Interview

Interview with Dan Briggs of Between the Buried and Me

Published

4 years ago

April 20, 2020

Between the Buried and Me has been a well-respected band for 20 years. Their sound has gone through many evolutions throughout the years: from death metal, to progressive while throwing in pieces of many other genres along the way. BTBAM was gearing up for their 20-year anniversary as a band, before the Coronavirus shut down the music industry’s touring plans. In the wake of touring the band has also been working on the remaster and reprint of their self-titled debut album. I was fortunate to be able to speak with bassist Dan Briggs about the early times of the band and what they are doing to plan for the future.

GA: When I was approached about setting something up with BTBAM, the conversation sparked with the news of BTBAMs self-titled debut album being rereleased. Which was released 20 years ago, and the band had a tour lined up which has been unfortunately cancelled due to the Coronavirus. You were not a part of the original line up but joined years later. What was it like coming into the band at that time?

DB: It was still early on, the band consisted in some form for two albums. Three of us all joined up around the same time, 2004 to early 2005. It was like hitting the reset button, I think for Tommy and Paul. They have both said, that at the time they would not have been able to do another album with just the two of them, with writing the music and leading the creative charge. They were both exhausted from that idea, after releasing The Silent Circus. They brought in two twenty-years-olds, and a nineteen-year-old and we were all fired up. At that time, it was great. I was still in school for music performance, so when I had an opportunity to leave and join a group, that was my goal. BTBAM was a band I was familiar with. I have known Tommy and Paul for a few years, and it was like everything was lining up just perfectly.

GA: The self-titled album was the introduction of the band to the world. The music had a style of its own, incorporating technique with jazz, metal, and rock to have its own unique hybrid blend of music. What are some songs you like to revisit from the album and play? One of my favorites is ‘Shevanel Cut A Flip.’

DB: What I think is interesting about the 20-year anniversary and looking back, is that we normally do not go that far back in our catalogue. We usually do not go back to the first album, because I think it is such a disconnect from where we are now. I think we have a lot of fans that think it is a nice reminder and homage to that time. The people that have been around for that long look at us like, ‘cool they are playing those songs’ but to look at it realistically most our crowds probably do not know that record. Shevanel is a good song that you mentioned. That song was still working its way into our set as far back as I want to say 2015. That may have been the last time we played it. We have done the song in many different versions over the years.We used to use the first chunk of the song; before it goes into the clean section. We used to use it as a segway track between other points in the set; where we were linking different years and versions of the band and tying that all together. That song is a fun one, because that song has a lot of interesting stuff in it. It has all the dynamics; it has some weird fills, the fills in the swing section with the accents have always been bizarre to me.

GA: Even though it was the early years the band managed to throw the kitchen sink in there. I like to say that was more of BTBAM’s rawer sound, a bit more on the aggressive end, but now I think the band has a balanced feel to it.

DB: That album was also live tracked, which adds to the rawness. That album was born out of the days where they were practicing five days a week.

GA: You came into the band right before I would say the band got its big push in popularity. The music got more intense with the writing style, and we started to see BTBAM become this huge thing. What would you say are things that you would accredit the success to from back then?

DB: In those days it was nice, but no it is a little different scenario since we are all older and in different places in our lives. We used to go out for eight months of the year, we would pack up the van and we would be out there doing support tours. Every couple months, we would be in the same markets doing the same venues, with slightly different crowds based off of who you were supporting. It was a lot like this on the Alaska touring cycle. We really got to gel as a band and a writing unit when we were doing the Colors album. On that touring cycle we opened ourselves up to an entirely new crowd, since we were out with Dream Theatre, Opeth, and Meshuggah. The progressive music universe has expanded widely with these artists. Colors was the album where these ideas were more on the forefront. We have taken that over the years as the palate and ran with it.

I think we have been rather fortunate because I feel a lot of bands do not get the room to grow over the years. Our next full length is going to be our tenth studio album, most bands do not have ten full length albums to develop their sound. Most bands that I loved when growing up only have three or four albums. For instance, bands like Soundgarden and Nirvana only have a handful of albums to their catalogue. I think we are fortunate that our sound is different and has had the opportunity to expand and grow. It started to seem that every time the band was evolving it would get to a point where someone was like this is not my thing anymore, but there were new people interested in what we were doing at that moment to take their place. I think this is continuing as we keep evolving and growing, and it has been really great. I think BTBAM has been able to expose a lot of people to a lot of new artists, just by bringing out our influences in the music and people catching on to those. Peopleare getting interested in the bands from the 70’s we are referencing, and I think our audience has also grown and matured along with us which makes it fun.

GA: To touch on the Colors album, I think that was the start of the BTBAM renaissance period of writing music. The band changed its style, the band added all these different influences that really made you an original sounding band for that time period.

DB: There were bands doing progressive stuff at that time like Mastodon, Opeth, and Mars Volta, but it was not mixing genres like we were. We pulled from things we loved and were passionate about. It made sense for us, and we stuck out in the world that we were playing in. That album allowed us to have these different audiences, and to tour with a lot of different bands. The album also helped change the minds of many people that have heard our name and wrote us off like any other metalcore act and go no, these guys are legit musicians. They have weird arrangements, and there is something different about them, and I think I should dig into it. This was also a time in 2007 where a lot of people still bought physical cds, so I think that album benefitted from that as well.

