Matt Connarton Unleashed 5-11-24 hour 1

Disney's Cafe is the place to put us. Smile on your face. Judy and the crew will take care of you, bring your appetite and treat your taste buzz Ruy Disney's Cafe is always a winning choice breakfast, lunch or supper. Dizzne's Cafe at eight sixty Elm Street in downtown Manchester. Dine in, takeout or make a reservation. Call six oh three, six oh six two five three two, Eat, drink and be happy Dizney's Cafe. You are listening to WMNHLP ninety five point three FM, broadcasting from the top of one thousand Elm Streets.

Our studios are located at one nineteen Canal Street and license to Manchester Public Television Service in Manchester, New Hampshire. Contact us by email at wm NH nine five three at gmail dot com, or through our website at w m n H radio dot org. This is Radio Manchester. It's nine o'clock black out. You've been using your minds out answer number four before to week. It's what say you your time? No ration number four ring out, A no working your ants out, A rant A number four small out. It's I know in a minute and now sam raising number four morning April nothing anything or roasine for seizure and rubbing the Cordnor's post build up buns and comer.

You got a ranswer and it's building of saster nor sis. There's still no one to do. Then it's the sad or so sellius a successor saying a low disaster child, you've been loosen your nide, I say as to number four or your towing. It's what's a going your tide? No, no more my house. But no what Cagnor is ill said, I'm as to number four, it's all wow, it's not a prison plays No say as to number four. Queen Crusoe raps as they were answer ay your Crusa saints and no place. I said, what racing's talking so loud?

I thought you were getting sick. I tell my grandys, you're killing a whole will at now so we have disaster sucker for some master. That's like a day s I guess that's saying a race in three years a second. So that's a waistcin never love, but was it's a never say a jat morning nineteen eighty six, or routine perceivesor slowing the coursor sps build up with thousand dollar us A ray answer, it's building a sasser. Will you sister s don't know what to do? Then it's the sator some sillion it's a raiartic faster saying at disaster yell you're say you're nine.

I said, ranto number four a week guess what say no hide? I said my out a no locking yours. I said it's a number four. It's aloud, it's not no end of this, I say it's a number four. W m n H rip the novel side you're listening to do w m n H ninety four and forty three Command God, don't get supprilea Maxill coming, Good morning, everybody, Welcome, Here we go. It is that time again, Matt Connorton Unleashed and we are live from the studios of w m n H ninety five point three FM in Glorious Manchester, New Hampshire.

Of course, you can also stream the show from anywhere. I go to Matt connorton dot com slash live for all of your live streaming options, social media links, contact and fosh archives, et cetera, et cetera. I'm going to tell you about the song we just heard in just a moment, and then we'll tell you what we've got coming up today. But today is Saturday May eleven, twenty twenty four, and I am not alone, Jenny, Jenny is here at the news table. I am present. Yes, Yes, awesome, yeng I love that. Yeah.

So that's that's our friend Dylan Reynolds. That is called Reactor number four and he's actually in the chat room. Ye, the full EP's going to be available. Oh no, he's not. I thought I'm sorry, I thought he was. Yeah, that's me. Oh that's you. He told me he was going to be in there, So all right, Oh, full his full EP, the Full Radiation Sickness EP, is going to be available on June fourth, and definitely follow him on the utube. Yes, and I dropped a link to his YouTube channel into the chat room if you'd like to follow along with Dylan's work.

He is an incredible artist, let me tell you us absolutely. I'll just share something with you too from the ePK that he sent me that explains a little bit about the track and about the project. It says, the first multi track release from Dylan Reynolds since twenty eighteen, and the first EP since twenty sixteen's The Living Dead. Dylan comes back hard and fast with a five track released titled Radiation Sickness, depicting an alternate timeline of the post apocalyptic anguish of Chernobyl's nuclear disaster, A concept DP given an account of the disaster and the subsequent failed containment procedures in true sequence of events.

Each track proceeds uh the last to build a story of loss, anguish, and the ultimate horrors befallen the people of the uh Pripiat exclusion Zone. I'm not sure Pripepiat. I'm not sure if I'm saying that correctly. I know what the exclusion zone is, but that's where you're not allowed to go because there's still radiation. There's there's you're you're still not allowed to go in there to this day. Oh, I'm sure. Radiation Sickness is slated to release on Tuesday, June fourth, worldwide on all major digital distributors.

