Caught on the Mike...
Caught on the Mike is a podcast where music, pop culture, and authentic conversations come together.
Hosted by Michael Clark, each episode features musicians, entertainers, athletes, comedians, and creators sharing the stories behind their careers, creative journeys, and life beyond the spotlight. From rock and reggae to comedy, MMA, and everything in between, every conversation is relaxed, insightful, and unscripted.
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Caught on the Mike...
Brian McShea of Good Terms
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We dive into the impact of Burnout Deluxe, the explosive growth of “Progress,” and the emotional weight behind the music—especially in a year shaped by both personal challenges and major wins. Brian also shares what it was like working with an outside producer for the first time on “All In,” how the road has influenced their sound, and why connection with fans has become such a driving force for the band.
With momentum building and “the biggest years ahead,” this episode is all about resilience, growth, and what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
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Disclaimer, the views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent. Listener discretion is advised. Some bands chase moments, others grow into them. Today's guest is Living One in real time. Brian McShay of the band Good Terms joins me fresh off of a breakout run, a deluxe release that's getting hard, and a year that's only getting bigger. From packed rooms to ontour, stepping on the stage of the band's work tour for the very first time. We talk about the road from writing songs in bedrooms to building something that's actually connecting, the weight behind progress, and what it feels like when the work finally meets the moment. This is about momentum, resilience, and what happens when everything starts clicking at once. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Caught on the Mike. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Caught on the Mic. And I am excited because I am joined by a band or the singer of a band that is having a fantastic start to 2026. From grinding it out to writing riffs in their bedroom and now headlining their own tour and landing their first ever run on the Vans Warp Tour. This is a full circle moment in real time, fresh off the release of Burnout Deluxe and riding the wave of their breakout single Progress. We've got Brian from Good Terms on the show today. Brian, how the heck are you? I'm not bad, Mike. How are you doing, dude? Oh, dude, I'm awesome. It's been a crazy ass long day, but it's all good. I hear you, brother. Well, let's uh let's get right into it. Take me back. Tell me how good terms came together.
SPEAKER_01It's a real long story, so I'll I'll start fast and slow down as we get uh we get closer. We we've known each other for a long time. I mean, uh my guitar players, Zach and Ivan, uh went to elementary school together. Wow. Started playing in you know bands together a long time ago. I went to the rival high school. Uh so I met them at like a summer camp, got to know them, got to know the bands they played in, played in a you know a couple different kinds of projects with them when we were young. Zach met our roommate, or sorry, Zach met our bassist Gio as a roommate in college. I met Gio, we were in uh I went to the same call college as them a couple years later. You know, we were in bands during college, mostly like professional gigging wedding cover band kind of stuff. Our drummer Brendan, when we were growing up, like our hometown hero, like was playing playing the the local clubs in northern Virginia, one of the bad at like the sickest bands uh that we that we had. He's always been like miles ahead of us and still is today, man. And so we all made our way out to Los Angeles separately, and Zach was really, really put this band together. He was working at a record label, realized that he didn't want to be working at a record label, he wanted to be signed to one, and was writing these songs. And you know, we we were he had been co-writing with his friends, with me, with Ivan, and I ended up doing demo vocals on a song, and I was just the last demo vocalist she ever worked with. And then we were writing with Ivan, and we were like, well, if Ivan's, you know, Ivan's a great singer, Ivan's a great guitar player, and writing with him, he's a great writer. Like, we might as well just be in the band. That would be great. And then we knew we always wanted to have Gio on bass. Um, Gio, Jimmy just he's an amazing, incredible bassist, comes from the same place that we're coming from with the hardcore and the pop punk and all of the other extra musical knowledge that we got. And then yeah, we remember we made our first record turning point, really as like a proof of concept to try to like will this band into existence. And yeah, we got Brennan to do drums. We couldn't we couldn't figure out how we want to do drums, and I remember Zach calling me being like, What about Brennan McCusker? And I was like, that would be so crazy, dude. Because you know, he was as our hometown hero. So so yeah, we made that. We we pretty much had our first record ready to go the very beginning of 2020. We were ready to put it out, play a bunch of shows, and then of course everything's changed. So we uh sat our butts down and we we figured out you know how to do social media, how to do videos ourselves. We really used that time to try to figure out all the rest of the parts of being in a band, aside from playing live, of course. And yeah, we just I mean, just willing it into existence for for a long time. We put that record out in 2021, played our first show in 2022. Um, and then we've just been working since then. We we put out the first song from the record Burnout, uh, what would become Burnout in 2020, end of 2023, and start, you know, playing more and more shows. We really hit the road in 2024. Uh probably played like 45 shows then. We've played about that same amount every year since. Um just keep putting out songs, we keep meeting people, we keep, you know, meeting new bands, making new friends, playing more shows, putting out songs. Just keeps just keep the the the snowball just keeps getting bigger, man.
