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at w m n H radio dot org. This is Radio Manchester. It's
nine o'clock black out. You've been using your minds out answer number four before
to week. It's what say you your time? No ration number four ring
out, A no working your ants out, A rant A number four small
out. It's I know in a minute and now sam raising number four morning
April nothing anything or roasine for seizure and rubbing the Cordnor's post build up buns
and comer. You got a ranswer and it's building of saster nor sis.
There's still no one to do. Then it's the sad or so sellius a
successor saying a low disaster child, you've been loosen your nide, I say
as to number four or your towing. It's what's a going your tide?
No, no more my house. But no what Cagnor is ill said,
I'm as to number four, it's all wow, it's not a prison plays
No say as to number four. Queen Crusoe raps as they were answer ay
your Crusa saints and no place. I said, what racing's talking so loud?
I thought you were getting sick. I tell my grandys, you're killing
a whole will at now so we have disaster sucker for some master. That's
like a day s I guess that's saying a race in three years a second.
So that's a waistcin never love, but was it's a never say a
jat morning nineteen eighty six, or routine perceivesor slowing the coursor sps build up
with thousand dollar us A ray answer, it's building a sasser. Will you
sister s don't know what to do? Then it's the sator some sillion it's
a raiartic faster saying at disaster yell you're say you're nine. I said,
ranto number four a week guess what say no hide? I said my out
a no locking yours. I said it's a number four. It's aloud,
it's not no end of this, I say it's a number four. W
m n H rip the novel side you're listening to do w m n H
ninety four and forty three Command God, don't get supprilea Maxill coming, Good
morning, everybody, Welcome, Here we go. It is that time again,
Matt Connorton Unleashed and we are live from the studios of w m n
H ninety five point three FM in Glorious Manchester, New Hampshire. Of course,
you can also stream the show from anywhere. I go to Matt connorton
dot com slash live for all of your live streaming options, social media links,
contact and fosh archives, et cetera, et cetera. I'm going to
tell you about the song we just heard in just a moment, and then
we'll tell you what we've got coming up today. But today is Saturday May
eleven, twenty twenty four, and I am not alone, Jenny, Jenny
is here at the news table. I am present. Yes, Yes,
awesome, yeng I love that. Yeah. So that's that's our friend Dylan
Reynolds. That is called Reactor number four and he's actually in the chat room.
Ye, the full EP's going to be available. Oh no, he's
not. I thought I'm sorry, I thought he was. Yeah, that's
me. Oh that's you. He told me he was going to be in
there, So all right, Oh, full his full EP, the Full
Radiation Sickness EP, is going to be available on June fourth, and definitely
follow him on the utube. Yes, and I dropped a link to his
YouTube channel into the chat room if you'd like to follow along with Dylan's work.
He is an incredible artist, let me tell you us absolutely. I'll
just share something with you too from the ePK that he sent me that explains
a little bit about the track and about the project. It says, the
first multi track release from Dylan Reynolds since twenty eighteen, and the first EP
since twenty sixteen's The Living Dead. Dylan comes back hard and fast with a
five track released titled Radiation Sickness, depicting an alternate timeline of the post apocalyptic
anguish of Chernobyl's nuclear disaster, A concept DP given an account of the disaster
and the subsequent failed containment procedures in true sequence of events. Each track proceeds
uh the last to build a story of loss, anguish, and the ultimate
horrors befallen the people of the uh Pripiat exclusion Zone. I'm not sure Pripepiat.
I'm not sure if I'm saying that correctly. I know what the exclusion
zone is, but that's where you're not allowed to go because there's still radiation.
There's there's you're you're still not allowed to go in there to this day.
Oh, I'm sure. Radiation Sickness is slated to release on Tuesday,
June fourth, worldwide on all major digital distributors. So, but Dylan was
kind enough to give us the world radio premiere, So we got that.
UH got that a few weeks in advance, So very excited about that coming
up in just a few minutes. We have and I'm not sure how to
speak of not being sure how to pronounce things. I'm not sure how to
say the band's name if it's Haitian. We'll get the correct pronunciation from them
when they when they call us in a few minutes. I'm really looking forward
to talking to these guys. Fantastic sound, and we're going to in just
a moment, we're gonna play one of their tracks and then we'll get them
on the phone. And then second hour we have the return of Bees Deluxe.
Yeah, Conrad War was on with us maybe a year ago, really
really fascinating conversation. Looking forward to that. And then in the third hour
we have Casey Darren of the band Soda s O T A H. I
always like to spell it for people so they don't think I'm saying soda.