So, but Dylan was kind enough to give us the world radio premiere, So we got that. UH got that a few weeks in advance, So very excited about that coming up in just a few minutes. We have and I'm not sure how to speak of not being sure how to pronounce things. I'm not sure how to say the band's name if it's Haitian. We'll get the correct pronunciation from them when they when they call us in a few minutes. I'm really looking forward to talking to these guys. Fantastic sound, and we're going to in just a moment, we're gonna play one of their tracks and then we'll get them on the phone.

And then second hour we have the return of Bees Deluxe. Yeah, Conrad War was on with us maybe a year ago, really really fascinating conversation. Looking forward to that. And then in the third hour we have Casey Darren of the band Soda s O T A H. I always like to spell it for people so they don't think I'm saying soda. Yeah, like like like the beverage. But he's gonna be back another world radio premiere, the new single Division Line. Yeah, it's a fol day of brand new music. Absolutely love it. Absolutely, We've got uh, We've got plenty coming up.

So I think what we'll do is let's go ahead and play something from and again, I don't know if I'm saying it correctly. Heishen Haitian. We'll we'll find out from these guys. But a great band from Rochester, New York, and they're going to be playing a big show tonight at Terminus in Nashua. So I think we'll play this song. I think we should give Crimson Sun a spin. I like all of these, but the album is called Awaken the Endless Deep, and this is really good stuff. This is the kind of thing you can kind of get lost in.

So yeah, we'll start with this. We'll play a bunch of these today. But this is called Crimson Sun. The bandit Haitian from the album Awaken the Endless Deep. Check it out, gone ways over the short spreading its like the class medi ancient lands. Substans for to see the easton search of last last testa define free circuits time, don't wake up with fine set so far from We're all alone, Steal your whissongs of course for the yonder way down, keep so the soundway down to the charny corners of the sail along fund away sound like we carry out the will, but we have we're less like for it.

See the time as ever stayed to their restaurant all about or the browns up a bike shap, cutting a bad shot. It's like for a Parson song they thought of that. Why oh who

s oh? That is so good? That is Crimson Sun is the name of the track. The band is Haitian or Heishen. We'll see what the correct pronunciation is when they join us. And that is from the album Awake in the Endless Steep. These guys are going to be playing a show tonight at Terminus in Nashua, and they're going to be joining us by phone at any moment. So by the way, Hans Smith from the band Sepsis is in the Facebook live chat liking what he's hearing. He said, I'm really digging those beats. Yeah, the drums are are pretty sophisticated on that, and they've got a big sound.

You know, it's only three of them. It's a trio. You might even use the term power trio. But yeah, there's only three of them, but they sound like a full band. And let's see who's on the line here. Hi, welcome to Matt Connorton Unleashed. Who we have? Oh you got Randy and Justin here? Randy and Justin Okay, Hey, shn that's how you say it. Hi Hi shen, yeh hi shen. Gotcha, gotcha. Okay, I've been saying it wrong. I thought I might be welcome guys. Welcome guys. So tell us what each of you does in the band.

Please. I'm the drum This is Randy. I'm the drummer and the primary backup singer, and I also do some symps and samples. Okay, I'm justin. I played bass and do a bit of backing vocals, and I do kind of a lot of our our technical and kind of managing and booking work. And then Chris is I think he's still kind of packing some gear upstairs. I'm hoping he'll be down momentarily. But he is our lead guitarist, lead vocalist, and like main songwriter. There he is here. I'll scoot over for you here, Chris, you want to if you want to do your own introduction, because I started to do years I've gone I'm sure.

I play guitar and I sing. Okay, well, welcome guys. It's nice to have you all with us. And I was listening, you know, I listened to the full album, and I made the comment coming out from coming out of the song Crimson Sun that it's the kind of music you can kind of get lost in. You know, some of your songs are very long and they seem to be story driven, and you know, it's the type of thing you can just put on the headphones and just sort of just sort of go with it, just get lost in what you're doing.

And I think that's really cool. It kind of takes you on a journey and really sophisticated stuff. How long have you guys been around? How long has haishen't been a band? So in this configuration about August of twenty nineteen. Ris and Justin had a few configurations before that, different music styles, but this current configuration about five years. Yeah, okay, has it always been a trio? Not precisely in the current iteration that is known as Hyshen. Yes. Chris and I are initially started this project attempting to write more of like atmospheric post rap kind of stuff.

