Matt Connarton Unleashed: Legion of Solace

Joining us on the program today. In this hour, we have Bruce from Legion of Solace. How are you, Bruce? I'm doing great, how are you very well? I have to tell you it's funny and I have to assume that you that you run into this sometimes. When when you first started showing up in our Facebook live chat during the show, I assumed Legion of Solace was a band. We do rut into that quite a bit. Yes and uh, and of course you are not a band, but you work with a lot of bands. Can you tell us about what you do?

Absolutely. We do a lot of marketing, advertising and promoted for local, independent and unsigned bands country wide worldwide. We have a audience on Facebook that spans US Canada as far around the world as Iceland, Germany, South Africa, Australia. And the best part about that is music is universal. It doesn't matter what link would you speak, you speak the language of music, right. So the international exposure is beautiful because some of these bands may never have that opportunity outside of their state.

And now people a thousand, two thousand and four thousand miles away are hearing our music for the first time, and it's our honor to do that we've become a networking hub. Some bands have actually played with others. They're starting to travel the country because they've met through us. For example, nail Bite out of Pennsylvania has come to Maine and played gigs with Sepsis. Sepsis has gone to Pennsylvania and played gigs with nail Bite because we were speaking. I was talking with Sepsis at one of their shows and I had a nail Bite shirt on and they were asking me about nail Bite because they had start where they were starting to hear a buzz about them.

A couple of years ago when they had first came out, they played Blue Ridge Rock Festival down in Virginia and for a teenage band, they just wowed everybody. So they're like, oh, well, so you know about nail Bite and I was like yeah, so they were wanting to get booking information as such. They also have gone down to Virginia and Stepsis has and played some gigs with a band called Dying Oath, and then they've come up to New England and that done some gigs to reciprocate, to reciprocate, and that it's just all about supporting the scene.

Our next step is to get through the red tape in New England and gets where we can start actually booking shows and providing stages ourselves. And right now, our biggest thing is we provide financial sponsorship directly to the bands and also to their events. So say they're two hundred dollars short for a round of merchandise for a year, we cover that two hundred dollars And all we ask in return is whenever you do an event flyer, you put our logo. You put our logo real small, like one inch by one inch on the corner somewhere.

Yeah. Yeah, you support us, We support you. Now you get your merch for your table. Everybody gets to make some money, right, yeah, excellent. How long is uh, how long has Legion of Solace existed? And how did it come into being? It came into being. Our founder and her husband are in Princeton, West Virginia. Our co founder is in Lynchburg, Virginia. That's Malcolm Malcolm Wood. Oh, yes, yep, and they We originally started as a mosh pit team bests, patch patches and everything. Yeah, and we had decided to move into the business room.

We were actually one of the title sponsors for the twenty twenty one Blue Ridge Rock Festival. Okay, there was one hundred and fifty six bands over four days. Oh wow, I want to say it was one hundred and forty thousand people total through the turnch files. Wow. So that great way to debut. Yeah. Yeah, And that was actually where we found nail Bite and a couple other bands. And it was at that point that we had decided, instead of spending that kind of money on a one off exposure that's going to the promoter and not to the band of musicians themselves, we should start aligning ourselves with the bands and musicians directly, start doing financial support that way.

Yeah, is that way? We know for a fact it's getting back to the local scene. It's not being absorbed into somebody's pocket. It's not going into a corporate budget. It's going into somebody's gas tank to get to the next gig. Right, Starting something like that and doing it, I feel like, I mean, I'm old enough of course to remember when you know, there was no Internet and when I first started being active in the music scene. I mean at that point we had MySpace that was like the first real, you know, online networking thing that was available to musicians and beyond that.

I mean, that was kind of it in the beginning for my experience. But I feel like, you know, it would be very hard to do what you're doing with Legion of Solace, you know, say, twenty years ago, because you know, just the Internet has given us this ability to you know, as you alluded to earlier, people from all over the world can hear music from anywhere else in the world, which is so we have that, but also in terms of promoting and networking, it seems like, you know, there was a time when to do what you're doing would have been close to impossible.

