Matt Connarton Unleashed: Questing Beast

0:00 Speaker 1: Questing Beast is the name of the band and we're

0:02 Speaker 1: going to talk to them in a moment. They are

0:04 Speaker 1: in studio with us. Welcome everybody. This is Matt Connorton

0:07 Speaker 1: Unleashed and we are live from the studios of wm

0:10 Speaker 1: NH ninety five point three FM and Glorious of Manchester,

0:13 Speaker 1: New Hampshire. And of course you can also stream the show.

0:16 Speaker 1: Go to Matt connorton dot com slash live for all

0:19 Speaker 1: of your live streaming options, social media links, contact infoshow archives,

0:22 Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera. Today is Saturday, October nineteen, twenty

0:27 Speaker 1: twenty four, and we've got a big show for you today.

0:30 Speaker 1: We have Questing Beast second hour. We've got Temple Mountain

0:33 Speaker 1: is coming Back. Third hour, we have Dead by Wednesday.

0:36 Speaker 1: Lots of today's action packed. So Jenny is not here

0:41 Speaker 1: with me this week, but she'll be back next week.

0:43 Speaker 1: But without further ado, joining us in studio here is

0:47 Speaker 1: Shane and Jane from Questing Beast. Welcome, thanks for having us.

0:52 Speaker 1: So is it just the two of you? Is this

0:55 Speaker 1: the band? Is the the two of you?

0:58 Speaker 2: No, So as far as right now our full band.

1:01 Speaker 2: We also have Jane's older brother Joe as our singer.

1:04 Speaker 2: Oh okay, and then we have a drummer who's not

1:08 Speaker 2: related to any of us, but he's kind of like

1:10 Speaker 2: having a grandpa and an uncle in the same person.

1:13 Speaker 1: Okay, what does that mean? Collaborate if you would. I mean,

1:21 Speaker 1: you know, we're not in the South, so this you know,

1:24 Speaker 1: I'm confused.

1:25 Speaker 3: Well, he's fun and goofy like your uncle.

1:29 Speaker 2: Okay, but in many ways it's very old like your grandpa.

1:33 Speaker 1: Okay, that makes sense, gotcha, gotcha.

1:36 Speaker 4: And that's his Christian He's great.

1:39 Speaker 3: Yeh. He's a phenomenal drummer.

1:41 Speaker 4: Phenomenal drummer.

1:41 Speaker 1: Well, very good. So so what what do you What

1:44 Speaker 1: do you each do in the band?

1:45 Speaker 3: We both play guitar, You both play guitar.

1:47 Speaker 1: Okay, very cool. And you've got a big show tonight.

1:50 Speaker 1: We should plug that right off the top. You're going

1:53 Speaker 1: to be playing at.

1:53 Speaker 3: Terminus, correct, Yeah, Nashua with let's.

1:56 Speaker 1: See Dad Harrison, the Degans, the Gray Curtain, Horror and

2:00 Speaker 1: Able Blood all great bands. Actually, out of all those bands,

2:04 Speaker 1: so the Nigans, we have not had them on the

2:07 Speaker 1: show yet, but everyone else has been on the show.

2:08 Speaker 3: Cool.

2:09 Speaker 1: Nice, Yeah, we had the Great Curtain Horror and able

2:11 Speaker 1: Blood jeeseus was that last week. It becomes a blur,

2:14 Speaker 1: but yeah, yeah, all all great bands and and able

2:17 Speaker 1: Blood has actually been on the show a few times now.

2:20 Speaker 3: We played our first gig with them.

2:22 Speaker 1: Oh with abel Blood. Oh very cool. Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.

2:26 Speaker 1: That song Titan's Grip and we'll we'll play more later.

2:29 Speaker 1: But really it takes you on a journey, lots of

2:32 Speaker 1: lots of cool changes in it and very very complex.

2:37 Speaker 1: But let me let me start with this because I

2:39 Speaker 1: kind of have a little bit of an idea just

2:41 Speaker 1: from googling Questing Beast. But what what what is that?

2:45 Speaker 1: What is Questing Beast? Where does the name come from?

2:47 Speaker 2: So the name comes from Arthurian legend. I saw it

2:53 Speaker 2: on a magic card and I was like, that's epic.

2:55 Speaker 2: That's an epic name. It's a great name for a band.

2:58 Speaker 2: And I did some recent found out is from the

3:00 Speaker 2: Arthurian legend. Read the legend, was like, I don't want

3:03 Speaker 2: to write that story. That story has been written and

3:07 Speaker 2: it's got nothing to do with anything that I want

3:09 Speaker 2: to write music about. So I came up with a

3:12 Speaker 2: different story that's kind of about the birth of the

3:17 Speaker 2: questing piece. So I gave it like its own origin

3:19 Speaker 2: story and everything, okay, And I basically had that outline,

3:24 Speaker 2: and then we sort of wrote songs based on where

3:27 Speaker 2: we thought it would fit, like within the storyline.

3:30 Speaker 1: So the story came first, and then the songs came yes,

3:34 Speaker 1: based on the story.

3:35 Speaker 4: Yes.

3:35 Speaker 2: I think that the only song that that may not

3:37 Speaker 2: be true for is call the North, because that was

3:40 Speaker 2: the first one that we wrote. Oh and we had

3:42 Speaker 2: just gotten together and we're like, oh yeah, big riffs,

3:44 Speaker 2: here we go. Yeah, And so I was like that

3:47 Speaker 2: song specifically, I was like, what does this make me

3:50 Speaker 2: feel like? I was like, this makes me feel like

3:51 Speaker 2: I'm actually going on like a long expedition somewhere. So

3:54 Speaker 2: it felt to me like that one specifically, I was like,

3:57 Speaker 2: this is about going to a place, so like called

4:00 Speaker 2: the North. It seems like a good, good game, you know.