We peaked at six members and quickly quickly realized that trying to coordinate that many people for one band practice and trying to write with that many people was a huge pain. Yeah, and then a few people quit to go play in a different band and that was the chance that we got to kind of retool. And actually one of the guitar players from that original iteration of the project is the one who recommended Randy to us, and he's kind of the drummer that unlocked the ability for us to write progressive music instead of like simpler stuff, because we hadn't had a drummer that could play that before, right, right, Yeah, I was mentioning, you know, Randy hans Smith from Sepsis in the chat room was was commenting how much he likes the drums and yeah, very some pretty sophisticated drum patterns there, and yeah, yeah, absolutely, really really good.

Yeah, I tend to and you know, when somebody plays like you do. For example, I was thinking about this last night. If I hear a song by Rush, I tend to be very drawn to the drums, even though I'm a bass player, and you know, obviously Getty Lee's an amazing bass player, but when it's a when it's a band like Rush, you know, the drums are the thing that I'm drawn to the most, just because Neil Peart's drumming was so sophisticated, or are some of the early Black Sabbath stuff too, like War Pigs. You know, I tend to focus in on the drums because the drumming that bill Ward did was was so interesting and really kind of different than anything else you would hear from that period.

But uh, absolutely yeah. I mean for me, that version would be Mike Portnoy from Dream Theater. Yeah, you know, hear me indirectly be compared to Neil Peart. That's a real honor. But I also you know, nobody comes close to him, right right right? Well, I mean you've got, like I said, this is very sophisticated the music that you're making. Is it a challenge to do this live? Because like I said, it's it's three of you? But I mean, or maybe I don't know, do you have anyone additionally with you live who's not an official member, who contributes live?

Or do you actually pull this off just as a trio? No, we do everything to the three piece wow. And one of the goals that was on this album that we tried to stick with for the most part was that we would write things and do things. If we couldn't do them live, we wouldn't it wouldn't wind up on the record. Okay, for the most part, that's true in terms of the arrangements. So everybody in this band pulls what I like to call double triple duty on things like not only your primary Instagram guitar, vis, drums, but also you have vocals.

Everyone sings has vocal parts in this band, whether it be harmonies or like background vocals or things like that. Lead vocals. I specifically do a lot of looping with a loop with a loop pedal. I was going to say, our fourth band member is Chris's loop pedal. Yeah, so just like the loop pedal. A lot of that is is live guitars, is me playing, playing guitar and then trying to loop something over it. Brandy also does synths and keyboards, which we started to use a trigger pad for and we kind of along the way we use the trigger pad.

You could just activate it by hitting a paddle with the drums, and then now very recently we've gone to the professionals, with the professionals using in your monitor or i e. M. Rec and we have kind of like, uh, we use we use click tracks, and some people think it's lame, but for our degree, for our degree of complexity in this music, it's necessary we have click tracks, and then I also like to use we actually have everything synced out now, so uh my my pedal board with the loop pedal, and everything takes uh takes MIDI MIDI commands, so I can actually it can actually switch uh switch things like channels or pedals or the loop pedal on and off for certain sections of the song.

So it's actually made things a lot more. We've automated a little bit of it, but at the core, it's still three guys, same same big films. And the obvious answer to all how do we do it live? Is we practice a lot. Yeah. Well, yeah, you know, it's interesting because as you're describing that and how it all works, I was, you know, I don't currently play, but I've played in a lot of bands, and I've never played in a band that's doing anything on the level that you're doing, you know, with the added technology and whatnot.

And I was thinking, you know, it's it's so far beyond anything I ever did, because any of the bands I was in, you know, we would show up, we would play you know usually you know, drums, bass, guitar, vocals, you know, and it's just you almost take it for granted when you think about what goes into what you guys are doing. And again I was thinking too. I was reflecting on for example, Rush, not to go back to Rush, but a great example of you know, Geddy Lee live. He would be playing bass, but he also had to figure out a way to work some keyboard in there, you know, especially with some of the stuff they did in the eighties.

And and it's it's interesting to me that, I mean, is it stressful to have sort of, I don't know how else to put it, sort of an additional responsibility on top of playing your instrument. You're not just playing your instrument, but you've got a few other things you got to work in there. Is that Is that difficult? Or is it just something that you know, you get it down during rehearsal and then it just becomes second nature and it's no different than if you were just you know, playing normal relax.

