Chelsea Selby-Witch Baby Soap

This podcast started as a simple conversation.....what is it really like to date a musician? It did not stay there for long. I interview my wife for the first time and it naturally drifts into everything that comes with building a life together,launching a business, clashing and aligning on ideas, and figuring out how to grow side by side without losing yourselves. A real unfiltered look into our lives together. Two people navigating love, ambition, and the world around them.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:32

Welcome to the World of Gateway podcast, episode three. Today I have a very special guest who happens to also be a very special person in my life. This is my wife, Chelsea Selby. Introduce yourself. Say hi.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Hi.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Yeah, see, this is this is gonna be a very awkward start for us as we are having a conversation on a podcast that we probably have had in our kitchen, and it's a little bit weird to do it this way. I I don't I don't know how how I'm gonna how I'm gonna go about this. I've already started and stopped this three times.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Yeah, this is our third time. We've both podcasted separately, but never together.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

So now here we are together trying to podcast and having a very interesting time and a very interesting go of it. But, you know, instead of being uh a couple of fake punk ass, pussy ass bitches, we're just gonna tell you, like, you know, this is our third try. And but we're gonna get this shit right. We're gonna get this shit right. So anyway, I wanted to talk to you today about what it's like to be married to a musician, data musician, what that's like. I had this thought while I was on tour, and like, you know, what is what is it like for you? Like, I know what it's like for me being in a van with with Dave and Tito and Diego and sometimes Joe Hardcore, and everyone just you know smells like mothballs and dog shit. And we're having our conversations of what we're having and we're getting in the hangs. But what's it like, you know, to be in your position? Because you're at home, you're handling shit, you're doing the thing, and like, you know, I I think that that's interesting. I I want people to know what it's like from both sides of, you know, from both sides of the coin, so to speak.

SPEAKER_01 2:14

Well, it's definitely not a super common experience because I don't know a lot of people who are in the same position. Thankfully, you know, I have other people that I can relate to, like other members of the band's partners and things like that that I can like lean on and we talk about things sometimes. But yeah, it's definitely um a very uh uncommon experience, in my opinion, that a lot of people don't deal with, and there's not a lot of information out there for like I guess the closest you could get would probably be like military wives, you know what I'm saying? Especially when you go to Europe.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Yeah, I I imagine that that's true. Europe was extremely difficult for those who have done it. I'm sure you know, for those who haven't, when you are literally working with a seven to eight hour like time difference, you're not only are you on completely different schedules because you're sleeping at you know, whatever time you can get sleep, you're waking up at like fucking 12 in the afternoon and you're starting your day then, you're traveling overnight, but you're also you have like a what? I mean, what do we have? Like a three-hour window that we could actually have called.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

And then it would just be like a random picture of you in front of a mountain.

SPEAKER_00 3:28

Right, which I mean, random pictures of me in front of mountains rule. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 3:31

I don't think anyone It'd be like here's some shitty club with a mountain behind it.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Right, exactly. Here I am in Sweden, the club is Swedish, and there's a palm tree for some reason. Right, for reasons we can't really discuss, and it's snowing, but there's palm trees. And yeah, I mean, I think it was very difficult. I I know it was difficult for me. I think that was probably the hardest tour for me in terms of like just just like we've been together for 20 years, we've spent probably very minimal time apart. Right. I think that was the most we've spent apart, maybe in a year, is what I did last year. So I think it was just really like an interesting thing to like be away from you, but also not just be away from you, but not be really able to like have a conversation with you when I wanted to, you know, like if I wanted to call you or I wanted to get in touch with you, or I had like a problem or whatever, like I normally call you. And not being able to just do that, you know, like and and calling you sometimes when it's like three o'clock in the morning and you're you're like, I'm sleeping. Why did you call me? And you know, that was like I think a very difficult thing to to deal with. But like on your end, you were dealing with constant snowstorms.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Yeah, it was it was a hard winter.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

It was a hard winter for I became a man this winter for for girls with you know very long.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

I cut the fingers off my gloves, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:58

Right. So I I just thought it would be a really cool conversation to have, and you know, maybe an eye-opening conversation to have for other people who are in relationships, because I get it all the time where people are like, How do you do that? And I I almost don't know if I have the answer. Like, how how how do I do that? How do we do this? You know?

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Well, I think at the end of the day, like, you know, if your partner uh has specific goals, you know, you obviously want them to reach those goals, and sometimes it requires like sacrifice. I think sacrifice is something like a lot of people aren't willing to do these days. Um in in any situation, like there's there's going to be periods of discomfort when you or your partner chasing your dream. You would hope your partner would do the same for you as you have. Um thank you, I appreciate that. And so it's you know, I guess it's just reciprocal. Like it just is what it is. I don't know. Maybe I just have a different perspective as a mother or like I'm comfortable sacrificing certain things for other people. You you kind of like can't be selfish, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Like And you touched on it a little bit, but I do feel like, you know, in in terms of like you reciprocating, like, you know, just to shed some light on that for people that don't know, like we uh have built a soap company together. It's called Witch Baby Soap, for those that don't know. Some people do know. Um, and you know, a lot of years of of my life, I I wasn't on the road. I wasn't making music. I was well, I was making music, but I wasn't necessarily touring or trying to make it my career, quote unquote. I was, you know, behind the scenes of Witch Baby. I was managing the company, I was learning how to how to be a a chief financial officer, which is insane. Uh that that would be my role in any capacity whatsoever. But I was also building storefronts and you know, helping you build out your idea and you know, making money on the back end so that you could start your business, which was your dream. And, you know, I never uh I didn't do it because I thought, you know, one day you'd be like, yeah, go to Europe. You know, I I did it because I I believed in what you were doing and I thought that, you know, I thought that it was um an amazing lesson for our daughter um to to see someone, you know, to have a a female figure in her life that was creating this this thing from scratch and was so driven. And uh, you know, I think I think a lot of what sort of drives uh Bayway for me at this point is, you know, a lot of what I learned from watching you. Like your your drive and your passion and your ability to become a businesswoman, um, I think you know, sort of uh morphed me into a person who was motivated to do the same thing. And I I think that that kind of shines through with Baywei at certain points in time.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Yeah, I mean it's I feel like all experiences are they kind of like compound and you don't really know where the path is gonna take you or like where the journey leads, and every single experience you have is significant. Like, for example, even just starting Witch Baby, um, my first experience selling literally anything was selling cupcakes at a hardcore show, and I sold all of them, and I just made them with like box mix.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

But to be fair though, no one else is bringing cupcakes to a hardcore show.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

You know? So the business sense was already there.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

I made like $150, which is like a lot back then in 2005. Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Especially because it only costs eight dollars to get into that show.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

And I probably bought like eight dollars worth of box mix.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Yeah. So we're looking at a sixteen dollar all-in cost.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

And I was like, holy shit.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

And then a- We're looking at about $130 in profit when you take gas off.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Compound experience. Like my my first kind of like seeing how marketing works and and um I think I know where you're going with this. My first kind of like seeing like limited edition items and selling underground and stuff like that also started in the hardcore scene.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Like um the way one of We can bring them up. One of the things that stuck in my brain was like the way Cold World used to sell like really um limited runs of items. Yeah. And then as Witch Baby first began, I started doing kind of like limited runs of different things um that were kind of like more niche and maybe weren't going to be like mass produced, you know what I'm saying? So I I just from being in hardcore, I've learned experiences um that I use in my business today. And then, you know, just being in different, like underground subculture, like my the original witch, like when we had we closed our storefront recently. Um, but when I started the store, I kind of like was influenced not by just like your traditional witch store, but actually like Supreme Skate Shop from New York City in like the 2000s. Um and like all of these things are like compound experience and things that might not seem relative at the time um become relative in whatever you're doing in the future.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Yeah, I mean Refuse to Lose had the hardcore scene in a chokehold. And these motherfuckers would show up with 30 shirts, and you, you know, you had to get your hand on it.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

I mean, that album probably single-handedly got me through the pandemic. Because I was like refusing to lose or something.