Yeah, like like like the beverage. But he's gonna be back another world
radio premiere, the new single Division Line. Yeah, it's a fol day
of brand new music. Absolutely love it. Absolutely, We've got uh,
We've got plenty coming up. So I think what we'll do is let's go
ahead and play something from and again, I don't know if I'm saying it
correctly. Heishen Haitian. We'll we'll find out from these guys. But a
great band from Rochester, New York, and they're going to be playing a
big show tonight at Terminus in Nashua. So I think we'll play this song.
I think we should give Crimson Sun a spin. I like all of
these, but the album is called Awaken the Endless Deep, and this is
really good stuff. This is the kind of thing you can kind of get
lost in. So yeah, we'll start with this. We'll play a bunch
of these today. But this is called Crimson Sun. The bandit Haitian from
the album Awaken the Endless Deep. Check it out, gone ways over the
short spreading its like the class medi ancient lands. Substans for to see the
easton search of last last testa define free circuits time, don't wake up with
fine set so far from We're all alone, Steal your whissongs of course for
the yonder way down, keep so the soundway down to the charny corners of
the sail along fund away sound like we carry out the will, but we
have we're less like for it. See the time as ever stayed to their
restaurant all about or the browns up a bike shap, cutting a bad shot.
It's like for a Parson song they thought of that. Why oh who
s oh? That is so good? That is Crimson Sun is the name
of the track. The band is Haitian or Heishen. We'll see what the
correct pronunciation is when they join us. And that is from the album Awake
in the Endless Steep. These guys are going to be playing a show tonight
at Terminus in Nashua, and they're going to be joining us by phone at
any moment. So by the way, Hans Smith from the band Sepsis is
in the Facebook live chat liking what he's hearing. He said, I'm really
digging those beats. Yeah, the drums are are pretty sophisticated on that,
and they've got a big sound. You know, it's only three of them.
It's a trio. You might even use the term power trio. But
yeah, there's only three of them, but they sound like a full band.
And let's see who's on the line here. Hi, welcome to Matt
Connorton Unleashed. Who we have? Oh you got Randy and Justin here?
Randy and Justin Okay, Hey, shn that's how you say it. Hi
Hi shen, yeh hi shen. Gotcha, gotcha. Okay, I've been
saying it wrong. I thought I might be welcome guys. Welcome guys.
So tell us what each of you does in the band. Please. I'm
the drum This is Randy. I'm the drummer and the primary backup singer,
and I also do some symps and samples. Okay, I'm justin. I
played bass and do a bit of backing vocals, and I do kind of
a lot of our our technical and kind of managing and booking work. And
then Chris is I think he's still kind of packing some gear upstairs. I'm
hoping he'll be down momentarily. But he is our lead guitarist, lead vocalist,
and like main songwriter. There he is here. I'll scoot over for
you here, Chris, you want to if you want to do your own
introduction, because I started to do years I've gone I'm sure. I play
guitar and I sing. Okay, well, welcome guys. It's nice to
have you all with us. And I was listening, you know, I
listened to the full album, and I made the comment coming out from coming
out of the song Crimson Sun that it's the kind of music you can kind
of get lost in. You know, some of your songs are very long
and they seem to be story driven, and you know, it's the type
of thing you can just put on the headphones and just sort of just sort
of go with it, just get lost in what you're doing. And I
think that's really cool. It kind of takes you on a journey and really
sophisticated stuff. How long have you guys been around? How long has haishen't
been a band? So in this configuration about August of twenty nineteen. Ris
and Justin had a few configurations before that, different music styles, but this
current configuration about five years. Yeah, okay, has it always been a
trio? Not precisely in the current iteration that is known as Hyshen. Yes.