I think it depends on the member. I would say the main stressor for us is just making sure all this newly added technology is working, you know, within the confines of you have fifteen minutes to set up before your show, and that's of course stressful because technology sometimes doesn't work. Yeah, it was expected and yeah, yeah, I was gonna say, for me, I'm effectively playing bass player and monitor tech, right, and that can be a bit of a hassle, especially as like I've done my fair share of live sound, I've done my fair share of as a musician.

I have done maybe four shows now where I'm doing both at the same time, and so that's definitely like that added technology is definitely a bit of a stressor. And I know, like making sure that the media is working to Chris's board has been a whole process. At our release show last night, we actually had an issue where the USB was not seeing our audio or the USB from the computer to the audio device was not picking up, so our click track wasn't working. And we have some like synth pads on like backing tracks and stuff now yeah, and so none of that was working, and it took rebooting things a bunch of times, and actually updated all of our equipment last night so that hopefully we will have no issues for the next couple of days.

And then I'm sure, like you know, Chris can probably speak a bit more to the mental load of like being the lead singer and playing the lead guitar over some of the music that we work on. But that's kind of the technology aspect, and I will say it definitely it's great when it works, and when it doesn't, it is certainly stressful. The technology. The technology is certainly the way Justin describes, it gives us a lot with new headaches and things, but at the end of the day, it does streamline what it does work.

It does streamline a lot of things. We tend to with all these things, adding like another layer or something like that. A lot of it is a muscle memory thing and as we say as Renny, so we practice a lot and it's one of those things that you just get better over time at doing it. And to us now these things are second nature.

We've had sony songs for a long time, and if something breaks down, it's not I mean, it's like, I know, we've made it sound like we're so heavily dependent on the stuff, but it's not the end of the world, because we can still at the heart of it, a lobby songs the way they were written were the kind of these extra switches and things were like kind of baked in. They're necessitated. Sure, so we've all you can trust that we've all had practice doing this kind of stuff manually,

and so it's and so that's very it's no problem to go back to go back to it. Yeah, we had to show about a month ago where we were having an issue where the vibration of the stage kept triggering the stop command on our click tracks. Like, yeah, we can still play a perfectly tight set without them. Yeah, we just don't have some like specific like we're missing the sub drop in this song, we're missing the pretty synthpad, but like is it great to have the click? Yes? Are we still the same band we were before we started playing to a click live?

Absolutely? Yeah. Yeah, Well that's interesting. So the vibration of the stage was causing that. This was when we're using a trigger pad to trigger the click instead of just pressing the space bar and a laptop. So yeah, it's a process that there's a lot of trial and error when you're kind of you're a band and you're three people figuring this out. A lot of these things we like kind of had to grow into. Basically, we had to grow into this band, grow into our roles, like the down to like the pedal board I was making, like I soldered every single cable by hand, I didn't know how to solder before that.

Yeah, you know, and then so stuff would break on stage. We have footage and it's it's it's it's rough. You know, We've had footage, like earlier footage of you know, we'll rush through a loop section, something will break on stage. These are problems that were in the past. Uh. And do you to lots of practice and or automation. We've actually streamlined a lot of stuff into so where the you know, the great live act you've seen here today. Yeah, no, I I really admire that your your level of commitment to to this and and all that goes into it with the technology and uh, Chris, I think it was someone had made reference earlier to to you know, your your role is unusual and that you're both the lead singer and the guitar player have Is that a lot of uh?

Is that a lot of pressure? You don't see that in most bands. I mean I've you know, I've seen a few along the way, but usually usually the guitar player, the lead guitar player, and the singer are our roles assigned to two different people. Well, it's just it's just kind of muscle memory. Yeah, it's I I've done it so long, I don't you know, I like some people say it's amazing, you know, it's at the end of the day, it's just kind of muscle memory. Yeah, it's I think it's attainable. It's also something he had to grow into.

Yeah, as you'd say, because he's improved a lot on both fronts. And as we joke, early on, he started singing because at the time he was the only one who knew how to coordinate doing both, gotcha. Yeah, I think. Yeah, it's like it's it's you could you could argue, you could. You could argue that we were just like we had we had too much ego, or we wanted to stay as a three piece. So we're just being like, okay, we'll play We'll play all I'll play all the guitar parts, ants sing you know. Yeah, Well, as you guys were alluding to earlier, though, it's you know, as a three piece, obviously everybody has to do more in terms of creating this music, especially replicating it live.