SPEAKER_00 10:50

Shout out to Cold World. Um, but yeah, I think um, you know, it's it's interesting because it it's like hardcore really, really has done that, and I think that like, you know, even to take it a step further, it's like it gave you that sort of confidence and that ability to like not really be given a fuck when it was like, hey, like, who are you to make soap, or who are you to call yourself a witch, or who are you to start a witchy brand? Is like I can do whatever the fuck I want, fuck you.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Even going to the Philadelphia punk rock flea market was like a cha life-changing experience for me in high school. Um, and brands like Sour Puss clothing and like all of them funkin' standard in Red Bank. Yeah, it it it's all kind of like intertwined, and really like um what people do in a band is really not that much different than what you do in a business.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Yeah, and I I think I I I think I think you're right about that. I think that like and to tie that in, it's like you're you're coming from this world, and this is like what where you're where you're coming from, and I think it's like important for people to kind of understand this. It's like I think a lot of like modern day dating it kind of like goes in this weird direction where it's like you know, you you should probably have something in common with your partner, right? I mean it probably you should probably start with you know just them being hot is not it, you know? Although I will say you're very hot. But thanks. I but I will I will say this having something in common with your partner really does go a long way, and I think it it it speaks to the longevity and it speaks to the ability to, you know, to to really like help your partner achieve their dreams and and believe in what they want to do.

SPEAKER_01 12:40

I think it's more than just common interests, it's also common values. And I think us growing up together in the hardcore scene kind of gave us the same set of values of like honor and integrity. I mean, some people didn't digest those values.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Yeah, we well we say this, I jokingly say this all the time that the integrity You know, everybody had an honor tattoo in 2005. The integrity part though was was lost on a few people, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

So, but I mean I feel like we carry those values like in our relationship with um, you know, supporting e one another, but also like having like DIY values and um that translate to both of like your band, my brand. Um we is brand a dirty word. I'm with the brand.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Is is brand a dirty word? I I've gotta know. Like, you know, like it is now.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Now nobody wants to say that on because we're like I don't I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Like I I feel like maybe that's true of younger people, but like I'm just gonna go out and say this. Like if you're a younger person listening to this, like brand is not a dirty word. And in fact, if you're in my age group, if you had your own brand, you were considered like a mogul and an episode of the influencerization of it.

SPEAKER_01 13:55

Oh fuck all. Like where influencers don't want to be like promoting brands, so now they'll be like, oh, I'm promoting this.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

Yeah, well then don't don't promote some fucking corporate conglomerate. Shop. You know, like don't like you're not you're not a shop just because you're a DIY brand. That doesn't make you a shit. Like saying the word shop doesn't necessarily like just be the size of your brand is not it just shouldn't be important. The the values of your brand should be important. Like if you hire tons of workers and you don't give them insurance, sure, like let's not support that. All about that. But like the size of your brand doesn't matter. Like, if if which baby was to explode have 500 employees, then it would just be, you know, we would still be doing the same things. We would we would have 500 people on insurance. We'd have five, it wouldn't be any different than it is now, you know what I mean? But whatever. It's I guess.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

I think I think people get into the semantics of words, and sometimes we uh we devalue certain words. And I don't know if we we quote unwe, the people really do that. Who where is this coming from? Why can't we say brand anymore or whatever it is?

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Um I'm I'm proud of your brand that you've built. And and as a as a person that's been here since the beginning of it, you know, I uh whether you want to call it a shop or a brand or whatever word makes you feel more comfortable, um you know, I'm I'm super proud of what you built. And I am really, really, I feel very, very lucky and blessed to have been a part of not only its creation, its rise, its plateau, it's all of its things. Um, you know, the good, bad, and the ugly. It's taught me a lot of lessons in terms of, you know, how to how to do business, how to be successful, and how to be self-sustaining. And I think that that's one of these like really important uh lessons that that people I I think maybe should should maybe tap into is like being self-sufficient, self-sustaining. Like there's something really, really uh freeing and empowering about knowing that like you don't necessarily have to go get a job at Wendy's.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

No, you absolutely don't. And you're probably gonna actually be more successful at whatever you're actually passionate about than just kind of like going through the motions. Or even if you have like um, you know, you could be working in corporate America, not a Wendy's, you know what I'm saying? You could be working in like anything. I just said Wendy's because it's you could be working in an office, but if you're pat not passionate about it, you're gonna lack the drive to like climb the corporate ladder, you know? And I there are people who are passionate about climbing the corporate ladder, and those people should climb the corporate ladder. It's really there's no judgment either way. However, you choose to survive in this like late stage capitalist hellscape is really your choice. Whatever you're passionate about is probably gonna be the most successful route for you, though.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Right. And there's a certain level of climbing that corporate ladder and and like you said, and and becoming successful that really does have to do with um being, you know, self-sufficient and self-sustaining, though. Like you can be good in a in a corporate atmosphere, but if if you want to get further up, you've really got to be tapped in with what it is that you a want, and b, like your ability to get there. I think it's also a certain level of self-belief that I think gets people a lot further than just going through the motions.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

It's also I found for us a multifaceted issue. Like there are layers of and layers of classism in climbing the corporate ladder or moving up or moving out of class mobility. No, it it's definitely like you know, f what what was the 50 cent line?

SPEAKER_00 17:58

New m new money.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

Yeah, yeah, the new money line.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

New money too fast. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Yeah. Um, but it's definitely, you know, they don't want you uh if uh in the class above you, and then when you start to exit like the class that you came from, it's hard to go back, and they don't want you there either, and then you just end up in this like weird in-between. But also, uh, you know, when you're climbing the corporate ladder or when you're like moving up, there's like there are lessons, there are uh you realize how much is actually baked in. Is this okay to talk about on this podcast? Can we go into classism? You realize how much is actually baked into like um like personally, I don't give a fuck that we're talking about classes.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Okay. Let's we can keep going.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

I I know it's not a political podcast, but like you you realize This is where the conversation went.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

We're not gonna censor it.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

You re well, I mean, I feel like it's just this is part of our journey together. It sure is realizing how much of even just down to the vocabulary that we use, um, is lower class and how that affects upward mobility.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

To people that are not understanding what she's talking about, because sometimes uh she's extraordinarily uh bright and and doesn't say things in what people would consider to be like layman's everyday regular terms. She's basically saying that when you start with the bed on the floor and the one set of sheets that you got at Walmart, and you don't have anything else inside of that apartment other than that, and then eventually you believe in yourself and you work really fucking hard and you are unstoppable and you won't allow anybody to get in your way, and then you get to this point where you do get a little bit of money, and then you get in front of people that have a lot of money, and you start to maybe see them at a party, or maybe you see them at some type of event that has something to do with business or something along the lines of that, or maybe you get a store and a bunch of people that own property then become interested in you and want to have conversations. Your language, what you say, how you act, is always going to be poor. There's never going to be a class on being classy. And what I mean by that is that it doesn't matter whether I have a million dollars in my bank account or I have ten dollars in my bank account, I am always going to sound like I'm from Elizabeth, New Jersey, and everybody's always gonna pick up on that in a bigger, uh in the in the bigger uh sphere of like business and and and like people that own large amounts of property or just come from wealth or whatever it is. And it's not it's not a negative thing to come from wealth or whatever. But what I'm saying to you is that there's definitely a difference between the two, and you cannot change where you came from. You can try to hide it, but we eat differently, we order differently, we speak differently.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

We eat at diners, we don't right. We speak highway 36 vocabulary, we chew gum with our mouth open.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

It just is what it is. Whatever the little things are, we just And they clock it.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