GA: Personally, when Colors came out and the band I work in heard it, our whole perspective of writing music changed. We went from being, lets write the heaviest things we can come up with to, lets just be the best musicians we could be.

DB: Yea that is perfect, that was the whole idea. We always have done what we wanted to, and we are thankful for being able to do this. I think at the end of the day it is about not trying to adhere to any one thing. For us, there is no sound that is Between the Buried and Me. There is no one album that is Between the Buried and Me, and this allows us to really play off what is the true progressive idea. Which is you are trying to write music that is advancing your sound, your palate, by not repeating yourself and trying something new. Those are the types of bands that we love.

GA: The band’s last major release was 2017-18’s Automata I &II; is the band currently working on follow up material, if so, what can you tell me about the process?

DB: Currently we are trying to wrap up some things. In May, we were supposed to have our 20-year anniversary tour but now that is on hold. We are like everyone else trying to come to terms with this new reality that we are in right now. This hits personally as well, as we all are trying to get by in our daily lives with this change. We wanted to do the 20-year touring cycle and then access where we are at as a band and find a way to move forward. This is what we do every three or so years when we begin to write a new record. The time frame has shifted but we will get to that tour and move forward.

GA: When the band is coming up with new material, what is your writing process like? Do you all share ideas, or is there a primary song writer/ writing team?

DB: It is all different. Some people share short bursts. The way that I write, is more like seeing an idea through. I am usually presenting fuller ideas. Paul kind of writes like this. He strings a lot of stuff together when he presents the material to the band. The other guys may write shorter bursts, but also aid in stitching things together. It is nice when you get to that point where you have a lot of material and just have to fine tune it.

The fine-tuning process is a lot of fun, where we can question pieces and play around with them. They can be subtle things where you won’t lose any sleep on it, and its not going to change the world. It is just that one thing where it may make that one person feel a little more comfortable, and everyone approves. I think about that stuff, and thinking about it now with these little nuances, I can’t hear the songs any other way. Especially now that the songs have been recorded and we have played them over the years. It is like I don’t even remember how the original version of the songs were.

I think with a lot of the older music it was a lot of stitching section by section, we just don’t work that way anymore. It was an exhausting way of trying to create this organic thing. I think back to those albums like Colors, and you could be five to six minutes into a song and be like, “where are we?” It was section by section. You were just living in that section, then wondering how to we get to the next section.

I think one of the important things in songwriting is being able to step back. During demoing, it is taking breaks like car rides or walks, getting away from my desk so I can free my mind outside of the constructs of my instrument. So, I can come back and listen to it fresh, and know this is not working or needs changed. When you are going at it in the heat of the moment you cannot think about it clearly.

Going back to how we write, we don’t write in the practice space. It has been a long, long, time since we have done that. Even with that it was more arranging these parts in the practice space, not necessarily writing new parts. Thankfully because of technology, we don’t have to work this way anymore, because for one we all live spread out from each other now. For two, everyone has a lot going on in their lives, and we can’t commit for months to this getting up four or five days a week to meet up. We used to be able to do this in the past when we were in our twenties and lived close to each other, but now it is just not feasible.

GA: So, do you guys rely more on file sharing these days then?

DB: Absolutely. I have multiple bands with members all over the country, and all over the world. This is the time we live in now. Thankfully, you can sculpt songs easier now. You all canhave the same programs, and work within the same sessions, and share them back and forth. Technology has made it so easy.

GA: You mentioned you are also involved in several other projects musically, what can you tell me about these?

DB: There has been a lot over the years. I have worked with the groups Orbs, Trioscapes, Nova Collective, and I have my own stuff with Nightmare Scenario. My thing has always been music.I just live in the creative space always, regardless if I am working on an album or not. I am always writing or working on something. Since around 2008, I have always had other musicians to bounce stuff off, or they will send me something that will spark an idea. That is one of the great things about music, is through these collaborations, discovering these ideas that may not have existed any other way. No matter how much time I would have spent in my bedroom that idea would never have come, without someone else sending me something to spark that creativity.

Orbs was a group that released a couple records. I was playing guitar in that band and it was more space rock, with some theatrics and other worldly stuff. The sound was influenced by bands like Muse, and Radiohead. Trioscapes was a three piece, with tenor saxophone, bass, and drums, and we put out 2 records. The sound was wild, and free formed, not exactly like jazz per say, just fun wild music. A lot of the music was based off improvisations. Which is so different from a BTBAM performance, where the music has a base and is rigid; playing the songs the same way from start to finish every night. Which playing like that is great, but I also love the energy. Some nights it is not there and other nights it is the highest of highs. I also had a group I started around 2014 called Nova Collective, that consisted of Matt the drummer of Trioscapes and I, with Rich the guitarist of the band Haken, and his buddy Pete on keys. The music was like instrumental meets jazz, rolled in with some fusion. They were some scary players, just out of this world good. It was so fun to play with them. My own stuff I don’tknow how to describe it. I put out an EP last year, and some small singles since then. It is hard to describe the sound, it is like everything I have ever heard and digested comes out in the music, because it is not filtered through any one band. There is nobody else, it is just me.

