EP70 - DEATH METAL PROMOTER AND SINGER - Jasper Harmer

NSFW episode with swearing. Jasper promotes heavy metal shows with Dead Species, and sings for the death metal band Beyond Extinction. Trying to lose your Essex accent, and going to posh school. Sangita is the Essex Queen of Podcasting, official. Jasper is fully Essex, born and raised. Jasper was on the In The Abyss podcast at Essex Podcast Festival and Nick was impressed with his eloquence. Skullets are mullets for bald people, the ultimate heavy metal haircut. Mono dressing and eliminating decisions from your day so you can spend more time being creative. School uniform chat, is it good? Promoting shows and selling tickets for gigs is very hard work. The economics of putting on shows is complex. How to balance being in a band with school work. Why do schools encourage violin and classical instruments and not thrash metal bands? Dealing with tragedy from the loss of a member of a young band. Big up Mr.Rochester from Forged in Black, and heavy metal club at school. Practicing at different studios in Essex helps for building relationships and experiencing the diversity of the scene. Learnings from promoting shows as a teenager. Making things happen from action and effort - build it and they will come. No one is doing music for the same reason. Gigonomics - different expectations for different people. Putting the distance that a band has travelled on the merch stand price list. Bands rely on merch sales to cover travel costs. The importance of promoters establishing good relationships with venues. Why isn’t Essex on the touring circuit? Planning long term for growing a scene and establishment of gigs. Organic growth in music makes it more financially secure. Don’t try to get big too fast. The changing face of ticket sales - 75% are now on the week of the show, compared to pre-COVID when gigs would sell out early. Big up Gareth Kelly from Music Venue Trust. The multiple factors affecting gig ticket sales, like reliable transport links. Creating safe night time economies. Finding your death metal voice! Learn by doing and be careful that you don’t damage your throat. Sangita learns death metal vocals from Jasper. Looking after your voice at gigs. The Essex Beyonce. Bay Days festival and how awesome it is for Essex to have our own metal festival.

Beyond Extinction

Dead Species Booking

Jasper on Instagram

Are You Creative? recorded by Adam at Lawker Media, Chelmsford, ESSEX
Edited by Nick Hearne
Artwork by Alpaca Antenna

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Transcript

Nick 0:01

Watch out. I like to fill my drink up to the meniscus.

SPEAKER_00 0:05

The meniscus. I've never heard someone refer to the total drink as a meniscus in my entire life. Haven't you? That is a good one. That's a good one, though. The meniscus is amazing. I feel like today's gonna be a lesson in lexiconography. Do you know about what I mean? Do you know what a meniscus is? I I I feel like it could mean something that I don't want to hear about.

Nick 0:22

No, it's the surface tension. You know when liquid can go high and it's like concave. And it will hold itself, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

That's sick.

Nick 0:29

Meniscus sounds like it's like a sex word or something, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 0:32

That's what I think.

Nick 0:32

It feels like per perineum, yeah. Yeah. Frenulum. All these there's all these special Adam, you know about the frenulum, don't you? Yeah, of course I do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

It's like the band, it's so close to the band pendulum that I feel like you could drop that into conversation and try and try and see if people can clock.

Nick 0:48

Oh, can I tell you my pendulum story while we're here?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Yeah, yeah.

Nick 0:51

Before we get started. I might leave this one in. I might have told this already on the podcast. Go on then fly. So my friend used to manage uh Congo Natties, like really original jungleist, right? Yeah. Used to be Rebel MC. Anyway, he did a lot of work with Tenorfly. Tenorflies on Tarantula, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Tarantula. Yes, mate. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

Nick 1:11

Anyway, I was at a barbecue around JC's house and um Tenorfly was there.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Yeah.

Nick 1:15

And I was doing the barbecue. And then he just came up by me and went, Give me one of them burgers.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

He talks in the bit. That's and I was and I was just like, mate, I can make a drum and bass track out of that. Give me one of them.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

There's people that live, they live the heart, bro. They live the heart for.

Nick 1:36

Imagine having a voice, you could just say anything.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

That's like, you know, you meet people and you're like, mate, you need to do voiceover work, whatever. Some people, it's like, I know, my brother, he's wham, he's like a bodybuilder. And it's like he he was just he's got naturally gifted ability, just put muscle mass on. He's just got his body's shaped that way. Lucky him, good guy.

Sangita 1:54

Doesn't fucking bother that for him. Some big ass voices are like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

Where it's like they're born, and at age eight, someone's like, Garage MC, and then it's just like forever. Do you know what I mean? Like, you just say it, you're done. Yeah. Bada dun, but you hate like, well, back to you forever. There you go. I love it.

Nick 2:10

You know, um, oh, we've told this story before on here, but there's a uh there's a voice over guy called Red Pepper. Right. And he was like a he was just a tube train driver.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Yeah, yeah.

Nick 2:18

And he made the announcement, and someone was just like, Who is that guy?

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Yeah, yeah. And they went and found him, and now we that's like natural, organic partnership. Yeah, that's right. Who would have thought? Put yourself in front of the masses, I suppose. That's probably that's probably more time efficient because you get paid to work the tube job than advertising for yourself at all.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

You would get paid more in one voiceover session than a year of being a tube driver. Yeah, it was a time of heroes.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Yeah, yeah. I spent my whole life trying to make my voice talk in like a more, I would say, uh, personable way. My dad's from Essex, and he's got a very Essex voice that he then kind of taught himself out of speaking in a very Essex way. Do you know what I mean? What? Yeah, so he was like, I don't know, it he was he's from that era where it was like you've got to talk fancy, you gotta like have a nice, I don't know, shoes gotta be nice. I want to speak the Queen's Essex in it. Exactly, yeah. But yeah, yeah, it's saying in it, it's not exactly the Queen's Essex. Because it's saying in it, but pronouncing the T. So that's it makes no sense because you're still speaking like someone from Essex.

Nick 3:14

I would like one of those bottles of water. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:17

Yeah, do you know what I mean? Like he he was he was playing two games at once, and it would also be like the classic thing of like a guy from Essex of like has two beers and then no matter what he does, he sounds like he's from fucking Essex. Like you can't change it. I'm a lemon squeezer. Exactly. It's like he went to school with everyone in Highlands. You know what I mean? Like, so you can't you can't escape. So like I I feel like forever I was always trying to talk in a nice way, and I went to I don't know, maybe this is podcast material, but I went to I went to a very fancy school. It wasn't like a uh paid school or anything, but it was like grammar school, so you had to like exam to get in. And they did the whole like gotta speak nicely, you know, like speech uh there was like debating and shit like that, which I really liked. It helped with confidence, but also makes you speak like a pillock. So you really gotta unlearn it. Do you know what I mean?

Nick 3:56

Which one? Kegs?

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Oh no, Westcliff. I was in South End. I tried for kegs, didn't get in, and the next year kegs really dropped in quality, and the school Westcliff that I went to jumped up. So I basically got worse grades and ended up in technically a better school, which is quite good.

Nick 4:09

I went to CRGS. Did you? It was the number one school in the country the year I went to. Really?

SPEAKER_00 4:15

That's even even with me there. Yeah, that's mad. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yanking the averages down.

Nick 4:24

Oh welcome! Welcome back to Are You Creative? It's the podcast about creativity in Essex. With me, Nick Hearn, Creative Genius. And self-pro self-professed creative genius. And my co-host, Angator.

SPEAKER_04 4:39

Hello.

Nick 4:40

Oh, that's lovely. Not creative genius, but uh doing tons of cool stuff. Like you've done your podcast now. You did two, you did more podcasts than anyone else at the Essex Podcast Festival. So you're like Yeah you did. You did um NGDA and you did RU Creative. You were the only person that didn't anyone else do more than that. No, you were the only person that did too. So like that makes you I'm a winner! Yeah, the Essex Queen of Podcasting, which is pretty sick.

SPEAKER_03 5:04

There you go.

Nick 5:04

We we're back here in Lorca Media Studios. Thank you very much, Adam. Beautiful. In terms of Essex. The greatest county in the world. And we got another guest here. What's your name? My name's Jasper.

SPEAKER_00 5:16

Jasper, what a wicked, what a voice. And you're from Essex, right? Nah, but born in Essex, live in Essex, die in Essex. Yeah, throw up your swords.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Born with a C-X in your hands. Three of them. It was a brutal delivery. It was really, really rough. Caxxed your way out.

