Matt Connarton Unleashed: Casey Daron of Sotah

Returning to the show. This week, we have Casey Darren. How are

you, Casey doing wonderful? How are you doing this morning? Good good

from the band Soda and as you tell us what you've been up to since

you were here last as I try to make sure your mic is up here.

Absolutely. Yeah. Well, the last month has been extremely busy.

I just hopped off a tour with a band called The Defiant. Yes,

The Defiant is a supergroup that consists of Dicky Barrett from The Mighty Mighty Bosstones,

Pete Parata from The Offspring, Greg Camp from smash Mouth, Johnny Rio

from Street Dogs, and Joey Larroca from The Briggs. So we did a

month long tour. We started in Chicago, we went up to Canada,

did a couple of dates up there, came through New England, hit the

Hometown hit Boston which was very nice, and then we made all our way

all the way down to Florida and we did three dates in Florida. Wow,

the Boston show must have been nuts. It was great. It was

great. Well, you have Dicky Barrett, you know, Hometown Hero,

and then Johnny Rio of the Street Dogs, also from Boston. There was

a lot of support out there and it was a great hometown show. Yeah.

Yeah, very cool. How many how many dates? Oh? I

think there were about twenty one dates maybe in the span of about three and

a half weeks. Wow. Yeah, yeah, very cool. What is

the defiant? Are they continuing on or are they just kind of a okay?

Yeah? No. So they they formed out of, you know,

the dissolving of their own respective bands. Yeah, and this kind of took

hold. They all had, you know, shared common ideas and you know,

the idea that they all wanted to promote love, unity, togetherness and

to bridge the divide that's in our country right now. Yeah. So they

came together, put out this album, had a very successful tour with me

first in the Gimme Gimmes played probably about half the dates were sold out,

if not more. Yeah, and I know that they have more stuff on

the way. I can't obviously talk too much about that, but I know

that this is not it's not a one off thingy. They are a full

band. Yeah, very cool. Cool, And you have a brand new

single, so you brought your guitar. You're gonna play live for us,

But first we have a world radio premiere and what should we know about this

track Division Line. So I wrote this track probably about three years ago.

This was in the midst of COVID and when everyone was online and you know,

we weren't out really out in the real world so much, and I

was getting really frustrated with all the hatred I was seeing online about everything.

People couldn't speak to each other civilly. Everything was an argument it still is

online and that really frustrated me, and people were getting their own personal politics

involved in things that just shouldn't have been political anything like any conversation turned like

one way or the other. So this song kind of expressed my frustrations about

that. And then about two years later, last year, I wrote a

whole extra verse after yet another school shooting in America, and I was getting

so frustrating is I thought to myself, we have these people online who are

fighting about every single thing, getting their own personal politics in the way,

and they're ignoring the fact there are much bigger issues in our country, the

safety of our children, and it really hurt me and it made me sad,

and I needed to channel that in some way. So I wrote this

song. When I wrote it three years ago, I had Dicky Barrett in

mind, I said no, no, I would love to have him on

this song. At that point, I didn't really know him. Yeah,

come three years later, we're really good friends and he's on the track,

and I'm just so happy to have him. That's amazing. So Dicky Barrett

from the Bostones and of course now the define he's actually on the track.

He is on the track. He does some nice guest vocals and he sings

at the end of the song. Wow. He's also in the music video

too. Oh awesome, that's awesome. Congratulations, like, all right you

well. So this is the world radio premiere of the new track Division Line,

Casey Darren. Of course the band is Soda sot Ah. I would

like to spell it for everybody. I do the same. Yeah, I

appreciate it. And then case he's gonna play live for us in a little

bit. But let's give this a listen without further ado, here it is.

This is called Division Line. Someone trust fun. Lately the world is

being so unjust. They've wanted some when we blame it on each other,

they destroyed all our families, all us sisters. Then I'm rather's de posterity

individually it's quickly weakening on humanity. No, my unity, don't that for

you with me? Landon is braved where no w spree like you don't know

it's not the tree what you're telling me reality. She like you, but

I don't know what to do. It's hard as me that it's part than

you. It makes you feel so cold, so I said it like your

runners don't know want to turn to. So you're lying in the gutter to

see up on the throats dollabit against each other. Now the red of it

just CAUs the spread of it. You don't increason now you are the heretan.