GA: When you are playing/ practicing on your own what are some pieces of music you like to play through, and what are some pieces that you could say helped attribute to your playing style?

DB: I have never been big on learning songs. I have a video that I did with some friends where I did a version of the Weather Report’s song ‘Teen Town.’ When my buddy Chris who is the drummer approached me about doing the song, I thought about it and it occurred to me that I have never learned a Jaco Pastorius bass line before. I have imitated his phrasing, and his styling, and the way that he plays, but I have never learned any of his bass lines before. So, I learned the lines for this song, and it is fucking insane. It was so cool to dig into the sheet music and learn his thing, and get to play along with this song that I have known. What a trip that was. I usually don’t have the time to do this.

About five years ago BTBAM did a recorded and live version of Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody.’ When I dug into the piano score, it blew my mind. We all know Bohemian Rhapsody is this epic song, it is almost like a song within a song. When I was going through the music and splitting up the parts amongst our instruments, it was blowing my mind. I could not believe it. It was so cool to dig into that song and digest it, and we got to reinterpret it as the musicians that we are. That was really fun, but honestly, I don’t do that anymore, it has been many years since I have done that.

In my high school years, Dream Theatre’s ‘Scenes from a Memory’ was a record that all my friends and I loved. It was our gateway into progressive rock and metal. I had the song book; I still have it and it has all my markings all over it. I could play it front to back and even some of the songs on guitar. It shaped a lot of my understanding of how to apply a musical way of playing with time signatures and phrasings. They had so many stylistic ideas. There were so many things you don’t think about, but are digested (when you listen to them), and as a composer you start to inheritably do these things. I would never look at BTBAM material and be like that came from Dream Theatre, but if I was really thinking about it I could be like, oh shit in theory, it is a conceptual idea that I may have learned from that time.

GA: When I listen to BTBAM I can hear bits and pieces of other bands, but it is still your style and your creative influence on the song.

DB: I think if we were to do a song purely inspired by the Beatles, it still wouldn’t sound like the Beatles because it is running through our filter. Tommy is still singing that song, Blake is still playing the drums, so it is still not going to be exactly that.

GA: We have time for one more question. You mentioned about the 20-year anniversary tour being postponed earlier, in what ways has the band been trying to recoup since everything has been shut down due to the coronavirus?

DB: Well honestly, stuff like these reissues, which thankfully we already had planned on doing. It is a nice thing because it helps us to have something to push during this time. It gives us a monetary source, but also keeps our name out there. The whole point of the 20-year anniversary, is to be looking back, appreciating all the records during our lifetime. If all of a sudden, we are talking about the first album being remixed, remastered, and reprinted, these are all things we have control over. That is just putting out the idea we had for the whole year anyways.

Who knows maybe by staying home and putting this tour off till whenever, it may boost the profile of everything? Since we are spending all this time up until being able to tour promoting the back catalogue. It is rather interesting. The last three years have been long. We got out of the studio when we recorded Automata in the summer of 2017. That fall, we did the10- year tour for the Colors album. Automata came out I believe January or February of 2018. So, we have been going nonstop since we got out of the studio in 2017. Everyone is bummed because we just want to do this tour, but at the same time I think it’s also the first time we get to relax even if its for a bit. It has been great because we can recharge. We are 20 years in and with all these records, I think everyone is enjoying having a little bit of time to themselves. It is a bit of a forced vacation for a lot of people but in a way, I think it is good. When we do get the thumbs up to return to touring, we will spend a month learning and prepping the set. We already have the set for the tour, so we will work on that and then be back on the road.

Thanks to Craft Recordings

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George Archibald

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Empire Interviews

Psychostick Interview w/ Matty J “Moose”

Published

6 months ago

October 23, 2023

Josh Drespling

We talk Games, Touring, and Toxic Crusaders at a Gaming Convention outside of Pittsburgh, PA.

It’s a late summer weekend, and I have a mountain of chores that need to be completed and a to-do list that is a mile long. The air is crisp, and the warm sunlight is bathing the leaves as they begin their Autumn transformation ritual. What better time to be reluctantly dragged to a gaming convention by your teenager?

I am by no stretch of the imagination a gamer and have almost zero interest in the culture and merchandising that surround the industry; however, I was resigned to partaking in a day of gawking at Pokemon merchandise, games I didn’t understand, and mountains of characters about whom I had no knowledge.
We paid our entrance fee and were making our way through the rows and rows of booths as I was half check-out when I noticed a second large convention hall full of video games. It was chalked full of everything from vintage PacMan and Centipede games to the latest console games and even a large section of pinball machines. As I wandered, I heard a blast of noise come from a room off to the side. It was the distinctive sound of a live band. I quickly made my way into the room, where the sound that has been my lifeblood for decades was emanating.

