The Fods | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: I love it. That is called I Get Blamed.

0:02 Speaker 2: The band is the Fodds, and we've got Rob Critchley on the line via WhatsApp.

0:07 Speaker 1: Rob, are you there, I'm here, Matt.

0:11 Speaker 3: Can you hear me?

0:11 Speaker 1: I can, Yes, Welcome back to the show.

0:13 Speaker 4: It's great, so much for having me.

0:17 Speaker 2: Absolutely, I love that track and you would sent that one to us specifically for today.

0:22 Speaker 1: So is that now?

0:22 Speaker 2: I know that's not the but it's not quite the newest single, right because I think you've had a couple since then.

0:27 Speaker 3: Correct, We've been on a bit of a role. Yeah, it's been good.

0:34 Speaker 4: As a sort of spoke about last time, like, finding people to actually sing for us is one of our biggest challenges. Yeah, and as we've put more music out, people have heard it, and as we've approached them, they've been a little bit more willing to engage with us.

0:51 Speaker 3: So we say, so those.

0:55 Speaker 4: Guys Headphones Jack, I heard about them a long time ago and I just reached out to them and they were like, this is a cool tune, Like, but it took us, you know, a good sort of six months to put it down and get everything ready.

1:11 Speaker 3: And they're they're busy, they're gigging, and they've got their own stuff to do.

1:15 Speaker 4: So we you know, you've got to fit fit all these things in around life. So while we're doing I get blamed. We're also doing like two or three others. So we found ourselves in a situation where we had like, you know, I think four pretty much completed songs, and we.

1:35 Speaker 3: Were like, we don't know what to do with this, you know.

1:36 Speaker 4: Like, how do how do we even like process it? So we thought, right, let's just you know, when they're done, we'll release and we'll give each one a month and move on to the next one. And it's turned out to be quite It turned out to be quite a good process because you sort of not that we're massively relevant, but you stay like, you know, producing things, and things keep hitting you know, the outside world, and you know, it builds a little bit of momentum behind it, and it's worked out really well for us.

2:09 Speaker 3: So we've got songs up to January. We're going to have a release on.

2:16 Speaker 4: Nineteenth and December, and also I think it's the twenty second of January.

2:20 Speaker 3: Okay, we've got and then we've got nothing else.

2:23 Speaker 4: So February we're like, okay, we need to write something or we need to like we've got you know, three or three or four other songs, right it works, but they're not really very mature, you know. Like we've got one out to one singer and he's done something with it and you know it's gotten okay, but like it needs a lot of work, and we've got.

2:45 Speaker 3: Another one and out to another.

2:49 Speaker 4: We've got a band in New Zealand of all places looking at it one and obviously there's a time difference. You've got a factor in and yeah, you know, and we sent it to them and do it light right, we'll have a look.

3:01 Speaker 3: I know, it's only a couple of weeks ago.

3:03 Speaker 4: Yeah, and I checked in and they were like nothing yet, okay, all right, and it's coming up to Christmas and people get busy and of course I don't think we'll have anything impact from people until January and then okay, so the timelines like sort of change a little bit and you're sort of going through all.

3:24 Speaker 3: This in your head. Yeah, you really want to put something else out because everything, everything that we've.

3:31 Speaker 4: Done, like you're getting a little bit of a role and you're.

3:33 Speaker 3: Saying, okay, this is this is you know, the way, a good way of releasing things and a good way of you know, the way a band should work.

3:43 Speaker 2: Yeah, I kind I kind of chuckled, because I remember when we had you on the first time, you were talking about how there was you had one instance where you would send somebody, you would send a vocalist a song to work on, and like six months went by and they still hadn't gotten the act to you what they had done, and you finally had to move on. And from what I call I don't remember what song it was, but from what I remember you saying, it all worked out for the best because then you found another vocalist who just did a fantastic job on it and the song came out better than you imagined it anyway.

4:10 Speaker 1: But so it kind of all worked out.

4:12 Speaker 2: But it can be frustrating when you're depending on other people, you know, to do their part.

4:16 Speaker 1: And then you get back to here, right, Yeah, that's the.

4:19 Speaker 4: One that's going to be released in January. Oh, So we found someone who was like really receptive to it, and he really wanted to get involved and he wanted to do some music on it, and you know, we went back and forth and he said, let me try something like this, and he's doing quite.