Chris and I are initially started this project attempting to write more of like
atmospheric post rap kind of stuff. We peaked at six members and quickly quickly
realized that trying to coordinate that many people for one band practice and trying to
write with that many people was a huge pain. Yeah, and then a
few people quit to go play in a different band and that was the chance
that we got to kind of retool. And actually one of the guitar players
from that original iteration of the project is the one who recommended Randy to us,
and he's kind of the drummer that unlocked the ability for us to write
progressive music instead of like simpler stuff, because we hadn't had a drummer that
could play that before, right, right, Yeah, I was mentioning,
you know, Randy hans Smith from Sepsis in the chat room was was commenting
how much he likes the drums and yeah, very some pretty sophisticated drum patterns
there, and yeah, yeah, absolutely, really really good. Yeah,
I tend to and you know, when somebody plays like you do. For
example, I was thinking about this last night. If I hear a song
by Rush, I tend to be very drawn to the drums, even though
I'm a bass player, and you know, obviously Getty Lee's an amazing bass
player, but when it's a when it's a band like Rush, you know,
the drums are the thing that I'm drawn to the most, just because
Neil Peart's drumming was so sophisticated, or are some of the early Black Sabbath
stuff too, like War Pigs. You know, I tend to focus in
on the drums because the drumming that bill Ward did was was so interesting and
really kind of different than anything else you would hear from that period. But
uh, absolutely yeah. I mean for me, that version would be Mike
Portnoy from Dream Theater. Yeah, you know, hear me indirectly be compared
to Neil Peart. That's a real honor. But I also you know,
nobody comes close to him, right right right? Well, I mean you've
got, like I said, this is very sophisticated the music that you're making.
Is it a challenge to do this live? Because like I said,
it's it's three of you? But I mean, or maybe I don't know,
do you have anyone additionally with you live who's not an official member,
who contributes live? Or do you actually pull this off just as a trio?
No, we do everything to the three piece wow. And one of
the goals that was on this album that we tried to stick with for the
most part was that we would write things and do things. If we couldn't
do them live, we wouldn't it wouldn't wind up on the record. Okay,
for the most part, that's true in terms of the arrangements. So
everybody in this band pulls what I like to call double triple duty on things
like not only your primary Instagram guitar, vis, drums, but also you
have vocals. Everyone sings has vocal parts in this band, whether it be
harmonies or like background vocals or things like that. Lead vocals. I specifically
do a lot of looping with a loop with a loop pedal. I was
going to say, our fourth band member is Chris's loop pedal. Yeah,
so just like the loop pedal. A lot of that is is live guitars,
is me playing, playing guitar and then trying to loop something over it.
Brandy also does synths and keyboards, which we started to use a trigger
pad for and we kind of along the way we use the trigger pad.
You could just activate it by hitting a paddle with the drums, and then
now very recently we've gone to the professionals, with the professionals using in your
monitor or i e. M. Rec and we have kind of like,
uh, we use we use click tracks, and some people think it's lame,
but for our degree, for our degree of complexity in this music,
it's necessary we have click tracks, and then I also like to use we
actually have everything synced out now, so uh my my pedal board with the
loop pedal, and everything takes uh takes MIDI MIDI commands, so I can
actually it can actually switch uh switch things like channels or pedals or the loop
pedal on and off for certain sections of the song. So it's actually made
things a lot more. We've automated a little bit of it, but at
the core, it's still three guys, same same big films. And the
obvious answer to all how do we do it live? Is we practice a
lot. Yeah. Well, yeah, you know, it's interesting because as
you're describing that and how it all works, I was, you know,
I don't currently play, but I've played in a lot of bands, and
I've never played in a band that's doing anything on the level that you're doing,
you know, with the added technology and whatnot. And I was thinking,
you know, it's it's so far beyond anything I ever did, because
any of the bands I was in, you know, we would show up,
we would play you know usually you know, drums, bass, guitar,
vocals, you know, and it's just you almost take it for granted
when you think about what goes into what you guys are doing. And again
I was thinking too. I was reflecting on for example, Rush, not
to go back to Rush, but a great example of you know, Geddy
Lee live. He would be playing bass, but he also had to figure
out a way to work some keyboard in there, you know, especially with
some of the stuff they did in the eighties. And and it's it's interesting
to me that, I mean, is it stressful to have sort of,
I don't know how else to put it, sort of an additional responsibility on
top of playing your instrument. You're not just playing your instrument, but you've
got a few other things you got to work in there. Is that Is
that difficult? Or is it just something that you know, you get it
down during rehearsal and then it just becomes second nature and it's no different than
if you were just you know, playing normal relax. I think it depends
on the member. I would say the main stressor for us is just making
sure all this newly added technology is working, you know, within the confines
of you have fifteen minutes to set up before your show, and that's of
course stressful because technology sometimes doesn't work. Yeah, it was expected and yeah,
yeah, I was gonna say, for me, I'm effectively playing bass
player and monitor tech, right, and that can be a bit of a
hassle, especially as like I've done my fair share of live sound, I've
done my fair share of as a musician. I have done maybe four shows
now where I'm doing both at the same time, and so that's definitely like
that added technology is definitely a bit of a stressor. And I know,
like making sure that the media is working to Chris's board has been a whole
process. At our release show last night, we actually had an issue where
the USB was not seeing our audio or the USB from the computer to the
audio device was not picking up, so our click track wasn't working. And
we have some like synth pads on like backing tracks and stuff now yeah,
and so none of that was working, and it took rebooting things a bunch
of times, and actually updated all of our equipment last night so that hopefully
we will have no issues for the next couple of days. And then I'm
sure, like you know, Chris can probably speak a bit more to the
mental load of like being the lead singer and playing the lead guitar over some
of the music that we work on. But that's kind of the technology aspect,
and I will say it definitely it's great when it works, and when
it doesn't, it is certainly stressful. The technology. The technology is certainly
the way Justin describes, it gives us a lot with new headaches and things,
but at the end of the day, it does streamline what it does
work. It does streamline a lot of things. We tend to with all
these things, adding like another layer or something like that. A lot of
it is a muscle memory thing and as we say as Renny, so we
practice a lot and it's one of those things that you just get better over
time at doing it. And to us now these things are second nature.