4:03 Speaker 1: Okay, But the rest of the songs are based on

4:05 Speaker 1: the story or the outline of the story.

4:07 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, did did.

4:09 Speaker 1: The story change at all?

4:11 Speaker 3: Oh?

4:11 Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, as you're as you're writing these songs,

4:13 Speaker 1: I can see how that might happen. Where As the

4:15 Speaker 1: songs as you're writing them, and they kind of evolve

4:18 Speaker 1: and form. The story itself changed as well.

4:20 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and the story is still changing. The idea

4:23 Speaker 2: is that we want this to be like a trilogy,

4:26 Speaker 2: oh okay, and so like we're constantly thinking about, like

4:30 Speaker 2: still analyzing like the first album even to be like,

4:33 Speaker 2: you know, how does this dictate where we go on

4:35 Speaker 2: the second album?

4:36 Speaker 3: You know, And.

4:39 Speaker 2: It's it's a really interesting way to write, but it

4:42 Speaker 2: is also increase. I mean, I understand why, like all

4:46 Speaker 2: the Game of Thrones books aren't done, you know, yeah,

4:49 Speaker 2: I'm just doing it with an album. This is like

4:51 Speaker 2: nine pages of text maybe, you know.

4:53 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, I can imagine. And the songs themselves

5:00 Speaker 1: are complex, I mean, is that the most challenging part

5:05 Speaker 1: of it is creating the music to go with the story.

5:09 Speaker 5: So kind of because the story dictates so much of

5:13 Speaker 5: what like our musical decision making is yeah, and not

5:17 Speaker 5: just lyrically right lyrics is an entire other realm of

5:21 Speaker 5: added layers of description to the story. The music itself

5:26 Speaker 5: is so dictated by what we're trying to convey in

5:29 Speaker 5: each song as a story point that the music itself,

5:33 Speaker 5: so you say, it sounds like going on a journey

5:35 Speaker 5: and that's because the music itself is telling a huge

5:40 Speaker 5: bit of story.

5:41 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean.

5:42 Speaker 5: It's not not every song is telling so much as

5:46 Speaker 5: far as information goes, but it's so much world building,

5:49 Speaker 5: and we're trying to convey so many little nuanced emotions

5:53 Speaker 5: and basically explaining something through music. So it came out

5:59 Speaker 5: everything was just so much challenge. Like we would get

6:04 Speaker 5: something down we felt like it explained what we wanted

6:07 Speaker 5: to do. Then we'd listen to it and be like, well,

6:09 Speaker 5: this doesn't sound amazing musically, Okay, so we have to

6:13 Speaker 5: change it now to sound it kind of sound amazing musically,

6:15 Speaker 5: but now we feel like it doesn't convey what we

6:18 Speaker 5: wanted to say in the story. You can see how

6:20 Speaker 5: if you're not careful, we would go back to the

6:22 Speaker 5: drawing board on either the music or the story too

6:25 Speaker 5: many times to where like sometimes we had to stop

6:28 Speaker 5: and just like fall back. Some stuff happened naturally, this

6:32 Speaker 5: song being one of them.

6:35 Speaker 4: I didn't want to write this song.

6:38 Speaker 5: What do you mean I didn't want to write this

6:39 Speaker 5: song because we already had I think we had.

6:41 Speaker 3: We had six songs.

6:43 Speaker 5: Yeah, we had six songs, and I felt like it

6:44 Speaker 5: was good, you know, with the addition of the two

6:46 Speaker 5: instrumentals on the album, it would have been eight songs, right, No, no, no,

6:51 Speaker 5: it would have been So we wrote two more after that, right,

6:55 Speaker 5: because then we wrote Beneath thread Leaves too. But yeah,

6:58 Speaker 5: I didn't want to write this song because I just

7:00 Speaker 5: felt like, Okay, we're good, We've written enough. This is

7:03 Speaker 5: our first album. And I actually remember sitting down with

7:08 Speaker 5: a little bit of what he wrote and just everything

7:10 Speaker 5: became so complex, so quick, and I was angry the

7:13 Speaker 5: whole time I wrote. I was like, dang it, this

7:17 Speaker 5: is going to be so complex.

7:18 Speaker 3: This is awesome. Damn.

7:22 Speaker 1: Yeah, I would imagine too. You see, I've played in

7:27 Speaker 1: a lot of bands, but nothing, I never played in

7:29 Speaker 1: anything like this. You know, every band I ever played

7:31 Speaker 1: and it was you know, verse course, you know, your

7:33 Speaker 1: standard thing. Yeah, and uh so I've always been kind

7:36 Speaker 1: of fascinated by I mean, just what must go into

7:40 Speaker 1: writing the songs and then learning the songs and then

7:43 Speaker 1: rehearsing the songs.

7:45 Speaker 3: Are definitely two different things.

7:47 Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, I mean, you

7:52 Speaker 1: must have to rehearse quite a bit, right for the

7:53 Speaker 1: live shows, because every week you've got to be it

7:56 Speaker 1: you know. I mean, if you're if you're a punk

7:58 Speaker 1: band and you're playing three cores words and you make

8:00 Speaker 1: a mistake, nobody even notice it. Well with what you're doing.

8:03 Speaker 1: If somebody makes a mistake, it's it's probably hard to

8:06 Speaker 1: even hide that, right.

