Thomas Crawford, the lead guitarist of Manhack, recounts the band's inception – from a virtual MySpace presence to the metal scene of Atlanta. This episode unwraps the story behind Manhack's name, drenched in video game lore, and the captivating transition from a one-man project to a tight-knit ensemble.
The creativity of Manhack's music-making overflows where lyrical alchemy meets the raw energy of metal. Learn how poetic verses transform into mighty anthems, and get a front-row seat to the intricacies between lyrics and guitar riffs. Thomas and I pull back the curtain on band dynamics, revealing the collaborative spirit that fuels their song crafting and the feeling of presenting fresh tracks to an ever-eager audience. Plus, discover the unexpected ties between gaming classics and their music as he shares how themes from Doom and other video games seep into Manhack's songs.
Finally, we dive into the digital realm where consistent engagement with fans is the lifeblood of music today. Thomas and I speak on the art of connecting beyond the music, discussing the strategic release of songs and how even a simple daily post can catapult a band into the spotlight. Balancing life's demands with the creative pulse of the band, Manhack is gearing up for new adventures, with teasers of upcoming projects that promise to blend iconic video game influences into their ever-evolving sound.
New Website and Merch:
https://www.wheyoflifepodcast.com
Social Channels:
Manhack's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/manhackofficial/
Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wheyoflifepodcast/
Gus' Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gussholland/
Thomas Crawford, the lead guitarist of Manhack, recounts the band's inception – from a virtual MySpace presence to the metal scene of Atlanta. This episode unwraps the story behind Manhack's name, drenched in video game lore, and the captivating transition from a one-man project to a tight-knit ensemble.
The creativity of Manhack's music-making overflows where lyrical alchemy meets the raw energy of metal. Learn how poetic verses transform into mighty anthems, and get a front-row seat to the intricacies between lyrics and guitar riffs. Thomas and I pull back the curtain on band dynamics, revealing the collaborative spirit that fuels their song crafting and the feeling of presenting fresh tracks to an ever-eager audience. Plus, discover the unexpected ties between gaming classics and their music as he shares how themes from Doom and other video games seep into Manhack's songs.
Finally, we dive into the digital realm where consistent engagement with fans is the lifeblood of music today. Thomas and I speak on the art of connecting beyond the music, discussing the strategic release of songs and how even a simple daily post can catapult a band into the spotlight. Balancing life's demands with the creative pulse of the band, Manhack is gearing up for new adventures, with teasers of upcoming projects that promise to blend iconic video game influences into their ever-evolving sound.
New Website and Merch:
https://www.wheyoflifepodcast.com
Social Channels:
Manhack's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/manhackofficial/
Podcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wheyoflifepodcast/
Gus' Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gussholland/
Hey man, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:What's up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we've been talking a little bit beforehand, but if you don't mind, just going ahead and introducing yourself to the audience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, my name's Thomas. I play guitar in a band called Manhack. We're based out of Atlanta, georgia, playing a metal band where I don't know see all kind of genres that were called groove metal, deathcore metal who knows who cares. We play metal, we got riffs. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:So I was actually introduced to you by my tattoo artist I hope he doesn't mind me plugging him, but Scott Dowdy. So he's based in Bryan, texas. They listen to all types of music in the, you know, in the tattoo studio, but I'd say most of the time it leans toward metal. And yeah, and he was like man, you should check this band out. Like it was kind of just random, but he was like this is this band's the shit you know. So that was probably I don't even know probably two years ago or so. Oh, wow, yeah, maybe, maybe not that far back, but over a year for sure. So how did y'all I know y'all are from Georgia did y'all? Were y'all buddies beforehand? Or how did did Manhack come into existence?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it started in 2011. Well, I mean, if you want to get really technical with it, it actually started a lot sooner than that. So the official Manhack track was uploaded to SoundCloud in 2011, I think fall or winter of 2011 called Intro, martyr and the Prize, and that was kind of the first official Manhack song. Funny enough, there's actually an acoustic song that we uploaded, because originally Manhack was supposed to be this didn't last long, but it was supposed to be multiple different genres or just kind of whatever was the vibe, and at the time it was just me as an individual. I was also playing in a band called Face All Fears. Well, not at that time, I wasn't. I joined Face All Fears a couple years later anyway, but yeah, that's when it officially started, when the first Manhack song ever came to fruition. Pretty much Now we could get really deep into the lore here.
Speaker 2:Back on MySpace. Did you ever have a MySpace profile? Yes, yeah, okay, this wasn't Manhack, but two songs. Actually, one of those songs is released right now. Two songs Martyrdom and another song called Stopping Power were actually released on a MySpace music page under I think it was just my name or something like T-bomb T-bomb's music page or something it wasn't Manhack and that was probably 2008.
Speaker 2:I don't know, was MySpace still relevant then? It might have been like oh eight, oh nine or some shit yeah.
Speaker 1:That was probably so. I think that's kind of around the time where they were transitioning to like mainly focus on music and stuff like that. I know.
Speaker 2:So it was around that time there, but I was probably making the switch to Facebook. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, anyway, I mean, yeah, we recorded Martyrdom, which is actually up on our Spotify right now. It's part of our full length that we're building, so you can actually go listen to that track. So if you want to hear a really early Manhack song, it would have sounded like it would have been that.
