434: Loud, Proud, and Unapologetic

This week on The Hook, Johni and Jess sit down with Virginia hard rock band Four Thirty Four (434) for a conversation that's equal parts music, mayhem, and brotherhood.

Born from the Charlottesville music scene and named after Central Virginia's iconic area code, 434 shares the story behind the band's evolution, their unexpected reunion after a 20-year hiatus, and the personal losses that helped shape their music and perspective on life. From playing major festivals like Blue Ridge Rock Festival to climbing independent radio charts, these guys prove that authentic rock and roll is alive and well. 

The conversation dives into songwriting, life on the road, the meaning behind their music, and why audiences connect so deeply with their live shows. Along the way, you'll hear stories involving gummy mishaps, mysterious suitcase thefts, hard nipples, Waffle House adventures, and a whole lot of laughter. Because with 434, the music is serious—but they definitely don't take themselves too seriously. 

If you love powerful riffs, meaningful lyrics, and bands that truly live what they preach, this is an episode you won't want to miss.

Follow 434:
🌐 Website: https://www.434music.com
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/434Music
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/434music
🎵 Spotify: Search 434

Listen now and discover why 434 is making noise far beyond the 434 area code. 

Thank you to our Official Episode Sponsors: 

River City Consulting 

Award Winning Website Design, Logo Design, Brad Strategy & Digital Marketing since 2001. Use code "The Hook" for 15% off all services. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Welcome to the hook with Johnny and Jess.

SPEAKER_06 0:02

Thank you. Thank you for having us.

SPEAKER_04 0:04

You guys are called 434. And I had assumed, since you're from Charlottesville, that it might have something to do with that.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Yeah, 434 spawns from the area code, or at least Central Virginia area code. And I think ultimately it was just to represent that area with our style of music, is what it really boils down to. And little did we know, you know, a few months passed, maybe even a couple years, where all the coincidences with the number 434 came into play.

SPEAKER_06 0:36

Like there's an angel 434 has a meaning. Oh a bullet from the JFK assassination. Found that out. The number of the bullet under the biggest.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

My nipples are a little hard.

SPEAKER_08 0:51

Luckily, this isn't filmed.

SPEAKER_03 0:56

Mike is a Virgo whose birthday is the day of my husband's. And I shit you not on our first date. First date. We went to a bar and sat on the patio and had maybe three or four sentences together before he said, holding his chest. I need to tell you, I'm a little chilly and my nipples are hard if we can possibly go inside. I cannot believe you just said that. Out of the gate.

SPEAKER_06 1:24

And it's funny because he's the only one who lives in the 434 Area code.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

It wasn't the one who looked really a band. It was just getting back together again. And you know, we got so excited about it. Just jamming out, and after a couple of sessions. And I was really excited about it. And of course, me and him are bouncing names back and forth. And you know, I want a I want a number name. That's what he said to me. Yeah. I want to I want a number. He was like, How about a hundred degrees?

SPEAKER_08 1:54

Backstreet boys.

SPEAKER_09 1:56

That's not even like you're not even running a temperature as a human. But I said, Well, how about 434?

SPEAKER_02 2:05

I'd always liked how I can manipulate it in my head, the fours and spinning the four around. That was spinning in my head the whole time. So I'm I really had to try to sell this to these guys, you know, because you know I want that name. It's a cool name.

SPEAKER_03 2:20

All right, you said back together. So there's obviously an earlier history there.

SPEAKER_06 2:27

Yeah, it's quite a bit. Yeah, quite a bit. So you want to go all the long ways.

SPEAKER_03 2:31

Diapers. I mean, where are we at?

SPEAKER_06 2:33

This band started with three other guys and myself, but it wasn't 4034. My first band, and it developed into this. So Mike joined the band when our singer left after about five years. A couple CDs out, multiple tours, and then he departed. Mike joins the band. Bass player was playing rhythm guitar. We had a bass player, had a drummer, and then the band kind of breaked for a while, for a good while, 20 years. Oh wow. And then we decided that we were just gonna get back together, and unfortunately, the guy who played bass in that first band had passed away. So the rhythm guitar player moved over to bass, and we started playing with the the drummer Mike myself and started rehearsing again. And 20 years later, we're just playing through some stuff, and then unfortunately, the drummer passed.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

What good green? I'm scared of y'all.

SPEAKER_06 3:36

Yeah, so like if the the CD, and I'll show it to you, because the the last podcast we were on, that guy researched us and found that C C D on eBay for $99. So I was selling it, that CD from way back when I was like, wow, that was crazy. But everybody that was in that original band has passed, except for myself.

unknown 3:57

What the fuck?

SPEAKER_03 3:58

Are you scared?

SPEAKER_06 3:59

No, I'm the only one living. What I got to be scared of. There's got to be somebody to tell the stories.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

That's right. We we were just kind of in the same music scene for several years. Yeah, well, I mean, we knew each other really. We knew each other really well, and and you know, the the band that I was in at the time tanked, and I was kind of considering giving up music then, to be honest with you.

SPEAKER_04 4:21

Our singer tanked, so and I'm like, I'm sitting here thinking though, you're the one that should be scared, not you.

SPEAKER_06 4:27

Yeah, I didn't know that that's what was gonna transpire at the time.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Somebody died in this house, I'm good.

SPEAKER_06 4:35

Yeah, so um so when Jordan passed away, Mike and I were you know seriously, like, you know, hey, is this it? You know, just hey, we got to play a couple times together again. This was cool, and then we were just kind of like, well, no, we want to keep on playing. What do we do? And so we just you know, we met Greg, and Greg was like, Yeah, I'll give y'all a hand. And he's still giving us a hand six years later. He's still not in the band yet. He don't know that.

SPEAKER_09 5:06

He fixed the helmets, he fixes moments.

SPEAKER_08 5:09

Yeah, I remember. I never said yes. Okay, we'll leave for uh Tulsa tomorrow. Yeah, and it's a yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 5:20

Okay, long story short, a lot of changes, but it stayed within the same kind of character. And then you're starting to write new music a little bit of a different direction of what it used to be. We're six years in, multiple singles that we've put out, put out at EP, been out Midwest a couple times playing down to Florida, up and down the coast. Yeah, getting ready to go out to Fort Wayne and play back through next week. Nice. Then next month we go up to New Hampshire playing oldest oldest bike rally.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

Bike rally in America.

SPEAKER_06 5:54

Yeah, killer. We're playing New York and Boston on that little run. Got a couple of festivals out in Ohio. It's coming up with some bigger name bands and got just got some kind of interesting stuff going on this year.

SPEAKER_04 6:09

Awesome. That sounds fun, and we will follow you all the way. We do, we will follow you. I might like literally follow you.

SPEAKER_03 6:17

I love going on the road. I'm known for that. She can bring a camera and pretend like she's a good one.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

You guys like that, right?

SPEAKER_04 6:28

Wait, wait, are you from the podcast? Hey. Hey!

SPEAKER_06 6:34

Why are you out there in the back here? That's great. It's one of the fun inside back here.

SPEAKER_04 6:39

So staying with the the name, you were just telling me about the different things about 434 and what they mean. Because I'm blown away. I didn't know.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

We didn't know. I think we were blown away as well. Yeah. I think that's happened in pretty much all of our bands for some weird reason. Our band name has meant other things. But this one, yeah, the angel number 434 was a big one. And if you if you look that up or you search it and you read the definition of it, it's almost spells out exactly just how we live our lives. And so that was gripping to say the least. And and not that we look at it and reflect on it every day. It was just really something cool to know.

SPEAKER_03 7:21

Have you thought about your birthday? 912 divides by four and three.

unknown 7:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 7:27

What girl? Yeah. Gosh, she blows my mind. She blows my mind. She pulls this shit all the time. I never, yeah, I never even thought about it that way. That's that is wild.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

No, I have not thought about that.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

Yeah, so now we're gonna have to.

