Matt Connarton Unleashed: Heavy AmericA

Here's what we're gonna do because I see out in the hallway musicians, so

we're gonna get them in here. I'm gonna play a track of theirs.

This is called The Fall. We've got the world radio premiere their brand new

song. We're gonna hold off on that though until they're in the room,

but we're gonna play this track. It's called the Fall. I really like

this a lot. The band is Heavy America. Heavy America. Will be

here with us live in studio, stand like a mountain to spell side me

watching and didn't dispair. Oh no, look now we've done it. Cracks

falling. There one more ship to step back, free pair for the fall?

He stop falling? Dad done them? Uh? Con to things come?

That's well? Oh no, the system its falling. The cupboards are

bell one ball, ship to step back, three pair for the fall.

You happen like make your on STU got a thousand like the one left here,

He says something the more you and me to have not more sail.

Oh no, look now we done cracks fall replall stand back, rebel like

a mountain, no spell. Ah. So Scott, you who say call

sounds wh and tell me without single they left the list you they load you.

Come on, there's so pretty. I must have them all. Let

me free ser ull Come on, I cannot wan and I'll break them all.

They say you they let you another? Take us ring away? How

much more time you refrain? No mony, break out side lower, there's

no time. Don't the place someday still the time you wait? I mean

the sun out of the way. I don't want to leave this place.

I always come macation. You need to have a good time. Heard you

bof be back to zoom ay and you st stice. But there's a mother

boxes over there. Tho's not going to sell themselves, you know. Come

back to work. No More Heavy America joins us live in studio. Welcome

guys. Hey, hey, thanks for having us. And uh yeah,

and uh this is special because we're gonna be doing the world radio premiere of

a brand new single, which we're going to talk about in a moment.

But uh, let's uh, Mike, let's start with you. You're at

the news desk. Why don't you just tell us who you are and what

you do in the band. My name is Mike Sieguin. I am the

lead vocalist and guitarists in heavy America. Uh. I do a lot of

the audio engineering for the band. Oh cool when we record excellent, Uh,

pretty much most of the managerial skills, yeah, you know, they

come with it. Try to be a little bit of everything. Try and

take care of whatever needs to get done. That's what I'll tell you all.

Keep it all, you know. Yeah, yeah, there you go,

there you go, all right. I like that, keep it small,

keep it all. I like that. And on the couch, you

sir, I am Dan. I am the drummer of the band. Also

a little bit of singing, but mostly the drummer and percussionist. Okay,

and you I'm Bud and I play the bass all right. I'm a bass

player as well. So very nice, very nice. When you guys are

from Boston. Yeah, yeah, the band's based out of Boston. Excellent.

How was your drive? It wasn't too too bad. Yeah, there

was some rough spots, but yeah, this time of day it can be

a little dicey. Yeah. And with the weather too. Oh yeah.

The almost two hours to get and these guys know I'm used to the guy

always early. So we get here with a couple of minutes. Right up

front, like you normally do. Really always, that's our joker gigs.

I always get spot, I got the drums, got on equipment. I

always get the spot right off front of it. But we're looking for the

gig. Just look for dance cards. Yeah part of the gig. Yeah,

well with the drums. That smart? By the way, are you?

And this has been a trend on the show recently. It seems like

every band we have on the drummers in like ten different bands. Are you

in a bunch of different bands? Are you just in this one? We

are all in this one band, No kidding, we've all been in this

one band. So we're dedicated to this very cool, very cool. Yeah,

this is our band. Yep. Yeah, excellent, excellent and uh

everything. So we played a couple of tracks during the during the break,

but we're gonna play you know, a couple of your older songs. But

we have a brand new you have a brand new single, I should say,

yes, we do, called Pretender and uh, this is the world

radio premiere, right nobody's uh, nobody's heard this yet, that's correct.

Yep, this is the first time it's been on public years. ACT just

got it back from mastering last weekend. We figured what better place to show

it off than Yeah, yeah, oh we love it. We love it

great? Uh thing we should know about this before we hear it. Any

uh anything you want to tell us about it or uh no, no not

really, Just sit back and enjoy. All right, very cool? All

right, let's give you this a listen and then we'll come back and talk

with these guys some more. This is the brand new single from Heavy America.