We've had sony songs for a long time, and if something breaks down,
it's not I mean, it's like, I know, we've made it sound
like we're so heavily dependent on the stuff, but it's not the end of
the world, because we can still at the heart of it, a lobby
songs the way they were written were the kind of these extra switches and things
were like kind of baked in. They're necessitated. Sure, so we've all
you can trust that we've all had practice doing this kind of stuff manually,
and so it's and so that's very it's no problem to go back to go
back to it. Yeah, we had to show about a month ago where
we were having an issue where the vibration of the stage kept triggering the stop
command on our click tracks. Like, yeah, we can still play a
perfectly tight set without them. Yeah, we just don't have some like specific
like we're missing the sub drop in this song, we're missing the pretty synthpad,
but like is it great to have the click? Yes? Are we
still the same band we were before we started playing to a click live?
Absolutely? Yeah. Yeah, Well that's interesting. So the vibration of the
stage was causing that. This was when we're using a trigger pad to trigger
the click instead of just pressing the space bar and a laptop. So yeah,
it's a process that there's a lot of trial and error when you're kind
of you're a band and you're three people figuring this out. A lot of
these things we like kind of had to grow into. Basically, we had
to grow into this band, grow into our roles, like the down to
like the pedal board I was making, like I soldered every single cable by
hand, I didn't know how to solder before that. Yeah, you know,
and then so stuff would break on stage. We have footage and it's
it's it's it's rough. You know, We've had footage, like earlier footage
of you know, we'll rush through a loop section, something will break on
stage. These are problems that were in the past. Uh. And do
you to lots of practice and or automation. We've actually streamlined a lot of
stuff into so where the you know, the great live act you've seen here
today. Yeah, no, I I really admire that your your level of
commitment to to this and and all that goes into it with the technology and
uh, Chris, I think it was someone had made reference earlier to to
you know, your your role is unusual and that you're both the lead singer
and the guitar player have Is that a lot of uh? Is that a
lot of pressure? You don't see that in most bands. I mean I've
you know, I've seen a few along the way, but usually usually the
guitar player, the lead guitar player, and the singer are our roles assigned
to two different people. Well, it's just it's just kind of muscle memory.
Yeah, it's I I've done it so long, I don't you know,
I like some people say it's amazing, you know, it's at the
end of the day, it's just kind of muscle memory. Yeah, it's
I think it's attainable. It's also something he had to grow into. Yeah,
as you'd say, because he's improved a lot on both fronts. And
as we joke, early on, he started singing because at the time he
was the only one who knew how to coordinate doing both, gotcha. Yeah,
I think. Yeah, it's like it's it's you could you could argue,
you could. You could argue that we were just like we had we
had too much ego, or we wanted to stay as a three piece.
So we're just being like, okay, we'll play We'll play all I'll play
all the guitar parts, ants sing you know. Yeah, Well, as
you guys were alluding to earlier, though, it's you know, as a
three piece, obviously everybody has to do more in terms of creating this music,
especially replicating it live. But but you don't have as many scheduling issues.
