Welcome to another episode of Metal Mastermind.
Co founder and your Co host Jason Stallworth.
Also Co founder and Co host the great Ken Candelas.
What's up dude? Welcome to Middle mastermind.
Love it, man. I'm good.
I'm very busy. As you know, Jason and I, we've
been, we've been super busy guys.
Holy crap. There's a lot going on behind
the scenes. You probably noticed our podcast
has taken a little bit of a slower turn.
And that's not because, you know, we're just dropping off
the face of the earth. We're doing a lot of things
behind the scenes. Jason's working on a whole bunch
of stuff and so am I. So, but we're, we're doing
another episode today, which I think will be a really fun one,
right, Jay? This is going to be this is
going to be extremely fun one guys cuz everybody listening can
like relate times 100 to what we're talking about today.
And that's like what's the thing or the band or the artist or
person or maybe the life event like what happened?
What got you into rock and metal music?
But even going to the next level, what made you want to
pick up that instrument? Whether it's bass guitar, I know
we got a lot of guitar players on here.
Maybe you're a vocalist. So like what enticed you?
So you know, we're going to we're going to talk about that
and talk about also after we share our stories, how going
back to that initial passion, that initial fire can just
reignite that fire today. I say that because I've gotten
so many comments on my channel and in my YouTube channel and
even on metal mastermind YouTube channel where people have gotten
away from the instrument, like 20-30 even.
I've had somebody say I I played guitar 40 years ago and I just
picked it back up because I saw one of you guys videos and
that's just like, dude, that's just heart melting.
I'm like, whoa, OK, so I think in today's conversation is going
to be fun in those two aspects. It's going to take you back to
memory lane and also reignite that fire again because you
know, we all our fires all kind of like they'll burn hot and
then they'll die out sometimes, right, dude?
So dude, on that note, yeah, yeah, they, we're going to
rekindle that relationship with Meadow some look, some of you
are burning strong right now. So just let this, let this
podcast feel that even more. But Ken, I want to start with
you, dude, because you and I, we come from 2 generations.
I'm I'm 49 years old. So just to be like, so you don't
have to look at the date we're filming this in June of 2024.
I just turned 49 years old. I'm almost half a freaking
century, dude. And Ken, how old are you at this
point? I'm 32.
Wow dude I suck at math but that's almost like 20 years
right A. Little close to that was at. 17,
yeah, something like that. Yeah.
There, there's this, there's this kid, He was kind of like,
not, not bright, but he was loud.
This is like way back in high school and this is not relevant
at all, but the teachers like, how many times do I have to tell
you to sit down and be quiet? He's like 17, just some random
number. Well, you know, when I was born,
Jason was still a Rascal in high school.
So here we go. Yeah, dude, that's probably
yeah, because I, I graduated high school in 1993, barely
grew. I think I was like, you know,
430 something out of 450 students.
I barely made it out, man. But dude, going back, like what?
What age were you when you got into music?
I know you got some history with your dad being being a musician
and drummer and just a really, really cool dude there, but what
was the thing that got you into music in general even before you
started playing an instrument? Well, that's interesting.
Well, my father was, he was very adamant about keeping music
playing in the family all the time.
And actually a lot of it was also my mother because my
mother, she would every time she would clean, she'd always play
classical music or new age like Enya type stuff.
And so I grew up always kind of hearing music.
And my father, he would take his Sansui, you know, AV receiver
and he would, you know, hook it up with his a Newmark CD player
and he would just play, you know, like Chicago, Boston, he
played the classics. He he loves classic rock.
So I would, I would listen to a lot of this stuff all the time.
And, you know, I when I was a kid living in Jackson Heights,
we had an apartment here. I was really, really creative.
I was always playing either like a video game.
Like I I remember getting Super Mario 64 for the first time.
I remember getting The Legend of Zelda for the first time.
I remember. Growing up and playing NES with
my brother, because my cousins had an NES and we would go over
their house and we would play the NES.
You know, when I'm like 3-4 years old, I still have those
memories. Super Nintendo.
Oh my God, I, I grew up with video games.
That was like my, my childhood. But in terms of music, like a
lot of the music from video games was like really
influential on me and I would spend a lot of time drawing and,
you know, making characters just because like I had, you know,
just an interest in that. I would even make these sort of,
I don't know if you were a kid doing this kind of stuff, I
would make paper dolls out of just you like drawings I made
and I cut them out and then I would totally just like play
with them. So I always had a large amount
of creativity as a child. My mother was very, very adamant
about making sure that I always nerd got nurtured in that.
And when I was in kindergarten, you know, I would build like
things like I build the Titanic out of like building blocks that
were in the room. It was so impressive that she
even had the principal come by and just like, see my work.
And I was just like, yeah, but you know, this is kind of normal
for me. So, yeah, great amount of
creativity, to say the least. So when I got into music, it was
actually because, you know, I was already doing a lot of art.
And in middle school, I took a piano lessons and, you know, the
piano actually was probably the most important instrument for me
because we actually went a step further.
