Unsigned518 - Episode 113 - Anacortez

[00:00:00] Speaker A: You was born on a Saturday in 73 in the park. Right. Music on the pink guitar with the shortwick radio. It's motherfucking Andy calling. Look at Motherfucker cup, here we come. Andy calling wearing his orange hat. [00:00:27] Speaker B: All right, so welcome to unsigned five one eight. I am here with half of Anna Cortez. How's it going? [00:00:33] Speaker C: Hi. Hello. [00:00:34] Speaker D: It's going great. [00:00:35] Speaker B: And I guess we'll start and introduce yourself and what you do in the band. [00:00:40] Speaker C: I am Jesse. I sing and I write some of the songs, or I wrote some of the songs. I guess. [00:00:46] Speaker D: I'm Mike. I play guitar and do a little bit of singing and, I guess, a little bit of the rest of the songwriting that Jesse doesn't do. [00:00:54] Speaker B: And then who are we missing? [00:00:56] Speaker C: We're missing Kevin, our drummer, and mark, our. [00:01:01] Speaker B: Right. So, you know, before we got rolling, I was saying how this isn't really an interview. I've not done my research. And I was joking with. I had a guest on before you guys got here, and I was saying, people always ask, how do you have the time to do the podcast? And I said, oh, it's easy. I just don't do any prep work. And that's kind of it. So we just met 1015 minutes ago, and we had some small talk. But basically, this is us getting to know each other. And I just want to, I guess, hear the history of the band and kind of tell it how you want to tell it, and then we'll get into some of your music, and we'll just have fun with it. So, I guess whoever wants to take. [00:01:48] Speaker D: The lead, why don't you go ahead and give them a little summary? Jesse, you always say it very nicely. [00:01:55] Speaker C: I don't remember saying it ever, actually. But maybe I do. I do talk a lot. I don't remember a lot, but I do talk a lot. About four years ago to the day, actually, because yesterday on Facebook, memories, Mike here saw a memory about how him and his girlfriend started a band called Anna Cortez with an S. Anna courts. And it started when Mike and I got together back in 2020, right before COVID We got together, literally. We went to a Silverstein show March 10 or something, 2020. And then they shut things down, like, four days later. So we started this band, I guess, or at least conceptualized it right before that happened. I didn't really think about it like that, but it was literally, the world was changing, and we had no idea. And I think it was just right place, right time. When we started this band, I was wearing a hoodie that I got. I was an over the road truck driver at the time, and I had a sweatshirt that said Anna Quartz Washington on it. And it's like a little peninsula. Like, I hope I said that word right, but it's like the furthest west I've ever been, I realized, because it sticks out into the ocean a little bit. And I was like, that's such a brutal name. We should call a band that. That sounds brutal. And I called it Anna Cortez without realizing it's actually pronounced Anna courts. And we went with it for, like, a year. I think actually, a year later, we ended up recording, like, a year and four months later, and when we went to put the music on Spotify, there was another band from upstate New York with the same band name based on the same small town in Washington. And I was like, that's too confusing, because we're going to be fighting these guys constantly on, oh, no, that song needs to be. We're going to have to be texting our distributor, messaging, emailing our distributors, dealing with each other. I'm like, no, we're just going to. And it was like, I already did the artwork. So when you go to check out our first demo, it's called Anna Court. [00:04:10] Speaker B: And was it two words, or was it still just one word? [00:04:14] Speaker C: A lot of people think it's, like, a name like Anna Cortez, but I'm actually not hispanic, but I do speak Spanish. I speak Spanish, and they do say that hispanic is defined as spanish speaking person. So in the loosest way, I could be considered hispanic because I can speak a little bit of Spanish, but I'm not. So it's kind of funny. I just go with it. I'm like, whatever. You can call me Anna. I don't care. But I'm not. [00:04:39] Speaker A: My name is Jesse. [00:04:39] Speaker D: It has happened. [00:04:41] Speaker B: I knew the band name was one word. I didn't know if the town. [00:04:45] Speaker C: No, the town is all one. [00:04:46] Speaker B: Town is all one. [00:04:47] Speaker C: So funny. So when you look at our demo, the artwork that I designed for it, I'm like, I'm not changing it. We were, like, in the middle of uploading it, I was so excited, and I was like, so mid upload onto the distributor. It's our first upload. They tell you to check and make sure there's no other bands with your name. I'm like, why didn't I do that? So I went on Spotify. I found the band. I'm like, okay. So we had to make a decision on the fly. We decided to drop the s add the Z, and it's kind of cool. So the name starts with an a, ends with a z. It feels, like, almost, like, complete in a know A to Z. [00:05:16] Speaker D: And then we just decided to name the demo anacorts with the s. So. [00:05:21] Speaker C: I got to keep my artwork. [00:05:22] Speaker D: So we threw the band name on it with the Z as a proper band name and left her artwork spelled with an S as the album. Yeah. And that way, if someone even figured it out, we were already ahead of it, actually. [00:05:35] Speaker C: So someone