Speaker 2:But technically, we formed in 2011 when that first song got uploaded, and then it was just a one man kind of thing for a while. But a couple of small releases got signed in 2014 to a now expired, rest in Peace Bad Ass Atlanta record label called Autumn in Color. That lasted for about two years and then it was around that time that we started recruiting members and our drummer, pat at the time, was also playing in Face All Fears. So that's how me and him started working with each other on this project and we had done an EP in 2014 called Domenicide and we brought in a few different vocalists from the area to have big sections on pretty much the. It was our first EP without or with instrument or with vocals, and every song had a different vocalist on it.
Speaker 2:Pretty much Excuse me, we didn't really have a set vocalist at the time, or did we, do you? I don't remember some of this shit, man, I should have been so long ago, actually. No, our vocalist at the time was Bobby Breneman, that's who was doing vocals for us. It was a long time ago. Anyway, we did Domenicide, and Matt, our current vocalist, was in a band called Synapse Defect and he had probably one of the best vocal spots on the whole EP, so I just kind of started working from him with him on Manhack after that. So me and Matt were collaborating on Manhack around that time and then our vocalist, or our bassist, aunt Belcher, was started playing bass with us, and then we got pat around and played our first show in 2018, november, and then, yeah, we just played a few shows after that and then that's pretty much what led to where we're at now. I mean, there's a lot more in between that, but that's kind of the long story, I guess, kind of condensed.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah. So how did the name Manhack like? How did you come up with that or how was it that created?
Speaker 2:Yeah, actually, yeah. So that was from the original concept of the band, and what the concept still is really was writing songs, implementing, taking metal music, implementing a lot of sound design in with the music, so a lot of just random shit that you might hear in a Gordon song or something right For a video game soundtrack. Yeah, and so taking metal music, incorporating some type of sound design in with it and then incorporating themes and lyrics, concepts etc. Center around stuff from video games and movies, primarily video games, and that's where the name comes from, because Manhack is actually comes from Half Life 2. I'm not sure if you've ever played that one or not. Yes, yeah, yeah. So the Manhacks are the someone that enemies in the game that are these, these really piercing, loud, spinning robot floating things. They just they have spinning saws on them and they slam into you. Yeah, called Manhacks. So that's that's where the name came from. And so, yeah, I mean, that's really what, where that name came from.
Speaker 2:And we still have that conceptual approach to everything, most things still to this day. We have a song called Hall of Valience, centered around Skyrim. We have a song called High and Tight, which is also centered around Half Life 2. Our song Expedition 14A is centered around Doom 3. And one specific audio log that you find in hell when you're in Doom 3. And then you know, there's, I think, the song Constance is centered around Bioshock Infinite. So there's, there's a lot of themes like that. So that's, that's pretty much where the name came from, and that name represents the kind of stuff that we write and the way that we take, the approach that we take to creating a manhack song. Pretty much. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no for sure, that's. That's awesome. I didn't. So I played, I played Half Life 2, but it was like only at a friend's house and you know what I mean it was. It wasn't that that often. I played a lot of Doom and so yeah, and a lot of Skyrim as well. So I've definitely I caught those references in a lot of music. Yeah, so I don't know. So I listened. No-transcript. I almost every day I listen to at least one of your songs, but the I'm horrible with it wasn't title so King without a crown, king without a country, king without a country. Ok, yeah, dude.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I don't know, I don't know why I'm like this. I like I've listened to this song probably like 10 times at least, and I'm still like I yeah, that's just how.
Speaker 2:Hey, that's just how you interpret it. I mean, a king without a crown makes the same sense as a king without a country. Yeah, it's I mean you could call that song, you could take that out and change the name to a king without a crown, and it would. Everything would match up, exactly the same. So hey, it works.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I love how y'all incorporate the Different like animations, like the old, old style cartoons and stuff like that into. Well, you do it on on social media like for your promos and stuff, but also like if you actually click on a specific song you can, you can see that that same imagery like repeating. So that's, that was real cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah those.
Speaker 2:Those cartoons are just random old ass cartoons and when our song Death and Facts is started doing pretty well, that that video just had one of those simple cartoons was All right. Well, let's, let's try this again. So a king without a country actually has one of those, so yeah, yeah, is that? Is that your favorite manhack track? Is that the one you play the most Right?
Speaker 1:Most, the most, I guess, like favorite right now if that makes sense, because I'll go like it'll be like cyclical, you know, like I'll get, yeah, I don't know why, but Mainly like I just I love the. I mean, if you just, if you just read the lyrics, like without actually visualizing or not visualizing whatever the music like, disregarding the actual music, it's like poetry, you know. So I, I appreciate the lyricism is. Thank you.
Speaker 2:And that's all. Yeah, and so that the specific song that you're talking about, that's actually exactly how it was written. You remember Live Journal, by any chance? It sounds really familiar, kind of talking about my space era, kind of stuff. Anyway, I used to write a bunch of random. They weren't even really lyrics, because I wasn't in a band at the time, but just poems, epic poems and just random thoughts and shit. Yeah, who would go on Live Journal? And a lot of those ended up being lyrics for manhack songs.