SPEAKER_02 7:40

Look that up on a girl.

SPEAKER_03 7:42

You know, all meant to be, right? All meant to be.

SPEAKER_04 7:44

And then the other 434, what was that again?

SPEAKER_02 7:48

We were recording in Nashville. Yeah, Malcolm Springer, the producer. Malcolm Springer for the whole time thought that it meant what he knew, and he told us that the shell casing from what they recovered during the JFK assassination, the bullet number was 434. Wow. Now, I don't know if that was him shooting around. I never looked that one up, but he pulled something up.

SPEAKER_06 8:16

That's right. He pulled that up. No, we were just learning like we're just some simple old country boys, and that's the area code. We don't have any hidden meanings.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

Weird enough, though, to think that something ominous is going on as far as a story being told. I think maybe that's why he thought that.

SPEAKER_04 8:33

Yeah. Yeah. So there is a deeper meaning to the name. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

Big time.

SPEAKER_04 8:38

We just don't know it.

SPEAKER_03 8:41

All right. So the first thing that I think hits most people, or at least hit us listening to you guys, was the intensity of your music. So what do you want people to really feel when they come out to a show or they're listening to you guys on streaming or I think just the originality of it.

SPEAKER_06 8:58

Always say when you hear us, if you're listening to our playlist and our music comes on, you're going to know it's us. Um that's really what writing parts I strive for is like you're going to be able to tell that's us. Just like if you hear like comparing us to ACDC, but if you hear ACDC, you go, oh yeah, that's ACDC. I know it.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 9:18

Once you hear 434, now if you're going to be like, well, yeah, that's 434, we're not going to blend in with nobody else. Well, that's that's what you want. Yeah. That's been very, very naturally.

SPEAKER_02 9:30

Naturally, I think is the best way to put it. Some of the best compliments are that we make it look easy when it's live. We really pride ourselves on our live show. We're not the youngest guys in the book, but we certainly bring a heavy punch when we come in and heavy in a way that's not not a bunch of cuss words or yelling or at you. It's just stories with meaning. There's definitely meaning behind them, but they happen naturally and with ease. And so if we can keep that have that stage bearing to keep it easy or at least keep the audience engaged that way, you get a lot more listeners and people that really pay attention to it and and f over time start to get little things. I really like that part about it. They connect with the music a little bit more than just you know screaming at them, screaming and yelling and which you know it can serve its purpose, but didn't work for us that way. I think I think it's more unsustainable if it was at that that level all the time as well.

SPEAKER_03 10:34

So who's writing?

SPEAKER_06 10:36

Long story. Long story.

SPEAKER_02 10:37

You know, short story though. Scott is Scott's the main riff and guitar writer music.

SPEAKER_06 10:45

I kind of come up with the riffs and shape them, format them, tempo them. Where it's pretty much a song. And then, you know, the rest of the guys get it, they get to do their parts to it. But it's not a whole lot of like, well, what should we do next? It's all next. It's all done. It's all written. And I just play those songs a thousand times before these guys even hear them to make sure I like them. Make sure I think that they're good enough for these guys. And they bring the material to them, and then Michael put words to it and you know, we'll move around like that.

SPEAKER_04 11:17

I mean, that is a question for most bands is where did you begin? Like some bands, it's always the writer, you know, and he writes the lyrics and then you pull the riff or or whatever. So there is always how do you do it? And it always starts with a riff with you guys for the most part, then.

SPEAKER_06 11:33

For the most part, or sometimes I will translate a story into music that I want to talk about and just come up with stuff and working titles and things like that. It doesn't transfer to him, but it's just kind of like, hey, what am I feeling? What I want to do, you know. Well, you know what the song is at that point. Yeah. So yeah, that's there's that. Yeah. I don't do any of our new stuff, any lyrics, it's just all the music.

SPEAKER_03 11:58

So are you walking around with some kind of mechanism to Yeah. So because it's I a lot of people we've talked to, everybody we've talked to have said it seems like there's this antenna to the universe that all the creatives we talk to have. And so they have to be always ready to receive it.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

For for me, it's usually very late at night. Could have had a little bit to drink in there as well. But uh usually those creative times are late at night when it's quiet and peaceful and there's nothing else going on. You can keep everything around you midnight, dark and and to sit at the table and write poetry. Really?

SPEAKER_04 12:41

You accept the download.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

Yeah. I accept the download, that's all right. I'm in tune. And that will kind of like uh for me, kind of like someone an author, my apartment might be littered with trash because I'm ripping a page out, throwing it away, ripping a page out and throwing it away. And it's listening to these songs just initially to get a topic. You know, I'll listen to them many, many, many, many times and over and over and over again to the point that I'm tired of it. And then when I'm walking around during the day or I'm doing something else during the day, if something falls in my head, put it down on my phone, if anything else, and so I come back to it and just could be just a couple of words, and then next thing you know, I'll have a a chorus or a verse. That's how part happens.

SPEAKER_04 13:28

I love it. See, I wish I could write like that. I I'm always envious of uh the whole making of a song because you guys are just to me, I want to be you. It's like somebody that would love to be able to paint and loves art. I love music so much, I want to know how it's created, you know? That part can suck sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

It really can suck.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

Luckily for us, the the end results are being the songs, they they turned out really well and and exactly how I for one would like to express that lyric or or cadence or however it is it's you that I what we come up with. And then it it's generally the song from that point on. Everything else is kind of conforms to those couple of things. We gave you the songs that we have out right now and stuff, but we've got a couple that you know that we're getting ready to put out. We can't play for the general public, but we'll play for you guys.

SPEAKER_03 14:25

We love that. Yes, that's our favorite.

SPEAKER_02 14:27

As long as the microphones are off.

SPEAKER_03 14:28

Yeah, we love that.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

That's and you guys will get an idea of kind of the the where we're heading. Yeah. Because it's very it is like Scott said, yes, that's 434 playing that song, but it's so different than than anything else we've ever done. It's pretty neat.

SPEAKER_03 14:47

So what kind of day jobs do you have that you have the freedom to travel and tour?

SPEAKER_06 14:54

So I'm a financial advisor.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 14:57

I've been in finance for 10 years, over 10 years now. I have my own office. Well, I work for a firm, but I have my own office in the town of Louisa. So that's what I do.

SPEAKER_04 15:11

And you're your own boss, so you call the shots. That's right. Very cool.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

What about you, Mike?

SPEAKER_02 15:18

I am a service manager for a home builder. So I'm a tradesman and I know a lot of different trades, but work on homes all day long.

SPEAKER_03 15:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:27

And and similarly, I'm my own boss. Uh in a sense.

SPEAKER_03 15:31

So that works out great.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

It really does.

SPEAKER_03 15:34

And you've got somebody with some financial sense to keep the band on track in that regard.

SPEAKER_02 15:38

I should probably listen to him a little bit more as in my personal life. Let's just take the music for me.

SPEAKER_04 15:47

Well, there is definitely some old school arena rock, going back to the music, arena rock spirit and what you do. Do you think modern rock has lost some of that danger?

SPEAKER_06 15:57

Yeah. I do. You know, a lot of the modern rock on that platform is losing the feel of the sing-along, becoming a little bit more aggressive-ish now. Lost the hook and lost the melody. It's kind of like really straightforward, you know, hand smacked together and out the door it goes. It's kind of really generic sounding as well. Nobody has their like a deep-owned sound of theirs. A lot of it just sounds like it's really commercial and stream-line. And that's why I don't listen to rock, modern rock. I listen to alternative music, like alternation and stuff like that. Like that's where the good songs are.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

Yeah, let's talk more about that. Kind of the DNA for you guys musically growing up. What was your jam? What kind of influence were you at now?

