[00:00:00] Speaker A: You was born on a Saturday in 73 in the park. Right? Music on the big guitar with the short, with radio.
It's motherfucking Andy calling.
Look at my fucking cup. Here we come. Andy calling, wearing his arm.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: All right, so welcome to unsigned five one eight. I am here again with May heaven. How's it going, man?
[00:00:33] Speaker C: I'm doing all right. How are you? How are you, Andy?
[00:00:35] Speaker B: I'm good. And we were just talking before we cut rolling that you were on episode 31 of unsigned five one eight, which seems like a very long time ago. I guess, calendar wise, it was only, like, a year and a half or so, because I think it was like, august of 2022.
[00:00:53] Speaker C: We were both trying to time it. I think that's about where we. Where it looked. Yeah, it was like late summer.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: Yeah, something like that. But anyway, a lot has happened, not only to this show, but in your world. A lot has happened musically in that year and a half where.
And not that I have any issues with people coming back to the show more than once. Obviously, there's a lot of people that have come more than once, but sometimes it's just like, you have to come back. Holy shit. There's so much has happened in the last year and a half that I feel like you're like a different artist, even though you're the same person. So I guess let's talk about some of that stuff that's happened for you musically.
[00:01:36] Speaker C: All right, the first couple of things, as far as strictly may have a material. I released a record called Wellspring in October 2022, played some shows around that 2023, I did quite a bit of writing and released a couple of new singles.
One came out late spring, early summer, which was called nothing, and then one came out New Year's Day love and only love.
But I kind of went through on that front, just like a lot of the writing I had done previously was all sort of unpacking things I had struggled with over the course of my life. Things like anxiety, depression. Wellspring was a record that, conceptually, I wrote it as sort of a piece in five acts, where the first song, hurts like hell, feels like home was kind of an overture, and then where it just was basically about personality wise, why do I keep doing the same things to myself?
And then each of the following songs was based on a separate vignette from my life. Like Scribner was based on a very personal story. Edge of the map was dance for you was, and then no name number one. The last song was basically the narrator. Further down the road, lecturing the narrator from hurts like hell on kind of where I went lyrically, which is that your actions don't happen in a vacuum. Your pain does not happen in a vacuum. The world goes on no matter how you're feeling, and there's collateral damage to how you express yourself.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: All right. And now that I'm like, as we're talking, people can go back and listen to episode 31, because I do remember you talking some more. So if they want, like, an addendum or some more information on what you're saying, there's a whole other episode where we talk. Fantastic. I'm loving this because I'm, like, getting deja vu.
[00:03:57] Speaker C: Yeah, no, it all comes back to you after a certain point.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: I remember the songs. I remember the music. Yeah.
[00:04:03] Speaker C: But that was like a thing I just wanted to kind of start talking about are these stories of just, like, I'm a person who maybe did a thing or went through a thing, and here's all of the other people who are involved. Here's all the other things that are involved. Here is how I come back to it having changed.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: Right.
[00:04:22] Speaker C: And that, I felt like, was a cool place to go.
And so January, I did a string of shows, basically for reasons I'll get into when we start discussing the other stuff that's been going on.
I did, like, a pocket of shows from December to January, most recent of which was on January 18. I had the pleasure of playing with my friends Angelina Valente and will fordet over at no fun. And then I've got, on Monday the 22nd, I'll be doing a solo performance at the jive Hive, and that is with some other friends of mine.
My band for that will consist of Jess Bowen and Brian Broncado from headless relatives and House of Saturn and Lucy Nelligan, who plays with me in rural county. Bad boys will be also part of the band for that show.
[00:05:25] Speaker B: And will that be something that's going to be live streamed? That will be live streamed forever.
We'll live forever on the Jive Hives YouTube page so that you can go see that. So that's mean. Love the drive.
Actually just saw Tom and Alec and Mikey last night at the sugar hold show at the unified gig, right? At unified, yeah.
[00:05:53] Speaker A: Nice.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: It was. Place was fucking packed, man.
[00:05:56] Speaker C: I think the last time I saw you and all of them was the new year's gig with.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: You.
[00:06:05] Speaker C: Nol knotts and Pine boys, right?
[00:06:07] Speaker B: Yeah, it was interesting because we were down a lead guitarist because Lonnie couldn't make it, and it was at the drive hive, and normally I'm there. It's kind of business stuff. And it was, like, just a party that we play at at the end.