And you know, I mean I've been in bands where you know,
it's three other guys or four other guys, and you know, it can
become really difficult with everyone's schedule to know, schedule rehearsals and and trying to
schedule live shows and so so I think keeping it to a tight three piece
it does make sense. And obviously it makes things a little more challenging technologically,
but you know, you've figured it out obviously and it's it's working for
you. So kudos to you, guys. I think it's great time breakers.
You know, if people are the third person swoops in and gets the
final stay almost that's true. Yeah, there you go, There you go.
And can you, guys tell me a little bit about the album Awaken
the Endless Deep what the theme is here? Because just in listening to it,
and I listened to it first before I read the bio, and the
bio kind of clued me in, But but I noticed, you know,
like I said, it seems to be story songs kind of takes you on
a journey, and that journey is clearly on the sea. Uh, but
can you kind of tell us a little bit about what the concept is here?
And I'm also curious to know is this the concept of the band or
is it supposed to be the concept of Justice album specifically, and are there
other concepts other music that you might be working on or in the future.
It's a kind of a it's kind of a long winded answer, but it's
basically the story of Awaken the Endless Steep. This album is drawn from Chinese
creation mythology, and we kind of built a story around that concept album basically.
Okay, you can notice probably that there are little to no breaks on
the album, so that might kind of clue you in. Every song just
kind of flows in, like one after one after the next. Yes,
So that's based on it's reflective of our kind of desire to write a write
a story a concept album just kind of around Chinese creation mythology. We're not
now, we don't. We don't do much in our way of like publishing
a story doing what like Coheat and Cambria do with like publishing like like they
write like music based on like claud comic books and things like that. We
don't. We don't really have that. We don't really have that much like
published material and by way of that, but we kind of we definitely follow,
We definitely have like kind of a storyboard and kind of a lore written
you know, if you listen closely, there are references to the Chinese,
the Chinese creator god Pungu. He was he's kind of the he's kind of
the creator of like kind of the whole universe. And then you have a
Nuwa who is the kind of mother goddess who creates and looks over mankind.
And your primary antagonist in this story is Gong, which is the h is
the god of water, who is has a taste for engines because he had
a shall i say, a thwarted bid for supremacy over the world. He
wanted to control over the world. He was denied it and he was badly
injured, and now he has kind of returned to try to reassert this kind
of supremacy or said dominance or whatever. And then kind of this human protagonist,
his story is kind of set in like with kind of like ancient China
as a backdrop, but just kind of like that that see with the all
these these gods and things like that. And then the hero you kind of
have like a hero main protagonist who falls under the ocean, uh, and
then he's like he learns of this world and learns that the earth is in
great danger and he has to go forth and save it pretty much. And
to answer to the second half of your question, you know, we have
ourselves titled EP, which is certainly inspired by the ocean, but it's not
related to the album concept. And we do have early stage plans for our
next album to be a continuation of the first album story. So it's pretty
early on to say our albums are all based around one idea, but you
know, we're forging ahead as we go. They we're pretty locked in.
I am certainly drawing the name Heishin is a Chinese raised meaning see god or
sea deity, and that's intentional on my part because I am of Chinese descent,
and I thought this would be also like a great vehicle to explore that
whole world of deities and monsters, but also kind of understanding that whole understanding
the whole culture, understanding the whole world view, because there's a great tradition
there, but it's not many people know about it, and it's just it
was something that I was really interested in discovering for myself. And if you
listen close, and if you know, if you kind of pay attention to
Chinese folk music, you'll hear you'll hear bits and pieces. You'll hear some
kind of famous songs where we've been inspired by some melodies. Especially Goddess in
the Machine has a pretty strong second half where if you're familiar with Chinese folk
music, you're gonna hear melodies, you're gonna hear inspiration. And that was
very, very much purposeful. It's been really really cool to kind of like
learn a lot of this cultural stuff from Chris as we go as well,
and Randy and I have really enjoyed kind of exploring some ways of combining our
musical backgrounds with that inspiration from Chinese traditional music mythology. Yeah. Now,
and and in terms of writing these songs, is is the story kind of
all laid out before or or or do the do the songs kind of come?
I mean, do you already know? In other words, when you
go to write these do you already know? Okay, we're going to focus
on with this song, We're going to focus on this part of the story.
Is it is it really sort of regimented that way? Or is it
is it looser? Or how does how does that process work? Yeah?