SPEAKER_00I love that. So if you were to kind of sum up who some of your influences are, and kind of because I have my own opinions and I'll interject mine here in a moment, but who who are some bands that you would really kind of say helped define the sound of good terms? Sure.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I think um you know, we uh okay, the big ones I always gotta say Fallout Boy. I mean, everyone can usually tell from the way I sing. I learned to sing by listening, you know, sing along those Fallout Boy CDs uh when I was driving around when I was a kid. Uh Under Oath, it's a was a that's Zach's favorite band. That was a big influence.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Obviously, we don't really do like full total heavy stuff all the time. Um, but even just their approach to art is something really influential to us. Um bands like uh Story So Far were really, really big deal uh in terms of the more mod that was really the modern ilk of bands that we felt like we were directly responding to. Because obviously we grew up in Fallout Boy, we grew up on Underoath. Um, but we really were listening to modern Story So Far and Knucklepuck Records, trying to come up with an answer to that, our own take on that kind of thing. Um, and then Bill Murray. Gotta throw in Bill Murray for for kicking the doors down on what you're allowed to do. Yeah. Uh in a, you know, and still call yourself a rock artist, I guess. Yeah. Those uh those those those four artists, I think, definitely make a lot of sense when I'm talking about who they are.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Uh I I definitely catch all four of those artists in your sound, but it's uniquely you. And kind of going back as a callback almost to this band really coming into fruition in 2020. I think all of us, as a result of that shared experience we had that year and kind of shortly beyond, had a new relationship with nostalgia. And correct me if I'm wrong, so it allowed you to kind of step back and revisit things from a point of polish. Because when I hear burnout and I listen to burnout, and this is where I was gonna interject, I hear a spiritual successor to from under the cork tree. Sure, yeah, Fallout Boy had like maintained that path and like organically metamorphosized into something outside of the pop realm. Like, and I hear the under oath, and I hear like and it is all uniquely you guys, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. I appreciate it, Mike.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, we we like we like a lot of different kinds of music. Uh uh, I mean, from the 1975 all the way through. I mean, I have a jazz degree. Gio and I right now are trying to will our own jazz fusion project into existence. Brendan's also a great, a great jazz artist, uh, a great jazz drummer. Zach's either between he's either between like the heaviest of metal or he's putting on like Lady Gaga or Bratt or something. If Ivan is super into the singer-songwriter thing, um and and and beyond. I'm just trying to show you what it's like, but we we we all love a lot of different kinds of music. Right. I think you know, we all came from you know, pop punk growing up in the mid-2000s, like it was definitely a starting point for all of us. Uh but there's like a through line to me, there's a through line back to ACDC or something. You know, there's there's a through line all the way back through rock and roll that we just kind of think of ourselves as a as a rock and roll band. And to me, when I think of you know, turning on the amps, I think of Fallout Boy just as much as I think of ACDC, just as much as I think of a knucklepuck or something like that.
SPEAKER_00Uh I love that. I love that because you know, man, I'm really fighting the urge to go to the same place that I've gone to the last 20 some episodes of the pod. But you know, silver linings being what they are and talking about streaming and those platforms, like you almost in this modern era of the music business, you have a lot more permission to not stay in one lane sonically because every musician that I know listens to absolutely everything. Yeah. You know, and so now when you create, you have a little bit more carte blanche to like continue to create a little bit of everything, right?
SPEAKER_01And even audience members, I know, people who aren't musicians, I feel like they're more they have a more genuine relationship with many different kinds of genres than they ever did before. You don't have to be you don't have stuck in the one subculture, even though subcultures can have a you know such a positive effect on us for sure. But like it's easier more than ever to allow other kinds of genres to you know affect your life positively.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, absolutely. You know, burnout really shifted things for you guys. What changed internally throughout that process?