Sangita 5:35

It's like a miracle cord straight off. Yeah. Yes.

Nick 5:42

I can't reveal what you do yet, but um, I love one of your t-shirts. Um let me so you we don't even need to check your passport. We can just tell. Like, you you l you're the most Essex person we've had because no one else has cut the umbilical cord with it.

SPEAKER_00 5:55

Man, I find it's hard to compete when you're doing it from literally like minute three of your life. Do you know what I'm saying? I've always I've always loved it, man. It's not I feel like you can't be proud of a county you're from from every county in the country. No, yeah. There's not many, like I know, it's there's a joke in uh that David Brent does when he gets like Burke tattooed on his arms and a bulky. And it's like there's some places you just can't really back it, but Essex, it's so easy to love it, mate.

Nick 6:17

Yeah, and then you find out that the nurse in the delivery suit's from Suffolk.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah, man, yeah. I've just come out of my first life sentence for that. I've only been a little few weeks, man. Straight out, straight in prison. It was swift, it was quick. Yeah.

Nick 6:32

Oh man, but as long as it was chemistry prison. Yeah, and um, just before we start with the episode, I have to say, are you creative? Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Yeah, you can say fuck yeah if you wanted. You know what? I feel like naturally I would do, and it's more creative of me to choose a different word to play like a fuck slash hell yeah.

Nick 6:50

He's so good with his words so good. I'm loving this. Now, listen, I saw you at the Essex Podcast Festival. Yes, and I was super impressed, right? Um so Jasper was on the In the Abyss podcast talking about what he does in life. Okay, and I thought, oh my look, there's I mean, first of all, I was like, I want to get you on our podcast and we'll do it better because I'm better looking and better looking and more funny than the other guys.

SPEAKER_00 7:15

I can't say better because there's it's just as long as there's good beards around, is what I'm going for. If you watch their podcast, it's good beards, it's strong beards to the other.

Nick 7:21

I was I was lining up with them, and I was it was like an evolution of bald guys with beards. Like, mine's the shortest, and then it went through Steve, and then but this is the thing is that I know I'm gonna enter that thing.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Like that, like I see them and I'm like, that's I wanna be the the fucking guy still metal in. Like they're like there's always jokes about like oh so-and-so's young or like so-and-so could be your dad, or whatever. It's like I'm that's what I'm aiming for, man. Like, I want to do a problem about metal, I don't really do fucking do that. That's sick, mate.

Nick 7:45

Anyway, Sanketa, we are heavy metal NPCs. You know what an NPC is? It's like a non-playable character in a computer game where it's just like you you set it up and it's like bald, grey beard, yeah, um, black t-shirt.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

My hairline's going, so I've got that. Give it like maybe like five years, that'll start growing more out as the hair goes. And it's it's archetypal. Because either it's either that or you get really long hair, that's the alternate version as well. It's got super, super long hair.

Nick 8:09

Do you know what? You do you know what a scullet is? A skulllet's like a mullet for bald people, so when it's bald on top and long at the back, and the skulllet is the ultimate heavy metal haircut, yeah. And and I started, I thought I'd really like one. I started growing my hair about one month in.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

I was just like, no, it's a brutal look, man. It's like it's one of those ones where I think there's certain things in life you have to commit to. Like going to the gym almost is sort of like it's so much pain for a bit and then eventually you get to the end. The hardest one is going through growing your hair out long because for so long you like someone that could be on Chris Hansen. You've been talking to a minor. It's like, no, I haven't. My haircut's just shit. I've just got a terrible trim. That's all it is, I promise.

Nick 8:47

It's the worst with a scallet because for a year, it it doesn't look like you're serious, it just looks like you're a guy with a came over or something.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Yeah, literally. That's what I'm saying.

Nick 8:55

And then the joke's brilliant after about a year.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

People have to respect it after a while, but it's can't do you have the resilience of whatever time it takes to make it look like a like serious haircut again. And my answer to that question is always no. Like, my my barber's my best mate, Ollie, and he he's been cutting my hair for ages. And I used to hate going to the hair hairdressers because it's a very intense experience. I find like it sounds weird because people get hair haircut all the time, but I think having your face touched by a stranger is really like not on a lot of situations. And I think going to a barber's people sit down there, it's like, right, what are we doing? You know, whoa, that's my cheeks. Do you know what I mean? Like, people won't pay for that.

Nick 9:27

You can put your face through a face glory hole and get it touched.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

That's what I mean. People love that a bit of like you can sort of like get something to moisturize you anonymously, that kind of vibe. But that's not my thing. Um, and he's been sorting my hair out for years, and it because he comes to my house, I go to his house or at his barber shop, it's chill, we chat about music and it's nice. Um, but I uh I see going to the barbers as sort of like going to the doctors for a terminal diagnosis. Like it's helping me out, but it's not saving me in the long run. Like he's doing every he's done a great job at everything he can.

Nick 9:55

Yeah, I mean you're gonna have to stop the intervention scene and just shave it off. Yeah, and you'll be so pleased when you do because uh I I've saved so much money being bold, yeah, yeah. And also I'm hydrodynamic like a dolphin.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Yeah, I'm excited to run at like two metres per second over a hundred metres faster. You know when Tom Cruise puts his hands flat to run faster, imagine if he's bald. Dynamics, yeah, there's there's physics to this. I like it. I love it. It's coming though. I have to, and this is the thing, an important part about it, and it's like you know, everyone talks about like men's mental health and stuff, and I think that really you have to be like self-aware enough to, I don't know, like not think you're invincible. I think a male ego goes through like an ego death at some point where you realise like you're not gonna be like the best looking, coolest bloke in the world. That's just unfortunately statistically. One guy is someone out there is yeah, got, I mean, we've got a good shower.

Nick 10:38

Every every day someone is the best looking person in the world and they don't know it.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Yeah, and every day someone's the worst looking person. And I uh what I like to think, maybe it could be the same person against that spot at one point in their life, there's some really bad hangover one day. They're like, fuck it, hell, mate, you were the big leagues that's dropped.

Nick 10:51

You've been shaded today, mate. You you're you're you're you've gone down about a million.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

The way I see it is like um, I don't know, if you can be aware of it and then accept that it's something that's not worth being pissed off about, then really you sort of you lose insecurities. Like I I went to school at an all-boys school. I think that sort of some of that environment definitely feeds off of like you have to be steadfast in who you are. Um because if you're insecure about who you are, people will just eat you alive. Yeah, um, so you know, I just had a massive fringe because I was like, I don't care about my forehead being like I know my hairline looks like my granddad's, but that's that's normal for a 16-year-old. I'll just have a fringe and not think about it. And then I got to university and it's like there's a lot of photos of me on nights out, and yeah, I'm not growing any more hair.

Nick 11:33

This is this is when you notice when on the CCTV cameras and like on the on the bus, you know, when you look at the screen on the bus, who's that bald camera?

SPEAKER_00 11:40

The camera is violating that camera. The bus cameras are the worst.

Nick 11:44

When you with suddenly when you realise, I mean I had you know I had to go through bald things, bald things, and it's like suddenly like Bruce Willis, the rock, yeah, Jason Stafham. There's all these amazing balds, like they're not shocked, they're not shampooing, they're using that.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

He gets he's like, I get up at 4am. One of the reasons it's not like 352, he's not got a shampoo or condition his hair without a driving car, like extra the the rock's not getting that routine with a full head of hair.

Nick 12:06

Mate, it's one less decision you gotta make, and you can use that bit of brain for being creative.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Yes, exactly, exactly.

Nick 12:17

That's what do you know about mono dressing?

SPEAKER_00 12:19

No, I don't, please tell me.

