The band Best Not Broken. And we've got a couple of guys from the
band here with us. We're going to introduce Eric at the news desk.
Welcome, Hello, thank you, good to see him. Matt and Carlo
on the couch, right on the couch. How did you get the couch
by the way, Well, there's there's a story there, but I'm not
sure we should go into that right now. All right, all right?
And and who are we missing? And feel free to make up a ridiculous
story about I suppose we could. Probably that would be better than the truth.
I think it's more it's more fun if you come up with a story,
not to put you on the spot. Well, we're missing Mark.
Mark is our bass player. Yes, and I'm trying to remember whether he
stubbed his toe or if he hurt his wrist combination. I think he uh
stubbed his toe while hurting his wrist. That's that's probably what I get a
visual of that, right, which has happened a couple of times with Mark,
And oh my well, he's a very dynamic individual and he moves around
and jumps around a lot. Yeah, yeah, you know a lot of
times lands on his toe. Well, that's that's understandable. Well, actually
there's truth of that. I think he heard his last week, right,
Yeah it was, so that's not all. Well, thoughts and prayers for
Mark, thank you, well, well welcome guys. By the way,
Uh, now what do you got? So Mark is the bass player,
So what do you guys each doing the band? So I sing and play
the guitar. Carlo is in drums. Yeah, all percussion. So you
got like a it's like a power trio basically exactly. But is there a
fourth Is there a fourth individual who does Yeah, there is another guitar player
that sits in with us. Uh most of the time, on and And
Uh. Yeah, we have mystery men that do all kinds of interesting things
through the band. But on And is the most regular. On And is
our other guitar player. Gotcha? Gotcha? So is on and Is?
Uh there are only occasionally for live shows or consistently or most of the time.
So it kind of depends on the on the on the event, you
know. I mean, sometimes we're an acoustic format and it calls for a
smaller yeah, a smaller thing, and sometimes it's a bigger thing, and
so he does the bigger things. I guess is the way we most simply
describe it. Gotcha, Yeah, gotcha. And how long has the band
been around, because it looks like you've got a fair amount of music online
from what I saw, looks like you've been at it for a while.
We have, yes, a long time, well not I mean in this
room, I'm the young member. But it's been for more than ten years.
Oh yeah, for sure, to the point that we don't like our
the music that we first wrote, right right, for sure, we're trying
to move on from that. But no, I think I think our first
recordings were done in twenty twelve, and the band, you know, it
started before that and sort of evolved. We actually kind of started as a
cover band playing clubs here in Manchester and around Boston in southern Hampshire, and
slowly started to work our own material into into our shows and eventually started to
record that material. And so twenty twelve is when we started to start to
push the original stuff. And so that's I think officially when we became an
original band, which it actually isn't as long as I thought, But no,
in shorter longer, I'm not sure I know. But anyway, we've
been doing it a while, I always say, and I say it only
half kidding. I feel like the COVID pandemic kind of created this weird time
distortion thing where sometimes things happened longer ago, they seem like they either didn't
happen as long ago as they actually did, or they seem longer ago or
something. It's really it's really odd. And I run into that a lot,
specifically with musicians when we're talking about how, you know, how long
ago did you record this or whatnot? And you know, I'll have a
I had a band in here recently. It was like they had they had
just recorded something, and uh like two years ago, twenty twenty one,
but one of the members was convinced it was like twenty eighteen. It was.
It's just interesting how that how that works. But COVID changed the music
business so much, I mean all live entertainment obviously, because we weren't gathering
and so it really changed it for a lot of musicians. And you know,
we're fortunate we have other ways of paying the bills sometimes, but but
those that were fully dependent on, you know, playing for a living had
a really hard time. Absolutely absolutely, And it seems like there's been some
lasting changes too, because you know, when the pandemic started to wrap up
and things opened up, you know, all of a sudden, a lot
of bands are playing out again because they can. But but then it's like,
now, you know I again. I have a lot of different musicians
on the show, and different people have different approaches. But some of the
bands I talked to now they're kind of like, yeah, we're doing you
know, maybe one show a month. We're not really you know, gas
is expensive, it's uh, you know, we can do live performances in
our living room and stream it, you know, and are really kind of
pulling back, which to me is is interesting and it's it's hard to fathom
in a way because so I don't I don't play anymore. But I used
to play in a lot of bands, and my my thing was always I
just wanted to play out. I wanted to play as many shows as possible
because being on stage was my favorite thing in the world. Sure, I
just wanted to that's all I want. I mean, I was in I
was in a couple of bands where we probably oversaturated because we played so much.