8:08 Speaker 2: Yeah, there's certain points in different songs where it's almost

8:11 Speaker 2: like you're you're like surfing on a razor's edge, you

8:13 Speaker 2: know what I mean, and like if you fall off,

8:15 Speaker 2: it is not easy to get back on.

8:17 Speaker 1: I can imagine, yeah, you know.

8:19 Speaker 2: Yeah, And we also have like the added challenge of

8:24 Speaker 2: not having a live bass player right now. Okay, so

8:28 Speaker 2: our drummer plays to a click track. Yeah, so we

8:31 Speaker 2: have like bass tracks at the moment. But it allows

8:34 Speaker 2: us to do cool things like it automatically like switches

8:37 Speaker 2: out the synth patch that we're using as we're playing

8:40 Speaker 2: and stuff like that. So oh wow, it allows us

8:42 Speaker 2: to like use all these different sense that we made

8:45 Speaker 2: for the record live too.

8:46 Speaker 5: Okay, Yeah, it makes it a little bit easier. Recording

8:50 Speaker 5: and learning and playing are just a whole three separate things.

8:54 Speaker 5: For this recording is so bit by bit, sentence by

8:59 Speaker 5: sentence based. If you think about it in terms of

9:01 Speaker 5: writing a story, it's like writing sentence by sentence, let

9:05 Speaker 5: alone lyrics. I don't even get in on lyrics. I'm

9:07 Speaker 5: more on the music side of things. I contributed one

9:11 Speaker 5: lyric to this whole album, truly, and so yeah, like

9:17 Speaker 5: writing it just is so intensive. And I mean, what,

9:21 Speaker 5: it took us two almost three years to just write this.

9:25 Speaker 5: Any music that we're going to write that's expanding on

9:27 Speaker 5: this is going to take us probably a similar timeframe.

9:30 Speaker 5: But then learning it is like, Okay, now that we

9:34 Speaker 5: have the finished product and all the riffs are what

9:36 Speaker 5: they're going to be, and all the orders of everything

9:39 Speaker 5: is pretty much decided on, now try to learn all

9:42 Speaker 5: that while standing up, switching effects and doing backing vocals.

9:49 Speaker 5: And then sometimes you're like, oh, I can't, you know,

9:51 Speaker 5: we have to figure out, you know, delegate, who's going

9:54 Speaker 5: to play what. Sometimes sometimes we need to put something

9:58 Speaker 5: in a backing track because there's too many parts, okay.

10:01 Speaker 4: Stuff like that. So it's a whole puzzle.

10:04 Speaker 1: You know.

10:05 Speaker 2: Yeah, like the beginning of Titans Grip, we don't hire

10:07 Speaker 2: three dudes to come up and play play that harmony

10:10 Speaker 2: at the.

10:10 Speaker 4: Beginning would be great. We don't have it, Like, yeah, yeah.

10:17 Speaker 1: So who plays bass on the on the studio tracks?

10:20 Speaker 1: Does one of you do that or no?

10:22 Speaker 2: So we got a guy. His name is Chase Bryant.

10:25 Speaker 2: He plays in a band called war Bringer. They're like

10:27 Speaker 2: an l a thrash band. Say yeah, they're great, I love.

10:32 Speaker 5: Them, shouts out Chase, nicest guy, amazing bass player. Played

10:35 Speaker 5: the whole album on fretless bass in two days.

10:38 Speaker 3: Yeah, figure style. He's a absolute monster.

10:42 Speaker 5: Absolute monster, absolute great guy. Super super happy to have

10:48 Speaker 5: him just doing his thing.

10:52 Speaker 4: It was awesome.

10:54 Speaker 1: That's another thing that I'm always because I'm a bass player,

10:57 Speaker 1: but I've never played a fretless and that always impresses

11:00 Speaker 1: me too.

11:01 Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah.

11:02 Speaker 2: I mean a lot of people when I tell him

11:04 Speaker 2: that he's playing fretless on it, they can't even tell

11:06 Speaker 2: because it's just so in tune, you know.

11:08 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Our friend Lacey, who I am in the

11:12 Speaker 1: U in the chat room says, uh, that's why so

11:14 Speaker 1: much can be lost in studio work. So clinical And

11:20 Speaker 1: oh I see Jenny is in there as well. Hello,

11:22 Speaker 1: good morning. Yeah. So when you like, do you play

11:29 Speaker 1: these live before you record them or do you do you? Okay,

11:33 Speaker 1: so you don't, you don't go into the studio and

11:35 Speaker 1: then once that's done, start playing.

11:37 Speaker 3: Them live or well we do, we do.

11:39 Speaker 2: We like demo out all the tracks, so we've got

11:42 Speaker 2: Ableton on my computer at the practice space and we

11:45 Speaker 2: just record on that the demo version, send that off

11:49 Speaker 2: to the studio that we actually want to record it.

11:51 Speaker 2: We went to matt Oaks Studio in Austin and recorded

11:55 Speaker 2: with Benny Grotto, who did a great job.

11:58 Speaker 1: Yeah. Everything, everything sounds amazing.

12:00 Speaker 2: Yeah, but so it sometimes we kind of play it

12:06 Speaker 2: live before we put it into the demos, but most

12:08 Speaker 2: of the time we get the demos done, we get

12:10 Speaker 2: that to a point where we like it, and then

12:11 Speaker 2: that's when we start the learning processes. Okay, and then

12:14 Speaker 2: we go in and record for real cities. Yeah, and

12:18 Speaker 2: going to the Big Boys studio. Yeah, but I what,

12:22 Speaker 2: I forgot what your name was, But who said something

12:24 Speaker 2: about studios being clinical and.

12:26 Speaker 3: Oh yeah, lazy, yeah, lazy.