SPEAKER_01Man, everything, dude. I mean, like I said, turning point was a proof of concept. It was willing this thing into existence. Um, and a lot of it was Zach just pushing forward, adding people to his train, uh, and making this thing a reality. And burnout was all of us looking at each other, being like, okay, I'd we'd like to be a band now. We'd look we'd like to, you know, explore the different kinds of sounds we want to do. We want to explore who's, you know, who's writing what kind of stuff. Obviously, we want to explore freaking playing live shows.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_01So something that was like non-existent during any of the turning point stuff. So yeah, I mean, everything changed, man. I mean, the whole band it feels like the band uh you know went into the oven and went underwent like a chemical reaction and real change to become what we are now. Now it feels I feel like I've got a very good idea of what we're what we're doing. But before, I mean, we were throwing everything in the wall to see what would stick. And I don't just mean the music. I mean, I think everything, what would stick on social media, what would is sustainable for us to do touring and show wise, all the different aspects of being in a band.
SPEAKER_00Was there a moment when the album came out and audiences started to absorb it where you guys kind of looked at each other and said, Wow, this album's like, this is different. This is different than what we've done before.
SPEAKER_01I mean, it happened earlier than the album came out. Before the album, there were just the singles, right? There were just these songs. We knew we were gonna wrap up into some sort of album, but they were just singles at the time. And we put out the song Cough, which I was so nervous about. It's the first song that I it really is a me song that I really wrote a lot of. You know, it's it's vulnerable. It's about my relationship with pot and growing up and smoking too much weed and whatnot. And um and it was a little dark for good terms, not just like subject-wise, but also the sound was was more of a dark post-hardcore thing than we'd done before. And I was very excited about it artistically, but I was also nervous that it just wasn't gonna fit, it wasn't gonna work. And then on social media, that breakdown went crazy. That changed to everything. We got a ton of new fans from that, we got a ton of new bands that wanted to be our friend, we got a ton of you know, all of our industry stuff all stemmed from that moment. I remember I remember the you know the emails and the messages coming in. I remember the email coming in from who's now our our label and and manager team uh talking about cough. And I remember just uh I remember crying because that was that felt like something like that had not happened. Right. I not had an you know an unread message to read that would have such a big effect on my life in that way. And so that that was that was the first moment for sure, was that that cough breakdown and being like, okay, I think we have think uh I think there's an explosion going on in the engine right now. I think we can maybe move a little bit.
SPEAKER_00Do you think a lot of that is linked to the authenticity of the album reflecting where you were at mentally at the time you wrote those songs?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I think people want there's really no point to making art for a listener, you know, as an original artist, um, unless it's gonna be, you know, a genuine emotional product. People want, you know, people want art in their lives to turn to when things go wrong, when things are hard, when things are good and they need a soundtrack, when when they have an emotion that they want to have, you know, that they need to process, whether it, whether it's good or bad. I mean, we at you know, at the time we're making Cough and all the songs after we lived all the way up through Burnout, like you know, we didn't have much of an audience. So we're making those songs for ourselves, we're making those songs for each other. I'm writing a song like Cough, which I'm not thinking at all before it's released. I'm not thinking at all about like what it's gonna be like to put it out. I'm just thinking like, this is sick, this sounds like songs that have affected me, you know, like yeah, like it digs into something that's vulnerable for me, but like I'm just showing, I'm just showing Zach and Ivan, they're just gonna think it's cool. Like, I'm not showing, you know, I don't I don't think about like it has two million streams, whatever it has. Like, I wasn't really thinking about all that because that was not that was not the case. That wasn't there then. But so yeah, I I think that that's what audience members are looking for. The only thing that's worth it to make if you're gonna be an original artist and you know, right for commercials, not right for movies, all that kind of stuff. And you know, as I've gone on, I've I've talked to people as we've played shows and I've gotten to actually meet people in person. And this is this this is another life-changing thing, is is all these conversations I've had people be in like, you know, I've been sober for a blank amount of of time, and your song cough or your song blurry, whatever, is a part of that or is really helped me with that or been a part of that journey, or any of the other songs that we have that you know, for whatever journeys that they could apply to. And that was a really big changing, like, change in me that was like, oh, this is not just showing my friends cool riffs and cool lyrics, like this is something that was we could we could try to do this. This is very cool. You know, this is much bigger than that.
SPEAKER_00I love that. With the deluxe version of Burnout being out now, how do progress and all in expand the story of the album?