As I stood watching the band play and absorbing the few moments of personal pleasure, I noticed a row of merchandise tables off to the side of the venue. As I pursued the band’s wares with my eyes from a distance, I saw what I thought was the Psychostick logo. I did a double take and realized that yes, in fact, there was a Pychostick merch. table. What? I thought to myself. They must be playing here today! As I examined the scene, I saw what I was pretty sure was Matty J “Moose”, the bass player extraordinaire of Pychostick, standing behind the table. I had to go talk to him. After all, he is the notorious moose antler-wearing bassist from the enigmatic, comedic, and all-around badass band Psychostick.

This is our conversation:

This is a different setting for you, playing at a gaming convention. How different is that from your usual club setting with people looking in and going, “What the hell is that?”
Well, I think most people say, “What is that!?” But we have been doing conventions for almost 10 years.
So you’re all gamers and comic nerds?
All of us except our drummer We forced him to play a video game with us not so long ago. He admittedly had fun. I have played games my whole life, and the other two guys [in the band] are the same in that respect.
So when one of these type of events comes up, you are like, “Sign us up?”
Oh yeah, years ago, we had an offer to play at the Dallas Gaming Expo. It was its first year, and any expo or convention has its growing pains. We had a blast. Unfortunately, they are not still around. From there, we told our booking agent, “Look for more of these things.” People keep hiring us, and it is really cool that we get to do a few of these every year. This is actually the second of three video game conventions that we are doing this year.
You have the TORG Gaming Expo in Columbus coming up.
Yeah, in a few weeks (November 11th), we will be at TORG, and we just did Too Many Games in Philadelphia. That is a yearly thing for us.

Are you guys based on the East Coast?
We are based out of Chicago now. I grew up in New York; our guitar player Josh and our singer Rawrb are from West Texas. Alex, our drummer, is originally from Arizona, and we all live in Chicago for some reason.

It is really fun doing these conventions, considering our last show was a death metal festival. Then we come to these gaming things, and its, well, you know, different.

Well, you guys can fit in most anywhere with a lot of different genres. You can squeeze in here and there.
Oh yeah, it is fun, and I love that we have the demographics that we do. We can captivate and grab them, at least for a little while. Then they get it and realize that, yeah, these guys are funny. I get it now.

Speaking of the diverse audiences, you got to actually play at Blue Ridge a few weeks ago.
Yeah! That was a rough weekend for a lot of people. Luckily we played at just the right time. We had an AWESOME day at Blue Ridge. I feel really bad for everything that went wrong. We had a fuckin’ blast.

You kind of mentioned it, but to backtrack, can you explain the reaction of strangers seeing you for the first time? Does it mean more to you for somebody to laugh or to start head banging?
That’s like two of my favorite things. That’s why I love being a part of this band. Making people rock out and making people smile are two things that don’t necessarily go together, but we have the honor of being able to do both. That is the best thing somebody could do at a Psychostick show: headbang and giggle. It makes me so happy, and it is a dream come true.

What next for the band—any new material or projects?
If you remember the Toxic Crusaders, they are rebooting the franchise with a feature-length movie. A company called Retroware hired us to do the video game theme song. When they heard it, they liked it and then hired us to do the whole soundtrack. So we are working diligently on that and cranking out a lot of songs for it. It’s kind of weird for us since the style is a bit different for us.

Is it full 3-minute songs or more background music pieces?
The majority are two-minute loops with no vocals, which is quite different for us. The vocals have always been our creative constraint. Most of the songs we do are done vocals first. Well, lyrics first, then we craft the music around the vocal. This has been fun for us to get out of our comfort zone. There have been a couple songs that started with drum riffs. A couple that started with bass riffs and a couple that started with a guitar part. There is a lot of electronic programming going into this. Which is very different for Pychostick to have synth in our metal. It’s kind of cool and really exciting. I’m really excited for people to hear it and for people to play the game. We got to play it, and there is a playable demo on Steam right now. I think it lets you play one or two levels. That’s actually the game we forced our drummer to play. We did a four-player co-op, and it was a blast. I’m so excited that the game doesn’t suck.

What’s the time line for the release of the game?
2024 is all I can say now.

Is the soundtrack going to be a separate release from the game?
I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to say, so take it all with a grain of salt. From what I understand, there is a good chance of the soundtrack being released as a disk. That would be through Retroware. So think of the video game developer as our record company. They are funding it.

We haven’t been on a label in a long time. We were really fortunate in the early days to be with Rock Ridge Records, and they really worked with us. There are so many horror stories about how people get fucked in the music industry. Tom, who was the head of our record label, gave us back our rights and our masters. Really a solid company. We have been independent for a really long time, so it was weird going back into a situation where somebody is paying us to do the music and taking a percentage of it. So, I don’t know; we will see. It’s really fun, and we are doing it to get our foot in the door. Hopefully, we can do more. It’s been a blast. I have nothing negative to say about the process. I’m excited.
It’s one of those situations where you find yourself falling ass-backwards into something.
There was a bit of apprehension within the camp, but I think we all agreed that it would be a good thing for us in the long run, especially since we have worked with this company before. We sort of know some of the guys and gals that work for the company. Ya just gotta go with your gut sometimes. It seemed like a really good move for us. Please, if you read this, go on Steam and wishlist the game. It is called Toxic Crusaders.

