Field Dispatch
Keith Samland of Alienstone | Matt Connarton Unleashed
Speaker 1: Hm. I really like that a lot.
Speaker 2: The track is Breathe, the artist is Alienstone, and we're
Speaker 2: going to talk with the gentleman behind that project in
Speaker 2: just a moment.
Speaker 1: But welcome everybody.
Speaker 2: We have entered our number two numarrow Doos of Matt
Speaker 2: Connorton Unleashed. For those of you listening live today is Saturday,
Speaker 2: September thirteen, twenty twenty five, and we come to you
Speaker 2: from the studios of wm NH ninety five point three
Speaker 2: FM and Glorious Manchester, New Hampshire. Jenny is here, of
Speaker 2: course at the news table, and of course hello to
Speaker 2: everybody listening online or even around the globe. Matt connorton
Speaker 2: dot Com. Slash live is how the easiest way to
Speaker 2: get the show from anywhere, so we appreciate all of
Speaker 2: you who tune in with us. And let's go ahead.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna bring this mic up and we're gonna talk
Speaker 2: with mister Keith Samland, the gentleman behind Alien Stone.
Speaker 3: Keith, are you there? I am, How you doing good?
Speaker 1: Good?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 2: I know you can't see us on video, but I
Speaker 2: can see you on video and you look like you're
Speaker 2: in a radio studio and I saw something online.
Speaker 1: Do you also do a radio show.
Speaker 5: Yes, upright, mo own internet radio station for about the
Speaker 5: past eleven twelve years outstanding.
Speaker 3: I have a show too, Oh very cool.
Speaker 2: Very cool, and what's the station and what's the show called.
Speaker 1: Let's give that a plug.
Speaker 2: Just partly for selfish reasons, I do want to talk
Speaker 2: to you about the music, but also as a radio guy,
Speaker 2: I'm just super curious about what you do as a
Speaker 2: broadcaster too.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 5: The station's called alien X Radio okay, and the show
Speaker 5: that I currently do is called Inside the Mothership okay.
Speaker 5: And I used to do interviews and all kinds of
Speaker 5: stuff with movie stars and things like that, but as
Speaker 5: of late, it's just become mostly just like comedy and
Speaker 5: entertainment show.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, I'm gonna have to check that out. Very cool.
Speaker 2: So I have questions about Alien Stone, and a big
Speaker 2: one and part of the reason I picked that track,
Speaker 2: and I chose another song too that will play at
Speaker 2: the end of our conversation that I really like. But
Speaker 2: I love your sound. I love the songs. I'm particularly
Speaker 2: taken with the sound of the guitar. Is that you
Speaker 2: on lead guitar and all.
Speaker 5: These I did everything on these songs with the exception
Speaker 5: of leads and solos. Okay, what I did is I
Speaker 5: went through all of the bands that I've played with
Speaker 5: through you know, different bands that have played shows with me,
Speaker 5: and I've gotten their guitar players from all the local
Speaker 5: bands and had them all individuals, each one of these
Speaker 5: tracks as a completely different person playing on it.
Speaker 1: Gotcha.
Speaker 5: So they all contributed these from their home studios and
Speaker 5: sent them over and I chopped them up, spliced them
Speaker 5: and put them together, and I got different. That's how
Speaker 5: I got such different flavor throughout the course of the album.
Speaker 2: That makes sense because I really love the guitar tone
Speaker 2: on that track Breathe And is his name David Quick?
Speaker 1: Is that how you say his name?
Speaker 3: David Schwick?
Speaker 1: Oh Schwick? Okay, yeah, I wasn't sure.
Speaker 5: The crazy thing about that, too, is that he's actually
Speaker 5: one of the most talented drummers that I've ever met,
Speaker 5: and I didn't even know he played guitar, and now
Speaker 5: he's the he's the drummer of a band called Sonic
Speaker 5: Smut in this area right now.
Speaker 3: But that's how a drummer plays guitar really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, Yeah, he's really good. Yeah, and it uh,
Speaker 2: you know, it fits the song perfectly, and I love
Speaker 2: the I love the tone.
Speaker 1: Everything about it is is so good.
Speaker 2: And tell us about I mean again, I listened to
Speaker 2: the you Know You sound Us a whole album. I
Speaker 2: listened to the entire album. It's funny because we had
Speaker 2: kind of talked I'll pull the curtain back a little bit. Uh,
Speaker 2: we kind of talked online about you know.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 2: One of the songs you gave me a four warning
Speaker 2: has a word in it that we would have to
Speaker 2: make a radio edit of I and I was willing
Speaker 2: to do that, but then, you know, I listened to
Speaker 2: the whole album and it's like, well, there's so much
Speaker 2: great stuff here, there's no reason to even bother making
Speaker 2: a radio edit of that song because there's no shortage
Speaker 2: of great songs here.
Speaker 1: So I that.
Speaker 2: So I picked a Breath to open with, and I'm
Speaker 2: gonna play criticize yourself at the end of the segment
Speaker 2: because I love that one too. Those are my two favorites.
Speaker 2: So selfishly, I picked my two personal two favorites. But
Speaker 2: but I'm curious about your creative process, and it sounds
Speaker 2: like you do all the production yourself.