They clock it.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Yeah, we don't, we don't know. You know, you you can't you don't know until you get there, and then when you get there, you you find yourself thinking, oh my goodness, I I am just a a you know, grade A poor person. That's what uh that's who I am. And I just I gotta admit that to myself. And you get to a certain point, I think we got to a certain point where it was like, you know, like you want to achieve that quote unquote American dream of like, you know, you want to be a billionaire, right? Or a millionaire, whatever it is. And then you realize that, like, in order to get there, you gotta do some fucking disgusting shit. You know, you think it's not not a great place to be.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Well, like I said, you have to be passionate about You have to be passionate about what you do.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

Yeah, you gotta be passionate about it for sure.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Um and there well, I think that it plays into like the the ideals and the values that are baked into different um like class values and there's definitely like um a class that's taught to rule and be the authority and a class that's taught to work.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

I I love the fact this is like such a natural um real organic conversation between me and my wife where we start out and we say hey you know we'd really like to have a conversation about what it's like to date a musician and then um you know ten minutes later she's uh schooling me on classism and we are somehow involved in a it's all relative right this is this is exactly if we survived prop poverty we can survive two weeks of a European tour. And I think you know what I think that's really what it is. Like I think that really like that's really real. Like we have survived some really insane things and then like your European tour wasn't worse than when I got fired while I was pregnant.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Then I lost my car eight months pregnant and we were on food stamps and I had to go breastfeed in front of a random stranger and give them my blood so I can get wick. Like two weeks in Europe's not worse than that.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

No no not to mention um I was on unemployment and unable to get work at the time as well yeah you were at the time you were you were actually my unemployment I believe was up.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

No no that when when when I was pregnant no you were we we were both making $14,000 a year each and you were making you were making $14,000 a year to walk uh how many feet up in the air on a steel beam?

SPEAKER_00 23:48

Oh 80 feet. 80 feet and then pull up like what 100 pounds 250 pound to 150 pound motors Orange County convention I was in rigging at the time and I was walking the steel and hanging things from the ceiling for $14,000 a year. And actually you know to speak on the level of poor that we were I was super excited about it. Yeah uh I got that job because I thought I was gonna be moving boxes as a stage hand they rolled out a body bag and they said if you fuck up this is where you're gonna be and I remember thinking like if you move a box wrong you could die like holy shit this is gonna be fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

I've never been you were working with people from the fucking circus.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Yes Circus Olay lots of really really interesting Russian guys uh from Circus Olay um who were fantastic at at walking you know at extreme heights on fucking on uh you know on tight ropes and shit and and then decided that you know this would be a good way to make some it was like Russians rednecks who fed you alligators alligator tail yeah was a was a special thing in Florida and you know I I'll be honest it it's very good. Yeah it's really not bad I never had an alligator before it's not bad it's really not bad.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Um I suggest having some if you're but also I think if we could survive that then we can survive a two week European tour.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

Yeah we did survive the two week European tour. We survived the the 30 day biohazard tour even though it was an absolute shit show nightmare you know we survived we survived it and I think we continue to survive it because we put a lot of work into our relationship. It's been going on you know I said I I I think I said it to you this morning you know like in 20 years like I I we're still we're still good. You know it's you know smooth C's never made a skillful sailor oh god there are certain things that this woman says on a frequent basis and that's one of them that I just I don't understand. That is one of those and she loves the saying she loves it she smiles every time she says it's from my ancestors but it's not it's not it's not for me. It's not for me it's not my not a sailor. It's not my cup of tea so to speak not a sailor not actually not really don't fuck with boats actually at all um never been on a cruise don't want to go yeah that's true. You know um but yeah I mean we started this business together we we did a lot of things that were um you know not commonplace I think for a a couple to do we moved in together after three days of of being with each other I wanted to have you on the podcast this this week I wanted to do it earlier but unfortunately I got sick you know you've been making that a lot easier for me which you make everybody you did get me sick right so that's that's actually true. But it's honestly my fault that I got sick because I should have stayed away from you but after being on tour you know just to let everybody know it's very difficult to stay away from somebody that you love. So um I got home from tour I got very sick she has been trying to help me not be sick anymore um as my nose is running and I hope it's not too much on the mic but I uh I've been trying to to get this this podcast done it was an important week for us as we celebrated seven years of of being married and almost 20 years of being together um and I thought that it would be a good week to have you on I'm glad I'm on a good week to start some uh you know some collaborative content if you will so the one thing that we haven't tapped into yet in our in our 20 years of of being together but you know one thing I would like for you to talk about and since we're here we're we we've talked about classism we've talked about which baby we've talked about our relationship a little bit but like let's let's tap into which baby a little bit more like what is what is your driving force for still doing it after all of these years and what you know what do you what do you get out of it? What is it that that drives you to consistently keep creating new products and things that you know like things that that people still love like you're still coming up with like really cool shit and what are we we were 13 years in I mean I just don't think I'm ever gonna stop being a creative person.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

You know this you're a creative person I think that's also why we can understand each other. It's a shared common interest um that we are both creative people. You're so ridiculous I think that's important. I'm I yeah I just like I'm always gonna have this creative energy that and I'm gonna need to put it somewhere you know I've got just a lifetime of trauma to pull from um so so I gotta transmute that and I also like to be be the change I want to see in the world you know what I'm saying like um which baby for me is was born out of not just survival but also um my own like trauma journey not to get too deep but my own trauma journey um and healing my own like body and self-image and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Right from the beginning the idea of witch baby and I remember you saying this a lot in the beginning um and you know you still say it now but it's almost it's like we've all been working together for so long that I don't think you have to say it as as much as as you used to but the whole idea behind Witch Baby when you started it and I remember you saying it was that you hated the way people advertised to women and you hated the idea that you needed a product to be pretty or to be beautiful or to be considered pretty or beautiful or or to you like in other words you you didn't you didn't want to create products that made people feel like without the product you you're not valid.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

Right? Like you wanted to create a product that sure maybe made you feel good maybe maybe enhances your beauty but the idea was that you're already beautiful and you don't need a product that makes you beautiful what you need is to invest in yourself right to to to understand your own self-worth prior to the product and you're only getting products and you're only doing these things because you're investing in self-care.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Yes you're investing in who you are I think I really internalized the ending of SLC Punk where he goes and he he's like talking about how you have to join the system to beat the system and I know a lot of people maybe are like anti-capitalists and they don't want to like start businesses or they don't want to be a part of the system but if I'm not a part of the system then it's just a bunch of people marketing uh body bath and body to you telling you you have to like fix yourself and do all this stuff.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

One of the things that always strikes me as odd about people that are anti-capitalist or whatever it is it always strikes me as odd is that you can have whatever opinion you want but at the end of the day you have to also remember judging somebody for being involved in capitalism is sort of insane because I don't know about you but every first of the month they ask me to pay for the house.

SPEAKER_01 31:35

I just I don't I don't think I've ever had a bank account big enough to judge people for surviving in capitalism. And that's my point right is you know what I'm saying like I have to survive at the end of the day and this is the system that we live in.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

Like brother like you know what I'm saying you I gotta eat and like at the end of the year the best I can do is my the most ethical form of that. Exactly right like if you want to get like I don't know about you but like I I'm I've been eating three times a day since like my my whole life right like I I do this thing it's called breakfast, lunch and dinner. It's never been free ever.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

And like you know so unfortunately this is the world we live in like you need to get money in the world there's literally no life without labor like there's no unless you unless you were uh part of an upper ruling class like there's no there's no life where you don't labor for the things that you have and it's a although I do fantasize about what it would be like to have a huge plot of land where we didn't have to pay for food and we could just like maybe grow our own food man that would be fucking cool. I mean I'm sure it would be cool but it would also be hard.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

I'm sure that's this is why there's so many we tried to do a garden like we tried to do a garden.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

No I I we were successful once but then remember one year it just rained I just don't know what I would do if I couldn't buy ladybugs off of the internet that are probably also invasive you know saying like uh the aphids will be the death death of me.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

Problem is too is tomatoes are only gonna grow for three months in New Jersey.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