And if you don't command, you know the trouble bed so much that

you're the man you say. Teachers preach up to the dustie believe the everywhere

they speak, predress bills and foss the heads. The kings go out to

the count there that the trict to old worlds be because keeps placing in ll

streets, the Hundred's districts in lockdown with children scattered on the ground. Five

Summer from shot to take from her Bot Clanton and and Spose convictions a couple

with grand the lad Suns have set each other strokes, call Kistuna files,

the cover up three dot Just what extends to their tests? You know it's

not with Boston Highest together we could read the fire to get up on your

head glass because the body we fall together, we start a side. And

I know it's not the truth. What's telling me a reality? A scene?

Right? And I don't know what to do? Yes, hurting me?

Let's hurting you? Send and I know it's not the truth. What's

telling me a reality? A scene? Right? And I don't know what

to do? Yes, hurting me? That is hurting you. The Gun

Violence Archive reported over six hundred American match moving in year two thousand twenty three

alone, with over forty three thousand unrelated Jack there is no time for debate,

the time for lovers now, the time for eight never there. It

is the World Radio Premiere Division line. The band is Soda and we have

Casey Darren here with us live in studio. And well done. Oh,

thank you very much, thank you, absolutely very very catchy. And of

course you know it's got a message. And yeah, how did so the

process of Dicky Barrett being on the track, how did that come about?

I mean, obviously I have a friendship with him and a professional relationship as

well, But I mean, did you did you approach him with it or

how did how did that come about? So my very first Soda single was

an acoustic cover of a Mighty Mighty Bosstone song called they Will Need Music.

Yeah, so I released that independently, and I think I must have posted

it to a Bostones Facebook fan group or something like that, and I know

that some of the members of the Bostones kind of lurk in there, so

somebody saw it. And I know Dicky controls all the Boston social media,

so I think this was twenty twenty one, pre Bostones breakup, and he

shared my video and my acoustic cover of they Will Need Music, and I

was like, wow, that is so awesome. I was so thrilled.

And then a few months later I released my first single, Dying Breath,

and one day I get a text from Dickie saying, this is awesome.

Keep it up, You're doing great. And I have like a couple of

connect within the music world that who know Dickie, so I think maybe one

of them gave Dickie my number, But it was just out of the blue,

Like I was very shocked. I was like, this is amazing.

Wow. And then around that time, the Bostones broke up, and at

the time, Dickie came out that he didn't get vaccinated for the COVID shot,

which was very it was very divided, like people had their opinions about

that. For me, I grew up watching Dicky Barrett promote three things,

love, compassion, and unity his whole life. Everything that in his core,

his message was always about uniting people, bringing people together. He was

never one of those people, in my eyes, that would ever be a

controversial figure. He's just a pure human being who you could tell it was

genuine and loved his fans, loved the world, had so much hope for

the future. And when it came out that he didn't get vaccinated for the

COVID shot, the internet just started attacking him. Everyone was just so angry

about it, and I kind of took a step back and I'm like,

whoa whoa whoa like And these people were writing them off, saying I'm never

gonna listen to the Bostones again. I'm never gonna listen to him again.

Everything he said was a lie, and I was like, I just I

couldn't see how the two were related. Like, I saw Dickie in the

midst of COVID. He moved from California. He was on the announcer for

the Jimmy Kimmel Show. I had forgotten about that. Yeah, yeah,

So in the midst of COVID when it started, he said, Okay,

I'm gonna do my part. He moved out of la He moved to Arizona

in a tiny, little remote area with his family, got his kids away

from the hustle and bustle of the city because he didn't want to spread He

didn't want to spread COVID. He was trying to do his part, and

he you know, he isolated as he should have, as we all should

have, as we as many of us tried to do. But he was

also concerned about the COVID shot. And to me, like, I just

feel like in this world, we should let people live and let live.