SPEAKER_01Well, Progress Progress was written about the same time um as a lot of the other songs. And when we were putting the song, you know, we were putting the album together, we just felt like we wanted to explore other kinds of sounds. We didn't really want to do a like the original album. We didn't really want to do another just pop punk banger. We we kind of wanted to do the metal one, we wanted to do the power ballad, whatever, all the different songs we put on burnout. But so to me, progress has always been part of burnout, or like it really would have made sense on Burnout, um, which isn't the case for my whole band is not unanimous on this. Which is why I didn't come out on the uh original version, uh which is fine. You know, that's the best part about being in a band is that everyone's got different opinions and you get to see what you're gonna make altogether. But so for progress to I mean, first of all, for the odd for the world at large to really appreciate progress is very touching. I'm very grateful for it. It's another one of those moments where people talk, tell me about the thing they're going through and how progress has helped them. And I've been like, wow, I would never would have guessed that, man. I just was felt bad about how stoned I was getting at the time uh and wrote a song about it. But so for me, it's always been like a prologue or something. It feels like we added a prologue or re-release of the book. And all in, it definitely feels like an epilogue. All in, we wrote on one of our first like longer real tours that we were doing for burnout or for the burnout songs. It was the first song we ever wrote in the van together. You know, we had to go to a guitar center to buy a guitar to have in the van. And it was inspired by like all the music decisions got to be inspired by the things that we felt like had worked on the stage, which you know, we'd never gotten to be influenced by that kind of thing before because we hadn't played enough shows. So it's like it's just the perfect epilogue. It's just a little bit of like, and here's what we've learned, here's what we've taken away from this whole experience.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, with progress having connected the way that it has, has your bandmates' opinions on it changed since uh no.
SPEAKER_01Uh I think we're all I think that they're all de I think that they're all happy. Everybody is happy that progress is out. Everybody's happy that's doing the things that it's doing. You know, I think we all have different ideas artistically of what how inside the lines we should be coloring. You know, some people would some of my band was like, ah, it would have been really nice if we had that song queued up and ready for the next album. Or, you know, I would I would have been down to put it on the original pro the original burnout release. So yeah, I don't think it's changed for anybody, but I do think that everyone is definitely choosing to just be grateful that good terms is getting to do what it's getting to do these days.
SPEAKER_00Well, let's let's talk more about all in then, since it's a little sounds a little safer.
SPEAKER_01Everyone everyone's stoked, everyone is stoked on progress. I mean, playing it is one of the playing it on stage is is one of the best parts of the show.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's and some of your guys' best content is too short. A lot of fun, dude. So all in was your first time bringing in an outside producer. What kind of changed?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we like I said, the whole part of the willing this project into existence was the producing it. Zach produced everything that we've done, Geo's mixed everything we've done, and I think those results speak for themselves. I think that everything on progress sounds absolutely incredible. The biggest reason that we had to bring in someone else is because now that we were touring, we couldn't produce and mix things when we had to be on the road playing shows. Our guitarist Ivan um put it, said it summed it up real nice when we were meeting Anton, the producer, for the first time. He's like, This is the first time we're dropping our kid off at daycare, and we're we're very scared. That is such a good analogy. Yeah. Um, and so you know, there are there are parts of the process that were a huge relief and really easy. There are parts of the process that were uncomfortable in a learning experience. Um, there are some things that we're like, oh my god, I never would have thought of that, and I'm so happy we did that. There's some things that were like, well, okay, I mean, you will you are a successful producer, like, you're right, we should do that. This is that that's you're right, we should do that. Um, even though if we had produced it ourselves, we might have not done that. Uh so you know, it was a it was a whole big um there's a variety of lessons to learn from that experience. One of the biggest things that changed is that it was done in a week. Most of the songs on Burnout took months and months and months of like production, simmer production, simmer, you know, just let sit, come up with ideas. And it's been very helpful because I think, you know, in the future, you can't take two years to make an album without playing any shows in the middle, you know, but it's it's not gonna work that way. So, you know, it was conditioning, it was it was learning how to work with an outsider producer for the first time to try to convey our vision for what we think good terms is doing to someone else to learn how to respond to their reflection of their response to our vision. And after all that, you know, when we play it on stage, it don't feel no different, you know. It feels it feels it fits in real nice to me, you know, it feels it feels great.
SPEAKER_00That's great. Yeah, I have talked to a lot of bands that have kind of gone through that where they self-produced for a long period of time, and adding a producer is like adding an extra member to the band that is completely unbiased and you know has a mediative sense about them. So I I can imagine that there were probably equal amounts of challenges letting those reigns go as much as there are advantages, right?