SPEAKER_02 16:44

Growing up, I love 80s and and 90s music. I love that. I love we laughed about this. I love yacht rock. I love yacht rock a lot. Right? So, you know, I just I like all that stuff. I'm really big fan of uh early uh rap and hip hop and things like that. So I would have to attribute a lot of the cadence to our songs right now, come from that. I just loved love bands like Third Bass and Tribe Called Quest and just uh the original new guys. I love the early 90s RB. I thought that was fabulous stuff and and nasty. You wouldn't think they're so nasty, but they are. And they did it without cussing. I think maybe I take a little bit of that too.

SPEAKER_06 17:28

When I was growing up, AM radio was always one in my house. So it was always country, the old country stuff. That's what I grew up to. Discovered KISS when I was really young, and that really pulled me into the rock side of things. And then my father worked part-time at a record store in the evenings. So I was always like through high school getting all the underground stuff and all the samples and all that stuff. So a lot of the you know, things that was popular in the 80s, the hair metal and moving into the thrash stuff and stuff like that. But you know, with this band, is like what I grew up on is starting to come out a whole lot more. It's probably why we don't sound like as aggressive as what you'd think we would. It's probably because of those types of roots.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

I'll I like I like that fact about it too. I like that. You know, it's an alternative hard rock. Kind of early 90s alternative hard rock, and it's got a little bit of everything in it. As a writer or someone that's writing lyrics, I enjoy that a lot. Every song's a little bit different, you know, and they just find their way.

SPEAKER_06 18:44

So real folky, you know, a lot of Led Zeppelin, stuff like that. You know, but not the not the cool Led Zeppelin, the like B-side stuff, you know, that people really didn't listen to. You know, it was the stuff he would get into. Apple Tree. Yeah, yeah. So kind of fell back around the corner, I guess. And a lot of that stuff's in our music, and it's hidden. Our last single that was out has just a ton of acoustic guitar in it, and nobody would ever know it. Until you pointed it out. Yeah, until you point and tell me. It's in there, yeah. It's in there.

SPEAKER_03 19:18

I think John Prime has come up on every single interview that we've done, one way or another. Wow, yeah. Somehow or another, his name has been mentioned.

SPEAKER_04 19:25

You are actually correct on that.

SPEAKER_03 19:27

Your eyes.

SPEAKER_04 19:28

Oh my god, they're the bluest eyes I think I've ever seen.

SPEAKER_06 19:31

Oh, yeah. You know what they say about that. What? Do tell. I don't know. Oh I've always asked people that and just to find out myself, and nobody has answered.

SPEAKER_04 19:40

And nobody's answered, so we'll find out what they say someday.

SPEAKER_06 19:44

Like the thing you say foot thing, right? Or big hands. Yeah, they got big shoes.

SPEAKER_03 19:49

Yeah. Wait, eyes tie into that.

SPEAKER_06 19:53

They don't.

SPEAKER_03 19:54

I was just always. I was like, I gotta just learn paying way more attention to things.

SPEAKER_06 19:59

You know what they say about blue eyes, right? And you're like, no, man, I was hoping he's gonna tell me. That's the I set you right up for that one, didn't I?

SPEAKER_04 20:07

Of course I did.

SPEAKER_03 20:10

It's not true. Well, tiny hands are a different thing. Oh my god, we're gonna just ruin people here. We have a whole thing on tiny hands, because you remember a couple years ago, like the little tiny hands were everywhere. Oh, like little tiny hands, and you could put it down and do things with a tiny hand. So we were all tiny handing everything. It was COVID.

SPEAKER_09 20:29

What do you think makes baloney skin of those?

SPEAKER_03 20:32

Oh, they're just amazing. They're so great. Well, so my mom, who is a total hippie, like little activist, she starts getting really upset. And and we're like, what is wrong? And she's like, I just don't think you should make fun of tiny hands. And we're like, what are you fucking talking about? And she goes, it's just not don't you shouldn't do that. And I go, Mom, do you think there are like there's a group of people with tiny fucking hands that are gonna be insulted by this? Like, that's not even a thing.

SPEAKER_04 21:01

Oh my god. You made me tear up Sandy's area going like this with tiny hands. You have to be here to understand what's going on in the studio.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

God, tiny. They're never not funny. They're never not funny.

SPEAKER_08 21:21

Exactly. Hilarious. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 21:23

Get it back together, Larry. Get it back together.

SPEAKER_08 21:26

We're gonna cover it all today.

SPEAKER_04 21:28

And some for sure. Okay. At what point did you realize audiences were really connected with what you were building?

SPEAKER_06 21:36

Our first show was right before COVID in February of 2020. Yeah. We was playing a small little spot in Stanton with a handful of other bands.

SPEAKER_03 21:48

Handful. Tiny handful.

SPEAKER_06 21:52

Tiny handful. When you know we we were playing, I like kind of looked back and people were standing up on their bar store. No back of the room. It was awesome.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Everybody in the building just kind of gravitated to the room and watched.

SPEAKER_03 22:08

What did that feel like?

SPEAKER_02 22:10

It felt like I'm glad that we did this today. If that makes any sense, because it had been so long before we played.

SPEAKER_06 22:18

And plus, since I just kind of threw it on you guys, like, hey, we're playing a show.

SPEAKER_05 22:21

And you guys were like, screw you, we're not ready.

SPEAKER_06 22:26

I mean, not this guy. Yeah, I was like, what are you doing? Why not? I'm just like, I don't know. I just decided to do it.

SPEAKER_09 22:33

So back up.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

There we go. No, it was a uh I never I don't remember feeling that way. I was I was really excited about it because we hadn't done it in so long. It was really, really neat to see that response. And we didn't know COVID was about to do what it did. So that show was definitely a blessing for us because the heavy metal community kind of took us under their wing and they were the only ones, only ones playing shows during COVID, or at least the rebels. They weren't allowed to, but we were able to get out and still play shows and really without having a huge audience every single show, was able to kind of get back on the bike and and pedal again. And perfect our live show. And next thing you know, things are loosening up, and then we're playing shows, and people remembered coming to see us, and there was more people in the crowd, and same same result for a big energy band. We don't get a lot of movement in a crowd, and that's because people are actually standing there watching and listening and is taking it all in.

SPEAKER_06 23:32

Because we're not standing there just playing and looking at our instruments.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Yeah. We're entertaining. And we were kind of by that point kind of seasoned ourselves to being in front of people again a little bit at a time.

SPEAKER_03 23:44

You guys have a really well, sitting here in front of you, watching you, the connection between the two of you, even one of you knowing when you're gonna speak versus the other, it seems like you guys are really aligned. How does that chemistry kind of overall affect, I guess, where you guys are at as a band?

SPEAKER_06 24:06

Good question. You know, no boundaries and be considerate.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

Also, you know, I don't consider this guy my brother. We've got an incredible relationship outside music, even though that's just all we do. So that's certainly helpful. And I think every part every member of the band has developed that. We're a tight knit unit and generally agree to most things.

SPEAKER_06 24:33

And if you can get past that, then we can get really mad and laugh. Because usually it's something just somebody's compassionate about a subject at a certain time. And we know that, you know, we know that tomorrow's another day, we know that a couple hours later is gonna be different. That's right. But sometimes, you know, you get a little compassionate about something and sometimes somebody doesn't feel that way or see it. You just I guess realize that now.

SPEAKER_04 25:02

I feel like it's because you're seasoned. Like you said earlier, I mean, 20-year break. You had a 20-year break, and I'm sure you had a chance to grow up during that 20 years.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Well, you make a really good point. I've said that numerous times, that you know, now it's much more of a mature way of handling things. Wouldn't have been handled the same way had it been 20 plus years ago because you're just young and full of angst. And you're looking at it as just getting out there and you chasing women and doing drugs, and well, oh, you know, even those things might be prevalent now, still, it's just much more uh maturely laid out for us.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

So what are you guys doing later?

SPEAKER_08 25:47

Well, change the women and doing drugs.

