I can't condone, but even the broken clock is wrong twice. Exactly. Twice a day. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I really like that. I feel my one of my more enduring theories these days is that a lot of problems we have psychologically are because we don't have enough friction in our lives anymore. Like it's too easy. Like you can just door dash food to your door that they leave it. You don't even see them. You don't talk to anybody. Amazon will bring you anything. You don't have to. You work from home, whatever. Like you literally don't have to be uncomfortable for one second of your life. If you don't want, I mean, not everybody obviously it's a privileged position, but I feel like it's more and more easy and like going to a show is hard. You know, it's not hard, but it's like it's an effort. You have to go to a place. You have to be sweaty. You have to be uncomfortable. You have to be looked at by people. If you have to look at other people, you might have to have a conversation. It's very terrifying, but it's good. Yeah. The venue tomorrow, I've gotten so much so many people that love to remind me. You know, it's like, I know what LA is, you know, but a lot of people will remind me like, oh, it's like a questionable neighborhood or whatever. Right. It's like, you're like, I'm from Baltimore. And I was like, I don't know. It's like, we could all use a little bit of danger, you know what I mean? Just pull up with your friends. Yeah. Community. This thing's all about community. Go make some friends and make sure nobody fucks with you on your way to the show. Yeah. We could all use a little bit danger. I posted a story of me eating a kiwi with the skin on it, which is how I eat the kiwi. And I'm sorry, you should also become ungovernable. But I got all these messages from men being like, oh, the mouth feel it. And I was like, men used to go to war. Oh, you're, oh, the mouth feel of a kiwi. You got to get outside. You got to touch grass. Okay. You brought up turnstile. I have a question regarding, obviously, they've had incredible success. Grammy winners turnstile. Do you aspire to a similar career arc? No, I mean, I guess I'm not mad at success in my life. You know what I mean? With them, I'm super proud of them. Yeah. It's something that I believe that a Grammy was in the cards never, you know, but. How cool though? It's like they, they're like some of my best friends in the world and they've like done such a good job of just flipping my sense of reality and what's possible. And like giving, literally giving me what hardcore gives people, you know, I mean, that's they're, they're effective at that. So I've never had that, that goal. And there was like moments of what I was touring with them, like filled in on guitar for them a little bit at one point and just being with them and moments of me being like, man, I don't want this. Like they, they really have to give so much of themselves. Yeah. And it's, it's easy to see success. I don't know if people always see how much of themselves they've given to get there. I've like heard young bands say like, oh, I want it like turnstile where it's, where it's like, we just do something, we blow up right away. And it's like, I just don't know a band that sacrificed more. Yeah. Also, first of all, that's not what I'm trying to say. I think if you just like as a fan, like, like you would see it, but then being closer to the picture, like I just, I don't know anybody who's given that much. And so like because of that, there was like a point where I was like seeing them sacrificing a lot of themselves and I was like, I don't have that to give, you know? And so it was never, I was never aspiring to what they were aspiring to. But true to the nature of hardcore music, they put in front of you what's possible. And it's like, you know, my aspirations are not a Grammy. It's never been that. But I'm like, I can do anything with this. You know, it's like the little kids that I met when they were all babies. And at one point I would have said, that's my little brothers. And now it's like, what's my younger big brothers? I guess, you know, I mean, like they set the tone for what's possible. And I don't know. I'm like open to whatever that means for Angel Dust. Yeah. What is, what is your version? What would your version of great success look like? I kind of touch on it. Pain is a must. The song with Scott Vogel. It's like, success is always, it's always been about sacrifice. It might sound stupid, but it's like just giving myself entirely. That's what, that's the goal. That's it. I want to be used up. I want to like, I want to be on my seventh set of goal front teeth. I want to like, I want to be better. Used up by the, by the art. Yeah. I want to, I want to die on stage. That's it. And there's been moments where I thought it was going to happen. You know, it's like, I'm beat up. I'm like really physically more beat up than, than maybe I'll allow people