Speaker 2:This Forsaken Land, for instance, was originally posted to Live Journal. Marjoritum the concealer, a king without a country, actually, ok, who was also? It's funny, that song was originally called a queen without a country, but we just decided to change that a little bit because it meant it. What am I trying to say? It was a little bit more relevant to where the direction of the song was going, yeah, but yeah, anyway, that came from Live Journal and that was written In years before it was ever intended to be in a song and yeah, that was written as just kind of this. I don't want to say it's an epic poem because it's not super long, but just something where it kind of has that certain rhyming pattern, which is interesting, because when you, when you try to take something like that that's written a specific way to have this nice eloquent flow, while you're reading it and all the, every other line, the last word rhymes and all that, it's pretty interesting. Trying to take that and cram it into a metal song, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:That will just like this, because you're I mean, you're screaming a lot of the time, you know, and so that you all did a good job is all I'm saying. Thank you. Like the, you kept the flow of the, the eloquence I guess, while you know, including some ferocity. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's what could be tricky is is because some of those lines and we actually have a release that we're working on right now.
Speaker 2:It's probably aiming to have it come out sometime it's kind of the same thing. It's based around the really long actually four chapter long epic poem that has that where it has this, every other line rhymes and it has a structure and this and it flows a certain way and and trying to cram some of that into a verse or chorus is pretty tough because you want to stick to the concept but you also want it to make sense for the vocalist and kind of Trying to put it into the song to where the vocalist that makes sense for him to do that, yeah, studio or live. But that's just kind of part of the dynamic of being the guitar player that writes most of the stuff but doesn't do vocals. Yeah, just like being the guitar player the rice most of the stuff and doesn't play drums. Yet here I am programming drums anyway, so sometimes the drums get a little weird. Yeah, that's funny and our old drummer, pat, would always give me shit because I'd ride a drum party.
Speaker 2:He's like yo. What the hell is that? Nobody would ever do that.
Speaker 1:All right let's fix it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I mean y'all, yeah, I don't know. Y'all are consistently in the middle of the song. Y'all are consistently, in my opinion, coming out with like, like, I'm not skipping anything, you know as far as that's good.
Speaker 2:That's good.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, I don't know, like some of my favorite artists, like I even like say they come out with like a crazy long album, like 20 songs or something like that. Like even some of them all, like I'll give the whole album like a once through, you know, and then when I'm at work, like listening to it, I'll be like not that one, you know. Like you know what I mean, like I don't have to do that with y'all.
Speaker 2:So that was nice, that's a huge compliment, man, because usually that's that's. That's that's something that we try to aim for when we come out with releases. Obviously, it's almost impossible to tell how a song is going to be going to be received until you actually put it out there. The whole everybody in the band could think it's the greatest thing ever. And then you put it out there and nobody likes it. Or the song that you think nobody's going to like, you put it out there and it's your top played one. It's always something like that. Yeah, so it's good to hear, man, I appreciate that. It's a huge compliment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no problem. But I mean that's it's the same with podcasting. Like I'll, I can put like a lot of work into some like really intricate kind of like scientific podcast about strength training or whatever. I'm like man, this is like a lot of good info. It's going to really like be successful. You know it's going to help a lot of people. It's going to probably be popular and then it's like compared to like another one, that's same situation. You know, like it it's weird hit, hit misses, I guess, and different, different crowds I guess like go toward different things. I don't know. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's really tough to figure that out. And that's when we take out our ads to. I mean, that's, that's the same approach there. It's all right. Well, the verse is our favorite part of the song, but we don't know, right, that's why you put the verse, course, bridge, and all the other different parts of the song out there, and then the one you think is not going to do well is the one that gets the best clicks on it. The most clicks on it, right, yeah, hell. Another example is our song Death and Facts.
Speaker 2:When we were writing that song, it first off, we put it first on the album. That's kind of a joke, because you're all, an intro has to be a minute long or some shit, right? So I said you know what, screw it, let's take the longest song we've ever written and put that one first. Right, that'll be the intro, right, five and a half minute long track, which is by far the longest song that we've ever written. And it's because of how long that song was mainly that our vocalist knew, so he called it. So props to Matt. Yeah, he knew that song from day one. He was like yo, this song is that people are going to eat this shit up. I don't know, man. I mean it's cool. It's a cool song, it's got a lot of nice production in it and I definitely spent the most time writing that song than any other track, not just because of how long it is, but just because of the extra instruments and synth and all the different guitar tones that are in it and all this stuff. Yeah, but I was like I don't know, that might be a deep cut for people. That's like a hidden gem on the album. That, yeah, it's cool, but I don't know.
Speaker 2:And in any way, now it stays at the top of all of our streaming platforms and we cannot get people to stop listening to that song. I mean it stays at the top every time. Every time we log in the Spotify for artists, you go past seven days, past 24 hours, 28 days, 12 months, whatever. It is at the top every time. And I never, ever would have guessed that would have happened. Because the song is five and a half minutes long, right? Yeah, people want these, these, these kind of these thrown kind of tidbits, right? They want these two two and a half minute long songs because that's just kind of how everybody's attention span is nowadays with social media. They want it quick, they want it fast, they want it now, and then they're gone, right, yeah? So here you have this five and a half long minute track that has a really short build up to a long build up to a build up, and then the riff comes in. Yeah, I mean, the song doesn't get to the point until a minute and a half into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that combined with it was a five and a half minutes long. I was like yo, there's no way, there's no way people are going to listen to this shit.