searched for our original name, which our first t shirts have that we redid the same t shirt but changed the S to a Z. But people knew us by Anna Cortez with an. Like, people still call us that. So if they look it up on Spotify, they'll find us, because the demo is called Anna Cortez with the s. Right, but by Anna Cortez demo. [00:05:55] Speaker B: There you go. [00:05:58] Speaker C: Did I miss anything? Oh, you can talk about your history with the drummer real quick. I don't want to take up too. [00:06:04] Speaker D: Much time with that. [00:06:05] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, well, I guess the time you want. We got plenty of time. [00:06:08] Speaker D: The idea of, I guess, doing the band was probably just like her. And let's. We're stuck in the house, you know what I mean? We're dating. We're both songwriters. Let's do the band simultaneously. I had always been jamming with my best friend Kev. We've been in bands together since forever descent the harrowing, all sorts of heavy stuff. So we were doing heavy stuff on the side, and it just made sense to be like, hey, let's go jam at Kev's. And she would come and hang and sing, and so we would just sort of take some stuff that I had that Kev already knew, take some stuff that she wrote that I could just sort of transpose, know and make a cool riff out of it. And it just sort of quickly developed. We had, like, two or three songs, like, almost in a day, really, just because of what we all collectively knew. And then we were like, hey, maybe we're a three piece band. Maybe we're an actual band here. And we didn't have a bass player for a little while and then kind of decided, like, we probably should play shows. We should maybe get a bass player and do the whole thing. So we recruited our buddy Zach to Bordeaux of Cajos fame to come play bass because he was kind of available, and he seemed interested in doing something musical. And I knew him since he was young, so just kind of like, hey, you want to come check it out. He became our bass player for like two years and then he left the band maybe a year ago. Less than a year ago. [00:07:44] Speaker C: I think it was really like it would have been after the Johnny Craig show. [00:07:50] Speaker D: Yeah. So maybe the summertime. [00:07:52] Speaker C: Summertime last summer. [00:07:54] Speaker D: Yeah. So he decided to kind of just move on. [00:07:58] Speaker C: He was in his late twenty s and has teenage children. Do the math there. He's a busy boy. [00:08:05] Speaker D: Yeah, he's lived a whole life there. [00:08:06] Speaker C: He's got more important things to worry about. [00:08:08] Speaker D: Yeah. So he just didn't felt like you have the time. [00:08:12] Speaker C: Totally understandable. I mean, I would rather have somebody in the band that feels not put out by it. We don't want people feeling stressed about shows, practices, whatever. He didn't miss practices typically, but I mean, he's a mailman. He worked 70 something hours a week. He's basically in grind mode trying to get to the point where he can probably retire early if he does. [00:08:36] Speaker D: He's a hustler in that way, for sure. [00:08:39] Speaker C: But what's interesting is that him and Kevin go way back to like 1997 or something crazy like that. They were in the same homeroom. [00:08:48] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:08:49] Speaker C: And they both start with C. Kucher.com toys. So you sat behind him or something, right? [00:08:55] Speaker D: And he sat behind me. [00:08:58] Speaker C: You like do spitballs at the back of your head? [00:09:01] Speaker D: No, not even. Honestly, it's as cheesy and as simple as, like, we talked about drums and guitar and music and he's like, I play the drums and I'm like, I play the guitar. We both sucked completely. [00:09:13] Speaker B: Everybody had to at some point. [00:09:15] Speaker D: Yeah. But next thing you know, a week later we were in his dad's little laundry room at the house he grew up in, basically sitting on hampers and shit like that. And he had this crummy drum set and we were doing like Green day covers and Weezer songs and stuff like that. And back then, in 1994 95, the hardcore scene in Cahos and Albany was like proper. So everybody wanted to be in a hardcore band. So we very quickly started playing like heavy stuff, doing hardcore music, and did a whole, whatever, eight or nine or ten years or something like that. No, maybe seven or eight years. I think we were doing that band descent. And then we were in another local metal band called the Harrowing, harrowing for a while. [00:10:11] Speaker C: They opened for asking Alexandria. [00:10:14] Speaker D: We did Cannibal corpse. [00:10:17] Speaker C: They did the circuit. [00:10:19] Speaker D: Yeah. I mean, in the 90s you got shows that you could never get. Today, like, we played with obituary at bogeys for $10 to get in. You know what I mean? Like, you can't get those types of shows anymore. It's just unheard of. But, yeah, the harrowing had was nice because we fit right in with that kill switch, all that remains kind of crowd. So we would get kind of like those cockrock metal shows that would happen at northern lights. And we had so much history that it was like, hey, you guys want to play? Yes. No big deal. [00:10:51] Speaker C: They were there a bunch, too. There's videos, like old videos, and it's so cool for me. I'm 34, Mike's 42, and I'm about to turn 35. I'm just going to hold on to 34 as long as I can. But it's just like to be in a serious band with people that appreciate my style of music