Speaker 1: Is that correct?
Speaker 3: Yep?
Speaker 5: Right here where I'm sitting right now, is where I
Speaker 5: did all of the production on that whole album. Yeah, ye,
Speaker 5: recorded everything in myself. I used Superior drummer to program
Speaker 5: and edit all the drums. I recorded my own bass tracks,
Speaker 5: my own rhythms on the acoustic and actually all the
Speaker 5: vocal tracks, I recorded scratch tracks that I was going
Speaker 5: to re record later, and I ended up just cleaning
Speaker 5: them up and using the ones that were already in there. Okay, okay,
Speaker 5: so everything was a one take on all the vocals.
Speaker 2: Okay, Wow, Have you ever done this before? Or is
Speaker 2: Alien Stone this album? And by the way, what's the.
Speaker 1: Name of the album?
Speaker 3: The album's called After the Gray.
Speaker 1: After the Gray is After the Gray?
Speaker 2: Is this the first album where you've done that or
Speaker 2: have you released previous work where you've done all the production?
Speaker 5: Well, I it was kind of a collaborative effort. But
Speaker 5: I was in a band for about twenty years called
Speaker 5: Freak Stark and not to be confused with the current
Speaker 5: Freak Star out of Los Angeles. But yeah, we were
Speaker 5: together for about twenty years and we got into recording
Speaker 5: our own stuff too, But of course it was much
Speaker 5: harder to do back then with the equipment. You know,
Speaker 5: it's much easier to do today. You can do with
Speaker 5: a laptop and you know, a very small mixer. So
Speaker 5: I and I also went to as you can see,
Speaker 5: I am into radio, so I went to radio school,
Speaker 5: so I know about mixing and and you know, engineering
Speaker 5: and all that kind of stuff. So it just it
Speaker 5: made it much easier when the technology caught up to
Speaker 5: me and what I wanted to do.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's an amazing time to be alive, isn't it
Speaker 2: in terms of technology? And oh, for sure the things
Speaker 2: you can do now really because.
Speaker 5: That great track that was was given to me in
Speaker 5: many many takes from someone who never even came into
Speaker 5: my studio, recorded at elsewhere and just emailed it over,
Speaker 5: you know. So that's that's huge. Yeah, And had to
Speaker 5: get a bunch of people in a room.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially when you come out with something that sounds
Speaker 2: like it was recorded, you know, with a live band
Speaker 2: in a studio.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's fantastic.
Speaker 2: So so that that's a good good for you being
Speaker 2: able to do that.
Speaker 1: And then and then you mentioned so you you recorded
Speaker 1: everything else.
Speaker 5: Yeah, pretty much everything else on there was me with
Speaker 5: the exception of piano that that came from another gentleman.
Speaker 5: That he's the lead singer and piano player for a
Speaker 5: band called Sweet Crystal, which is a Detroit Detroit Music
Speaker 5: Award winning band for the last thirty years. I mean,
Speaker 5: he's a huge, huge artist around the Detroit area.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's obviously very satisfying when you can do all
Speaker 2: of that yourself, I assume. I mean, did you feel
Speaker 2: any pressure putting this album together because so much of
Speaker 2: it was on you? Or maybe you did and you
Speaker 2: thrive on it, or maybe you didn't and you just
Speaker 2: enjoyed being able to have such autonomy and so much control.
Speaker 1: I mean, what was what was that like?
Speaker 2: Did you feel any pressure or was it just like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna do this mostly myself.
Speaker 5: That that was the best thing about it is that
Speaker 5: there was nobody on my heels. There was nobody saying, hey,
Speaker 5: we got a deadline. We got to get this done.
Speaker 5: You know, someone's coming over to do the bass tracks.
Speaker 5: We got to get them all done today, right. There
Speaker 5: wasn't any of that. You know, if I came home
Speaker 5: and I was tired, I just didn't do anything. I
Speaker 5: went to bet you know, if it takes me a
Speaker 5: year to record it. It takes me a year. I don't
Speaker 5: even know how long it took me. I didn't even
Speaker 5: pay attention to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that makes sense. And is this your first
Speaker 2: because a project officially is called alien Stone, is this
Speaker 2: your first project that you've recorded as alien Stone?
Speaker 5: Well, I did something a long time ago when a
Speaker 5: freestar had like a hiatus in the middle where I
Speaker 5: did my own kind of thing on the side, and
Speaker 5: it was under the name alien Stone. But it was very,
Speaker 5: very different from this, and it was much lower on
Speaker 5: the production scale. It was kind of like a techno
Speaker 5: e beat kind of thing with a lot of heavy
Speaker 5: guitar on it. Yeah, and yeah, I just it never
Speaker 5: really released or anything anyway, so I don't really count
Speaker 5: it right right.
Speaker 1: Where does the name come from, alien Stone?
Speaker 5: It actually comes from all the way back in high school.
Speaker 5: This would have been like eighty eight eighty nine. I
Speaker 5: took a media production class and we were supposed to
Speaker 5: write and produce a small video, and I wrote a
Speaker 5: script that would have required me to get about thirty
Speaker 5: or forty million dollars, So I never made the movie.