4:37 Speaker 3: A lot of the work, which is brilliant.

4:39 Speaker 4: You know that we want people to be engaged with it, and it works out so much, so much better when people are coming back and forth and we really like, we like them to go, can we try this instead of this?

4:54 Speaker 3: Right? Yeah, yeah, let's.

4:56 Speaker 4: Let's say, because that's what a collaboration should be, just sending it should be, just sending a song out and words coming back and we go, okay, we'll use those words.

5:06 Speaker 3: Yeah.

5:06 Speaker 2: So would you so yeah, would you say this is would you say this has been your busiest period with the thoughts?

5:12 Speaker 3: Oh for sure, Yeah, for sure.

5:14 Speaker 4: Yeah. We don't really know anything different, to be honest, because like we're still such I say, we're an immature band, like we've we did the Don't Argue projects and that was just was like regurgitating stuff that.

5:29 Speaker 3: We did like twenty five years ago.

5:31 Speaker 4: Sure, we still had to we still had to find people to do that, and that's that's what took the time, right. And then then when we released Shopping and the ineffectual Shopping was an old song, we yeah, all old band didn't want to use so it got released like in the two thousands, so late nineties, and when when all wanting to re re record other things from that period, Like he was with a different band and they put out a remote album John Covid and Shopping Shopping didn't make that cut for whatever reason, and so he.

6:15 Speaker 3: Says, right, let's do it.

6:16 Speaker 4: Let's put a Fotts take on it.

6:17 Speaker 3: And we did that. So the song was already there.

6:19 Speaker 4: We just like found a a vocalist, Laura, who did an amazing job. Like I tweaked the words a little bit, he bumped up the music a little bit, and then that was that and then the ineffectuals. It was just like so quick because he put the music down and it started off with his words and that's basically all his stuff, so there was really nothing for me to do.

6:49 Speaker 3: And he was like, I don't like this. I don't like these words. Will you change them?

6:53 Speaker 4: So I changed them as we went along. So I was writing as Joe was going back, and Joe like, you know, sender take it, and I go, his vocals are always amazing, and I go, like, askedufs terrible, So we needed to like, you know, make it better to fit his vocals. As we went along, so and Joe just turned the things around in a couple of days, like he was incredible to work with. So me or we're like, we've got to match this. So we had to really really level up our game. And so the willards sort of came out.

7:29 Speaker 4: They don't they don't really mean anything.

7:31 Speaker 3: It's like it's one of those things where you can.

7:34 Speaker 4: Say, oh, he's talking about it, so he's talking about that, I'm not really I'm trying to fit something in together in quite a short amount of time. And if it comes out, if it comes out to some someone thinks this, this is what he's talking about. That's brilliant. That's that's how I want it. I want it to be interpreted how you want to interpret right, right, just just like good words, and that's how I try and write my words anyway, like stuff that sounds.

8:05 Speaker 3: Like it belongs together.

8:07 Speaker 4: Right. So, so after the ineffectuals were done, we had like I've got you know, it's basically poetry. So you write poetry and then see what happens. See if there's a a lyric or some sort of guitar or you know, some sort of beat which goes with those lyrics, with those pubems. So these all.

8:35 Speaker 2: I'm sorry, so I so just to clarify too for a listener. So, so these all start with you, like you said, you're you're you're coming up with the words, and that's that's where all of these begin. Right, That's that's like the that's like the one thing that everything that the Fodds does as a collective, that's the one thing that that is the through line.

8:53 Speaker 3: Right. Yeah, it's it's my it will always be my words. Yeah, and in my head.

9:02 Speaker 4: You can try and put them to a beat or a tempo or a and then I put them in like a shared folder. Yeah, and I'll have a look at them, and he'll go, oh, I've got this. I've got this line that I wrote on the guitar. See if you can put anything together or what he's doing at the moment with one. Because I've said I've got these lyrics, he says, I've got something in my head.

9:28 Speaker 3: I'm going to try and you know, flesh that out and use these lyrics for it.

9:33 Speaker 4: So they're always a little bit you know, individual, they're was a little bit different, but it's basically him and I like trying to balance what each of us has come up with.

9:46 Speaker 1: Right.