But but you don't have as many scheduling issues. And you know, I mean I've been in bands where you know, it's three other guys or four other guys, and you know, it can become really difficult with everyone's schedule to know, schedule rehearsals and and trying to schedule live shows and so so I think keeping it to a tight three piece it does make sense. And obviously it makes things a little more challenging technologically, but you know, you've figured it out obviously and it's it's working for you.

So kudos to you, guys. I think it's great time breakers. You know, if people are the third person swoops in and gets the final stay almost that's true. Yeah, there you go, There you go. And can you, guys tell me a little bit about the album Awaken the Endless Deep what the theme is here? Because just in listening to it, and I listened to it first before I read the bio, and the bio kind of clued me in, But but I noticed, you know, like I said, it seems to be story songs kind of takes you on a journey, and that journey is clearly on the sea.

Uh, but can you kind of tell us a little bit about what the concept is here? And I'm also curious to know is this the concept of the band or is it supposed to be the concept of Justice album specifically, and are there other concepts other music that you might be working on or in the future.

It's a kind of a it's kind of a long winded answer, but it's basically the story of Awaken the Endless Steep. This album is drawn from Chinese creation mythology, and we kind of built a story around that concept album basically. Okay, you can notice probably that there are little to no breaks on the album, so that might kind of clue you in. Every song just kind of flows in, like one after one after the next. Yes, So that's based on it's reflective of our kind of desire to write a write a story a concept album just kind of around Chinese creation mythology.

We're not now, we don't. We don't do much in our way of like publishing a story doing what like Coheat and Cambria do with like publishing like like they write like music based on like claud comic books and things like that. We don't. We don't really have that. We don't really have that much like published material and by way of that, but we kind of we definitely follow, We definitely have like kind of a storyboard and kind of a lore written you know, if you listen closely, there are references to the Chinese, the Chinese creator god Pungu.

He was he's kind of the he's kind of the creator of like kind of the whole universe. And then you have a Nuwa who is the kind of mother goddess who creates and looks over mankind. And your primary antagonist in this story is Gong, which is the h is the god of water, who is has a taste for engines because he had a shall i say, a thwarted bid for supremacy over the world. He wanted to control over the world. He was denied it and he was badly injured, and now he has kind of returned to try to reassert this kind of supremacy or said dominance or whatever.

And then kind of this human protagonist, his story is kind of set in like with kind of like ancient China as a backdrop, but just kind of like that that see with the all these these gods and things like that. And then the hero you kind of have like a hero main protagonist who falls under the ocean, uh, and then he's like he learns of this world and learns that the earth is in great danger and he has to go forth and save it pretty much. And to answer to the second half of your question, you know, we have ourselves titled EP, which is certainly inspired by the ocean, but it's not related to the album concept.

And we do have early stage plans for our next album to be a continuation of the first album story. So it's pretty early on to say our albums are all based around one idea, but you know, we're forging ahead as we go. They we're pretty locked in. I am certainly drawing the name Heishin is a Chinese raised meaning see god or sea deity, and that's intentional on my part because I am of Chinese descent, and I thought this would be also like a great vehicle to explore that whole world of deities and monsters, but also kind of understanding that whole understanding the whole culture, understanding the whole world view, because there's a great tradition there, but it's not many people know about it, and it's just it was something that I was really interested in discovering for myself.

And if you listen close, and if you know, if you kind of pay attention to Chinese folk music, you'll hear you'll hear bits and pieces. You'll hear some kind of famous songs where we've been inspired by some melodies. Especially Goddess in the Machine has a pretty strong second half where if you're familiar with Chinese folk music, you're gonna hear melodies, you're gonna hear inspiration. And that was very, very much purposeful. It's been really really cool to kind of like learn a lot of this cultural stuff from Chris as we go as well, and Randy and I have really enjoyed kind of exploring some ways of combining our musical backgrounds with that inspiration from Chinese traditional music mythology.