Speaker 5: But it was about a meteorite that falls into Los
Speaker 5: Angeles and an alien comes to retrieve it because it's
Speaker 5: some kind of power source, and he goes a murderous
Speaker 5: spree to retrieve the alien stone. Okay, it's just stuck
Speaker 5: ever since.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, all right. And the album is called After
Speaker 2: the Gray? Where does that come from?
Speaker 3: That's actually uh.
Speaker 5: In one of the songs there's the title says, after
Speaker 5: the Gray, maybe there'll be some kind of light, Okay,
Speaker 5: And that's basically what the song was about. All this
Speaker 5: crap that happens to you, is like, well, maybe after
Speaker 5: this crap passes, you know, there'll be something better after that.
Speaker 5: So after the Gray, maybe there'll be some kind of light.
Speaker 2: So are these songs? Are they reflective of things that
Speaker 2: you've been through? Because in listening to the lyrics, I
Speaker 2: do feel like, you know, these aren't you know, they're
Speaker 2: not just simple feel good rock songs.
Speaker 1: There.
Speaker 2: I feel like I feel like there's some heavy stuff
Speaker 2: behind the lyrics of these songs. It definitely, you know,
Speaker 2: without I mean, you know, there's ambiguity. And of course,
Speaker 2: one of the wonderful things about music or any kind
Speaker 2: of art is that you can kind of interpret it
Speaker 2: however you want to. And sometimes people different people find
Speaker 2: different meanings behind different you know, the lyrics to different
Speaker 2: songs and so forth. But my impression because I listened
Speaker 2: to the entire thing in one sitting, you know, I
Speaker 2: wasn't like, Okay, I'm gonna listen to a song now
Speaker 2: and I'll listen to another one later. So I listened
Speaker 2: to the full thing, from front to back, and I
Speaker 2: felt like there's a story there, like like there's something
Speaker 2: that you're getting out, but I'm curious about that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's definitely a lot of heavy lyrics. I've been
Speaker 5: criticized by a lot of people saying, can you write
Speaker 5: a happy song? I'd be like, if there's any happiness
Speaker 5: inside me, I want to keep it there, keep it inside.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: If I get all this heaviness that's thrown on me
Speaker 5: from the world, let's let's get that out through the
Speaker 5: therapy of music, let's remove that. You know what I'm saying. Right, So,
Speaker 5: I don't need to write a happy song. I just
Speaker 5: live the happy stuff. But you know, yeah, the darker stuff.
Speaker 5: If you don't talk about the things that get to you,
Speaker 5: that the things that bring you down, then it's just
Speaker 5: going to keep you down. So that's pretty much you
Speaker 5: know what I do. It's like, if something bothers me
Speaker 5: enough to wear I'm thinking about it a lot, then
Speaker 5: then yeah, it's going to translate into the music. You know,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna I'm gonna write a story about you know,
Speaker 5: what once was that is no more or something that
Speaker 5: has changed for the not for the better. M you
Speaker 5: know that that's you know, that's that's gonna come out
Speaker 5: that way. I have one song that's on there. It's
Speaker 5: called long Way Home, which is basically about thinking that
Speaker 5: the grass is greener on the other side. So you
Speaker 5: take this long journey going around trying to find something better,
Speaker 5: and then you find out that everything that was better
Speaker 5: was actually at home, so you're right back where you started.
Speaker 5: You took the long way home. So that's not really
Speaker 5: a dark story. That's like, hey, you just you didn't
Speaker 5: know now you do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's relatable, you know, because I think we
Speaker 2: can all we can all relate to that, uh you know,
Speaker 2: at some point in our lives.
Speaker 1: So certainly.
Speaker 2: But I like too that you use the word therapy
Speaker 2: when you're talking about about, you know, songs about dark
Speaker 2: subjects and so forth, because something that comes up on
Speaker 2: this show a lot because we talk about music, we
Speaker 2: also talk about mental health and uh, something that comes
Speaker 2: up on the show a lot is how creating art,
Speaker 2: whether it be music or you know, visual art Jenny
Speaker 2: as you know, she's a visual artist, or whatever it
Speaker 2: is that you're creating.
Speaker 1: It's it's a way.
Speaker 2: I think it's the best form of therapy, right because
Speaker 2: you're you're working whatever it is that you need to
Speaker 2: work out through creating something. Not only are you creating
Speaker 2: something that ultimately that helps you, it helps you to
Speaker 2: express yourself, but it also helps others because then they
Speaker 2: are able to relate to what you've created. And I'm
Speaker 2: sure I don't know if it's happened to you. I
Speaker 2: assume it has. Maybe you've heard from someone who said,
Speaker 2: you know, hey, I listened to this song and I
Speaker 2: get what you're saying, and I really relate to it
Speaker 2: and it kind of helped me, helped me feel better,
Speaker 2: help me feel like I'm not alone, whatever it is, right,
Speaker 2: So I think that that's you know, the best form
Speaker 2: of therapy is to is to create. And if you
Speaker 2: can take your pain, your trauma, whatever it is that
Speaker 2: you've been through, or maybe you're just upset about something
Speaker 2: going on in the.