Aside from the game, what’s coming down the pipe? Any tour plans?
We haven’t been doing “tours” per se. We have done it for so long and grinded for so long. We have families now, and we are middle-aged or older. Touring is hard. It’s a young man’s game. We did 13 years on the road. That’s a long time. We have been really happy doing these weekend shows. That’s it. We drove out yesterday to Pittsburgh and go back tomorrow and hopefully have some change in our pockets.

The band that was just on stage said something about their van breaking down, and you shouted “You’re a real band now” at them. How much is that a reality for Psychostick?
We are on our third trailer, our second van, and our fifth bass player.

I’ve been in several bands and have done the whole club tour thing. We spend the weekend towing a trailer around the country side, sleeping in bar parking lots, and living off the McDonald’s Dollar menu.
I’ve eaten a lot of dollar menu food and slept on the floors of people I met that night. I slept in the Walmart parking lots. I’ve been sick, sleeping in a sleeping bag with seven guys in a freezing van with frost on the windows.

Speaking of being sick, one of our shows, on the way there, my tooth started killing me. By show time, I was dying. I took a handful of Advil just to get through the set, and then I sat in the truck and let the other guy load all the equipment. I was so over the whole touring and live music thing at that moment.
Our guitar play had the same thing. We have a song called “The Root of All Evil” which is about getting dental work done and how fun it is. We were actually on tour, and he had, I think, an abscessed tooth. He had to get a root canal and all this stuff done. We were on tour, and he just kept putting it off and putting it off. We had a few days off, and we stopped where our drummer was living at the time. He recommended a dentist. He went to the dentist, and she told him, You need to get this fixed today. She said that if you wait any longer, you are going to need to go to the emergency room. It was brutal getting that all done on tour. He had a root canal and extractions; it’s all in the song, so check it out. A true story, and he wrote the bulk of it while going through that shit.

These are some of things that people don’t understand about being out on the road and touring. Simple things like a doctor or dentist
Yeah. I’m going to say the only other guys that have it worse than tour musicians are maybe military guys. I give them a lot of credit. I think, man, I could be in a tank in Afghanistan right now. This show sucks and our van broke down, but at least I’m not in Iraq. I give them a lot of credit. Shout out to the armed forces.

Oh yes. There are such highs and lows too. One night you’re playing to hundreds or thousands of people, and the next night you’re playing to ten people and the bar tenders.
I remember a long time ago when we played this festival. At the time, it was the biggest show we ever played. Then the next show was, like you said, twelve people. But that’s how it goes. You gotta rock just as hard for those twelve people.
I know you go from playing something like the Gathering to playing to nobody.
We had the privilege of playing The Gathering a couple of times. Whoop, Whoop! (He pulled up his sleeve to show me his Hatchetman tattoo.)
There are highs and lows. You get there, and the show is canceled or something.
That is touring, man. I know you can’t see it reading this, but he did this hand motion. His hand was up here at eye level and then all the way down here. That sums up touring. As a road band and the grind, that pretty much sums it up.
Yes. And you drive for hours or days and spend hours unloading and setting up equipment for your 45 minutes or an hour of playing, only to do it all again tomorrow.
We are a glorified t-shirt sales company that specializes in moving and happens to play music for roughly an hour per night.
I was just having a conversation about venues keeping a percentage of merchandise sales.
Oh, that’s a big source of contention in the music industry. I talk to bands about it all the time, everywhere we go. About how it originated and why they are still around. It basically comes down to shitty promoters. Promoters need to do their job. There is a difference between buying a show and promoting a show. Too often, guys who put on shows call themselves promoters because it sounds better than being a buyer. In reality, a lot of guys buy a show and don’t promote it. Fuck those guys. If you reading this and you do this, fuck you. Promote your show. Don’t put all the work on the artist. That’s just bullshit. Especially now, people just make a Facebook post and think they promoted the show.
And that is the scenario where you have 400 people interested and forty show up.
Exactly! People click “I’m going”. That doesn’t mean anything. How many tickets did you sell?
In my bands, if we could, we always tried to print tickets for shows that we had any control over or say over. We would sell the tickets because once somebody lays a few dollars on the line and has a physical ticket in hand, they are a hundred times more likely to show up.
That is great, especially for bands like us. I like seeing local bands who give a shit. It’s really a good thing for local bands to do when you get on a bigger show. And a good promoter will figure out a bill with bands that are just a little different [from the headliner] and help bring in a little bit of a different crowd. That way, you have boots on the ground. That is what old-school street teams used to do.
The musical landscape has changed. This band started in 2000. So the band is 23 years old. We have seen a lot of changes in how things are done between record labels, touring, promoting, and selling merchandise.

We started back with a Myspace page.
Yes, Myspace and radio—that’s how I found Psychostick. There are two things that I really don’t have my hands in anymore. I have satellite radio now, but I listen to WDCB Jazz college radio in the Chicagoland area. Shout out to them.