Nick 12:20

So, mono dressing is basically what Zuckerberg used to do, what um Steve Jobs did. Basically, you just wear the same clothes every day. Yeah, yeah. But it's not literally the same clothes, it's like the same variant of it. The same variant, so you eliminate a decision you have to make.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Yeah, yeah, that sounds good. I think it's good. I think there's uh like I'm quite a large proponent of school uniform, and I think when I was at school I hated and not for adults, because I feel like my everyone's goal was ACDC, yeah, exactly. Yeah, everyone's wearing like shorts in a fucking place, even when they're 80, some guy and cause solicitor, it's like untucked shirt and shorts with a fucking cap on, and it's just all um, yeah. No, I mean like I I thought it was great because it was like I remember the first uniform now I went to school. Used to pay a quid, go to charity, you get to wear whatever you want for a day. It was great. And I came in with a Minecraft ID, creative kid as well, man. I like building games awesome. And I was walking through the corridor and a year 11 or year 10 or something like that, a bigger kid than me grabs me and pulls me into this like quad outdoor bit. He goes, Right, mate, listen, it's a cool game, loads of people play it, but if you keep wearing that, someone's gonna beat you up. And they just shoved me back into this corridor. And I was like, oh man, and it really obviously it shot me down a bit retrospectively, so funny. And also, he could have just punched me or beat me up like every other year 11. So it's like it's you know, it's fair enough. Um, but the I think the benefit was always like you didn't have to make that decision. You didn't have that pot your day being like, oh, who am I gonna be? You went to a place and it was just a character that was you, and I I quite liked that. And also, I I did I hated how anal my school were about it. Like we had a thing called a conduct card, there's a little yellow slip in your top pocket. And that if you had like a shirt untucked or you wore your coat in the yeah, it was so weird. You had to carry it with you like in your pocket. Yeah, yeah, like an ID.

SPEAKER_04 13:55

It happens still.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Oh, we had things like we had so we had a conduct card, we had our hymn book, we had like a school like book of things, yeah, it was crazy. And if you didn't have them, what did you have anytime they'd sign it? And if you got to go.

Nick 14:04

When did you go to school? Hogwarts. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

It was like a fascist training camp.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

It was um hymn book.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

Well, yeah. It was it was uh, I don't know, it was definitely over the top with that sort of stuff. And I I mean I always did find like a I remember the first time I got in detention for when I got like a I forgot like a textbook and going home and I was like what 10 years old and being like absolutely distraught and being like, oh my god, my life is over. And then I remember like you can fast forward to like year 13 for my A levels me being like, mate, if I get to school for this exam, that's probably that's half a win. Do you know what I mean? Like the decline is like you just you can't teach a kid to to really give a toss about that stuff in I think like a way that isn't a little bit intrusive. But um yeah, I mean I uniform uniform I thought was good, and I think that it's probably something that's relatively good for kids, and the especially kids if you haven't got the money to buy stuff, yeah, yeah. Kids are fucking horrible, mate. Kids are really mean, kids are great, but they're not.

Nick 14:58

Mate, I bet at Kegs though, I bet Kegs is like, oh, where'd you get your screen uniform? Several road. This is what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 15:02

I remember on the way to I had a fucking bus well, the bus to school because West was down the road from South End. So we used to have South End kids on our bus as well. And um, there was a kid from South End school, and I remember one time he went on his phone and he googled the prices of everyone's football boots to see who had the most expensive ones. And he was like, Ah, you always only like 20 kids. I remember thinking, and I was like, Oh, I thought I had the sickest boots in the world. And he told me, and I was like, I still think they're good because I that doesn't change anything. And I was like, Oh, now in my head, I've am I winning because you have to spend more money to be happy, which is I think I didn't think about it in that way, but that was the kind of natural conclusion.

Nick 15:35

Why do you want to you want to Google how much messy his football boots were when he was growing up in the favetas?

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But also, it's it's like I'm I don't even play football half the time in those boots. I pay my school shoes because it's just lunchtime football. It's like how much do they're from Clark's mate? That's unbelievable. It's like, what's the I don't understand how this kid though?

Nick 15:51

Let's stop talking about school.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Yeah, exactly. All right, let's go back to the show. He needed to get that off his chest. Exactly. Unprocessed strawberry, yeah.

Nick 15:59

I just feel like we're gonna do like a 10-hour um 10-hour podcast here. We've we've got another guest coming in a bit, so we we we have to talk about creative stuff.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Yes, let's do it.

Nick 16:12

Jasper, tell Zange what you do.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

So um, since I was about 17, I've been running metal shows and doing heavy metal music stuff. And I mean the headbutt the microphone. The get ups a little bit of a giveaway. Um uh I guess kind of LinkedIn to what we're talking about, the whole uniform y thing. But um uh yeah, I run a uh kind of collective thing called Dead Species, and that runs heavy metal shows across the country, it books tours for bands. Um, but primarily it were all started and it's always had a focus in Essex and doing shows here. And I'm also in a death metal band, and that again does touring in loads of places, but we always play shows in Essex and we we have like a very good kind of link to the county. God, look, it's doing it all, it's it's just on the whole podcast in one minute.

Nick 16:52

It's just amazing. That's my let's Jasper and then Jasper. That's your that's your that's your first paragraph on Wikipedia. Exactly. No, let's go deeper, let's go to the the second paragraph. Yes, Dead Species, you say it was Dead Species. So that's like a booking and promotions thing. Yes, it is. So Sangeti, you put on um you put on uh choose your chill. Yes, like you're a promoter as well, yes. You got a lot, you guys got a lot in common, you're gonna be aware of how difficult it is to put a show on. And yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, 100%. So, what's it like when you when you started out in Essex? Like, how did you build this scene now? You know, how do you start getting people to shows?

SPEAKER_00 17:26

I feel like it's uh we were really lucky to be taken in by bands where we're from. So I went to as I say, I went to school in Westcliff um and we started going to gigs at Chinneries and South End on the CD. Yeah, legendary, amazing place, right? Um, and I'd go to shows there, hang out with my mates there, and you'd see shows there, and then eventually we ended up getting booked. Uh, we played our show shows at places like the Edge in Basildon, uh, place that was called the Sound House in Colchester. I don't even know if they do shows here, it was in a pub called The Bull, yeah, but all we sort of placed around. And really, people just had us out the goodness of like putting a young band on, and they liked that a young band was getting into stuff.

Nick 17:56

And like without Were you younger than 18?

SPEAKER_00 17:59

Yeah, man. I mean, we were doing a lot of shows. I mean a good example is we went to see, I remember going out with our drummer Niall to play, I think either we played a chair Chessmaster. Yeah, Chess Master Nile, um, with Cancer Bats at the actioneries in South End. And it was, I think, the night before his chemistry GTC, which he then failed because there was like no revision to it. It was I mean, we we did Bloodstock Festival and we came off stage. Our guitarist at the time, Zach, he got his A-level results while we were on stage. So we came off and he got his email for his. It was like, so we were doing this stuff at a really formative time, and I think that we were really taken in by people around us that were they were stoked to see a young band. So I've always tried to replicate that as much as I'm not that old anyway. I like to try and when you see people that are young and getting into it, like be honest with them and and and nurture it.

Nick 18:41

Is it hard for you know for venues? If you're booking a band that the fans are gonna be too young to drink, right? You know, because venues look at financial so much, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you're putting on 16-year-olds or something like that and you think, oh, are they gonna bring if they bring in 50 people, well, none of the people are gonna be drinking?

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Yeah, there's there's like so many the layers of the economics to putting shows on, this is what's strangling like live music, I think, a lot of it. And like again, with your own experience, so I think you'd be able to beat this, but different crowds now don't behave how they used to, and the model that live entertainment is based on is formulated on a people go out, they spend loads of money in one place on a night out regularly, going to the same places and it's like a routine, and that's how they socialise, and that is just not how it used to be, like objectively, in kind of any format, right? And I think that it means that I don't know, live and local nights, getting young bands in the appeal of that it was already minimal, and most venues were doing it because it was important for the local scene, and you've got to nurture that, and that's that's important too. But ultimately, if the fiscals don't support it, you can't do it forever. And when the margins are great, you can go, oh, we'll lose a show, you know, lose money on a show a few times a month because it gets kids in, and maybe they don't drink and the bar takes bad. But one of these bands will come back and play in five years' time, we'll make two grand, three grand that night, and it'll be amazing. Yeah, um, but if you're not making loads of money all the time, someone says, Would you put a show on when you're not gonna make any money? And you go, No, because then I can't pay staff, can't do this, that, and the other. So it's it's hard, isn't it?

Nick 20:00

You gotta I guess you've got to look after your pipeline a bit. I mean, it's it's funny because I remember doing a show at Cultural Arts Centre when I was about 15.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Yeah.