Speaker 1: World, whatever it is, If you're able to take.
Speaker 2: That and then make something out of it, create something
Speaker 2: from it, you've taken something this negative, but you've done
Speaker 2: something positive with it by creating something.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And also, like you said that, if somebody else listens
Speaker 5: to it and they say, hey, I you know, connected
Speaker 5: with you on this level, it's like, okay, but you
Speaker 5: wouldn't have, right. You know, you had no idea that
Speaker 5: this person was on the same level with you, that
Speaker 5: was there right there with you. But you didn't know
Speaker 5: until you said something in the form of a song
Speaker 5: or a poetry or a painting or whatever. Then somebody
Speaker 5: looks at it and goes, you know what, I feel
Speaker 5: the same way, and it's like, okay, well I had
Speaker 5: no idea you did. Now at least I have a
Speaker 5: kindred spirit. I now feel like there's more people with
Speaker 5: me instead of against me.
Speaker 1: Right exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you play any of these songs out or
Speaker 2: I mean with all these guest musicians, Maybe that's challenging
Speaker 2: to pull that off.
Speaker 1: I don't know, But do you perform any of these live?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 5: Actually, what I did is since I'm the one that
Speaker 5: was in charge of producing the album. I was also
Speaker 5: the one in charge of rendering the tracks. When I
Speaker 5: was done, so of course I had rendered the entire album,
Speaker 5: and then I went through and muted the acoustic guitar
Speaker 5: and the vocals and rendered it again. Okay, So I
Speaker 5: load that onto a loop pedal and I can go
Speaker 5: out to any place I want now hit the track
Speaker 5: and it plays everything with the exception of my acoustic
Speaker 5: guitar and my vocals, and I can just play right along.
Speaker 1: Oh that's great.
Speaker 2: And you know, once again, it's an amazing time to
Speaker 2: be alive, isn't it with all this technology.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was not available. That was not available.
Speaker 5: You had to come out there with a reel to
Speaker 5: reel and all kinds of crazy stuff.
Speaker 1: That's great.
Speaker 2: They were able to do that, So, uh, does anything
Speaker 2: ever go wrong with that? By the way, when you're
Speaker 2: when you're you know, trying to play to these loops.
Speaker 5: And uh, the only time it really went bad is
Speaker 5: before I'm not I use loop pedal itself, which plays
Speaker 5: the wave file straight from there, and that pretty much
Speaker 5: is solid.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: But I used to use a laptop.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and you know how laptops are, Yeah, you know,
Speaker 5: right in the middle of a song and goes, we're
Speaker 5: gonna do an update in the middle, Like, dude, you
Speaker 5: didn't even ask me, you just we're restarting your computer.
Speaker 1: Really yeh, yeah up, or.
Speaker 5: You'll get a notification or something, but right in the
Speaker 5: middle of your song, you're like, that's not cool it
Speaker 5: I deleted those.
Speaker 3: I thought I turned those off.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you're a if you're a DJ, you know,
Speaker 2: you could say, oh, it's the part of the remix
Speaker 2: or whatever if it suddenly goes meek.
Speaker 1: But if you're you know, you're playing a rock song, you.
Speaker 3: Know, and you get to know a critical error.
Speaker 2: Yes, but but it sounds like so now it works
Speaker 2: pretty It all works pretty smoothly though.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's pretty solid.
Speaker 5: When you when you you have to actually hit the
Speaker 5: button to stop it. Now, yeah, you know it's not
Speaker 5: gonna just empower would have to go out?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, when you when you play out, are people
Speaker 2: ever surprised because obviously, you know a lot of people
Speaker 2: who maybe haven't seen someone play with loop pedals and
Speaker 2: so forth. You know, they might see you with your
Speaker 2: acoustic guitar and think that you know, that's going to
Speaker 2: be it and not that there would be anything wrong
Speaker 2: with that, But are do you ever see people in
Speaker 2: the audience who are just surprised when they, you know,
Speaker 2: when they start to hear these other instruments and these
Speaker 2: other and they realize that it's actually a bigger production,
Speaker 2: so to speak, then maybe what they were expecting.
Speaker 5: That's always the case when somebody who hasn't seen me
Speaker 5: at first, they think I'm gonna come up there and
Speaker 5: do some Hank William seeing your tear and my beer
Speaker 5: kind of stuff, right, and you know, and there's nothing
Speaker 5: wrong with that either, you know, IF's and there's other
Speaker 5: people at these shows too that do that kind of music.
Speaker 5: So maybe somebody right before them just did that, and
Speaker 5: then I come up there and they think, Okay, this
Speaker 5: is gonna be a continuation. And then all of a
Speaker 5: sudden they hear the drums kick in and a and
Speaker 5: a big fat bass kick in, and you've that guitar
Speaker 5: solo that you just heard on that song. You know,
Speaker 5: they're not expecting any of that, yeah, and it kind
Speaker 5: of shocks them a little bit.
Speaker 3: First, dude.
Speaker 5: Sometimes they're like, are you just playing along with your album?