I mean yeah it's there's to you you have to what am I supposed to say I can't move unfortunately to survive you have to labor and I think that's it it is what it is. But back to what we were talking about is I think I have a really like um punk perspective a very DIY perspective and that's what kind of like keeps me going especially as a small business owner like um as corporations just kind of like absorb everything and every small business and now you have um private equity absorbing every small business and either shutting them down or making them terrible I feel like one of the most radical things you can do is have a small business. Like it's you're you're one of the only systems that are still existing that are not putting money into like these big corporate entities.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

So what you're saying and stop me if I'm wrong here is that in late stage capitalism the most punk rock thing you can do is start a business.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

I do think it's one of the most punk things that you can do. It's kind of a damn the man type of move it is a huge damn the man type of move. You know it's kind of we're the sauce we're the sauce they're always ripping us off they're always ripping a small artist off a small business you know you see all these small artists they'll make uh you know like a cool pottery thing and then all of a sudden it's mass produced in home goods and it's $15 um you'll see like like the small business is the blueprint at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 34:44

I agree and I think that in the hardcore community and I I talk about that specifically because I feel like that's my community that I'm the most involved in I feel like you know I see friends of mine post on the internet all the time like hey I need someone to paint my house and I would like to keep the money in my circle. I love that kind of shit right that kind of shit like gets me fucking pumped as like a business owner and as somebody that like cares about the community right like my idea is that like if you're keeping the money within your community and you're supporting local businesses like people always talk about this shop small support local business like yes shop small sport going to a hardcore show and supporting a hardcore band is shopping is shopping fucking small and supporting a local business. I agree like you what you're doing is you're putting money into your community you're allowing your community to thrive and when you do that you have people that are going to you know like look you can go out and you can get dial you can get fucking Irish Spring you can do all that you know what I mean or you can buy uh you know witch baby soap from a punk rock person and and I'm not even saying you have to buy our shit you can buy any soapmaker's shit off of Etsy or whatever it is that you want to do but support support like you know people are like so quick like quick to be like oh you know like fuck the corporations but then it's like you know right off to Walmart to spend their money.

SPEAKER_01 36:10

It's also just it's also just spending your money on self-expression. And I think this is another point which is an art form in itself that we we are losing like color in the world. We're losing everything everybody everything is starting to like look the same. And that's also uh you know corporations just putting out the cheapest plainest product and so it's like it's radical to buy something colorful something that's not just scented in the same five cents something that's like and it's it's radical to listen to a band that doesn't have like the most like auto-tuned um precise sounding especially in the in the wake of AI and like the way AI is gonna change everything I think hardcore is more important than ever.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

Yeah because it's real you you don't have to the thing that that's awesome about hardcore is you don't have to question where it's coming from most of it.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

You know like that was what I Yeah like AI couldn't just make something that sounds that fucked up.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

No, absolutely not and also like AI could never be that fucked up to create this thing. Like that's the other part.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

I don't know the they they made that one AI model that they fed Reddit posts and it turned like dark real quick.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

I don't want to know about that. Yeah like I don't even think like that's where I'm at like I I think there's actual like power in in like the stupidity of not like I don't want to even I don't want to even know. I don't even want to digest that level of stupid content. To me that's fucking like the like that's a peak awful but I think I think like supporting supporting the smaller businesses supporting like a hardcore uh a hardcore band or a hardcore zine or someone that's just like these are the people that we should be supporting right like this is the the whole idea of community. Right and like the actual American dream I think was that like you know like you start the corner store and like you make sub sandwiches and then everybody in the neighborhood like buys the sub sandwiches from you and they they come to you to get their cigarettes and whatever the fuck but right like that was what happened right and then that money went back into the community because the person would pay you know it's it's it's interesting even if you start to like and I I think everyone should go back and look through their ancestry.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

Yeah but we're we I'm many things but I one thing I am is Italian and I definitely have Italian grocers in my family but now nobody owns a grocery store. Now nobody owns a grocery store.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

It's crazy it's crazy absolutely insane.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

But just two generations ago it was very common for someone in my family someone in your family to own a grocery store.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

Or just a corner store. Like imagine a world where you just owned the corner store and you worked until about five o'clock every day you had like a dope life like you go at like 7 30 you start making bacon egg and cheeses you know what I'm saying and then like lunchtime rolls around you fucking bang out a bunch of Italian subs and by three o'clock you're rolling the fucking I think it's really interesting too because we've created this like American dream where we're like we need to go to the top of the corporate ladder and get to the C-suite and then you know what the people at the C suite are doing?

SPEAKER_01 39:30

They're buying laundry mats. Fuck it hey I know they're like listen you can buy you too can own they're buying up laundry mats like it's fucking like they're telling you that's a low level job don't do this job don't own a laundry mat. Don't own a corner store be like us and then they go and they buy all the laundry mats. So you might as well just buy the fucking laundry mat. Yeah I mean absolutely at least then you know who the fuck like this is the stuff that drives me crazy because and this is what like I this is what I wrote currency about right it's like that's what that's that's the thing they do to keep you down you know they they come in they look at your culture they they look at where they can fucking they devalue they devalue uh like right now Americana like trash Americana is becoming popular again and like all these pop stars are doing it again and you like see this in hardcore too where you'll see people come in and like currency they'll cosplay poverty and things like that while also actively devaluing it buying the stuff from the thrift store that's four people in the community and then selling it on Deepop for like $500 for a fucking Marlboro t-shirt that somebody got with points.

SPEAKER_00 40:42

Yeah that's why I won't rock I have just so everybody knows I have a vintage full windbreaker outfit from Marlboro that my grandfather had from fucking points that he saved up and I want you to understand something. I'm a straight edge guy but this fucking man smoked a million fucking cigarettes for this outfit okay he put his fucking life on the line legitimately all right he smoked six million cigarettes to get to this fucking outfit and there's no fucking way I'm bringing it outside and letting motherfuckers offer me money for it. Like it's not fucking it is peak fashion I'm not gonna sit here and act like it's not if I had the fucking kayak do you remember the kayak? Yes I remember the kayak fuck the kayak was insane my grandfather smoked 17 billion cigarettes my dad had the duffel back right so you see your dad only smoked like he only smoked like 100 it was big it was really big but he only smoked like 100 I literally used to try to my grandfather smoked six billion to get the kayak six billion to get the kayak unbelievable but see here's the thing right back to the idea of community let's not get too far carried away here but the idea of community right is to support one another and whether you're in a hardcore band or you own a soap company the idea is to consistently keep the money within your circle right and that's sort of what this conversation has turned into. It started into a conversation it started as a conversation where we were going to talk about how hard it is to be on the road and miss each other. And and and we do miss each other but I think the problem is is that no matter what, whenever we have a conversation the two of us we always go to this weird idea of the greater good and like how important it would be to like really show people and help people like I think that's more important, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:33

And like well I think it's I think what I think what the underlying message here is that we've been working together as a team in business and to survive life and to come out of poverty and to do all these things for so long that it just seems like it's second nature at this point to just survive and endure any type of situation that we're in. And that's maybe not for everybody. And I think you need to be upfront in your relationship about what you want and what your needs are um and you know I the everybody's different so what's gonna work for us is maybe not going to work for you but if you are also you know like inspired and motivated by our story like I'm happy for you.

SPEAKER_00 43:15

Yeah I and I I agree I I get people all the time messaging me and asking me like how how did you do it? Like how how do you how do you stay with your with your wife for this long or what and it's like you know one thing I want to be clear on is that it's not always fucking roses and days it's not always fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 43:36

No I feel like I feel like that's also set I'm such a conspiracy theorist. I'm sorry I'm sorry nobody should put me on a podcast we're going directly right into like I feel like you know it's like it's like a psyop No I feel like people are set up for failure because especially especially well the idea like let's just be clear the idea that you don't fight in a relationship or the idea that when you start

SPEAKER_00 44:00

To fight, it's over, is actually super false. And I would say actually, I would actually go as far as to say that when you start to fight and you find yourself consistently fighting with your partner, it's actually not time to go and it's not time to lose hope. What it's time to do is figure out why you're fighting, figure out what boundary you're looking to set, figure out what aspect of your of your part in the relationship you're not expressing fully, right?