9:48 Speaker 2: We should talk a little bit too about how this all works, because for for listeners, especially people listening to the show who maybe didn't hear our previous conversation I think I had said to you. To me, it seems like like the Fods, it's not so much a band, it's a collective, right, because you work with all these different people. So someone who doesn't know that might be confused about Wait a minute. You know, you're sending tracks to this person and waiting for them to get back to you with this, and you've got this other person you're you're working with, So this is I mean, and it's it's worked this way for a while, right, Like you you essentially you work with a lot of different different people.

10:23 Speaker 2: I mean obviously some of the same people too, right, But but but you work with with a lot of people on these tracks. They all start the same way, right, They all start with your lyrics. But what happens after that, each each song kind of kind of has its own, uh, its own path, shall we say?

10:41 Speaker 3: Yeah?

10:41 Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, each one has its own life. Yeah, and that sort of depends on who we choose to to get involved with because everyone works differently, so some people, you know, like to spend the time and take it a bit of effort and you know, work work with it how they want to work with it. And some people just want to bang it out and do what they think.

11:11 Speaker 3: Is right and move on to the next thing.

11:12 Speaker 4: So everyone works differently, So we don't really know if we will send it out to a vocalist and we don't really know what they're going to send back, right, And that that that's half the joy of it, to be honest. Like, there's a there's a song on They Don't Argue EP. It's called Volumes of Silence, and I love it. I think it's a really good song. And we did that, wrote those songs like when we were teenagers at school and I don't I don't really I was out of the music for twenty odd years. I don't really remember writing that song.

11:49 Speaker 4: I don't really remember how it sounded. When we put it together in twenty twenty four when we were doing the Don't Argue EP, I was like to well, I was like, I know this is a good song, but I don't really remember how I mean, he played it and we were like okay, like and we built it and we had it good enough to send out to a vocalist.

12:14 Speaker 3: We found this guy from the band j h H. It's called Jeff. He had this like.

12:24 Speaker 4: If you sort of think back to you know, I'm from originally from Manchester in the UK, and he had that sort of you know Ian Brown James sort of vibe, you know, like he he sounded like he could have been from that era.

12:40 Speaker 3: We're like, okay, we'll try him. And he came back and he did it.

12:44 Speaker 4: So differently than what we thought he would do it really, and we were like, it's amazing, it's brilliant.

12:53 Speaker 3: It's different. That's it's like the whole process. That's like the whole thing. And there's been a couple that come back and we've gone, oh, no, like what do we do this? It's really it's really not what we wanted.

13:05 Speaker 4: And I really like they've done it in the wrong key or they done it like so we have to then make that decision. Do you do you go back and talk to them and say, right, we know you we gave you a bit of a free reign here, but we don't also like you to change this a little bit and change this a little bit and building building that way and most people are quite they're open to that. They don't mind being told what to do. What was there was one guy is like, I think it should be done like this, probably, don't.

13:41 Speaker 3: You know, You've you've got.

13:41 Speaker 4: To be quite diplomatic and you've got to be quite you know, sensitive to other artists feelings as well, because they're putting their time, they're putting their time and their energy and not pain. You know, they're not getting any you know, not giving them a thousand dollars every time they some lyrics for us. Right, So it's always a fine balance and we've got to be happy and they've got to be happy. And like we as we've gone out to artists, we we've sort of made that clear in the in the stuff that we send out to them.

14:14 Speaker 4: We stay right, would love you to do this. But if you're not happy, if we're not happy, you know, we you know.

14:21 Speaker 3: We can shake hands and walk away from it.

14:24 Speaker 4: And we've got because now we've got like a little bit of you know, we're on our seven to eight song with nearly up to you know, doing an album. Yeah, because we've got that behind us. Now we've got a bit more confidence and we've got and we we have the sort of ability to say to them.

14:44 Speaker 3: It's I would say, not good enough. It's it needs to be different, it needs to go a different way. So it's exciting.

14:53 Speaker 4: And these last we're up to seven songs that are completely and we want to put a song album out at the end, at the end of Q one, oh excellent.

15:08 Speaker 3: And it's been it's been something that always wants to do.

15:11 Speaker 4: It's like, uh, you know, it's it's really something that he's passionate about and say, right for him personally putting an album out after you know.

15:23 Speaker 3: Years and years of writing songs and music, it's going to it's going to be really something.

15:28 Speaker 4: I'm really hoping that it's going to be great for him. I just want to make sure that what we put out, you know, in the ten track format, however it's going to look like, is it's what he wants.