Speaker 5: And sometimes I actually have to explain to people it's
Speaker 5: like no, what I'm playing is live. Yeah, that's removed
Speaker 5: from the sound.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Do you ever, I mean, do you have any thoughts
Speaker 2: of putting together a band to play these? Or obviously
Speaker 2: doing it yourself? It gives you a lot of freedom
Speaker 2: and autonomy, and if you want book shows, you don't
Speaker 2: have to check with three or four other people what
Speaker 2: their schedules are. So I so maybe this, maybe this
Speaker 2: is a pointless question, but I am curious. I mean,
Speaker 2: have you thought about trying to put together a band
Speaker 2: to play these?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I've I'm always open to that idea. But it
Speaker 5: you know, something that I've learned from being in bands for,
Speaker 5: you know, thirty plus years, is that, you know, the
Speaker 5: more people you get into a band, the more schedules
Speaker 5: you have to coordinate. Everybody has wives and lives and
Speaker 5: husbands and car problems and jobs and vacation time and
Speaker 5: all that kind of stuff. And to get five people
Speaker 5: in a band and have all that lineup so that
Speaker 5: you can record and you can do a show, it's
Speaker 5: really hard.
Speaker 3: It's really hard.
Speaker 5: And then on top of that, you've got egos and
Speaker 5: personalities that you also have to get along with, and
Speaker 5: it makes it very, very difficult. So I'm always open
Speaker 5: to the idea. But then you've got to find somebody
Speaker 5: who's willing to play my music and then move forward
Speaker 5: writing stuff yeah together, you know, don't change what I've
Speaker 5: already written. That's already done, right, you know, So you've
Speaker 5: got to be willing to do that. And a lot
Speaker 5: of people are like, no, I don't want to, you know,
Speaker 5: I don't want to be in the Dave Matthews band,
Speaker 5: you know, right, And I'm like, no, that's what I'm
Speaker 5: not trying to do that either, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, where are you from, Keith? I? I just realized too,
Speaker 2: I never asked you where where are you located?
Speaker 1: Exactly?
Speaker 5: Well, I'm originally from Westland, Michigan, but I moved over
Speaker 5: to Taylor, Michigan, which is a suburb of Detroit, pretty
Speaker 5: close to Detroit.
Speaker 3: Okay, be there in about ten minutes if I chose
Speaker 3: to go.
Speaker 2: Well, you're a you're in an area then you're you know,
Speaker 2: being close to Detroit where. I mean a lot of
Speaker 2: great music obviously is come out of that region. I
Speaker 2: mean you must have. I mean, what's the music scene
Speaker 2: like there right now? I mean there must just be
Speaker 2: talent everywhere I would guess.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I do a lot of open mic nights obviously, you know,
Speaker 5: because that's the easiest thing for me. I go to
Speaker 5: places like Grizzlies and Windott or Three Nicks in Allen Park.
Speaker 5: But like the place I go to, it's a bar.
Speaker 5: It's called road Rangers, and it's and Taylor and this
Speaker 5: bar is set up as a concert bar. I mean
Speaker 5: it has the full backing line, the full everything. I mean,
Speaker 5: anybody can play there. Docing could play there tomorrow and
Speaker 5: it would sound great. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, Well,
Speaker 5: the sound would be great. I don't know if Docing
Speaker 5: would be great, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, depends if George Leitch's and the band or not.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: So when I go and play there, it's like the
Speaker 5: bands that come through that bar because of the fact
Speaker 5: that it has such good sound and you don't have
Speaker 5: to sell tickets and you don't have to be part
Speaker 5: of a national thing. There's a lot of huge talent
Speaker 5: that comes through that that bar. You know, bands like
Speaker 5: the Creeping Chaos is around here right now. That's an
Speaker 5: enormous band. And the band's like whole shot the WRF,
Speaker 5: which is a huge radio station around here. They constantly
Speaker 5: hire that band to play all their events. Oh yeah,
Speaker 5: so yeah, there's a lot of really good bands that
Speaker 5: come through there.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's something that we talk about on the show
Speaker 2: quite a bit.
Speaker 1: Is you know.
Speaker 2: Every around here, you know, because sometimes people will ask us,
Speaker 2: they ask me, or they'll ask Jenny because she does
Speaker 2: the booking. You know, how do you find all this
Speaker 2: great talent? And it's like, well, it's everywhere, you know,
Speaker 2: And I think that's true of probably every city, in
Speaker 2: every town in the country. You know, there's there's local
Speaker 2: musicians who are doing great stuff. And if you you know,
Speaker 2: because sometimes people, you know, they get to a certain
Speaker 2: point in their lives where they sort of say, Okay,
Speaker 2: all the music that I've heard up to this point
Speaker 2: in my life, that's all the music I ever need
Speaker 2: to hear, and anything made after this point I'm not
Speaker 2: going to listen to. I'm going to reject, you know.
Speaker 2: And people who do that, they're they're missing out, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean there's first of all, I mean, you can
Speaker 2: get access to there's so much there's so much new
Speaker 2: music being put out, but also right right in your
Speaker 2: own backyard, you know, there's musicians making music and you
Speaker 2: know you need to. I always use my father as
Speaker 2: a very positive example of this. My dad, you know,
Speaker 2: he's in his seventies, but he still loves hearing new music.