because I'm from Oniana, there wasn't like a lot of music out there. I played guitar. I was like the only person I knew that played guitar not very well. I was into, you know, like the used bands, like, and, like, I remember when we first decided that we're really going to do this as a band. Me and Mike and Kevin sat in his living room and had a hypothetical, like, okay, so if we were going to do, like, what kind of music will we make? And we actually took it very seriously. It felt like we were really starting something. I was so excited because I've always jammed with people, but it was always like grateful dead type stuff and there's nothing wrong with it, but it's not my thing. It's not anywhere near my thing. It's like I would do weird jam bandy, just drunk bar music. I like drunk and I like bar. But the whole music thing, I don't know, it's not my vibe. And it felt old for me. It felt like people that I was friends with, people that were a lot older, but they were really into the whole going to the american legion and scatter coke and covering the who and the doors and stuff. I'm like, okay, that's fun and everything, but I want to play something that reminds me of average Levine, something fun. [00:12:42] Speaker B: And girly and like, because there's places that where that kind of, because I'm the same way. My kind of music wouldn't fit in a certain crowd, like Legion crowd would be like, who the fuck are they? [00:12:58] Speaker C: Just for the opportunity to sing. I was in this band called the Bone crew for a while and my best friend Bob does this band and I don't think they're really doing much lately. But I mean, it was literally just like, we're singing about bush beers and I don't know, but at least I got to sing and play my guitar. So I was like, this is like a dream come true. But then we're getting edgier. We're getting kind of a little metal vibe to it. I'm like, dude, this is my thing here. Because everybody that I was hanging out with prior hated my music. Your music is just a bunch of screaming and whining and nonsense. [00:13:29] Speaker B: I've had that. I've had many years where I'm like, I can't find anybody that's vibing with that. I'm like, oh, this is my shit. [00:13:38] Speaker C: Felt so good and exciting to know that they knew all the bands I liked to know that they even knew who asking Alexandria was. I'm like, what? You guys not only know, and I wasn't like starstruck or anything dumb like that, but I'm like, but you guys open for a band? I like, what the hell is this? So I felt like I was with my people finally, and I was just like, this is the best thing. [00:13:58] Speaker B: Yeah, that is a great feeling. Like I said, it's like finding your place because there's so many times when people may be putting something out and not getting the reception that they need. And I think a lot of the times, more than reevaluating what you're doing to output, reevaluate who you're outputting it to. Because don't change your art to fit a crowd. Find a crowd that's going to appreciate what you do. [00:14:22] Speaker C: And I didn't know it existed. I was like, this is too good to be true. These people really exist. So I found a whole network of cool bands and cool artists just through Kevin and Mike where I was just, I was like, I want no other band ever in my life. Like, I'm happy. Like, this is everything I need. And I know nothing lasts forever, but I'm just like, hopefully we've been going strong four years now, so that's a good run for a small local band. [00:14:50] Speaker B: Absolutely. So I do want to talk more about the band, but I think right now we should play a song. [00:14:57] Speaker D: What did you have in guess I would probably say day five off of that little. The Anna Cortez demo that we put out. That's like a heavier kind of offering for what we do. It doesn't fully represent, I guess, Jesse's singing, since I do some of the singing in the, do most of the. [00:15:30] Speaker C: Singing in the song. [00:15:31] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:15:31] Speaker C: But it's the only one like that. There's. We have four released right now. There's another one coming out, but that one mike wrote and he sang most of. So, I mean, I guess it doesn't really represent the band as a whole, like, what you're going to get if you, like, go to Ana Cortez show. But we do throw that song in there a lot, and there is. I mean, I do sing in it, and I scream in it, which is fun. I do some screaming, which I'm stoked about. I actually really am. [00:15:58] Speaker B: And it was called day five. [00:16:00] Speaker C: Yep. Day five. But it's Davey, after his friend Davey, who's no longer with. [00:16:06] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. My friend Dave would stylize his name, d a y in a capital v. And so it's just kind of like a play on his name, know, and kind of wrote the song with him in know. Yeah. [00:16:21] Speaker B: Well, cool. Well, let's check it out, and then we'll be right back with Anna Cortez. [00:16:39] Speaker A: It somebody told me you're wasting time, my friend? You won't change away? If you can't first change yourself? Me? You're giving too much instead? Something that just a little bit. Nobody knows me? My life? But I feel like when you are by my side? No one show me I don't know me? Don't show me? I don't want to love you without hate to deny it? What is strength without my? And what is time without space? What is life without death? Don't know me? How many ways you can choose my life? Let's. [00:20:24] Speaker B: Listening to the song. I