Speaker 1:And then what do you know? Yeah, now I feel I feel like, with that song in particular, like the way you described it, how it's, it's like a small build up and then you know like it's, it's leveled like that I feel like you hook the, you all hook the audience, kind of like writing, like writing a book, how they're like, oh, you got to hook them on the first like page or whatever you know, or a half page, I feel like that's, even though it's like not the meat of the song, it's still like hook, hook the attention, you know. So then they're in for the ride, for lack of a better term.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good way to look at it, which is, but see, which is interesting though, because it's, it's one of those things that, because it swells up like that and it starts off quiet, that was the justification behind, at least, my rationale was people aren't going to grab onto this because it's like, oh, let me fast forward, let me get to the riff, let me get to the breakdown. Yeah, the breakdown. Yeah, but apparently not, and only that's what they. They like that kind of stuff. So, thanks, mick Gordon. Yeah, the song structure reference. Yeah, because that is absolutely where that came from. No shame.
Speaker 1:Yeah, whatever it's, whatever you know like I mean the some of the beauty of what y'all you know the band is is Not you know like is pulling aspects from different things you know. So, whatever, that's like part of what makes y'all great, Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, yeah, it's, it's. We're always trying to find new ways to pull influence from things, not, I mean, sometimes, things that, yeah, we like, but Also things that are successful, which sometimes might not be things that we like, right, yeah, for instance, knocked loose. I don't listen to knock loose. Their music is cool, but I just not. I just don't listen to them. It's just not my thing. Right, but I'm so curious about them Because I mean, they're just, they're a hardcore mosh band that you would hear at this is hardcore festival, but they just blew up. I mean, what was the festival they had, like Bonnaroo or something? I just like crazy the shit that they're doing. Bands like that are always so interesting to me, so we so we pull influences from different places, even if we're not necessarily listening to that band on repeat, right, right.
Speaker 2:Lama God is another one. I mean Lama God is really an enigma, because when you go and listen to their songs, it's there's not much difference between track to track. It's kind of like they said, all right, they found something that worked years ago and they just kept writing that song. Or you can tell you yeah, the good to do got to do, to do, to do, to do, to do, to do, to do, to do, to do, to do. This is going to be about one twenty one thirty beats per minute, and then there's going to be a verse that tightens up, and then Randy comes in and then there's going to be some fast part and then there's going to be some catchy chorus line and then there's going to be a breakdown. I mean, but even considering that, that they write very similar songs to each other and the fact that he pretty much does screaming only metal vocals they play in front of like fifty thousand people, right, I mean, it's insane. And what's even crazier about it is a lot of people in the audience watching them are probably saying, are probably the people you see on social media say, ah, I can't understand what he's saying though, right, I like metal, but growling metal isn't real metal or whatever the hell. Yeah, but they listen to Lama God. So that's the thing that's really interesting in that we pull inspiration from stuff like that, right, because, yeah, I mean, matt can do gutter rolls and shit all day, and he can do the Tunnel Vox and sound like a pterodactyl, and he can sound like Phil Boseman or whoever you want him to, but it and we do some stuff like that.
Speaker 2:We like to throw those little tidbits in there, but it's really Taking influence from bands that are in kind of a similar genre as us, that are massive. Right, what are they doing? How are they doing it? When are they doing it? Right, what's in their songwriting that's causing people to get hooked to this shit? Right, because I mean, if you didn't know Lama God at all and you only listened to, let's say, underground metalcore, deathcore etc. And you played a Lama God song for somebody and they go, oh yeah, this is bad ass. And then you say, ok, yeah, they have what? Two million monthly listeners or whatever it is, and they play in front of 60,000 people, it's like, wait, what? So Lama God's interest?
Speaker 2:Anyway, we would pull influences from a lot of different things, not just specifically riffs that we like. In fact, I don't really pull a lot of influence from Riffs. Really. I think that there's always going to be a lot of old school Metallica, the black album and before and Fear Factory. There's always going to be a lot of that Influence in our songwriting, because that just that shit is just going to come out of me no matter what. But but yeah, anyway, I mean that's kind of a little bit of an insight onto influences that we pull for stuff Songwriting, and then hey, the the Mick Gordon thing is a good one too, because I mean that that's, that's also a good example of, yeah, phenomenal tracks and great songwriting and great production, but also Having this kind of cinematic metal song.
Speaker 2:Right where you have a metal song that's only about 40 to 50 percent actual instruments and the other 50 to 60 percent is sound design. Right, because the song was originally written for a video game, so it had a much different purpose and you can go on Mick Gordon. Spotify now and Rip and Tear has over 100 million plays on it. Probably by this point. Last time I checked it was like 97 or 98 or something. Yeah, I mean insane.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean you got to think about it. I mean it's insane for Lama God to have that, but you got to think that that's what that is. That's Lamb of God, that's Slipknot numbers, right, but this is a detuned eight string gent song that was on a video game. Yeah, I mean like what? Yeah, 100 million plays on that.
Speaker 2:So that's curious also, right. So it's kind of like OK, well, if people like that kind of stuff, we like writing that kind of stuff, yeah, and that's kind of where definite facts came from, and then that obviously people like that song. So people do want to listen to long songs apparently. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's hype music to kill things too. Yeah, that's exactly what that was. Yeah, virtually virtually, of course. So when did you all first start? When did you all first start touring? I know, technically, you all have been around for like 12, 13 years. Did you all you know like immediately start doing shows and stuff, or how did that work out?