Speaker 2: He lives on the sea coast here in New Hampshire
Speaker 2: and there's a great college station at the University of
Speaker 2: New Hampshire called WUNH and my dad I'd love to
Speaker 2: listen to wun H because he loves hearing new music.
Speaker 2: He loves hearing you know, new artists that he's never
Speaker 2: been exposed to before, either young, new upcoming artists, or
Speaker 2: just artists who maybe are not young but have been
Speaker 2: around a while but he just had never heard them before.
Speaker 1: He loves hearing new stuff.
Speaker 2: And you know, and I can only imagine what the
Speaker 2: scene is like there and how much great music there
Speaker 2: must be there. But you know, I always encourage people,
Speaker 2: you know, take a look around. You know this this great,
Speaker 2: incredible music being created by musicians right in front of you.
Speaker 2: You know you're just not looking.
Speaker 5: You know what I mean, I know exactly what you're saying. Well,
Speaker 5: I hear it all the time. You know, people are like, well,
Speaker 5: I don't want to go see that band. I'm like,
Speaker 5: why No, I don't know who they are. I was like, okay,
Speaker 5: but did you know who Metallica was before you heard
Speaker 5: them for.
Speaker 3: The first time?
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: Everybody has to be unknown before they're known.
Speaker 1: Exactly.
Speaker 5: Go and spend two hundred and fifty dollars on a
Speaker 5: ticket to see Metallica, whom you'll never meet, or you
Speaker 5: can go to a bar and here's some brand new
Speaker 5: music you've never heard and talk with them and do
Speaker 5: shots with them after the.
Speaker 1: Show, right exactly. And then if it was a.
Speaker 5: Fifteen dollars ticket instead of two hundred and fifty bucks,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 2: Come on, yeah, yeah, and then if you know, if
Speaker 2: they get big, you can say, hey, I knew them when.
Speaker 5: Exactly I did shots with you know, come upcoming Metallica
Speaker 5: back in the day, you know.
Speaker 1: There you go, Yeah, I hear that a lot. You know.
Speaker 2: In this area where we are, people will say, you know,
Speaker 2: I saw Aerosmith, you know, back in the day when
Speaker 2: they were you know, just a bar band, you know,
Speaker 2: and it's it's that's usually an example people use from
Speaker 2: from in this part of the country. But yeah, there's
Speaker 2: there's so much, uh, there's so much great talent out there,
Speaker 2: and people people should definitely keep their eyes open for that.
Speaker 2: Do you use your now with your your online station
Speaker 2: and your show, do you use that to showcase indie
Speaker 2: artists or do you do you use that to promote Sure?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'm.
Speaker 5: Sure all the all the indie artists that are around
Speaker 5: here that have they have, you know, recorded music that's
Speaker 5: you know, you know, you know the level it has
Speaker 5: to be at.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know the quality level it has to be at.
Speaker 5: You know, anybody that has those albums and stuff in
Speaker 5: it and they submit to me they've been on the
Speaker 5: radio station. I go through those albums too, and I
Speaker 5: pick a nice wide range of all the local music
Speaker 5: and put it in there. And then I sprinkle in
Speaker 5: some national stuff too, just for the people that can't
Speaker 5: handle not knowing what the next song is, right, you know,
Speaker 5: just to kind of keep them okay.
Speaker 2: I think there's value in doing that too, is sprinkling
Speaker 2: in some national artists, because I've I've always felt that
Speaker 2: that lends, uh for you know, for some people, that
Speaker 2: lends a certain credibility to the independent artists, maybe the
Speaker 2: local artists if they're mixed in with some national artists,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: Just yeah, for sure, you can have an unknown person
Speaker 5: selling bar bells on TV, or you can have Arnold schwarzeneg,
Speaker 5: you're selling bar bells on TV.
Speaker 3: Which one's going to sell faster?
Speaker 1: Very well? Put exactly, put a couple of.
Speaker 5: Pearl jam songs on a couple of things in there
Speaker 5: around all these local artists.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it'll attract a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. So the where where should people go? Like,
Speaker 2: where can they find the online station that you have?
Speaker 3: Well, it's at alien x radio dot com.
Speaker 5: Okay, And unfortunately I've realized within the last couple of
Speaker 5: days that the player isn't working, so I have to
Speaker 5: figure out how to fix that since it's been a
Speaker 5: decade since I've been into the actual controls of the website.
Speaker 5: Oh really, Yeah, there's no reason to change the website.
Speaker 5: We just changed the music and stuff, you know, and
Speaker 5: everything's live, you know, most of our shows and stuff,
Speaker 5: so we don't have to go in there and change much. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and I can't get back in there, so I got
Speaker 5: to figure that out. Yeah, that's at alienxradio dot com.
Speaker 5: And then I of course have a Facebook page. The
Speaker 5: artist page is just alien Stone. Yeah, and you can
Speaker 5: get me at Keith samlan at Alien at Facebook as well.
Speaker 2: Okay, and then the album. Can people find the album anyway?
Speaker 2: I mean I assume it's on all the streaming platforms
Speaker 2: and everything.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I went through that distro kid, so it's on everything.