I actually learned on organ with, you know, petals and, you
know, two rows of PS. So I started, you know, really
learning independence with my limbs kind of early on in middle
school. And when I got in through high
school, I was already at that point doing music with a video
game that I was really trying to create, which was just this fan
fiction of The Legend of Zelda. And at the time I was, you know,
like I'm anybody who knows me knows that I'm like a huge fan
of Zelda, so. I love Zelda dude.
That was an amazing game dude. An amazing game, amazing music,
amazing art. It was like the whole package
for me. And so when I was trying to
create this game, I was using like this software called RPG
Maker on Windows XP. And I was, yeah, I was like, you
know, learning how to implement game characters.
And it was an easy program because they did already a lot
of the coding. You didn't have to do coding.
It was really just, you know, like mix and match, put it on
the map, you know, and then you kind of build it out and then
you can press play and then play it.
So I was using that, and I was starting to get creative with
some of the characters that you can put in dialogue, you can put
in sounds, you can put in music. And I was using music from Zelda
in this fan fiction of Zelda that I was making.
And after a while, I was like, you know, this is kind of cool.
It'd be really cool to sort of put, you know, my own music in
here if I could. And so my father, he said, OK,
this is 2000. What, eight No 2006, 2006 so
2006 he got me finale and actually it was 2005, but I
think at the time 2006 finale came out.
So they were like ahead of the curve.
So I was just at the end of, you know, middle school going into
high school and I started working with finale and learning
about notation. And I would use, I already had a
familiarity with notes because I was playing piano, but then I
would now starting to develop an ear on what note was being
played, what instrument that was going because I started joining
a group online. It was called Zelda
Reorchestrate. And if you're a Zelda fan,
maybe, you know, you might have heard of Zelda Reorchestrated,
which was just an online community of fans where, you
know, a team of people, myself included, would remake Zelda
music with better samples and, you know, reorchestrate stuff.
So we, to say the least, like a lot of my orchestration skills
came from that period of my life because I learned so much about
what kind of instruments I was hearing.
And then I would incorporate those instruments, you know,
into the remakes. And then eventually I learned,
you know, how some of those instruments were used.
And then I of course, you know, later years of my life that of
course effects how I write. So that was a really interesting
part of my life. And in high school, that was the
moment where I said I didn't know whether I wanted to do art
anymore or just go into music because I was already so
involved. And Guitar Hero had come out and
then Guitar Rock Band came out and that's when I really, that's
when I took up the drums so. That was cool.
That's kind of that's what propelled me into college,
wanting to do music. So but interestingly enough,
like I was full on like wanting to compose, wanting to play
drums. I wasn't an ounce a lick of like
interest in engineering because I was just like, you know, and
that's that's a whole other thing.
I just want to write music. And when I got into engineering,
it was really because I was planning on going to Berkeley
College of Music. Couldn't get in because of
finances I actually got. In to the school right she.
Accepted me, but I couldn't go and.
We'll accept you if you can pay, right?
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So I actually tried out twice
and that first semester of going to college, like my mindset was
like, I'm not going to be here for long because I'm going to go
to Berkeley, I'm going to try again and I'm going to get a
scholarship or whatever. I was just like in that mindset.
And it did it. Same thing.
I got a little more. I got like a small scholarship,
but it wasn't enough for me to really convince to say, OK, I
got to spend 30 grand for this term.
Yeah. So it's like.
Yeah. It wasn't, it wasn't a good
move. So I stayed in the Community
College, which was Queensboro here in New York City.
And I said, you know what, OK, well, if I'm not going to do
music performance at Berkeley because I thought that was the
end all be all like a Conservatory, I said, well, let
me take up a trade. And I said, OK, maybe the music
production thing might be something a little bit of a
smarter move for me because, you know, I get more out of it.
I didn't expect much from the music department and lo and
behold, that freaking changed my life because from that point on,
you know, the rest is history. If you know me in as a, you
know, part of a founder of metal mastermind.
My background is a professor in audio engineering.
So it's, it's really funny how things worked out and you know,
that's, that's really how it got started for.
Yeah, and you got to add so much, you know, you've added so
much value can like in even in the like the free content.
You guys know we have a YouTube channel.
I mean Metal Masterminds on YouTube.
Obviously all that's free content.
We've been Ken and I both, in case you guys don't know this
Metal mastermind.com our website, which you can access
all our courses, but we have a lot of free stuff while there
too. You and I can both have been
cranking out the blog post. Some people would say that
blogging is dead. I, I strongly disagree.
I think it might be dying with the whole AI thing.
And yeah, I won't go down that road.
Like AI can be used for some, some great things, but it can
also be detrimental because people want authenticity.
You and I aren't using AI or any, anything to write our, our
free guides. It we're just writing from our
experience. And just because, you know,
dude, you and I both, you have one of the greatest hearts of,
of a person I've ever met, dude. And, and you and I both, we just
want to help folks. We want to help people and it
was funny going we'll, we'll jump into, you know, how you got
into specifically metal music. But I'll, I'll quickly share my
story of how I got into music because you and I both.
It's not like we started out like it's not like the first
piece of music we heard was like, you know, Slayer or
metallic or something like that. It was just something completely
different. You know, you were the classical
with your, with your mom and getting into video games, which
I played. You got the Nintendo 64.