always say, sometimes guests reach out to me. Sometimes I reach out to guests. But I reached out to you because of one song that's, like, one of my favorite songs of all time. And you did a cover of it, which is deftones. My own summer shove it. Can't forget that. And I'm going to be honest with you. In the last, like, however long it's been out, it came out on Halloween. Wow. [00:20:55] Speaker D: We were just talking about our love of Halloween, too, on that bridge. [00:20:58] Speaker B: It's been that long. It feels like it's only been, like, two months. But I've listened to that song more than I've listened to actual theft tones, because I just. Pretty awesome. I think it's so good, and it's so true to the song without being, like, a straight mimic of it. You know what I mean? Like, the heart of it's there, but it's a fucking brilliant cover, and that's what led me to the band. And that's why we're sitting here. So, I guess let's talk about a little bit about maybe where the idea to cover that song came from, because certainly not one that most people are like, yeah, let's just cover a dovetone song. [00:21:40] Speaker D: We like to keep things simple so we don't overcomplicate anything. And props to our drummer. Dialed right into that and was like, yeah. He was like, yo, we should cover my own summer. Because the little drum hit in the beginning, you know what I mean? It's like a drummer. Yeah. Drummers love to do of every once in a while. I don't even think in this band, but Kevin and I would noodle with that riff just for fun. And four or five, six years later, he brought it up and we were, yes, yes. Let's do it. So, basically, right on the spot, we got familiar with it, and it just started to click real quickly. So, yeah, props to Kev for that idea. That was a really good. [00:22:21] Speaker C: Wasn't. I wasn't mad about it because I used to listen to the Deftone. [00:22:25] Speaker B: Oh, my God. [00:22:26] Speaker C: All right, just kill me now. Take that part out. I used to listen to deftones a lot when I was in high school. I do remember change. I mean, obviously everybody remembers that. Yeah, but I remember be quiet and drive. I don't know. And I remember when he said he wanted to do a Deftones cover around that time. Do you remember? We were covering for fun. We were covering limb Bizkit break stuff. Sounded really good. [00:22:55] Speaker B: The farther I get from 90s limp Bizkit when limb biscuit was limp biscuit and everybody fucking hated them. The farther I get away from that, the more I'm like, all right, I get it. [00:23:08] Speaker C: It's less stigmatized now. And you get, like, the okay new metal, right? Yes, it's there. But we were in the middle of doing that, and Kev, he's so funny. I think he's autistic. I'm sorry, Kev. I think I am, too. But out of nowhere, one day, he's just like, I don't like Fred Durst anymore. I'm like, why? And I think he did something in Utica. I don't know what it was exactly, but Kev just had this very specific reason. He just decided he hates Fred Durst and never wants to cover that song again because of something he saw on the Internet. And I was like, but I really like doing that song because it's so much fun for me. I get to rap a little, and I get to have fun with it. And I think maybe that might have been his answer to that. I don't like, this is just me assuming. It might not even be conscious, but it came around the same time. He's like, you know what? [00:23:55] Speaker A: We should. [00:23:55] Speaker C: Because we don't really do covers. A like, I don't know if Mike just said that I zone out, but we really don't. Every once in a while, we like to have a cover that we can throw into a show to get people excited, because you want to keep people engaged. And when they hear something, they know, people get stoked. So we were doing, like, that violent femme song when I'm a walker blister in the sun. We did that for a while, and we got really sick of that very quickly. We did a green day cover. What's it called? [00:24:28] Speaker D: Brainstoo. [00:24:28] Speaker C: Brainstoo my brain is stew so I like that song. But I also got sick of that song pretty quickly, and I think we all did. [00:24:35] Speaker D: Did you know how close that song is to 26 and five by Chicago? When they do that? [00:24:45] Speaker B: I never even thought of that. It's like the same thing. [00:24:49] Speaker D: I didn't realize that. Just the best song, but it is. I think there may have been a lawsuit or something, even over the fucking banger. [00:25:00] Speaker C: So we did this Deftones cover, and we used it at our last two shows. Which one of them was. We opened for this band called Soraya, which is a female fronted band with a female drummer. I don't know if they were all females or not. [00:25:13] Speaker D: No, the guitar player and the bass player were like your classic rock guys. [00:25:18] Speaker C: They're a little older than us, but they've been around for a while. And then we opened for Johnny Craig, who used to sing for dance, Gavin dance. And he's got his own lore. That guy was crazy. But we got such a good response, so we just decided to record it. And I'm so glad that we did. And then I edited a little video together of just, like, behind the scenes footage I take in because I like to document everything. I film things a lot. I'm annoying with it, but I'm constantly like. I used to have a digital camera when I was younger that I would just fill up SD cards, take pictures, video, whatever. So luckily, I had a ton of stuff from just, like, over the last four