Speaker 5: So you've got Spotify, Apple Music. You know, it's even
Speaker 5: on like Pandora and things like that, so you can
Speaker 5: find it pretty much everywhere.
Speaker 3: Outstanding by the way in the freak Star stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh good.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm curious. I'm curious to check that out too.
Speaker 2: Do you do physical copies of the album.
Speaker 1: Or is strictly online?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 5: I have physical copies too. I've made some CDs and
Speaker 5: also what I really like is they look like business cards,
Speaker 5: but they're actually a flash drive. It pops out the side, oh,
Speaker 5: perfectly straight in. Those are really nice too.
Speaker 2: We had someone on the show recently who used that
Speaker 2: same concept, and yeah, that's a great idea.
Speaker 5: Some people you hand them a CD and they go,
Speaker 5: what is this? Is this America online?
Speaker 3: What is this? They don't know?
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting.
Speaker 2: That's a subject that comes up a lot on the
Speaker 2: show too. Because there was a point where, because I've
Speaker 2: been doing this a long time, and there was a
Speaker 2: point where it seemed like none of the guests we
Speaker 2: would have on nobody was doing physical media. I'm talking
Speaker 2: like maybe seven or eight years ago, and you know,
Speaker 2: and that's fine, you know, just you know, email me
Speaker 2: the tracks whatever. But lately, well I shouldn't say lately,
Speaker 2: I'd say probably for at least the past five years,
Speaker 2: it seems like, at least in this area, for the
Speaker 2: guests that we have coming in person from our area,
Speaker 2: physical media has had quite a resurgence.
Speaker 1: A lot of our guests bring in CDs.
Speaker 2: Now, you know, they send us the files ahead of time, obviously,
Speaker 2: but they'll also bring in a physical copy or even
Speaker 2: we've had some who even do vinyl and they'll bring
Speaker 2: in a vinyl record, not for us to play, but
Speaker 2: just to have. Although we do have a record player
Speaker 2: here that one of the other hosts uses, and we
Speaker 2: even have a CD player that I've never used, but
Speaker 2: we do have one here in the in the studio
Speaker 2: that I know one of our hosts sometimes will bring
Speaker 2: in CDs to play. But but it's interesting, you know,
Speaker 2: uh physical media never seems to completely go away, and
Speaker 2: sometimes it has these little resurgences, and uh so a
Speaker 2: lot of the artists around here are releasing things on
Speaker 2: CD and even on vinyl, which I understand is very expensive.
Speaker 2: But but I like your I like your concept with
Speaker 2: the flash drive.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's you know, the physical media is kind
Speaker 5: of it's just kind of changed what its purpose really is.
Speaker 5: It's like, we know that when this guy gets home,
Speaker 5: he's probably going to listen to it on his smart
Speaker 5: device or whatever from a streaming service.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: But you know, now the physical media I don't.
Speaker 5: Even like when I when I ad a show or something,
Speaker 5: I find people who were interested and I just give
Speaker 5: them one. Yeah, okay, it's it has become the physical
Speaker 5: media has become the promotional tool to get you to
Speaker 5: go and stream exactly.
Speaker 3: It's almost what it's become now. You know.
Speaker 5: So I'm not trying to sell I'm not, you know,
Speaker 5: out of the trunk of my car out there going
Speaker 5: I got yeah, I you know, I don't do that.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: I just find someone who I think was interested and
Speaker 5: I give them a copy.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's an excellent strategy. Well, Keith, I
Speaker 2: appreciate you joining us. In a moment, I'm gonna play
Speaker 2: this track. Criticize yourself because this is this is the
Speaker 2: other one that I like, I said, I enjoyed the
Speaker 2: whole album, but breathe and criticize yourself for the two
Speaker 2: that really really kind of struck me. I'm curious if
Speaker 2: there's anything we should know about this song, if there's
Speaker 2: a backstory to this one, or what this one might
Speaker 2: be about, because again, this is another one of those
Speaker 2: songs too where I'm listening to the lyrics and it's like,
Speaker 2: well there's something here, you know, and and and I'm.
Speaker 1: Really curious about it.
Speaker 2: And by the way, and also too, if you want
Speaker 2: to talk about the guitar player on this one, because
Speaker 2: this is also another song where I really love the
Speaker 2: guitar work on this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the guitar this one is really involved. Yeah, it
Speaker 5: really is. Basically, he came over and he had nothing planned.
Speaker 5: This is Donnie Stanfill. He's the league. He's one of
Speaker 5: the guitar players from the band Creeping Chaos here in Detroit,
Speaker 5: and he probably recorded I just I just played the
Speaker 5: song and just let him go and improvise. He did
Speaker 5: probably fourteen tracks. Wow, just improvised. Yeah, and then I
Speaker 5: went through and cut and spliced and put together all
Speaker 5: my favorite pieces Okay, so that's what we ended up with.
Speaker 5: And then when I played it back for me, he goes, dude,
Speaker 5: I don't think I could play that.
Speaker 3: I was like, you just did? You just did.