We shouldn't like people have their concerns. That's okay. If you want to

get the shot, oh my god, like by all means, thank you,

But if you don't, like, don't chastise somebody for it. That's

just my opinion. So it was really hard to see the world attacking this

man who had promoted such good values for the past thirty years, forty years

of being in that band. It was hard for me and I was seeing

all the negativity online and I wrote the song and I was like, I

would really love Dicky to sing on this because it was really a passion project

about my thoughts about the division at the time and Dicky Barrett. So as

time went on, I started interacting with him a little more. I started

making some of the music videos for The Defiant and it got to the point

where he was like, could could you help me set up a show in

New Hampshire. So we did a little acoustic show this past fall, So

Dicky and Johnny Rio came out and it was a great little show. SOA

played, we had a couple other bands play as well, and while he

was here, I brought him into my family is home. We did some

rehearsals and stuff like that, and I said, hey, Dicky, I

have this song. Would you be interested in just providing some lyrics for it?

And he was all in yeah. And he has been so supportive of

me as a person. He's so supportive of everyone, and it's been very

nice to you know, to work with him on a professional and a personal

level. And I have to say I went on this tour with The Defiant

and I was unsure of how it was going to go because, like I

said, these past few years, he's gotten a lot of hatred online.

Yeah, I went out into the real world. I did these shows and

the outpouring of love and support from everyone who came in was unreal. And

it kind of clicked with me last month that the hatred you see online on

the internet is not indicative of the real world situation at all. Yeah.

True, I think, Yeah, I agree, because I think that,

you know, people are well. For one thing, people will say things

to each other online that they would never say never, never ever, because

they're hiding behind a glass wall. They're not really interacting with that person,

right, so they can say whatever they want without you know, any consequence.

Yeah, in the real world, there is so much love. And

it was like, I can't tell you how refreshing it was to go and

meet these people face to face have genuine conversations. I had people who said,

you know, I got the COVID shot and I was like, and

they had this idea that like Dicky would be disappointed in them for that,

and I was like, no, that's not what it is at all.

We all have our own decisions, we all did our own things, and

we can still unite and be together as one in a harmonious union, you

know, like we people didn't make that decision out of ill will for anybody.

It wasn't like, oh, I'm not getting this shot because I want

to create like drama. It was never that right. People had their own

reasons, and I just I think that it was hard for people to understand

that you could, you know, make that decision and still have love in

your heart and like, you know, so being out on the road and

seeing that compassion and love from the real world, it was just it was

a dream come true, to be honest with you. Yeah. Well,

plus I would imagine too, as we get further away from the pandemic,

you know, people have I mean I don't want well, I don't want

to get into it, but I you know, I had. There were

there were points where I was pretty angry with people and how they were they

were responding to it, we were going through it, and I've you know,

I've let some of that. I think I think a big thing was.

It was very hard for all of us at that time. It was

a very difficult place. It was unprecedented. We had none of us had

ever been in a situation like that. Yeah, you don't expect a plague.

No, no, you don't. You don't. And everyone reacts to

these situations differently. And I think the biggest thing for me is that if

somebody's doing something with ill will and ill intention, then maybe you should say,

hey, let's write. But a big thing for me is never write

somebody off. Somebody could have an opinion that you don't agree with necessarily,

but casting them aside and not having a conversation will always let them have that

idea in their head. If you want to help somebody grow, you want

to help the world grow so we can have a more unified idea of how

we should be going about things. You have to have conversations, Yeah,

and civil conversations, not shooting hate out at people. You need to talk

in a civil manner. Its spread love and believe it or not, people

who might have ignorant viewpoints on either side of the political spectrum, you can

help them grow. You can help them say hey, you can help them

learn. You know what I mean, and that was one thing that was

a big frustration, and that's why I wrote this song, because I wanted

to bridge the difide and say, hey, we can come together and if

we spread love, we're going to have a better future. If we spread

hate, we're going to be the same place we were four years ago.

Yeah, And I think that. Yeah, And I think you're onto something

too, and that you know, as you were talking to I was thinking

about, you know, it's I feel like it's easier than ever for people

to you know, as you put you know, write people off or or

I was thinking, you know, people just will will throw somebody away just

based on on a different difference of opinion, and you know, much better

to you know, I mean, I don't I don't worry about trying to

convince anybody to believe what I believe. But but I do enjoy engaging in

dialogue with people. Yes, you know, I mean, there are there

are some things, you know, obviously on the extreme end of things that

you just where you have to say, Okay, I don't think I can

associate totally totally with this individual, but but I think, but I think

it's gotten far too I think it's there's almost a laziness to it in people,

I think, where they say, Okay, this person, I don't

agree with this person politically, so I'm just going to write them off because

I don't even want to engage with them. And I'm guilty of it too.