Nick 20:08

I can't believe Anthony Roberts put us on. Yeah, I mean our band was rubbish as well, but like it was like, you know, but he put us on and and it's brilliant. Like he's he's like, okay, well, I've got a national band that's coming, then we've got a local support, and then we're gonna put a young support on. But that's the three different groups of people.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

And I think that the the one of the issues too is that like red tape around business, like licensing fees and all these sort of things, and like checkups from people that people can't risk anymore. Like, I know even when we started doing shows, there used to be the whole kind of vibe of like jump in through the back, come in with your dad for 20 minutes so you can watch, and like that's great, and it's that that's what you want. You want that kind of leeway, but you also can't risk it with people. We had a headline show the other week in London, and my cousin came, he's 18, his mate was 18, but his mate's brother came and no, he was coming, he was 17, and they couldn't get in. And I suppose from Roton, I was like, just as a heads up, like I want to ask you rather than trying to sneak him in, is there anyway? And he was like, mate, he was like, Lit you used to be a yes if it was a different circumstance, yes, but he said, like, you just can't anymore. You knocked him, yeah. I had to knock him. But what I would say, I knocked my cousin's mate's brother, and if I'm being honest, don't massively give a toss. My cousin got in and he saw the show.

Nick 21:13

We did we did that when we were teenagers. I came up to London, we went to the underworld, and um my brother was with us, and he couldn't get in because he wasn't 18. And he was just like, Oh guys, just go to just do it.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

You just mate, you can't drag the like some sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Sometimes everyone gets in, sometimes stragglers are lost in the way. Uh at uni, you'd go on nights out, and fully grown adults that were definitely old enough to get in a club would get so drunk they weren't allowed in. Amazing, and they're walking home. Do you know what I mean? And that's just the way it was. That's the way you're alive. Yeah, exactly.

Nick 21:40

So Sangitia does a lot of stuff with young people.

SPEAKER_04 21:43

I do. So I want to go back to where I'm interested, I want to go back to 17. You're into this type of music. Yeah. So you've already got a band at this point?

SPEAKER_00 21:51

Yeah, yeah. I mean, in a sort of format like uh our drummer Niall, his older brother Adam, was in my school year. So we were sort of we were into the same. Music, so we started jamming. We created a band that was basically just us hanging out. Do you know what I mean? What was it called? We started, we were called Force of Retribution.

SPEAKER_04 22:08

Love that.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

Yeah, that is literally. I was walking around just doing that. That was what it was at the time. I feel like I was just writing it in heavy metal fonts on my phone, being like, yes. And um, it's there's a Parkway Drive song called Leviathan I, and uh, there's a core uh line on the hook or one of the choruses that says show me the blood red hands of retribution, and I'd only ever heard that word in like Bible stuff before, and I was like, that's sick. So I put it in there, and then we ended up releasing an EP and called it that. But that was around I would say all of that begun mentally in our heads at 15, me and Adam. And I'd say we started playing shows. I think I was I was 17, I think, in our first gig, and most of the rest of the band were younger than me. Okay, so I think our youngest one was probably about 15 when we were playing.

SPEAKER_04 22:46

So, how did that go with like you said, with your exams and parents, and did you have to be were you rebellious?

SPEAKER_00 22:53

I think you kind of have to be a little bit like we were lucky in that the school we went to was a bit kind of pushy anyway. So if you weren't fulfilling the pushiness, but you were still doing okay. Yeah, it was like we were it was a very high-performing school, and the expectation was like the best. So if you weren't you could be under expectation that you were still doing alright, under expectation may be a good name for bands. It would, yeah, yeah, you got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. But there's there's I think a little bit, I I think that I was definitely down the straight and narrow like most of my childhood life, but I think that the the straight and again, like the the bar was high, so every time I did something naughty, it wasn't really that bad. Like we a good example is when we used to practice at school, they had music rehearsal rooms. And if you did the clarinet, you were allowed to rehearse whenever you wanted. And if you played the violin or the piano or acoustic guitar or choir singing, whenever you wanted, there'd be space for you. If you play in a thrash metal band, they don't want to fucking hear shit. They don't want to.

SPEAKER_04 23:45

What do you think that is then? Do you think that's noisy? So that's what it is. It's a noisy.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

It's slightly, it's gotta be because it's abrasive. I think what I would say too is that the school's our ultimate job is to give you skills that are gonna put you on in life. And I think it's fair enough for a school to say maybe that's not the best way to spend all your time. But my retort to that would be we weren't spending all our time doing it every now and again for a lunchtime or after school, we wanted to go and use it with space to rehearse. And what would happen is they'd say yes, they'd say, Yes, you can do it, but you can't do it lunchtime because there's stuff going on in the school, so we have to wait until after school, and we'd do it after school, but all the teachers be sat marking after school, and we'd be in this fucking rehearsal room and we'd get two minutes into a song and come around and go, You've turned it up again, turn it down, we've turned it down, and we did that. And I I think respect to the teachers, in all fairness, because in like as much as I'm gonna slate it, um, they could have just said no, and there were teachers there that were like this is really annoying, but we're gonna let you do it. And if they hadn't done that's amazing, yeah, and I think that the prevailing thing is always speak about the positives rather than negatives, and as much as there were loads of times when they go, That's really annoying, that's because it was fucking annoying, yeah.

Nick 24:42

Because people are playing fresh that can't play fresh well, which was used.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

Sounds awful, yeah. Yeah, we were not, and this is it's hard.

Nick 24:49

You don't sank it, you didn't realise heavy metal is so hard that's a lot. There's a lot going on.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

There's a lot going on.

Nick 24:55

It's you've got to be you gotta be really musically talented.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

If one person's off, and that was a big part of it too, is like you've you you've got to build a good relationship with the people you're playing with, and that was why the school bit was important, is that we were all friends, and because we had that, we played regularly and we did stuff regularly and we like the same music, so that instrumental bit and the playing together. Like Niall was a good drummer before we played any music together, and and of course he was, he's like 14 moves ahead of it with his chess playing, he's playing chess with one hand on it a fucking high hat with the other hand.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

He's already done the feeling in his head, didn't he?

SPEAKER_00 25:23

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, we benefited by that. But the it was a I definitely school environment. So Niel, he and his brother Adam and I sort of started about, and we had people coming and out. We had another player, well, another bassist called Niall as well. He's in it for a while, and then Zach, uh the drummer Nial brought him into a rehearsal. Um, so Zach passed away three years ago. Um yeah, we were super young, it was very brutal, and it's you know, it's very hard when you lose someone of that sort of age.

Nick 25:49

That's what I said, especially when it's like a core member of the band that you've all grown up together.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Right, we were we were friends throughout all of it, and it was like you know, you you lose something that's still part of your life a lot, so there's a lot of reminders of it.

Nick 26:00

Um but he he was because I read he was like one of the main songwriters and OG member and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

Yeah, the whole lot. Like we were, you know, again, before it was really a band, it was just a way to hang out and put a metal label on it. Yeah so it's like really you just make I mean we had a we had a heavy metal club at school, and uh there was a teacher called Mr. Rochester, and he used to do heavy metal club, and that was just because he played in a heavy metal band called Fortune Black, and they're still going about and they're fucking sick. And um, he would basically just let us sit in a classroom and watch slayer videos and like metallic videos at lunchtime, but eat our lunch. So good.

Nick 26:32

My my kid's uh at school near here, yeah. And one of his teachers, um, he he was playing guitar and his teacher came in and got the guitar and just like playing Master of Puppets. Yeah, man. Turns out that teacher is also a wrestler who we've seen wrestle, and I'm just like, do you go to the coolest school ever? You've got a wrestler that played Master of Puppet.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

But good teaching and like that influence is really important. And having like, I don't know, I feel like when you're a kid and you find out that like the person you interact with in that teacher school educational role is a human being with other parts of their life, yeah, it's fucking crazy because you're like, I could actually in a different world be your mate, and then you can do that whole kind of thing where you're like, yeah, I'll teach you to be the sort of person that I'd be friends with, and that's a good person, and I'll teach you positive ways of engaging with other people. And it's like that's the element, it's like you know, English is great, really interesting, but heavy metal club is why Mr. Rochester made a difference for us.

Nick 27:20

Yeah, and you can't be great on it. Sir, would would one have any guest lists on a fortune back show?

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Literally, that is literally conversations with me. Like Hippie, they're getting his lunch, and I'll be like, Oh, sir, you're gonna go to this gig at the venue, hippie like around with the other teachers and being like, they'd be like, What the fuck is this 14-year-old talking for? But you know, that sort of stuff. Fuck yeah. But like that's great, it's like people that uh I don't know, it's it's creativity that you can pull from a key period and go back to I guess what you asked. That's the the thing that it's mainly about is that that youth period of our life. There were outlets for our creativity that there weren't really there were some barriers put in the way, but it weren't really excessive barriers, and there was a lot of help from family and friends and everyone.