I'm like, cool. I've been sitting at the bar drinking whiskey all night, and now I have to go work. At the very end of that, I got to go out and play. So, like, rewatching it. I was rewatching it on YouTube, and I was like, yeah, I don't know.
[00:06:42] Speaker C: I have had those gigs where just like, you step off stage and you're like.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: And I mean, I kind of knew that going into it because they were all like, whatever, just like, we're having fun. And then playing, I'm like, yeah, okay.
Didn't exactly pull it out, but it was fun. Like, you can see I'm having fun.
[00:07:03] Speaker C: I remember the first couple of acoustic shows I did, I was playing my other acoustic guitar, which is a twelve string attack me EF 381. And I could not keep that freaking thing in tune to save my life. It's very audible on certain recordings.
[00:07:19] Speaker B: That's going to be hard with a.
[00:07:21] Speaker C: Twelve string because you can't stop and there's too much dead air. If I would stop and do every single chorus while talking or something. That's so much time.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:32] Speaker C: So that's the sort of thing where it's like, I'll bring it out for a song or two, but I've got a workhorse that I use now. A little.
[00:07:42] Speaker B: Mean. I don't even know if, like, brook county bad boys. I mean, I'm sure that might have been a thing, but you definitely weren't playing with them the first time you were on.
[00:07:51] Speaker C: I joined that band in.
I auditioned in early May, 2023.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:07:59] Speaker C: And my first show with them was the Nighthawks block party on June 9.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[00:08:05] Speaker C: I've been in since, like, nipper Fest. We played right after you guys on the main stage.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I do remember you there. That was a fucking killer show. I remember there was some buz that a couple of people were saying how the bad boys were living up to their name because a bunch of members of the band were smoking cigarettes behind the stage. Oh, no. That was like, some serious buz.
[00:08:28] Speaker C: Heaven forbid.
[00:08:29] Speaker B: It was like, they're what?
They're just smoking cigarettes? They're like, yeah, they're badass.
[00:08:37] Speaker C: In a public park.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: And I'm hearing about this while we're smoking joints out back, and I'm like, okay, I guess that's the world we're living where cigarettes are like, joints are perfectly acceptable.
[00:08:52] Speaker C: Cigarettes are not bad.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[00:08:56] Speaker C: And the journey I've been on with that band has been incredible, too.
The band just released their second album yesterday, truth. And that was one I came in right after they wrapped recording on it. So I had the task of learning these songs as played by Graham Tishy, and then kind of figuring out having to put my own spin on them in the live.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: That's a bar. That's a bar to be set right out of the gate.
[00:09:30] Speaker C: Yeah.
I had some big shoes to fill.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:34] Speaker C: And Graham was this absolute saint. They brought him in at the 11th hour and he just crushed it.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: Oh, I bet. Yeah. Anybody who doesn't know Graham Tishy. Well, I mean, anybody who's listening to the show probably knows Graham Tishy, but legend. I mean, based out of Troy, right? Yeah, I think mostly based out of Troy. And his dad was Commander Cody.
What was it, the Cadillac song there? Fuck.
But, yeah, he's a legend. His dad is a legend. So that is huge shoes to Bravo. Bravo on that. That seamless transition.
[00:10:10] Speaker C: And that was like, we're very different players, and I wanted to put my own spin on everything, but it has been neat, and it's like the boys and I have been sort of like. We were in a lot of the same rooms at the same time over many, many.
Like, a weird piece of trivia that I told the guys all later is that I met my wife at a show that Josh was playing drums at, like, eight years ago.
[00:10:36] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah, nice.
[00:10:38] Speaker C: So it's like, we'd all been in the same places many, many times. And Brule were, like, one of my favorite local bands. Before I even got the call, I was at many of their shows.
I've known text for a while. Freaking. Just like, getting to play these songs has been an absolute delight. And getting to explore a different side of this music than what I do on my own has been.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And, I mean, that's another thing about music and having a scene is the ability to have your own identity and then play in a band. Not that you don't have your own identity in a band, but you're working, I guess, as a team. And it's not just your vision, it's you and five, six other people or whatever's vision. I love that ability to be able to split back and forth, and, I don't know, I just think that's it.
[00:11:35] Speaker C: And doing my own thing kind of outside of that also. It's healthy.
[00:11:39] Speaker B: Right.
[00:11:40] Speaker C: It allows that kind of outlet so that you can work on the collective goals as opposed to trying to be like, well, I want to do my thing in here.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: And plus, it's just going to strengthen.