12:28 Speaker 2: So there's definitely I think one or two. There's there's

12:31 Speaker 2: certain things that I think can be kind of sporadic

12:34 Speaker 2: when you're like actually composing and stuff like that, and

12:37 Speaker 2: there's certain things that are like difficult to replicate non

12:44 Speaker 2: spur of the moment.

12:45 Speaker 1: Yeah.

12:45 Speaker 3: Like, for example, there's a version of the.

12:48 Speaker 2: Corruption solo that I had had a long time ago

12:51 Speaker 2: that I kind of wish I had still had for like,

12:55 Speaker 2: it was just a specific recording where I was like

12:57 Speaker 2: in my room with the amp and it was like

12:59 Speaker 2: super feedbacky yeah, and it like it sounded terrible but

13:03 Speaker 2: awesome because of how like I don't know rat it sounded,

13:07 Speaker 2: you know what I mean?

13:07 Speaker 3: Yeah, and so like it.

13:10 Speaker 2: And it's always like very minute details like that, you

13:13 Speaker 2: know what I mean. It's not like, oh, this song

13:14 Speaker 2: is ruined because we recorded in a good space, you.

13:17 Speaker 1: Know, right right? No, that makes sense? How I mean

13:23 Speaker 1: how many hours do you think? Probably hard to put

13:25 Speaker 1: a number on it, but like like just just learning

13:29 Speaker 1: to play one of these songs proficiently, I mean that's.

13:32 Speaker 3: I can tell you.

13:33 Speaker 2: I don't know about that all the songs, I mean,

13:37 Speaker 2: some of them are easier than others.

13:38 Speaker 3: Yeah, but I.

13:40 Speaker 2: Can tell you that the Beneath Red Leaves, So the

13:43 Speaker 2: Beneath Red Leaves solo specifically took me so long. I

13:48 Speaker 2: probably every day leading up to going into play that

13:51 Speaker 2: in the studio for like two weeks at least, spent

13:54 Speaker 2: like two hours a day, just like ripping through that thing,

13:57 Speaker 2: trying to get it down.

13:58 Speaker 3: Kidding, Oh yeah, it's hard.

14:01 Speaker 4: That song taught me.

14:03 Speaker 5: That song taught me how to play rhythm guitar differently,

14:05 Speaker 5: really yeah, one hundred percent.

14:07 Speaker 4: I play things.

14:08 Speaker 5: I play that song differently and more efficiently than I

14:11 Speaker 5: did when we went and recorded it. Taught me like

14:16 Speaker 5: deficiencies in how I played certain things. Really yeah, So

14:21 Speaker 5: talk about a learning process, like I learned the song,

14:24 Speaker 5: but then I kept learning from it for about a

14:27 Speaker 5: year to where I am now with it. Yeah, same

14:30 Speaker 5: with him, honestly, Like it informs us so much about

14:33 Speaker 5: our ability because you can write something right piece by piece,

14:37 Speaker 5: and you can make a demo and then when you

14:39 Speaker 5: go to play it all at once, all the way through,

14:41 Speaker 5: you really like find out about yourself.

14:44 Speaker 1: I could imagine that.

14:45 Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, you know, going from playing all this rhythm

14:48 Speaker 5: to lead and he's you know, playing all.

14:50 Speaker 4: The lead and it's crazy.

14:51 Speaker 1: So wow. Yeah. Have you ever written something where or

14:55 Speaker 1: or just had an idea where you you know, you

15:00 Speaker 1: maybe you record it and everything so you're committed to it,

15:02 Speaker 1: and then you kind of a moment where you go, jeez,

15:04 Speaker 1: I don't know I'm kind of regretting this one a

15:06 Speaker 1: little bit.

15:06 Speaker 3: Yeah really yeah, yeah, yeah.

15:10 Speaker 2: We we edit super hard. Who we cut things that

15:15 Speaker 2: we don't like and try and or like try and

15:18 Speaker 2: make it work better.

15:19 Speaker 5: Yeah.

15:19 Speaker 2: I think that one of the things that we really

15:22 Speaker 2: want to focus on going forward is, like I don't know,

15:28 Speaker 2: just getting better at making sure everything fits together. Well yeah, yeah,

15:32 Speaker 2: not that I don't think that the stuff on the

15:35 Speaker 2: first record fits together well, you know, song by song,

15:38 Speaker 2: But I think that there's always room for improvement, sure,

15:42 Speaker 2: you know.

15:43 Speaker 1: And how important is it to you as players when

15:48 Speaker 1: you when you play live to to replicate exactly like

15:52 Speaker 1: do you try to replicate exactly note for note what's

15:54 Speaker 1: on the recordings? Or do the songs breathe a little.

15:56 Speaker 3: Bit or how do there's not really a lot of

15:58 Speaker 3: breathing room.

15:59 Speaker 2: There's a lot of very specific harmony that's going on

16:02 Speaker 2: and stuff like that, you know what I mean. So yeah,

16:04 Speaker 2: And that's not to say that there aren't places where

16:07 Speaker 2: we could incorporate.

16:08 Speaker 5: Some sure, yeah, but I'd say as far as NOE choice,

16:13 Speaker 5: it's never different. As far as certain stylistic things, we

16:19 Speaker 5: goof off a little bit here and there, but it's

16:22 Speaker 5: we're still playing pretty much what's written. Okay, almost, i'd

16:26 Speaker 5: say ninety nine percent.

16:28 Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, okay, if you're just joining us, we have

16:31 Speaker 1: Questioning Beasts here with us live in studio on the

16:34 Speaker 1: Saturday morning, and I think we should play another track.