SPEAKER_04 27:59

So you finish, so let's just say now you've done this, you're still in the band, you leave school. Where do you practice in Essex then? From there.

SPEAKER_00 28:07

We've been going to the control rooms in Shenfield for ages. Oh wow. And yeah, it's been like it kind of cool that we've always had a base there. That the you know, as a band, we've moved around loads. I went to uni in Southampton, um, Niall lives out in Oxford, Jude Mue to London, so everyone's moved around a lot. Um, but we've always had the control rooms in Shenfield, it's always where we come together and rehearse, store our equipment there, all that sort of stuff. So um there's always been a link there. Um, but we've practiced all over Essex. There's loads of amazing places for, and I think this is a big thing too. It's nice to build relationships, but also like you don't really get the depth of how much culture there is if you just stick to one thing the whole time. Mate, it's mad.

Nick 28:41

Like if you go in unit nine or um card trick, right? Yeah, and you see the names of the bands that are gonna be practicing there, and you're just like, oh my god, I can't believe all these bands are coming in through this week. I mean, even in Colchester, we're practicing somewhere in Craig La Field for you know practicing and stuff like that. What?

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Yeah, the the the I don't know, you always you know they say in London, like you're never more than like six foot from a rat, you're never more than six foot from a death metal musician if you just go into enough rehearsal rooms in Essex, basically. And that's I I quite like that. So we've always been based around there, and then uh it kind of links nicely into doing the dead species stuff is that you meet loads of bands who are doing that, and our band and getting shows was basically uh um given to us by the bands in the area, and then um I wanted to put on a show like a charity gig when I was probably about 17 at Chinneries, and we did that, and we put local bands at our mates, um, and all the bands played for free, and it was and that was your first promotion? That yeah, it was and it wasn't called. What did you learn?

Nick 29:34

What did you learn from doing that?

SPEAKER_00 29:35

Uh you know what? I'm gonna go go like curveball attitude here and say it really, really rose-tinted glasses to me for what shows like because every band it was a charity show, so every band played for free, every band was mates, it was very local band based, um, and it was pre-COVID. So turnouts were still sick, and you could really kind of like people were buying far in advance and all these things. So, like, I basically booked a load of mates, got helped by a load of mates, loads of people, um, like Mark Elliott and Katie Richardson and you know Benett Chinneries, those people they just sort of made it very easy to do the show. Yeah, so he made like whatever a grand or tow charity. Like it was and as a 17-year-old, I'd never seen four figures of money in my account before I came in and donated, and I was like, look at I kept looking at the thing that said like plus what 1000, whatever, minus 1,000. Like, I had that much, I did that, that was a thing. And it was like, I know, it was just like so easy, and also because I our band wasn't getting paid for stuff, I wasn't making money, so I didn't give a shit about making money. It was just like you could I had this realization that you can generate stuff out of just that the action and the effort. And uh, you know, my my parents always taught me good work ethic. I think they're always quite on it with like um you know, you only get things by doing it, it's nothing gonna just walk up to you. So I I got a lot of help with that, and I think that it meant that once I started doing these things, I was like, man, it's like if you just put the effort in it, it happens. Like build it and they will come, sort of thing.

Nick 30:56

Do you do you think I mean I feel like everyone anyone that's gonna join the band should be forced to put on one gig. Yeah, man, and and and because you do see a lot of people like are quite rude to promoters or like we'll be super entitled and wait and we'll just think it's just some annoying person that's getting in the way of the show.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Yeah, you don't understand the the layer. I think this is a big part too of like, I don't know, no one in music. I always say this to everyone, I talked about it, but um, it's it's such a unique world because no one's doing it for the same reason. Some people do it because they're making millions of pounds, some people and that's a very few small money. Oh, yeah, so yeah, yeah, yeah. All of us here are doing it, obviously in that group. Um, and uh some people are doing it because they're making no money, but they just love it, and it's and that causes a lot of um collision because sometimes you have people that have really wound up tight about things and they're doing stuff for people that are purely operating off the goodness of their own heart, and yeah, and that made that makes clashes happen for loads of reasons.

Nick 31:47

Mate, we even have like in our band, it's like you know, like like like like a couple of people are financially motivated, and the rest of us just like let's make memories and have fun, yeah, man. You know, because you can't put price on the fun.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

You need to know, like you say, yeah, what the there's fiscal value, but then you you have to work out a way of comparing that with value in other metaphysical things. That's it.

Nick 32:06

We always we're always just like, look, we would make so much more money if we all just went to work today. Yeah, exactly. So so let's not even argue about whether it's 100 quid or 200 quid, because actually we could be only one and a half thousand pounds between us all.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Exactly. You need to have like uh yeah, the the context for it, like you know, put putting on shows, playing death. We did a sold-out headliner recently, and it was like playing that show, sold-out thing. We had a meet and greet, people came from all these other countries, and we got parking fines because we'd parked in front of the venue and not pay for tickets. We mean that's can that's candy. Yeah, I always do it because I'm just like I'm gonna fucking paying for a ticket. It's a nine a pen more for it.

Nick 32:37

But um, just parking in a spring pool.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it was straight through the front of the venue. And um, and we were like, oh, you know, we've got these fucking parking fines. I was thinking, I was like, someone paid for a plane ticket from Canada to come to Alvin. And I was like, I was like, I was like, unless this is the world's most expensive parking ticket, count your blessings. It's like, you know, if you if you're in stuff for money things, like think about where else the value is because like you know, how much would you have to pay to bring someone internationally to do basically anything? Someone's willing to do that off their own volition, like you've got to understand, you know, what everyone's giving and what you've got to give, right?

Nick 33:10

What I loved when you were talking about Within the Abyss was on your merch stand with for your promotions, you'll put how far bands have travelled. Yes, yeah, which I've never heard of before, which I think is amazing when you when you've got to be like, look, these people have been have actually driven 350 miles by a t-shirt.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, like, it was a really spur moment thing the first time I did it because I was just sort of like printing off the things put on the walls. And I always do this where I print out everything I need to put up, and I think I'm definitely missing something. This will be something, and I'm sat there on this word document, like, I've got a fucking, there's gotta be another PDF I can put out of this somehow. And one time I was just like, right, I'm just gonna write this on it. I'm gonna put in this uh thing, and it was the first time I did it was with I can't remember what it would have been to be honest with you, but the oh no, it was with uh my band did a show and we had these bands called uh one band called K9 and a band called Gut Rectomy, and gut rectumy comes from yeah, we don't do ourselves many favours with the stereotypes.

Sangita 34:01

Oh I love it!

SPEAKER_00 34:02

But these guys, man, I felt I've never felt so bad. So they went on this UK tour and it was fraught with like logistical problems. And then gut rectomy, the day before the show with me, they they were down one member anyway, and they had a fill-in member, so they're only half the band as it is. And then the show before, they uh they had a viral infection in the band, basically, or whether I think the drummer got a viral infection, and he ends up hospitalized and can't play the show.

Nick 34:25

So he had to have a gut rectomy.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

He had to have a gut rectum. Oh, a rectum gut to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The rectum got gutted basically. So um uh and they get to the show, there's like tech problems, they're like super unwell. Um oh man, it was it's just like completely brutal. Um, and I heard about this on the way, they're messaging me, they're like, Okay, we're gonna get there at 5 pm and they're meant to get there at 2, and then it's gonna be at 6 pm, and then it's like we're gonna get there 40 minutes before you play, and then it's literally like loading them from the bottom floor straight onto the state. It was chaos. And at that show, I think it was the first time I've written down while I was waiting for the bands to get there how far they're traveling. So I was like, These guys need people to buy some t-shirts, like 100%. And um, I don't know. I think if if nothing, it's a conversation starter, it's like another reason to do it, and it's important to do that. And you had a few bands, and then uh one band uh uh put it on Facebook and then it went all over Facebook, which is again was it's really cool. People see it. There was a lot of people in the comments that were like, Oh, stop begging me to buy a t-shirt, and it's like no. As they do, miserable.