Speaker 2:for you, not immediately. Well, like we were talking about earlier, the band started in 2011. But again, that was just the one man guy kind of thing me doing a solo project, whatever and then we didn't actually play a song or song A show until about 2018, late 2018. Ok, mostly played around Georgia, played Tennessee, florida, played in North Carolina, really only played the Southeast Um, done a couple of weekend runs here and there, but, um, yeah, so that's kind of when that started.
Speaker 2:And our drummer now is one of the best drummers, if not the best drum I've ever played with, but he just he's in school a lot and it's kicking his ass. So we're actually looking right now for a touring drummer. We have a booking agent who is wanting to definitely put us on the road and we want to get on the road a lot more and really tour, really get those numbers up, do week long, two week, three, week long shit, right, yeah. So that that's the next step as far as touring and shows us. Concern is to actually get really good tours under our belts and really take manhack out all over the US, eventually all over the world. To all the people that have been commenting saying, hey, come to our city, come here and yeah we're working on it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's, that's awesome. So, speaking of the touring and everything, do you have like a most memorable moment or a craziest experience or anything like that that you could share?
Speaker 2:Show related or playing shows and stuff.
Speaker 1:Either one or both would yeah, yeah Um.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to think what happened. We were playing Well, this, okay, this one's fun. This technically happened in front of our driveway, but we did a. We were at what was it? Myrtle Beach? Was that Panama City? Was Panama City Myrtle Beach? And then we came I don't remember anyway, no, no, no, I think that was a solo Panama City show. Anyway, we were coming back from that and pulling a trailer and we got to my house, so in the front of the house over here on the street, and we were pulling up and we had to try to back the van or back the trailer up the driveway and it shit the bed right there in front of the house. Come to find out, the rear main seal was shot, transmission was shot, so it was just pissing out oil and transmission just and transmission fluid just everywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just try to put it in gear and couldn't get it to go anywhere, so we just had to push it and park it on the side of the street. Neighbors call the cops on us for a van being out there because they're assholes, yeah. So I mean it was a weird. It was a weird ordeal. But the strangest thing was that we went back and forth to Panama City, which from here in a van pulling a trailer is about a five and a half six hour drive. Well, between five to six, whatever. It depends on how fast you go, how many piss breaks you take. Yeah. So all those miles, no problems. Got there, okay, came back, okay.
Speaker 2:It wasn't until we were about 30 minutes out that our basis at the time Aunt Belcher was driving and there was this weird kind of sputtering thing happen and we both kind of looked at each other, said what the hell was that, because that wasn't normal. And then, sure enough, once we got in front of the house, it waited then and then it crapped out. Weird as shit. I mean, it didn't crap out when we got to the venue, it didn't crap out halfway there, just like the van said all right, I'm done. Yeah, y'all did cool, peace out, yeah. So that was weird, just because of the timing of it. I mean, it was obviously you don't want something like that to ever happen to your vehicle, and especially your tour vehicle, but if it's going to happen, that's the time for it to happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when everything is done and you're back safe. Yeah, it's better than, especially on the like driving like if you're on a highway or something and your transmission goes out, you know, oh, yeah, like yeah, no, and pulling a trailer too. Yeah, yeah, that's so as far as your writing process goes. So you're, are you the only lyricist Like, do y'all kind of contribute, or how does that?
Speaker 2:work out we. It depends on what it is. So for our song, Glorify God, whisper, that one was all me. So instrumentals lyrics. Because if I have a specific concept in mind for a song, then it's me and Matt have both kind of agreed that it's best that I just put together the vocals for it and then send it to him and then he just tracks it. Because if me and him try to go back and forth on ideas for something like that, if I have a specific theme in mind, it doesn't really work as well as if I just give him a track completely blank and say do whatever you want. So it depends on what it is.
Speaker 2:Death and Faxes was. I wrote the instrumentals, I wrote everything besides the vocals, handing him the instrumental song and said do whatever you want. And 14A had a specific theme in mind, which again was Doom 3. So Matt doesn't know shit about Doom 3. So that one, yeah, I obviously had to write the lyrics and do the rough vocal patterns for it and send that off to him. So I mean, it really depends for sure on what it is, but we're doing a lot.
Speaker 2:Come to find out that Matt, just especially after what he did on Death and Faxes, all the weird vocal shit that he did. On that one, yeah, it's like yeah, we need to get you doing this more often, yeah, so there's been a lot more of handing him instrumental tracks, and sometimes they're, well, the only thing that he might have in that situation as far as specific notes to follow would be hey, this is the verse, this is the chorus, this is the bridge, right, and then I might notate Maybe there's a specific type of vocal in mind. So, if it's the chorus, for instance, with the chorus, we always try to aim for catchy as possible, right, right, yes, it's screaming, yes, it's metal riffs, but what can we do to make that chorus stick in your head, right, and so that's always something that we discuss and keep in mind and I always make notes of when giving to him to do vocals for a song is, hey, the chorus remember, this is the return to home, right, this is the thing, this is the anthem, this is the thing that needs to get stuck in somebody's head, right? So, also, make the vocals have a lot of enunciation, right? Yeah, don't just do a guttural, the whole chorus. Yeah, you're not going to be able to hear it.