16:38 Speaker 1: I'd love to hear another one, So we'll play this

16:40 Speaker 1: so at Crater's Edge.

16:42 Speaker 4: Oh yeah, what?

16:43 Speaker 1: What? What should we know? Anything? We should know about

16:44 Speaker 1: this specifically before we hear it.

16:49 Speaker 2: No, I want I want people in the comments to

16:51 Speaker 2: try and guess what the footsteps are. Okay, okay, what's

16:54 Speaker 2: making that sound?

16:55 Speaker 3: People?

16:56 Speaker 1: Okay, all right, So well that's a clue then, so

16:59 Speaker 1: they're not actual foot steps.

17:01 Speaker 3: That's correct.

17:01 Speaker 1: Okay, all right, I'll pay attention. Listen closely, everybody. All right.

17:06 Speaker 1: So this is Questing Beast and this song is called

17:09 Speaker 1: at Creator's Edge. Grazed nice.

17:55 Speaker 6: Will never cause me. I'm calling a chaos your bel

18:03 Speaker 6: and goose but gone when the stars from thes you can,

18:12 Speaker 6: I'm like, this is mos fun.

18:17 Speaker 3: You want a joints in a moment of for me

18:25 Speaker 3: story s.

18:27 Speaker 6: Coo stinking birds, spose of black dingy.

18:32 Speaker 1: Or sing go my days that thing of my grands.

18:37 Speaker 3: From as clim that's my face colast.

18:40 Speaker 6: Thing about strength waste, my falls off face thing mean.

18:45 Speaker 4: My dista not c breckord my life.

18:56 Speaker 6: I squirky ways us all the water of the stars,

19:04 Speaker 6: rat sippy rads my stairs never do not curl bar

19:15 Speaker 6: scars shed bloody he knows w undrouste Man.

20:21 Speaker 3: No, it went down a little too.

20:24 Speaker 5: Why a god, I'm drinking a child? Why do you

20:27 Speaker 5: go to the chor troll start?

20:29 Speaker 3: I'm turning about child the chop, but time.

20:31 Speaker 5: Drinking my time to chop time.

21:11 Speaker 1: That is at creator's edge by questing beasts. We have

21:17 Speaker 1: two members of the band. There's those footsteps again. All right,

21:21 Speaker 1: where do the footsteps come from?

21:25 Speaker 6: Oh?

21:25 Speaker 3: I can't but oh no, I just hadn't started yet.

21:29 Speaker 1: I thought it looked like it looked like your mouth

21:31 Speaker 1: was moving, and I'm like, oh no.

21:32 Speaker 3: I I was trying to think of how I want

21:34 Speaker 3: to approach the answer.

21:36 Speaker 1: Gotcha, gotcha? I didn't see any guesses in the chat room.

21:39 Speaker 2: So well, it came from a box of rocks. What

21:44 Speaker 2: you're hearing is a box of rocks, really cardboard box

21:47 Speaker 2: with a bunch of rocks inside of it. It's some

21:49 Speaker 2: advanced studio equipment.

21:51 Speaker 1: Oh very good, very good. Let's see in the chat room. Oh,

21:58 Speaker 1: Hans Smith from the Ban and Sepsis was saying that

22:01 Speaker 1: the instrumentals make him feel like he's on an adventure

22:05 Speaker 1: on the sea.

22:06 Speaker 4: Oh very nice.

22:08 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah nice. Lacey says a strong Queen's Reich vibe.

22:12 Speaker 1: Is that one of your influences Queen's Reke.

22:14 Speaker 5: I wouldn't say specifically, but love Queen's Reke.

22:18 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and that's a huge compliment.

22:20 Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely absolutely, let's see. I saw somebody else in

22:24 Speaker 1: here too.

22:25 Speaker 3: Oh.

22:25 Speaker 1: B pen Art is in the chat room, big supporter

22:28 Speaker 1: of the show. Hello, nice to see you in there.

22:31 Speaker 1: And also Mariam Bannish joins us in the chat room. Yeah,

22:36 Speaker 1: tell tell me more about influences I imagine, I mean

22:39 Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of prog and really complex

22:42 Speaker 1: stuff for both of you, I would, I would.

22:44 Speaker 2: Guess, yeah, yeah, sure, I'm just gonna do a quick

22:46 Speaker 2: top five. So for me, like, my favorite two bands

22:52 Speaker 2: are Death Clock and Queens of the Stone Age. Yeah,

22:56 Speaker 2: and so I feel like my guitar playing is kind

22:58 Speaker 2: of like some where in between those two sort of bands.

23:03 Speaker 2: But outside of that, I mean Baroness is Great Master

23:08 Speaker 2: Don as well. Both of those bands I think were

23:12 Speaker 2: actually very influential to me throughout the writing process of

23:15 Speaker 2: this first one, just as far as their ability to

23:17 Speaker 2: take these big, sprawling concepts, like from start to finish

23:21 Speaker 2: on these records, you know, in their own ways.

23:24 Speaker 3: And I guess I have to think of I said five.

23:26 Speaker 1: You did say five.

23:27 Speaker 3: Yeah, there is another one, I know for sure. I

23:33 Speaker 3: don't know, just various.

23:35 Speaker 2: There's lots of stuff, to be honest with you, Like,

23:38 Speaker 2: I'm all over the place as far as like listening

23:40 Speaker 2: to like technical death metal and like all these various things. Yeah, Jane,

23:46 Speaker 2: why don't you take over while I think of what

23:47 Speaker 2: a definitive five?

23:50 Speaker 4: I'd say.

