Walk Off The Earth

0:02Hello, Matt. How are you? Good. How you doing? I'm good. So everything's taking care of you good to go Everything's all good yet. Okay, so let's do this quick before you have more stuff to run to So I'm so one I'm sorry. I couldn't make it down in person I've got so much video editing to do today that it's just nuts So I'm glad we could at least pull off a phone or cuz I'm real happy to talk to you guys because you're a man So let's go back because I've got a lot of friends that do the YouTube stuff that a lot of original music artists, it's funny that I even say that but Musical artists that try and put their stuff on YouTube just to try and gain a following to try and Get people to listen to their music. So I guess maybe you could take me back and maybe Tell us about

0:48The idea of getting on YouTube and the idea of marketing and why you chose to do it well We We Johnny and I started working together on some music projects like a few years ago and at that time He was like Sarah you got to check out like this YouTube thing It's like I've been making like I want to make these videos like these monthly videos of Us in the studio or whatever and at the same time I was like oh cool I'm making these like in the studio on tour with kind of webisode things and he was like yeah YouTube's gonna be like the way for people to make music and get it out there like soon and know it So I was like cool. Let's like do some more stuff

1:34So let's make more videos or whatever it is so that's that was kind of the start of the whole thing and then Johnny put out Love the way you lie a cover which I actually was supposed to be in and I went on tour and With the creep show I Went on to work. Yeah with the creep show and because I was touring with them full time And he put that video and all of a sudden it just like it just went like tons of people watched it so that was kind of the kickstart for the walk-off YouTube channel and And then it just like kind of like it just went up from there You just started really focusing on making videos because like I was on tour at the time playing in front of you know like 500 people a night and then we put a video out and like

2:21Ten thousand people in a week would watch it. So we're like really doing like How you know like which which way are we supposed to go here and then? It just kind of like it took over we were just like let's keep doing this YouTube thing like there's tons of ways to like Get your music out there where you don't need anybody else like we can do this all ourselves now, which was really great Before the go-to video how many hits were they getting you were saying ten thousand? But I look back at some of the videos this afternoon now now they're all well over you know two million five million Whatever have you but were they like they must not have been like that before? No, I think For like when we put the go-to video out sorry was like let's get 20,000 likes 20,000 likes in the first week

3:06that was the goal and So that was In within the first ten minutes That was kind of the The steady for us like probably around ten thousand a week or something like that. I hate it It was it's really good for you know like a like a smaller YouTube channel our subscribers We're really growing though like they really were once we started putting out more songs We put that adult song out it got a lot of coverage and yeah Mm-hmm. I hate to harp on it because I'm sure you've been talking at nauseam about YouTube and Everything for the year, but it's been almost a year since everything happened So I kind of wanted to write this piece is like a year From a life of an indie band turning into this massive success and and dealing with all of it along the way

3:55So so I apologize if you've gotten a lot of these questions before no no I thought good A year well yeah, it's crazy So so well actually why don't we go back that you can't believe it's been a year so what happened after? You know 140 million shit storm of media anything stick out from that original onslaught of like oh wow Well obviously all of a sudden Tons of people were interested in us that weren't before which is a given I mean that's how the music industry works, right? If something happens all of a sudden everyone's like we want to be a part of it now that you've done all the work And we let some people in we did like we did We brought on a management team and we ended up finding a record deal

4:41But it's a really open deal. It's a it actually is still very much in our favor And we basically just brought we hired people kind of thing to help us reach certain markets that that we had we had reached yet and because of that one of the most significant things is we have been able to go out and play a Bunch of shows and do a couple really awesome massive tours, which is awesome How different is it from the creep show tours because you've you've been on the road you've lived the life of a touring musician before so how Is it different? Yeah, I mean obviously it's different because I'm with different people and that's given and it's also different because We have our show like our goal for with walk off is to have one of the best fucking live shows on the planet

5:28And how do you accomplish? So You just you go and watch the flaming lips and then you go I'm gonna put on a show that's better than that you go and watch Guar and you say we're gonna put on a show that's better than that You go to search the so they and you go let's hire those fucking dancers to come with us on tour Right, but this all cost a lot of money. This is this is not so we have had access to a year ago, right? No, not at all and and we do we have a lot of friends like our crew is Are all our friends and they do understand and even at this point like people may think that we've made a bunch of money Off this song and stuff, but realistically speaking what we did was we put an awesome team together and we put out a lot of money in Order to have an amazing tour and an amazing live show and to put out better videos then the ones that we've already put out and