But I wanted to be out there every week end, and I didn't
care if we were playing the same bar two weekends in a row or you
know, which, you know, not a great idea necessarily, but I
didn't care. And but it's interesting now some bands are really kind of pulling
back, and then there's others, you know, who are just you know,
playing every weekend and and really really trying to still push it. But
I think the period right before COVID, who knows what date that was,
but that that summer season we were we were actually very busy. Yeah,
we were playing a lot all over the Northeast, touring as far down as
Virginia. I mean it was we were very very busy, and so we
were definitely gearing up for another very busy touring season and then you know,
Compoof But and we certainly haven't returned to that to your point, a lot
of bands musicians have not returned to that hectic schedule of playing out as much
as possible because I think we've all discovered that there's just different ways of getting
the music out there for people to listen to. Especially as an original band,
you know, just we have to take advantage of all those methods.
And those methods were proven during COVID we were able to get music two people.
We actually did a music video during COVID. We we filmed a video
one of these you know, hands off, you know, mask one kind
of video things for one of our one of our most popular songs, the
name next Oh yeah, never next week. But it was actually a very
clever video the way we did it, and I think it'll it'll stand the
test of time and one could look at it and say, oh, that's
how they responded during COVID, or one could look at it and say,
no, that's just a cool music video. Yeah, you know, it's
got two different I think shapes to it, which is not exactly what we
were going for, but it's how it turned out, right, right,
So yeah, definitely changed the landscape for sure. Yeah, no doubt.
Well, I always say too, you know, we have to obviously,
you know, the pandemic was awful for a number of reasons, but you
know, we have to find these silver linings where we can. And one
silver lining is the timing of it, because if if it had happened twenty
years ago or even ten years earlier than it did, you know, we
were fortunate that it happened at a time when we have all this technology,
and and it kind of forced people to embrace technology in ways that they hadn't
before. But some of what we were seeing, like, you know,
I saw examples of actually very famous and successful bands doing these you know,
these these uh streams online where they're all they're all at home, but they're
playing together, you know, and and for performances and and you know,
in lieu of of touring and pretty remarkable stuff. And I just I feel
like if it had happened, if this had happened twenty years ago, you
know, before we had things like zoom and you know, social media everything.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, career ending probably, oh yeah, yeah,
it would have been it would have been much worse than that sense.
So we're lucky that it happened at a time when we have the technology absolutely,
and uh, you know, it seems to happen about once a century,
so hopefully we don't have to go through it ever again. We're back,
baby, Yeah yeah, so you guys aren't. So you guys now
you're but you're you're playing out a lot, right, just not as much
necessarily as before the pandemic. Yeah, I mean, you know, we
have different reasons. We have families and things that we have to be respectful
of. But we you know, like you, we love performing and I
think best not broken really throughout our history has been a live band. That's
kind of what we are. And yeah, unlike some other bands that uh,
they can put out material and never play and be okay with that,
that's kind of not how That's kind of not how we do it. And
yeah, so we're doing. We're doing as much as we can. I
think, you know, we go through spells of being really busy and spells
of slowing down a little bit, but that's the nature of the business.
But we love every time we step on a stage. Is summer your busiest
time? Sure? Usually is? Yeah, usually think it starts like in
May goes through September. You know, that seems to be the season where
a lot of bands are out touring and so we're either you know, either
supporting some major acts or performing on our own. I mean, you know,
I would say the last well, certainly this year and I guess last
year too, right, we've kind of kept it a little more regional.
We've been more in New England, I suppose than we haven't really branched out
from there. Yet. But you know, I'm not saying we won't.
It's coming. I'm sure. Yeah, but as you said earlier, you
know, more selective maybe, you know, yeah, yeah. Well the
other thing for us is we're you know, we're in the process. There
was Covid wasn't great for us in terms of producing material, and we're now
we're in the process of putting a new album out and so oftentimes the performances
follow the you know, follow the live recordings because you're out promoting those recordings.
And so we're we just released a song three two a couple of weeks,
a couple of weeks ago, which is the first single on our next
album, which is called if If It Feels Right EP. Actually, it'll
be probably six songs on it, and the rest of it's coming out next
month. So there'll be some shows that we do in support of that.
Yeah, we've got a fun one coming up. We're gonna be with the
Smashing Pumpkins up at at Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion and Guildford. What is
that two weeks from now a couple of weeks. Excellent, excellent, congratulations,
thanks very good. It's funny because are you know back in the day.