23:51 Speaker 5: Early on, when I first started getting into progressive music

23:55 Speaker 5: was high school, and my big three would be Dream Theater,

24:03 Speaker 5: Rush and Porcupine Tree. Okay, and just as far as

24:08 Speaker 5: progressive music goes. And I was in a band in

24:10 Speaker 5: high school where we didn't cover any dream Theater, but

24:15 Speaker 5: that was my aspiration, you know. I was in a

24:20 Speaker 5: band with this guy Adam Susie, amazing drummer, shouts out

24:24 Speaker 5: Adam Susie, and we just covered these prog songs, and

24:29 Speaker 5: that's a huge influence on me. I religiously listened to

24:34 Speaker 5: Dream Theater Rush. I grew up on Rush. My mom

24:37 Speaker 5: introduced me to Rush when I was really young. And

24:40 Speaker 5: then the heavier side of things I started to get into.

24:44 Speaker 5: Like I started off with some like metalcore bands. I

24:46 Speaker 5: think my earliest like real heavy band influence was a

24:49 Speaker 5: band called as Blood Runs Black, an old metal core band.

24:53 Speaker 5: But I started to really get into more technical death

24:59 Speaker 5: metal and stuff like that when I got into college.

25:01 Speaker 5: But I come from a very diverse background, Like I

25:05 Speaker 5: was a jazz musician growing up, and I love hip hop.

25:08 Speaker 5: I made a lot of hip hop too, so I

25:10 Speaker 5: really yeah for sure, and that was a humongous portion

25:16 Speaker 5: of my education in music. You know what I mean,

25:21 Speaker 5: was all those influences so huge love for hip hop,

25:26 Speaker 5: huge love for technical death metal. I'd say the band

25:29 Speaker 5: that really bridged the gap for me when I was

25:32 Speaker 5: young between all that progue stuff and the more heavy

25:36 Speaker 5: stuff was a band called Born of Osyris. And that's

25:41 Speaker 5: when I learned about like Jason Richardson as a guitar

25:44 Speaker 5: player and started to kind of you know, all my

25:47 Speaker 5: favorite vetters played the same guitars now and really got

25:53 Speaker 5: into a lot of that stuff. So huge influence on me,

25:56 Speaker 5: those guys John Patrucci obviously, but all that stuff.

26:00 Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought of my number five. Okay, it's definitely

26:03 Speaker 2: war Bringer. Okay, cool, Okay, I don't know why that

26:06 Speaker 2: took me so long.

26:08 Speaker 1: Well, it's early, very good, very good if you are

26:13 Speaker 1: just joining us. Of course, we do have Questing Beasts

26:15 Speaker 1: here with us, live in studio and they're playing a

26:18 Speaker 1: big show tonight. Of course, our friends at Terminus Underground

26:21 Speaker 1: in Nashua. Let's see this is the show has a

26:27 Speaker 1: specific name, the Haunted hallo oh, hollowed and haunted. Yes,

26:32 Speaker 1: to make sure to make sure I got the name right. Yeah,

26:34 Speaker 1: Terminus is a great place. Have you been there yet?

26:36 Speaker 3: No, not yet.

26:37 Speaker 1: I tell everybody the same thing. When you walk in,

26:40 Speaker 1: it's like walking into a different world when you walk

26:42 Speaker 1: into that room, specifically stoked. It's really cool.

26:45 Speaker 2: Apparently they're decorating it all up and stuff, or they

26:48 Speaker 2: were last night and everything, so it should be all

26:50 Speaker 2: good to go now. So it's gonna look awesome in

26:52 Speaker 2: there tonight.

26:53 Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, there you go. Yeah, that's gonna be tonight.

26:56 Speaker 1: Questing Beast along with Dad Harrison, The Vegans, The Gray Curtain,

26:59 Speaker 1: Her and Able Blood. Tickets are twenty dollars. You can

27:04 Speaker 1: get them you have to go to Midnight Creatives Collective

27:07 Speaker 1: dot com. Tickets are available there, and that is show

27:13 Speaker 1: starts at eight pm.

27:15 Speaker 4: So I think show starts at six?

27:19 Speaker 1: Oh does it?

27:20 Speaker 4: Yes?

27:20 Speaker 5: Oh?

27:21 Speaker 3: Yeah, I think doors are six.

27:22 Speaker 1: Oh I'm sorry, yeah, I was looking at the wrong thing. Yeah,

27:26 Speaker 1: all the right doors are five. Yeah.

27:27 Speaker 4: Music starts at six.

27:28 Speaker 5: Oh.

27:29 Speaker 1: It's good you corrected me, because yeah, we don't want

27:31 Speaker 1: people showing up there late.

27:32 Speaker 4: Is paying attention, You're welcome, exactly, exactly.

27:36 Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know there's a lot of bands, so

27:38 Speaker 1: it's good that it's starting early. That makes sense.

27:40 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and we're we're actually opening this one, which

27:44 Speaker 2: is are, which is nice because we'll be able to

27:47 Speaker 2: get there set up immediately and then hang out forever.

27:51 Speaker 3: Do you that's right?

27:54 Speaker 6: Is there?

27:55 Speaker 1: Do you have a complex set up?

27:59 Speaker 3: Yeah?

27:59 Speaker 2: I mean so all four of us do vocals, and

28:03 Speaker 2: then we've got the computer that our drummer like triggers

28:09 Speaker 2: all the tracks from and everything. Yeah, it's kind of

28:12 Speaker 2: it's kind of a pain, I can imagine. Yeah, I

28:14 Speaker 2: mean it's a pain for us.