It's going to strengthen your chops, so to speak. If you're continually growing because you want to grow your own thing, that's going to translate well into their stuff because it's just going to bring your whole.
[00:12:05] Speaker C: And conversely, there's lessons that I took from playing with Brule, brought back into my own material. I was really sort of like, I really only consider myself a lead guitar player very recently in my playing history, only within the last probably few years. And playing the brulee songs was kind of like a fire baptism in a lot of ways, of just like you have to not only play solos, but you have to own that freaking stage while you're doing it.
That's a thing that you have to be able to step into. And that's been such a cool thing to learn how to be comfortable doing and how to execute night after night and then bring back into everything else.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: Into your own stuff. Well, so we should probably listen to a tune. You brought a guitar. So you're going to play a couple of songs for us. What do you want to do first?
[00:13:02] Speaker C: So the first song I want to do is a very new one.
I've been working kind of low key on a record that I hope to release this year.
This song is called Disconnection street.
This will be an exclusive. I have played this song only a couple of times live, and this is outside of the studio. And like a couple of live shows, like, you guys are going to be some of the first to hear it.
[00:13:28] Speaker B: All right, so this is disconnection street.
[00:13:30] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: All right, cool. So let's listen to Disconnection street, may heaven. And then we'll be right back to talk some more.
[00:13:50] Speaker A: Walk down to that well warm night side town maybe outer and dream that I just can't keep down when you ask me how long I plan to keep dragging my coffin I couldn't answer words left my throat can turn back around now they say that a man can be measured by the company keeps well, I haven't seen more than my shadow in seven weeks I disconnected my phone because all I would do is stare at it I didn't listen to the sound the old house and hope the floor boot is hard to live with a memory people seem to do it all time seen it in the faces of others now I've seen it trace the dust round the footprints you left on the door calming days and cigarette but in men used it under the door I notice the sun only when it has stayed in the moon when the tide comes to show I remember you're gone when I can remember the sound of your can't help but look back on things endlessly review can my life have turned out different?
I spent the rest with you.
[00:17:35] Speaker B: When.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: I told you I gave you all my heart I only let some of me now I won't as your faith disappears from you it can't be this hard to live with a memory people seem to do it all the time.
Seen it in the faces of others and now I see it my.
[00:18:40] Speaker B: You'Ve got your solo stuff. You've got Brulee county bad boys and then headless relatives. And we were talking before we got rolling how Seth was on episode number six of unsigned five one eight. So he goes back, both of you go back pretty far to the beginning. And you weren't playing with headless relatives.
[00:19:02] Speaker C: No. So that was, story goes that I did my first episode with you back in August, in September of 22.
Seth and I had been kind of Internet friends for a while. We'd been chatting like he'd been listening to my work. I'm listening to his work. He puts the call out that he wants to expand. Had listened to a full band, and so I told him, I can play like league guitar. I can play lap steel and pedal steel. And so those are my kind of contributions. We then brought in first Terrence Schaefer on drums from Galeen, and Anhil Annihilator, Jake Griswold, who played in drab Stucco, who's filled in with haunted cat, and of course, Jess Bowen to round the lineup out. And that was really like, it was cool being able to jump into a band with a large back catalog Seth has been recording for years. And basically we built a list of songs that we wanted to play live, and we would add to them, subtract them, and then just some of the recordings were just like a guitar in a room. And so we had to really come up with it was Jess and I doing a lot of the arrangement and building these songs into full band compositions and taking sort know greater risks and things with them.
[00:20:35] Speaker B: And how do you pick know? Because if anybody wants to go down a rabbit hole, like, look, know the headless relatives catalog, hundreds of.
[00:20:46] Speaker C: Like, how.
[00:20:47] Speaker B: Do you go through? Or do you literally just kind of, like, every once in a while go through and find something?
[00:20:54] Speaker C: My advice would be, probably start with the things that have been released in the last probably three years. Got you like Covid era on will give you kind of a good cross section of the stuff that we play live. And then from there, just.
We've also been recording several of the live shows and been releasing them on Bandcamp, which is also a good primer of how things sound.
[00:21:19] Speaker B: And then there was the jive Hive.
[00:21:21] Speaker C: Yeah, we did the Jive Hive Halloween show, which was like a fully scripted, immersive concert film with narration and with video shorts and costumes and fog and all.
[00:21:37] Speaker B: And again, that's all currently still up. Yeah, that's all like the jive Hive live YouTube and watch all that. I remember I did watch it. I watched some of it live, but then I did finish it like a couple of days later. That was fucking fantastic.