Speaker 2:The noise is cool, right, and a lot of that shit that he does takes a lot of skill for sure, but you can't hear the words, right, so it might be. Hey, this is the chorus max enunciation, right, right, make that line as much as you can between being able to hear what you're saying and making the sound cool, yeah, and then for the verse, it might be a little more free, free, free rain to do whatever you want, right, if you want to throw gutturals in there and whatnot. Blah, blah, blah, but usually there's some notes like that hey, here's the song structure layout. Here's the chorus max enunciation. We really try to go for max enunciation here and moving forward. Best case scenario you listen to a manhack song the first time and you can understand most of the words.
Speaker 2:So, because, again, that's kind of a reference from Lamb of God They've managed to figure out how to do that perfectly. So, yeah, as far as our actual writing process concerned, I mean, that's really kind of how we go about it. Sometimes we write riffs first and then put drums with them. Sometimes songs start from a random sample. There's a track I'm working on right now. For instance, there was one like a three or four second clip from Fallout, new Vegas DLC.
Speaker 1:Oh, that was just that was my next question. Actually, it was like are you all going to do any fallouts?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was. It was a really short three to four second sample that's in the game files and it just sounded cool. So I pulled that sample up. It had two notes and it had a beats per minute. So I figured out what the beats per minute was, I figured out what the notes were and then built a song around that. So sometimes it starts from random shit like that Sometimes you're driving and you get the idea in your head and then you make a voice memo and then you go get that, get that, get that, get that, get that, and then that's how the song starts. It's a lot of different stuff, for sure, but yeah, that's kind of how we approach writing.
Speaker 1:I got you so. So you just recently believe February 2nd, right? You dropped your newest album and you're already working on new stuff, which is always good, you know audience appreciates that. Do you have any idea, like is it in its infancy for the new stuff, or are you planning on just like one more song for now, or like a whole album? Or can you give any insight into that? I don't know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, excuse me. First off, the current album is not done, so there's more coming for that. So, okay, the imminent ascendancy is just a it's not done. There's more coming for that. Okay, yes, we are working on new songs always. So ever since we I think June or July of 2022 is when we started deciding that we were going to upload a new song once every six to eight months, weeks, six to eight weeks, okay, we pretty much haven't stopped since. I think we might have missed that gap once between Jonesy Christ and Fur Elise. But ever since that besides that one, ever since about summer of 2022, you've gotten a new manhack song within two months, repeatedly. We're still going to keep that going forward. That has its own challenges, for sure, but we've got a few songs that we're working on right now.
Speaker 2:Like I said, there's there's tracks that still haven't come out for the album because this current album arc isn't done yet. We're working on a few other songs another EP that might turn into another full length and then maybe another EP. So I mean, there's just all kinds of random shit. I mean, maybe it, maybe it'll be a single, maybe it'll be an EP. Whatever it, we don't know, but it'll be new stuff. Yeah, so I think manhack manhack previously this mix is going to be even better and it's just hopefully going to be even heavier. So I'm not going to say hopefully, because it is new. Manhack is going to have a better mix, it's going to sound better and it's going to be heavier. Yeah, so, yeah some good promises there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that is how, how my tattoo artist introduced it, you know, he's like I was like oh, what do they sound like? He's like the lyric or he's like the vocals are filthy. And I was like OK, nice, matt will appreciate that for sure. Yeah, yeah. So, man, that's cool. I really appreciate the effort into the all, into everything, but also like a consistent schedule of new content.
Speaker 2:So yeah, you have to. I mean, we live in a time where people's attention spans are the shortest that they've ever been. We can get into the whole social media is the downfall of society conversation. But yeah, that'd probably be a whole other three hour podcast in and of itself, but it social media is conditioning people to want more content, quicker, more entertaining, higher quality, faster, right, right. I mean you can sit there and zone out on your phone for 10 minutes and watch 60 videos. Pass you by.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Tick, tock, you just flip it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you get this right thumb exercise. This right thumb gets really swole, right, you get this. Yeah, get this workout on your right thumb. Just watching these cat videos and shit. For, like I said, even 10 minutes, you can go through dozens of videos.
Speaker 2:So one of the biggest things that you can do nowadays as a band to set yourself apart is to stay consistent with the work ethic. And look, yeah, it sounds cliche, it sounds like consistency at where I mean, but it's just like you know you work out. So it's like gym stuff, right, so I could go to the gym for a week and get a little stronger, build a little muscle, burn a little fat, but if you stop after that, you're just going to pretty much go back to where you were Now. Imagine if you went to the gym for a year straight. Right, how much different would you look on the on the other side of that?
Speaker 2:So one of the biggest things that bands can do nowadays is to stay consistent is to social media and release schedule. I mean the whole six to eight weeks thing sometimes four to eight weeks, whatever. That's not just so you can pitch sponks or pitch songs to a Spotify editorial playlist, right, I mean that's cool, but we've gotten on three editorial playlists and they're only 3% of our streams. So yeah, wow, we never got on them, it wouldn't have mattered. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it wouldn't have mattered. So playlist pitching is cool, but don't overthink that.
Speaker 2:Anyway. So it's not just releasing consistently like that so you can constantly have stuff to pitch to Spotify. It's you need to keep grabbing your fans attention, right. And if you're a band, your fans are your customers and your product is your music mainly. I mean, really your product as a band is entertainment, because there's multiple ways to entertain people as a band, not just through your music. Obviously, music is the main thing, but music still is number one. And focusing on doing that every six to eight weeks, I mean it's tough, because once you start doing that, you get the ball rolling. You kind of set that standard, right. If you don't release a song every six to eight weeks, people are going to come out hey man, what are you doing?