We generally we generally write, we generally storyboard first, Okay, And then
it's kind of but in the tradition of many ancient legends, you know,
some of the finer details are a little kind of murky, and you kind
of you kind of add you kind of like fill the holes with your imagination
as you go. Yeah, but we generally storyboards first and then we'll write
song and so we'll have a general idea of like where we want to go,
like what mood we want to capture. In a way, it makes
things easy for us, but at the same time, it's a it's a
very difficult thing to kind of be like, oh, where do we go
next? Right, so we kind of do. We didn't write this album
in order, mind you, We just kind of ticked like we laid it
out into eight major events and we just kind of kind of wrote eight songs
to capture each each point on the way, and we had to find out
how to fit, how to you know, connect it all together. I
will say, to Chris's point, as well as far as not writing them
in order, it didn't really necessarily start out storyboarded, but we very quickly
realized that we needed to. And then if you hear there's a lot of
different influences and a lot of different sounds on this album, and that is
absolutely one percent to the point of this is a section of the story that
we need the song to feel like that section of the story. And that's
why you get there's a huge shift between Crimson Sun and Leviathan, and there's
a big shift between Leviathan and Goddess in the Machine and so on, because
these different sonic landscapes on different songs are directly attached to the way that we
wanted that part of the story to feel. Musically. Yeah, we'll say
the next album might be the process might be a little different. Now that
we're kind of locked in on what we want to we've learned a lot.
Yeah, so it's definitely the next album, you know, who knows the
process could change? Sure? Sure? And where do you record, by
the way, because the songs sound amazing and for what you're doing, obviously
it's important that you know and that like if you're you know, if you're
in a punk band or something, you can kind of get away with,
you know, things sounding a little a little rough, but for what you're
doing, everything has to sound pristine and clear, so you can he everything
and it sounds amazing. Where do you guys record. We recorded at Capture
Studio in Syracuse. It's owned and run by Jason Randall or nicknamed Jocko by
his friends. And yeah, he's got an incredible space that he's pretty much
custom built himself, and he knows the inside and out of it. He
got us a really high degree of isolation between I mean within instruments, I
mean isolation within just my drum set, for example, and that sort allows
all that detail to be brought out. I mean, I think my drum
set has like probably fourteen symbols on it and here at each and everyone you
know. Yeah, and we took extra time to I mean, every guitar
take you here is stereo, so it's double tracked. Every vocal take is
in stereo, so double track. Some of the guitars are quad track,
which means there are four layered takes left and right across the stereo field.
And that's not including like harmony parts and like layers. That's just like an
individual rhythm guitar track is going to be up to four different takes of the
same exact part before the solo gets laid on top of it kind of thing.
And just to brag for Chris a little bit. The guitar solo,
the big guitar solo in the middle of the Flesh of the Earth, Child
of the Sea. He double tracked that solo, like not not two mics,
not a doubler effect, double tracked, played the solo twice and it's
laid on top of each other, and like if you listen, you hear
it, and it's kind of it was. We were all going kind of
crazy watching him do it. Yeah, yeah, I mean, Jocko just
he has the years of experience to know, you know, he's getting into
this kind of project, this is what this kind of project requires. Yeah,
and that's partly why we went with him, because we knew he had
that experience and the space to do so. Yeah, he's recorded all four
Wilder Run albums if you're familiar, yep, and I believe he I believe
he mixed and mastered the first two. So that was kind of where we
heard of him and we're just blown away working them. There was a time
where we tracked all of our demos in the basement, but hey, these
came out pretty good for a basement. Maybe we'll just do this. And
then the more we thought about it the more we figured that was a bad
idea, and then we heard just the rough mixes from like the first day
of drum tracking, and we're like, oh, yeah, this is going
to be way right right, Yeah, no doubt. Does he is he
engineering when he's recording or does he also become like a de facto producer?
And I know sometimes that happens organically, you know, somebody starts out as
an engineer and sort of he comes heart a facto producer. But does he
have a kind of a producer role in what you're doing? Yeah, it
all depends how you want to hire him. Essentially, he's all about making
his studio accessible, so he has like you can just rent the studio and
run the tracking yourself. But we hired him to be both engineer and producer.
He also mixed and mastered the record. Luckily for us, we got
along really well. And we also happen to use the same or like software,
so just familiar with the program. So sometimes he could take a backseat
while we would just press play, and that allowed him to focus on just
hearing the music and getting into that producer role. Yeah. Yeah, for
the most part, our stuff was our material was pretty much cut and dry
and just ready to go when we went into the studio. He did comparatively
little, but in terms of creative direction sometimes he would be Sometimes is our
kind of first time as a band in like a professional studio. We did
the EP. We did the EP in a professional studio as well. We
could squid in Rochester, but that was largely without a click and live and
we kind of just booked that studio time. It just did in three hours.