We all used to listen to Smashing Pumpkins, and we still do sometimes,
but our music probably back then was a lot more like them. It's
evolved in a different way, and it'll be interesting to see how it,
you know, how it goes. Yeah, the folks that are going to
see Smashing Pumpkins, but we're gonna have funny the way. It'll be good.
Have you guys opened for a lot of a lot of big acts that
have come through. We've had it. We've been very fortunate. Yeah,
we've we've we've done some good ones. I'll tell you when we did this
year. Which still sticks with me is the now I forgot the name.
Guess who? The guess who? Yeah, the guests who and and and
When that was first offered to us, I think there was some like,
you know, the guess who Who's that again kind of thing and then you
you cue up their collection and their music is absolutely iconic. I mean it
defined a generation. I mean that's absolutely a big stuff. So we were
really honored to be a part of that show that was over in Salisbury,
mass That was a good show at the Blue Ocean Music Hall. Great great
venue. If you've been there. It's a wonderful venue to play and h
and to see a you know, some music. So, you know,
every year we seem to get three or four you know, good opening slots,
which gives us an opportunity to promote ourselves and gather new fans and uh,
you know, sometimes we get a few. Sometimes we don't put you
know, it's a it's a it's a big live show, you know,
And so for us, for people to see us live, I think they
really get a sense of the fun that we're having and uh and and the
kind of music that we're making, you know, and hopefully get somebody to
you know, buy a few records along the way and listen to some music.
But it's been good. We've been lucky. You guys have merch you
bring the shows we do. Yeah, we just came out with a fabulous
T shirt. You know why it's fabulous because our pictures are on it.
We've never done a T shirt with our pictures on it. And most of
the feedback we got was what in the heck are your pictures doing on the
shirt? But no, it's a good group shot. It's a funny.
We actually did the photo shoot for it in Manchester. Yeah, right,
was here in Manchester on the old railroad tracks or somewhere up the road here,
and it was a cool shot. We always liked that, you know,
it was a cool photo. Right, Yeah, it ended up being
on a shirt and I don't know, we've we've sold quite a few of
them, as we have, and the one thing we forgot to do is
bring one here today. But that's okay, because we're gonna We're gonna either
come back or mail. Yeah, we will make sure you have Yeah,
yeah, definitely cool. Cool, Yeah, it's funny. I was just
reading recently about how there was a time when people thought, people in the
music industry thought in terms of merchandise, that you couldn't you couldn't put a
for a men's shirt, you know, for women it was different, but
for men, you couldn't put pictures of a male band's faces on a shirt
because dudes wouldn't wear a shirt with other men's faces on it. Interesting,
this was I had read something actually, Rolling Stone had something about this from
way back, jeez, when I was a kid. Actually, when Daryl
Hall and John Oates their manager at the time, Tommy Mottola, who went
on to do other things. But that was apparently that was a big discussion
in that camp was do we put out do we do we bother putting out
men's shirts with Darryl and John's faces on them because our men going to wear
that, and and I guess even to this day people debate about that.
But then it's funny because last week I had Andy Klesnski. I don't know
if you know him. He's a singer songwriter from the Sea Coast Cool.
He was here and just coincidentally, uh, he happened to have he was
wearing a Michael McDonald's shirt with Michael McDonald's face on it. And I didn't
even realize it but at first, and then the subject of Michael McDonald came
up and I was like, oh, he's on your shirt. And then
that made me think of you know, that whole that whole discussion of that
debate about I had no idea that ever happened. My my favorite album cover
ever was the Police the I forget the name of the album, but it
was the Police. There three pictures around it, and actually we're sort of
going for that kind of a thing. Yeah, yeah, on this on
this T shirt. We didn't quite get it, but we made it our
own. Yeah, it's a fun it's not it's a more of a funny
shirt, you know, kind of goes with our vibe. You know,
we're having fun and you know, dressed in some sort of costume and uh
yeah, I mean it's it's just a funny kind of thing. But it
is what you mentioned, merchandise. It's the first time we've done something.
Normally, it's like some graphic right like something. Maybe it's the maybe it's
the the EP cover or something. But this time, yeah, we went
a little, we went a little outside and I'm gonna have to think about
that now, how many guys. We should do a survey to see how
many guys actually bought the shirt, right, I mean, I hope they
do. Some have already so we know it's working a yeah they have.