SPEAKER_01 44:32

Because I think the arguments just need to be productive.

SPEAKER_00 44:36

Right. And I feel like a lot of ours are. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

Like if you don't feel like you got anywhere at the end of the argument and you don't feel like and and uh you know to be clear, she's a tourist, so she does not apologize.

SPEAKER_00 44:48

I'm always right. It's well that would mean all the time. Right. So that's exactly why you don't have to apologize, I guess. That makes so much sense.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

I'm just I can't help it that I'm right all the time.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

Right. And I can't help it that sometimes you need to apologize for being so right all the time. But at I'm sorry, I'm right all the time. Right, and you should be, and you fucking should be. Um, but at the end of the day, like that's the thing that's important is that like when you get into that fighting aspect of your relationship, you should probably understand that the reason that you're even there and fighting in the first place is because you care about it.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

Yeah, a you care because if you didn't care, you wouldn't express um or the person that you're with wouldn't even make you upset.

SPEAKER_00 45:30

Like, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 45:32

Like, I I I have a really difficult time going back to any you know what I'm gonna say, everybody you argue with is not somebody that you care about.

SPEAKER_00 45:39

No, but it's not I'm talking about in a relationship. If you're in a relationship for a year and you find yourself now arguing, you're in a relationship for three years and you find yourself having a consistent argument, the chances of you giving a shit about the person are pretty high.

SPEAKER_01 45:53

I think uh now I'm at the grown age where like if I don't feel like arguing with somebody about something where uh like we're gonna be.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

You don't even get to have this conversation. Every relationship you were in prior to this relationship.

SPEAKER_01 46:05

Let's not talk about my past relationships.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

You were in for about five years ago.

SPEAKER_01 46:08

I was a teenager, bro. Anyway, anyway, we're not going to talk about this. No, but if in in personal, like in Yeah, you know it's real. In like friendships and things like that, if I don't find the need to bring up a problem or think that the problem is salvageable, um, like the argument's not worth it and it's not gonna get me anywhere, that's a good sign that like that's not the friendship for me. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 46:40

Right. Like the thing about it is, and and and I've always found this like this is relatable to me for band stuff, right? Because people always say like bands are like a marriage, and they they certainly are. Like, I'm willing to die on certain hills in the writer's room, you know, like and if you don't understand where I'm coming from, I don't even necessarily care. Like, I don't even care to hear about your under your misunderstanding of it because I'm that passionate about it, right? And we'll have arguments, and I I will I will be headfirst into those arguments, like fuck this, we're gonna go forever. I'm willing to die on my fucking, on this, on this, on this hill, you know? And I think that that's like because I'm so passionate about it. Now, if there's a song that we're writing that I don't necessarily give a shit about, and I'm just trying to get past it, you know what I mean? And I'm I'm thinking to myself, this isn't even gonna make it to the record. I'm not gonna argue with you. I'm not gonna argue with you about how many times we're gonna play that part. I don't care. I don't care because I'm not even gonna write lyrics to it because I I don't like it. And eventually you're not gonna like it too, because you're gonna realize that it's not that good, you know what I'm saying? Because that's that's just where we're at. You know, and that's but to the point is is that like, you know, I only I only really find myself in arguments about things I'm invested in.

SPEAKER_01 47:55

Even even um when it comes to like when you ask me my opinion of something, and if like if I think it's not that good, I'll still express it, even though I know that you're passionate and you're gonna be like mad at that.

SPEAKER_00 48:08

That's my fa my favorite part about you though is that I get the truth out of you. Where if I ask you about something, hey, what do you think about this? You know what I mean? And I'm like, oh man, this is the best fucking thing ever. And you will just ground me very fast. Like, yeah, um, so and I'm like, fuck. This is not the best thing ever. This is actually far from the best thing ever.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

Yeah, it's not the worst, it's not far.

SPEAKER_00 48:33

Yeah, it's far. It's usually far. It depends on I've been with you long enough to know what where this is going and how it starts. And and and there's certain tells that you have about where how bad it is, how far off it's it's it is from perfect.

SPEAKER_01 48:51

Oh, I think that's the thing too, is that being in a relationship is kind of like, you know, um a good relationship will make you a better person because I feel like we walk through society, especially now, where we don't have any pushback on who we are as people and what we're doing. Sometimes, like, I remember being so young and just going out into the world and being so self-unaware of everything that I was fucking doing, and like you know what I'm saying? And like and sometimes, like sometimes now, especially people are not gonna tell you about yourself most of the time. And well, the internet will, TikTok will, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 49:32

I was incredibly thankful that we started dating as early in my life as we did because I was what I mean. I basically got out of my teens and I started to date you. Yeah, right. So you've always provided that sort of mirror for me, you know, and I'm I'm still still to this day I'm working on it. I think I'll be working on it until I'm fucking dead. I I think probably in the last two and a half years has been maybe my best performance, right?

SPEAKER_01 50:03

If we're if we're talking about just like the most uh neurodivergence, my best performance.

SPEAKER_00 50:10

I mean, listen, I I don't want to get into what my diagnosis is with my therapist. I'll save that for that episode. But you know, uh, but I do believe that in the last two and a half years I've probably provided my best performance as a human being in terms of of, you know, just uh being a level of not selfish and a level of of you know just being the person I want to be for you. A person that I really feel like deserves the best version of me. But you've always provided me with a fucking mirror. Let's be clear on that. I've whether I thought I was fucking killing it or not, you fucking, you've always let me know when I wasn't.

SPEAKER_01 50:50

I just don't shut the fuck up. So my Venus the fucking Mercury is in Gemini, so it's not a don't shut the fuck up thing.

SPEAKER_00 50:57

It's it's a it's a it's a care about me thing.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 51:03

You know, and and and that's really that's the honesty of it. It's it's not about your inability to shut the fuck up, which you are very I think I think this is.

SPEAKER_01 51:11

You're very able to I think we're I think we're hitting on something here is like um some people think care is pleasantness and calmness.

SPEAKER_00 51:21

Oh, I definitely thought that.

SPEAKER_01 51:23

Care is often actually sometimes like wanting a person wanting you to be your best, and wanting you to be your best is going to take on more of like there are uncomfortable conversations that you have to have sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 51:39

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 51:40

I think we also, you know, uh it changes your our perspective also being parents.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 51:47

Because you know that you have to have hard conversations, you know that you're responsible for shaping your child's future.

SPEAKER_00 51:55

I think you also know, and one of the most humbling things about being a parent is it makes you aware that even when you fuck up, right, you like there's like you could still everything's gonna be okay, right? Like, if if for say, like, you know, on a Friday you have an argument with your child about what they're doing and you mishandle it, right? Like, you you blow up, you get mad, right? You have not now ruined that child for life. Unless you are gonna consistently act like that, every single fucking.

SPEAKER_01 52:29

Well, she's not listening to corn, so we're She's we've done good.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

We we always say we have we have our child's musical taste and musical influence is a direct effect of her not having traumatized. But what I mean is is that you sort of realize that like you can fuck up. It's it's not about it's not about never fucking up, especially like a relationship, it's not about never fucking up. It's about how you it's about how you navigate the fuck-ups, how you listen to your partner when they're upset with you about something, and how you how you act in terms of like whether you're willing to admit A that you did something wrong, or B, whether you're willing to rededicate yourself to that person, you know what I mean, and and what you're willing to do in order to to make sure that your relationship is what it should be for the person. Like it can't be one-sided, is what I'm getting at, right? Like, it can't be that. And if you fuck up and and you are in a fight or you say some nasty shit or whatever the fuck it is, right? You can there's coming back from that, but all of that is to your point in those awkward conversations. It's in those like not so not so soft moments of the relationship where where the person's not saying, you can do it, honey. They're saying, if you ever do that again, honey, I'm gonna fuck you up. You know what I'm saying? It's that yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:58

I mean, I just feel like you know, you expressing your needs is hard, but it has to be done in any successful relationship.