15:42 Speaker 2: So I would imagine I would imagine too that there must be a challenge inherent in that. I mean, you know, I know it's you're not you're not at the stage out of probably thinking about the order of the tracks or anything, I would assume, but when you when you do get to that point, because because of of the way this project works, and like I said, it's more of a collective than a band. So each song, you know, you've got different vocalists, you've got different you know, each song kind of really takes on its own character because when you're putting an album together, artists try to approach it like, Okay, there has to be you know, regardless of when or how these songs were written or how they were recorded, et cetera, there has to be some sort of cohesion that that kind of binds all these songs together.

16:27 Speaker 2: And I wonder, I mean, are you already thinking about the challenge of that. I mean, obviously there's a through line, right because they all start the same way. They all start with you and your words. So maybe that maybe that's the answer, Maybe that's the through line, But I don't know, I mean, are you are you already thinking about that?

16:44 Speaker 1: At this point?

16:46 Speaker 4: We have and we we sort of throw it out there and you know, when a song gets completed, so we've got like a seven track list of the moment, okay, and as the two ball are very different, So what you're saying is that absolutely correct.

17:07 Speaker 3: We can't decide on what track to open with.

17:12 Speaker 4: We've pretty much decided what track to close with, and then there's you know, everything that goes on in the middle. And I think we'll probably only know this once the ten tracks have been finished. You know, we'll see I know it can be an important thing. And we do want to do physical albums, you know, we do want to you know, put this as an old fashioned LP, like five songs on one side, five songs on the other.

17:43 Speaker 3: So they've got to be logical from that perspective. Yeah, at the moment, You're absolutely right, they aren't logical.

17:52 Speaker 4: And I'm not saying I'm worried about it, like I'm going to get ten songs on an album and it's going to be we are going to be good. It is a challenge for us, It's it's a it's an interesting challenge, the one that we've never had to face before because I don't argue projects. Was just like, we know the order because that's the order that we used to play them live when we live every Yeah.

18:20 Speaker 3: So we knew kick that was going to be in the middle.

18:22 Speaker 4: We're going to know that Metal Dog is the opener, and so that's how we did it then, because that's what made sense to us this.

18:31 Speaker 3: You know, we've not played one one of these songs live. Maybe that will change.

18:36 Speaker 4: I don't know, but it's it's something that we have thought about. And every time a song, even even if it doesn't complete, you can sort of see where it's going when it's like in mid flow, and we can we can slide this in between these two songs that that could make a difference. So when we go through this, he sends me, what's happened, he says, this is my seventh song order. Yeah, yeah, no, no, So it will be a conversation that we will have in probably February or March.

19:14 Speaker 1: Yeah.

19:15 Speaker 2: Yeah, something too that I don't think we touched on this the last time when you were on the show before us. But I don't think we talked about distribution, because I'm curious now you don't you don't have the fons is not on Spotify, correct.

19:30 Speaker 4: We we were having problems with them, okay. A few other artists have said the same thing to us. So we were on Spotify okay, and.

19:41 Speaker 3: We're doing okay. And I don't know what caused it. I don't know if if.

19:48 Speaker 4: You or anyone else out there who has been through issues with Spotify, they don't really want to talk to you. They'll talk to your distribution, right, and the distribution will come and talk to us.

20:00 Speaker 3: And every month Spotify would.

20:03 Speaker 4: Not like what's in huge numbers like two thousand or fifteen hundred or two thousand.

20:10 Speaker 3: Streams. Yeah, particularly the ineffectuals.

20:14 Speaker 1: Oh okay, And so you.

20:17 Speaker 4: Know, we we weren't doing anything with We just put it out there and let it and I was always you know, sending links and sending stuff, but you know, we don't buy and downloads or.

20:31 Speaker 3: Anything like that.

20:32 Speaker 4: We we try and produce it organically or try and but we tried to. So after every month, you know, Spotify will go two thousand streams off gone, and we don't go distributing, and they'd.

20:48 Speaker 3: Say, oh, you're.

20:50 Speaker 4: Either getting on playlists that aren't you know, genuine.

20:55 Speaker 3: Or the bot run or whatever.

20:58 Speaker 4: And so after six months of this, we were just like, it's just not worth.

21:03 Speaker 3: It because you're fighting like a huge conglomerate. Oh yeah, there's there's nothing really could do. So there was just no real point. And when we.