This is called Pretender by Spit sell the food down but the pretender now

they the means no surander, come come click Camp thousand one. Fine about

the room set the world of Fire told the pool with patients to spare,

but your eyes gone everywhere? Come come on not Shaygenda said, no,

Calenda the picture Joe Jane swear sid I can on the other side. So

it all getting him, so wat up and start all over the gam Now

that's shade. You heard it here first. Pretender. That is a brand

new single from Heavy America. And we have Mike, Dan and Bud here

with us live in studio and great great stuff. So uh so where do

you record? You do this all? Mike? You said you you handle

the audio engineering and everything. Yeah, we do all the recording ourselves right

at our rehearsal studio and bill rick A Mass We've been there since twenty fifteen.

Yeah, so we've done a pretty good job of you know, getting

the place all soundproofed and you know, cables run and everything, and it's

i mean it's a down and dirty recording studio, but it definitely gets a

job done. And it saves us thousands at all, oh, no doubt.

Yeah, you know, and we live in a time and I've talked

about this with a lot of guests on the show over the years that you

know, we live in a time where you've got so many different options in

terms of how you approach recording. You know, you can you can go

to a recording studio, you can build your own, you can you have

a very small setup in email tracks back and forth. I mean, it's

amazing all the different ways you can do it now. Yeah, and before

we go any further, by the way, too, these guys, now

I did not open this yet or look at it for those of you watching

online. Oh there's a sticker too awesome, But these guys brought me a

shirt, the brand brand new Heavy America shirt oh, nice, very nice.

Yea, we went with a tan with black this time instead of a

black T shirt. The last six runs of T shirts have all been black,

so no, we changed it up a little bit. I was just

thinking, I think that's cool because everybody does black T shirt exactly, so

that's something different. I like it. Yeah, that looks really good.

You can wear that to a formal event too. There you go, there

you go. No, that is awesome. Thank you guys. That is

that is fantastic. Who designed the logo? I really dig the logo we

did. What font is that? It's called Madison square in size Okay,

yeah, it took a long time to find that really. Yeah. Yeah,

well you want something to be original and to carry the the you know,

through time. So yeah, yeah. Can you guys talk to me

about influences because it's you know, we we listened to that track and then

I went and I listened to some of your others because I wanted to play

some others too, as we did during the break and hard to pin you

guys down. There's you know, you got kind of a I don't know,

it's it's raw, it's it's kind of you know, kind of a

stripped down sound, but the melodically it gets weird. There's twists and turns

you don't expect, and it's really cool, especially that track Vacation is a

great example of that. But can you guys just talk to me about influences

and what I assume there's a lot of diversity there. Yeah, yeah,

there is. All three of us grew up in homes that were, you

know, full of music. My dad, you know, grew up in

the late sixties, early seventies, so I had access to his album collection

when I started learning how to play guitar at like thirteen, Yeah, and

so a lot of my early influences were from that late sixties early seventies.

I think Dan too, Yeah, And I came from a musical family and

my brother was always in a band ahead of me, in one of the

big bands and not where I grew up in Connecticut, so growing growing up

in all that classic rock. So it was definitely a classic rock thing.

The funny thing with us is we never really sit down even when we did

this and talked about sound influences. Yeah, it's an odd thing. We

just kind of brought the music and we never spent a lot of time saying

you know, what do we need to sound like? Or who? Who

really came from where? It's kind of an amalgamation, so we we tried

to avoid it. And yeah, you know, we're all pretty seasoned musicians.

We've been around for a little while. And I mean it's not just

music that's an influence, you know, in your music meeting other music,

but it's it's everything, you know, It's all all things you come across

on a daily basis can influence you in some way. So yeah, I

I never liked the idea of pigeon holding yourself to one thing, you know.

And we a few years ago got described as every genre of rock by

a review that was done of us, and I saw that on your website.