[00:21:53] Speaker C: That was six months end to end of just planning and meetings and writing a spec script and timing. The set.
The Carl Sagan segment with Jake, we shot in my dining room. Like, we brought a green screen, dropped it in there. I brought my portable recording rig, wheeled that in there, and just kind of like made that whole room into a nice. And it was. It started as a joke where we were all kind of hanging out. And Jake launched into this bit where he started impersonating Carl Sagan and then just talking vaguely about planets and things and not really like, because it's not like the guy knows a great deal about astrophysics or anything like that. So he's just trying to impersonate a guy who knows a thing or two about astrophysics. And we're just like, we're using this. This is perfect. We're going to put you in a sweater in front of a green screen, and we're going to make this happen.
[00:22:53] Speaker B: It's got to be the sweater, got to be the turtleneck.
[00:22:58] Speaker C: But no, that also allows me a bit of a different vehicle than either mayhem orb rule, where I can, outside of the orthodoxy of country music, the sound of a clean telecaster and that kind of tone, I can explore more. Just different sounds, heavier distortion, strange modulation, extended jams. We're working on a record right now that is largely synthesizer based.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:23:30] Speaker C: So Seth is a big fan of Archatrave. He's good friends with Shane Sanchez of Blood X three. And a lot of those new songs are in that territory. So getting back familiar with how sequence synthesizers work and drum programming has been just a blast.
[00:23:47] Speaker B: Yeah, that is fun.
I don't know a lot about it, but I do have, like, emulators on pro tools and shit, and I've got like, the little Midi keyboard. And I do like to just f around with sounds, you know what I mean?
[00:24:00] Speaker C: I do it very sparsely with some of the mayhem stuff. Like if you listen close, you'll hear very warm kind of analog synths or poly stuff in the background, kind of building out pockets of space in those tracks, but not nearly like the kind of things we've been working on.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: So you've got solo stuff, headless relatives, rural county, bad boys. And then you were just. Did you do a song city?
[00:24:31] Speaker C: I did a song city back in.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: I mean, you're out there and it's clearly grown so much since literally just a year and a half ago.
You had the twelve string here.
[00:24:51] Speaker C: Yes, I did.
[00:24:51] Speaker B: I do remember the songs that you played. You had the twelve string, and now you're, like, in three bands that all three of them are building names for themselves around here.
[00:25:05] Speaker C: I'm happy to be working this much.
It's great to be just out here connecting with people, just being able to play music in the way that I want to and with folks that share my kind of values on how to perform and play. And all the bands are rooted in this do it yourself ethos. Book your own stuff, play your own stuff with the people you're cool with.
[00:25:32] Speaker B: Right.
[00:25:34] Speaker C: It's like, I don't have to compromise. We're at the point where it's like the idea of making it as a musician is such a nebulous concept in 2024 that you might as well just do what you want with people you care about.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: But to me personally, that is making it. You know what I mean? Because if doing music and doing all this was like, this job, it would turn into a stressful thing. And if my finances depended on it, it would be too much. And it wouldn't be fun not to downplay anybody that does make a career out of it, because that's fantastic. But I understand how hard it would be. Whereas just being able to make music with my friends and having a few venues locally around here that will pay us a little bit of money to come make music is making it. You know what I mean?
[00:26:29] Speaker C: Anybody who notices it's just a benefit.
I like the fact that I don't have to worry about if my TikTok doesn't go viral, I don't eat this week.
[00:26:38] Speaker B: We don't have to worry about numbers, appeasing anybody.
[00:26:42] Speaker C: It's all just a nice bonus when things go well and when people notice and when people care.
[00:26:47] Speaker B: Yeah. But for me, the real fun of it is meeting people and playing music and watching music. You know what I mean? Like last night, going to see Sugar hold and sees Atlantis, watching shows.
[00:27:02] Speaker C: I'm at the point where it's like this is now. I'm going into my third decade of going to live shows. I remember going and seeing punk bands in 200 cap rooms when I was a teenager in Connecticut back in the mid two thousand s. And so much and so little has changed totally. But I just love that spaces like that still exist and bands still are out here doing the damn thing.
[00:27:35] Speaker B: As much as sometimes I'm like, damn technology.
Technology is allowing all of this. It's allowing us to be able to do it ourselves and to put music out ourselves.
[00:27:49] Speaker C: I can do like a multi track recording session in my spare room.