21:15 Speaker 4: Left Spotify, the Ineffectuals had seven thousand streams. Whi's not bad in itself it's okay. Yeah, our Spotify rapped came out even though we were off Spotify, and I have not been on since since August. Yeah, they said, and our Spotify rapped that our biggest song of twenty twenty six was the Ineffectuals, which had been streamed thirty three thousand times real, So they right, So they have just you know, sort of admitted, and I put a post on there and I was I was a bit angry, and maybe I should have, but as I said, like in your vanity parade, that is Spotify, I raped, you've admitted that we had thirty three thousand genuine streams and that's what's in our Spotify rap.

22:07 Speaker 4: But we when we came off your platform. You called every single month and it stands to seven thousand, and.

22:15 Speaker 3: We didn't have any comeback. We couldn't ask the question. Our distributor was scared of Spotify. They don't want to talk to them because we've got so.

22:24 Speaker 4: Much power, And we were like, it doesn't really matter to us, right, It's great that we were getting stream and it's great that people were.

22:31 Speaker 3: Listening to it, right every time, every time, you know.

22:35 Speaker 4: We we tried to interact with them, or we tried to understand why they were treating us like this, and like basically what had happened is at the start of every month Spotify would say, oh, even, you know, fifty cents from your your streaming right, but we're going to knock two thousand streams off, so you down to like ten SAIDs or you.

23:03 Speaker 3: Ows money or something like that. It was. It was just brutal. Every month we were like, oh, what they're going to do this month?

23:09 Speaker 4: So we don't really we're not in this for the money, in this for the streams, like hopefully we get people to listen to us, hopefully don't like it. Yeah, but you know, we're at the end of the day, we're really doing it for you know, to get this album out and to make sure that what we put out continues to be quality.

23:27 Speaker 3: And since we've.

23:28 Speaker 4: Come off, we're not we're not sitting there like looking at streams and we're not worried about it.

23:33 Speaker 3: And it doesn't matter when the first of the month comes around and right, you know.

23:37 Speaker 4: There's nothing there to to to do. So I don't know if people I don't really follow it, to be honest, I don't know if people are listening on Apple or these are or wherever else. Sure, on everything else, so you can still get it.

23:52 Speaker 1: But like, of course, yeah, you know, Spotify is.

23:55 Speaker 3: Just such a they're not going to be bothered at we're not on it. It's going to make zero difference, right right. It saves us just like the.

24:08 Speaker 4: The thoughts and people have been very supportive about it and come back and said, like, I wish we could do this, but we need I think it's you know a lot of people still think that, you know, our song could make it. You know, it could get a hundred thousand streams, it could get a million streams.

24:24 Speaker 3: Yeah, do it, you know, do what's right for you.

24:29 Speaker 4: For us, you know, I don't think we're ever going to get a hundred thousand streams or a million streams. You never know.

24:36 Speaker 3: But if they do, they can go to you know, any other platform forther than Spotify. So it's just a little stance.

24:43 Speaker 4: Yeah, it will make no difference, but it's made us feel better.

24:47 Speaker 1: Sure.

24:47 Speaker 2: Sure, Well it's difficult because you're in a position where, you know, and this is kind of the position that everybody's in in a sense, is that we're all sort of at the mercy of you know, it comes with big tech. And don't get me wrong, I love I love tech, and I love that we have all these resources that we didn't have when I was growing up and so forth. But you know, you're really at the mercy of these platforms, you know, no matter what you're doing. Like for example, I wasn't able to stream you know, I like to stream this show to Facebook when I'm live.

25:20 Speaker 2: I wasn't able to do that for a month because I was banned from live streaming.

25:24 Speaker 4: And and and.

25:26 Speaker 1: They don't like to tell you why. They don't.

25:29 Speaker 2: They like to tell you that you did something wrong and so you're banned from And it was the only thing I was banned from. My account wasn't banned or anything. I just was banned from streaming. They like to tell you that you can't do this anymore for a while, but they don't like to tell you why. You know, it'd be nice to know why, so then I can avoid doing it again, But they don't like to tell you that. But we're all kind of at the mercy of you know, And they don't like to talk to you, just like Spotify doesn't like to talk to you.

25:52 Speaker 2: Facebook doesn't like to talk to you either. I'm amazed that I was able to get as much information as I did. You know, YouTube doesn't like to talk to you unless you're you know, unless you have you know, a million subscribers.