Really, Yeah, we do rely quite a bit on social media. And the beautiful thing about social media and its ability to promote is it has opened so many closed doors to the local music scene because there have been so many gatekeepers and industry standards in the way for so long that if you didn't look a certain way, sound a certain way, we're in a certain age demographic, you weren't going to get as much of a chance right at studio time or radio player getting out of your garage right. And if it's anything we know, anybody that's in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame started in somebody's garage.

Sure, so never give up hope. Yeah, I always say too. And I don't know how much you know about what I do professionally, but I'm a college radio promoter, so clients hire me to send their music to college stations. And what I tell everybody is, you know, I've I've worked on some projects that were pretty out of the pretty far out of the mainstream. But what I what I always say, and this has kind of been my point of view from the beginning, is that my theory is there's an audience for anything, no matter how strange, no matter how unusual, how outside of the instreament might be, no matter how quote unquote alternative.

Although that that term kind of became a catch hal during the you know, during the grunge era, for anything that wasn't hair metal but automatically was labeled alternative. But no, but I believe there's an audience for anything. It's just a matter of figuring out how to not so much connect directly with them because you don't know exactly necessarily where to go to connect with them, but this is how I think of it, but figuring out how to be in a place where they can find you because the audience is there no matter what it is you're doing, no matter how it might be very very niche, you know, but but it's the audience is there.

So so it's a matter of getting into a position where they can find you. And and the Internet of course has made that's much much easier, right, And that's partially where we where we're trying to come in is say you're a national touring act. You know, two weeks from now, you're going to be in a certain area and you just had an opening act back out, or you had a venus for an extra ninety minutes from your bill and need to need to book local support. That's when you come to Legion of soulis see who's on our Facebook page, who's posting, who's active in the area, and now they get to come open for a national act because they shared a video two weeks ago on Legion Legion Solist extended family page.

Yeah. Yeah, So anything and everything we can do to give support and exposure, that's what we're here for. Yeah, yeah, excellent. You mentioned Nail by It and you sent us some music to feature today, and that's one of the bands that you sent us. I think since we were talking about them, we should play one of their tracks? Which one should I mean, we'll probably have time to get both of them, but do you have a preferences there? Do they have a that they're pushing Their newest single is the Heart?

Okay, let's let's give that one to spend. And now you said they're they're really young. They're teenagers. Yes. The lead singer, Lana, I want to say, she's about to turn seventeen this year. Okay. The guitarist is in his early twenties. The keyboardist is actually Lana's brother and he'll be nineteen or twenty. Yeah, and the bassist is the guitarist's dad. So it's very much a family affair. And if I remember correctly, they might be looking for a drummer, as the former drummer just recently got engaged and as you would expect, changed his life priorities a little bit.

Yeah, he's still very much a friend of the band, part of the Nailbyte family. He's just kind of stepping away from the touring and such of it. Oh Okay. Whenever I hear something like that, I think of you remember the band Crossfade. I do like they were. They were huge for like five minutes because they had that song so Cold. Yeah, and then Tony Byrodes left the band because he got married. And it's like like you're you're you're famous, You're you're gonna throw all this away just because like you can't be married and be in a band at the same time, like like lots of famous musicians are married.

But for whatever reason, he's like, oh, I'm getting married, I gotta go. It's like, yeah, okay, sometimes you instantly prioritize like family related over musical related. Yeah, if if that's where your heart lies, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can't judge anyone's choices. But maybe his wife would have liked to have been married to a rock star, and all of a sudden you didn't want to be a rock star anymore. It's a weird, all right, Well let's give this a listen. So this is nail Bite, and this is called the Heart in the pasion of my first song play Feeling.

Then all my persons up, sue now, so I know the say goes fine and I can't break how to stay you know, and see my grade I don't know less notes. So when little the sign li spreak, my life still needing more pic in my soul, blow Park beats in the war, all the waters Iliams. So trust me out my home is as it can't be just we can't break out to say, see my grade. I don't know what John,

So you have me, you have me frog, my heart? Oh why why not? My my eyes mail c Yeah, I don't know why.

Their day goes by the praise. Oh that is really good. That is Nai nail bite. The track is called the Heart and we have Bruce here from Legion of Solis and Bruce you were saying, well, that track was play and that because okay. So you get to the part where the you know, the growling and stuff, and you think, okay, oh okay. So they also have one of the dudes in the band is Uh also does some vocals. And then you were telling us, no, that's Lana, that's all Lana. Actually both are true. Oh so the hire of the two dirt dirty Yeah, the cleaner of the two dirty vocals is actually the guitarist Johnny.