I had the first original Nintendo, but before that of
course we had Atari and before that we had this console called
Odyssey 2. Now some of my agent up may
remember Odyssey 2 and I I never got into programming, but we
also had my uncle had an old did you have.
Colecovision at all? Yeah, we had Colecovision.
Yeah, Yeah, we had an old Macintosh computer too.
And, and I and I copied. Yeah, old, old dude.
I copied the program. I wrote a little program on how
to make a stick man. And of course back then a ball
that you would program would be a square ball.
It wasn't a round ball because we we weren't that advanced at
that point in time. But a quick note on video games
though. The one role-playing game I
loved the most, which was on the 1st generation Nintendo, I'm
sure they had other iterations after, but was called Ultima 4,
Very much like Zelda, but you got to choose four characters
and you, and you could choose what type out of like, I don't
know, 10 or 12 characters. Like I had a druid, a cleric, a
barbarian and a wizard or something like that.
So it was really cool, man. And like in Zelda, you go in
these little towns and buy stuff, buy supplies, you know,
and then weapons and food and whatever.
And then you go to caves and fight demons and the dunge, just
just like so cool. But my as far as music goes, I
was recording songs off the radio on a cassette.
This is the old school cassette players where you had to press
play and record at the same time for it to start recording on a
tape. And of course the DJ's talking
through the intro. I'm like, DJ, shut up, I want to
hear the intro to the freaking song.
But I was just fascinated by whatever was on the radio.
But it was more rock driven. I, I was never a country music
fan. I, I kind of grew up in a, a
small town on the outskirts of Pensacola, FL called kind of Ken
Thomas slashed Molino sort of the, the border there, if there
is one. And but I was never into like
the country stuff. I I like the rock'n'roll stuff
and, and some of the pop stuff, everything from from Genesis to
Phil Collins to the Police Van Halen.
I'd hear that some on the radio, Def Leppard out here on the
radio. And, but then also like Madonna
and Prince and then forced Tiffany with I think you were
alone now you know, and all that stuff.
So you know, then, then Hart you hear a lot of, so a lot of a lot
of the modern stuff at that time, which this was around like
probably around like 198586. I was probably 10 or 11 years
old when I was recording songs off the radio and I would just
make my own tapes. And I just, dude, I, I felt in
love. I think mostly it was the
melodies that I fell in love with.
And a lot of people know me is, is my love for melodic metal.
And it's just, I don't know, the melodies are the hooks for me
and it's just what I think about.
So yeah, that's, that's how I first got into music.
Now of course, Fast forward, I got into metal years later, but
I want to go back to your story. How you know from getting into
music what were the metal bands like or what is the artist?
What inspired you to go the metal route?
So my brother was the one who brought that forward to me and
he would play. It started off with things like
Smash Mouth and we would listen to Saliva, we'd listen to Tool.
Oh my gosh, we had of course, Metallica.
Disturbed was a big one for me with when it came to Metallica.
The first thing that I actually heard from Metallica was Enter
Sandman and and then after that it was Fuel.
So those two songs are like really like harkening for me
towards towards my younger years.
But I would also listen to Lamb of God.
That was when Ashes of the Wake came out.
Oh man, I mean, those those bands around like the new metal
grunge area, that was what got me introduced to metal.
And my my brother always loved that kind of music.
And Godsmack was another one. So yeah, I was, I was growing up
with this kind of stuff. And, you know, when I was on
forums, I would listen to metal just like that, like typing on a
Legend of Zelda post. And I'm like listening to, you
know, saliva in the background and.
Nothing. It was like.
For me, yeah. And when it came to playing
metal, I mean, it was really because of those games.
Guitar Hero 3 and two specifically, and Rock Band was
the worst one got me into drums. And I was just like, yeah, I was
adamant. I was like, I would always go to
the metal songs and they were always the hardest ones to play.
And after a certain point when I got really good at the game, I
was just like, why am I like playing on plastic?
I should play on the real thing. And my dad was just like, that's
cool, man, but you're not going to touch my drum set.
You're going to, Nope, you're going to, you're going to
practice first on this like wooden pad.
It was like, it was real janky, man.
It was like a practice set with a wood kick drum and a snare.
You know, wooden pad that you had to like lock it with wing
nut bolts. And if you didn't lock it tight
enough, it would constantly tilt over.
And the top was layered with this special kind of rubber.
And I remember my father saying that that rubber was like magic
because it just rebounded exactly like he wanted in a
drum. So he was just like, you're
going to play on this and you're going to show me that you're
seriously, you're going to do a couple of rudiments.
I'm going to show you some of those things and I want to see
what you do with them. And so I started doing that and
in high school, of course, I was going into the practice rooms
for instrumental majors. And this is where in high school
I was kind of getting called like an instrument instrumental
major wannabe because I went to a performing arts high school
and it was. So there was 4 majors.
It was art, vocal, instrumental, and drama.
Oh, and dance. SO55 Majors.
So very, very creative high school and I was in those
practice rooms after hours or during lunch period just trying
to play drums because I didn't have the drum set at home.
So well, we had one, but my dad was like, I'm not bringing that
out unless you're serious. So I would just go into school
and I would play the drums that they had at the school.