Yeah, Yeah, I think hip hop kind of changed that that stigma two
of of of guys wearing shirts with other guys faces. Sure, you know,
because once hip hop started to get really big, you know, it
wasn't unusual to see somebody wearing a you know, a Snoop Dogg shirt with
Snoop Dogg's actual face. Son, But if only we were as cool as
Snoop Dogg's right, that guy. Yeah, that guy. It's incredible that
he never stops. He's he's he's one of those few people who can be
you know, he can still be edgy with his music and whatnot and swearing
and everything, but also have that side to him that's very family friendly.
I I'm not sure I can think of another example of somebody quite like that
who occupies that space the way that he does. It's a good point.
I'm not sure I can't either. Yeah. No. Part of why I
was asking about merch too, is it seems like, you know, because
we were talking about playing shows and how expensive you know, it's more expensive
than it used to be to travel and so forth, And it seems like
there's a push within the music industry now too for everybody to really sell more
merch because it's the one thing, you know, as far as selling your
music, you know, Spotify gives you, uh you know, big money,
big money. Yeah. Yeah, the streaming services don't give you much,
and and uh you know, and touring, you know, a lot
of your a lot of that money ends up going into your gas tank can
and paying for whatever else. And so it seems like merch is because he
can't download a T shirt, at least not yet. I thought when three
D printers came out that was going to kill the merch thing, and then
it just didn't happen. I'm not sure why, but I guess it's a
good thing it didn't happen, because then that'd be another revenue stream download down
down the toilet. Melanie and the chat room says, uh, you know,
Jay was just saying that he wished he had a shirt with Matt's face
on it. Well, actually, now see my shirts. See I've got
these Matt Connerton unleashed shirts. But that's not really Oh yeah, that's cool,
but that's like a representation of my It's not my actual face. It's
it's like me as an anime character, you know. Oh beautiful, yeah
from here. Yeah. Brendan McCormick, he very very talented graphic artists who
he designed the logo and then we put it on the back of these shirts
and uh, it's remember when he showed it to me and he was like,
he was a little bit cheapish about it. He didn't know if I
was gonna like it because it's a little outside the box. And I was
never in anime, but I knew enough about it too. I recognize that
there's an anime called Devil May Cry. And I only knew knew this because
I used to work in a store that's old DVDs. Okay, so we
had an anime section. So when I saw it, I was like,
oh my god, I love it. And it's been around. I have
to see Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know if the shirt,
the shirt might be a little faded, but he's coming over for a
firsthand look. Yeah, that's very cool. Yeah yeah, And then Jenny
had shirts made up and yeah, and then that became the we might have
to steal that concept the official log. Oh yeah, we'll go in anime.
Yeah, it's it's very cool. Yes, have had it? Oh.
Mike from Queen City Cabinetry says, my son has worn that T shirt,
Matt, it's his absolute favorite. Yes. Uh. And Mike was
also asking about the songs I played. Who write do you guys all write
together? Or who writes the song? Write everything? And then I submit
it to Eric for approval. He throws it in the trap and rewrites everything
in a more perfect sense. The truth is Carlo writes all of our bridges.
No one is allowed to write a bridge unless Carlo has approved it.
But yeah, so we we you know, it's every song is a little
bit different. I mean, you know, I'm a songwriter and Mark our
bass player as a songwriter, and so we both bring in a lot of
ideas and some of them are more fully formed by the time they get to
the band, and some of them aren't, and some of them sort of
come together when we're together. But you know, it's amazing. A lot
of people say, I mean, we're joking around. A lot of people
say drummers don't write, But it's amazing what you know, when when Carlo
lays down a pattern or rhythm, what that can do to kind of change
the dynamic of a song and move it in a certain direction. So,
I you know, it's it's a very collaborative process. Even though you know,
we're the guys playing the guitars and singing the lyrics and writing some of
the stuff. It doesn't work unless we do it together a lot of ways.
Yeah, yeah, and the drums sound incredible, by the way,
where do you guys record because the drums really because not everyone gets that right
When recording producing drums, you know, but you can hear every you can
hear everything, every tom, every I mean, it just sounds so good.
Yeah, it's true. We we've been lucky to work with a couple
of really good studios that really understand your point of making the drums sound good.
You know, I mean obviously pretty biased towards the sound, but you
know, when you're when you're building a piece of music, it starts with
the drums, right and it starts with the drums and goes to the bass
right away, because that's the that's the foundation of it, you know.