SPEAKER_01I mean, to speak specifically, like with Zach, Zach as a producer, Zach's extremely detailed. Um, beyond like doing a good job, Zach is just crazy, crazy detailed. And when we're doing guitars, it's agonizing. He knows this. I can say this, he knows this. It takes like four hours to record guitar for one song for for the one part for my part. Um, and I do pretty good. I play guitar pretty good, man. It's it's crazy. Um, and then with vocals, we take about the same amount of time. It takes about three, three and a half hours to record vocals for a song. Um, but I really enjoy it, I really enjoy it with. Vocals, we get really deep into how every line is gonna go. We get to really try to express ourselves. Um, and as a performer, I really, really enjoy it. I really, really enjoy doing something, analyzing, critiquing, and reiterating, and getting, you know, I really love the performances we got. And we worked with Anton. Anton was like, we were doing guitars, guitars took no time at all. It was so fun. I mean, we took we there were, I think there are some first takes of my guitar playing that that song. And I was like, This rips, man, this is so much fun. Like, this is awesome. And then with vocals, uh, you know, he would we would he would I would sing some and he'd be like, cool, let's move on to the next line. And I'd be like, What do you mean? We we did that whole thing in like one minute. Like, usually we spend like a long time on all this stuff, and he's like, I think all the magic is in like the first couple takes. And I'm like, Oh, I mean, that makes sense. Like, I kind of see what you're saying, but it's so different from how I'm used to doing it. And like, I, you know, I'm I have a lot of confidence in myself as a singer. I'm I'm sure that my first couple of takes are good, but I'm so used to getting to hone in a lot, and that wasn't the case. It was much more like improv, I guess. It was much more like gut feeling, and that was uncomfortable. That was that was that was very uncomfortable. And then when I listen back to the recording, I'm like, oh, it sounds fine, you know. You know, and then there's some parts I c I I go in the recording and I can be like, okay, I would have done this if I had more time, I would have done this here, I would have done that here. But like, fuck it. It sounds it sounds good. It's objectively a like totally valid way to do things, but so yeah, different experiences.
SPEAKER_00So you're a really hook savvy vocalist, by the way. And I love that. Is the writing process sometimes agonizing for you being that way?
SPEAKER_01It can be. We have a lot of writers in the band, and we all write differently. So, like I write a song in like 20 minutes. I have an idea, the inspiration comes, you grab the guitar, you write the song in 20 minutes. Song's not great, and then over the next, you know, however long, I'm just tweaking little things, and then I bring it to the band, and they might have their own tweaks, they might have their own full rewrites, whatever it is. And that process is really easy for me. I really enjoyed that process. Even we found Ivan writes his best stuff when he's driving, which is why we wrote all into the van. That was like a real big Eureka moment for us. So we do a lot of writing stuff where he's driving in the van, and I'm sitting next to him with the guitar, and we got hours to kill till we get to the next city, and we're just we're just passing the time, really. Uh we don't really even have an objective necessarily. We're not working, we're just passing the time writing a song. Maybe we get a cool good term song out of it. Zach, like I said, Zach is very detail-oriented. So Zach Zach can get real nitty-gritty. Zach can get like we can open up that lyrics page and we can be on a line for a long time. I think that I would break into several days of where I would just get something good and I would tweak it and tweak it and tweak it. He's he's you know, I I call it like wet clay, and he's like chiseling marble. But on the other hand, sometimes Zach will be like, Oh, hey, I wrote this thing, and then he'll play you a full song that you're just like, Well, that's incredible. No, no, that's how old Friend was. That's how Mirror Mirror. There are several songs like that on Burnout. That's how Reaching was, where he just had a dope thing. I mean, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. So, I mean, yeah, there are there are times where it's a lot of cooks in the kitchen, yeah, you know, that that that can that can definitely be frustrating. It's definitely balanced out by these moments of achievement and accomplishment for sure that are really rewarding. And it's also a lot of people think of the hooks, too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I was gonna say, you know, that also requires a lot of humility and a lot of ability to check the ego at the door. You know, have past experiences singing in bands myself. Like it was agonizing in some moments where I had whole projects where we had whole albums written, and I was like, shit, I can't write a damn thing. You know, I can't I can't find the hook. I can't find and a lot of that was my own ego. So when I talk to different musicians that have such a collaborative experience like that, I am in awe. And and you can hear it in the end result, and it it's always for the better. So kudos to you, sir. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_01I'll also say that, you know, pre-good terms, I did not like collaboration very much at all. I just I just liked being left alone to do my own thing. Um I also think that part of the reason that we persevered through a lot of that in the beginning to get to the point where that's a skill that we just have now, is knowing what having multiple people on your team can do for the whole project. I mean, not only am I writing with guys I do think are good writers, even if there were times it can be frustrating, but also that guy is gonna advance the tour. That guy's gonna figure out the merch, that guy's gonna figure out all the unread emails that we have. Yeah, I'm gonna do the social media. There's all these different reasons that this team is worth keeping together. And yeah, the writing is frustrating sometimes, but also every time I listen back to a finished thing, I'm like, well, that result is awesome. So just learning how to let go, learning how to figure out how to show up, learning when to not say no, or when to say no, when to not say no. I think that a lot, yeah, a lot of it we figured out was worth it because of all the different reasons you want such a big team on the same page.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes. Well, let's talk a little bit about life on the road. Highway to Hell Yeah, brother. I gotta say that is the best title for a tour ever.