And it would it was funny because I would get somebody
like one of the teachers, his name was thing, Mr. Blanc.
He would knock on the door. He would get pound because he
next door was a jazz class. And here I am in this rehearsal
room, like play my heart out to like Dream Theater trying to
like learn Mike Portnoy riffs. And he's going like, hey man,
like it's really cool that, you know, you're excited about doing
this and he. Looked at me like he was.
So annoyed. He was just like, it's really
cool that you're excited about this, but man, like you're
really disturbing my class. No, no, dude.
So, but I always kept showing up every day.
Every day I would keep showing up and I I talked to these guys
and, you know, I felt like over time, in the beginning, it was,
oh, you know, this punk kid thinks he's an instrumental
major or whatever. But over time, I actually ended
up being a part of the, I think it was called the Rising Stars
concert. And I got involved in like
musical concerts at the school playing drums.
They, they, they loved it. So that was, that was really
important for my growth. I had a lot of support from some
of those teachers and yeah, so. That's good, dude.
Now you start out with with a lot of rock type stuff, though,
What what would into the more extreme metal?
Because as you know, like when I see Ken, I don't I don't really
see the bands like saliva and disturbed and Smash Mouth.
I I see more like winter sun and and behemoth and you know.
Extreme metal It was definitely. Dream Theater was a big bridge.
The bridge, yeah. It was like such a such a great
way for me to practice chops. The progressiveness of that.
Yeah, the progressive nature of those, those types of songs.
So I went in from Dream Theater into playing like Machine Head.
I really like Machine Head stuff.
I would play some Enfey Mound scene and then I would then
start diving into a job for a cowboy That was that was like
really pushing my limits. I was like, oh man, this is like
really hard. I try to play White Chapel, you
know, some of the really hardcore type of stuff and
playing that kind of music, you know, it was like I was maybe
already like a year or two in and that's what I wanted to like
really get my chops to be as good as.
But then I started to really get into the symphonic stuff again
because I was already in the nature of reorchestrating Zelda
music. So I was like, I wanted to
revisit some of that because at the time Zelda reorchestrated
kind of like took a hiatus. And they were, they had just
released at that time an album called Twilight Symphony, which
was like a big endeavor of recreating, you know, an entire
video game. And when that was over, I really
just had no other outlet for orchestrating stuff.
So I went into doing Homeric in maybe I want to say 20/14/20,
end of 2013 to 2014, and I started reigniting some of those
symphonic characteristics. And yeah, that was the birth.
That was the birth of Palmeric. I was already in college.
I was, I went through already a couple of recording engineering
classes. I was experimenting, I was
interning at studios already. I wanted to see if my skills as
an engineer could be something that I could grow into,
something that was bigger and that led the path back into my
creativity. Yeah, kind of interesting.
That's cool, man. Yeah.
You know, I'm a lover of symphonic metal.
I mean, I'm wearing a Nightwish shirt.
That's one of my favorite bands. Oh, yeah.
It was funny going our stories going into metal, like how we
didn't really start with metal. I mean, I could start up with
rock listening. But me, I'll never forget.
And I got told this story more than once on air, but I never
forget seeing this dude on the bus in middle school.
He had long hair and I like my upbringing was, was very
conservative and which I nothing wrong with that.
I just want to preface that. But you just, you know, a person
that listened to heavy metal back in those days, back in this
was like, you know, late 80s, they were kind of considered
like, oh, you listen to that devil music.
OK, stay away from you. There's one kid on the bus.
Oh, man. And I didn't know he lived down
the road from me until later. His name was Kevin.
I don't recall his last name. I think he might even be a ghost
dude. I was trying to look him up in
one of my old yearbooks and I couldn't find him in any of the
yearbooks. I'm like, was was this guy just
a like an Angel that came from above or something like the
school metal Angel? But maybe not because the other
kids were kind of a scared of him like, oh, they didn't mess
with him because he was he was kind of tall.
So you know, if you were tall and nobody messed with you,
right? But and I was AI was a skittish
kid. I got picked on a lot.
So I was, I was sort of scared to talk to him, but he was just
happy, dude, he had the Jean jacket with all the patches,
Slayer, Testament, Anthrax, you know, Mega Death Venom, all that
stuff, right, Metallica. And he was just jamming away man
on his Walkman, just air drumming.
And I just look over at him. I wanted to ask him a question
and he knew exactly what I was going to ask.
And so he pulled one of his his headphones, his earphones away.
And I said, dude, what are you listening to?
He said Metallica and just went back to air drumming, just happy
as could be. So I took 20 bucks from cutting
grass that week because I, you know, we, we started work in my
era early, man, I was cutting grass at 14 years old, right?
Doing yard work or whatever. But yeah, I bought Justice and
the Puppets cassettes. And back then I was freestyling
bikes too. So I would take the radio out.
Kind of grew up out in the countryside.
I'd blast the radio out there, blast Metallica, and I tell
everybody else, oh, this is the new Christian metal album, you
know, so it's not, it's not devil music.
Controversial. Yeah, yeah.
But that was my, that was my intro into metal man.
And I fell in love. Now, I, I did get into some
Christian metal after that. Yeah.