I think we all are. But but I think but I think,

uh, I think it's it's gotten easier than ever for people to you know,

it's why because when people talk about how divided we are, well,

we've always been divided politically, sure, but but the division is is in

the lack of interest and dialogue. Yes, and I think it's just more

present nowadays. We've always been divided, but the Internet amplifies that. Yeah,

it's easier for people to just you know, spread that hatred. And

yeah, for me, like I have friends who love Biden. I have

friends who are probably going to vote for Trump this year, and I might

not agree with either of them. I might not. You know, I

certainly don't love Trump at all, never have. I haven't been too happy

with Biden these past few years. But I'm not going to judge somebody based

on who they vote for, you know what I mean. It's like you

can have your reasons, as long as you're not trying to put anyone down.

If you're like, if you are trying to harm somebody in your decision,

that's where I draw the line. Yeah, but if you're making a

personal decision because you have your reasonings, we can still be friends. Right.

I might not agree with you, but I'll still be your friend.

It's okay, you know what I mean? Yeah? Exactly, yeah,

well said, well said, Well, I think we should. So you

brought your guitar. I'm dying to hear you play live. Well, let's

do it. What now? What are you gonna are these? Are these

songs that you haven't played here before? Or what are you going to play

for us? So? I was going to do an original and I was

going to do a cover. Okay, I don't know if I've played this

one live, but I was going to play my song called Soda. I

might have done it before. I can't remember at this point, but it's

a I know we did the world radio premiere last fall for this song.

So okay, I figured, why don't I do a little acoustic rendition?

Oh cool, cool, very cool? If you're just joining us. Casey

Darren from Soda is here with us live in studio. We did the world

radio premiere for the new track Division Line, and Casey's going to play a

couple live for us. Let me see, I got to bring those other,

not those other, that other make up to. When you're ready,

Casey, just go ahead and strum a little for us, so make sure.

Oh that sounds nice? All right? I think we're I think we're

good. Whenever you're whenever you're ready, just go for it. Yeah.

This is a song from my EP Love Hate that I released last fall.

It's a song called Soda. This is a band called Soda. The web

o Blas can be hot to keep track of. You're in your head and

your spinning your fortune. It's not enough to know you've got them all tricked.

You tangle it up and it makes them so sick. One misstep and

you've lost your footing and now you don't even know who you're HEARDing. Could

be them, it could be you. What does your heart tell you to

do? You poison no water, poison no order. But I'll be fair

hide you poison no order, poison no order. Yeah, I'll be fair

hide. I don't care what you've done to me. I'm just so mad

you heard my family. I don't care what the love was true. I

know what to not that I can do looking back, the water was cleaned

it that'll makes sense why you dessop? Now it's turned the deep mis red

so red the mother lies and blood you shed. It trickles down from your

fair It's polling faster. And were well aware no loving soul could live like

you did. I just hope you found what your me. You poison the

water, poison the water, lobby famine, you poison the water, poison

the water. It was your, not Mahinde. You poison the water,

poison the water, the lobby fahide, poison the water. A poison the

water. It was just not mahd You poising no water again, you poising

no wader, my friend? Whoa whoa, whoa, whoa boys in the

water, boys in the water. But I'll be fa hide poison the water,

poison the water. Now you're not mad? I very nice, very

nice, Casey Darren of the band Soda, and that song is called Soda,

correct? Can you tell us again the story behind that? So I

was at a very tumultuous point in my life around that time, I was

going through a pretty terrible breakup and it kind of shattered my whole world.

I did not see it coming, and I was just completely devastated in a

really dark spot. And this is one of the first songs I wrote,

and it really so deformed as a self healing project to get me out of

that darkness. And I took all my pain, I took all my sadness,

and I channeled it into the music. So everything you hear lyrically is

very raw. This was written, I think probably within days of everything crumbling

down, and my goal was I never wanted to write anything with hate in

my heart. Everything was out of love and every thing was I didn't want

to ever point fingers. I was always like, I want to rise above

this. I'm gonna express my emotion, but I am going to try my

best to keep spreading love the best I can. So the name Soda comes

from the the Old Testament. Not a religious person, but I kept hearing

the phrase poison the water in my head and I thought that's kind of interesting.