years of us being in a band, just on my phone. So I was like, you know what? I'm going to turn all this into a video. And I think that if it wasn't for that video, the song wouldn't have had as much airplay because people like to see something. It draws them in. They're like, what is just. And here we are. I mean, I'm glad that you heard it because one of my favorite songs we've done, and our friend, we have to give him a shout out. Tyler. [00:26:23] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:26:23] Speaker C: Tyler Krupsky, pacemaker audio on Instagram. [00:26:26] Speaker D: Yeah, my boy, he was in what band? He was in end of line. If you're familiar with end of line, local, like Caho's kind of Albany hardcore band. And then he's in a bunch of. [00:26:39] Speaker C: Other band, the search of the beast. [00:26:41] Speaker D: He was in grandfather for a long time. He was in a band called last Hours. He was in the. No, no, wait. The factory, a New York City band when he was living down there. So he's just. Oh, and he's in the hardcore band burn. He plays bass in that band burn. So just kind of like a bass go to sort of guy. Great guy. But he has a home studio that he put together and is recording us currently. And those vocals. [00:27:14] Speaker C: Did that song that you hear in the Deftones cover that we did? [00:27:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:19] Speaker C: He coaxed it out of me. He was like, no more sultry, no quieter, no whisper. And I'm so glad that he did because he got my full potential. [00:27:29] Speaker B: I was kind of wondering that, because not layered in a traditional sense, but the way it goes in from one style to another in that song is so fucking important. And Chino's singing style is, you can't. [00:27:46] Speaker C: Mimic it really, right? [00:27:47] Speaker B: And it's so breathy, but in a. [00:27:50] Speaker D: Like, it's so stylistic, right. [00:27:52] Speaker B: You can't fucking match. [00:27:53] Speaker C: It turned so loud that if I turned my head, even with the headphones on, it would squeal over my ears. And if I went like this, it'd be like. So I had to get really close to the microphone and just, hey, it's so hard to control the tone. But he got it, and it was like, I'm so happy if anybody else did it. I don't know if they would have had the patience. Took us days of coming over and just getting fucked up. [00:28:18] Speaker D: But then the beautiful dichotomy in that song is how vicious the chorus has then become versus how sort of atmospheric the verses are, and it opens up. [00:28:29] Speaker C: On the singing part of the chorus. [00:28:31] Speaker D: Just a great song. [00:28:32] Speaker C: I was able to belt a little bit. It was really fun to make. [00:28:35] Speaker D: Yeah, you did a good job singing that, for sure. [00:28:37] Speaker C: I almost think that's a song we should play next. [00:28:39] Speaker B: I mean, we could do that, and then just throw that and then throw a third one in. Let's just listen to Anna Cortez covering deftones, my own summer shove it and then we'll be right back. [00:28:55] Speaker A: Yes, you big star. Tell me when it's big love guy to shelter cause I'm through when I do it's I cloud shama shama shama shama shama shaman shama I think I love there's no crowd on the street and your son it's a shame it's a tool, a device, a savior see, I try to look up to the sky but my eyes shall I, shall I sama saiya. Shut up. Rai. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. I think I crowd street and I'm sorry. Close. Um. Shut up, shut up, shut up. Shut it. Shut up. [00:32:40] Speaker D: All right. [00:32:40] Speaker B: That was Anna Cortez covering deftones, my own summer shove it again. One of my. One of my favorite songs of all time, and certainly one of my recent five one eight bands that's been on fucking constant repeat in here in the dazzle den, as it's been dubbed. But anyway, you have so much stuff happening that has happened. And also coming up, you, I know, have a big show with a big band. Not big band in the know, a. [00:33:15] Speaker D: Big band complete with horns and Peter. [00:33:18] Speaker B: Satera and everything, but with a well known national band that you're going to be playing with. So tell us a little bit about that. [00:33:29] Speaker C: So plush is from here. A lot of you guys listening who are five one eight people would know that. Mariah. [00:33:41] Speaker D: Mariah. [00:33:41] Speaker C: Oh, my God. [00:33:42] Speaker D: Micah. [00:33:42] Speaker C: I don't want to get her name wrong, but I heard about her a lot prior to this, and there were people that would talk to me about her. And I'm like, oh, yeah. Because I like female vocalists just because I am one, but I'm more probably stylistically more like a guy. But I still appreciate the female vocals, and she has a great voice. She was on the voice in American Idol, I believe. [00:34:06] Speaker D: Yeah, I think she did a stint on. [00:34:07] Speaker C: Someone told me she was on both. I didn't fact check this, so if I'm wrong, I apologize, but that's what I heard for sure. [00:34:14] Speaker D: She was on. [00:34:15] Speaker C: I'm not going to blow up whoever spot said that, but I heard she was on both. And she's on tour with disturbed right now. And someone like, from our very own music community. Being on tour with Disturbed is so cool to see. [00:34:30] Speaker B: And they played on the Kiss cruise, like, one of those times, really? Last summer or the summer before, when Kiss does one of those cruise ships with all these major bands