I grew up in church. Some of, you know, my background
or whatever, but you know, I did listen to a lot of like White
Cross and Guardian and, and there's this, there's this
Christian death metal band called Mortification, which
actually, if you were to go back and listen to their album
scrolls of the Mega loft, it's pretty brutal, man.
It's a, it's, I mean, they, they were good at what they did, you
know, granted Christian death pedal, but yeah, but then that
just kind of like spiraled, you know, into, into more Hard Rock
and heavy metal, man. I, I later picked up the guitar
about a year or two after that, you know, funny by the, the
church guitarist who he was the son of, of, of the pastor's
family, Ronnie Goodman. He passed many years ago, but he
was sort of my mentor. He was kind of a jazzy Blues
guy. He had a Fender Stratocaster,
different guitars. And he had this role in chorus
camp. And even though his style wasn't
what I would ever want to play, I admire just playing.
And he was just a cool dude. So he took me under his wing
and, and this other guy, Alex Green, who, who I grew up as a
guitar buddy with and him and I, of course, we were into heavy
metal band, everything from Tesla to Metallica, right?
And the hair band stuff to, to, you know, G&R all that.
And we used to jam all the time. I hadn't spoken to Alex in a
while. Need to reach out to him.
But in any case, you know, that that was my, that was my start
and playing metal guitar, man, I was into all the hair bands back
then to, you know, even even some of the poppier stuff.
I like Bon Jovi. I still do.
But you know, I can turn over and listen to Aman Amar.
It wasn't until it wasn't known until probably, I don't know,
it's probably 2000 and 2008, 2009, something like that.
When I started getting into more of the European metal.
And I know that's a broad range there, but bands like Sonata
Arctica and Nightwish and and Sabaton, all that.
A good friend of mine, one of my close friends, Eddie Gray,
introduced me to Sonata Arctica and then him and my other good
friend Tom, they they came to Tampa.
This is way back, I think O seven O 8, something like that.
And we went to see them. They were in Tampa and I just
fell in love with that style of music.
I'm like, Oh my God, man, this is and just opened up a new
world to me. I'm like why didn't I know about
these being before? Sonata Arctica was I was
introduced to them about that time too.
I think it was White Pearls. Black Oceans was like a great
song that that I, I totally loved from them.
That was also the time when I was getting into like Children
Of Bodom and, you know, melodic death metal kind of stuff like
that. Were you, were you into that
kind of stuff like Children Of Bodom?
Not early on man. You know, funny thing is when
when I heard Metallica puppets and and Injustice, you know,
back in probably 8089, there was a specific sound I was looking
for. Like I, I didn't even really get
into Megadeth or Slayer or any of that.
I I was into Metallica, but I also liked Guns and Roses a lot.
I love the Scorpions. I listen to Scorpions a lot.
And I was, I was really, it was kind of bad about venturing out.
I kind of had like a small little subset of, of bands that
I like and I just happened to like the hair band stuff.
Dude, I love Winger and Warrant and all those bands and as
cheesy as the hair and makeup was right, I mean, but if you
just if you stripped everything away and just listen to the
guitar playing and some of that stuff.
Red Beach for winger Beavis and but had really ruined winger man
because they made they made Stewart wear the winger shirt,
you know. Oh my gosh.
Oh, Warren had great guitar playing, man.
Yeah, Warren Winger, those guys are great man.
And even the vocalist of that time, I mean, you know, this is
before auto tune and all that stuff was around to perfect
everything. These guys had to go and suit
video and just nail it, dude. And you've had and not that you
don't have phenomenal singers, Musicians day.
There are plenty out there. But I don't know, man.
It was just a, you know, and I guess the folks my age, maybe a
little older. I, I always told people I was
born 10 years too late because I would have loved to have been, I
would have loved to have been just a no name band opening for
some of those bands. Just being on the scene back
then. Of course, my mentality, I don't
think I would have lived through that.
I think I would have probably gone down a dark path back and
then do you know the person I was at that time?
But in anyway, we're, we're born at the time we're supposed to be
born, right? But I don't know, man.
It was just, there are people and I, I don't want to be that
old guy just like, well, it's not like it used to be.
It's not. And really it shouldn't be, but
you can't not say that that wasn't a very special time.
I mean, the era of the 70s, which I didn't really get into
that, but the 70s and 80s were just AI don't know, man, just a
monumental time for music. And again, I just not that today
is not it's different and I don't I don't.
I was having this conversation with somebody on YouTube a long
time ago. He was just kind of griping and
complaining about about whatever.
And I'm like, you know, I never want to be that old person that
is just stuck living in the past and anybody that's my agent up
or no matter what age you are, just know that today's the day,
you know. Yeah, I love the old stuff and I
still listen to it to this day. But, you know, there are a lot
of times I'll just force myself to listen to some new stuff out
there, you know, or, or or at least new to me stuff I haven't
heard yet, you know. So I encourage everybody to
branch out. You might like it, you might
not. But I mean, you don't know until
you listen and, and all and all that said, if you know if
there's something you don't like, well, maybe it's time for
you to create something that you like.
It's another angle, right? No, totally.