I like that kind of sounds like it could be something from the Bible.

So I looked it up. I look poison the water and I found

out that a soda is this ritual that was given. It was a trial

of the poison water that was given to somebody that was accused of adultery.

They drank the water and they survived. They were not they were not an

adulterer. They were fine. But if they died, it was like,

well they had it coming, you know. Yeah, And I just thought

it was so on the nose for what I was going through at that time.

I was like, wow, to have that kind of like come into

my head. Maybe I'm a little spiritual, I don't know, but it

just seems so serendipitous that I was like, I think that's a cool song

name. And then I said, you know, it could be a cool

band name too. So I went on Spotify. Nobody else was called soda.

I'm like, well, okay, now I kind of have to do

it because it's so hard to find a band name nowadays, right right.

So yeah, so that's where that song came out of. All Right,

Uh, you want to you want to go and play another one while I've

got the I've got the levels that were I think they're good, beautiful.

Yeah, I'm gonna do one more. This is an old cover. I've

played this since the beginning of Soda as well. It's a personal favorite.

I love the band The Violent Fems. Yeah, so this is a band

off their first record called kiss Off Nice. I need someone, a person

to talk to, someone who cares to love, good, to be you,

could it be you? Situation gets rubbed and asked out the panic,

it's not enough, it's just a habit. Kid, you're sick, Well,

Darland, this is it. You can all just kiss off into the

air. But I'm my back. I can feel them stair. They're me

bad, but I don't mind. They are me bad. Yeah. They

do it all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah they do it all

the time. Yeah yeah, yeah they do it all the time. Do

it all the time. Yeah, they do it all the time, do

it all the time. I hope you know this will go down on your

personal record. Oh yeah, Well, don't get said distressed. Did I

happen to mention? I'm impressed? W dude, very good. Take one

one one because you'll left me and two to two for my family, had

three, three three from my heart ex and four four four for my headaches,

and five five five for my only and six six six for my sorrow

and seven seven no no, no, no tomorrow and eight eight I forget

what it was for but nine nine nun for the lost content, turn ten,

ten, ten for everything, everything, everything everything, you you know,

this kids sping in the air. I'm up back, I can field

themselves. They only bad but not oh man, they only bad. You

had to do it all the time. Yeah, yeah, you had to

do it all the time. Yeah. Yeah, he had to do it

all the time. Do it all the time. He had to do it

all the time. Do it all the time. You had to do it

other time. Ta ta to U U time. Very cool, Thank you

so much, Thank you. Are they still Are they still around? Are

they still touring? Oh yeah, original lineup and anything. My girlfriend and

I we just saw them this past fall and they did the first record in

its entirety, front to back. Yeah. They all still sound exactly the

same, no kidding, Yeah, Gordon Gayano, the singer voice has not

changed in the past forty years. Incredible concert, so good. Oh no

kidding, Oh wow, very cool. If you're just joining us, Casey

Darren from Soda which is s O T a H is joining us here at

Live in studio. He played a couple songs for us, and earlier we

did the world radio premiere of the new track division Line. Now is that

by the way, So Divisional Line? Is that going to be? Are

you doing an album or an EP with that? Or what's the well that's

it's just gonna be a standalone track. I felt that the concept matter of

that song, I didn't want to do a whole album of that. I

had one song to you know, channel my frustration into. I just didn't

want to do a full album of that. I have an album that's written

that I'm hoping to record this fall, maybe early next year. There's no

really set plan for it yet. That you know, is a different subject

matter. So I figured division Line would just be good as a standalone single.

And having Dicky Barrett on it, I was like, that's nice to

have its own little page in history. Yeah, and did you say there's

a video too? So last night we did a world video premiere at Chunky

Cinema pub right down the street. Oh yes, yes, and it was

incredible. Do you mind? Have I talked a little bit about that?

Oh? Please do? Yeah? Yeah. So I put together a little

fundraiser and video premiere for the song division Line. I raised money for the

Jason our Flood Memorial, which I have been a part of since its inception.