SPEAKER_06 25:50

Don't run too fast. We're gonna end that out of it.

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Don't run too fast. Wait, my back. Shit.

SPEAKER_02 25:59

I I think that's helpful being a little growing up, and plus, you know, we take it to a the extent that unlike bands of our time who are making a reappearance 30 years later, we're not gonna have that opportunity now. So let's get it all in while we can do it now and do it, do it right and and make ourselves proud and all that fun stuff.

SPEAKER_06 26:19

So plus we don't take it too serious either, you know what I mean? Um we do in preparation. We know life's life, and you're gonna celebrate you're gonna celebrate wins and you're gonna have losses, and you know, it's not about the fact that you got knocked down, it's the fact that you got back up. You know, it was every day. And that's just not our band, that's our personal lives. That's all kinds of all kinds of things that go on, and you know, even those guys that have been the like the big huge musicians all their lives, you know, guess what? They haven't all they don't win every day either. You know, they have things that they go through and struggle with and yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:54

Well, and as you guys referenced earlier, you your band's gone through a lot. You've had a lot of deep personal loss. And so that tends to put things in perspective.

SPEAKER_06 27:06

Well, you know, you know, it even leaked over between, like I said, the when we started this band back together, but the band Mike was in prior before we played together. Guy that was a great friend of mine was in that band, and he's passed away too. A lot of heavy stuff.

SPEAKER_02 27:23

Heavy stuff. Down to the guy who recorded our first couple of demo songs for this fans, who was a a big, big part of the music community in Charlottesville. We linked back up with him and he ended up passing away. So that's but maybe it was just to open our eyes a little bit too. Our songs express life and emotions and all the stuff that comes with it. And and when you listen to it, most people can apply that song to something in their life. You know, there's just it's certainly about that. And so all those all those things call end up in a song at some point.

SPEAKER_07 28:27

Twitter, twenty two, stay, to the point. Sophisticating one, two weeks, four, I want to know a little bit more about the radio campaign.

SPEAKER_06 31:02

We hooked up with a radio campaign manager out in Nashville, and that's what he does is he he'll shop songs that he'll accept the FM radio stations, and now it's called the secondary market because you know FM is so syndicated now. It's either don't I know a satellite or you know, it's owned by iHeart. And those type of places won't touch you unless you have like, you know, a certain name behind your name. You know, so that's the way that goes. And but there's you know, still a lot of independently operating FM stations out there that are, you know, small conglomerate owned or group owned or we used to call it AAA. Yeah, triple A, yeah. And that's what he's done for a long, long time of his career is shop songs to radio. And so now that the um music industry's gone defunct so much, he's not, you know, locked to one group of label. Like he's not working, you know, for Sony and all their labels and their artists. Now he'll independently contract. Which, you know, a lot of things will now. It's the way that the industry's really going is like, you know, if you want to do some things, you can do them now. You don't need the record label, but you need the business smarts and the money. So you know, you can you can hire a radio campaign person and they'll shop your radio you know, shop your music out to these stations to keep track of who's playing you, how many times your songs are being spun, where and where so no BMI or have to worry about all that because he keeps tabs on that. And yeah, we get a report every week. So our last single stuck out went out, and we'd done eight weeks of a campaigning to radio and it reached up to number 19 on the secondary market chart, which was really good because we were happy about breaking the top 20.

SPEAKER_02 33:08

And this is this is these are big bands, man.

SPEAKER_06 33:13

The black crows right on right and stuff like that. Or I'll show you one of the lists when we finish up, but you'll see, you know, all they play FM stations still play the big bands, they'll just sneak us in with it, or other independent artists that have representation. Now we have our next song that we're putting on, it's a song called Dote Bag. It's been released on streaming platforms for about a year now. We're sending it to radio. He's had it for two weeks, and the first week out, it was the number one gainer on the media-based platforms and number four. Number four in ads. And most ads by radio stations. So, you know, we like to feel a little bit of momentum getting picked up and moving forward. Two weeks, and we're up to sixty-two out of the hundred chartable. Fifty's the printed chart, but they show you a hundred on the backside. So it's up into sixty-two. So we like to feel that's gonna make some really good momentum.

SPEAKER_02 34:13

You know, it jumped thirty points in in one week. They'll put your song out on a list say it that says going for ads. And you you're up with you know, big bands that are putting their singles out there just to see where it falls in line or to where you might get picked up on the syndicates to where it doesn't have to be on a secondary chart. So it's certainly somewhat of a competition. You know, the the whole point of getting your song into uh to as many ears as you possibly can, it just bumps that up a little bit. And we really can follow the analytics to that and see where these the stations that are playing it. And this being our third song that we done, we even see a little bit more in the analytics. Like, are the same radio stations picking this up? Do they realize it's because of the name or that's the name of the song?

SPEAKER_04 35:01

You know, I'm loving this. I mean, it's I haven't heard anybody talk about radio in so long, and I think that's what's so missed is watching the the artists that you love and you love the song, watching it go up the charts or down the charts in some cases. And that's what I miss so much because you can follow you, you know, or you can follow them. And there's really nothing out there except how many of your followers you have on TikTok, you know, which I'm not gonna say is bad because TikTok's doing a lot for a lot of artists.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

It sure is.

SPEAKER_04 35:32

I mean, if you read our mission statement, we talk about putting the power back into the artist's hands. So when you said you're an independent artist, I was like, yes, that's awesome, because you can do it.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

You can do it. It certainly, like Scott says, and that's definitely costs money.

SPEAKER_09 35:49

But if you're smart in the financial world, you're a financial advisor, figure some things out.

SPEAKER_02 35:59

And that and you're right, and this guy put gets us in some incredible positions, and and I think from that point on, it's me yelling on the other side of the phone. If anything, just make you think about it a different way. And he's and then he'll then he'll shoot me down because he's he's right. Or I might I might be a little pissy or something for a minute, and you'll have to calm me down. It's like that's just why we're doing this.

SPEAKER_03 36:24

I love how quick a Virgo comes back, though. They're pissy place, they come back real quick.

SPEAKER_09 36:30

I'm learning so much about myself today.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

You want to lay on the couch over there and get some couch?

SPEAKER_02 36:38

I'm certainly one for optimism, though. I'm trying to take a look at everything that way.

SPEAKER_03 36:42

I want to jump back to dope bag. Can you talk about the lyrics in that song a little bit? Sure. I mean, just like break it down, chorus-wise, what what inspired it?

SPEAKER_02 36:52

So Dope Bag was an original song of the band Sedimentrius, which was the one everybody died in. It needed to be dusted off.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

Yo!

SPEAKER_07 37:35

Don't get mad, don't get the buttons, right? I drop my dog, it's my podcast I drop, it's my podcast, we go real fast, real fast, I don't die, yeah. Now he's got the stage too many run dirty four minutes, it's not good, it's about the lyrics of that song back then.

SPEAKER_06 40:08

I wrote the full lyrics of that song, and I said, you know, hey, we're gonna bring it back. Let's keep the chorus and then you redo the verses. Make it your own story, but we can't change that chorus because that chorus has such a hook to it.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

I don't think I would ever was ever going away because that was the song. You know, that was that was the feeling. And so I think what I did is I took it and instead of making it about the dope bag in your pocket, I made it about the music man and the music man slinging your songs on the corner.

SPEAKER_07 40:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:39

And and if you listen to it, yeah, it's all in comparison with someone having the dope bag in their pocket. But the dope is the music. And the dope is the music. Exactly right. So that's what it that's what it is. If you listen to it, you'll see that. You'll see that, okay, that's that's a really neat comparison. That's fun. You know, and it just ended up that way. So but keeping it along the same vein and and to where you know the audience is singing back to you, I got my dope bag in my pocket.