That’s all the question I have for you now. Anything you want to throw out there for all our readers?
Go to Steam and wishlist the Toxic Crusader game. Go to Pyshcostick.com to find out when we are coming around. Go to Pyshcostick.com/showalerts and put your info in we will email and/or text you whenever we come to your area. It’s all zip code based so you won’t get spammed with a thousand shows. New music and merch. coming.
I love the pseudo-cookie monster shirt.
Haha, that’s the “So Heavy” shirt. Yeah, so check us out. Spotify, or YouTube, we have a shit-ton of videos on the way. We have been working on some… puppetry. You heard it here first. That’s all I can say.

About Author

Josh Drespling

Josh is the Publisher and creator of Empire Extreme and it’s sister publication Kingdom Extreme Magazine. He is an accomplished writer, photographer and graphic designer. He is always conjuring up new ideas and has a amazing passion for the music industry and all the things that surround it.

See author's posts

Interview

Interview with Lance Lopez

Published

9 months ago

August 14, 2023

Ron

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Ron

Ron has keen eye for new talent, a love for the underground, and a tremendous passion for music of any genera. You’ll probably bump into him at a horror convention or some seedy club checking out the next need-to-know band.

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Interview

Tales of a Crestview Kid

Published

11 months ago

June 12, 2023

Josh Drespling

A Memoir of a Teenage, Horror Loving, Heavy Metal Lesbian – A talk with author Tammy Germani

Imagine if you will the quintessential rust belt town, immersed neck deep in poverty. A city that industry has forgotten and that emptiness is written across the faces of the generations of lifelong residents. New Castle Pennsylvania is that town, a town that has a “rubber band effect” on all those who have made it beyond its borders. A town that is riddled with vacant buildings and government funded housing.

However as you venture deeper into the neighborhoods and the side streets you will discover a vibrant mix of inhabitants. Those inhabitants, the taxpayers, the families, the freaks, the junkies, and the plain weirdos are what give New Castle, Pennsylvania its infamous reputation. It is from these streets that many a tails have been woven. Some of these tales are true, some have landed people on the wrong side of the law, and some of the tales remain unspoken in mixed company.

One of those home grown “inhabitants” turned California transplant is Tammy Germani. She has recently released a book titled “Tales of a Crestview Kid”. This book weaves a series of coming-of-age memoirs from New Castle, which is perfectly summarized by the book’s subtitle “A Memoir of a Teenage, Horror Loving, Heavy Metal Lesbian.”

I got to sit down with Tammy on the back porch of her mother’s house in the Croton neighborhood of New Castle. We reminisced about the days of our youth and growing up in New Castle. We also talked about her life experiences along with her giving some insight about the book.

First off, congratulations! I saw the book was up to #19 on Amazon in the LGBTQ+ biographies and in the 11,000s overall.
Yeah! That’s great. I had no idea that it was that many. I’m doing my best to stay off social media. I just sit and revel in it. I went and had a couple drinks as part of my celebration last night. Now it’s going to take me an entire month to recover because I’m old, and that’s how it works now.

Growing up in New Castle, how does that small town mindset translate to the big bad city of Los Angeles?
It’s definitely one of a kind, and that is why I wrote the book. I tell stories while I tour doing all this stuff in the music industry. We will have our down time after a shift and after driving all these rock stars around. I will start telling stories, and the people around me are looking at me and saying, “Where the hell are you from?” Then they are like, “You have some weird stories.” I guess so; I guess weirdness just follows me everywhere.
I try to explain that New Castle is like Kentucky meets the Bronx. Even in the way we speak, our slang, dialect, and the accent is a cross between a New York wiseguy and some trailer park trash. When I left in 1995, it was like Saturday Night Fever meets Twin Peaks, but now it’s more Duck Dynasty meets Jersey Shore. It went from two cool worlds colliding to two uncool worlds colliding.

Being in these large metro areas, is there something about New Castle that you wish these places had?
Oh Yes! Pizza Joes! Augustine’s too. I miss the actual Augustine’s [not the frozen] and DeRosa’s Bakery. Their fresh bread was the best. So, yeah, there are things like that, but there is really not much like that around here anymore. You know, that feeling of “I really can’t wait to get home for this.” There is none of that anymore. The book is written from the 70s through the 90s, and there was so much in those times, but now it is literally a rustbelt. There is nothing left and nothing to do. Our drug problem is off the chain. I don’t blame people for being drug addicts. What else are you gonna do around here?

In that same vein, were there any stories that you left out or were forced to self-edit?
Oooh yeah. There were a lot of things that I was like, “I know I’m gonna get my ass kicked.”
All the names have been changed?
Oh yes, all the names have been changed. There are only two names that remained unchanged in the book aside from my family, because I couldn’t really change those. There were a lot of things that I thought about and said, “Mmmm that’s probably not a good idea to write about that.”

So, yes, there were some things I had to cut out, ‘cause this place is not afraid of handing out ass-whippins.

Speaking of ass whippin’ Crestview, where most of your book is based has changed its name to Oak Leaf Gardens and this week just like 20 plus years ago there was an ‘event’ there. Apparently, there was a man and a woman fighting for whatever reason. She was on a couch, and he flipped over the couch and caused her to break several vertebrae and is currently paralyzed. So new name, same game.

Sheeze. You can change the name of that place all you want. It’s built on an Indian burial ground or something. Get a bunch of broke people together and somethin’ gonna happen.