Yeah. Now, and and in terms of writing these songs, is is the story kind of all laid out before or or or do the do the songs kind of come? I mean, do you already know? In other words, when you go to write these do you already know? Okay, we're going to focus on with this song, We're going to focus on this part of the story. Is it is it really sort of regimented that way? Or is it is it looser? Or how does how does that process work? Yeah? We generally we generally write, we generally storyboard first, Okay, And then it's kind of but in the tradition of many ancient legends, you know, some of the finer details are a little kind of murky, and you kind of you kind of add you kind of like fill the holes with your imagination as you go.

Yeah, but we generally storyboards first and then we'll write song and so we'll have a general idea of like where we want to go, like what mood we want to capture. In a way, it makes things easy for us, but at the same time, it's a it's a very difficult thing to kind of be like, oh, where do we go next? Right, so we kind of do. We didn't write this album in order, mind you, We just kind of ticked like we laid it out into eight major events and we just kind of kind of wrote eight songs to capture each each point on the way, and we had to find out how to fit, how to you know, connect it all together.

I will say, to Chris's point, as well as far as not writing them in order, it didn't really necessarily start out storyboarded, but we very quickly realized that we needed to. And then if you hear there's a lot of different influences and a lot of different sounds on this album, and that is absolutely one percent to the point of this is a section of the story that we need the song to feel like that section of the story. And that's why you get there's a huge shift between Crimson Sun and Leviathan, and there's a big shift between Leviathan and Goddess in the Machine and so on, because these different sonic landscapes on different songs are directly attached to the way that we wanted that part of the story to feel.

Musically. Yeah, we'll say the next album might be the process might be a little different. Now that we're kind of locked in on what we want to we've learned a lot. Yeah, so it's definitely the next album, you know, who knows the process could change? Sure? Sure? And where do you record, by the way, because the songs sound amazing and for what you're doing, obviously it's important that you know and that like if you're you know, if you're in a punk band or something, you can kind of get away with, you know, things sounding a little a little rough, but for what you're doing, everything has to sound pristine and clear, so you can he everything and it sounds amazing.

Where do you guys record. We recorded at Capture Studio in Syracuse. It's owned and run by Jason Randall or nicknamed Jocko by his friends. And yeah, he's got an incredible space that he's pretty much custom built himself, and he knows the inside and out of it. He got us a really high degree of isolation between I mean within instruments, I mean isolation within just my drum set, for example, and that sort allows all that detail to be brought out. I mean, I think my drum set has like probably fourteen symbols on it and here at each and everyone you know.

Yeah, and we took extra time to I mean, every guitar take you here is stereo, so it's double tracked. Every vocal take is in stereo, so double track. Some of the guitars are quad track, which means there are four layered takes left and right across the stereo field. And that's not including like harmony parts and like layers. That's just like an individual rhythm guitar track is going to be up to four different takes of the same exact part before the solo gets laid on top of it kind of thing. And just to brag for Chris a little bit.

The guitar solo, the big guitar solo in the middle of the Flesh of the Earth, Child of the Sea. He double tracked that solo, like not not two mics, not a doubler effect, double tracked, played the solo twice and it's laid on top of each other, and like if you listen, you hear it, and it's kind of it was. We were all going kind of crazy watching him do it. Yeah, yeah, I mean, Jocko just he has the years of experience to know, you know, he's getting into this kind of project, this is what this kind of project requires.

Yeah, and that's partly why we went with him, because we knew he had that experience and the space to do so. Yeah, he's recorded all four Wilder Run albums if you're familiar, yep, and I believe he I believe he mixed and mastered the first two. So that was kind of where we heard of him and we're just blown away working them. There was a time where we tracked all of our demos in the basement, but hey, these came out pretty good for a basement. Maybe we'll just do this. And then the more we thought about it the more we figured that was a bad idea, and then we heard just the rough mixes from like the first day of drum tracking, and we're like, oh, yeah, this is going to be way right right, Yeah, no doubt.

Does he is he engineering when he's recording or does he also become like a de facto producer? And I know sometimes that happens organically, you know, somebody starts out as an engineer and sort of he comes heart a facto producer. But does he have a kind of a producer role in what you're doing? Yeah, it all depends how you want to hire him. Essentially, he's all about making his studio accessible, so he has like you can just rent the studio and run the tracking yourself. But we hired him to be both engineer and producer.

He also mixed and mastered the record. Luckily for us, we got along really well. And we also happen to use the same or like software, so just familiar with the program. So sometimes he could take a backseat while we would just press play, and that allowed him to focus on just hearing the music and getting into that producer role. Yeah. Yeah, for the most part, our stuff was our material was pretty much cut and dry and just ready to go when we went into the studio. He did comparatively little, but in terms of creative direction sometimes he would be Sometimes is our kind of first time as a band in like a professional studio.