I kind of liked it. Yeah, I was like, that's true,

you know, and that it's when you played theations that mentioned that that's

kind of quirky. And that song when we released it that the guy person

that did the review on that song tagged us as psychedelic, progressive hot Brad

and I like that too. I think that's pretty good too. But you

know, we do we like to we like to stretch our own talents too,

you know, so we we're always challenging ourselves as musicians. So if

you hear one of our songs go off on some wacky key change or time

signature change, just because we probably decided to challenge ourselves. Yeah. Yeah.

Has the sound changed over time or has it always been a little bit

Yeah, yeah, it's it's become more us. Yeah, you know,

you can still hear all of our you know, our influences, but it's

our sound is becoming more us, you know. I'd say in the past

probably two or three years, we've really started to get our own sound,

and yeah, that was the goal. Yeah, I think the other thing

where we've become much better at building songs. We might Mike as obviously our

our fearless leader when it comes to bringing music, but sometimes it can start

at a rehearsal. Right, we can we come up with stuff, but

a lot of times Mike comes with a couple ideas. But the three of

us really contribute. But I we you know, I think more lately now

than we did in the beginning, we spent a lot of time building a

good song. I think earlier on it's whatever came to you and you kind

of accepted that and then you you might have tweaked it, but we spent

a good amount of time working through songs now to make sure the parts fit.

It's interesting, listenable and uh yeah, and then we're proud of it.

Yeah. And they never really done you know, like we've gone back

and we just did it for a swarmy fest. We took a song that

was eight years old and chopped a minute and twenty seconds out of it.

Oh yeah, just because we didn't like that part anymore. Yeah, you

know, but we're not you know, we're not afraid to hack up our

own music. And well, it keeps it interesting, right, It kind

of renews something. That's that's uh. You know, if you take an

old song and you kind of do it just differently, it's like it's a

new song. Yeah. And plus, you know, you improve as a

player and you want to put you know, you want your new chops in

your old songs, right right. Uh. Chris from the band Edgewise says,

I heard some big Elf in their Great Bay Side band. Do you

know them Big Elf? I don't. I don't think I do either.

I don't know. It sounds kind of familiar, but I'll have to check

them out. Though, I'm curious, has it always been the three of

you in this band? Interesting enough, we started, as we need to

start as this band as a four piece, but we were a four piece

and we started together on a project together. These guys have known each other

forever, Okay, they knew somebody else that I'd been playing drums with.

We started out on a project to do a studio recording of old songs they

had done way back when. It kind of resurrects some of them. And

then after that we three wanted to stay on and continue on. That's how

you know I was born. Yeah, but we you know, at that

time we had it was a singer and Mike wasn't singing, and then Mike

said, now I'm picking up singing dudies. We're like, okay, let's

let's see how that goes. But we love a three piece. That's our

that's our bag. Yeah, it's when you can it's hard. I mean

you can execute and record what you know, play what you recorded, and

like saying, singing lead and playing guitar, and it works. It's great.

Yeah, yeah, I imagine. I mean it's easier in some ways

too, right, if you have if there's only three of you, because

the bigger the band, the more you have to work around, you know,

the more people whose schedules you have to work around for rehearsals and for

shows, and so the three piece that must be pretty streamlined. I would

think, yeah, it is. Yeah, And you know, we we

all think the same when it comes to music, and I don't. We've

never had an argument. Yeah, in the eight years that we've been in

a band together, we've never had an argument. It's it's just it's beyond

that, you know. I think that's what about you know, when you're

talking about adding another person, has it come up like a couple of times?

Could you imagine if we had a keyboard player or something like that.

No, because that the relationship we have just works. So it's just not

worth even screwing with. Yeah, it makes sense. Yeah, yeah,

while we're in a ye, are any of these songs difficult to to recreate

live? Do they change it all live? Because what you've recorded is difficult

with just the three of you? Or no? We we we always try

whatever we put on record, we we try to make sure that we can

replicate that live. And we and we don't use any backing tracks. When

you see us, it's literally you're hearing the three of us raw playing no

backing tracks. Well, we we want to make sure that we can reproduce,

you know, live, So there's there's a few small things like if

you're here in the fall, uh, there's a little piano key thing in

the back. But you know, there's little accents that we may do in

the recording studio, but we'd never record or use any instruments that we can't

use live. Okay. Chris from Edgewise just shared a link to Big Elf

in the Room. I want to see if it I'm going to have to

listen to that. I want to see if it loads up here. It's

for some reason my internet here is running very slow. But yeah, I'm

just curious to hear just a little bit of this because you guys are are

unique and I couldn't think of anyone you sound quite like. So it's it's

interesting that let me see here, turn this up, see what we get

here? Reason just buy. Let me go a little further and I oh,

there we go. That's a song. That's a song called money.