28:18 Speaker 5: I mean, if we cut out a vocal, it would

28:19 Speaker 5: still just be three vocals and then a few xlrs

28:22 Speaker 5: to the house. But like it's more of a pain

28:24 Speaker 5: for us, then it should be more of a pain

28:26 Speaker 5: for us than any sound guy.

28:29 Speaker 4: O girl.

28:30 Speaker 3: But that has not been the case so far.

28:32 Speaker 1: Yeah, right right, Yeah, I can see how. Yeah, I

28:41 Speaker 1: can imagine, you know. And I think usually when it's

28:44 Speaker 1: when it's a band with kind of a you know,

28:45 Speaker 1: a really complex, sophisticated sound, there's usually more to it,

28:49 Speaker 1: like I said, you know, compared to say, for example,

28:51 Speaker 1: just a punk band.

28:52 Speaker 3: You know.

28:53 Speaker 4: Yeah, when we.

28:54 Speaker 5: Get booked on gigs like that, we do feel a

29:00 Speaker 5: unique kind of pressure, especially if we're right in the

29:03 Speaker 5: middle of the bill. Oh yeah, just because and it's

29:08 Speaker 5: and it's not like we're not quick, and it's not

29:10 Speaker 5: like we haven't done this before, you know.

29:12 Speaker 3: Yeah, and we have.

29:13 Speaker 5: I couldn't have streamlined. I set up our ableton session

29:18 Speaker 5: that has the click track, that has all of our

29:20 Speaker 5: sins on it, that has all of the bass tracks

29:23 Speaker 5: on it, and we have some simple stuff. We just

29:25 Speaker 5: have to run cables to the house.

29:27 Speaker 4: That's it. We have to set up all the hard stuff.

29:29 Speaker 5: Right right, and it's a huge brain puzzle for me,

29:33 Speaker 5: you know, to like troubleshoot stuff in real time, yeah

29:37 Speaker 5: if anything's wrong, and then also set up my own

29:41 Speaker 5: guitar stuff in my own microphone and make sure I

29:43 Speaker 5: can hear myself and all that good stuff.

29:44 Speaker 1: Oh no doubt. Yeah.

29:45 Speaker 4: Yeah.

29:45 Speaker 1: Does that ever happen where something goes wrong on the

29:47 Speaker 1: tech end and you got to, like you said, troubleshoot

29:51 Speaker 1: on the spot in real time.

29:52 Speaker 5: Thankfully, we've It's pretty funny. I think we have nine

29:57 Speaker 5: of those issues at home when we're practicing thing, yeah,

30:00 Speaker 5: which is nice.

30:02 Speaker 1: Good good. Yeah, Well that's that's what how it should go.

30:05 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And I think it's all set up at

30:07 Speaker 2: this point so well as far as like like something

30:10 Speaker 2: really tragic would have to happen to like move the

30:13 Speaker 2: click track so it's like not in the right spot

30:16 Speaker 2: or something like that. Yeah, So I think it's I

30:19 Speaker 2: think we've got it pretty solid at this point.

30:21 Speaker 1: Yeah.

30:22 Speaker 2: I think there's also, like I said, you know, there's

30:26 Speaker 2: always improvements to be made, especially once you start thinking

30:28 Speaker 2: about like gear, you know, I mean, that's an endless

30:31 Speaker 2: rabbit hole that'll leave you homeless if you go too far.

30:35 Speaker 1: Yep, yep, well said, well said, Now what is uh

30:40 Speaker 1: so this this album here, this has not been out

30:44 Speaker 1: that long, right, this is relatively new.

30:45 Speaker 3: Yeah, it came out in June, in June. Okay, okay

30:49 Speaker 3: new to everybody else. Yeah.

30:51 Speaker 1: Yeah, are you already thinking about the next one? In

30:54 Speaker 1: terms of like, are you already writing for it?

30:56 Speaker 2: Or uh yeah, yeah, I mean we're always writing. Yeah,

31:00 Speaker 2: I mean we play guitar. I play guitar personally at

31:03 Speaker 2: least like like three hours a day is like a

31:05 Speaker 2: bad day for me, and so I'm writing on an accident,

31:10 Speaker 2: you know.

31:11 Speaker 1: Yeah.

31:11 Speaker 4: And then we're also purpose right.

31:17 Speaker 5: At least once to a couple of times a week.

31:21 Speaker 5: Right now, we're definitely back in the we're back in

31:24 Speaker 5: the shop.

31:25 Speaker 2: This is like gonna be our last show I think

31:28 Speaker 2: for this year, and you know, we'll have a bunch

31:30 Speaker 2: of stuff to announce for next year obviously and everything

31:32 Speaker 2: when the time comes. But we're gonna take this like

31:36 Speaker 2: hibernation time. I think is like a nice writing period,

31:40 Speaker 2: you know, just to kind of hang out and not

31:42 Speaker 2: necessarily even think about the first.

31:44 Speaker 4: Record for a little bit, right, right, maybe play it.

31:47 Speaker 4: That's about it.

31:48 Speaker 1: Play it some right, right, Yeah, you're gonna have to

31:50 Speaker 1: even even during your your hibernation period, shall we say

31:53 Speaker 1: you're gonna you're still gonna have to play it or

31:55 Speaker 1: because you don't want to risk forget.

31:56 Speaker 3: Any Yeah, you definitely got to keep the cold stoked.

32:02 Speaker 5: The upkeep on this stuff is unlike anything I've ever had,

32:07 Speaker 5: you know, I can imagine. Yeah, it's impossible for me

32:11 Speaker 5: to store certain things in a spot in my brain

32:15 Speaker 5: that's gonna stay forever unless I play it all the time.

32:20 Speaker 5: There's so much stuff up here.