Speaker 2:We're getting really bored really quick compared to a band that might just release one full length every two years. Right, but that that's the best way to keep people's attention nowadays is is the consistent uploading of music and also social media and social social media is a whole other debate which we can definitely talk about, because we love the whole social media conversation and yeah, so that's that a rough.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask you who who mainly does the social media, because whoever does it is on top of it and doing really well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I appreciate that. That's me also.
Speaker 1:So that's me 100%.
Speaker 2:I do all of that always happen Okay man?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, y'all are, are you are very on top of that. There's so much video content. Oh, I mean, like like I was saying, just the pulling from different cartoons and different stuff like that, like that in itself, you know, creates the content. Because, like it's, it's really weird, like I've just from being a social media user and also, you know, trying to put out content and stuff like that, like I found like a lot of time. People just need something to because they're in that that mode of like you know, the fast watching and everything. It's almost like they just need, even if it's repetitive imagery, just something to kind of like occupy their eyes while they're listening. It's really weird, but yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're right, and that's what's great about bands getting consistent about posting to their social media, which which, yeah, there's the argument that that it's tough because you're a musician and you want to focus your time on writing music and stuff like that. But I mean, you're really only afforded that luxury if you're big enough to have someone else doing your social media for you. Yeah, I mean, if you want more people to come to your show, you want more people to subscribe to your YouTube channel, to go to your website and buy merch and you want more people to listen to you on Spotify, all that comes from your social media. First off, I mean you can build all of that with a zero dollar ad budget because social media is free. So again, kind of going back to what we're saying about the consistency, if a band can figure out how to post the social media once a day and upload a new song every six to eight weeks, you have gained a superpower as a band, because 95% of other bands aren't doing that.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, great, post the flyer when you announce a show. But just posting the same JPEG screenshot seven times isn't going to increase the amount of times that people come out of your show, right, right, or the amount of people that come out of your show. You need to provide value first, and if people know that they can expect a post from you especially if it's around the same time of day and they log in and they see it every day something new then those people are going to keep coming back. You're going to get even more bumps in the algorithm and that's how you start to reel people in. For sure is that consistently posting and posting every day is tough, for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a goal that we set. Actually, actually, the biggest turning point for us in a band was March 2022. Because I that's when we decided that we were going to start posting, uploading a new song every six to eight weeks, because by that time, the full length was pretty much done, yeah, and we were going to release the full length. But we weren't just going to do the typical band thing where you have 12, 13 songs or however many it is, and here it is and you just drop it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, no, you can still do a full length, but you can also release it, stagger it out and drag it out over a long period of time. Yeah, and then yeah, anyway. So that was when we decided to do that was around March 2022. And then we decided to make it a goal to post once a day on social media in March 2022. And that was the best thing this band's ever done. I mean, it's it's crazy the benefit that that had.
Speaker 2:And yeah, it took some work. And yeah, you're going to have to take away time from other things. You're going to have to move your schedule around and some people listening to this or watching this, kids and I got four jobs and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, well, did you have time to take a shit today? Yeah, you had time to post. Yeah, food at some point Upload while you're eating up. I mean, come on, so it's possible. It's just again. It's one of those things where maybe you say, hey, there's some bad habits. Maybe do less of those bad habits, right? No, hey, and look, nobody's telling you you can't spend less time on social media. Just, maybe not 30 minutes of cat memes.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe just bring that down to 10 minutes of cat memes. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Okay, you just freed up 20 minutes, right? Yeah, get a post up, upload it and then now, okay, now you can go back to looking at cat memes. So it is a daunting task and I think that's why some people are kind of intimidated by that. But I forgot what the original question was.
Speaker 1:I did too. It was about social media and who was in charge of it, and I was just saying that y'all are doing well on that, obviously, yeah, appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no problem, but I don't. I mean, that's pretty much most of my questions. Do you have any stories or anything you want to add?
Speaker 2:Not that I can think of really. I mean, let me see, what else were we looking at here? I can remember this tour, right Instrumentals. Yeah, I mean, now, that's really it, man. It's like we nailed most of the questions that we had. Yeah, oh, I do, okay.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned one of the upcoming songs that has like a clip from Fallout. Is there any other video games or movies, cartoons, whatever, that you'll be pulling out like that? You know for sure that you're pulling from in the future.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, For sure, and we also pull from video games, kind of in an indirect way. Right, we have a song right now that we're working on. It's unreleased. The title of that song is from okay, you've probably played Grand Theft Auto of St Andres right, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, you ever do the horse betting in that game. Yes, I did. Yeah, okay, smart people that played Grand Theft Auto of St Andres, you probably did this yourself. The first chance you get right, you beat up a drug dealer on the side of the street, steal his $2,000. You go to the horse betting and then just bet and bet, and bet and bet and you eventually just have all the money you'll ever need in the game without cheats, right? Exactly, yeah, anyway, you probably remember the horses in that game.