Okay. And then the deep guttural growl is coming from Lana, that deep voice that you hear. Yeah, yeah, has the dark side yeah. Oh, that's really cool. That's really cool. I love it. I love it excellent. Hey, how did you know? We're we're very close friends with Sepsis, of course, and they've been on the show many times and we love them. How did you get connected with them? They had a show a few years ago that was supposed to be opening for OTEP across across the street, Juli. Yeah, And when OTEP backed out because of COVID and everything, Stepsist reached out and asked if the bill could honor the date.

Ah, and she gave her blessing so that and if I remember right, that show was bad Tune sixteen by twenty inverter In. Sepsis. Yeah, And that was actually the first time I had been to a show as legion of Sotlas. That was maybe six months after we had founded and that was when I was like, all right, I'm the only one here in New England. I should I should probably start meeting some people. And Sepsis was actually the very first band I met professionally England, no kidding, wow. And we hit it off really well and we've we've built from just kind of seeing each other at shows to we are full on business affiliates now excellent, excellent.

Yeah, they do a remarkable job in terms of networking, and they do and connecting people, bringing people together, and the positivity is remarkable. And and we'll play we'll play the single Romance and Reality in a moment. And Jenny pointed out to me the other day that the new video is out. I love it, and yeah, and the video is really cool. So yeah, we love we love Sepsis. Let's give this a spin. This has been running in my head all week. Yeah, yeah, this is This is such a great track. By the way, if you're just joining us, we have Bruce from Legion of Solace here with us live in studio and we're talking and we're playing some tunes and uh yeah, check this out if you haven't heard it already, we have.

This is not a world radio premiere, of course, because we first played this on the show a few months ago. But the new video is out check it out on YouTube. But here it is Sepsis, Romance and Reality any place, Seer not Jay, not my game, but los amazing shot do master said the rats about I can't like you, p well to you American Aga. Your d is tragic chapter bicks the magic

that is Romance in Reality. That is the newest single from Sepsis and the new video. The new new video just came out. What was it a few days ago? Right available now? Yeah, it was day this week. Yeah, yeah, that is a check that out on YouTube, really really good. And if you are just joining us, we have Bruce from a Legion of Solace here with us live in studio. Bruce. Is there is there a particular band that you work with a lot more than the others? Or I mean, is is there is there sort of a do you have sort of a marquee talent that you work with?

You know what I mean? That's kind of takes priority in terms of what you do for for these artists. Not really. Of course, the more active an artist or a band is, the more content we will have to share from them. So yeah, it will kind of skew that direction. Yeah, but if if if you're doing two or three shows a month, then we're pushing two or three shows and months for you. There's that there's no like different tiers or levels of representation or anything like like that. If if you're family your family, yeah, yeah, and what is sort of the criteria in terms of people that you work with, because I would imagine being in your position with what you do, you probably occasionally, or maybe more than occasionally, hear from someone who really wants you to work with them, but maybe they're not ready, maybe they're not quite quite at a place where, you know, maybe maybe they just need to rehearse more or whatever it is.

You know. For the most part, myself, Malcolm Tuesday, and Evan we kind of work independently. But when we get something that we're not sure about personally, we'll have them either go to our website, leaves to a solid dot com, or we have the QR codes on our business cards and we'll just have them scan that. And we have an artist's submission area, okay, and then you can send us audio files or video files and then we'll just kind of sit down as the brain trust in jury Jerry something. If we're kind of on the fence with it.

Yeah. Yeah, you occasionally assume you have to turn somebody away now and then on occasion, Yeah, I mean we we try not to. Yeah, but and a lot of a lot of time it's not necessarily a talent level issue. It's more of a production value issue of the recordings. Yes, yeah, because you could be the greatest band in the world. But if if you're if it sounds like you're on a carbon mic from the twenties, your drummers in the bathroom stall, we are not going to hear your talent level. Right, So that's the best thing I can give anybody, even if you're just recording in your own basement.