SPEAKER_06 41:12

It's a good feeling. It's a really good feeling. But I remember when I wrote that song, I was on a really big Billy Squire kit. That's not a bad way to me. No, you know, that's I was just like listening to a lot of the Billy Square at the time, and I I don't I think that's where that kind of melody part of the verses come from. What we're doing down here after this is I have to go buy a new suitcase for our trip coming up because my ex has my suitcase.

SPEAKER_03 43:12

Man. Like, and that's not cheap.

SPEAKER_06 43:14

Yeah, and she's not giving it back.

SPEAKER_03 43:15

Like, she took it in a mean way.

SPEAKER_06 43:17

No, no, it was just kind of like one of those I I haven't unpacked yet. I'm like, okay. And then it was kind of like, well, I'm not coming back. And I was like, maybe you got my suitcase.

SPEAKER_03 43:29

Can I get that back?

SPEAKER_06 43:30

No reply.

SPEAKER_03 43:31

I was like, Oh how long ago was this?

SPEAKER_06 43:34

A month ago. Are you okay? I think I'm a little shattered from it a little bit. Are you? I think I can handle getting a new one though.

SPEAKER_03 43:40

Not the fucking suitcase.

SPEAKER_06 43:44

The sucks is way more important than the girl. What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_03 43:47

I mean Well, I'm gonna give you a little secret. I don't know if men know this, but when you want a good suitcase, you go to fucking TJ Maxx. There you go. Dollar suitcase for like $49.

SPEAKER_02 44:02

I've got mine for free at the University of Virginia. Well that's called Suit City. One of his students left behind his suitcase. It was brand spanking new. Still had a tag on it.

SPEAKER_03 44:12

Mike, do you think that's realistic for most people that need a suitcase?

SPEAKER_06 44:17

I'm not going to go laundering through the college to get me a suitcase.

SPEAKER_03 44:21

You realize what I had to suffer to get this job. Ladies, it sounds like Scott's on the market. So I, you know, I don't know if anybody interested in a guitar player. And if you have a suitcase, you're even better.

SPEAKER_06 44:36

Right.

SPEAKER_09 44:36

There it's going to be like the only woman in this band is is our new bass player's fiance. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:44

Oh, you're all single.

SPEAKER_09 44:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:46

Oh, nice. Okay. You might start getting some bigger crowds when this gets uh.

SPEAKER_06 44:52

Maybe so, maybe so. But the questions are gonna be hey, do you like sushi? Do you have your own suitcase? Are you willing to sleep in the other room?

SPEAKER_10 45:04

You want to go Dutch?

SPEAKER_01 45:09

Oh my god, do you like hard nipples?

SPEAKER_08 45:14

These are about to tear through this shirt when you have a book.

SPEAKER_04 45:19

Oh my god. Well, that just summed up the podcast from what we've talked about. All right, let's go back to the shows and being on the road and that kind of thing. So what's the craziest or most memorable show you have done?

SPEAKER_06 45:37

I think like there's so many like different ones for different reasons. You know, like Blue Ridge Rockfest, you can't throw that out in front of 20,000 people closing the night out. You hear thousands of people changing.

SPEAKER_02 45:50

Wow. Yeah. And it's recorded, which is even cooler. YouTube, it's on YouTube.

SPEAKER_06 45:55

You can watch the whole section.

SPEAKER_03 45:56

We'll share it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 45:58

I think we all have our own little like crazy shit that happens to us while we're playing or at the show or on the way to the show with us because we we've talked about it forever. We need to start recording our truck rides just because we're cutting up so much.

SPEAKER_02 46:15

We'd be an unbelievable reality type program.

SPEAKER_06 46:21

It wouldn't be reality.

SPEAKER_01 46:23

Fantasy.

SPEAKER_02 46:26

It would be fantasy, but it'd be a reality at the same time because it because there are moments that even we forget about, but that are just hilarious. You know, we let loose when we get on these little trips, we let loose and we have fun and you know in a rock band.

SPEAKER_04 46:39

Yeah, in a rock band.

SPEAKER_06 46:40

A funny thing, truck story I remember, is uh I'm a big supplement person. You know, I work out a lot, supplements, all this stuff like that. I found a supplement called shiligit. Shilajit? Shilajit. It's a it's a resin.

SPEAKER_02 46:56

And we'll talk about this later.

SPEAKER_06 46:59

Like you scoop it out and you like mix it in with like your coffee or something like that, and it's natural. Tastes like shit. Yeah, it does taste like shit. It smells like shit.

SPEAKER_04 47:10

They hate when he brings that out on the bus.

SPEAKER_06 47:12

However, however, so packed full of minerals. It is packed full of minerals, and you you take it for a week and you will feel this. Literally, it will change you. So I, you know, like getting them. I'm like, I want the guys to start taking some of this, and they're like, We're going to McDonald's. I'm like, I got some shillages. Um I found it in a straw. So you could just snip the straw and pour it in mixed with honey, you know. So I I give everybody one mic that shovels his up underneath the seat or something.

SPEAKER_01 47:46

Oh, I didn't do it.

SPEAKER_06 47:48

But Greg, our drummer who has never done anything like this, he says, Well, hell with it, and snips it and pours it in these coffee or whatever. And Greg's a selectively speaking guy. He, you know, he don't talk a whole lot, but you know, when he talks, you know, it's important. He says good stuff and he's a funny guy. But we're going down the road and all of a sudden Greg just starts talking.

SPEAKER_05 48:13

And just as right and he says, Oh my god, I cannot shut up. I'm driving.

SPEAKER_08 48:18

He's in the passenger seat. We just look at each other like holy shit. I'm like, carefully, you can see my eyes in the rearview mirror. How do you spell that?

SPEAKER_04 48:28

I know. What is it? Shillish shit?

SPEAKER_09 48:29

Shillish. What is the shillish shit? Chill legit to quit dun dun. You remember too legit to that. This is how I remembered it. It's perfect.

SPEAKER_06 48:43

It had him so hyped up. Really? Oh, I need that.

SPEAKER_03 48:48

Did it do it to you? Did that do it to you like that?

SPEAKER_06 48:51

No, because I've done it every day.

SPEAKER_09 48:53

It was the dosage. Oh. And it was tasty because it was with honey. It didn't smell like shit, but it had honey in it and then mixed it with it.

SPEAKER_02 49:02

So it's their Himalayan mineral supplement. So all these minerals and vitamins that are pulled from whatever whoever's mining these things from the Himalayan mountains. And that is how it is marketed. It's got a whole thing, a whole booklet that comes with it. It'll tell you everything you need to know. But it is literally like smelling a dirty diaper.

SPEAKER_04 49:27

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 49:28

Because I still to this day take this stuff. Yeah, he's stuck on it. I I stopped taking it for a long time, and it and I felt I'll say my age. I can certainly tell that this was working or whatever it was. And what for whatever reason your skin gets better or just your general general turn 20 years younger immediately. It's not quite the fountain of youth. We're in constant search for that. But it is it definitely has changed my life because I'll just take a little bit of it. And I do not the honey stuff, but I look it comes in a several different forms. Like a jar. But I take a jar full of this resin. And it literally smells terrible. But once it's in coffee, it's a good thing.

SPEAKER_03 50:16

We're gonna get it like after this.

SPEAKER_04 50:18

I do, I think so.

SPEAKER_02 50:19

Amazon is wonderful.

SPEAKER_04 50:21

There are moments while Jess will look at me and she'll go, open your mouth. Because I'm so tired. He's not asleep.

SPEAKER_03 50:29

I was like, where are you going with that? Going back to nipples.

SPEAKER_05 50:35

Do we have cameras in here? That's why we don't do cameras.

SPEAKER_03 50:39

What's crazy is that we're gonna be able to Johnny here we go in your sleep again. Here we go. Everybody wants us to have cameras. We're like, think that.