But this one, this album took something like to the order of nine
to ten days, I think twelve days because we had to add more time
to finish vocal tree, right, we had to add that time what they
said, But I think it was nine days for the bulk of the instrumentals.
And we were like like justin and Randy said, you know he was
he was really he was hands on when he needed to be. Sometimes we
had some we had some sort of agonizing over a certain a certain part.
He would offer his offer in his years of wisdom, and we would you
know, get that done and it would sound great. But you know,
oftentimes we would be up till as time went on, I think we started
staying up later and later to just get this stuff done, so we would
leave at about midnight. And because Justin and Randy are more familiar with his
his daw he uses Reaper and they use Reaper, it was easy for them
to also helm the session so we could just get in an extra three four
hours of work done. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. When you
play live, do you play the full album. That's what we've been doing.
We did that last night at our release show, or two nights ago
rather, and we're gonna I think the plan is to do that on tour.
Excellent, excellent, for the best of our ability. Yeah, Normally
we don't get a chance with some of these local shows just because it's like
usually they do thirty five to forty five minutes, so our album runs just
over fifty five, so we have to cut maybe just a little bit,
but well, whenever we can. It's always great to try to play the
whole thing because it you know, as I said, it's all it's all
connected, it's one big story. So when when did this come out?
Because obviously you just mentioned the release show was last night, so this is
pretty new, right, Well, the really show was May ninth, and
the album came out maya so Thursday, came out, came out. Oh
wait two Saturday time. I mentioned last night earlier, and I'm realizing that
there was an entire day in between. But it's been such a blur of
prepping for tour and everything that I forgot that Friday happened. That can happen.
Yeah, yeah, and then we should make sure we plug too.
Tonight. You guys are playing at Terminus in Nashua, New Hampshire. Yes,
very good for that, Ye, excellent. Yeah, we've had both
Conduit Conduit we had on the show recently, and we had Novakoy on the
show a little while ago and a couple of great bands, so that is
awesome. Yeah, definitely people should check that out. And of course we've
had Eleanor on the show when Terminus was first opening there in Nashua and a
great, great place, and I don't know if you've seen it yet,
but when you walk into it, it's it's my reaction was walking into that
room for the first time. It's like another world. It's it's it's it's
amazing. It's a truly remarkable place. Guys. The time goes so quickly.
This has been a fascinating conversation I really love what you're doing. I
love your music. We are going to play another track. I was thinking
about playing Leviathan to to close out this segment, and then we'll probably play
something else too later in the show. You've definitely got a fan in me.
So I love the music and I love the whole concept. It's really
really cool. What oh absolutely thank you guys for joining us today before we
let you go, And like I said, I think we're gonna play Leviathan
next. But I want to make sure people know how to find you online.
People listening who have not actually looked or Google you probably don't know how
to spell the name of your band. So how should people know how to
reach you online so they can follow you, keep up with everything that you're
doing, get your music, go to a show, whatever it is out
How should people find you? Yeah, So it's H A I S H
E N. And we are at Hishen band on. You can find us
on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or Twitter. Don't really use the Twitter
that often. Instagram is really the best place to keep up with us.
We also have We're on Spotify. Just Hi Shen. We're the only ones
we come right up. Good. We're on band camp hishen dot band camp
dot com. We have CDs of the new album, CDs and tapes of
the EP. We just posted a couple of shirt designs last night. And
other than that, we will be in Revere, Massachusetts to Sammy's Patio on
the twelfth. If you can't make the New Hampshire show but you're in the
New England area, We're gonna be at Gold Sounds in Brooklyn on the thirteenth
Monday. If you're in the New York City area, and other than that,
keep an eye on our Instagram. We're going to be trying to play
out of town a lot this year. Please feel free to hit us up
for booking. High Shendband at gmail dot com or message us on any one
of our social media pages and we'll get back to you as soon as we
see it. I'll also add we are on Apple Music as well for all
iPhone users were We're on most scream screening services. Whatever CD baby puts us
on, we're on that. And also I was gonna say a quick shout
out to is Our. You can also find our merch for sale at our
record labels website Needlejuicerecords dot com. Okay, so that's all the places you
can find us other than in person somewhere on later today. Very good,
very good, all right, justin Randy Chris from Highshend. Thank you guys
so much. We'll let you go. I'm gonna hit this track Leviathan.