Staple egg grates to the wall right, kill sound, vibration, kill distortion. Try to try to record when your neighbor's not mowing their lawn, for instance. Little things like that will even affect the background. Background noise is background noise, absolutely, And it's uh, you know, I almost say to say it because it's such a cliche, but it is true. You only get one chance to make a first impression. And if you're if the first impression that you're giving to somebody in the music industry who's a professional, you know, if you're giving them something that's sounds terrible, that's not a great first impression.

Give them something of quality. Absolutely. You also mentioned uh Inverter earlier in the conversation, and uh, I do love this track bow to zod Oh they are so so fun and I was actually I got to be part of the creation of that album, Sonic Vandalism, that came out last September. They did a bit of a fundraiser campaign and for a certain donation. I believe there was eight of us total. On the last I think it's the last song on the album. It's called You've Been Warned. There's a gang shout, so in the chorus it comes through and there's a shout of the word bleed.

And so they brought us in and told us what we wanted to do. So it was kind of like a VIP experience, if you will. We got to go hang out at the studio for a while, we watch watching laid Downs. Bill Bracken was doing some of the guitar parts, Jeff was doing some of the drums, and then we all went in for fifteen twenty minutes. We I think we did two or three takes, yeah, and they took the best one and then put everything in. So we're actually we actually made the album. Oh that's really cool. But Boodasad Deek the front man from Inverter he's actually an old radio man himself.

He has a part of the VCN family. Oh, we had we had quite the conversation, but we had him on the show. He called in from Boston, and uh yeah, not only did we talk about the band, but of course me being a radio nerd, right, I had to ask him all kinds of questions about his career, his radio career as well. Yeah. So because of that, he's a just massive comic book geek. Oh really yeah, and you know, of course it's the Superman villain Zod and so so Baodusod is actually a play on Neil before Zod. Yeah, so that that's kind of his nod to the old school comic gak comic geek dom if you will.

Yeah, yeah, I never got in a comic books, but of course I remember Superman too, absolutely. You know when the when the three of them land on Earth, Neil before Zod, a big big piece of glass shattering over the mountain. Yeah yeah, absolutely absolutely. All right, let's give this a listen. This is great. Uh. I think this is one of the tracks we played when Deeke was on the show, and definitely good stuff. This is a bow to Zod from the band inverter w Man. It's all you bo you win, you're buying machine, not doing all that's in the game, and I'll tell you what I mean esus that dam I'm round my eyes step that destroy.

Don't you never ask? Fine, don't you step to me. Don't tell me or tell me what to do. Ain't yet know your yellow loud y'all playing a drill bowl. You don't put about down butt amount down downs. You better go plow too. You'll do your blows. You put about down, butt amount down down do but I'm go too short and just a lot they go talker up. Now, don't of it o man that you sell me was all they are far and now I don't never man come out down. That's my way. You better get used to be. I do proba guy that you bother a way, And I'm much smaller than you at that man, I'm bad.

I was more doubt anybody a little danger, and I'm failed. I'm a goddamn in general. I'm the man you're resting bounces b You don't been about down bett'emount down down. Don't better do bow door your your yard bowl n't been about out when him out out out. You don't put out wall your all bound up my jack Uh, don't ad joab go di can go after that, ain't I ain't got no leader all y'all luck the mid No let him out now, let him out now, dow no Betta, no bowjojo, no god bow no let him out, dow let him out now, dow do betous

About a odd from inverter the album Sonic Vandalism, great great Boston band. We are talking with Bruce from a Legion of Solace and uh, Jenny reminded us while that song was on, we wanted to talk about the logo. The creation of of your logo, which is very cool for Legion of Solace Surgeon. For those who can't see as you're listening on your lovely radios, there is an awesome phoenix on the shirts and it has writing on it that says support local music and Legion of Solace. Now the cool part is how did she come up with that?

So Tuesday, our founder, she wanted something unique and our motto is we rise to conquer together, so what better to rise with than a phoenix? And as she was designing it to she was kind of kicking some ideas around for a few months and it dawned on her the tail feathers should be musical. So the tail feathers of the phoenix are actually a bar staff fanning out with music notes falling from it. Oh nice, very cool. As soon as the rest of us saw it, we were like, that's that's the one dude, don't lose that file, right, Oh my god, that is so cool.

