Zeus

0:01Gentlemen, thank you. Mike, Carlin. Good to see you again. Good to see you too. Last time you came by and played a bunch of tunes that were unreleased. Exactly. And now they are released. And now they're on the run. How did the songs progress from that? Because that was what? A year and a bit ago. And they were very acoustic based then and they're not on the record obviously. Well, we performed acoustic versions of the electrical amplified songs. They have progressed in the live format but for the most part most of those songs were already recorded at that time. Oh really? Yeah, we pretty much had the full record in the can waiting for its release kind of thing. And we recorded a couple more of Neil's numbers. The other song right on the band recorded two more of his to add to the record after that. Which ones are his? I didn't know he wrote two. Marching through your head.

0:49He's not marching through kindergarten heavy on me and greater times on the wayside. So it sounds like he writes and then to you write together or do you write separately and then bring each other? Sometimes we write it in the studio. Sometimes some guy comes with a few parts and then we hash the rest out. Sometimes a guy comes with a thing basically in the can and we just put our flourishes into the harmonies and stuff like that. A lot of harmonies, the easier part. It's my favorite part of the entire record. Yeah, well it's insane. It's to me who was that part. That was built into the song that's Carl and song. It was just a part that we thought would be cool to sing a bunch of people together unison on that one line. To have it, Sesame Street was the inspiration. You know, you don't have to say there isn't any reverbs or anything on that part on the vocal. It's very, very dry.

1:39And lots of people singing it. We had like five people doing it and then we doubled that again with five people doing it. And it was really close to the mic and just super, super dry just to come in as a sort of Sesame Street shocker right at that spot. It only happens twice in the song. Sesame Street in the 60s. I never would have said that was the influence for the record. Well, we like to put on some cartoonish voices at times in the recording. Make things a little fun for everyone. The same with the J record too on the Sunkle Vanderpool crack out this total sort of witch voice or something. We don't know why. It's just whatever. We like the sound of it. What's it like producing someone else's record compared to your own? Depends who it is. Well, for J for example. Amazing. It will elaborate a little bit.

2:25It's really great. J comes to the plate with the great template. We did very little arranging for that record. Others, we did a lot more work, worked on a record called, sorry, by Danielle Duvall and there was tons of arranging that we did on that. J's got it all sorted out. We just sort of added our sprinkles onto it and sort of built the song from the ground up to everything. So it was lots of fun. He keys off of what gets us juiced. You know what I mean? So it makes recording it really fun. You guys have been playing together how long? With Jason? With J, I've been playing with him for about five years. That kind of goes a long way in the recording process because there's a lot of trust there. His songs are really good templates for any kind of idea.

3:10In the studio, usually the way it works is the best idea wins. So anyone might have an idea for a part and we just try everything and see what sort of sticks to the wall. What about two of you along? You can find a guy there. Great time. Also, what's great time? We played, we started together and then things got heavy and my other band was 68. Me and my brother were in that band. We fought a lot at the time. It's pretty heavy stuff. So Mike just sort of decided he wanted to do something different, do something fresh. So we parted ways there and he joined forces with Aath from Bahamas who was also in the original formation of the 68s way back in the 90s. And they played together for a while and then we were sort of, you know, we always knew we'd come back together at some point. But we spent quite a lot of time musically apart.

3:57We were always hanging out but musically we were sort of separated as you could say. And then, you know, when the Passimino sort of dissolved, which was Mike and A.P. and Robbie's band before Zeus and the 68s were also sort of not doing much. We had some time and Mike came over and we just started recording songs that were we thought were Michael Bryan songs at the time. And then we just sort of started writing more and more together, started realizing it was more of a collaboration thing. It was just like all the pent up years of not playing together just sort of exploded into the Zeus project. So it was a project. It became a project. It was more like just for fun kind of thing. Yeah, like you said, we were just demoing some of my songs and some of his songs. And before we knew it, there was like a collection of songs that all seemed to fit together really well and had a similar theme and a similar vibe.