26:02 Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, we're all kind of at the mercy of that.

26:07 Speaker 4: Like there's so many you know, radio shows and podcasts, and they like to tag bands on there, so the band actually knows that they're going to get played, which is really nice for the band. It's really nice for the for the podcast or for the radio show because they'll get you know, a listener for that hopefully. And if you can't tag something, you just don't know. So even trying to find out, you know, if you do okay on radio, it's not easy. You know, you've got to you've got to really you know, hunts for stats, and you know, we we use sort of I try and use what's called Online Box Radio and they do a few stats every now and then and they show which radio stations played it.

26:57 Speaker 4: But I'd say probably only twenty five sense of the radio stations actually subscribe to online Box, so you're not getting a full picture, right. And the one thing, the one thing with Spotify and they did it so cleverly is they show you exactly what is. You know, what's being played, and you can see that you've had, like, you know, ten streams or one hundred streams, and you know, it gives you a little bit of visibility around what you're actually doing.

27:27 Speaker 3: And I've read.

27:28 Speaker 4: I've read something the other day.

27:32 Speaker 3: You know, if you're not getting those streams, it's what stops you making music. And I thought it was really quite poignant that you're not doing it for yourself, you're doing it for other people. And I think you've you've really got to be making music for yourself. And once you get into that mindset, it doesn't really matter what goes externally.

27:53 Speaker 4: You know, you can do whatever you want and if you want to play gigs, you can play gigs. And if you want to, you know, set a goal for stream and you can do that or get on radio.

28:01 Speaker 3: Well, if you're not.

28:02 Speaker 4: Doing it for yourself first and foremost, then it doesn't really make too much sense to be doing it, because if you can't make yourself happy when you're doing it, it's got to be a joyful experience just making music. And it's one of the things that we talked about when we said, like we'll come off spot because it was just making things that a little.

28:22 Speaker 3: Bit too much harder. And we've got you know, we've both got day jobs.

28:24 Speaker 4: We spend them all our time, you know, chasing up and figuring out what's going on.

28:30 Speaker 3: And we're just like, you know, want to try and put.

28:32 Speaker 4: It out there, yeah and move on and like say, yeah, that was a really good song. We had a great experience with this this guy who sang it with us. We'll try and replicate that and the next time we go and then you know, we go again for another song. And the model, which we have absolutely stumbled upon because we don't know what we were going to be doing.

28:53 Speaker 3: It works well for us.

28:54 Speaker 4: So it's just like it's a good hobby from I get home from work and you know, I sit down for a couple of hours. If I could do it all on my phone and I can distribute to radio shows, yeah, find different contacts that may be able to help. And I don't know, like people may be getting a bit annoyed with me, but I spent quite a lot, spend quite a lot of time like sending emails out and saying, you know, here's.

29:20 Speaker 3: A song which we think maybe maybe a good fit to your radio station.

29:24 Speaker 1: That's what it takes.

29:25 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's the way we do it. Now.

29:30 Speaker 2: I can relate to what you were saying about radio because so one of the things that I do in my business, I'm a college radio promoter. So clients hire me to send their music out to college radio stations, and I do all the follow up and the tracking and everything and that. But the tracking is the most challenging part because a lot of these stations don't report to any kind of a service. So the only way I know for sure, you know, is when the when somebody at the radio station, the music director or the program director confirms directly with me that yes, we've we have this track in rotation.

30:02 Speaker 2: Okay, can you give me a spin count? The answer most of the time is no.

30:08 Speaker 1: You know, but when we can, we.

30:11 Speaker 2: Can tell you if it's in you know, heavy rotation or light rotation or whatever. But it's But it's the single most reliable way is just getting that information directly from the station because there's so many you know, it used to be easier too. There used to be college music Journal, which technically still exists, but not in its old form, and you know, you could get information through them, but now that you know that went away, they completely changed how they do it. They don't really do what they used to do.

30:35 Speaker 2: And now there's all these different services that you can subscribe to. But it's it's more difficult. Like it's easier in one sense to find services that report whether your music is being played at different stations, but it's hard to find one service that reports all of it. And and then to you know, and and actually and and some of these radio stations. They're just like the big tech company. They don't want to necessarily talk to you either.

31:04 Speaker 4: That's all taking a leaf out of Spotify and Big Text. You know, stands the If big tech won't talk to.