What has been the most overwhelming or surprising response you have gotten about the book?
I’ve been getting a lot of “It’s really good” responses, and I’ve been waiting for the “meh” or someone to say something shitty. I mean, I graduated from Vo-Tech and my grammar is not the best, but I had it all proofread and edited. Writing is not my wheelhouse. Playing drums, punk rock and heavy metal bands is what I do.

I started to write a tell-all about the rock stars I work for, but I felt I needed to write about where I’m from to lead up to this. I just can’t hit the ground runnin’ and talking shit. Once I started writing about where I grew up and Crestview, I realized this was much more entertaining than who the prima donna of this band is and who is having a meltdown over here. I have those types of stories for days about some of the biggest names in rock-n-roll. I have had to sign so many NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreements).

Well, that was one of my questions. What made you want to release these stories out of your head and into the wild?
I initially wanted to do a tell-all book about these rock stars and throw everybody under the bus. I’ve been doing this gig for 20 years, and I didn’t care. I’m over it. And thought it might be hurtful to some people, and I don’t want to be like that. Although some of them kinda deserve it. But I didn’t want to be a home wrecker and do something terrible. Plus, I thought Crestview was way more entertaining. Once you read it, I think you will get a kick out of it.

You briefly mentioned your employment in the music industry. Tell us about being all over and working as a PA, a runner, a driver, etc.
I was just working Punk Rock Bowling with Rancid. I was there one day, and my brother called and said, “Mom is in the hospital,” so I hopped on a plane and came home.

I started out booking punk rock shows in LA. Local bar shows, like the Garage, El Cid, and Bar Delux. All the punk rock kids were stagehands, and that’s how I ended up pushing gear. I hated unloading and loading trucks, setting up, and pushing gear. Hated it! I was like, “What’s this runner thing? You just go spend other people’s money? I’m in! Where do I sign up?” So I ended up doing that for a long time and began working music festivals and artist transportation. I used to have a thing called Pit Fire Productions. It was me and my friend Jasper. She is the head of transportation for a lot of music festivals, like Bonnaroo, Life Is Beautiful, Coachella, Stagecoach, and all these big festivals. She said, “Just come work with me, be a driver.” So, I closed down doing the punk rock show in LA and have been doing that, driving around a lot and listening to them talk-shit. It’s funny, those rock-n-rollers will tell it all to each other, but I’m right there thinking, “I can hear you.” Everything, I hear it all. I hear about you cheating on your wife, and I don’t know if this girl is of age.
I’m like, “You don’t know me. Shut up.” Aside from that, most of the people I work for are great. I only have a few bad stories. Most of them have been really cool. There is much more positive than negative. More often, it’s not even the artist, it’s their people. It’s that rigger guy, or the stage manager dude, or whatever. It’s never really the band.

Back to the book, which you self-published. What was the biggest fear about taking that step aside from being afraid nobody would read it?
Back in LA I went to a bookstore I used to work at, and I asked if I could do a signing there. They were like “eerrrr self-published… I don’t know.” But it looks like they are gonna do it and I’m waiting to hear back from The New Castle Public Library. Also have one in Boardman, Ohio along with one in Parma, Ohio which is in the Cleveland area. I’m working on some things for the West Coast too.

I think I got sidetracked. What was my fear? I kept getting rejected by publishers, because nobody wanted a memoir. It is kind of narcissistic to write about yourself. I kinda feel like an ass writing about myself, but that’s what I know the best. I was getting bummed out from the publishers and just decided to put it out myself. I’m still able to have a publisher take it over if it comes to that. I just have to suspend everything with Amazon. Now it is something tangible, something to hold in your hand. At first I kinda got big headed and I wanted a publisher, but with all my bands we put out our own stuff. I never had a problem doing that before; I don’t know why I thought that way now.

Is there a part 2 in you?
Oh yeah. For sure. That is definitely going to happen once I leave here and head back to LA. But it’s going to be fun, because I can’t remember anything. I mean I was drunk or on drugs. I was in a complete blackout for all the 90s.

That is actually one of the things I wanted ask you. How is it that your write? I mean are you like “Oh I remember this” and start jotting down notes?
Yes, I will be with friends and remember things, but they are just as wet-brained as me. I’ll start telling them this or that happened and they are like “No it didn’t” and I have to tell them “Yes it did!”
So, yes I have some ideas. I lived in a punk rock house on a couch. I had a dirt bike and backpack and I slept on the couch. I’ve been evicted, lived in my car. The whole LA starter package, it totally happened. I fell into the going out all the time. It’s one of those “If you could tell your younger self” things. It’s like “wise up”. I was sooo drunk all of the time. What a bummer.

Looking back what the one “I should have never done that” thing?
Oh, there is so many. I can’t even. I don’t have enough fingers to count. Some people are like “No Regrets!” I’m like bullshit, there is nobody who has no regrets, and if you don’t you’re a dick.

What next for you?
I’m going out on tour with a band Phum Viphurit from Thailand at the end of August. I’m kinda like their den-mom. I’m like “I made sandwiched, get in the car, get in the van, get your stuff”. I tell them “Go do sound-check, I’ll get the luggage and take care of dinner”.