SPEAKER_00 54:08

Yeah, and I think that that level of boundary setting You're also working through all your childhood trauma. For sure.

SPEAKER_01 54:16

You know what I'm saying? Like, that's the other thing. You have to realize I think I think you and I often see each other as like our younger selves as well.

SPEAKER_00 54:26

And we I was I was watching something the other day, and I think it's like perfect for this, right? I saw this video, and this dude was like, this dude was like, I leave my shoes on the floor, and then my wife yells at me about it. I said that too. She's not yelling at right, okay, so perfect. She's not she's not yelling at me, she's yelling at four-year-old me who's had a problem with his dad, and I'm like, dude, this is perfect, a perfect conversation, right? So, like, in the beginning of our relationship, people need to understand it's not gonna be perfect. You move in with each other, now you're adapting to each other's lifestyle. You were an absolute disaster in terms of how you you just threw shit on the floor, and like it was complete chaos, absolute and total complete chaos.

SPEAKER_01 55:13

Yeah, I had I had the the um childhood neglect brand of trauma.

SPEAKER_00 55:19

Fucking A. And I'm like listening, I can like- And you had the you had the you're not allowed to rest brand of trauma. Fucking A. My grandmother, man, I could hear her in my head, like, you better fucking figure out how to get this broad to clean up after herself. And I'm like, holy shit, I better figure out how to get this broad to clean up after herself. And we fought for fucking, it must have been 11 years over how dirty the house was it.

SPEAKER_01 55:45

You you needed to relax, and I needed to maybe be less relaxed.

unknown 55:50

Be less relaxed.

SPEAKER_00 55:54

And but the important part was is that it's not nothing is black or white, right? And this is just something that I've just started to learn. Like, you know what I mean? I I'm I'm I'm just figuring this out and and having this conversation openly in therapy where I'm having this this idea that there there's like a space in between, right? Like, I've gone so much of my life where it's like, no, it has to be this or it has to be that. It cannot it's not it can't be it can't be sort of clean. It needs to be fucking pristine or it needs to be disgustingly dirty. Let's figure out where we're gonna live. What kind of people are we? You know, and it's like it's just you can't live your life like that. You drive yourself fucking crazy. And I know I drove you crazy, um, trying to get you to be something that you could never be. And it's not that not that you're not, you're not a dirty person by any stretch of the imagination. You were just make sure you let your podcast know that. No, you're but you're not. You're not, you really are. And you at one time you were. I mean, sure, when you were fucking 19, you were a disaster.

SPEAKER_01 57:00

But yeah, so was literally we were teenagers.

SPEAKER_00 57:03

Right. I was a fucking disaster too. And but, you know, as you grow together, like uh we I just said this to you uh was it like three days ago? I I don't think we've had that argument in years, you know, like that used to be like a huge point of contention, and now it is just not even it's not even in in the sphere of arguments that we have.

SPEAKER_01 57:24

I think we've just settled into a really nice place where we kind of like tempered each other.

SPEAKER_00 57:30

Yeah, I I we figured out how to live together, but I think figuring out how to live together is a lot of that is having really really deep and really hard conversations. And I know for me, and I can only speak for myself, I didn't have growing up um the ability or or the the know-how or the lessons to clearly express myself. I express myself through anger and things like that, and I I allow things to boil up until until the water goes over the top and hits the fucking top of the oven and everything's on fire, and you know, that's where I'm at. Like I'm I'm like, whoa, what the fuck is going on? I can't believe it got to this point. It's like idiot, you allowed it to get to that fucking point, it's why it's here, you know, and I've gotten better at that, and I've gotten better at having conversations with you, but also I've had to do a lot of work personally at how to communicate with you, you know, like how to, and I think for for the men that are listening to this, you know, it's a solid investment to learn how to talk to a woman. You may find that you two could have a long relationship if you just invest in learning how to talk to a woman or learning how to, you know, how to give a shit about what a woman wants other than what you want. Like, you know, I I have this conversation and I I I I don't want to make you feel uncomfortable, but like men are like obsessed with women being submissive, and it's like if you want a a woman to be even mildly submissive, you know, you can start by being nice to her.

SPEAKER_01 59:11

I mean, you know, here's the thing is like, uh yeah, no. If your goal is to get a woman to submit to you, like, good luck.

SPEAKER_00 59:23

Yeah, and and the whole idea, I like here's my my concept of this, and this is why like whenever I hear this kind of like internet talk, it kind of like makes me feel kind of messing.

SPEAKER_01 59:33

It's just a weird thing. It's such a weird topic.

SPEAKER_00 59:34

Well, it makes me feel weird because I don't want I I personally, and I don't know if this is just me, right? I don't know if this is just me or not, but I don't want that.

SPEAKER_01 59:46

Like you've never been into that.

SPEAKER_00 59:48

I've been chasing you for disrespected. Right. I've been chasing you for 20 years. Like, I I don't, you know what I mean? Like, whatever. We're not gonna get too deep into what our relationship like that is, you know what I mean? But let's just say, you know, if if you're with if you're with a a woman who's this strong over 20 years, you know, there's a certain level of what you've been able to get to.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:18

There's there's a certain level, okay. I think since uh there's so many men listening to this podcast right now, I think I'm just gonna give my female perspective, okay? So like buckle up.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:29

Um seatbelt is on.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:32

Um women who who are quote unquote trad wives or submissive don't respect or value you. They are they want you to be a workhorse that just earns them money. That's not a real thing. It's literally a psyop. The best thing that you can do is find a woman who doesn't think that you should be drafted into a fucking war because you're a man. Like, yes, that is a feminist value. I know they said the dirty F word, but like, you know, women women who believe in feminism also want you to have equal rights. They they don't want you to be like, they don't think little like boys should be see like they shouldn't cry or they shouldn't have emotion. No, they want you to be able to like have the full expression of human emotions. They want you to not just be some like workhorse who's just like like exactly what you don't what men tend to express that they don't want, which is somebody who's going to like uh you know steal all their money in a divorce. Like, good luck with the trad wives, bro. Good luck. Good luck. That's all I have to say.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:55

And we've had that dynamic in our relationship where you were at home with Gia, you were starting Witch Baby, and I was working. And it's not that it didn't work, but you were never happy with it, and I was never really happy with it either. I it was never like it was I didn't feel I didn't feel like the fucking.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:17

Listen, we didn't make a we we were poor, we couldn't afford childcare. Like we couldn't even afford fucking preschool. We were 20 I was 24 and you were 25.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:37

Like, we weren't earning uh like what other option did we have? You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:44

Do you remember the Easter that I was ducking the rent? And uh and the landlord showed up?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:50

I thought that was Halloween.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:50

No, it was Easter. It was Easter because my grandfather was there, the whole family was there. We were at the table, we had the the table set in the living room. We used to move the table into the living room, and we had everybody around the fucking table. And I because I remember because my mother answered the door, and and she looked, and we had a uh our landlord was this little old guy. Nice dude. Uh nice dude, but not the worst landlord. No, not the worst guy we ever had.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:13

Although he was planning to like evict us and demolish the house at some point and not tell us.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:18