We did the EP. We did the EP in a professional studio as well. We could squid in Rochester, but that was largely without a click and live and we kind of just booked that studio time. It just did in three hours. But this one, this album took something like to the order of nine to ten days, I think twelve days because we had to add more time to finish vocal tree, right, we had to add that time what they said, But I think it was nine days for the bulk of the instrumentals. And we were like like justin and Randy said, you know he was he was really he was hands on when he needed to be.

Sometimes we had some we had some sort of agonizing over a certain a certain part. He would offer his offer in his years of wisdom, and we would you know, get that done and it would sound great. But you know, oftentimes we would be up till as time went on, I think we started staying up later and later to just get this stuff done, so we would leave at about midnight. And because Justin and Randy are more familiar with his his daw he uses Reaper and they use Reaper, it was easy for them to also helm the session so we could just get in an extra three four hours of work done.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. When you play live, do you play the full album. That's what we've been doing. We did that last night at our release show, or two nights ago rather, and we're gonna I think the plan is to do that on tour. Excellent, excellent, for the best of our ability. Yeah, Normally we don't get a chance with some of these local shows just because it's like usually they do thirty five to forty five minutes, so our album runs just over fifty five, so we have to cut maybe just a little bit, but well, whenever we can.

It's always great to try to play the whole thing because it you know, as I said, it's all it's all connected, it's one big story. So when when did this come out? Because obviously you just mentioned the release show was last night, so this is pretty new, right, Well, the really show was May ninth, and the album came out maya so Thursday, came out, came out. Oh wait two Saturday time. I mentioned last night earlier, and I'm realizing that there was an entire day in between. But it's been such a blur of prepping for tour and everything that I forgot that Friday happened.

That can happen. Yeah, yeah, and then we should make sure we plug too. Tonight. You guys are playing at Terminus in Nashua, New Hampshire. Yes, very good for that, Ye, excellent. Yeah, we've had both Conduit Conduit we had on the show recently, and we had Novakoy on the show a little while ago and a couple of great bands, so that is awesome. Yeah, definitely people should check that out. And of course we've had Eleanor on the show when Terminus was first opening there in Nashua and a great, great place, and I don't know if you've seen it yet, but when you walk into it, it's it's my reaction was walking into that room for the first time.

It's like another world. It's it's it's it's amazing. It's a truly remarkable place. Guys. The time goes so quickly. This has been a fascinating conversation I really love what you're doing. I love your music. We are going to play another track. I was thinking about playing Leviathan to to close out this segment, and then we'll probably play something else too later in the show. You've definitely got a fan in me. So I love the music and I love the whole concept. It's really really cool. What oh absolutely thank you guys for joining us today before we let you go, And like I said, I think we're gonna play Leviathan next.

But I want to make sure people know how to find you online. People listening who have not actually looked or Google you probably don't know how to spell the name of your band. So how should people know how to reach you online so they can follow you, keep up with everything that you're doing, get your music, go to a show, whatever it is out How should people find you? Yeah, So it's H A I S H E N. And we are at Hishen band on. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or Twitter. Don't really use the Twitter that often.

Instagram is really the best place to keep up with us. We also have We're on Spotify. Just Hi Shen. We're the only ones we come right up. Good. We're on band camp hishen dot band camp dot com. We have CDs of the new album, CDs and tapes of the EP. We just posted a couple of shirt designs last night. And other than that, we will be in Revere, Massachusetts to Sammy's Patio on the twelfth. If you can't make the New Hampshire show but you're in the New England area, We're gonna be at Gold Sounds in Brooklyn on the thirteenth Monday.

If you're in the New York City area, and other than that, keep an eye on our Instagram. We're going to be trying to play out of town a lot this year. Please feel free to hit us up for booking. High Shendband at gmail dot com or message us on any one of our social media pages and we'll get back to you as soon as we see it. I'll also add we are on Apple Music as well for all iPhone users were We're on most scream screening services. Whatever CD baby puts us on, we're on that. And also I was gonna say a quick shout out to is Our.