32:21 Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, no, that makes sense. That makes sense.

32:25 Speaker 1: Do you play the full album live?

32:27 Speaker 3: We have?

32:28 Speaker 2: Yeah, we did it at our release show. Okay, we

32:31 Speaker 2: did it front to back. I wouldn't mind doing that again.

32:34 Speaker 2: But a lot of the times it seems, I don't know,

32:37 Speaker 2: it doesn't seem like the most pertinent way to get

32:39 Speaker 2: through a show. And a lot of times we're only

32:41 Speaker 2: getting like half hour sets and stuff like that.

32:43 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, what is it? Because some of some of

32:45 Speaker 1: the songs are pretty long.

32:46 Speaker 5: But yeah, right, what does a clock out at you know,

32:49 Speaker 5: forty three minutes? It's not that bad as a whole

32:52 Speaker 5: there's a lot of like interlude stuff. Yeah, and as

32:55 Speaker 5: far as what we're playing, it's probably closer to like

32:57 Speaker 5: forty minutes.

32:58 Speaker 1: Okay.

32:59 Speaker 5: The issue is to play this album in the time

33:03 Speaker 5: span that's outlined as it is for everybody to listen

33:07 Speaker 5: to live.

33:08 Speaker 4: Is you know, pretty exhausting.

33:11 Speaker 1: Yeah, I can imagine.

33:12 Speaker 5: Yeah, you need like a few minutes in between to

33:15 Speaker 5: take a deep breath. And because we do go song

33:18 Speaker 5: to songs sometimes, oh yeah, oh for sure.

33:20 Speaker 1: Yeah.

33:21 Speaker 3: I don't think that the album itself is in the

33:23 Speaker 3: best order for a live show though, yes.

33:26 Speaker 1: Okay, so it's in the order for the story obviously,

33:30 Speaker 1: but not necessarily for the live show, correct.

33:32 Speaker 3: Yeah.

33:33 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's like it's like a good vibe to

33:35 Speaker 2: listen to, but it's it's like awkward to play through

33:38 Speaker 2: in that order, I think.

33:40 Speaker 1: Okay, no, that makes sense. Uh yeah, Hans Smith and

33:44 Speaker 1: the chat says, let the hibernation begin. Yeah, well, I

33:47 Speaker 1: mean that is what a lot of bands do though,

33:48 Speaker 1: at at least in this part of the country, you know,

33:50 Speaker 1: in the winter, you know, focusing on writing and recording exactly.

33:53 Speaker 3: I mean, what am I going to do?

33:54 Speaker 2: Go drive, you know, five hours to play for fifty

33:57 Speaker 2: bucks in New York. It wants to like snow outside, Like, yeah,

34:01 Speaker 2: it's gonna be cold, I'm gonna smash my fingers while

34:03 Speaker 2: it's cold.

34:04 Speaker 3: Who wants to do that? You know?

34:06 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's something I don't miss about There are things

34:10 Speaker 1: that I miss about playing live, but that's one of

34:11 Speaker 1: the things I don't miss is is doing shows in

34:14 Speaker 1: the winter and and you know, if the weather's bad,

34:16 Speaker 1: and then you know, and then you don't know is

34:18 Speaker 1: it gonna be canceled? A You're gonna get there and

34:19 Speaker 1: find out it's canceled.

34:20 Speaker 3: It's right.

34:21 Speaker 1: There's a lot that that goes with it that can

34:24 Speaker 1: be quite miserable. Yeah, no, exactly, Well we will, we'll

34:29 Speaker 1: begin to wrap up, we'll play I was thinking we

34:32 Speaker 1: to end the segment. Maybe we'll play corruption.

34:35 Speaker 4: Oh sure, Oh that would be amazing.

34:36 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I like this one a lot.

34:38 Speaker 4: Thank you.

34:39 Speaker 1: So of course, uh oh, where should people go to

34:43 Speaker 1: find you online? What's the best place to go? Because

34:45 Speaker 1: if you just google questing beast a lot comes up.

34:48 Speaker 2: So if you google questing Beast banned, We've got a

34:51 Speaker 2: website up and we'll have a online store there within

34:55 Speaker 2: the next week. Excellent we just got vinyl in so

34:59 Speaker 2: we're gonna be trying they get rid of that as

35:01 Speaker 2: soon as we possibly can.

35:02 Speaker 1: Oh, very good, very good.

35:03 Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, it's awesome.

35:05 Speaker 1: Yeah yeah.

35:05 Speaker 5: And you can find us on any social media Facebook, Instagram,

35:09 Speaker 5: you can stream those. Yeah, you can stream our music

35:14 Speaker 5: basically anywhere, Spotify, Apple Music, even Title if you want

35:17 Speaker 5: to listen to some high quality audio.

35:19 Speaker 1: Excellent, excellent, very good.

35:21 Speaker 3: Shout out to title.

35:22 Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, yes, and we'll remind everybody, of course, the

35:26 Speaker 1: Hallowed and Haunted Halloween Show tonight and Questing Beasts opening

35:31 Speaker 1: doors open at five, the show goes to midnight and

35:35 Speaker 1: also with Dead Harrison, The Egans Able, Blood Horror, and

35:39 Speaker 1: The Gray Curtain. So I have a great show tonight. Thanks, sure,

35:43 Speaker 1: it'll go fantastically. Yeah and uh and and thank you

35:47 Speaker 1: so much for coming in. This has been great.

35:49 Speaker 3: Thank you for having us.

35:50 Speaker 1: Absolutely, I'm definitely a fan, So I really like, really

35:53 Speaker 1: like what you're doing.

35:54 Speaker 6: So