SPEAKER_02 50:46

We want to just it'll take a it'll take a a couple weeks for you to see the results or feel the results. But you know, just the minimum amount that they say, just do that. Just do the minimum amount, and if it's a daily thing, just make sure it's every single day at the same time. Within two weeks, you'll look in the mirror and you'll be like, yeah, that stuff works. For whatever reason. It was like gooey. Very sticky.

SPEAKER_08 51:12

Very sticky.

SPEAKER_04 51:13

So you kind of want to smoke it, but you gotta eat it.

SPEAKER_06 51:16

But we do have a funny gun gummy story from the road. We can tell the gummy story again.

SPEAKER_02 51:22

So we're in uh Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and we're coming back up from South Carolina. So we'd already been on the road for a couple days, and we get up there, and I like marijuana, I'm not gonna lie. I I dabble.

SPEAKER_01 51:35

Dabble. I think everybody dabbles nowadays.

SPEAKER_02 51:38

You know, so there's just none left at that point and whatever trip. So he's like, Well, I brought my gummies, you know, and I'm not, you know, I've had gummies before, but I'm just I just haven't, I don't mess with them. He pulls out his jar of gummies, he's just here, you know.

SPEAKER_09 51:53

So he gives me the jar and I take this gummy and pow pop this thing, you know, and I'm doing this as it's going in my mouth and I'm chewing it, you're like, Yeah, mmm.

SPEAKER_06 52:05

He's looking at me like, I really gotta watch and see what this does. I have one out and I'm just like never.

SPEAKER_09 52:11

He just doesn't, yeah. Little do it, little do I know it. He just does like a little bite. I'm going, that's unfair.

SPEAKER_02 52:19

Within 10 minutes, uh, my knees were shaking.

SPEAKER_08 52:23

We've got to perform a little bit, yeah, and I'm freaking out.

SPEAKER_09 52:27

Yeah. I I go in there and I'm and it's so loud, you know, there's a loud place, and I'm whispering to my drummer.

SPEAKER_02 52:35

I'm so stoned right now. I don't know how I'm gonna do this. I'm so my knees are shaking. And you know, of course, we're talking to people that were kind of traveling with at the time, and this guy that we just done a couple of shows with, a good buddy of ours, real super nice, super, super nice guy. He's got this real long beard and it's pink. Nice pink beard. He's got ext his beard's so always got extensions on his beard. That's what it's like, and it's just bright pink. And I'm so damn stoned.

SPEAKER_09 53:07

His beard was talking to me when he and I looked at our drummer, I said, Greg, you gotta get him away from me. This is too much, buddy. But that that was a gummy story. That I'm you know, the the avid pot guy thought he can handle a full gummy.

SPEAKER_04 53:26

Oh no, that's a whole nother ball game.

SPEAKER_03 53:28

It was, it is from flower to you know, no, I figured it out though, and you were an experiment to him at this point, but he knows the answer, and the answer is you cut that fucker up into like 20 and just pop a little, see how you roll, pop another one an hour later if you need it, and it's beautiful. He's like, I'm refreshed. Oh my god. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_06 53:52

And the the the place that we were playing at was like uh just a little concrete room. Oh boy, and nothing to it, you know, it was like dark and weird. Yeah, like a couple couches in there and a small bar. It was powerful.

SPEAKER_03 54:10

How did you do?

SPEAKER_02 54:12

You know what? It was it was we we had a little bit of time, so it wore off about an hour and a half or something around there. Yeah, it came out. I wasn't freaking out anyway anymore. As soon as the show started, it was I remember it just being very third or fourth day in a row. We played really hard and it was just in your face, and and it was a fun show.

SPEAKER_04 54:35

Well, talking about live, Scott, what's your mindset as a guitarist when you're playing live? Is it precision, chaos, or controlled destruction?

SPEAKER_06 54:48

So I I think my mind is probably the craziest mind of the whole evening because handling a lot of the business during the day, making sure that we get the point of contact, we're on time, we're loaded. I know who who is, I know the data shows, you know, list, the way everything's gonna go. That when it's time to actually go on stage is kind of like a release for me. So I'm like, I don't have to worry about that stuff any bit more. This is my opportunity. It's like a good chance to be chaotic, you know, just kind of let all my life go. I'm just having a great time thinking about like, hey, if I was in the crowd watching, this is what I would want to see. You know, sometimes it does get chaotic, and I kind of like that controlled chaos. Nice controlled chaos. I love that.

SPEAKER_04 55:35

I do.

SPEAKER_03 55:36

It makes me think of surfing. Like that's what surfers do. They just get out there and then all of a sudden you're just riding that wave, and it is about you. It is about you letting go and just riding the moment. It's really not about the people watching, and they just get to be there for it.

SPEAKER_02 55:51

They get to experience it. Yeah, yeah. I'm certainly in the moment for the most part. I call it my rock and roll sermon. And I and I give a sermon on rock and roll, and that's what it is.

SPEAKER_06 56:02

I like to watch people that are like watching us too. That's pretty fun. Sure. I remember that show at the foundry with Jackal where it was that girl was like right in between me and you, right in the middle, and she was leaning on the rails, she would watch this way, and then she'd watch this way, and she was like back and forth. It was kind of funny.

SPEAKER_02 56:22

It's fun to interact with them and people like that and toss my guitar picture.

SPEAKER_03 56:26

Your bio says live what they preach.

SPEAKER_01 56:30

There you go.

SPEAKER_03 56:31

So, what does that mean to each of you personally?

SPEAKER_06 56:35

Like I said, I mean, when I listen to our music and what we've written, it goes back, it just kind of sounds like I'm telling the story of my life. And I can just like think of times and hear times, hear spots of our music where I can timeline it to my life. I love the fact that I have the Clark Kent thing going on during the day. I wear a suit and tie all day long and you know, come out you know, on the weekends and playing rock music, and it's kind of fun when you know there's worlds cross back and forth.

SPEAKER_03 57:06

All right. I don't know if you guys are familiar with our speed round, but it is a way to quickly get to know you guys a little bit better for our listeners. So we're gonna jump into our speed round. All right, best guitar riff ever written.

SPEAKER_05 57:23

Shock me.

SPEAKER_03 57:24

I knew he'd have a quick one. Weed, whiskey, or caffeine if you had to pick one.

SPEAKER_04 57:30

Weed. Pick another. Caffeine. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 57:33

What is the most irresponsible purchase you've ever made?

SPEAKER_04 57:36

I wish I had your face captured at that moment.

SPEAKER_03 57:39

I have a reason for everything I'm like.

SPEAKER_04 57:40

I was gonna say, you're the financial advisor. Alright, so this has got to be a mic. This is a mic.

SPEAKER_08 57:45

The wolf of Wall Street over here.

SPEAKER_02 57:52

Oh no.

SPEAKER_03 58:00

Yes. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_08 58:02

Who's gonna hear that too? Good.

SPEAKER_03 58:04

Oh, that's so good. That is so good. There should be a lot of pissed off people after they hear this one.

SPEAKER_09 58:11

That was a waste of money.

SPEAKER_03 58:14

What is more dangerous? A bad crowd or bad tacos before a show.

SPEAKER_06 58:22

Bad tacos. Bad tacos. Especially if the whole band needs them. Greg, he will eat more. It'll be a small crowd after that. That's right.

SPEAKER_04 58:31

Well, it's gonna be a bad crowd after that. It will be. Either way, that's a disgruntled. Yeah, it's a lose-lose.

SPEAKER_03 58:39

All right, if you had to fight one legendary guitarist in a waffle house parking lot, who would you pick?

SPEAKER_02 58:50

Joe Perry. You had the fight him. Yep.

SPEAKER_06 58:54

Fight Joe Perry.

SPEAKER_01 58:56

So serious, too. Yeah, man. Joe.

SPEAKER_02 59:01

You hear this, buddy? I think I'd I think I'd put Slash in a headlock and give him a nuggy.

SPEAKER_03 59:07

Nice. Needs one.