It's pure evil. I'll have to listen to that later. It does sound

interesting. It does sound interesting. I'd have to listen to a little more

myself to try and hear us. And yeah, do you guys, how

many songs do you have because you've you've been together? What what eight years?

Just eight years? We got right now? I think twenty eight originals?

Okay, okay, do you do any covers or no covers? But

we do medley of of some covers? Oh okay, yeah, but with

no vocals? Well really yeah, and it's just the hooks, yeah,

you know, but it's about thirteen or fourteen different songs that we just took

all the hooks of them and jammed them in a one six and a half

minute long Now it's free break, is the way Mike. You know,

we're not doing it this weekend, so it's fine. I can talk about

it, not taking away the surprise. But the way Mike always explains is,

you know, we could tell you what our influences is but are but

instead we're gonna show you. Yeah, and literally we all contributed, like

here's three songs I want to do, three I want to do. We

kind of cobbled it together and they're all snippets and the hardest part was sewing

them all together and it's it's every time we get done. Everybody's it says,

that's freaking genius. Yeah, and it's it's a highlightment. But you

know that's our covers, you know. Yeah, yeah, very nice.

We should, Uh I'd like to play another song. So I listened to

obviously, you know, we did, we premiered the new song, but

I also listened to a bunch of your other uh your other songs online,

and uh, I think we should. We should get one more in and

then we'll come back and talk. We'll come back and talk some more.

But I already played the fall that was that was pretty cool. Oh crushed

we Uh I like calling you Tomorrow a lot. But that is a swear

in it. But yeah, but it's a killer. But yeah, that

is a great track. If I actually, if I had time, I

would have made a radio edit of it, because uh, I'm pretty good

at that and that is a great track. But uh, I also really

like this song crushed. That song did well in Europe, did it?

Yeah? Yeah, we got a lot of press out of London. Oh

no kidding with that song. Yeah, it more did way better over in

England than it did here in the United States. I mean, were obviously

have rock stars or anything. It got a lot more press in in online

play and terrestrial play in England than it did. He interesting, any idea,

why do you know, do you have any idea what it is about

it that caught on there or I don't. I mean, we released it

in the summer, which is it does have kind of that bouncy summary type

feel maybe, and I guess it does have a little hint of English mixing,

like you know, the the tones in there are a little bit more

British than than probably didn't you'd hear it here. But yeah, we're just

happy people liked it. I don't know, I don't care if you're from

Zimbabwe. If you like that song, it's great with me. Man.

By the way, Melanie said in the chat room, that must be annoying

being more successful in another country. Yeah, no, it's pretty cool that.

I mean, I don't know, I think it's cool that. Uh.

And again it's the time that we live in too, you know,

whereas you know, pre internet, you know that that really would be pretty

unlikely or if something like that did happen where you have something that catches on

somewhere else you might not ever even know about it. You know, if

your band has a good online presence, I mean, chances have more than

eighty percent of your fans are going to be from somewhere else, right right,

you know, it's it we made. We knew the importance of that,

like real early. I mean, you can you can play your local

scene, and you should as much as you can. Yeah, but I

mean it's not like the nineties where that's what you were limited to, right,

Like you had to physically leave to get people to know you. Right,

you can you write a song now you can the whole world can hear

it exactly. And we chose a different path. I mean, yeah,

we've all played out in bands and played out and done. You know,

we're more into getting our music heard now than just going out and playing clubs

around here. And Mike's done an amazing job of figuring out how to get

your music out there. So yeah, you know, Mike's got the numbers

and we were viewing some time. You're amazed where your music gets played,

yea. And I just think getting it out there and having people listen to

it is what makes us happy less than, not less than you know,

playing out is great and we'll do it. We'll do it whenever. But

knowing that people are listening, you're getting hits around the world is pretty cool.