4:49And yeah, how way we went. We didn't know what it was going to be when we started. Project makes it sound like there might not be more though. You know what I mean? Well, it's just a different band start differently I guess and some bands start with the idea of like we're going to be a band and this is what we want to do. And our band just happened to start by accident. But now it's a band. Sure enough. Project is probably not the best choice of words. It's a long term project. There we go. We're going to ask you this, Carlin. What does Mike bring to Zeus? What does Mike bring to Zeus? What does he bring to you? He brings 25%. 25. Yeah, that's all. I like everyone. It seems like the rest of us, man. Yeah, exactly. It was just exciting when we got back together making music again.

5:37It was just like I said, it was this massive explosion that we didn't anticipate type of thing. Mike's a great guy to bounce and he almost did anything off of. Great musical mind. Super duper guy. We don't know how we work together. We're just old friends and we don't think about it very much. Cool. Well, no, I'll ask you the same question. Yeah, well to pick up where he left off there's a lot of ingrained, you know, like we've not verbal communication going on just because we've known each other for so long. So we just have an understanding of each other's musical tastes and what we each like and what Carlin brings is, you know, again an immensely huge musical mind.

6:22And, you know, we understand each other musically. And we both get excited about the same types of ideas. Another zone that we've sort of branched into. I've been doing it for longer than Mike, but he's picked it up a lot and we're recording it as a use record in the Golden Dogs album that we did and Jason Kletz record and Danielle Devalle, that was all last year. And there was a lot of time in the Golden Dogs project but I couldn't be there. And I think that was a lot of, that's where Mike sort of really had to step up and like pick things up to get things. Yeah, he's learning curve for me to naturally learn the recording process because I had a sort of mental knowledge in it but nothing. As a producer? As an engineer more, more than being a producer.

7:08A producer thing is really just something that comes with playing music for a long time and knowing what you want to hear. How to arrange a song and what hooks you want to bring out of a song. Those kind of things come natural to most musicians really. It's just a matter of how forceful you are with your ideas I guess. But the engineering side is a lot more technical and a lot more you know just matter of fact stuff that you need to know how to do. Right Mike you think certain distance is a lot of stuff. All that kind of stuff and Karl's been doing that ever since we started making music together with four tracks and then the early digital recording. So yeah in terms of what he brought to the band is huge because we wouldn't have a record if it wasn't for him.

7:54Let's get going right there. What do you guys listen to? Now the record sounds very kinks zombies it's got that whole thing and there's a camera with tuna. It sounds like octopuses garden the way you kind of sing through the water at some point. What do you guys listen to? Is it all 60 stuff or do you listen to? No whatever it's good. We listen to Beck and Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson and Hugh Lewis and the Naze. Yeah man. We're just a favorite artist. We're pop freaks you know like we're just any great arrangement ABBA whatever man. You know anything that's brilliant anything that we like. Anything that's you know just feels good. That Al Taka album we listen to a lot on that last tour and whatever you know Hayden Ron Saxmith Jason Kala.

8:41What do you grew up on? Slow and thrush hermit super friends. Nirvana was like one of the first bands that I was really really into. Beach Boys. The doors too actually. I'm not a fan at all anymore but when I was late in grade six I was heavy into the doors. Which is kind of embarrassing. Jay's holding his nose back there. But no they're actually still to this day. They still have some great songs. They can be an embarrassing act but that's the thing is like it can be something that people might shy away from like ABBA for example or whatever like people turn up their nose at. But if there's a great song there then most of the times I can overlook who they are or what their background is or what genre of music it is as long as there's a great song. Touching back on the Jay record too like you know we could have produced those as ABBA songs.

9:30You know the same way it's just the song at the heart of it is the song and it's you know it can be you can go anyway with it go punk with it go dance with it or go wherever the hell you want to with it. And so the Zeus record is just you know that's where we wanted to go with it you know. Just listening to all those those Beatles records and Beach Boy records and the early stuff we really tweaked it on the sound Brian Wilson sounds and the sounds that they were getting in the 60s and stuff. So you know it sort of became a quest and it takes a long time to just finally figure out how to properly you know achieve sounds that you know you want to hear you know. Because it's like you can think about it and just be like oh well it's just this you know just juice this frequency and it'll just be you know but it's so much more finesse to it.