When I was, I should also mention, you know, like you
mentioned the the Macintosh and that was like such a
revolutionary product. And when I was like growing up,
I think like the first computer we had was a Windows 98.
My dad actually even had the model before that where it was
just like Emma's Doss and he was just like he was.
My dad actually was writing a book himself.
He never released it, but it was, it was called the Chimera
Project. I remember it was, it was like
he always told me it was like this, you know, secret
governmental conspiracy type of novel.
It was a fiction. And he always told me, you know,
I, I pictured Tom Cruise playing like the main character in this
thing. I was just like, OK, you'll
watch a little bit too much Mission Impossible.
But. During those eras of like these
computers, what's what's really interesting to me, which I, I, I
value now, you know, obviously then we didn't realize what was
going to come with the wave of the Internet and all that kind
of stuff. But you know, we're never going
back to those old analog days. I mean, even having the ability
to say like, I remember like as a kid still having around analog
stuff in the house. I'm probably the last generation
that can say that. So it's, it's very, it's very
interesting to me to, to, to see this kind of stuff change over
the course of time. And I remember that when my, my,
my uncle, he, he got to the first iMac, it was like the one
with the multi colored shells. And after that he got this, the
new iMac, which was supposed to be like almost like a bubble on
your table. And then it was a, a movable
screen. And everybody flipped out when
they saw that it was a movable screen.
And I remember on those computers, because I was always
on the Windows side of things as a kid.
And I think it was just a little bit more affordable for me and
my folks. And my uncle, he was a lawyer,
so he was okay. Yeah, the Mac.
And so I was like, wow, I go over in my cousins house and was
just like, man, let's check out the Mac.
And we would play like these, these kids games.
And then one of those games, my, my uncle comes over and he says,
yeah, I want to show you something.
You're not supposed to see this, but I want to show you.
And he showed us Duke Nukem 3. DI was like, Oh my God, like,
and it's all like metal. And it's like, you know, he's
like, it's like basically like Bruce Willis in a video game.
So oh, man. And Duke Nukem like kind of
changed so much for me as far as like my interest in this kind of
music because it was just, it was exciting.
And I just, I remember the rush of playing that game and going
to, you know, do things nowadays.
I mean, I, I still feel like sometimes I'm like that little
kid who's just discovered Duke Nukem for the first time.
And, you know, when I'm, I'm in the middle of actually, you
know, on my off days, when I have a chance, I'd like to try
and keep writing new material. Like I, I have quite a bit of
material already written for, you know, even another Homerica
album, I think. But it's, it's very interesting
because like that kind of energy of striking when it's hot and
it's inspiration. And you know, there was a lot of
that going on as growing up because it's always something
new, right? When you grow older, things
don't become very new anymore because you've seen a lot of you
have experienced, which are valuable in ways.
But looking back, that's why I feel like when we first start
out, everything's so exciting. We have so much energy.
We're young, right? You can stay up till 4:00 in the
morning and still wake up at 8, like those kinds of things.
Those days are gone, dude, that's a long time ago.
Yeah, we. Do not, we do not forget and
it's it's super important that anything that you do moving
forward, like you try to retain that that exciting energy
because like that's what makes fun.
Music is supposed to be fun. It's not supposed to be just an
arduous thing. Even though it's tough, you
know, getting better at guitar or getting better at, you know,
theory and understanding the stuff.
Those are all tools that eventually they still add up to
the whole. And what is the whole?
It's your ideas, it's your experimentation.
It's you like just digging in and doing something different.
And like you said, if you're listening to music and you're
like, man, I don't like the way this this song sounds.
And you're just like, OK, well, time for you to make something
different. What's your, what's your version
of it? You know, I, I think about that
when I'm, when I'm doing my little riff lessons on YouTube
and even creating courses, you know, I, I always encourage
people like I don't show people how to play some other riff
because I, dude, I don't have the time to go learn other
guitar riffs. I, I learned a bunch of riffs
back in the day and, and I was one of those people.
I never, I never ever learned a full song just because I would
kind of get bored with it. You know, it's like, OK.
And I just, I would shift away. I'd start playing lead and just
start making up stuff, you know, even even my life solo gigs.
I do these acoustic shows. I should have 1:00 tonight.
Bootleggers Brewing in Tampa got a couple this weekend.
I don't learn the entire song. I just learned the chord
progression and then I transpose it so it's in a key that it fits
my vocal range or whatever. And then I just, sometimes even
the phrasing of the words I don't quite get right.
Because when you're playing and singing at the same time, there
are certain ways that I have to sing certain parts of the verse,
for example, so that I can play that in time.
It's kind of weird. It's like, it's like a
deficiency, I guess you could say that I, that I have, yeah, I
could work on it or I could just keep doing it the way I do it.
And I just prefer to do that because it's, it's my own
version. That said, I encourage people
to, even if you're learning a riff that's one of mine that I'm
sharing with you or learning a new Megadeth riff or whatever,
right? Think about how you can make
that riff your own. Like, OK, you got it down, but
what if you did this instead? What if you played it and, well,
what if you played a different key?
Since we're talking about theory here, I'm a dude.
I'm a huge fan of playing in different keys.
And I'm not talking about down tuning or drop tuning.