And so we've we've been lucky to have a couple of real good producers work
with us and recording engineers that understand that and get a just actually they get
a very good sound. It's like the foundation of a house. I mean,
truly, you can't have a you can't have a good song the way
we try to write songs unless the drums sound good. We've we've made that
mistake and we never want to make it again. But uh, and I
think today, you know, with hip hop becoming such a big deal,
you know, the last twenty years, and so many contemporary songs relying very
heavily on the rhythm and the groove. It's like that you're hearing that and
you're hearing the lyrics and the rest of the stuff in some cases just sort
of washed out in the middle. Sure, yeah, it so people are
looking for the rhythm, Yeah, looking for the groove, and you gotta
get it right. But we typically well will record with Dave Minihan down at
Wooly Mammoth Studios and Waltham Dave David. Oh, that's a name I've definitely
heard. Yeah, Dave is a you know, he's a Boston legend.
Really, we've been very fortunate that he's he's been willing to take us on
and but you know, he when Brad Whitford was not healthy, he was
playing with Aerosmith and he's played with the replacements. He's a guitar player too,
okay with the replacements, and but he's an amazing producer in his own
right. He's a great musician. Or fortunate now that he's kind of playing
with us because she's actually on most of the most of the songs out now.
Yeah. In fact, he did a lot of the background vocals for
one of these tunes that's coming out next month, which is which I'm excited
to put out called That's the Way She likes it, And it's kind of
a song that draws on influences from some of the eighties and nineties stuff,
but real heavy background vocals which are very cool. Yeah, looking forward to
that one. But it starts with the drums, it does, Yeah,
it does. How did you get to working with Minahan? What's his first
name? Mike? Uh? He moved to Waltham from the Boston area many
many years ago. And I think it happened because I was reading a story
about his move to this new studio and it was just about the time I
was getting ready to record my first batch of songs and I was looking for
some help, and I sent them my stuff and I said, what do
you think, thinking that he would say either nothing, I don't think much.
But fortunately he said, hey, actually that's pretty cool. On don't
you come down and we'll talk a little bit. And I did, and
and that was the beginning. He Uh. We did an EP that was
again back in twenty and twelve. It took us a while to record that.
Carlin knows we take a longer record, especially when it by myself,
but but it came not really well. The funny thing is I went in
with a completely different vision of what we ended up with, and at the
end of the day, I don't know whether it's good or bad. You
know. I was at the time actually going in more of a synthesizer,
you know, type of direction, and Dave sort of brought it back to
more of an acoustic guitar based a little bit more of a classic sound,
which worked really well for those songs, and he was probably right. Yeah,
But we've you know, we've managed over the years to weave in some
of the new stuff and keep some of the you know, the more traditional
organic sounds acoustic guitars and electric tars and that kind of stuff. But there's
a couple of songs on that first album though, that continually get requested.
It shows so, I mean, it's funny we've played them. It's an
older piece, but it seems like they're the ones, you know, people
want to hear. Yeah, those that have been around for a while,
they remember some of those tunes. Pretty Good Day is the one that that
stands out to me that was on the first album that people tend to like,
but we like the new stuff too. Yeah, yeah, Now,
are you guys from Boston or are you we are from the stuff? We're
from the general area. We've sort of bounced back and forth between Boston and
Southern New Hampshire. The band collectively, we've are members have sort of zigzagged
around the area. So we kind of consider ourselves a greater Boston band.
But right now we've got some roots in southern New Hampshire and but the area
has been very good to us. We've you know, we've kind of started
in Manchester and sort of grew from there. You know, we have regular
stuff we do now up in Burlington and and we've you know, as Carlos
said, we get down as far as Virginia, New York has been a
more regular thing. We haven't been down there in a while because Philly we
haven't had stuff to promote, but I think probably that's coming up in the
not too just in future. Cool cool, very good. Well, Actually,
why don't we, uh well take a break and play another track here?
Uh let's see you sent me, Oh it didn't one of the things.
You didn't send me this one, but you said there's a new single
that came out recently I did. It's called I Don't Belong, and I
thought I sent it to Oh you did send me that? Okay, No,
you did. I'm sorry. I don't know why I was for some
reason I thought you had said something else. But my brain is mush sometimes.
I probably have a our often is too. We do some of our
best work when our brain is mush. Here we go, Here we go.