SPEAKER_02So what's dip? I can't remember. How'd you come up with that?
SPEAKER_01Man, I it was a joke. It was a complete joke. We're coming up with joke titles for the tour with our industry team, and I think someone said Sarahway to Hell Yeah. I think someone said Sareway to Hell Yeah, brother. And it wasn't even for the tour name, though, it was for some some other like promotion kind of thing. And then I and then I said highway to hell yeah, brother, and then that somehow got everyone was yeah, we're just laughing. And then and then my manager was like, I bought highway to hell yeah, brother.com. And we were like, oh, we're doing it.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes. So what's different about being a headliner now versus being a supporting act? Oh my god, dude.
SPEAKER_01A lot, man. A lot. It's you get you get to make every decision and you have to make every decision, which is which is great because we have a lot of opinions on how we think shows should go, how we think they should run for audience members, how they should run for staff at the venue, how they should run for the bands on the bill, and how they should be for us who is very tired and risking a lot of money to be out of here. Um and we worked very hard to try to make that the best situation for all those different parties. So getting to think that and flesh that out and run it and make tweaks, um, and have times where audience members liked the show, where the staff, you know, appreciated the way that the event was run, where the bands were having a good time and we had a good time. That was so rewarding. It's also obviously we're taking a big risk. You know, we've done a lot of wonderful opening slots the last couple of years where it's you know, you promote, you tell people you're on the show, but ultimately it's not really your ass in the line. You're getting your guarantee. And if and if the show sells out, you don't really get to say you sold it out, but you do get to play to a sold-out crowd, and and that's and that's nice. So it's it's a lower risk, it's a lower reward, it's pretty easy to do. But so being out there as a headliner, looking at those presale numbers for the you know a couple months leading up to the tour, you know, there are a lot of people having a lot of different emotions, trying to figure out what stories the presale numbers tell, what that means we should do, you know, how well this is gonna go for us. And then eventually, you know, at the end of the tour, learning what the pre-sale numbers meant, which isn't as much as you might think it would mean. Right. Yeah, there wasn't there wasn't a single show. All the bad shows for the pre-sale numbers, they're great shows. They're totally great shows. Every show was was was was great on the tour, which is incredible. Um, and then of course, you get to play the longer set. We've played 30-minute sets, which are fun but exhausting. Now we were powering through these songs, there's not a lot of break time. The headliner set, we got to flesh it out, we got to take some breathing time, some drink water time, we got to do some different things, have an arc to our set, play the lower energy song, put the higher energy song in a certain place in the set that people will do the thing. Um, it was uh that was great. And also playing to the crowd, playing to your own crowd, which I didn't know existed the way it did until we went out and played those shows. But I'm used to playing to big audiences, but they're cold audiences. Six of these 400 people know who we are, and the rest of them, I'm confident that we're gonna win them over, but they don't know who I am. I call them heavy crowds because they're they're a lot, it's hard to make them move. Because they're not there for me. And they're trying to save their energy for the headliner. But then we get to come out for the headliner, you know, doing our headliner set, and they're those crowds are light. Those crowds are easy to move, they're there to participate in the show, they're there for the the bits that we do, the songs that we play, the the you know, the moshes that we want them to do. It's all everyone's on the same page about what what should be happening on the floor. And that is the best experience of my whole life, at least in music. Is me being a front man and holding out the mic and they're singing the words. I mean, that's just that's literally a goal I had like written on a piece of paper somewhere that I that I can check off and I have to make a new goal.
SPEAKER_00One of my favorite fight coaches, if you walk into his gym, he's got a neon sign right above the door that says pressure is a privilege. And I think that's exactly what you got to experience as a headliner versus just being an opener. Because I know the the opener grind, it's kind of a lot of hurry up and wait, but not in the same way that being a headliner is. Yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the hurry up and wait versus the headliner. Do your thing, and then you got four hours to kill in the city.