Eventually he did demolish the house, but whatever. So he was okay as far as landlord standards. I was ducking, I was ducking this guy, I wasn't paying him. And uh and he he showed up on Easter because he knew I'd be home, cocksucker. And he he shows up and he he opens the fucking door, and I remember my mother opened the door and she goes, Who the fuck's this guy? And I was like, Oh, that's my uh my landlord, and I had to cut him a check in front of the family, and uh I remember that check was definitely gonna bounce. But I you know, to your point, yes, that that was where we were at, you know, and but that dynamic never never really worked. And I guess my point here is that not everybody has to go our route, but we we worked together on a lot of different things, and I think the partnership that we had is actually what created the longevity. And you know, now 20 years in, I think it really created like you know, there's not like a whole lot of resentment. Like, I don't look at you like you tried to keep me down or you tried to do this or you wanted to be in control. I I don't I just don't view it like that. I always viewed what we were doing as sort of a team sport, and sure we act, you know, we we get into to arguments about you know who did what and who they but that's just weird, you know, ego arguments that we get into at certain points in in our lives. But like I I think I think we made a pretty good team. I think we were basically you know tag team in all of this shit, you know, whether it was parenting, whether it was witch baby, and you know, even to this day, people don't maybe don't know this. I posted it the other day, but like we're tag team in Bayway, like we're we're sitting in the office, you know, sometimes it's me and you, sometimes it's me, you and Dom. Shout out to Dom. Um, but we're we're having conversations about what the merch is gonna look like and and how we're gonna create stuff for for women because no one does that, you know? And I I feel like we were we were some of the the first to bring it back, you know, when we when we started Bayway three years ago. You know, I didn't I didn't see baby doll teas and shit like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:41

No, there's no no like no women's merch.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:43

Yeah, and and that's fine, you know what I mean? Like I'm I'm actually I'm fucking glad. And like we had the conversation when we did it, we were like, we hoped that more bands would do it. Not because we wanted to have competition, but because we wanted to see fucking women be able to have. Merchandise.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:01

It's funny because one of the first baby doll hardcore shirts I ever bought was a shattered realm shirt.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:06

Yeah. Respect. Respect.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:10

In the 2000s.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:12

Yeah, respect. And so it's like, you know, we we have gone through a lot of a lot of things in our life that kind of brought us here, but we've always sort of worked together on them. And now it's funny because it's like even right down to podcasting, right? Like I have a podcast now. I knew nothing about podcasting until maybe what was it, like 10 years ago?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:39

2020.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:40

Okay, so we're getting there. Right? Six years ago. She decided she wanted to do a podcast. I bought a bunch of podcasting equipment and started to learn how to mix podcasts, and now I'm here doing my own. And it's just funny how like every single thing that we've ever done has like sort of been like, I don't want to say a stepping stone.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:01

It's compound experience.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:02

Compound experience, sure. If that's that that that sounds good. Let's go with that. Has been like just, you know, one thing after another to sort of lead us where we're going. And it's like divine in a way.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:13

Every experience you have is building your resume for like life. You know what I'm saying? Like every stupid thing that you think is unimportant is somehow, you know, it's it's adding to your like human AI, and that's what you're putting out.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:30

Yeah, I mean, I I guess so. I every like that was what that was what the recipe was for me. Like when people asked me about the recipe, they were like, well, what is the what is the recipe? And I kept telling people the recipe is me. And I think like at first it comes off as like this weird egotistical thing, but it's like, no, the recipe's actually me. Like, you know what I mean? Take two pinches of my dad punching the shit out of my mom, and take three pinches of my mom fucking going nuts because that happened to her, and then take my grandparents, like all these things, put them all in a fucking pot, and that's the fucking recipe, and that's what the record was, was a reflection of my fucking life. You know what I mean? And that's so to your point, yes, like every little thing that goes on in your life is the sauce.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:10

That's the sauce.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:11

And when you don't do shit in your life and you don't live and you don't experience, you don't got the sauce, there's nothing in the pot.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:17

Right. So what do you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:19

You take it from other people.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:20

God damn right.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:21

That's what a lot of people do. And then you charge $85 for it on Depop.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:26

Right, and then you mark it up. You mark it up 50%, 55% markup, and you know what I mean? And you're doing it. Right, exactly. Exactly that. But yeah, I I think, you know, we started uh about how hard it is to be in a relationship with a musician. Or I don't think it's that hard. Well, I appreciate that, you know. I try to make it okay, and I I I do miss you a lot when I'm on the road, and you know, sometimes I think I'm like uh I'm like borderline annoying with the level that I miss you, but I don't really care because I I feel like it's important for you to know. Um and you know, there's a certain level of stability that I think you provide for me as a person that never really had any stability in their life whatsoever. And I think you know, we've created that stability for each other, whether it was, you know, through being together through really hard times and or through having a kid or through starting a business or you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:22

Like the true meaning of being a family.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:24

Yeah, right. And and I and it's it's funny because like all of this stuff sort of comes back to hardcore. Like it's where we actually learned like what family value like you know what I mean? It's it's kind of it's kind of crazy. Like we learned how to do business through hardcore, we learned how to be a family through hardcore.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:50

No, but really, really, really.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:51

Like, I mean, you know, you say it jokingly, but it's real.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:54

No, it is. I mean, like, I wasn't learning the listen, when you come from where I I mean, I grew up in a strip club.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:01

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:02

You know what I'm saying? When you come from where I come from, you don't like my mom's advice to me was wait for an opportunity to fall in your lap, wink wink. You know, like I nobody's teaching me business skills, no one's teaching me about politics, no one's teaching me about values like honor and integrity. And no, the school's not teaching those things either. So they're definitely not teaching you about community I'm trying to survive and they're trying to teach me how to find fucking the square root of whatever the fuck. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:36

It's it it's true too, because it's I and I say I said it on stage, I say it all the time, but like I I I literally I met I met my wife, I met you in hardcore, I met my best friends in hardcore. Um, you know, my company is a result of hardcore. The people that work for my company are hardcore kids who are also a result of coming up in the same scene as I came up in, you know. I mean, Chris has been with us since the beginning, essentially, and I I would not know Chris as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:06

Well, I've known Chris since since uh 15.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:10

Yeah, maybe maybe younger.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:12

I think he might have been I think I might have been 15 and he was Chris was moshing at Chrome at like fucking 13 years old.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:17

14 or 16 years old.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:18

He also had a mustache back then. Alan asked me to beat him up on AM. Alright, we're gonna have to cut that out. It's one of my favorite stories. There were besties that were fighting.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:30

Yeah, well, what are you what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? Maybe Mosh does not want that information out there. It's a sci up. That's a sci-up. But yeah, I I you know, I I think the importance of this conversation was to sort of have like an open talk about where we came from and why this works and what we've done to make it work. And I hope that like the people that listen to it can hear it and and like maybe apply it to themselves. And I think it's like just so you know, like I think it's like sort of dangerous for for people to put themselves directly in our shoes. Like you're you're never gonna be exactly us. You know, like don't do that. Don't do that with with other people, don't look at like at people that you see on the internet and like create these ideas in your head. Like, do do your version of the story. Like, do your version of the story. If you like what we have, like in terms of our relationship, or you like you know the idea of being a business owner and all that stuff, like this isn't like uh a call to arms for you to become a hardcore singer and a and a soap maker. You know, this is a call to arms for you to figure out what you're passionate about creatively and push for that, you know, and and and push for the things that you're passionate about that you care about. Don't take what somebody else is doing and go do that. Do do what you love. Because if you do what you love, you actually will probably succeed at it.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:58

Yeah, like I I probably sounded insane, and I've talked to like a bunch of uh I sometimes teach high schoolers and like even Girl Scouts about business, and the looks that I get sometimes and I'm like, I know this is gonna sound crazy, but like the thing that you're passionate about and the thing that makes you the most happy when you're like eight years old is probably the thing that you're gonna be most passionate about in life for the rest of your life, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:27

Yeah, and I think most people are unhappy because they deny what they actually love, you know, and I think it's funny because you see it all the time where people have like these quote unquote midlife crisis, right? Yes, and they're they're returning back to the time in their life where they were the most happy, where they loved this specific thing where like, you know, guys are like getting guitars when they're like 57, you know, and buying a Corvette. It's like dude, do that at 37. Like, what the fuck is stopping you? Like, do what makes you happy. Like, what are we talking about right now?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:04