Nick 35:21

Yeah, just man, what you don't realise like you know, like a lot of bands, you know, you will get your fee, you know. Say, like you're getting 200 pounds for for a gig. Yeah, you know, you've got to pay often for petrol, you've got to pay for a hotel if it's far away, you've got to pay for your dregs as well. And and and that's even before all your time. You've got your rehearsal studios that you've got to pay for, you've got equipment, you might have had to buy new strings for a guitar or even a guitar or a new cable. Yeah, you might have left your guitar effect pedal at the last menu, going for the all all these things, and actually buying t-shirts or buying merch really, really helps like every band.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

There's there's the the cost to offset are numerous, as you'll know, they're numerous, and um, I think that's why I have a I try and have a good approach with how I treat bands that I put shows on with and book tours for and stuff like that, because I know the band's point of view, and that benefits me in two ways. I think first of all, it means I can be quite upfront with bands about the reality of situations. So if I'm putting shows on, whether it be in Essex or elsewhere, um I'm kind of aware of the I guess contextual reality of what money's being spent here, um, what effort's gonna go in, where responsibilities lie, and trying to be fair about that and be reasonable about that because I think also like it's not necessarily about getting the best outcome that you could ever get, because you're never gonna get that with everything in life. It's about getting the best outcome with what you can get and and work with what you actually have at hand rather than kind of I don't know if that's exactly the thing that I just said before, but it's um it's I think about getting an outcome that's possible and the best, not just the best outcome you can think of. Yeah, and um and having that mindset means that I can go look from a band person's point of view, from an XYZ point of view, um, I know what I can kind of make informed judgments on how I treat the bands that I do through dead species stuff.

Nick 36:53

Yeah, um, whether you treat them well or not.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we decide like uh actually I didn't my band wouldn't do that, so you're not getting any money today. Yeah, that sort of thing.

Nick 37:03

What I think is amazing though, this is why I really wanted Jasper to come on here as well. I just like I don't know, you're 24.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Yeah, 24, yeah.

Nick 37:10

Yeah, you talk with so much sense and so in such an erudite way about like the financials and but a psychology of doing a gig as well. Yeah, and I think it's really important. I think I feel like you should be running like live music for the whole country or the world.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

I I would love to work in some sort of way where there's like you could just sort of do control over the way the music industry works. But I think one of the issues of it is such like a fluid, like organic thing. That's one of the problems is that if it was like a supreme commander of music in the UK world, that'd be a great job to have because you could just be like, right, money to there, shut that venue because the rider's shit. Open one here because I need it.

SPEAKER_04 37:43

But that's a very valid point.

Nick 37:46

We we played at one venue, right? The boiler room in Guildford, I don't mind calling them out, right? Yeah, and they had the worst fake Coca-Cola ever on the bar. It tasted like um, you know, when you were around someone's house when you were a kid and you get like a thing and you're like that's not coke.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

Called like Pang Coke. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick 38:03

But anyway, anyway, we we're they want they wanted to rebook us and we're so no, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Mainly mainly I will not drink home brand coke.

Nick 38:12

That was that was just the one, you know, like we had a great show and stuff, but that was the one thing that just tipped us over the line of not playing there again. Which is like, mate, if you're not looking after your punters, you're not serving them real coke.

SPEAKER_00 38:22

Well, this is the thing, there's like uh there's there's I don't know, that's where the fair treatment thing comes in. So it's like from my side, like I don't know, uh there's a venue I work with in Colchester called Three Wise Monkey. Yeah, I've got a really good relationship with them, man. They've always helped me out. Like the first show I put on there, they didn't really charge me any money to put it on. It went really well. And I think the analogy they've had is like, well, if you keep doing shows that bring the money in there, we'll just keep that arrangement. So I've had like such freedom of like if there's a day free, they'll let me do what I want with it, and I don't have to worry about booking a venue out and paying and getting hours in there that they give me sort of like a really good blank slate to work with. So they give me loads of clay to mould. So I want to do it and I want to put that effort in. Um, and you know, you have to be realistic with what you're working with. When I can work with something like that, it means I can say to bands like, Look, I get cut a good deal here, let me see what can work for you. And I can say yes to bands that you know, Colchester, a lot of places in Essex and not on the normal tourum route and tourum market, like you have to do things differently to get crowds here. Like in spaces where two million people live in a condensed area, it's not hard to find audience things because we have tools now like meta advertising that which as much as a shit companies that sort of just rinse people, they work like you do enough of it and it works, and um, you know, you can but you can't do that in like you know Whittam. You can't go like all who are all the extremely niche death mouth fans. So you you have to build builds that work and you have to appeal in a certain way. And the way I try and appeal is being like you regularly get music, you get upfront music with how it's rotten. I'm not trying to book out the biggest, best, sickest venue in the world because to be honest with you, you like if I knew I was gonna sell a thousand tickets, then I would do, but I don't, and that's about being realistic with it. And um, you know, I've got events, I've got an event coming up that it's not announced yet later this year in uh uh Colchester, um, and it'll be like a big sort of crossover death metal and hardcore event. Nice. And um, you know, the idea with that is to do like kind of which is a great t-shirt to wear to be talking about this as well.

Nick 40:07

A power trip, by the way. R I R I P, like honestly, like one of the greatest voices, Scott. Anyway, swinging the axe. Come on, let's go.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

Yeah, mate. Yeah, and um the uh the six out of that is that I've got like the this year to work with, and I'll do the numbers on this year, and then because I kind of know about projections and I have um enough sense of like what bands will say yes to what shows about being in a band, you kind of get that idea, then I can project project for next year and go, right, we'll scale it up next year and scan and give myself a kind of long-term plan. And when you have that long-term security, then thinking, man, this is something that could go on for X amount of time, you put you invest more, you put more into it, and it's like having that security of you know, this venue's gonna be there for me, this venue's gonna give me good deals, um, the bands are gonna trust me, the the people that are around the scene are gonna support it. That that continuity is what creates that reliability, and that reliability is then what creates kind of long-term establishment of good things, basically. And I think that you've got a you've got a you know, everyone plays a role in that cyclical system of you put the effort in, the effort comes straight back round. Um, there's a long-term security thing with it.

Nick 41:13

Organic growth is so good, though. Music, like I think a lot of people instantly want to be like, ah, hello Wembley, but you know, like if you look at festivals like um Bloodstock, yes, started off really little and it's got bigger and bigger, and now Bearded Fury, which is at Catong Park as well, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, that started in someone's back garden, yeah, and you know, and and and and you know it's it's got bigger and bigger, and there's something there's all these little things that are starting, and and you've got uh you know, Live Nations is kind of like a necessary evil sometimes and Killyman gyro and all that stuff, but you know, organic stuff can still start and get bigger and bigger, and I love that. And when you're built on a scene and you built on love and mutual respect and stuff, that's where the best out comes from it, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 41:53

I think, and that's again like you know, starting doing shows because it was my mates' bands and bands that put us on lineups, and it was like, you know, I remember really vividly we did a show at there's a place called The Edge in Basildon. I've done it, yeah, yeah. So um a guy called Hippie Joe used to do shows there at the edge. Legend, mate.

Nick 42:09

Well, and you got Mick the Hippie at the Art Culture to Art Centre as well. There's hippies everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

There's hippies all over Gaff, mate. And um uh hippie Joe, like I don't think he's still doing shows there now. I think that it's I I I do remember seeing something about it not happen anymore, um, which is a real shame because he did every single Thursday there was live music at the Edge, and the Edge was on top of a car park in Basilden. Yeah, like people say about shows now being like, oh, that one's not in Camden, so I don't think we can pick it there. This was in a car park in Basildon, right?

Nick 42:35

Do you know what do you know? Sorry, just aside, well, when we were interviewing Steve Lamac the other day, he said that gigs only used to be on the northern line.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nick 42:42

And he said as soon as East London started happening, it ruined everything for him. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

Yeah, there's like a complete, like uh, I don't know, some people have just got like a complete hard line of no, you can't do this, can't do that. There's like so many kind of rules with it. And um, you you can't work with that in grassroots music, man. It's not the way that life goes, so yeah, it I don't know.

Nick 42:59

Yeah, I'm like some of my best gigs ever have been at dive bars, right?

SPEAKER_00 43:03

Yeah, yeah.

Nick 43:03

And I remember we played in the the Adelphian Hole once. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And backstage, right? I always say that you know, you've got to have one of three things generally to be able to go for a poo in a toilet.