31:12 Speaker 2: You, right, right, why should w E R s in Boston, why should they talk to me either? You know, and they do but you know, but but but you mentioned it too. You have to be persistent, right, and that's that's really what it takes. You have to be persistent.

31:29 Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, we we send an email out.

31:35 Speaker 3: For every release.

31:37 Speaker 4: And one of our problems is as well, so we we we've got a list. I don't know how.

31:42 Speaker 3: Many email addresses are on it.

31:45 Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel guilty. I feel I do feel quite guilty, but I know that it's kind of happen. So we send send this out and it takes like a few hours to send to every radio station. Well, we we don't stick to one genre. Oh you know, some of our stuff was a little bit heavier.

32:07 Speaker 3: Some of it.

32:09 Speaker 4: You know, it's come out as a bit bluesy. You know, there's punkin there. So every time we do a different song,

32:19 Speaker 4: you know you're looking for so, you know, for I get blamed, I was trying to send it out to punk stations if that's such a thing, you know, like a little bit more punky, right, and fanzines and podcasts and all that sort of stuff. And then after I get blamed, we released is very much enough And that is definitely not a punk song, you know. That's that that's a little bit moody and a bit bluesy and a bit ballady, and it's very different for what we what we again sort of set out to do. We know we wanted to do something a little bit different and for us, like being different is great.

33:01 Speaker 4: But when we send that song to the punk channel that we sent to last week, they're like, what is this you just sent us? We can't play this, And I'm like, well, I class ourselves as, like in the Massive Inverted Comments, a punk rock band. And if you have a look at the term of punk, it's basically anything, you know, like it's not like sticking to conformity and like playing two courts, you know, like.

33:31 Speaker 1: Right, of course it can be.

33:33 Speaker 3: Punk can be pretty much anything.

33:34 Speaker 4: And listen, you listen to a band like the Clash, an original punk band, you know what, the biggest punk band around probably and you know, they do Clypso music and they do Middle Eastern music and they've done all sorts and it's just like punk can't be just you know what is stereotypically thought of like a punk song. It's like a short two minute blast, right, And so I know that we're sending you a blue song, you know, give it, give it a try. You don't have to play it, you know, and the next one will probably be more punk, right.

34:10 Speaker 4: But like some people come by and just so you know, on subscribed, delete me from this playlist.

34:17 Speaker 3: You know, some are quite thanks for this, but I can't play this.

34:21 Speaker 4: That's fine, you don't. You don't need to play everything, you know, everything's a little bit different.

34:26 Speaker 2: I actually I feel I feel like the what you have, I mean, it does all you can put it all in the broader category of indie rock. I feel like, you know, I mean, it all fits that certainly.

34:38 Speaker 4: That's exactly what we if we do market That's what we market ourselves as an indie punk crop band.

34:47 Speaker 3: So we're sort of straddling genres, you know, and that's what we want to do, right And.

34:55 Speaker 4: Going back to your point about the album, we've got like a a blue song and a punk song and then shopping and the ineffectuals which are probably just indie rock. And our latest release, which is a matter of time, has got a lot of synth in it.

35:14 Speaker 3: It's got like a SyncE where at the bottom of it. So I don't I don't even know who to send that to be honest.

35:22 Speaker 4: Do we send that to Electric because it's got a bit of cyincionata are they going to like that?

35:27 Speaker 3: Yeah?

35:29 Speaker 4: Or do we send it to the punk people like It's been played on a few rock chields and I'm like that's great. Well I'm not too sure it is rock, and so I just hope people see it for what it is. It's like, what's trying to be a little bit different and not send you like the same sort of thing every time. And some people really appreciate that, and some people don't like it. Well, it is what it is.

35:58 Speaker 1: We should we should tell people too.

36:00 Speaker 2: You are on band Camp, which that's one of my favorite resources for music.

36:05 Speaker 3: It's it's a great place.

36:06 Speaker 2: Everything's on band camp and band camp too. Something a lot of people don't realize is that you get a high quality file, a high bit rate file from band Camp that you don't necessarily get. So, for example, if you're just streaming music on YouTube, you know you're better off streaming music on band Camp and downloading it from there because you're going to get a much higher quality file.

36:28 Speaker 4: I was shocked the difference. I didn't really listen to bank Camp. I knew it was out there, and then I I got sent some bank Camp stuff and I listened to it and I was like, this is brilliant. And then I put it on a Spotify playlist and it was terrible on Spotify.