He’s is kinda like Jack Johnson. Not exactly my style, but Phum and the whole band are great. I was out with them a couple years ago and doing it again through the US and Canada.

At this point a large moth/butterfly flies across the porch we are sitting on.
What the hell was that? It’s some big moth of some sort.

Mothra or Mothman?!?
Yea, we got Mothra live
Have you ever been to the Mothman Festival?
Oh yeah, Plesantville?
Yep,
I went to the psychic fair here yesterday. It was at Hill View Manor. I love all that stuff. I have an insane occult book collection. It’s more or less for reference. Oh, you had a dream about werewolves, let’s see what that means, I have a wall of books that can give many interpretations.
That’s the other thing about this area, Lawrence County; there is a high level of activity. I don’t know if you want to call it paranormal or maybe because it’s old here. I wrote about some of them in the book, some just really weird experiences. That kind of cross over kind of ghostly kind of thing.
I didn’t realize Mary Black was a New Castle thing until I said it outside of New Castle. I’ve been in Pittsburgh and people have no idea what I’m talking about.
Really? I know people in California knew what it was, but didn’t know where it originated from. I’m like “Originators.”
That and The Green Man.
I wrote about The Green Man in the book too. As kids we would hear the legends of that. My friend Jeff would say “If you don’t have cigarettes for him he will tear your arms off. He has super monkey strength”. We were terrified of this whole Green Man thing. My mom heard us and was like “What? No. Not even like that.” The poor guy got burnt and we are going to stare at him. It was kinda messed up, but he’s a legend.

Then there was Zombie Land. This was out by what we called the Heavy Metal Graveyard. It had these big iron spiked gates like it was a King Diamond album cover. We used to go drink out there all the time. There was supposedly all this Satanic, occult stuff happening out there. We would all go out there and get scared. Nothing really happened.
I used to work for a construction company in the early 90s. There was an old mechanic guy who worked there. He had to be 60 years old if not older. One day he asks me if I ever heard about the UFO that flew down the streets of Ellwood City or Wampum. He went on to tell this story about how the police chased a UFO through town and that then never were able to catch up to it. He also said that everyone who was close to it, their mouth tasted like pennies.
Oh I never heard that, that sounds like a good one. We were working Bonnaroo one year and our friend Gary; his van got hit by lighting. All the gauges and the speedometer went all crazy; he said “I can’t get this metal taste out of my mouth.” So we would make fun telling him he got abducted by a UFO. We would ask him if lost any time. Did you have a black out? Do you remember driving here?

I went out to Kecksburg Pennsylvania a couple of times. Kecksburg has a UFO event that definitely happened. It’s about an hour or so drive from here. They has a recreation of it right there on the main street. In Kecksburg everything is the same address, the fire department, the VFW, the landmark, everything. The UFO is shaped like a bell and it has these weird hieroglyphics around the edge of it. Apparently it crashed there in 1965 and the Army was there quicker than lighting and loaded it onto a truck and got it out of there. There was all this weird talk about it being part of Die Glocke, the Nazi time travel project.

So when you go there to see the UFO stuff and gift shop, they are like “go here and ring this buzzer.” It’s in the VFW. So we go and ring the bell and say “We are here for the UFO stuff.” They are like “uuuhh ok, I’ll buzz you in.” We walk in and it’s a bar and there is nothing, just an American flag and a bunch of drunk dudes. They are like “oh yea, it’s over there.” It’s a closet. You open the closet and realize somebody didn’t have a laminator back in the day. It is all these newspaper clippings and some are just copies. They just Scotch taped them and they are all peeling off, falling down, and bent over. But I still bought a coffee mug, a t-shirt, a book and all that. I buy all that shit. I love all that Bigfoot and UFO stuff.

As you were writing these stories, who did you see in your mind reading this? Did you imagine it being read by New Castle your family, or something else?
I was writing it more or less in hopes that somebody would make a script or series out of it. So it’s not really to tell people from here since they already know. It more for outsiders and I’m finding that is who is enjoying it more, is those people who aren’t from here.

Any last points you would like to add?
Just that for the most part I write it to be funny, but it also is about being in dire straits. There is nobody with money living at Crestview Gardens. Its stories about being broke. It’s about trial and tribulation and the hustles that your mom pulls to make things work. It’s funny, but there are things that pull at the heart strings. I mean Crestview is Crestview it was the projects for a lack of a better term. Once HUD took over there were some mentally ill people there that I don’t think really should have been around children. Then at the same time crack became a thing, and that was just insane. I had my ass kidded by adults. I was just a kid, maybe 13 or 14 years old and my mom didn’t even hit me like that. Adults tuned me up as a kid. I wanted Drew Barrymore’s Fire Starter telekinesis and I would have caught everybody on fire cause I was so mad. But the book is funny. It kinda reminds me of “Crooklyn” the Spike Lee movie or some people have said it’s like “Everybody Hates Chris”.

So there you have it, just a taste of the insanity that is Crestview Gardens and New Castle Pennsylvania. If you want to dive deeper into the mystic and lunacy you can get your very own copy of the “Tales of a Crestview Kid” from Amazon.