Speaker 5: That's what we're telling everybody, right right, So that's where
Speaker 5: that came from. And the song itself is basically about
Speaker 5: just all the things that can kind of build up
Speaker 5: and start suffocating you. Is basically what it is, you know,
Speaker 5: the just the day to day grind, the things that
Speaker 5: happen around you and stuff. It's just it's choking you.
Speaker 5: It's it's suffocating you. And it's like, when will we
Speaker 5: get a chance to breathe? Yeah, give us a chance
Speaker 5: to take a breath. You know enough, it's enough, right right?
Speaker 2: Well again, congratulations on the album. I think it's really good.
Speaker 2: And uh, and remind people again to uh where should
Speaker 2: they go to keep up with everything that you're doing online?
Speaker 5: Well, it's alien Stone on Facebook or Keith Samlan on Facebook.
Speaker 5: And then you got alien x Radio of course, when
Speaker 5: that's all you know, moving and grooving again. Yeah, and
Speaker 5: anywhere on any streaming site anywhere you type in alien
Speaker 5: Stone or after the Gray and it should pop right up.
Speaker 3: Man, it's everywhere YouTube everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, excellent. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I suggest people check it out and alien Stone is
Speaker 2: one word, by the way too for people when you're
Speaker 2: looking for it. And yeah, fantastic. Keith, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for joining us this morning. We will we will
Speaker 2: definitely have to do this again. In fact, maybe we'll
Speaker 2: have you on again soon. I'd love to talk to
Speaker 2: you more about your your career with you mentioned you
Speaker 2: used to interview movie stars, and I'd love to talk
Speaker 2: to you about that in the future too, because you know,
Speaker 2: we we kind of mostly we talk about music on
Speaker 2: the show, but we do mix it some other things
Speaker 2: as well, so we'll have to figure that out and
Speaker 2: set up a time for that. But congratulations on the album.
Speaker 2: I think it's great. I suggest everyone check it out.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna hit this track in a moment, criticize yourself,
Speaker 2: another very very strong track from the album.
Speaker 1: But we'll let you go for now. But Keith, thank
Speaker 1: you so much.
Speaker 3: Thank you for having me on the show.
Speaker 1: All Right, you got to take care.
Speaker 3: I have a good one.
Speaker 1: Bye bye, all right. Wonderful.
Speaker 2: So that was Keith sam Land and the project is
Speaker 2: called alien Stone. The album is after the Gray and
Speaker 2: we're gonna give this a spin, and then we're going
Speaker 2: to come back and Jenny and I are going to
Speaker 2: talk to you for a couple of minutes about for
Speaker 2: those of you who are listening live on Saturday, some
Speaker 2: exciting things going on today that Jenny and I are
Speaker 2: going to be doing. That you can come join us
Speaker 2: and be a part of. But for right now, again,
Speaker 2: this is Alien Stone and the track is called Criticize Yourself.
Speaker 1: I really like this one a lot. Check it out.
Speaker 7: There's a Storemas's brewin.
Speaker 6: It's gone. Then the real slow from glass houses, your
Speaker 6: programs a question all I know by then out. By
Speaker 6: then I ride out.
Speaker 7: There's a fire that's building your entry and the flames
Speaker 7: and now the fire is raging.
Speaker 6: And killing and the names. By then I ride out.
Speaker 6: By now I had out.
Speaker 4: Well your story in this by life with your neighs
Speaker 4: and Saty getting here for your big moment, by face
Speaker 4: uh Bran's you sell him a wheel.
Speaker 6: Till you print sash yourself.
Speaker 4: Don't you print sash yourself? Why can't you print sash yourself?
Speaker 6: There's a war.
Speaker 7: Wheel flight is.
Speaker 6: It's not a battle with it.
Speaker 7: You're judgment strikes light light me.
Speaker 6: Is this a warking within by me? Not hide up
Speaker 6: by men? Add an, will you go in this sideline?
Speaker 4: W dornaser safty get on? You gonna jumping on in
Speaker 4: my BASI bet not? Your sails can get the wheel
Speaker 4: till you priti sis your sell? Don't you pretty stash
Speaker 4: your sall? Why can't you pretty sis you sell? Will
Speaker 4: you st don my life with your neighs? And sat
Speaker 4: to kill you for your bingle in my faser? But
Speaker 4: I just sail be never within till you pretty side
Speaker 4: to sell?
Speaker 5: Well, don't you.
Speaker 6: Bread out to sell?
Speaker 3: Why can't you fret side you say?
Speaker 2: I love the guitar sound on that. I love that
Speaker 2: guitar tone that is alien Stone. The song is called
Speaker 2: Criticize Yourself. Alien Stone, of course is Keith sam Land.
Speaker 2: And thank you again to Keith for joining us. Check
Speaker 2: out alien Stone, check out alien x Radio and I'm
Speaker 2: going to be checking that out looking forward to learning
Speaker 2: more about that. We'll probably have Keith on again because
Speaker 2: like I said, I'd love to talk to him too.
Speaker 2: I'd love to have a supplemental conversation with him about
Speaker 2: his radio career. And you know he mentioned Houston interview
Speaker 2: movie stars and some of the other things he does
Speaker 2: on his show. Very very interesting guy.
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