and they were on that. [00:34:43] Speaker C: That band is like industry. [00:34:45] Speaker D: Yeah, we were asked, they're legitimately good. [00:34:48] Speaker C: We were just stoked. Like, Mike Valeni of Empire reached out to us and was like, do you guys want to open for plush? And it was so funny because Kevin is usually, because he just had a baby and we're usually like, hopefully it's cool with. And like, we had to wait so long for him to even answer the text. And then we were just dropping hints in the chat because Mike's like, yeah, Mike Valeni wants us to open for plush. What do you think? I think it'd be great for us. And I'm like, yeah, it'll be so awesome. Because we don't really play into the female aspect. The guys are a big part of the band. It's not like we're not trying to really, I don't know, exploit, like, oh, we have a female in the band. It's cool. It's a thing that exists. Everybody knows it's not something that we have to sell, right? But we don't really get, I don't think because of that, we don't really reach the teenage girls. Those would be really good fans for us or like the early twenty s and just young female people that want a role model, like someone to look up to. And I feel like this band is just a good opportunity for that. Finally, Kevin was just like, because we were like, yeah, hopefully we could tell Mike yes. And he doesn't move on and ask someone else because it was like a couple days and he just wasn't answering. He was like, oh, you could tell him yes. Right now I'm totally down. We're like, oh, thank God. And his wife is stoked about it too. So it's so cool because all the people that we know are going to bring their daughters. My brother's going to bring you in. [00:36:15] Speaker B: Front of a lot of new people. [00:36:18] Speaker C: And this is like the scene. This is literally what we need to kind of like, because the crowd we're appealing to is really Kevin and Mike's metal hardcore crowd, which we do have a song that's going to come out later, hopefully later this year called Emo Bitch Move. It's a very hardcore esque style song and a lot of people really like that one, but we don't really do that a lot. I think that the people that are exposed to us just by proxy don't really appreciate us for what we are. So this is a good opportunity to tap into some people that might actually be, like, real fans. The people that are going to come to see plush hopefully will appreciate us. And it's on May the fourth, so we're opening for plush on May the fourth. And I'm just going to give it up now. It's not a surprise, because I just want you all to be prepared for this, but I'm going to be dressed in, like, a freaking Darth Vader bodysuit like I'm at Comic Con, okay. It's just going to be straight up like a morph suit. [00:37:14] Speaker D: Well, I'm dressing up as prisoner. Leia. [00:37:17] Speaker A: Leia. [00:37:18] Speaker C: Jabba the hut mix. Like a little bit of a bowl. [00:37:24] Speaker B: I think that might have been a dig. [00:37:26] Speaker C: We already had that joke, so I'm allowed to say it. [00:37:31] Speaker D: Just a mutant morph of the two. [00:37:35] Speaker C: That's really exciting for. [00:37:36] Speaker B: Yeah, that is rad. [00:37:38] Speaker C: So thank you, Mike, for that. I don't know if you'll ever hear. [00:37:40] Speaker B: This, but if you do, thank you, maybe. I mean, I want to thank him, too, because actually, if you see, I got a bunch of tickets over there. My band gets to play at the empire underground. [00:37:48] Speaker C: I love Empire underground. [00:37:50] Speaker B: In March. March eigth. I think we're playing with a little overboard, anomalous Tom Atkins band. And. Is there one more? Oh, and hard luck souls. How could I forget the hard luck souls? I love those dudes. [00:38:04] Speaker C: That's the day before Mike plays a straightjacket. [00:38:06] Speaker B: You know, it's funny because as being in this band and being like an old dude, I fucking forget shows all the. And, like, I've talked to people about shows that I'm playing and then have my friends be like, dude, you're not playing at that show. I'm like, oh, wow. No, I guess I'm not. Yeah, you're right. I was thinking about this other one. [00:38:26] Speaker D: Hilarious. [00:38:26] Speaker B: I don't know if it's the weed or just getting old, but I forget shit. [00:38:32] Speaker C: Even shout out the bands, like we opened for at our last show. Usually I do that and I just completely forgot. [00:38:37] Speaker D: Yeah, you just get in the zone a little bit, though. [00:38:39] Speaker C: To be fair, I was nervous, so I kind of went overboard on the white claws a little bit. [00:38:44] Speaker B: It's easy to do. [00:38:45] Speaker D: But, yeah, let me shout out the straitjacket reunion real fast. [00:38:48] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:38:49] Speaker D: March 9 at Empire Live. Straightjacket. Underdog, sworn enemy, assault on the living spirit killer, ICE queen. ICE queen is not playing. [00:39:00] Speaker C: Oh, they're not playing that show. Okay, they were going to play that. [00:39:02] Speaker D: Show, but a band called Grand street is the other band on there, but, yeah, I'm playing guitar in straightjacket. They asked me to come fill in for their rhythm guitar player. [00:39:13] Speaker B: That's Joey Clark on. [00:39:15] Speaker D: Joey Clark on drums. [00:39:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I go way back with him when I worked at, I think it was EQX. It was one of those radio stations a long time ago. Yeah, it was