6:15Everything that we do anything we make a dollar on we put that money right back into the band So it's it's really not much different than our than our you know Our poor days where we weren't making anything. It's like we're now making more money But we're putting it all back into the band again and making it bigger. So that's kind of the That's kind of the like the little set pool of music you like if you want to have a better show You've got to put you got to put down more money if you want to you know All that kind of stuff is is a part of it But the touring as far as like the difference between the creamshell and walk-off is yeah, definitely the people and We have a crew like before I was setting up all the merch by myself setting up my aunt's Doing a ton of I did I did all the tour managing with creamshell and

7:02And I wrote a ton of the songs for that band when we were in the recording studio I was very much in charge of like the writing process and everything and a lot of the songs So now it's a little bit easier for me because there's so many Heads that are ready to put ideas out there and be creative. I don't have to be in control of it all So that's the biggest difference You said so many things in their own a touch on I don't know where to go but maybe Maybe we'll keep with with tours because you're playing a show tonight So have you are the live shows growing are people coming out to see walk off the earth or are they coming out to see Some of the cover songs not that there's a difference But I mean you know from playing in bands There's one thing about singing a song that someone else wrote and having people sing it back to you But there's something else about when you write a song and people said nothing beats that feeling as I'm sure you know

7:51Totally so so people coming out to hear your songs like some revive and yeah, yeah, yeah totally And the coolest part about the fact that we've been doing this touring is because YouTube's so strong There's so many live videos up now. So people are getting to know our new songs aren't even out yet like Revo which the album comes out in the end of October. So yes, and we'll get to that. Revo there's like Red hands beaches like summer vibes Gang of rhythm all these really cool new songs people are starting to know already because they're on YouTube So that's that's one really cool thing and then of course they want to hear us play songs that they know us for on the internet And stuff but there's there's also a lot of our original material that we play that they know because When that video came out everyone went and bought the last two albums that we had put out so

8:39It's it's a really cool mixture of like we and of course we play the songs that people want to hear that we know that people know because that's You know a lot of the reason why people go to concerts. We know that so We we try to mix it in as well as nicely as possible So sometimes they won't even know what they're hearing and then they go well fucking fun was that they're like oh my god It's a new song okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna investigate and go on the internet and find out what it is And there's people who know the words to the new songs that aren't even out so it's it's working I think but yes the shows are definitely growing tonight We sold out the dance with music hall in Toronto, which is massive for us. So yeah, oh, and it's a really cool room I saw Hoxie there years ago. I love that place. It's like yeah, the eater is just one of the best places Yeah, you don't actually wear creep show did a video here

9:27I did take my hand video here and I didn't realize it until today when I was pulling up I was like oh That's not yeah, that you know what that seems like a good room for you to shoot a creep show video and that's that that seems fitting On YouTube afterwards, did you know it's a good video and fun, you know go to Taysin town tonight in Toronto too, right? Uh-huh you guys know this now is I wonder and I mean I mean This is probably not the case But have you been in contact with him about the fact you are both in the same town? You're pretty close to your hometown anything that I know there we haven't been in contact for for that school purpose Like the last time we were in touch with Gautier was like right after the video happened and he invited us to show in Toronto Which was in March I think and we went but but it's weird. He's kind of been

10:14Around us like we've been on tour. We've gone to Europe Recently and he's kind of been around us. He's in Toronto tonight. He was in Montreal I think one of the nights that we played tonight's been Montreal recently and I don't know. I don't know if it's coincidence or if he's like trailing us and seeing what's going on or what but All in all I'm sure his show is gonna be amazing tonight too. So it doesn't really matter Yeah, it'll be a weird a weird thing if you both decide to play that song at the same time and there's like a Universal I don't know some vibe going on the city anyway, it doesn't matter Let's talk about the record So you got an EP coming up in a couple of weeks here and then a full-on disc in February So where were you guys out in in recording and writing and everything like that? It's done. It's done. Okay, it's finished So so now now comes the major label debut. It's the record is done. You've written it

10:59You've recorded now. You're just waiting to get it out there to people. How tough is that for you to just sit? Well, we've been waiting for the whole year to start putting our songs out so We got we had a really fortunate event with summer vibe We got to put that song out with the video and tons of people know that song now and like I was saying before People are watching our shows right now on YouTube and getting to know the new songs that they didn't even know are like You know, we're gonna be out and new yet. So That information is flowing around on the internet and I think with the But the power of all those videos that people are have access to and and the and the record coming out It's gonna be pretty massive. We just shot a new video for For our first single red hands and it's gonna be