to know. But I'm getting on some peptides. Yeah. That's how it would be great. Just honestly, a lot of growth hormone is probably in my future. I sing a lot about this stuff and it's just, it's, it might sound silly in, in the moment, but it's just, it's all that I've ever loved. And, um, you know what? My bills are paid. Yeah. I don't need a bigger house. Yeah. I got some little dogs and little family type situation going on. And like everybody's safe. So it's like my, my goal has just been like connection. Yeah. I guess it's important to include that. Um, it's like we, we get into music because we feel misunderstood and you want to reach out and have people understand you. And every night of this tour, I've like talked to people who've expressed something to me that I don't need to realize they're like expressing my life to me exactly. And it's like, it's very emotional sometimes. You just got to be like, cool about it. You know, you're touching them. Like you're giving them such a gift as well because they're also, that's, I mean, that's the greatest gift I feel like art can give you is like, you feel less alone because you feel seen within the art. Yeah. I want to be heard. And I want people who are listening to be heard. And, um, if I can connect with people and if I can keep doing this and now don't, don't be wrong. Somebody's like, Hey, do you want the Taco Bell commercial? Do you want lots of money? Do you want the huge sold out show? It's like, Oh, it's just connecting with more people. Sure. You know, it's like, yeah, of course. That's, that's great. But I'm not like killing myself for the purpose of, uh, I guess for the purpose of success in the traditional sense, right? More about just like, you know, we're, we're doing what we set out to do. And it's, I feel whole and happy. Yeah. If Taco Bell commercial is offered along the way, you'll take a gorgeous side quest. Also me too. Taco Bell, if you're listening, I'm a huge fan. Happy to do whatever you need me to do. We'll take any free talk about brain dead. I got a new jacket from brain dead. We love brain dead, Madison. If you guys are listening, big fans over here still miss my sweater. I wouldn't talk about it. Okay. You name check a man on this album a lot. His name is Jesus Christ. And my question is, do you have a spiritual practice? I mean, not a practice. My spiritual practice is, um, eating mushrooms and going crazy a little bit. That's a spiritual practice. It is. It is. It's like a therapeutic. Yeah. I definitely, I don't, I'm not, I don't do it in a party context. I think psychedelics have a lot of spiritual properties that allow you to connect with something greater than yourself, you know? My family was very Catholic, Polish, Catholic type people. And I grew up with a lot of that stuff in it. Um, you know, I don't think the average Christian would identify me as a Christian. Right. I don't think, I think we have different ideas about that. But I like Jesus. I like, yeah. He was a cool guy. Yeah. Like the cool guy who like, I'm really down with what he was all about. Yeah. I mean, I could get into like a really annoying non-musical conversation about, I like a period where I was like, I need to read holy books. Oh yeah. I mean, this is, this is like, now you're like, now I'm in music. I don't care. Let's talk about that. You say that and like, you'll be, you'll be over it so fast. No, no, babe. I'll be the last one standing. You have one time. Okay. This is a great story. Actually, I'm just going to tell it for you guys. One time during COVID, I got a call, like a, it was like a, almost like a sales call, but from a church, like trying to kind of like recruit. Tell me why this woman had to get off the phone with me. How she had to be like, okay, well, I have to go. That's how much I was talking to her. Okay. So I can, I can, if I can out talk the Christian recruiter from the church, trust me, I can out talk you on this. It's impressive. Um, I don't know if I could do that exactly, but my friends are for sure are over it. You know, you were into holy books. So you were reading like the Bible and stuff. Yeah. But full transparency. I don't know what the hell I'm reading. I have the time, you know what I mean? That's okay. But, uh, I think, you know, obviously the Bible was like, there's people who like spend their whole lives studying the Bible scholars, but you know, it's like, there's a lot of good information in there. There's contradictions in there, but there's good information and you should read that and blogging a lot of Gita. It's like, there's like, yeah, good information. You know, but yeah, not religious on, uh, I don't think there's any Christian who would identify me as a Christian. If that makes sense. Yeah. I know what you're saying. I think, I think that the, the like distinction is between like organized religion and being religious, which I, I kind of identify as two different things because organized religion