You can do that, That's fine. I'm talking about playing in a
different place on the fret board than where you're used to
playing at, right. You know, we're talking about
playing in the key of C# minor on guitar, for example, even on
even on keys, Ken, you probably people probably have a tendency
to play in a certain in a certain area on the keyboard as
they're playing even with orchestration.
And and I think that's the reason that a lot of bands that
albums that you hear, not all, but a lot of them are written
and really in the same key. You know, I remember all all the
Metallica albums. I mean, they're most of them are
practically in E minors. Not all of them, but most of the
majority are and just kind of have the same thing.
I remember I never could get into the band Godsmack, but I
remember and like every song that they wrote just started out
with that first lowest note and it's like, OK, they can.
All the songs kind of sound the same.
And I'm not knocking that particular band.
It's just something that I noticed.
So I encourage you guys to to branch out even as a vocalist,
maybe seeing in a little bit different key sometimes to, to
just kind of shake things up a little bit, you know, make it
your own. And you know, going back to also
what you said here with, you know, even learning like a
different riff, like something from Megadeth or whatever.
I'll even say like even on this upcoming album that Jason and I
worked on for Homeric, we have we have two covers on that album
and they're from Lamb of God, It's Laid to Rest and from Arch
Enemy, Snowbound. And both of those songs, like
Jason did not play at all like what the original is.
He totally adapted it in his own way.
He actually made late to Rest, oddly enough.
You think, oh, man, he's gonna like do it up.
And he's like, no, he actually kept it really simple.
He said, you know, Ken, the the orchestration that you were
doing, I kind of like that being in the forefront.
I'm just going to keep the guitars as a supporting act.
I said, OK, you know, let's see what it doesn't.
I I love it. It sounds amazing and even with
snowbound, we we switched it up. I we instead of like having it
exactly like it was on the original wages of sin album from
March enemy. It's like, dude, like we're
playing this our own way, our own solo.
Yes, it's it's reminiscent of the solo that was there, but
it's it's Jason's solo and I love that because it it makes it
feel like an entirely different song.
And it's a refreshing take. And seeing that on this album,
I'm very proud of of those two covers.
I probably won't do another cover after this, but it's it's
just one of those things where it's like when you hear it and
it's, and it's done in a way that's tasteful.
I think it it's very refreshing to see that so.
Well, here's kind of the sad part or not sad part, but just I
guess a little humorous. I didn't know any of those songs
were covers when I did them. I, I, I, I haven't really
listened to a whole lot of Lamb of God, So I wouldn't, I would
have never known the song. I do love Arch Enemy.
I listen, I listen to a lot of stuff, but I didn't even put two
and two together with a song with a, with a name.
So I didn't even know there were covers.
Dude, I was, you know, at the until you told me later, at the
time of recording that, well, you know, we talked about this.
You, you just, I think, or you were, you're either writing A
blog post or, or, or, or doing a video.
I can't remember if we've done it yet, but we're talking about
orchestration, fitting guitars with orchestration.
I wasn't, I had no clue they were cover songs.
I was just listening to the orchestration and I wanted to
make guitar parts that fit, not necessarily the overpowered
everything else, you know? And that's just.
Very true. I think guitar players have a
tough time with that, especially if you, if you're, if you're an
accomplished guitar player and you, you can shred and all that
stuff and it, and it's great. I mean, I, I admire that, right?
But I think if, if you've got the ability to do that stuff,
sometimes it's really difficult to hold back and do something
else that really complements the song and doesn't necessarily put
you in the forefront. You know, I think a lot of
guitar players and even singers, they're like, it kind of becomes
like a bet you can't do this or look at me, me, me, me type of
thing. And I would much rather it.
Again, I appreciate the shredding.
I appreciate people that can hit the high notes or whatever.
But I never, never once have I loved a song for a guitar solo
or for someone's vocals. I love the song because of the
song and it's everything within. It's not just one part.
So that's just kind of a take away.
You, you guys may feel, some of you may feel differently about
that you, you might just be in love with someone's voice.
Look, I love Doug Pennock's voice from King's XI love that
man's voice. He's got just a, an amazing, an
amazing, beautiful voice. With that said, I don't, I don't
there are a lot of King's X song that I just don't care for.
They they get a little too proggy for me.
You know, it's like, OK, you lost me.
But the songs I do love, I absolutely love and I love his
voice. But all that said to say that I
think people fall in love more so with the song itself, not
just because the guitar player can play a great solo or the
singer can sing a high note or whatever, right.
So it's something to think about when you're you guys that do
write your own music. And guys, I'll say this real
quick, even if you're a hobbyist, and which is nothing
wrong with that, it's a beautiful hobby to have, man.
You come home, you, you crank out the bass or the guitar or,
or you just working on your vocals.
You know, we, we challenge you to maybe take it to the next
level, go to an open mic, at least get out there and you
know, you know, and showcase it because that's a cool thing to
do, you know? But I still encourage you, even
if even if you're not planning to release anything, still,
still practice writing your own stuff because that's you and
nobody can take that away. You know, practice writing your
own stuff, write your own stuff and and think about the song
more so than the actual guitar part, if that makes sense.