11:47Ridiculous like absolutely ridiculous video. We've ever shot I'm so excited for it Are you at a point where you're having trouble coming up with concepts and you're bringing in other people now? Or are you at a level where you know other people to think about it? We're at a level where we We have the people the right people helping us out to get certain things like factor The things like that that we can put towards our videos, but it's still a lot of our own direction and Co-direction or production It's that it has a lot to do with us and anyone that we have worked with like we have worked with a couple different directors now For two of the videos red hands and gang with them, but at the same time like we're still constantly working with them

12:33It's not like okay. You guys take over and do you think we always have ideas in the video, so It's a it's a mix of all of us and then and then the coolest thing is We get to work we get to go online watch these people's amazing videos and go holy fuck for making a video at this person And then we don't have to edit it, which is nice. Yes. Yeah, so I know the pain of video editing all too much Yeah, yeah, exactly like it's nice to have someone take over and do that side of it Yeah, well, why don't we talk about red hands a little bit so I can write up a little Storytellers on the single so what I know of it from what I've heard it's a pop song is you know pop song pop song with instruments Happy vibes sing alongs. What is red hands? It's actually like it is I guess it's a pop song. It's not really it's not the pop song formula

13:21I like we didn't do the double verse double chorus then like sure, but it is catchy. It's catchy That's what I mean by poppy. I'm in the song in the sense of popular music. It sounds like something Yeah, yeah, it really is and it has a what's cool because it's I Think it's the best song on the album to represent what the band is now like with with the members now that we're all established We're all We're all in that song you can really hear Marshall in that song. You can really hear the john. You can really hear the star parts and It's really it's really worldly like the it's a really drum oriented song. There's tons of drums like when we wrote it We were like let's fucking go to Africa to do a video Kind of thing so it's really drum oriented and it's just it's just a really cool

14:09Direction for us to take and it's it's just another song that's gonna represent just as a band not only Having the ability to write an awesome song, but also Having the like we're capable of putting different genres in everything and not limiting ourselves to one certain style like you listen to red Hands and then you listen to Danger them and it's like two totally different bands, but at the same time you can hear it the Elements of us all in there. So it's I don't know it's cool and the record's gonna be awesome The red hands is an awesome song and again the videos can be checked Well, you want to give us you probably can't say anything with the video You know what I'm I'm gonna push you because you probably can't and you probably shouldn't What else did I want to get to you with you can you can say like we're really well-known for our one take videos

14:57Probably the most intense one takes that we've ever done. They'll a one take okay. There we go. Yes. That's what we use. Thank you You're very good So I wonder if I was gonna bring this up earlier, but I forgot we don't have too much time left So I wonder if the craziness that ensued about a year ago How are you guys with that are you happy that it's kind of? Negated a little bit has it negated a little bit and if so do you miss it or are you happy that that's kind of like okay? We can get back to our normal lives now No, we definitely aren't back to any kind of normal We've settled into ourselves as a band I think our relationships have developed a lot That's one of the things I've noticed the most Yeah, and coworkers. Yeah, exactly

15:44I mean we were thrown into this thing and kind of like okay guys now we're gonna spend every second of every day together and like That can be really intense for some people so we've really developed our relationships within the band we wrote a record together Which is amazing? we haven't stopped and in in the ways that Some things have started to like maybe whittle down other things have really started to pick up so there's reaching out to so many different Elements of the music industry that there is no downtime like Seriously slept in my own bed for the first time in months last night and I'm so happy that I get to do it again tonight like that's so it's

16:30It's still crazy and and we want it to stay that way Which is why we're still working our asses off no matter what like some bands would have taken that chance and been like cool now with just spend all of our money and go on this massive tour and then it kind of just ends but we're like Take this and make this what we what we want it to be never stop working That's good quote to end it out actually so before I let you go we do something called five questions five quick questions one more answers Okay, rotor studio Road Leninger McCutney Lenin when you hear a song what usually hits you first lyrics melody or rhythm The person's voice actually cool song you've written your most proud of I

17:20Don't know that's a tough one. I know I'm sorry. I asked everyone's to everybody though. I think I think Red hands cool and in one yeah in one word walk off the earth one word Saverance oh that's a good word. I like that cheesy. No, no, no, it's not cheesy. Oh, that's a good word That you should hear some shit that I get told that's a good one I'm going yes, so thank you so much I really look forward to hearing the record runs out and and maybe we can do like a video interview when the record comes out And we'll help promote it and do all that good stuff. So yeah man for sure for sure So have fun tonight enjoy the show and we'll talk soon Okay, thanks