I can't wait to share this with everybody, and but thank you so much
for having us on. Absolutely we'll do it again in the future. Guys,
have a great show tonight, and thank you so much. Take care
and I'm sure we have a good one, all right YouTube, bye bye,
all right, the guys from Highen. We're gonna play this track Leviathan.
Then when we come back, Jenny's gonna tell us about the event today,
and then we're gonna bring in on the second hour Bees Deluxe. Are
they in the building? Is that? Oh? I'm sorry your mic was
I shot your mic off when you got up to leave the room to let
them in. They are in the buildings, they are, They're in the
building. Very good, very good, all right, So plenty more to
come. But check this out from Highend. This is called Leviathan. Really
good stuff. Oh b rise, Oh my god, sat not my no,
I won't I said that my could ever be cat I thought I was
going the reality, I said, my say, oh kay, and so
by die now oh or Ney ells right to the truth. But be the
shadow makes me wide moments about their shoes a file side said that goes from
one plays the brot the little the time, but not to themselves up in
the side you mean Detroit and sit the wall soon Detroit right by by oh
by the by willisode back. I did OUs all back and rest thou do
thousand about size, style and stuff, and sous now spe cries of my
be so well make the best of the bays. When war exploiting us,
falling fins one one, they think the ball the sus accepting like baby doll,
like b like b a ball over by ur But sa for me go
round. That is Leviathan from Highshen And thanks again to those guys for joining
us out of course it's from the album Awaken the Endless Steep, really good
stuff. Fascinated by their music and what those guys are doing. And as
promised, Jenny tell us about the event today this evening, or actually this
afternoon. In of this evening, there's a special opening reception going on at
the Mosaic Art Collective right here in the Queen City of Manchester, located at
sixty six Hanover Streets. Tweet two to one. I can speak. This
is a really interesting and really cool art show. And I'm excited because one
of my pieces is in the show, so I will be there this afternoon
for the opening. But this is an interesting What they did was this is
called the Resurgence Art of the Botanical and it's a collaboration with local florists people
like do Collective Blue Botanicals, Heather Noonan and they've created arrangements inspired by pieces
of the original artwork that are in the show. Isn't that crazy cool?
I'm excited to see this. So there's all different kinds of art pieces,
all different kinds of artists, and it's a fusion between you know, the
visual beauties of artwork on the walls with the three D come to life bouquets
and just floral arrangements and they are there's going to be an auction also,
so these floral arrangements are going to get auctioned off. Really good timing too,
considering tomorrow's Mother's Day, so you could get an amazing, amazing bouquet
of flowers. So I'm really excited to be there the shows. The opening
is from four to eight pm this evening. And each one of these artists,
these florists, they chose the artwork that inspired them to create these exquisite
floral arrangements. So I'm just I'm so excited about this. I can't wait
to see it. So I hope you guys will join us. That's uh
tonight from four to eight pm at sixty six Hanover Street here in the Queens
City, Suite to one the Mosaic Art Collective. Do look them up Mosaicarcollective
dot com. There will be a new show starting they're gonna be They have
an open call going for their June show called lux Reflecting Queer Beauty and Resilience.
That's going to go from June third to June thirtieth, with an opening
reception on June eighth. So, if you are an artist from all corners
of the LGBTU plus community, allies explore and celebrate the multifollient aspects, so
you can submit your artwork. That is an open call that is going on
for next month if you'd like to get your work into the Mosaic Art Collective.
It's a great place to show. It's a smaller gallery, it's very
unique. It's a wonderful environment. There are live live there are live artists.
There are studios there that you can actually get a glimpse into some of
the local artists work as they're in these studios. Let me tell you,
are incredible to look at. It is just the way that the artists have
them set up and everything. It's a piece of its own if you will,
so definitely check that out. I'm excited to be there. I just
love the Mosaic Are Collective. I really yeah, very good. While we
look forward to that absolutely all right, excellent, excellent and congratulations, thank
you, And we are approaching the top of the hour. We're going to
get to a quick break, show some love to our amazing sponsors, and
then when we come back, we have Conrad and Carol from the band Bees
Deluxe. They are here with us live and spooloop. I'm sorry, I
don't know where that's coming from. They are here with us live and studio.
I figured out where it's coming from. That was a sneak peak of
one of the songs we're going to be playing. I didn't mean to play
it yet anyway. All right, let's h