I got it, Okay, here it is. Yeah. I like
actually, yeah, I like this one a lot too. This is really
good. So let's do this. We'll we'll give this a listen. If
you're just joining us. We've got two of the guys, Eric and Carlo
from the band Best Not Broken, are here with us live in studio and
we've been talking and we're gonna listen to another track here. So this is
called I Don't Belong. And this is the newest single just within the last
couple of weeks. Yeah, out two weeks here, two and a half
weeks ago. Again excellent, excellent, All right, check this out I
Don't Belong from Best Not Broken. I'm walking in a home roomember, I've
got my jeans pig all done with a hairspray. We've been wucking new way
coopus and a fresh shap. Wanna be a rock star preventing my new car
hot he's in the backyard back I got nothing so far? Can I get
up? Can I get up? Can I get up? Can I get
up? Can I get up? I don't everybody you know. I don't
say as you go. I don't get her real job. Interviewed with each
jar, Ask me what I wanna say. I don't wanna keep my hair
along for me and I high rise with you with some rich guys starting with
the deep swipe. Now I'm making a French prize. I'm not a quick
lurn. Maybe it's the side of It's like down if you want to know
about at least I made some heads turn. Can I get up? Can
I get up? Can I get up? Can I get up? I
don't want everybody though, I don't get stay as you go. I don't
get so much. I don't know why. And you belong some place that
you just can't time. When you ask foot ten much, you just got
nine hair? Everything is fine, just that much. Can I get up?
Can I get up? Can I get up? Can I get up?
Can I get up? Can I get up? Can I get up
below and joining us here live in studio, we have Eric and Carlo from
The and Best Not Broken, and guys, that's a very very catchy I
caught myself singing along to it, so that's uh, that probably happened.
I would imagine when you play that at shows, you probably get get people
singing along, right, it does. It gets a real good response,
singing, clapping, I think, uh, I think the video actually,
I think people that see the video might be amused because we released a video
at the same time, and uh, it's uh, it's one of our
We're very proud of it because we uh we look like absolute before it was
absolutely ridiculous, fully ridiculous, but we sort of captured the essence of the
song. I think. Yeah, And and it happened fast. I was
shocked we were to pull together. But we would encourage your listeners if they
liked that tune to check out the video for I Don't Belong on YouTube.
It's there and you get a good laugh there and waiting for you, very
good, very good. Yeah, it's funny. That's another subject that's come
up a lot on the show lately as videos because there's some people I don't
know if you guys run into this at all. This there's some people who
have this perception that music videos are and a dead art form because you know,
MTV hasn't played videos in decades, and it's like it's funny, but
I run into people who don't seem to realize that actually, because of YouTube,
there's more music videos being made than ever. Oh yeah, Like like
when Beyonce puts out a new album, for example, you know she's got
the money to do it. When she puts out a new album, every
single song on the album has a video, right, It's it's it's actually
more than ever. People want to see that multi media entertainment. You know,
they want to they want to get a bigger picture of what certainly want
to see the artists. You know, they're hoping to see the artists in
the in the video. And it just provides a more multidimensional musical experience as
opposed to just you know, listen to music. I mean, and I
think you might capture the interest a little more, Like people will listen to
the entire song as opposed to when you're streaming. That's a good you know
they're getting get minute or so and like all right, moving to the next
one, moving the next one, the next one, click click click,
click click. But a video, you're probably gonna watch the whole thing.
It's a it's an interesting phenomenon. I mean, as a musician, now,
you know that if you don't put a video out with a song,
you're missing listeners or viewers. You're missing missing people that might otherwise see it.
Right. But it's also interesting because it truly changes the dynamic of how
people experience a song, right because in the old days, when there was
no video, or now when there's no video, you know, you you
come up with your own images, right, Yeah, but you're forced to
follow the images that are put out in this video, which I think sometimes
is great and sometimes not. But but it's a new way of experience it
for sure. Yeah. It's funny though, it's like we're time traveling in
a way, because this is the same conversation that people had when on shows
like this when MTV first one on the air. Yeah, right, and
artists would talk about, yeah, you know now you're you know, you're
assigning these images to the video, which to the song rather which might be
a good thing or might not. And you know, and I still want
to be on MTV? Can we still do that? Yeah? I want
my MTV too, was like a there must be a there must still be
videos on there somewhere right there. I'm sure there must be like a like
a twenty minute video show or something. But yeah, reality television just completely
took over and write and then I guess in the nineties, right, I
think it's been that long. Yep. Yeah, wow, Yeah, we
haven't done our own reality show yet. We're gonna leave them. How many
videos have you guys? Have you guys shot? What do you think?
That's a good question, but there's enough to keep you busy. I would
say probably ten, Yeah, something like that, maybe maybe a little more.
Some are more involved than others. Yeah, I know. The first
one that I participated in was for Won't Stop Loving You, which was a
very elaborate production and a very moving video. I would say that was the
most emotional video that we've made. And if you put a bunch of people
in a room, I guarantee you a bunch of them are going to be
crying by the time they get to the end of that video. It's very,
very touching and it's a great song. Uh, we think so but
are it's another one. It's a fan favorite. Yeah, you know,
it's from an earlier record and they seem to love that song, so we
like playing it. But something our videos ranged from serious to absolute insanity.