Yeah, we, Jason and I come from the background of we feel like
music belongs to the world in a way.
So we, we always found that when we created something, we had the
urge to always release it and, and, you know, and share it with
people. Because when I think about it,
it's like we are unique already by having a gift to do what we
do. And you know, I, I think, you
know, in my, in my life, I try not to be selfish to just keep
it all for myself. I, I feel like it's, I always
talk about Homeric being like a sacred duty to me.
And like, I just kind of have to share not just the music, but
like the story, the meaning behind what I'm doing it with,
you know, So I always have those thoughts, but that's, that's
always how I've, I've been about making music.
If you're if you feel like music is a personal journey for you to
just either it's a it's a way for you to heal, or that's
perfectly valid reason to. It's a great reason to Yeah,
it's. A great reason I, I, you know,
my, every time I come home, I love having a studio that I
built that I can enjoy music in high fidelity for, you know,
that's, that's, that's a unique thing that I have and I don't
take it for granted. I, I try to count my blessings
whenever I can because it, it keeps you humble and keeps you
remembering where you come from. And of course, conversations
like this, these are really nostalgic.
Jason, I'm wondering though, you know, you were talking about
any, some new bands or something like that.
Do you have something perhaps that you'd like to share?
Have you been listening to anything new?
What? What?
What's on your radar? Well, not really knew.
So we and we'll, we'll get to our metal song of the week here
of the day or week or month? No week.
We're trying to do this podcast thing weekly.
So I know we skipped a couple weeks, but you know, I haven't
really listened to anything new lately.
I SiriusXM had like a freebie for for like a week and 1/2.
So I was listening to that in the car a lot and I was just
listening to hair nation and Ozzie's bone yard.
But they and I loved it at first, but they kept playing the
same stuff over and over and like, OK.
And I had no intention on subscribe subscribing to them.
But as far as the song of the week, I'm just going to choose
an album because we were talking about Sonata Arctica.
And I had I had listened to Nightwish before that and I'd
fell in love a Nightwish before that.
But the first like that style, overall theme of music.
My first live concert was seeing Sonata.
I can't remember the band that opened for them, but I'm going
to go back to their 1999 release, which I I think it
might be the first album called Ecliptica.
And that's got the songs on their blank file.
My land 8th Commandment replica full yeah, full moon.
And that was now the date Sonata took like kind of A twist here
over the past and several maybe even over the past decade.
I don't know. And I just really haven't been
into anything else they released.
And this is not me saying, well, they don't make them like they
used to the old man syndrome, but it, it changed in a way that
doesn't captivate me as much. Metallica did the same thing,
you know, they're, they're newer stuff.
I, I can appreciate it for what it is, but it doesn't, it
doesn't captivate me the same way as let's say the new Aman
Amarth album or, or the latest Aman Amarth album.
I was captivated by that. So I, that's proof that I'm not
being the old man to say it's only the old stuff that's great.
No, there are a lot of new things I like out there.
Nightwish actually just released a new single there.
I think they're getting ready to release their or pre release a
single off their upcoming album in August.
And I thought that was well put together.
So, but I haven't really listened to any new band or or
an extreme amount of new music. But I did want to highlight Son
of Arca's Ecliptic album 1999. And of course I was, I was heavy
into that. And Winter Hearts Guild, which I
believe was released in 2003. So those two albums were very
cool. My favorite Sonata albums, yeah.
I, I, I guess, well, when I'm, when we're talking about stuff
that that was influential for us back in the day, I think
definitely like something like Symphony X Paradise Lost.
Was a great. Album, You know, for me, Dream
Theater Octavarium at that time when I was learning how to play
drums was a huge inspiration and six degrees of inter turbulence
from them. But yesterday or the day before,
actually the day before, I was at a rehearsal and one of the
one of the guys shared Roadmaster.
I don't know if you've ever listened to Roadmaster.
It was they are, they are somewhat a little bit of an
older band. I think they were like really
inspired by like 70s type stuff. But I think they were in the
90s. If I remember correctly.
The album is called Sweet Music and it's Doesn't Mean a Thing.
Was the first thing that they played.
We just kind of rolled from the top of the album and I thought
it was great. Roadmaster.
Man, check it out. We'll check that out, dude.
Yeah, give me something new to listen to there.
Well, guys, that wraps it up for another Metal Mastermind podcast
show. I hope you guys have got some
entertainment out to today's podcast and more.
So I hope that what Ken and I talked about, I hope that really
ignited your fire. Just think for a moment before
you sign off here, just kind of allow yourself to go back to
that first time you got into music and started, you know,
playing whatever instrument, whether it's guitar, singing,
drums, whatever, and got into metal.
And just I want you guys to try to recapture that today,
recapture that moment, but also make that be a new moment for
today and going forward. So that's something that you can
lean on guys. Thank you again.
Check out our educational resources for all rock and metal
musicians at metalmastermind.com.
We've got a lot of cool stuff out there for you guys.
We'll see you or we'll listen to you or you'll listen to us on
the next podcast and you'll also see us on YouTube and social
media. We we keep up to date with all
that good stuff. So guys, have an awesome rest of
the week. See you next time.
As always, create your own sound.