EQX. But him and Adam Dragland and Adam Finken had a band and came on, like the show, and I became buddies with him. [00:39:33] Speaker D: Yeah, Joe is great. [00:39:34] Speaker B: Super good dude. And I don't know if you like his. [00:39:39] Speaker D: Oh, yeah. Oh, I follow his YouTube channel. [00:39:41] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Drumming. YouTube videos. [00:39:45] Speaker D: Right. I got to play guitar in that. Yeah, yeah. We went out to Vermont. [00:39:50] Speaker C: It's not much different than this lair, really, at the end of the. [00:39:53] Speaker D: It's just like. [00:39:54] Speaker C: It's like without this wall here, basically. [00:39:56] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:39:56] Speaker B: All right. [00:39:57] Speaker D: And a little mood lighting and good camera angles, and it's like. It works out great. [00:40:02] Speaker B: Sound of those fucking drums. [00:40:04] Speaker D: Yeah, he's got a nice board set up where everyone can practice with headphones on. And it dials right into. [00:40:09] Speaker B: That's what we're trying to do in here. And we're slowly building up the gear to be able to go all in ear because it's loud as fuck in here when we're playing. [00:40:19] Speaker D: Yeah, we were able to play at a real chill volume, not kill everybody's ears. It was awesome. But, yeah. Straightjacket, March 9. It's a one time reunion show. [00:40:29] Speaker B: Yeah, our show is the day before. We'll go to your show. I'll just stay there. [00:40:32] Speaker C: I'll just take a nap on the floor. [00:40:35] Speaker B: I'll just be like, green room. Is it cool if I stay here tonight? We got a show to go tomorrow. [00:40:41] Speaker D: So here's a lot coming up. It's going to be busy. [00:40:43] Speaker C: Yeah. So we have another song that we're releasing called the last to know. Like, if you go on Instagram, you could see just, like, some teasers of it. But, I mean, this is going to be our best song yet. And we're planning a music video shoot. Nice. Which is probably going to have to be done over, like, a couple of months because we're going to do one day, hopefully in April. If Kevin says it's okay, he's like the band. Like, it's up to him. He gets the last word. But we do practice in his basement, and I do want to shoot part of the video where we practice, so I kind of need him to say it's okay. [00:41:13] Speaker D: And we want him to be excited. [00:41:14] Speaker C: And we want him to be excited about it. [00:41:16] Speaker D: We try not to force our will upon him too much. [00:41:20] Speaker C: He tortures me with the weight. He just doesn't answer. I have to sit there and just agonize over it. But we got a lot of stuff coming up, but that's about it. [00:41:29] Speaker D: Yeah, we have plush. What is that? May 4? [00:41:32] Speaker C: May the fourth. [00:41:33] Speaker D: Yeah, it's going to be cool. [00:41:35] Speaker B: So we were going to play another song and then I got sidetracked by my own summer. So we should now get back on track and play another Anna Cortez song. Which one did you want to throw on? [00:41:47] Speaker C: I guess just to show our range. I'm going to choose, and it's a short one, too, but another sad song. I wrote this song back in like 20 12, 20 13, 20 14. I don't even know. My memory is just foggy. [00:42:06] Speaker B: Same. [00:42:07] Speaker C: But I do know that there's a YouTube video of me playing it in 2013, so I know at least it's that old. But this is funny because I showed this song to Mike when we were still conceptualizing the band and I was like, over the road. We would text each other constantly and I sent him the YouTube video of the song. He's like, it's too, like, he's such a critic. He's just like, yeah, it's just kind of like basic, very repetitive. Very. Luckily it's the same song, but we shortened it. We took out like three of the verses and just truncated it. And it's like, now constructive criticism. Yeah, it's like a minute and 30 seconds opposed to like four and a half minutes of the same thing over and over again. [00:42:48] Speaker D: But it's sweet and it's straight to. [00:42:50] Speaker C: The point better now. So this one is kind of like. It shows our range. So I think this is a good song. There's another song goodbye that we have that's like more thrashy and pop punk, but honestly, it's another song I wrote. But I like another sad song better. It just sounds better. And they played it a lot on EQX. [00:43:08] Speaker B: Oh, nice. [00:43:08] Speaker C: Yeah, Pearson played it for us. [00:43:10] Speaker B: Pearson's a good dude. [00:43:12] Speaker D: Day five and shove it. And this. It gives a nice sort of range of what you might get with us. [00:43:19] Speaker B: Cool. What was the name of it again? [00:43:21] Speaker C: It's called another sad song. And then I just want to say, too, that we don't have a genre. We like to call ourselves Splashcore from along the Hudson because we're Caho's kids. Splashcore from the Hudson an amalgamation. [00:43:33] Speaker D: Toxic splash of this, splash of that. [00:43:36] Speaker C: So we don't really have a genre, but if anybody wants to give us a genre, we will entertain it because I don't know how to describe us. [00:43:44] Speaker D: It helps when booking shows. [00:43:46] Speaker B: Right. [00:43:47] Speaker D: Perfect. [00:43:48] Speaker C: And thank you for this interview. And I guess my shout out would be to you for having us here and to my band for just making me stoked to do music. It's just good to be around people that make me excited about