10:16I'm learning every single day but you know the artists sound is just so fast. I do live sound as well and it's doing live sound there's nothing like doing recording. You got to make your children frequencies take off and the artist gets angry. The studios a little bit lower lower key that way but the decisions you make are still just as important you know. Because you know. It's not more important. They're more permanent. You can put it to tape and you know decide later that you're just sort of way off. That hasn't really happened to us but. You know well it might one day. Not yet. I mean we've had a couple tunes of this sort of you know. But usually we won't know why they're not working. It's just like we just go off the feeling that we get from the recording and if there's something that's not quite right after however many weeks or whatever after we've added all the parts that we know we want to add.

11:08Not feeling right then. You know we'll just. Scrap it. Either scrap it or tool it around or redo the drums or just you know maybe it's too fast or maybe it's too slow or just exactly scrap it. We've got tons of tunes you know so it's like we're excited to just keep recording them and try and put a record at. Oh yeah another one. We'll see you know. We don't want to step on this one or anything like that if it's a bad time or whatever but for sure you know like between Mike and Neil and me. You got to understand a guy like Jay he puts out however many records and like 14 song records 12 song records. Those are all his songs you know what I mean. And though for this situation like bands like Sloan or whatever to that you know they have different songwriters. It becomes a different thing where you know you've got you've only got so many so maybe you've written 20 songs this year or something like that but you know bands put out a record once every maybe once every two years usually these days and maybe three or four of those songs beyond there.

12:09Or if you maybe 40 songs in two years maybe eight of them get used you know. What do you think that changed because we were talking about 60s before all the bands you know three records a year four records a year from those bands. It doesn't happen like that anymore. So you've run and gone man I wasn't around. For one reason there's so many bands now the market is flooded with music that you really want to when you release a record you really want to plan it out and make sure it has the maximum impact that it can. And then because of that you have to take your time and work towards that release and bring some attention to it and then once it is released you really have to work that record and tour it as much as possible to sort of get as much out of it as you can. A bunch between us and Jake. Jake, Jake, we did like I think 11 or 12 shows.

12:54Oh my god it was great the first day we played two free shows between one and five on the first day that we got. It's like one thing to the other but it's cool because you just fire everything up there and adrenaline is flowing so hard and you just like you know you give her and you give her for 20 minutes. Yeah you know that long it says it says that you guys are going to play us a song. What are you going to play for us. I'm not sure you're going to take the song from the sound check. Yeah. Cool. Well we'll have to I was joking earlier that we're going to do for a Jacques. Well last time you said you were playing a Beatles song it's not a Beatles song. Oh that's right. That's right. Don't go. I know. I'm a big Beatles fan. We tried to pull in the photo. You did. You did not win. You write that though. Like where that song comes from. You can download for free on the whole set. Well that one's actually a pretty close co-write between us because I have the melody and the chorus lyrics but I didn't have any verse lyrics except for the first line of the song.

13:46And Carlin just happened to be inspired by. What's your name is Joyce? What's your name? Yeah. Exactly. And then Carlin kind of was inspired by that theme and took it from there and wrote the rest of the lyrics. Well period and recording the Zeus record that was really really strange because it was never talked about I don't think I've ever even talked to Mike about it but it almost felt to me like some of the songs that Mike was writing was like from my point of view. You know I was with this girl and she was just a terrible situation you know. And she broke my heart so many times that I kept going back to her you know. You gotta do it until the love is just burnt and it's gone. But the song sound of you to me you know the lyrics to sound of you really remind me a lot of that. It was certain lines in Mike's songs that were poking out that was just like.

14:35Oh I can really identify with that. I know it was kind of eerie and cool but yeah it's just another example of how we like it. I don't think about it too much and everything just sort of meets in the middle. Awesome. Thanks guys. Thank you man. Thanks for having us. Thank you very much.