Yeah, yeah, that is that is well, let's let's give this

a listen. So this is called Crushed, and then we'll come back and

talk with these guys. Some more Heavy America is with us live in studio.

But this is Crushed, caught it on a limp. Come flee jesus

On, say your word. I'll say you got a promise you come here

soon. No, lock, can't sleep, don't trot in on it to

deep it up. Flee jesus On. Wanker, wain no thing you father

thing, no day to forget it up to s come to me. I

got something I thought you should see about the bad time. Show me your

little show you bad birt, Sweet jesus On, what way? No thing

about my lie in here? They didn't know, sir. Crush, Sweet

jesus On. Wish you to say crush. You're making me sell you no

company? Say you know where no company? Crush. Yeah that is catchy.

That is Crushed. The band is Heavy America and they are with us

live in studio. Tom Blanchard is in the chatterman says, good song,

cranking it up. You guys were we were talking off air, there's a

there's a video for that that you said was was pretty fun to shoot or

interesting to shoot. I haven't. I haven't seen the video yet, but

I guess all your singles have videos. Yeah. Yeah, every every song

that we published we do a video for, which is why Pretender hasn't been

published yet because we're doing the video for it right now. Excellent. Yeah,

then once that video is done, then that song will be published.

But yeah, we we try and shoot a video for every song. We

work with a videographer who's a great friend of ours, does an awesome job.

His name is Frank Avinie. If anybody's looking for a good videographer,

look him up on Facebook, Frankavinie. But yeah, that the song Crush,

We actually did that video ourselves. Oh okay, and it was fun.

If if you watch the video, we're all laying on our back wearing

like white it out smart wearing white it Out costumes, and we kind of

green screened it, so there's all this activity going on like through our bodies

and in the background while we're playing the song, and it was It was

a lot of fun to shoot, and we edited it did all the editing

ourselves, and so that had a learning curve, but it was fun.

Yeah, that is cool. I'm I'm looking at it now. Yeah,

that's pretty cool. Yeah, trying to you know, you read about green

screen that we lay down this tarp and were lying on our backs and the

camera. You know, how do we get the camera above us and it's

just the three of us and you're you know, you got some help from

your family. We got an extension ladder with the camera tape duct taped to

a broomstick, you know, the funge you do a ladder hang over.

It was fun. Now, So what was the process like of I've never

worked with a green screen? Do you? How do you get You're pretty

much just in the editing software. You choose the color that you want to

mask, okay, and we wore white and we had so but the tarp

that we were laying on was blue, so we masked all the blue,

okay, and that became you know, the essentially the green screen. So

anything that was the color of that tart just gets replaced with whatever background image

you you put on it. Yeah, that is because of the suits that

we were wearing. It kind of bleeds through the arms and legs, and

yeah, it was it was just kind of an anomaly we didn't plan on

having. Yeah, we didn't plan on it, but it just added a

cool effect, you know. Yeah, that is really cool. Yeah,

I recommend everybody checked this out. Heavy America crushed. Look up the video

on YouTube. Not right now, wait till after the show, but yeah,

you got to. You gotta look this up. That's pretty cool.

That's pretty cool. So you so it's interesting though you're used to working with

a videoographer, but when but this one, you guys did yourselves, yep,

and it came out pretty amazing. Yeah. Yeah, we during twenty

twenty when everything shut down and you know, nobody was doing gigs, we

invested in a really good Nevo live streaming camera okay, and got you know,

some nice soft editing software to go with it. And that thing is

shoots in four K. Yeah, but it also it's got a two hundred

and eighty degree field of view and it actually has three different lenses in it,

so it looks like whatever you shoot was shot by three different cameras from

three different angles. But it's only one camera. Interesting, it's really really

cool and it'll do it all on its own. You can just pre set

for it to find faces and follow faces and really yep, you set it

up and just hit the top and do your thing and it it zooms in

and out and pans and does all kinds of cool stuff. Yeah, all

by itself. Oh, that's really cool. It was. It was well

worth the money. I don't even know if they make that camera anymore.