36:51 Speaker 1: Yeah.

36:52 Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know, it was really my opening that that bank Camp's quality was so much better.

37:00 Speaker 1: Yeah.

37:01 Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's like I said, that's something that's something people don't realize.

37:06 Speaker 1: Rob the time does go quickly. I want to make sure.

37:08 Speaker 2: So I think we're going to end the segment when we when we wrap up in a couple of minutes with that song A matter of time. I really like that one a lot later in the show too. I might I might circle back and play a couple others if we have time, but I want to make sure because we were talking about, you know, not being on Spotify and where you are. Discoverability is a term that I use a lot. We want to make sure people do know where to find like where's the best places to go for people to find the fods and and to keep up with everything that you're doing.

37:39 Speaker 3: And you can.

37:41 Speaker 4: We're on Facebook and we're on Instagram and obviously bank camp is a good place for us, and we're on everything else apart from Spify. Yeah, just Spify that is I know it goes on for us now and there's there's gonna be some new places.

38:00 Speaker 3: I can't remember what the card off the top of my head because it's all who basically does.

38:04 Speaker 4: All the all this sort of stuff. But there's there's, there's, there's you know a bunch of new I guess they're trying to disrupt what Spotify and Apple and all these but like there's posts on our Instagram which explain it, and we're saying right now, we're not on Spotify, we'll we'll we'll try these places and the you know, the sort of people who've got.

38:32 Speaker 3: Been in the same sort of situations have got fed up with big tech.

38:36 Speaker 4: I guess I think that they're run by bands. Let me let me just have a quick look on my Instagram.

38:43 Speaker 3: Yeah, and.

38:46 Speaker 4: They were run by bands, and they said that they're gonna,

38:50 Speaker 4: you know, pay a little bit more and look after the.

38:53 Speaker 3: Bands a bit better. So we'll see what. We'll see what happens.

38:59 Speaker 4: What's foot it's what is it? So subvert subvert right, so that this is going to be like a new place.

39:10 Speaker 1: I didn't know about this, So check it out.

39:13 Speaker 4: And you know, if if new bands want to get on there, and it looks to be quite an interesting place, and what's happens. You know, anything that you know gives smaller artists a bigger platform is you know, something that we want to be involved in.

39:32 Speaker 2: Absolutely, and we always need disruptors coming into the frame. You know, and and better to have more options than less, and and and all of it too. And you know, it does get scary when when you've got something like Spotify, that that becomes so dominant and and so important, you know, you know, to the point that as as you talked about earlier, to the point where your own distributor is afraid to even challenge them on anything. You know, that's that's how powerful they are. And that's that's too much.

40:00 Speaker 2: That's that's too much power concentrated in one place.

40:04 Speaker 4: Absolutely, and you say, they're only going to get better. You see the other day Netflix Sport MGM.

40:11 Speaker 1: They bought Warner Brothers, Netflix, Warner Brothers.

40:14 Speaker 4: Yeah, how big Netflix going to be? You know, if that's happening, it's insane. The next thing Netflix, Netflix will probably buy, you know, well another story platform. Man can imagine it by Amazon or something like that. Yeah, just get bigger and bigger. So, I don't know, it's a strange and interesting place.

40:38 Speaker 1: It is. It absolutely is. Well.

40:42 Speaker 2: Listen Rob Critchley from the Thoughts. Always wonderful to talk with you. I really enjoy our conversations. We'll definitely do this again in the near future. Obviously, you've got uh, you've got more music coming, so there's always more to talk about.

40:56 Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, when we get more, and.

41:00 Speaker 4: We'll let you know about the album and please which order we put it in, and yeah, that would be that'd be a good place to uh to talk next.

41:08 Speaker 2: I think absolutely absolutely. That sounds great. That sounds great. Yeah, so we'll we'll talk soon for sure. We're gonna let you go and I'm gonna hit this track a matter of time. Another great another great song from the Fods. We'll let you get going, but Rob, thank you so much and we'll talk to you soon.

41:23 Speaker 3: Man, I appreciate you. Makee look after yourself.

41:26 Speaker 1: All right, I will thank you, take care bye bye je all right.

41:30 Speaker 2: That is Rob Pritchley from the Fods, and I do really enjoy talking with him