is really dogmatic and sort of about rules. Right. Yeah. As much as it is about revering and celebrating their God or whatever. Um, whereas I think like some people, I think myself included, I'm like, I'm sorry, like what I think doesn't fit into those rules, but doesn't mean I'm not religion. It doesn't mean I don't believe, you know, I believe in hell. Sure. You know, and I don't know if it's necessarily something you have to wait for. You know, it's like, I think some people choose hell every day. Yeah. You know, you can live hell on earth. Yeah. Definitely no, no people who do. Name. Call them out. Um, yeah, I just, I just clocked it because I have a, I don't know, I just have a sensitivity to it because I, so many people will not say God or Jesus ever in art or music anymore because we're a really secular society. And also I think maybe they're afraid of him being misinterpreted or whatever. And so like, you know, it's in, it's, you have it in song titles, let alone like mentioned. So it just piqued my interest. You know, it's like we think a lot about Jesus in the context of mortality. Yeah. Like within the story of Jesus and then what Jesus represents from the spiritual side as a Christian, as the gateway to salvation, you know, and, uh, I don't think it gets too literal within the songs. It's more about. Right. Um, what Jesus represents, but yeah, I don't think I was aware of that. It's kind of like maybe just being raised Catholic and. Yeah. I'm sure you have some deep rooted, uh, associations there that kind of probably came out when you're thinking about certain themes and you're writing lyrics about that. I feel like somebody's asking about it almost every night. And I think a lot of people are like expecting me to be like, oh, like, you know, born again and. Right. You're like, I can teach you about Jesus Christ. I'm like, I got some mushrooms that we can go talk about. Jesus would have been down. This is always, I have a shout out the beautiful Catholic monk that listens to this podcast. We love you. I love emailing with him. I just, I love, I'm like really deeply fascinated by spirituality and religion. And I, I like talking about it because I think people don't talk about it enough anymore. And I also kind of feel like much like we're talking about having lack of community and lack of friction. We also have lack of spirituality. And it's totally okay. You don't have to have spirituality. That's not what I'm saying, but I do feel going too far secular has created some pretty big holes in people that they're filling in kind of like not ideal ways, like looks maxing, for example. Um, that's God is not about that. But God doesn't want you to look max. God made you perfect. So yeah, that's, I just like, I think that's part of like what caught my ear when I was listening to him. I was like, oh. And in reference to patient zero, where hardcore comes from the bad brains. Oh my God. Bye. Maybe 50% of discography is about God. Of course. They were deeply, deeply religious sometimes to a, to a fault, you know? Yeah. Um, but yeah, you know, I, I mean, don't, don't let me start sounding crazy. But I always say that I think, I think all art is about God, whether or not people know it, you know, like. Music is the, the sonic representation of God. Yeah. I could 100% could not more completely agree. Even, even kid rock. Yeah. There, uh, I feel like I've been seeing this theme come up so much. And there's like something I theorized when I was young and I tell my friends about it and you'd be like, shut up, dude. Yeah. But like the idea. We're just having talkable. But I feel like I've like seen it a lot, like a couple of different artists saying basically the same idea where it's like, I don't think music is something that you're like my brain. I'm like such a genius and I sat down and it's like, I think like culture, like energy, it like makes its way to you. And I think that's what God is. It's the, it's energy. You know, God is, is a person with a staff or something. No, everything is God. Yeah. And God puts influence and energy and there's a song that's there and just up to you to find it. Can you? Yeah. We, we talk about it all the time, especially with like really insane songs that are like really iconic. You often hear the person and say like, I don't know, just like all came to me at once. Like we had Barry Johnson here. He was talking about, um, constant headache. And he was like, it all came to me in one swoop on the bus. It was like the first time. And I was like, yeah, that's got. Those are always the best songs. Yes. God just cherry picked them. Give you the nice little. And it's like, can you be a vessel? Or can you not be? Are you, are you closed off or are you open? You know, so many people have been like, we've turned this podcast off. I believe that. And then there's moments where I'm like, was my little cherry pick moment. Angel does punch you in the fucking face. You know what I