SPEAKER_00 43:13

You know, like what a great start to a tension that has.

Nick 43:15

You know, you you've got to have like a seat, toilet roll, or a door. You know, I think you can kind of just you can just about do it with one of those right, and there was just nothing. It was literally like the most horrible thing with with a toilet in the it's got nothing around it. It was like train spotting, and on the wall someone had written in I don't know what substance it was, but it said bum me or I'll slash your face.

SPEAKER_00 43:39

Oh my god. I don't know what substance really like took the crowd of that sentence for me as well.

Nick 43:46

I don't know what it was in, but it's but but but that's toil life, but also oh my god, that's one of the best gigs I've ever played in that venue.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

Yeah, yeah, there's that you can't correlate. Um I I mean, lucky for whoever's a musician big enough to just be able to pick and choose what venues they're doing at a whim. Um and that I mean there's variants to it. Like there's some venues I'll say no to because you have bad experiences there, some venues say no to because they're too big. That happens more often than the other way around. Like it's more common than that we'll be like, can't go there because we're not gonna sell enough tickets, or you can't rely on the fact that you'll definitely sell enough tickets.

Nick 44:15

Um when they start sending you spreadsheets and it's got like weird like little costs on it, and you start working out the ticket feed, you're like, hang on. Yeah, we gotta sell 250 tickets before we can even make money.

SPEAKER_00 44:27

Yeah, the that's that stuff is where the the I think the put-off mainly is for this. I think swinging it back to the whole live music conversation, one of the the it's the reliability that's the thing that makes everything happen. Is if you know that you you don't have to stress about putting shows on and you go like, well, I know if this show and there's gonna be kind of a reliable way of it working, and and the way ticket sales work now is just insane. Like we're you're doing like 75 to 80 percent of your sales maybe in a week of the show. So if you so everyone's everyone's holding back from going out because they still got that COVID thing where things might be cancelled, exactly, and also people like people don't have loads of money to spend on these expensive. I think uh you know, um I was on uh that podcast I did with the and the whisk guys, Gareth Kelly, who was on that, who's a part of the music venue trust, he speaks really heavily from when I spoke to him about the infrastructure around live music, right? And this is something to absolutely nail home, is that you can have amazing venues paying bands loads of money and the shows are brilliant, but if trains stop at nine, no one's going. Yeah, right. You have to it's so many bits to it, right? It's like you have to have so it's it's not just the responsibility of councils or or like you know institutions to be like, I need you to give X money to a venue and keep that open, but it's also like how are you encouraging people to spend money on the you know, the death of the high street is people I think for a while people that went on about the death of the high street were a bit annoying, and then everyone went, Oh, the death of the high street people were spot on because the death of the high street is the same as the death of the venues and the pubs and everything. Because like, what are you doing to get people in? I used to love getting a bus from Gallywood into town to go watch football. I've had a season ticket at Chelsea City since I was a kid, and I used to love the bus route of 42 from Gallywood to the city centre, changed the city centre, and uh then it was like the maybe like the 48 or something like that, or was there something B or whatever went to North Melbourne, go to the game, and it was like I could reliably plan it, yeah, dead on every time, and it was accurate, and that's not how it is now. And I hate I hate to be like uh things I know I used to be as a 23-year-old, but Jesus Christ.

Nick 46:19

No, no, no, no, no, but you're just saying, right. I stopped going to gigs on in London on Sundays because of rail replacement, yeah, and it was so fucking coach for three hours, and and every time it was like, Oh, cancer bats coming to London, oh it's a Sunday. Sun says coming to London, oh it's a Sunday, and I just wouldn't go, and then I'd just be missing all the bands that I love.

SPEAKER_00 46:35

This is this is what I'm saying, and like uh for for young people as well. Like for me, getting the train back from South End to Shenfield, Shenfield to Cheltswood, that's how I was getting on journey's back. Sometimes you could go uh South End to Billarike, Billaricky, get a cab or a bus home if you got back late enough. I mean, like the 100 bus, that was going at like nearly midnight. So I could go to a gig and that sort of stuff, and it's like it sounds dumb, but like I'd be on buses or like cabs going through random little places I'd never heard of, and you meet people from there, and it give develops your awareness of your social surroundings and stuff too. And that there's a real there needs to be a um a kind of weight on uh the state or whatever it is or like institutions to support things like um safe nighttime economies in whatever format is with with transport, with safer policing. It's like I want to stop seeing bouncers beating people outside be beating people up outside pubs. I want to see lots of clearly marked policemen and police cars walk around talking to people like normal fucking humans. So actually, what we need is a s is is safer structures around doing live music. We need safer structures around getting people to and from it safely, um, town centres that aren't full of like horrible, leery yobs. We need like people that can be spoken to. I mean, like in South End, they have the like sort of community service officers going up and down the high street at nighttime now, and they're wearing like their stab vests and things. It's just such a hostile environment. Like a Timu Ice, genuinely, and it's like I'm walking around and you're sort of looking at these people and you think like you're not here because you want to like speak to a girl and go, Oh, do you need direction to get home? I mean, uh I say that some people will be. I'm not gonna tarnish everyone, but the the the general sense is more like get too drunk and I'll hit you in the face. And it's not kind of like how can we make you not want to get so drunk that you're gonna get hit in the face? That's right. Um, so that yeah, there's loads of layers around it.

Nick 48:21

I just want to go back to you know, starting out when you're young as well. Yes, right. So like you're 15, right? You're the vocalist.

SPEAKER_00 48:27

Yes.

Nick 48:28

How did you develop your death metal voice? You know, like when when do you discover you've got a talent for it?

SPEAKER_00 48:33

It's really funny because like I I never get to answer that question in like a good format like that. Well, sometimes it interviews you, but never in like a nice sat down format like this. Normally it's like after a gig smoking area, someone denying, do the noise now.

SPEAKER_01 48:43

How'd you do it?

SPEAKER_00 48:45

Oh god, but um uh in a in a concise way, I would say a lot of it's trial and error. Like anything in life, learn by doing. The issue is is this is a thing that you can do so wrong that it damages you. Yeah, so you have to be careful with it.

Nick 48:56

Well, you we but when you were starting a metal band, right? Was there someone you're like, oh my god, I want to be able to do leaders loads of people, man.

SPEAKER_00 49:04

So I like uh I liked lots of bands when I was younger, but Parquet Drive are my favorite influential band guard. I like love Parkway Drive seems so many times, and um their vocalist Winston McCool has like a he speaks through his voice a lot, like his voice is in in you know this distorted scream, you can tell it's him, and I think for me it was always important. So it was like bands like Carn Effects and Die is murder, they're singers.

Nick 49:24

So you can still hear their personality, though you can still hear their voice, like their individuality through it. It's not over distorted, it's still a voice, do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 49:30

And I think like that was important to me. And I remember we did a show, oh man, probably it was probably about three or four years after we started being a band, and someone wrote in a review there. Like, when he does his lows, it sounds like Winston McCall for Parkway Drive. Yeah, I screenshot it, and I was like, I fucking pop it.

Nick 49:43

But be so happy. Because you can actually hear your lyrics as well, so it's not like um Yeah, yeah, try to, yeah, try to. But you know, like because I read reviews of your album as well, and it and it talks about what all the words are and the songs and and you know how how deep it is and stuff. Yeah, they can do it. So you've got to be able to do the growl and be able to hear articulate, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

Yeah, I so the way I like to see it is like you you use the I don't know, you got instrumentalists. I my getting into vocals was it's easier than learning guitar, so I may as well try it. Yeah, which I genuinely don't know if it was. I think I might have made it. No, no, no, but but imagine different for everyone.

Nick 50:16

Imagine that like being born that you can play the guitar. Yeah. Because some people's vocals are just fully formed and they're ready to go.

SPEAKER_00 50:21

It's nuts. There's people that you see that are just like kind of do it. Like, I see these videos online all the time, and it's like, man, I've practiced I've gone to rehearsals infinite times on all these shows, all this touring stuff to learn vocals. And there's guys that just drive around in their car that work at like Tesco and they're just putting videos online and they're like, that he sounds better than me already. And that's crazy. But I think the main thing is because they're doing it a lot, they're doing it drive every day, and it goes back to what I was saying, like do it regularly, learn by doing, always be mindful of the fact that you can kind of hurt yourself. And for me, it was just a case of I was in my bedroom as a kid listening to music that I like, just screaming along to it. We be in the shower or something.