music and not kind of depressed about it because it happens. [00:44:02] Speaker D: Our new bass player, Mark. [00:44:04] Speaker C: Yeah. Oh, Mark. Oh, my God. Mark is so good, and he brings so much to the table and he's been, like our tech guy and our audio guy. He's adjusting things for us. He's, like, suggesting things. He bought inner monitors. [00:44:14] Speaker D: We have a proper gear head in the band, and it's great to have game changer. [00:44:19] Speaker C: And he's serious about his gear. He has a stack taller than me in the basement that he hauls in and out of there every once in a while. And I'm just like, dude, respect. [00:44:29] Speaker D: Great player, great dude. Stoked to have him. [00:44:32] Speaker B: All right, so let's listen to another sad song, Anna Cortez, and then we'll be right back to wrap it up. [00:44:44] Speaker A: The day you first came along I swore I'd never write another sad song. Here's one more sad song for you. After everything you put me through and I couldn't hate you if I wanted to I tried to give you something real to hold on to all I want is to get close to you and all I want is to get over you I come to you so desperately with everything you took from me and I couldn't hit you if I wanted I tried to give you something real to hold on to give you something that you could be want to owe that was another sad song. [00:46:27] Speaker B: Anna Cortez and Jesse and Mike, I want to thank you so much for taking time out of your day, for coming out here to the dazzled end and shooting the shit with me and playing some of your music. So before we go, though, I just want to give you each individually the chance to say what I call your gratitudes, your shout outs, his hellos, Oscar speech, what have you. So, Jesse, start with you. [00:46:51] Speaker C: I would like to thank God and my parents. No, I'm just kidding. But yeah, no, probably I already did mine, so I'm going to give Mike the opportunity to do his. [00:47:07] Speaker D: Yeah, I guess just to make sure I include know we've got Kevin and Mark for you. Know has been great. Mike Valeni has know been a great friend to Ralph. [00:47:22] Speaker C: Renna has been super. He. He's awesome. He plays this all the time. Super supportive. [00:47:29] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:47:30] Speaker B: He actually helped me out a little bit. Not a little bit. He helped me out a lot with the podcast. [00:47:34] Speaker A: Nice. [00:47:35] Speaker B: Big shout out to Ralph. Absolutely. [00:47:37] Speaker D: Hell, yeah. He's been doing it forever. We love Ralph. Yeah. And know, like, the couple friends who still wear the shirt with the different Joe. [00:47:46] Speaker C: Peggy actually was wearing our shirt on a live video. I don't even remember giving her that shirt or her buying it, but that was awesome to see my memory. [00:48:00] Speaker D: It. We keep it simple. Our circle is small, but if people want to come and make the circle bigger, we're definitely down to making new friends to throw in the liner notes to say thank you to. [00:48:15] Speaker C: Yeah, there's definitely too many to list right now, but there are the hardcore few that will show up at every show, and we know that they're going to be there. And those people mean the world to us. And you guys know who you are. I just don't want to forget anybody. [00:48:28] Speaker B: Once you get started, you can. [00:48:32] Speaker D: Just. Everybody that's come to a show so. [00:48:34] Speaker C: Far, we love you. [00:48:36] Speaker D: Yeah. Everybody that's bought a shirt, we sell a lot of shirts and hats at our shows, so I don't get to talk to a lot of people afterwards to get an idea of how they feel about the music sometimes. But I'm a merch guy, so merch is often a good indicator for me. [00:48:52] Speaker C: We sell a lot of merch. You make good merch, too. The merch might be better than the band, for all we know. Might be. [00:48:58] Speaker D: Hey, everything needs a nice package to be wrapped up in. So, yeah, just everybody that's given us a show, maybe we'll give us a show in the future. [00:49:07] Speaker C: And yourself, man who likes our socials because, thanks for liking our socials. That means a lot, too. It's kind of hard to get the Instagram. [00:49:14] Speaker D: Yeah. And I guess, yeah, thanks to Jesse, honestly, for being pushing that. So tapped into the current era of social media because I couldn't do it. [00:49:21] Speaker C: We got over a thousand on Facebook, but I literally had to guilt trip people into sharing the page with people. [00:49:26] Speaker D: But you speak the language that call. [00:49:28] Speaker C: People haters and they'll still eventually show their support. [00:49:34] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:49:35] Speaker C: Not my best trait, but. [00:49:38] Speaker B: All right, cool. So, Jesse, Mike, thank you for having half of Anna Cortez. And I am Andy Scullen. This is unsigned. Five one eight, and I'll see you on the road. [00:49:48] Speaker A: See you later. Bye bye. [00:49:50] Speaker B: Unsigned five one eight is produced and hosted by me, Andy Scullen. New episodes are available every week wherever you stream podcasts. If you would like to help support the show, please like and subscribe wherever you are listening. Or you could buy me a [email protected]. Unsigned 508 if you would like to advertise on the show, send me an email at Unsigned 508 [email protected] and to be a guest on the show, reach out to me through Instagram at Unsigned 508. Take care of one another and I'll see you next week.