SPEAKER_02Actually, I got tour tattoos, man. I didn't have the finding the tattoos, and uh, you know. Tattoos and burrito places. Tattoos and coffee shops, brother.
SPEAKER_00There you go. There you go. I was a happy guy. So let's talk about a big one that's coming up then. Warp tour 2026, full circle moment. What was your reaction when you found out you got the spot?
SPEAKER_01Man, bigger than words for sure, dude. Uh a lot of a lot. It's uh because it's something to look forward to, and it's also feels like a reward for a lot of the work in the past, and those are you know, there's a lot of nuance to both those feelings, but just the absolute relief that a lot of the tough times in the past have led to something that makes sense. I mean, that's just like a weight off my shoulders for sure, of you know, hoping that this is all worth it, this is gonna reach people, um, that people want to be a part of this, that we're making something that's good enough to have you'll be a part of it. And then, of course, you know, just being amped, having the energy to wake up every day and keep doing this thing because I know that in July and in November, we're gonna do the hell yeah, brother bit at Warp Tour. We're gonna play our songs, we're gonna do all these moments at Warpator where I think they're gonna kill. I think that all the things we do on stage, I think that they're gonna be right at home at Warpator. And I'm really excited as a frontman to work that crowd and see what that's like. I think it's gonna be awesome.
SPEAKER_00So, with this journey kind of culminating, you know, a big 2026 for you, do you feel that kind of cloud over the top of you of like anticipation almost borderline anxiety where you're like something bigger is just around the corner, but I can't define it. I know it's there, it is sitting in my back pocket every day. It wants to tell me what it is, but it won't reveal itself. Do you feel that? Sure, man.
SPEAKER_01Well, we do, you know, it's a lot of work. Uh what we we do. We we put in a lot of work, we put in a lot of effort, and it feels like you're scratching away at the surface of something, and you don't know how big it is. You don't know exactly what it is, you don't know how big it is, and you know, you finally get to uncover the whole piece that you think you were scratching for, and that's a reward, and then you uncover that there's a little bit more, or maybe there's a whole lot more, and you know, is that a this year, is that a later this year thing? Is that a next year thing? Like, is this a care is this a full ass career in this? I don't know, yeah, I don't know. I'm just I'm we're just putting in the effort, trying to scratch away at the surface of this thing and uncover what good terms can be. And even this, you know, this year we're still making plans for exactly what the summer is gonna look like. Are we gonna do more highway to hell yeah, brother? Are we going to, you know, what are we gonna make more music? What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do at the end of the year? What are we gonna do next? You know, where are we trying to go with this? And that doesn't stop being a cloud like you described for sure. That doesn't stop just being like almost anxiety, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and the reason reason I asked it that way, and I again talked to a lot of people, had my own personal experiences, but talked to a lot of people about some of these similar things is good terms music hits everything. It hits anxiety, it hits joy, it hits anger, it hits nostalgia. And with all of these things going on, are you being more consciously aware of all of those focal points or inflection points?
SPEAKER_01Well, do you mean do you mean like as a as a writer or as a as a person in my lone life? Both uh I mean absolutely, because we've we've uh you know, as you get older, uh these these these emotions get more intense, uh, and you gotta learn how to and they and they you know uh engage with your life more or more. So you gotta figure out how you're going to deal with them. Um and then as a collaborative group, everyone's feeling slightly different levels of all these things and learning how to communicate where you're at or understand how someone's trying to communicate where they're at, so that we can all be on the same page about what's going on and what we want to go on in the future. Um I mean, communication has been like the biggest piece of all of this. There's been nothing that is required of more work than communication, um, which I don't think is gonna stop. And ultimately is what we're doing. I mean, as music artists, right? I mean, and what we're doing, you and me here right now, like this is all communication. So I mean to answer your question, yes. Absolutely. And then as you go to write music too, absolutely, and those experiences, ones I just talked about with yourself, with the people that we're I'm I'm working with. And then also thinking about the people that I meet at the you know, at the shows, talking about the way that the songs have interacted with their life, I definitely I'm trying to be too I I don't want to be too contrived about it, but I do want to make I do think about those things and I do be like, okay, well how can I make how can I make sure that this like dope ass riff with this hook can do that job? You know, can can be something that everyone can uh can use when they're dealing with whatever those the joy or the anxiety, whatever it is. Yeah for sure.
SPEAKER_00So let's use this as an opportunity to make that grand declaration. What do you want people to know and understand about good terms by the end of this year?