So you were very kind and brought us both T shirts. Yes, yes, and I had to pick it back up and look, it is a great idea. The tail feather of the phoenix is a music staff with notes, and that that symbolizes music being the muse of the rise. I love this. I love everything about it. I love phoenix anyway. Yeah, when I first started getting a little bit better and being painting, one of my first better paintings was a phoenix. Nice symbolic of myself. Sure, and because they're always on fire, and that connects to CRPS, which is what I have.

You know, there's that connection. But I and I'm a University of Phoenix grad. There you go a degree. But I love the shirt, I really do. I love that it says support local music. This is gonna be one of my new favorite T shirts. I can tell you that fantastic. Yeah, I can't wait it, I love it. We've got you sent us. As we talked earlier, as we talked about earlier, he sent us some music and tell us, what can you tell us about this band, Fractured Reality. Fractured Reality is very impressive. There intended to be a three piece.

They're they're currently missing a bass player. So if you are in the Massachusetts, Connecticut area, and if you are very thrash metal minded, they are a teenage band, so they're asking for thirteen to twenty year old musicians. If you play bass, reach out to Logan. He is the lead singer and drummer of Fractured Reality. Through Facebook, you either Facebook or their band camp and also on their band camp is where you can find their debut single or their debut album. But I met them and also a band called Living Wreckage January, the band dead by Wednesday.

Yes, ye know them well, Opus their drummer. I went down to the Blizzard Birthday bashed down in New Haven, down at Toad's place as a Sepsis was playing that evening, so I went down to support them, take some pictures for the evening, and Fractured Reality opened the evening. And when you're at a six and a half hour event and the very first band pulls over one hundred people into the room. Oh wow, you pay attention. And then when they have that old school thrash sound that we've that us old heads have been craving to have back since the young Exodust Testament days.

Yeah, they bring this back for you. And the fact that Logan is only fourteen years old. Wow, playing thrash drums and singing is cloudy. It's amazing to me. Yes, the drummer is that is the vocal that is so talented. You don't see that many drummers That sing is an amazing skill, and especially in a thrash band because there's so much concentration going on at playing one sixty to two twenty bpm anyway, So how do you do that? What do you breathe? I tell people your brain has to work like an octopus.

Each brain has to know how to keep time and keep a different count because late, especially in thrash metal, your feete might be playing twelve twelve, but your left hands playing four to four in your right hands playing eight eight. Yeah, and people that are watching or going what are you is that? Thirty two thirty two well, let's tell you what let's do. Let's play both of these. So we've got Live for the End by Fractured Reality, and you also mentioned Living Wreckage. We've got this song sync below, and I really like both of these.

We'll play these both. Anything else you want to tell us about Living Wreckage, Living Wreckage Great Rate five piece. They're out of Easthampton, Massachusetts. If you guys like what you hear. April fifth, they are going to be at the Park City Music Hall in Bridgeport, Connecticut. They're opening up for the all female Iron Maiden tribute band, The Iron Maidens. Oh wow, okay, cool, So that'll be a fun night, very cool, very cool. All right, so we'll give both of these a listen, first Fractured Reality and then Living Wreckage.

Great stuff. Check this out, boys, rough do y'all have? He says, So the dress joy? Heck the girls got joy. Let I'll tell you, yeah, Jim Sir saying good b Yeah, Jim Sir said complaining your faith, We'll cripping your joy. He's gonna look a shelter your front shopping the pain are chilling yourself? And I said, chill from the South. What fuck? Yeah? Jim sun defend look fuck yeah, jol suck defend what fuck yead don suck defend what fuck yeah till Sunday

all las mistakes and fast shirts and says I come always so last stay then never day and I say all the prices and bastely all. I don't know all the reasons swell hard so my time, some call show my fi all song song hello, tree races all bad and I have come my dommy handsome

up outside of the back, I say all the three says I can last help John on so know all thresons hard saw my side, some my so, my fid so side sa Freeza says, then you follow the sas can tell Jay all so't know all reasons I fell all my time, some my

some my five so below Oh I love that. That is sink below, Sink Below by the band Living Wreckage. And before that we heard Live for the End by uh what band was that? That was fractured reality, Fractured reality. We're listening to a lot of music today with we have Bruce from Legion of Solace here with us live in studio, almost out of time. But if you have a question or anything at all for Bruce get on in six O three two five O six oh seven. The studio line is open six oh three two five O six oh seven.