mean? Why not? But it's like, it's a purpose. You know what I mean? It's like it's community. It's bringing people together, having a good time, forgetting about what's going on in the world, you know, also even past that, like it's not up to us to understand what, why, you know, like that's like so beyond our human brains. You know, so it's like, yeah, like what, what God is thinking. Who the fuck? Impossible for us to comprehend. Okay. I got one more question from you from, um, a fellow musician. Nice. This is from Missy from mannequin pussy. Oh, nice. She said, before I even met justice, I was inspired by his output. I think he's quite prolific and always seems to be working on something. I'm kind of interested if he has any secret projects or collaborations with people that haven't seen the light. She's also very grateful to you for letting mannequin pussy use all their, your gear when there's God's stolen on tour. Yeah. What a terrible thing to have happened. And she's lovely. Their band is so great people. Yeah. Really inspiring band. Also, Ian, you phoned in to really important creative people in my life. Those are, those are the ones I'm friends with because they're as, as they would say about you, these are lights, you know, like I feel like very drawn to them because they're just like easily to connect with. I don't know if I have anything in the bakery. I had a couple of moments where it's like, you know, I've like jammed with a lot of really cool, interesting people and you have a moment where you're like, we're going to do this thing. And some of those have been impressive, but I think it would be misleading to mention any of them. I guess Tim Armstrong plays on, he sings on an angel dust song. Incredible. And there was a moment where like it's, he's like the reason that like my first ever band, when I was a little kid, I joined a band. It was called Destination Unknown after the Rancid Song. Yes. And it's like wouldn't, like absolutely. We can, we let people throw that out there like, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't. Yeah. Truly wouldn't, who knows what else, you know, and got the opportunity to like play with him and write music a little bit. And we were thrown on the idea of doing an EP called Tim and Justice. Which I say yes. Would do anything to make that happen one day, you know. I say yes. Do it. Yeah. Definitely. Again, worked a lot of really cool people. That's not to underplay anybody. Yeah. Just like nothing that's ever been like came to fruition and would be fair to say. But maybe there's a missy in Justice record. I'm so down. Can I be in the, can I play like a keys or something? You can contribute whatever you have to offer. Okay, gorgeous. Yeah. I'm not musical, but I think I bring a lot to the table. Words. I'm really good with those. Yeah, you don't kill it. Bit of a wordsmith. Although I have a fantasy of learning to play guitar at this age and I'm like, wouldn't that be kind of cool? Or would it be really lame? Yeah, you say that because you can play it. There's like little tricks, you know. Yeah. This will be, this is my year for real. Age 43. We'll get you set up. Fender would get you a nice Fender guitar. Oh my God, Fender, are you listening? I feel like what a. Chasing. Gorgeous. We can have an inspirational journey of it's never too late. That's the new Fender campaign. It's never too late with podcast or Yossi's. So you have to display the guitar here when you're not playing yet. Yeah. I mean, no problem. And then we'll set you up with drop D tuning, which is a great way to learn. Babe. Justice, this has been just a real delight. I have to say, I was so excited to talk to you. I love this album. You have a really interesting way of looking at the world. And thank you. Of course, I wish that more artists. Had your stance on things. I think we'd get more interesting art. I appreciate it. That's a very nice thing to say. Of course. You guys check out Cold to the Touch stream and or purchase physically and check out Angel Dust on tour and come back next week for a new episode of Band's Plan. If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Band's Plan. Our guest today was Chris Ryan. Happy end of CR month. This episode is produced by Rob Sunderman and edited by Adrian Bridges with help from Justin Sales. Video production by Jamie Yukic. Executive producers for Band's Plan are Gina Dalvak and me, Yossi Solak. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Cosentino and Jennifer Klavin and graciously recorded by Carlos Del Garza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to our producer emeritus, producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tupper Rupert and also the Lincoln lawyer. Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Band's Plan on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. I would love to like just start doing like executive produced by Jerry Brockheimer and Don Simpson, the dead one.