SPEAKER_02 59:09

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 59:10

Slash, you need to get your shut together. Fuck him.

SPEAKER_02 59:13

Tighten up.

SPEAKER_03 59:14

Craziest thing you've ever seen happen during a live set.

SPEAKER_06 59:17

Guy's arm getting broken? Yeah, guy got slammed into that wall. Like our second or third show. Back then, yeah. Third show.

SPEAKER_04 59:26

Is there a lot of mosh pit going on? No, not really.

SPEAKER_06 59:29

But it was back in the day. I had I got hit with a bar stool on stage. Yeah, attacked on stage.

SPEAKER_02 59:35

The guy ran from the back of the room with a bar stool and boom nailed me. This was years ago now. But uh I was at that show. We wasn't playing together. You're an all-out brawl from that point on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:45

I bet so. Was it personal or oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:49

I mean, you know, we're I was super young and this is a smart ass, I'm sure. You know, I don't remember saying anything that was that would have ignited this guy to think he was just kind of loony anyway, but he didn't like me and and he took upon himself to hit me with a with a bar stool. Oh, really? I thought it was part of the show.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:14

No, you didn't. Stop me the shit.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:17

Yeah. He's over there in the corner with a spreadsheet making notes about his next one. Well there on a spreadsheet.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:24

Who in the band is gonna get hit with a bar stool? Yeah, really.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:26

That's what I want to do. Taking bets.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:29

All right. I definitely want you both to answer this. This is outside of your music. If you're in the car driving, road trip, what song immediately makes you blast that volume if it comes on?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:40

Off the rails, Bobby. You know what? I love everyday people by Yes!

SPEAKER_03 1:00:47

Oh my god. Okay. I have a story. And I know this is a speed round. I should not be doing this, but my We yell at each other over that. My oldest daughter's 30. She's Gemini. She's gonna be pissed about this episode. But she's gonna turn 32 in June. And when she was three months old, Arrested Development in DC opened for fucking Peter Gabriel. And it was at Merriweather Post Pavilion, one of the best shows. So I brought her in one of those little nappy things that you wear, you know, the baby. I had little earplugs for her little baby ears. And one of her first moments in life was Arrested Development and Peter Gabriel. Wow. They were phenomenal. And they were gone so soon. They were here, they were magic, and then where did they go?

SPEAKER_09 1:01:34

They're gone. That's right. They were around for a good while, too. But I think you're right.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:41

If 434 had an action figure, what accessory comes with yours?

SPEAKER_08 1:01:49

Sheila gym.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:54

Little hand. The medicine man with a shield. Little hands.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:58

Little hand with a shield. All right, last one for me, and then Johnny takes over. One conspiracy theory you low-key think might be true.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:08

9-11. That Elvis is alive. Maybe 105.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:17

He stayed alive. He stayed alive. He stayed alive. Stayed alive. He died of old age.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:25

Oh, that's so funny.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:27

You should just see the facial expressions in this room. This element.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:31

This is where video was as long as it wasn't on us. I know.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:35

We're just gonna keep it on y'all. Yeah. So here we go. Favorite front man of all time.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:41

Tie between Steven Tyler and Paul Stanley. Ooh. Very cool. Well, of course, with KISS with you.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:49

Totally get that. I would have to say probably Bradley Noel is sublime. Vocally.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:55

But you know what's happening.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:57

Yeah, I've seen his son. Sounds just like him.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:59

I'm I like literally my heart is full with him taking this back over. That's great.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:05

Remember, we argued about that. He was like, that's AI. I'm like, no, it's fine. His son's in the back. No, he's not.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:11

I mean, it sounds way too much like it for it not to be AI, but I believe it's him. I mean, he's got plenty of videos and stuff out there. Now, yeah. You know, it it's hard for me to embrace because it sounds just like him so much that, you know, it's it's kind of unreal. Yeah, I think vocally, lyrically, he had he was the new thing. He was the bridge band to where people who didn't necessarily listen to that type of music would listen to it and maybe even branch off to something heavier or someone didn't quite know what Raggay was and went off and listened to Raggay. So he they were a ri that for me, that original bridge band between genres.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:50

I should have worn my sublime t-shirt. Instead, I got Jefferson Airplane Loves You. Okay, what's the weirdest thing you've ever eaten after a show at 2 a.m.? Sheets.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:05

You pouring coffee on waffles at Waffle House? There was that. There was that.

SPEAKER_09 1:04:12

On accident.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:13

It was not accident. He thought it was syrup.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:16

Oh, you thought it was a syrup.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:20

I was in no shape to figure out what was syrup and coffee.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:24

We're going to the show and we're going out after. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:28

I have to say, I'm a Taco Bell. After I see a show, I have to go to show.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:31

Now that they brought back that fucking Mexi Melt, because I was pissed that thing was off the menu for me.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:36

I don't know what it is about me and Taco Bell at 2 a.m.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:38

I like Taco Bell. I haven't gone anywhere long. I haven't been to Taco Bell in 10 years.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:43

Well, the Maxi Melt is back. I'm embarrassed and we'll probably need to take that off. I'm kidding.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:48

I've had an Uber driver take me through Taco Bell. Every concert. Every concert for me.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:54

I have to do it. We're Waffle House. Yeah, that's true. That's pretty much everyone.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:59

Waffle House or I hop.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:01

Most rock and roll injury you've ever had. Tore off my fingernail.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:07

Oh. That's terrible. So sad that we don't have video of your every expression. Oh my god, it's amazing. Your faces. What about you?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:17

You have an injury?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:18

Oh yes. I don't know if I've caused it on stage, but I'm you know, herniated disc and holding playing, loading equipment, playing the show, driving to Pittsburgh and backing with a herniated disc. No pain meds, nothing, just pure pain.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:37

I've hung out with fans, you know, before and after the show, and people do not understand what you put your bodies through.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:43

Well, look what happened to a dance. I mean learning. Like literally, uh you know, I mean, just in pain twenty four seven. Yeah. People don't bring it back up. Bring it back up to it. Fine. Bossy. Bossy Piac. The beer kicked in. I think I'm really bossy when the beer kicks in.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:00

Okay. If you had to replace your microphone with a random object on stage, what would you choose?

SPEAKER_09 1:06:08

That's on you. With a random object?

SPEAKER_04 1:06:12

Uh-huh. A hammer. Oh.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:15

Cool answer.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:16

Yeah, that is a good one. Quick hammer. Especially because you're, you know, you work on shit. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:21

I've thought about that question before. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:24

You need to make a hammer microphone. I use a telefunken M80, and it is as heavy as a hammer. I mean, it's it's weighted, and I like the weight of it. That's why it sounds great, but it is a very heavy, and that's what I think of every time I grab it.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:40

All right. What's more terrifying? Silence from a crowd or making eye contact with one drunk guy in the front row all night? Probably. I'm scared of a drunk guy, aren't you? Plenty of those.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:54

Oh, yeah. I've been there and done that. Those guys are great. Wink at them and stuff.

unknown 1:07:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:03

Blow his mouth. Whoa. That's right. You might get more than what you bargained for, too. He'll have to catch me.

SPEAKER_09 1:07:18

He'd be Biff. That'd be his name. Oh my God. He'd be licking his lips.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:22

With his little hand. Exactly. Tiny hand. Tiny hand. Oh my God. If the apocalypse happened tomorrow, what's the first album you're saving? Uh Clutch's Slow Hold of China.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:37

We'll get compared to them pretty frequently. Okay. And it's actually it's a fair comparison.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:43

But it's like everybody's like, the first time they hear it's like, you guys on my clutch.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:48

They've been a band for over 30 years.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:51

All right. If 434 was banned from Earth and forced to play on another planet, where are you going? Mars. Nice.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:02

Mars. The moon. I mean, that means after a don't want to be too far from home. Moon people, I'd like to be on it.