Really. Yeah, it was real short lived, but it was it was,

you know, worth the money for sure. Wow. Hans Smith of

SIS says Heavy America. I can't wait to see you on stage. Yeah,

we we missed you guys that live Love Laugh. You guys were playing

Saturday. We played Friday night. But and that was where was that?

That was in eleven and Maine at the end of August, the end of

this past August. What was the venue? Charlie Hill. Charlie Hill,

Okay, and a lot of people can't buy. You can do a two

day festival there and some people stay on if we wanted to stay on till

sorry, we have to stay there overnight camp bout. It was raining and

muddy, so we left and the next day, I guess was beautiful.

But uh, that's what you'res oun Yeah, I've been hearing a lot about

Charlie Hill. That's uh sounds like a lot. Sounds like a lot of

people are playing there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, very good. Do

you guys play out a lot? Are you doing a lot of shows?

Uh? Not really? We probably do about a half a dozen in a

year, okay, you know locally. If we have an opportunity to travel,

we will, But if we're just playing locally, it's usually about you

know, six times a year, okay, every couple of months. Yeah,

what's uh? Now, do you guys have a full album or do

you just release singles? No? We we did release a full album in

twenty seventeen called now Oh okay yeah, before that, oh here it is.

Yeah. Yeah. Our first release was a five song or five or

six song EP, yeah, just self titled. That came out in twenty

fifteen. Okay, in twenty seventeen we released a nine song album and then

from then on we've been releasing singles. Okay, and what goes into the

because that's another area too, where it's like, you know, you've got

so many different options nowadays, you know where you know, growing up,

it was like, you know, you put out an album and then you

go on tour, or you put out it or maybe an EP, although

I don't remember a lot of EP's grown up, but you know, somebody

might put out an EP and then go on tour and then make another album

or something. But now there's so many different ways you can do it,

and a lot of artists, actually, I really common trend that I've noticed

when talking to people on the show is artists will put out a series of

singles, like maybe one a month and then and then at a certain point,

those singles become part of an album. We did we did that?

Did you? Yeah? But the album is only off ed well, it's

a it's a physical CD, so okay, you can get it on our

website or at our shows. But it's it's just that it's nine of our

singles, okay, all put on one disc. Okay. We talked about

it early on, like how should we approach it after we did those albums

and we and you just called out, you said, ipore, it's it's

a different time. So we land that on a focus on you know,

coming up with anytime six songs we know that are new, come up with

a release plan. We probably do one every two months three months now,

yeah, I think, and uh, and really focus on good recording and

good solid releases, give them some air, yeah, and then move on

to the next but no more big releases of album. We learned an important

lesson with that album. When we released it. It took us ten months

to you know, not including writing the songs, but just just for the

recording and the mixing and the mastering and all the artwork and you know,

everything that goes into releasing an album. It took us ten months. Yeah,

and uh, what we found was we released that album six weeks later,

it was old news, you know, yeah, and ten months of

worse work should go a lot further than that, you know. Interesting,

So we we we figured out real soon that it doesn't matter if it's an

EP and album or a single, it's it's got to it has a very

short longevity, you know, where where you have maybe six to nine weeks

like from release date to really grab people's attention with this thing. So instead

of just you know, shooting it all off on one album right away,

we we learned that if you just release one single, you stretch it a

lot further, and it keeps your band relevant a lot longer. Yeah,

because every three months you're back in the press, right right, Yeah,

that makes sense, especially you know in the social media era. You know,

it's like you gotta feed that machine. Stead are so short exactly worth

giving them every thing all at once, right a little bit? Yeah,

no, that makes sense, that makes sense. And and the videos too,

you know. You know what's funny too about about that is I don't

know if you guys ever run into this, but there are there's some people

who, uh, if you talk to them, maybe they don't know much

about the maybe they don't pay much attention to the music industry or whatever.

But some people think that there there are no more music videos because you know,

MTV v H one they haven't played videos in so long and and and

a lot of people think it's it's kind of a dead medium, the music

video, and they don't realize that actually there's more music videos than ever.