Speaker 2:The horse names in that game are just like the craziest shit, yeah, yeah. So I have a list on our oh, I actually have a really long list of potential song name titles it's probably 80 or 90 long that we can potentially use. And anyway, there's a song that's going to be one of the names of that horse, of one of the horses in the horse betting. Oh, it doesn't really have anything else to do with the rest of the track, it's just kind of that random shit. Yeah, so that's another influence, kind of in an indirect way, that that's pulling from a video game.
Speaker 2:But yeah, there's one song in particular that's pulling from, well, just kind of more in Mick Gordon influence, specifically the genre Argent Metal. Not sure if you've heard of that. Oh no, honestly, argent Metal, argnt Metal. Ok, that's a subgenre of metal that got created after the first Doom soundtrack dropped in 2016. And it's kind of it's an entire subgenre of metal. It's pretty much trying to recreate what Mick Gordon did on those soundtracks, but trying trying really just trying to create their own version of what they think a song on the Doom soundtrack would sound like.
Speaker 2:Right, so you have a lot of the same kind of sounding production and synth interweaved with the sound design, et cetera. There's a whole subgenre of that shit now. Yeah, so, which kind of goes to show the brilliance of Mick Gordon he single-handedly created an entire new genre of metal without even trying to do so. Yeah. But yeah, there's a song that's influenced around that. It's kind of our take of working on. If manhack were to write an Argent Metal song, maybe what it would sound like? Ok, so, because Argent Metal is based around Doom, obviously there's some influences in that. As of right this moment, though, it's really only two songs I can think of that have specific video game references. There's a couple of things that we're working on that I think people are going to like too. So one pretty fun one, but I'm not going to let that one drop.
Speaker 1:We're not going to. Yeah, I got you, I got you. I'm not trying to ruin, you know, spoil anything.
Speaker 2:Oh man.
Speaker 1:OK, dude. Well, once again, thank you so much for doing this. Yeah, thanks for having us. Oh, yeah, yeah, any time. And yeah, I guess good luck with I mean, y'all don't need it, but good luck with your future endeavors, we'll take it. Thank you so much. Yeah, no problem, man, all right, dude. Well, thank you, and man hack everybody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Thanks for having us man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no problem. Oh, real quick before I let you go. Is there any? Do you want to plug your social medias or anything like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, we're on everything. So, yeah, instagram at man hack. Official Facebook YouTube. Youtube is great, too, because all of our original content goes on our YouTube. We don't go through some other site. We all try to funnel as much as we can through our own YouTube channel that we upload to and we organize and we run. So definitely get subscribed to that. Follow us on Spotify so that way you can keep up with all the new songs that we're going to drop soon. And follow us on Instagram. You like it on Facebook. Facebook is kind of dead, but hey, that's your thing, cool, go for it. Yeah, but yeah, we're on Amazon, itunes, spotify, deezer, shazam, angami, pandora, bandcamp, soundcloud, whatever you, whatever you like Title, even hey, if you want to listen to it in Max Fidel, max Fidelity, yeah go for it as much as your your phone can handle, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's yet to be a streaming service that plays back the song with the quality that we upload the track at Right, because I upload, because it gets mixed down directly from the session, and then that gets uploaded straight to the distributor right here on the same computer. So it's, I mean they're get a huge wave file. Yeah, it's not 6400 kb per second.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, it's like not even yeah, because it's yeah small transition, it's not not losing quality, really.
Speaker 2:So yeah, if you it does, though obviously, when you you Spotify, she's like yeah one ninety two kb mp3 is fine Cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, they're like, let's just compress this real quick for our servers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which, in their defense, they kind of have to for volume optimizations, so that way tracks aren't super loud in between, and they're the biggest streaming platform, so they kind of have to do that. But right, if you want to hear it on the best quality, definitely title. But, yeah, any outlet of choice, any social media of choice, we're on there. So also our website, manhackorg, has our latest music videos merch, poor dates. You can contact us directly, ask us a question, whatever. So, yeah, that's the best way to get ahold of us Sweet.
Speaker 1:OK, well, thank you once again. So much, and yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no problem, I'm going to this will come out Not this Monday but next Monday, so that March 4th, ok, yeah, yeah, cool, but I'll. I'll message you on Instagram and stuff. We'll figure the rest out, but all right, yeah.
Speaker 2:Do you usually post clips of social media stuff, or I'll see? That's why I was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's why I was that kind of asking you about all that. So just recently I made a dedication to like get way more into the social media for the podcast and so the let's see. I have a new episode coming out this Monday and this you know I'm doing. I'm doing them every Monday and Wednesday. So the next episode, like in a few days. That all that's when I'm starting back strong with all of the social media and everything. So I'll be posting clips, Probably a thumbnail type of post as well. Yeah, so yeah, but I'll, I'll, I'll tag you on everything and share with you through Messenger.
Speaker 1:I mean through the DMs and stuff. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:Well, whenever you're ready to get that stuff uploaded. Let me know, we're going to cut some clips from this also and then just make our own videos and then tag you in them and stuff. Obviously, so OK, but once, once you, once you actually get this posted up, we'll, we'll post those then. Ok, if you're cool with that. Oh yeah, for sure, any yeah, any promo helps, so OK.
Speaker 1:That, and that'll be video and audio. So right.
Speaker 2:Is that cool? Yes, sir, Got you All right.
Speaker 1:Dude, Well I'm going to let you go, but thank you and I'll be talking to you later. Man, appreciate it. Thank you so much. Be safe, all right, you too. Bye.