Nick 50:51

Well, your parents like hitting the ceiling, like Jasper, shut up.

SPEAKER_00 50:54

Shut up, mate. Stop doing that, like that's too loud. I'd go out in the garage sometimes, mate. We can hear you from the kitchen, it's too loud. Um, but in all fairness, it was too loud. And uh, there was plenty of times when I was at a rehearsal studio that I could have been doing it. Um in the shower, I still do in the shower now.

Nick 51:07

It's a great place to do it if it's can you can you teach Sangator some?

SPEAKER_00 51:10

Okay, I I can do it briefly now. It's good having a mic like this. Yeah, yeah. So um, working with kids, you'll be really good at this. Um, you've just been told by the same kid that you've told like seven days in a row to like bring whatever the right shoes into school, and day eight in a row, you've gone in, they've got the same wrong shoes on, and they're coming in, they're going, nah, I've got an excuse. And you go like you just exhale. Yeah, that rattles.

Nick 51:31

Oh, sagator, it's a gateway.

SPEAKER_00 51:33

Yeah. So there's a little rattle at the back of your voice, right? And that's your your false vocal cords. When you blow air through them, they rattle and they make that kind of growling noise. And when you talk through that, you create a sort of like Yeah. Like the cookie monster. That's really good. And I like the cookie monster. You activate your diaphragm when you do it.

SPEAKER_03 51:51

I have to do it in school.

SPEAKER_00 51:53

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's very I love it.

SPEAKER_03 51:56

And um but that's how you actually feel as a teacher, honestly. When the kids forget their things three days in a week.

SPEAKER_00 52:02

So what's the next step?

Nick 52:03

What's the next step?

SPEAKER_00 52:04

And then once you've done that, I like to see it as like throwing your voice somewhere. So you imagine if you're just going, imagine your voice is going and dropping like that, and you want to throw it maybe like another five foot, and then try to throw another ten foot. And that's when you talk through it, and then it's all in the mouth shape. So all of my low stuff, people think it's like, oh, you've got like a really low voice, or people got like a really demon-y voice, and it's not, it's all in your mouth shape, so like it's it's all distortion. So if you talk like that with your normal voice, it makes it like you just do the drop your chin and yo, ooh, anyway. And if you go, it sounds different than if you go, ooh, and then once you go, you can start, you can start doing other things, you can make it even lower. So obviously, it's all vibrations. So if your vibration hits a soft object, it lowers the frequency.

Nick 52:48

And we have to hear Sake again. Sorry, Sagate's gotta keep up on the bottom.

SPEAKER_04 52:51

Listen, I've lost it. No, no, Sagittarius, come on.

Nick 52:53

Like Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:57

There's a bit too much voice, but you can't even do it tonight. I think working with kids is that's helpful. I did that when I was a kid as well. That's so cool.

Nick 53:05

So then just after that, you just could start articulating words, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:07

And you do a bit of that, and I think the key is it's doing that like we are right now. You're just doing it really quietly and not putting loads of effort in. Like, if you chuck yourself out and try and make the tone and the volume at the same time, you're probably not gonna nail it. You have to have the tone sorted and then you put the effort in. Same as like going to the gym, get your form right, and then lift the weights.

Nick 53:27

And this is so that you can do it, repeat it, you can do it every day. Like, if you've got a gig the next day, you're not gonna blow your vocal.

SPEAKER_00 53:32

And also the fact that you've got exactly as you're right, you've got gigs day after day, but then also you've got conversations over the merch, which actually damage my voice far more than any. So, like I merch manage for bands, and if I'm doing my own bands merch and I'm playing a show, the thing that fucks me the worst is you do a show and you have no time to recover because you're straight to the merch table, and it's an hour, it's lovely, but you're there's the speakers and it's like, thanks so much for coming, and everyone's shouting at you because they're drunk, and it's like the volume is so high, and then you get out of the room and it's quiet, and you go, Oh man, like I am completely hoarse, and that a couple days in a row, you can kind of deal with it and you can you can lemsip your way out of it a week or so, like it's fucking brutal.

Nick 54:09

Festivals kill me, so like uh dust and everything. I was trying to explain this to to to my bandmates because they just say blowing your voice, and I'm like, Yeah, but also I'm really allergic to dust, and like after being at a festival for two days, the shit that's like in the air as well.

SPEAKER_00 54:23

Like, I I don't I'm I don't really vape or smoke cigarettes anymore, to be honest with you. And I say that when I say anymore, still relatively recently, but like festivals and gigs and these sort of things, I didn't help myself, so I'd smoke, and I always had the mindset of kind of I do a lot of warming up and I do things that are damaging to it, so it kind of balances out. You warm up a load, you stretch, you do all the right things. So when you do the wrong things, it negates it a bit. But in all honesty, like it was just getting to a point where it's like I can't go out, speak all day, and do a set and treat my voice however I want to. I think about it. So like something's gotta give, much like the toilet analogy. Like you've got to have at least something there, like you've got to be either a non-smoker or whatever. Yeah, yeah. Like you don't sleep well that that well on tour as well. So all this kind of thing. Drinking runes, you've got to alcohol dries all your vocal cords out and everything. Yeah, it's brutal. But um, I I think you know it's all the fun stuff. All the stuff you want to be in a band for.

Nick 55:10

You just want to be in a band so you can go get like hammered everywhere and have a laugh, and you can't you can't lead the rock and roll lifestyle, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:15

And that's the thing is that everyone gets to a point where like under the big tours that I've done, and when I've like been merch managing or working for bands on tours, I did a tour band called Harbinger supporting Silosis in 2024. Silosis are amazing, and their singer was really ill on the tour, and then for a couple of days, they shut a load of the backstage bathrooms off and he would steam the whole place out for like two hours before they played. So no one could use a bathroom, so it was kind of annoying, but I was like, what a commitment to the thing. Like he didn't speak all day.

Nick 55:40

Maybe you can get personal steamers.

SPEAKER_00 55:41

Oh man, yeah, but he he he needs a room. He's his headlights.

Nick 55:45

You know, you know, Beyonce goes on vocal rest and she won't even talk to anyone for two weeks. Just like nodding.

SPEAKER_00 55:50

I'd like that if I physically could do, but I couldn't shut the foot. Well, you're not the same. One day, one day.

Nick 55:55

No, basically, I'm trying to give I'm trying to give you an in here where you can be like uh Essex's Beyonce, right?

SPEAKER_00 55:59

And you can just be like that that is that is actually what I've aspired to is Essex Beyonce this whole time. I'm not yeah, exactly. Sorry, I've got important things to be thinking about like Skyrim and football, like I can't be doing that. No conversations today.

Nick 56:17

We're gonna get Jasper back another time because we didn't talk about about half the things I wanted to talk about. Absolutely. Which a lot of it was about touring and stuff and not the gig economy. Well, not gig economy, not like uh yeah, like part-time jobs, not part-time jobs, like playing live music, the economy obviously.

SPEAKER_00 56:32

Basically is a part-time job.

Nick 56:33

And then the economics. Oh my god, I don't know how anyone can do it as a professional job.

SPEAKER_00 56:36

Oh fucking crazy.

Nick 56:37

It's crazy unless you get on cold play level.

SPEAKER_00 56:40

Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah. Sky for the stars, Emirates Stadium.

Nick 56:43

Yeah. But Sangator, do you feel like you know a little bit more about being on gigs and stuff?

SPEAKER_04 56:47

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh, amazing.

Nick 56:49

Definitely and about uh doing metal vocals as well now.

SPEAKER_00 56:52

Yes, yeah, yeah. That's good. I love it. Yes. That was good as I think.

SPEAKER_04 56:57

And actually, you're very you're a really good guest. I do really wish we did have longer, actually.

Nick 57:02

I think I know, I honestly think Jasper's a brilliant role model. Big up Lorca Media Studios. Yes, yes, Stungart into Jasper. Deactivate, deactivate. Big up Lorca Media, thank you, Adam. Alright, thank you, Sagator. Thank you, Nick. Alright. Oh, on the way out, can you just do a deaf metal goodbye for us? Alright, so look, everyone, thank you very much for listening and follow us on Instagram and all that shit. And here we come. Good night. Did you just can you do it longer? Good night. What? There's no effects on that. Is it how long can you do it for?

SPEAKER_03 57:51

Right, the recipe is not played for.