SPEAKER_09 1:08:11

If that was if that I would say the moon too.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:14

If it didn't have to be a moon and it wasn't a planet. It's not a planet, but I'm saying is Mars is a planet. We wouldn't be able to stop at the moon.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:27

What? The moon is not a planet. The moon is a planet. It's right there in the astronomic line.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:33

The moon's the moon. The funny thing is that it's a little bit more than a little bit. I have no idea. That's a planet.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:41

The moon's a planet.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:42

What was the movie in the 80s where they had the whole conversation about Uranus? Was that like there was some movie in the 80s where it was just or stand by me or something? Maybe it was stand by me. It was they're like walking.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:58

It was stand by me. I think it was stand by me. They're talking about, yeah. So uranus. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:06

Every child in America has laughed at that science.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:09

She was hoping that one of us would have said Uranus. They cued us up and we failed.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:17

You're not even naming a planet.

SPEAKER_09 1:09:20

Are you arguing that the moon's a planet? I've seen uranium.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:32

Do tell.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:38

Oh god. All right, we're ending on honesty. What's the most un-rock and roll thing about you? Scott, start with you. I'm a financial.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:51

How more nerding can it get?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:55

Like he got up close on that. I'm a financial.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:00

How much boring can it get?

SPEAKER_09 1:10:05

That's great. I can't top that one.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:09

Well, what's not on rock and roll about you?

SPEAKER_09 1:10:11

I like yacht rock.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:12

Yeah, that is not on rock and roll about. That is yacht rock.

SPEAKER_09 1:10:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:17

Unfortunately.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:18

Man. But we feel good. Ace can play some serious problems.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:21

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:25

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:26

All right, you guys. So we we decided a while back, because we are in here for usually an hour and a half, two, three hours, drilling people endlessly, that we would during every podcast episode have what we call the reverse cowgirl. So this is where y'all have an opportunity. Sounds great.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:47

Take your headphones on. Okay, take your headphones off. I tend to get tangled up.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:54

So y'all have the opportunity to ask us anything you want. You can each ask us a question, anything you want if you have one.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:03

So tell us about the wildest thing that happened in radio while you worked in radio that you witnessed or was a part of.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:10

When I was in radio, they were doing a skit on the morning show about swingers. And they decided to do this whole thing on the code that supposedly is lasagna parties. So apparently there's this whole thing if you get invited to a lasagna party, then it's code for it's gonna be kind of a swinger thing. So they had me call in. It was actually Melissa Chase had me, she I had to pretend like I was somebody that was going to these lasagna parties. And so she called me on the air and did this whole thing about it. And it was like, I didn't even think about until later, like that is my voice saying that I go to lasagna parties on one of the biggest stations in town.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:02

It never occurred to me to worry about that.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:05

So if we ever didn't invite it to a lasagna party, don't bring lasagna. I would be bringing them.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:11

I'm not gonna show up with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:14

You have your business party. Don't come together. We're not gonna come together.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:33

But not only would you have lasagna sky, you'd have a pocket full of your business cards to hand out. There's an opportunity there. Anyone need any financial planning?

SPEAKER_08 1:12:43

I don't know what y'all are doing right now, but you're in with a pack of smoke, boom. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:51

Oh my god, I can't top that. I can tell you one time I was interviewing Vertical Horizon, and when we first opened up and he goes, Nice, my next ex-wife. And I was like, I'm kind of happy about that, but I'm kind of sad. You don't even started yet. I've had someone say that to me. Was she right?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:13:15

Oh right. Then I walked right back out of that door and we never went back to that place again.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:22

I've had someone say that.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:23

Yeah. Are you just on one? You're just on one?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:27

On one marriage, divorce. No, I've been divorced twice. Got three kids with my second wife.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:35

All right. You have kids?

SPEAKER_04 1:13:36

No. No, he said nope.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:38

Scott just needs a fucking suitcase.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:42

You just need your suitcase. I'll be all my way. Yeah, I do need a suitcase.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:47

There's a TJ Max across the street. Yeah, literally. There is. Nice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:53

Damn, girl stole my suitcase. Mine might pee on mine. You don't want it back. Anyone who wants to break in, they can take whatever they want.

SPEAKER_09 1:14:02

You're not gonna like it. It smells like pith.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:05

I really just all of a sudden have this thought that I want to see pictures of everybody y'all have ever dated or be been involved with.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:13

Oh, Jesus Murphy.

SPEAKER_08 1:14:15

A couple of them have been deleted permanently. Permanently. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:19

Well, I hope they didn't die. No.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:21

Yeah. God. Oh, like that was a dumb question.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:25

No, I do have some that have.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:27

What? No.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:28

I had a I had a high school girlfriend die pass away. There you go. Well, we're getting at that age. She died back then.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:36

Yeah. Weird. That's a weird feeling. Yeah. I never thought about that till right now.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:41

We've had a few of those today.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:43

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:45

Great question. All right. Well, so tell us what's next or what's going on. Where can people see you? Where can they? Yes. Where do we go to find you?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:54

434band.com. So the digits 434band.com. Even if you type in 434, we usually pop up first on the list, which is really neat now. Considering that it's an area code.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:09

Yes, you can Google it and Google. Either you spell it out or put the numbers up, it will populate.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:14

Okay. And what's your next show? Fort Wayne. Wednesday. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:17

Fort Wayne, Indiana.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:19

Then Akron, Ohio for a couple nights, and then West Virginia, and back home. Then the New York, Boston, New Hampshire.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:27

That's mid-June.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:29

So check out the website and if you're in the area of where they're going, catch them. And we just have to wait, or I'm getting on the road.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:38

We got Wayne's Burrow at the end of June. Got what? Wayne's Burrow at the end of June of June. Wayne's found Virginia Beach on the day after. Play Elevation 27 on the Elevation. Oh yeah. We'll be there with Por Vita.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:53

And when is that?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:54

The last weekend of the month.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:56

We're on a cruise. Oh, that's I'm jealous. I know, right? So am I.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:00

We'd love to do a rock cruise.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:01

Wouldn't that be fun? Oh, we interviewed a guy that's something we've always wanted. A cruise dude. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:07

Yeah. Yeah. You should listen to his episode, Scott Orchard, because he started out in life playing on the Sunset Strip as a lead singer in these bands during the time of Motley Crue and all that. Hung out with Motley Crue. Crazy encounters. And then did like a life and radio on the corporate side. And then now is literally cruise to cruise to cruise, traveling the world, running the music, doing the piano. Wow. Yeah. Badass story.

SPEAKER_10 1:16:37

It's fun. Yeah. I've always wanted to do that. Yeah. Rock cruise.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:40

I mean, what a way to retire. Yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_10 1:16:43

Speedos.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:44

I've done one. I've done one cruise. We would look good at Speedo. Nobody looks good at Speedos.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:50

I'd be the only one on cruise in jeans. I've done one cruise. I've done an Alaskan cruise. I will never do anything like that again.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:00

What happened?

SPEAKER_04 1:17:01

What happened to you? Yes. Who likes to be cold? Yeah, I was cold.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:05

I've done all Caribbean ones. I've done it. Caribbean ones. And it's just a fantastic circle.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:10

Fucking all-inclusive. Man, oh man.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:12

Nothing else. All you gotta do is walk to your suite.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:16

Oh god. It's like a slumber party that does it in for how many days.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:21

It is literally that way.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:22

We're going on it together and speak with my friends or how friends and you need a photographer. Yeah. Totally.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:34

We'll have a lasagna party.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:36

And we'll eat it with tiny hands. Y'all, thank you for being with us today. Thank you guys.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:54

If you're creative in listening to this, we want your story. The messy one.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:59

The real one.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:00

The one you don't usually have the opportunity to share. I'm Johnny. I'm Jess. You're on the hook.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:10

Make sure to follow us on social media at Johnny and Jess on TikTok, and you can find the hook with Johnny and Jess on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.