Yeah, I do feel like there's like a pressure, even for guys to like not be a fucking mechanic or whatever, just because it's like a low value, like job or like value. No, it's so crazy too, because these trade jobs, you're gonna make so much money because there's nobody in them because of the whole like you have to go be a C-suite CEO. Like, you're not getting in there because those people aren't letting you in. All of these are not letting people in.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:28

All of these programming jobs, where are they? Because AI's here now and no one's got a fucking job. Unemployment's at an all-time high, and it's because everybody's fucking coming out of school thinking that they're gonna work with fucking computers.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:40

Meanwhile, you could be a plumber and make six figures.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:44

Right, right. And if you're not gonna be able to do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:45

You know, those middle class jobs that are just like so, so not worth it that they told us they're so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:53

Right. Because they want everyone to be a plumber for a corporation.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:58

Well, I think that's another thing, is like in our relationship, we've been we have been shameless, we have been modest, we have been humble, um, we have lived in we've had roommates. We have lived with roommates basically our entire before we before we had a child.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:23

We lived in an apartment with our child, which you know nobody wants to do these days.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:26

Like people ask, people say, like, how how did you do it back then? And it's like, back then, right now, like, you know what we did? We didn't have a home to go back to. So what we did was survive. We got together, both got jobs, we stayed in one room, paid half the rent, and had No, we would split the rent like three ways. Well, it depending on what the rent was. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Like I I think if you if you're looking at a $1,500 note on rent, which is what we were paying, and we were paying a thousand dollars of it, I'd say that's actually more than $5,000.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:01

People listening are like $1,500. How old are they?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:04

Right. Actually, we were paying $900 motherfucker. No. Um, but that was in Florida also, so that was a different time.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:11

I don't think people know how cheap apartments used to be, actually. They're they used to be pretty cheap. Two six hundred dollars. Insane apartments.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:19

$980 for a three-bedroom, two-bathrouse in Florida. Was the best one we ever had.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:25

But I mean, we we we weren't focused on what people thought about our relationship, what the judgment that we the judgment that we faced when we first became parents, because we were like relatively young parents. Um, like I not a lot of people have kids in their 20s anymore.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:44

And I swear, like, only one person told me I was gonna be a good mom and they were like, Not only that, but I think what was really alarming and when I really started to like, because I never really looked at like what when people have kids and when they don't, right? I didn't know didn't fucking I didn't give a shit about that until we had a kid, you know what I mean? Like, you know, we were so young, I wasn't like looking at the politics of kids. Like I wasn't like, you know, like fuck, you know, people are really having fucking kids older now, you know. I wasn't looking at that, I didn't give a shit, you know. And then we had a kid, and I remember I remember when people used to ask if you were our daughter's nanny.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:22

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:23

And I or her sister. Yeah, you know, and I remember thinking, like, oh my god, like this is fucking insane. Like, you know, like I've never felt more like a teen mom in my life. Right. And then I realized, like, now, you know, like our kid is 13 years old, and like we're at the age where people are starting to have kids.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:43

And we've got like a super fucking. Some people don't even look like I'm a mom anymore. My daughter is taller than you.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:51

You know, she's taller than you. Like, so it's just crazy to think about that. But it's it that was that was true. Like, people, people read it.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:59

You just have to not give a shit about what people think about your relationship. Everybody has a fucking opinion. And honestly, when no no no, everybody has a fucking opinion about your relationship all the fucking time. Um, everybody, even go you going on tour, people want to share. Oh, isn't that hard? They want to, they want to uh interject their opinion about how they think I should feel based on their own insecurities and how they feel about my relationship. Um, it's the same thing when I became a mom. Uh, you know, people had everything to say about what I was doing, um, the way I was like I was young, this and that. And like, you just gotta not give a shit about what people think about your relationship.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:47

And it's hard. It's hard to do that. It's hard to shut it off, and it's hard to not to not be given a fuck at that level. It is a hard thing to do, but you will find, just like any other hard thing, it is super fucking worth it. And every day that you do it and you see these like undeniably positive results, it becomes that much easier. You know, it really becomes that much easier to be like not only do not only do I not give a fuck what people are saying about what I'm doing in my relationship, but I don't give a fuck about their relationships. I don't care what you're doing. I don't want to know, it's not for me, I don't care, I don't I don't consume content about people that are in relationships that are unhappy, like the divorce propaganda content or the stay together for the kids. I don't consume any of that shit. Because when you do that, you're just taking on opinions, opinions that you don't necessarily need to have. The only opinions that I develop about my relationship influence.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:01

That's why they call them influencers. And sure, maybe maybe influence, and you have to be mindful of the influencer, but an influencer is the same fucking thing as me.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:13

You know, I there's nothing special about an influencer. An influencer, when they're cut, they bleed, you know, that nothing's different. They're not special, they're not from a different fucking planet, they're just a person.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:25

I think also you don't have to have a platform to influence.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:30

No, you don't. You don't. I think just by just by having this podcast, just by doing this podcast the way that we're doing it right now, it's influential. And what I mean by that is not tooting my own fucking horn, what I mean is is that not giving a fuck is influential, right? A certain there's a certain level of not giving a fuck like most people would never want to have an open conversation and share this like aspect of their life. I really don't give a fuck. I really don't care. Like I it doesn't I I don't give a shit if I put this out and no one listens. I don't give a shit if I put this out and a million people listen. It doesn't matter to me. What I care about is just being real. Like, honestly, like to me, the time that we spent together having this conversation and the fact that we got to have this conversation and the fact that we did it in front of these fucking goofy microphones, it's like that's what I really care about. I don't really care about anything else about it. Like, if people listen to it and it helps their relationship or it makes them realize that they're being stupid, or it makes them realize that they're like really with somebody they care about, it's fucking awesome. Of course, it's the icing on the cake. But like, I really care personally about our relationship and us being able to have conversations, and it made me feel good to be able to say to you, hey, I'm gonna have you come over and we're gonna do this podcast today. We're gonna wake up, we're gonna, you know, make our oatmeal breakfast, we're gonna look at each other, laugh about some bullshit that we saw on the internet, and then we're gonna go get some matcha protein, um, whatever these are, lattes from Dunkin' Donuts. And, you know, I'm gonna talk to you about how it tastes like grass, and you're gonna tell me that it'll grow on me because you thought that was funny because it tastes like grass. And that's you know, that's what I wanted to do today. Like, Friday is our day to spend time together. It's our day to, you know, like our kids at school, our our businesses not necessarily closed, but no one works at the factory on Fridays, so it's like we don't have those normal things that we have to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:26

So yeah, so don't bother us.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:28

Right. Don't bother us on a Friday. Fuck you on a Friday. Fuck you, Fridays. But um, but yeah, so like, you know, that's what was most important to me. Most important to me was being able to have this conversation with you and spend this time with you, and you know, put you in this position of you being on a on a podcast with me. I thought was would be funny. It is. I didn't I didn't know who would be harder for, for me or for you, but I I've really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:52

Me too.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:54

So I will say this I don't think this is the last time I'm gonna have you on the podcast. All right. Oh no. I I don't think it'll be the last time. I I think that you'll you'll be a uh a productive member of the podcast for for many episodes to come. But I'm very, very happy that we got to sit down and start the conversation about you know our relationship and and where the conversation went, whether it was about classism, which it always goes it always goes into classism with her. Um but you know, like I I'm just glad we got to have like an open conversation about where we come from and why we are the people that we are, and and um, you know, like I said, if it helps people out in their relationships, it's fucking awesome. But I'm glad I got to spend the time with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:42

Me too. Me too.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:44

You know, even even if you took it in the world.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:46

I'm glad I got invited into the world of J Way.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:49

Yeah, I think you've been in that world for quite some time.