Uh. Coming up at the top of the hour, we have Joe Morrero I think that's how you say his last name from the band The Great Fraud is going to be calling in from New York City. Do you know those guys at all? Do you know The Great Fraud? I I didn't until a couple of days ago. Yeah. When I saw you post about him, for the first thing I do was like, ooh homework. Yeah, yeah, great sound, yeah, absolutely great sound. Yeah, they're really cool. They're really cool. I'm excited for all the artists that you have.

I'm excited to see what keep bringing them to us. Yeah, bring them on in here. I love to. I want to take a quick moment to say hi to everybody in the chat room. Hello, Carol Zolski, Stepsis woo woo. Melanie is around and she says she's going to be spreading some paganism in Florida. We all love her all right, very good shout out to Riley King, Kyle Clayton, Glenn R. Julette. Oh wow, the people's mare. Very good. So that that means if we have a Florida mand story in the next two or three days, we know who to blame.

Ah Melanie, well, he's not been given anywhere she goes, and she did bring sal with her. Sal is her miniature skeleton. Okay, who is there her? Would you call it her familiar maybe? Or something else? Nice to bring in places and take fun pictures, Bruce, uh before we run out of time in the hour. I want to make sure, especially for people who are just joining us, I want to make sure everybody knows how to find you, how to find Legion of Solace, especially of course anyone who's interested in having you work with them.

Sure, and and all that, all that good stuff. The easiest places to find us are on Facebook Legion of Solace and at www dot Legionosolace dot com. Well it's easy, I'm going to drop that right into the chat. Yes, yes, And if you feel inclined to support our endeavors, if you click on our menu tab and on the drop down you click Legion Out. We have a full merchandise store with roughly eighty to one hundred pieces to choose from regular accessories, men's, women's, children's, unisex. We have everything that might cover your needs.

Excellent, excellent, very good, awesome T shirts and they're comfortable. Yeah, yeah, thank you for the shirts. We appreciate that very much. And I love that they say support local music, right, yep, that's what we're all about. Absolutely. Yeah. Then, yeah, we really appreciate you being here with us today. We're actually gonna close. You would send us another nail Bite song, Endless, and that's that's the one we'll close out the segment with. But Bruce, thank you again, and we're going to close with this track Endless from the band nail Bite.

Is there anybody we didn't play? We got all the bands covered right that you sent us. I believe we did, just making sure. Okay, very good, very and by the way, we love being exposed to all this new music. I'd not heard nail Bite before today or a Living Wreckage and both were awesome, just great stuff. And by the way, too, we should mention just because we were talking about out this off air. You know, if you're someone who thinks that there's no new music out there, maybe you're an older person, you know, because we were talking about how people get stuck in their you know their eras.

There is so much great stuff. Oh what was? What was? What did you say, Bruce? You used an expression. You can't be afraid to get your shoes dirty to find good music. There you go, there you go, your favorite dive bar, your local dive bar. The hole in the wall that you never thought to go in just might have the next Metallica hiding in it, exactly. And you really don't even have to get your shoes dirty because of the Internet. You consider your computer and find new stuff. Absolutely so. Yeah, So don't don't get.

Don't get trapped in what era you grew up in. There are people, no matter what kind of music you're into, there are new bands, new artists, or maybe established artists that you just didn't know about before making music right now, they would probably really appeal to you. So don't don't get, don't get stuck in your bubble. All right, that's our lesson for today. I shouldn't say that's our lesson for today because I say it. I say it all the time I bring up I know my dad appreciates when I mentioned this.

You know, my father is in his seventies and he lives on the seacoast and He listens to w u n H, the great college radio station there because he loves hearing new stuff. So you don't have to get stuck in a particular period of time. So we will end with this endless from nail bite Bruce from Legion of Solace, thank you again, my friend, thanks for having me. You got it anything smooth Sweetie said, I was a round. I tried to silk sos fils or conceptually fast cluel or thought to see Christmas taste the sides on this we can't contain.

From the school goes thanks stop smooth fla feel strong, smooth sweet sake. Sas again starts a sup stop

from sat so were were you going? Saying, oh you joy, you work mold or worse no lor of thor story work working foy wo

Matt Connarton Unleashed: Legion of Solace

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