Yeah, and maybe that's a good thing. I don't know. I hope,
so, yeah, I hope, so I hope. So now the
videos, do you do you have someone you work with on those? Or
do you do them? You're because we do? Okay, because I was
gonna say, we live in an era where really you can you can do
it all yourself. It's pretty remarkable you can if you're if you're that talented,
you know, Yeah, we're We're just not that. Uh No,
we have helpers. Yeah, helpers are necessary for us. Do you work
with the same people on each Have you worked with the same people on each
video? Or is there our production company we have? Yeah, yeah,
we've uh there's a company called one oh six Studios that Boston that we've been
using recently. Travis Gray has been the lead guy for us, and that's
gone very well. We've used other people in the past, but Travis has
been doing good work for us lately. Excellent, excellent, And what are
the live shows like do you guys, do you have any you do any
kind of elaborate stage show or anything, or do you do you just play
or any kind of theatrics or do you save that for the videos? Well,
you know, I mean, so we have we do a range of
shows, you know, I mean we are we are primarily an original band,
but we do shows where we'll mix covers into into our shows. Some
of them are more cover oriented, but really the focus of what we do
is is original material. But the reason I say that is because you know,
some of these shows tend to be a little more grueling, like three
hours long or four hours long, and the dynamic is a little bit different
than a short and sweet, action packed, true best not broken original show.
But we one of the things we try to do is really have great
energy when we put on a show, and we try and go out and
leave it all on the stage. We're all athletes, and probably because we're
we wish that we could still be as competitive as we once were. We
had the only place we can do it is on the stage, and so
we occasionally stub our toes and fall up of things. But we tried to
do lots of jumping but so, yeah, it's a we hope that it's
an engaging and action packed show. It should be that. Yeah, I
can tell you we I'm reminded of a story. Maybe we should we should
share of we we well, I don't know what to tell so I don't
know whether we should share or not. We we'll find out together. It
was it was a live constiant We didn't at the two below below music in
Derry and it was outdoors during the period where they were doing outdoor shows if
you remember that, which was very clever. Quite frankly, anyway, we
we headlined a show and and uh As Zeric said, it's a it's an
action packed show. I mean, the drummer just has to sit there most
of the time, but the rest of the guys were moving around quite a
bit on stage and we had a choreographed piece of the show. Remember where
we were doing some things. And the point of this story is it was
about one hundred and fifty degrees out and the sun was hitting that stage and
you know, you're you're driven by the music and the fan interact. It
was a sold out show, so a lot of people and you're feeding off
that energy. But at some point, it's just not enough. It was
so hot out, you know, I think we were all feeling a little
bit faint. And there's a there's a particular thing. You'll have to come
to one of our shows. This particular thing we do at the end where
this guy runs around it just does something absolutely crazy, and it was great.
You know, we're watching the whole things happen and people were plotting,
blah blah blah blah, and that's the end of the show. Encore is
over and we got to the back, you remember, and he was he
was white as a sheet. I thought I literally thought he was going to
pass out because he was so active and it was so hot out. Yeah,
I can't hydrate on stage really, so you know, you're just giving
it all. And uh, that was quite a quite a performance, I
would say that was a yeah. So I tried to get a little exercise
and this this is one of those times where I almost didn't make it back
to the stage. Wow, I almost. And we've had a couple of
those lately. In fact, we were down in Salisbury a few weeks ago
and I almost didn't make it back to the stage, which would have been
terrible because you guys would have had to clean up up by yourself. Yeah,
somehow I feel like that was part of the plan. Might have but
it might have been. I was in the big I was in the big
band van Wow. Well, you know, I always say rock and roll
should be sweaty. But but you don't want you know, heat stroke or
anything like that either. No, definitely try to keep it as safe as
we can. I will tell you our our our fabulous bass player who couldn't
make it today with his broken toe, uh, carries a fan with him
every show. He has a fan set up because I think he sweats the
most of all of us. Oh my god, and he and this fan
is just always running. He doesn't. Well, actually, the truth is
there we have levels of fan. I mean he has this standard fan.
Yeah, but then we have a super hot show, we upgrade to the
big fan and then we can actually double fan. If we have to double
fan, I would say that the worst. So the one time when Mark
was sweating so much and there's nothing a fan could possibly do. The video
that we shot for the song Kids, which I think you played earlier,
had Mark at the beginning in a kangaroo outfit and at the end, he
had to go because we ran out of time, and so I briefly had
to play the kangaroo. And I put on the kangaroo outfit, and I
couldn't feel the outfit because it was mush. It was actually it was mush.