[00:27:54] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, in this garage right here, we could do the same thing. Whereas, like, ten years ago, it would be thousands of dollars worth of equipment and now it's a couple of $100 worth of software and a couple of $100 worth of hardware. Boom studio.
[00:28:17] Speaker C: There's always room to upgrade and all that kind of stuff. But for the most part, you can do serviceable work. You can do release quality work with just things you can find anywhere, right?
[00:28:27] Speaker B: And it's so cool and it's just do it. That's the only advice, is just do it. If you want to make music, just do it and find a way to put it down and then build upon that. But you have to put that first step down.
[00:28:41] Speaker C: I'm thinking about, like, I'm not the biggest fan of the guy's politics or his know, whole vibe, but there's the first line of that Morrissey song, sing your life. Any fool can think of words that rhyme. Many others do. Why don't.
People can just go, you can just do. No, there's nothing stopping you. You can just do whatever you want.
[00:29:04] Speaker B: Everybody who's famous was not famous at one point, you know what I mean?
They just did the thing and then can do with it what you want.
[00:29:14] Speaker C: Yeah, it's super cool.
[00:29:16] Speaker A: It is.
[00:29:17] Speaker B: It's a beautiful thing. But anyway, since you have the guitar, we should probably do another tune.
[00:29:23] Speaker C: Yes, indeed.
[00:29:24] Speaker B: Which one are you going to do? And you know what I should say, because I forgot to mention it before, but if you're listening now, the first song that may heaven did on the show disconnection street, you can see the whole thing if you go to my instagram page. I recorded it so you can see it once you heard it. But anyway, sorry, what's this next one?
[00:29:44] Speaker C: So this next song is called such sweet sorrow. It's one that I wrote at the beginning of last year. It'll be on an upcoming mayhem release. This is a song that's very near and dear to my heart.
It is a song about loving someone who is struggling and knowing when to say I can't give you anymore.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: Okay, cool. And it's such sweet sorrow you said?
[00:30:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:12] Speaker C: Such sweet sorrow.
[00:30:13] Speaker B: All right, cool. So let's listen to such sweet sorrow. May heaven. And then we'll be right back to wrap it up.
[00:30:42] Speaker A: Outside.
And the night shift has gone in bed parked in car on the side street and snagging back on stage.
When the sun came up you were sleeping on your side.
I stayed up in the next room counting circles underneath my eyes.
You're impossibly impulse it long wind wide dream.
When you're in your element I'm hardly relevant, you come away jesus low, it's high time put on your shoes every night's a celebration whether if you have good bad news well, I stuck it on out with you to nothing black coffee at noon this seems getting stagnant I got living to do.
This kind of living isn't gonna keep me here long.
So I don't know your name later might go down better something a little less strong.
Goodbye for now, hope it's not forever, you got so much to see I hope you do.
Goodbye for now, I hope it's not goodbye forever, but I can't go on way with you.
Goodbye now?
Hope it's not gonna die forever, you got so much to see you if I have banana? Hope it's nothing by the river I can't go on way with you.
[00:34:29] Speaker B: All right, so that was such sweet sorrow. Mayhem live here in the dazzled end. So may heaven. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to come out here and play some songs for me. Like I was saying before we recorded, that's like one of the coolest perks about doing this show is that I get artists that I love and that I listen to come to my house and do a private concert for me. So that was fucking fantastic. I appreciate that. But before we go, like I do with all my guests, I just want to give you a chance to say your gratitudes. So our microphone is all yours.
[00:35:01] Speaker C: All right. So, I mean, first off, I would like to say thank you to my wife Olivia, to my bandmates in headless relatives, Seth and Jess and Jake. To my bandmates in Bruelle county, bad boys. Josh Tech, Steve, Ben, Sam, Lucy. I love you all dearly. You're the best people in the freaking world. Thank you, Andy. Thank you, Tom at the jive hive. Thank you, August at no fun. Everybody who's ever taken a chance on me, I respect the hell out of all of you. And just everything I do is for this scene and these bands, and I believe we all can win.
[00:35:41] Speaker B: Fuck yeah. All right, so that is mayhem. I am Andy Scullen. This is unsigned five one eight. I'll see you on the road.
Unsigned five one eight is produced and hosted by me, Andy Scullen. New episodes are available every week wherever you stream podcasts. If you'd like to help support the show, please like and subscribe wherever you are listening. Or you could buy me a
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Take care of one another, and I'll see you next week. Bye.