You can also find our merch for sale at our record labels website Needlejuicerecords dot com. Okay, so that's all the places you can find us other than in person somewhere on later today. Very good, very good, all right, justin Randy Chris from Highshend. Thank you guys so much. We'll let you go. I'm gonna hit this track Leviathan. I can't wait to share this with everybody, and but thank you so much for having us on. Absolutely we'll do it again in the future. Guys, have a great show tonight, and thank you so much.

Take care and I'm sure we have a good one, all right YouTube, bye bye, all right, the guys from Highen. We're gonna play this track Leviathan. Then when we come back, Jenny's gonna tell us about the event today, and then we're gonna bring in on the second hour Bees Deluxe. Are they in the building? Is that? Oh? I'm sorry your mic was I shot your mic off when you got up to leave the room to let them in. They are in the buildings, they are, They're in the building. Very good, very good, all right, So plenty more to come.

But check this out from Highend. This is called Leviathan. Really good stuff. Oh b rise, Oh my god, sat not my no,

I won't I said that my could ever be cat I thought I was going the reality, I said, my say, oh kay, and so

by die now oh or Ney ells right to the truth. But be the shadow makes me wide moments about their shoes a file side said that goes from one plays the brot the little the time, but not to themselves up in the side you mean Detroit and sit the wall soon Detroit right by by oh by the by willisode back. I did OUs all back and rest thou do thousand about size, style and stuff, and sous now spe cries of my be so well make the best of the bays. When war exploiting us, falling fins one one, they think the ball the sus accepting like baby doll, like b like b a ball over by ur But sa for me go round.

That is Leviathan from Highshen And thanks again to those guys for joining us out of course it's from the album Awaken the Endless Steep, really good stuff. Fascinated by their music and what those guys are doing. And as promised, Jenny tell us about the event today this evening, or actually this afternoon. In of this evening, there's a special opening reception going on at the Mosaic Art Collective right here in the Queen City of Manchester, located at sixty six Hanover Streets. Tweet two to one.

I can speak. This is a really interesting and really cool art show. And I'm excited because one of my pieces is in the show, so I will be there this afternoon for the opening. But this is an interesting What they did was this is called the Resurgence Art of the Botanical and it's a collaboration with local florists people like do Collective Blue Botanicals, Heather Noonan and they've created arrangements inspired by pieces of the original artwork that are in the show. Isn't that crazy cool? I'm excited to see this.

So there's all different kinds of art pieces, all different kinds of artists, and it's a fusion between you know, the visual beauties of artwork on the walls with the three D come to life bouquets and just floral arrangements and they are there's going to be an auction also, so these floral arrangements are going to get auctioned off. Really good timing too, considering tomorrow's Mother's Day, so you could get an amazing, amazing bouquet of flowers. So I'm really excited to be there the shows. The opening is from four to eight pm this evening.

And each one of these artists, these florists, they chose the artwork that inspired them to create these exquisite floral arrangements. So I'm just I'm so excited about this. I can't wait to see it. So I hope you guys will join us. That's uh tonight from four to eight pm at sixty six Hanover Street here in the Queens City, Suite to one the Mosaic Art Collective. Do look them up Mosaicarcollective dot com. There will be a new show starting they're gonna be They have an open call going for their June show called lux Reflecting Queer Beauty and Resilience.

That's going to go from June third to June thirtieth, with an opening reception on June eighth. So, if you are an artist from all corners of the LGBTU plus community, allies explore and celebrate the multifollient aspects, so you can submit your artwork. That is an open call that is going on for next month if you'd like to get your work into the Mosaic Art Collective. It's a great place to show. It's a smaller gallery, it's very unique. It's a wonderful environment. There are live live there are live artists.

There are studios there that you can actually get a glimpse into some of the local artists work as they're in these studios. Let me tell you, are incredible to look at. It is just the way that the artists have them set up and everything. It's a piece of its own if you will, so definitely check that out. I'm excited to be there. I just love the Mosaic Are Collective. I really yeah, very good. While we look forward to that absolutely all right, excellent, excellent and congratulations, thank you, And we are approaching the top of the hour.

We're going to get to a quick break, show some love to our amazing sponsors, and then when we come back, we have Conrad and Carol from the band Bees Deluxe. They are here with us live and spooloop. I'm sorry, I don't know where that's coming from. They are here with us live and studio. I figured out where it's coming from. That was a sneak peak of one of the songs we're going to be playing. I didn't mean to play it yet anyway. All right, let's h