I think it's we all agree it's a necessity. Yeah, I mean,

YouTube is the number one search engine for music, yep, you know,

and it are our publisher automatically sends our you know, posts on music to

our website, but it's just the audio. It's up to us to create

the video content. But it's so important when you can release your song,

and a lot of bands do and there's nothing wrong with just a stagnant image

of your you know, CD artwork or a lyric video. Yeah, that

lyric video. But you know, we want to keep it a little more

interesting. And you know where we we save a lot of money doing our

own recordings, so we're able to spend a little bit of money to get

a good video done. Yeah yeah, but you know it's also important to

have a promotional budget too. Know. We we plan on any time we

release a song, it's anywhere between one thousand to fifteen hundred dollars. We

a lot for promotion of that song across a whole bunch of different mediums,

you know, YouTube, Spotify, getting press, social media boosts and advertising

and all this other stuff. It's you got to invest a little bit if

you want to get your reach right, right, So yeah, no doubt.

How did you guys get involved with Swarmy Fast? If you did Stepsis

reach out to you, do you I actually reached out to them. We

followed each other online A couple of years back. We started following each other

because you know, we're same look music scene pretty much, and you know,

we try and support everybody we can, and I know those guys are

phenomenal and supporting other acts. Yeah, oh yeah, and so yeah,

we we you know, just watching each other's bands kind of grow. And

I saw a posting from New Hampshire Booking saying they was still looking for a

couple of bands for Swamy Fest. So I reached out to Melissa Yeah,

and I asked her if he he's still looking for another band, and she

said, yeah, yeah, we'd love to have you. So it was

it was just a post I saw online. I just got there first.

Yeah, yeah, excellent, excellent. And how long is your set on

Saturday? Do you know? Twenty five minutes? Yeah, twenty five minutes?

Yeah yeah, cool cool. Do you guys play obviously you've been around

a while. You said, what eight years? Eight years? Yeah?

Do you play songs that go all the way back to the beginning of the

band? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, we we We rehash our

set list constantly at our rehearsals. We get together once a week, but

it's for four hours yeah, and we you know, we'll take like a

half an hour dinner break usually in the middle, but we'll plow through fifteen

eighteen songs in a night. Yeah, and we we try and keep it

all fresh, because just because the song's eight years old doesn't mean you don't

you know, you shouldn't play it anymore. It's a great song, right

right, Yeah. Yeah. We love curating a new set list, or

at least set list used for a period of time, and then we work

hard on rehearsing a set list to make sure we can get through it right

right time, that it flows. We just enjoy doing that and then rehearsing

that. Yeah, literally, that's set a couple of times, you know.

Yeah. One of the songs we're doing that Swarmy fest Is, actually

was on a twenty fourteen demo Noki. Yeah, that songs you know,

nine years old. We're gonna play it. Yeah cool cool, Yeah,

Hans says, Sepsis is about discovery. That's the most powerful thing ever.

Yeah, very cool. And hello to Adam Slim in the Facebook live chat

and anybody in there I might have missed. Now, what what's up next

for you guys? After Swarmy fest. You have another show for later this

year. We're working right now with another band trying to book some a show

in the Austin Brighton area, but we were unsure of the of a date

just yet, but that that'll be sometime probably end in November, beginning of

December. Okay, okay. And then now there's Oh, I think you

mentioned it earlier. I can't remember if it was on air or off air,

but you guys are working as your videos for all the singles. You

guys are working on a video now for Pretender? Is that correct? Yeah?

Excellent? Yeah, the song, we just got it back from mastering.

Yeah, so you know we've decided we're happy with it. Yeah,

so we're gonna go ahead with the video production. But we haven't even broke

round with that yet, and that usually takes anywhere between four to five weeks

to complete. Wow, okay, are you going to be working with the

same videographer? Probably? Yeah, if we don't shoot at ourselves, we'll

be working with Frank Evinie again. Yeah, okay, okay, I'll have

to check out your other videos. But I don't know. When you do

it yourselves, it does seem to work out pretty well. I don't know

what crushed video is awesome. I don't know if you played the song tales

earlier, but I know it's one of the tracks that I sent you.