SPEAKER_01You'd think I'd have that written down somewhere like for myself as a I mean the first thing that comes to mind is is kind of a grander thing, is uh is uh it's just that we're not gonna stop working on this until it's fully uncovered, until it's you know, as as big of a tent as it can be. Um and I don't even mean big in just the like playing a big show way or the band being big. I I mean big in like uh I want these experiences where people are telling me that they're using our music for something. I want those to be as widespread and effective as possible. I mean it just feels like it's the biggest, it's the best thing I could do with my life. You know, if good terms were to end and I had to go out and get a job, I wouldn't have anywhere near as much control over what I'm doing in the world. I'd just be trying to do good, but I'd, you know, I'd be getting a job and trying to pay my bills and whatnot. Uh with good terms, we can actually try to do something good. We can try to have a positive effect here uh and stand for something. That's that's when I say it's not, you know, we're not gonna stop until we figure out how big this can be. That that's that's what I mean.
SPEAKER_00Yes, and you hit something, maybe consciously or subconsciously, there where the best form of advertisement is word of mouth and people's personal experience. And that's where legacies are made with bands and like careers are made. Like if you do have an emotional impact on somebody's life, they're gonna share that impact with their best friend and beyond and beyond, and be like, hey man, come with me to the good terms show next time they come through town. So that's a great declaration for sure. Hell yeah, brother. Ha ha! Highway to hell yeah, brother. We live it, baby. We live it, dude. Well, that's great because that actually brings me right to my closing question that I ask every single one of my guests, and you're gonna love it because it builds on that whole declaration perfectly. And what's your advice from your experience and the band's experience for making the world a better place tomorrow than what it is today?
SPEAKER_01I guess it would it would have to be um it would have to come back to communication. Share your experience and and try to genuinely uh engage with other people's experiences that they're sharing. That's been the most effective parts of good terms have been all about that. And the parts that have affected me the most when talking with our fans have been them sharing their experiences with me, them talking about, you know, I'm going through such and such big thing with, you know, just I don't want to share anybody's, you know, obviously personal stories. Um, but you know, just big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big life stuff. I just absolutely life-defining kind of thing. And they say that, you know, progress has been a part of that journey for them, a positive part of that journey. And I've been like, damn, dude, I was just like smoking too much weed and like feeling like I was a bad boyfriend. That's really all that progress was born out of. But I'm so glad I shared that because and worked really hard to share it, because it seems like it helped. And I want to not take this person's experience that they shared to me for granted. I I want to make sure that you know I'm not being a dick about it. So genuinely, I mean, they talk about everyone's heard like be authentic and whatnot, but I I think a more concrete direction could be just genuinely share yourself and your experiences and be vulnerable and be genuine in the way you interact with other people who are sharing their experiences and being vulnerable. I think that's the best way that you can effectively communicate, get everyone on the same page and figure out what we want to be doing, you know, what's going on and what we want to have going on in the future.
SPEAKER_00I love that, man. Why don't you tell everybody where they can find the band online?
SPEAKER_01Uh you can throw a rock in any direction online, you'll find us. But you can find us, you can find us on Instagram, good you can find us everywhere, good terms banned. Everywhere. Good terms banned, Instagram, X, Gmail, what the heck ever, except for on TikTok, we're just good terms. And on Facebook, we are good terms 69. Because we didn't have any audience and we meant to change it, and we never did. So that's just the way it is, man.
SPEAKER_00We're we are a pop punk band at a heart. Everybody's email address that they start in junior high has 69 or something.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I don't I think we're just gonna I think we're just gonna rock with it. So that's where you can find us, baby. Good good term as band. Dude, I love it.
SPEAKER_00I'm a fan of the band. I'm a fan of you personally, Brian. Thank you so much for doing the show, my friend. The world's a much better place with you and it.
SPEAKER_01Well, Mike, I appreciate it, man. I thank you so much for having me on. And uh that's that's a very nice thing you just said, so thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00Once again, I'd like to thank my friend Brian from the band Good Terms for joining me on the show today. Make sure you're giving them a follow on Instagram at goodterms band and check them out whenever they come to your town. While you're being generous with the follows, make sure you're following at caught on the mic on all social media platforms. Make sure you go to YouTube and subscribe to my YouTube channel as we're trying to make that grow. And do the courteous thing. Share this episode with a friend if you enjoyed it. You can also visit me, www.caughton the mic.com or send me an email, caught on the mic at gmail.com for all guest inquiries. This has been Caught on the Mike with Michael Clark. I'm Michael Clark. Until next time, thank you.