To give you a little insight on that. The Flood family from Darry,

New Hampshire lost their son Jason to suicide back in twenty sixteen, and

he was eerily similar to me. He loved the same music. He loved

the Mighty Mighty Boss Tones. I'm a big fan of the Muppets, like

this my one weird thing about me. Well, there's many weird things about

me, but one of them is that I love the Muppets, and Jason

also had this passion for the Muppets. So my old band, After Image,

we played the very first Pizza Stock event, which was formed by the

Flood family. Jason had always said that he wanted to have a day long

festival where they played music and ate pizza. So the Floods did that in

his honor, I want to say, in twenty seventeen, the summer after

he died, and for them it was going to be a one off thing,

and then they saw the love and support from the community that they said,

maybe we could make something bigger with this. They turned it into a

nonprofit. The Jason R. Flood Memorial, and they have since put on

I think we're uh, We're about to do Pizza Stock eight this summer.

So they are wonderful people. They have been a supporter of me my music

since the beginning. I love them. If you're listening, Doug and Danielle,

really you have changed my world and I'm so appreciative for you. So

last night we did a fundraiser and their benefit as well as a movement called

the Choose Love Movement. So twelve years ago, Scarlett Lewis lost her son

Jesse in the Sandy Hook shooting. Oh wow, he was in second grade.

And instead of you know, leaning towards many destructive things, she said,

how can I make this positive? Incredible? She decided to create the

Choose Love Movement, which basically has the idea that if you instill love,

compassion and empathy in children at a young age, which is something that I

think most people are born with love, but it takes a little bit of

learning to learn empathy and compassion. If we instill that in young kids,

we show them how other people feel when you make certain decisions channel in your

emotions. How would you feel in that situation? And it's teaching social emotional

growth in learning in young students. And the idea is that as time goes

on, if they have this love and this compassion and empathy in their hearts,

they're probably not going to lean towards destructive paths, whether it be drugs

or suicide or the unimaginable things with that happened with school shootings. It's this

idea that if we can teach that and let people know that they have a

place in this world, that they are cared for, that they are loved,

that we can create a better world. And I found this message so

inspiring and so in line with the song division line that I said, I

need to get them to be a part of this in some way. So

the New Hampshire state representative for the Chews Love Movement was there last night.

She gave a really wonderful speech explained what Cheos Love Movement is. And I'm

so happy that we raised five hundred dollars last night for both groups, so

I'm going to be donating that to both of them. Cool. And then

after that we had a nice series of acoustic performances. We had Rags to

Stitches there from the area. We also had a band called Porcelain Jumpsuit and

then we did an acoustic set. Last night with Soda. We had a

big, nice video presentation where we premiered the music video. We made a

couple of silly trailers, parody movie trailers, and then we also had videos

from the Jason R. Flood memorial Choose Love, and I made this motivational

video that explains what division Line is about and how you know that message of

unity, compassion and love. So it was a great night. I was

expecting we had to hit fifty people. That was like Chunky said, you

got to get people in this door. I'm like, I was getting nervous.

You know, Soda is a newer band for me. I've been in

the music scene for about eight years, and you know, you build momentum

with one band, and after eight years of being in one band, we

got to that level where we could host our own show. So it has

been around for realistically we've been around for three years, but actively we've been

it's been the past year. We've been really active. So I didn't know

how it was going to go. Yeah, I was like, well,

we'll probably get fifty. I'm so happy to say that we had over one

hundred people attend last night. Awesome, it was. It was sold out

and I am just over the moon that the love and support from everyone that

came in was unreal. It just gave me a lot of gratitude and satisfaction

knowing that, you know, this music thing, it might be for me.

Yeah, I think it's something I want to do for the rest of

my life. So anyone who attended last night, seriously, thank you so

much for being there. From the bottom of my heart, every single person,

it meant so much that you were there to support. So it was

a great event. Yeah, that's excellent. Excellent. Now, the video

for Division Line is Dicky Barrett in the video. He is in the video,

So while I was on tour with him in the Defiant, we actually

recorded all of his video parts in a hotel room. Kidding, but I

put enough layers and filters on it that you can't even tell at all.