But Frank shot that video for us back in twenty nineteen or twenty twenty.

That one we haven't played. We'll probably end with that one. Actually,

that to this is still my favorite video. Yeah, oh, you got

to watch that because I just I'm proud he did such a great job he

did. He did an amazing job on that Vie Mike Mike game. A

great storyboard and you wonder how it's going to be consumed and executed, and

we knew where we're going to do it, but just Frank just masterfully,

Yeah, helped us get that you know out there. He's real good at

pulling the idea you have it in your head out and being able to understand

it, you know, which is tough sometimes, you know, like you're

trying to you're trying to explain to someone a storyboard that they have no idea.

He didn't even hear the song, you know, Okay, you know

they're like, is what we want to do? And right away he got

it. When you say storyboard, what do you mean exactly for people who

don't know, well, the lyrics of a song usually tell somewhat of a

story, you know, and so you we try and come up with a

storyboard, h if you will, like scenes to go along with the lyrics

in in the video. Yeah, Tales is a song about desperation, you

know, and solitude and you know, just having no hope. And he

did a great job of capturing that emotion with the video. And so like

the Crush video, obviously that's that has a long storyboard. Yeah, that

that song. To edit that was crazy. It's because that's a whole story.

Yeah yeah, oh, Mike, you did, you did, You

did a real storyboard. And we did the animated video, right, we

hired a young animator and in Generation Lame we hired uh this, when we

did the video for the song Generation Lane, we actually hired a local animator

to do a minute in forty six or forty eight seconds worth of animation and

that took almost three months just because it's all hand done. Yeah yeah,

and so we we really had to wait on that. Wow. And then

you know, on top of all the other video clips that get edited into

it and everything, I mean, and it's a long song. It's like

almost five minutes long, so it's it's like a mini movie. Yeah.

Wow, yeah, I'll have to check that out. That that was one

of the early ones, right generational. Yeah, that came out in twenty

twenty. Okay, oh twenty twenty okay, okay, cool. Cool,

And of course the website too for people who want to keep up on with

everything. You guys are doing Heavy America dot us correct, Yep, that's

correct. You can find us on Facebook, uh, Facebook slash heavy America.

We're on Instagram where everywhere. By the way, where does the name

come from? It's a cool name. Is the name of any meaning?

Or you know? I actually was not there when the name was conceived.

Dan was, so Dan's going to have to tell you the story. It

really comes to. We're at rehearsal at some point in Effett and uh,

it's basically the same incarnation of the band. But we went outside, sat

on a stoop afterwards, and some kids said, you know, I forget

whether he said do you have a name or whatever, and he's a kid

blurted out he said, you sound like like Heavy America. We're like,

what does that mean? Yeah? Like what does that mean. It was

just a joke. We just brought it back as we could never settle on

a name. And I said, this kid said that, you know.

Yeah yeah, and uh we loved it. Yeah yeah, like that's where

it came from a kid again, that's cool and went on his way.

Yeah, yeah, I guess it was. I guess it was meant to

be. It was fate. Yeah, no, it's cool. It's a

cool name. Is there any significance to the A at the end also being

capitalized or is it just posthetically looks better. Yeah, no, it's cool.

It's cool. All right, guys, thank you so much. It's

wonderful to meet the three of you. I can't wait to see you live

on Saturday. Mike, Dan and Bud from Heavy America. And we will

end with this track Tales. If you miss it again, go back and

listen. You'll hear the world radio premiere of Pretender from Heavy America, the

brand new single. But we'll end with this, gentlemen, thank you so

much. This has been wonder so much. Absolutely, and I will see

you Saturday. And here it is Tales from Heavy America. Nothing any more,

never, nothing more. This is what you've waited for be you think

back to base again. I happy you. You let the friend waiting watching

through the trees, not the box eat the one you one heavy, reproved

at drag my knees gotta see. I can barely breathe. So fun,

so fun. You're killing for what the count bonuing for that doesn't fall gets

the shot off. Trouble comes intos and trees. The only one, the

one gets the fun. You're John J jup. What is do? Se?

I can't fairly breathe

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