So we did that, and then Dicky was kind enough also to record a

little intro video, so we had a little intro before the video last night

where he introduced the video and he thanked everyone for being at the event.

He's a really nice guy. He's very down to earth, compassionate, and

he's always been a supporter of small artists from their inception. He's always been

bringing out small bands that you know, might not be well known. He's

always been that way. He took me out on a whim with the Defiant.

He knew that this is what I want to do with my life.

He knew that I hadn't been on a tour before. The whole time I

was on this tour, he had a text thread going to my family.

He was taking pictures of me the whole time so they could feel included in

that we could document this exparience. Oh wow. He kept calling it the

punk rock School, and every time I made a slight mistake he jokingly said,

okay, that's a demerit. But in the end, I do think

I passed the punk rock School. So it was a lot of fun and

he's a very good person. That's fantastic. Yeah, excellent, excellent.

Now, so what's next for Soda? Yeah, so right now, we

have a show planned in August. I don't like to overload us too much

with local shows because, as you can imagine, you do a local show

once every month, less and less people come, So we're gonna have We're

doing a festival in New Bedford. It actually has not been announced yet,

so I'm kind of spilling the beans a little bit, but we're playing a

festival in August. I believe it's August third in New Boston, New Boston,

New Hampshire. And it's gonna be a great day of music. I

think there's gonna be all sorts of raffles and food trucks and fun like that.

And we will be introducing our official lead guitarist very soon. It's been

a long time coming. We've had many fill in lead guitars for the entirety

of this band, but we very soon we will be announcing our full final

line up. Oh I'm very excited. If you went to our show at

the Shaskiine, you might have caught a little glimpse of what our lineup is

going to be. So we've got a lot on the way. I'm hoping

to hit the studio this summer. We've got another single that we demoed out

I'm hoping to record. I'm hoping to get that out. Tons of more

music on the way. Like I said, I probably have thirteen fourteen to

fifteen songs written, ready to be demoed out and ready to get into the

studio. So where do where do you record? By the way, where

was Division Line recorded? Division Line was recorded over at right across the street

at the Manchester Music Mill. Oh, black Heart, Blackhart down with Eric

Seuter. Yeah, we had Eric on the show. I watched that episode.

Yeah, it was great. Yeah, he's a really nice dude and

I actually had him and the former lead guitar player of Baft Image, Brandon

Cursio, helps me with the mixing, mastering and engineering. Excellent. I'm

I'm not sure where I'm gonna go in the future for recording. I I'm

always trying to challenge myself, so I've done the local level thing for a

few years now. I want to branch out. I want to do bigger,

bigger and better. So we'll see where that takes me. This summer,

I'm I'm actually gonna be going on tour as tour manager with a local

reggae artist named Joe Samba. Phenomenal guy, and he does a lot of

producing and we've had talks and maybe we'll do something. Maybe we'll do some

sort of collaboration in the future. With him, so we'll see the future

is an open book and I'm excited. Excellent, excellent, And where should

people go online to keep up with everything that you're doing? So I'm on

everything every single social media outlet that you can imagine. If you look up

Soda band, s O t a H Band, I'm on Instagram, Facebook,

we have a YouTube page, we have we have a TikTok what else

do we have? Everything? Everything? We're on Spotify, Apple Music,

all the streaming sites. So if you want to listen of the new song

again, please go listen to it. It's live, up and running on

all the streaming sites. If you want to see the music video that's up

on YouTube featuring Dicky Barrett and some of those fun trailers that we premiered last

night, I will eventually be uploading on YouTube, so keep an eye out

for those as well. Very good, very good, Well, thank you

so much for coming in today. We're gonna play We're gonna play one of

these other songs. Actually I'll let you pick for which one you want us

to close with. Well, let me let me ask you. Are you

looking for a more a punk song or do you want a ska song?

Punk all right, well, you know what, let's split it in the

middle. Let's do better than you. It's a scott punk song. We'll

get both of us going here. We'll do better than you, all right,

Casey Darren, thank you again so much. Oh, thank you so

much. It is seriously always a pleasure to be on the show. You

do a great job, both of you, so thank you so much for

having me. Well, thank you. We appreciate that. And we're gonna

close with this. This is this is actually one of my favorite This is

better than You from Soda