It was sweating, probably the most disgusting thing I've ever felt in my
life. And so I no longer, I no longer even will look at
kangaroos. But does it make you feel closer to him? I try to
stay further away in his sweat Mark, If you're listening, I'm I'm actually
currently trying to get further away from you. Wow, that's funny. Eric,
You ever do any radio or voiceover work or anything? Never? I'm
sure I'm not the only one who's ever asked you that. I can't be
the first one to ever ask you that it's possible you are. I'm no,
I've never done it. You've got because you've got the voice, Carlo
doesn't any of the you've got the voice for radio. Yes, you think
you've got one of those voices. I'm actually jealous of because I'm very you
know, I'm able to evaluate myself pretty honestly. I think I know I
have a good radio voice, but you have a great radio voice. I've
never you've never done a podcast or anything. I've never done a podcast.
No, no car commercial commercial that would be that would be fun for real,
definitely to real. Well we need a hit. Maybe we can find
a hit in the auto commercial? Yeah, car commercial jingle? Can you
can you auto tune in radio? Can you live auto tuned? No?
I just I just imagine you narrate? You know you could narrate the I've
never tried it. I mean, I you know, I read. I
read books for people. Do Yeah, I do mostly my kids makes sense.
They don't tell. They don't tell you they love your voice. They've
never said that. They're usually mad at me because it's bedtime and it's like
dad, what are you doing? Right right, I'll put us to bed.
No, they're used to it. You see your voice. Jay Fed
in the chat says, do you play birthday parties? I think we have
done parties? Well remember the time I jumped out of that cake? Oh
I can't remember that. Oh we do. We do private events occasionally.
Most of what we do is in support of our music, but we do
private events occasionally. Yep. So he's been asking, uh, he's been
looking for someone to play his wife's birthday party, Melanie's birthday party. I
believe it's in September now. The thing is, I should tell you though,
in case you do get you take a commission. I know, no,
no, no, it's not that. Uh, he might try to
get you to commit to, uh, if you're gonna go up there to
commit to an ice bath. Oh, So I thought I should mention that,
just to kind of warn you that that might be part of the deal.
Okay, And I don't know. Personally I wouldn't do it. I
you know, hypothermia things like that. Apparently there are health benefits, but
I'm just worried about freezing to death. So I personally wouldn't do it,
but I think I should warn you guys. Yeah, yeah, it's something
he does, and he he invites people into the ice bath apparently, so
just something to keep in mind, I Beth, Yeah, I mean,
you know it could come to that, so just so you know, we'll
have to get our measure involved. Definitely. There you go. By the
way, Miriam Banisha and the chat Room says like the Harmony, referring to
the song that we played there the single thank You. Yeah, well do
you got so the vocals? Do you guys all sing or how does that
work? I definitely don't, you know? He know he's he's being modesty,
is actually saying. In fact, we've had some gigs where he'll he'll
take the lead and do some crazy stuff. But truth be told, the
harmonies are actually a very important part of our sound. And uh, Mark
and I really enjoy writing harmonies and singing harmonies, and that's something we focus
on and it's part of most of the songs that you hear, Yeah from
us, No, I notice that, But car Carlo, you sing live
with the guys I assume are very seldom. Oh really, okay, I've
got a lot of work to do. I'm very busy. Back then,
he is a busy guy. Yeah, yeah, well that's the thing.
I had a band on recently with a singing drummer where the drummer did the
lead vocals. Yes, and that's something you very rarely see. But it's
such a physical instrument, so to have to play drums and sing, even
just doing backing vocals, it must be it's gotta be hard to do it.
I think it would be tough. I don't know, honestly, I
don't know how they do it. You know, they they sing a lot.
Yeah, and uh, I don't think I could do it really,
Now you can do it number one. I don't think I can sing well.
And uh. But it's a lot of work, do you know,
to keep that, keep focused on that, and just have the the musician
stuff just kind of happen automatically so you can focus on the singings. Yeah,
it's quite a bit of work. It's impressive. Yeah, absolutely,
they're quite talented, those two. Yeah. On and I just sit back
and play music. We had a show actually it was actually at Blue Ocean
Music Hall, where we featured Carlo and On and Uh singing. That's right,
we did. Who is that? I think that might have been when
we were with the Gym Blossoms Blossoms, I think it was. Yeah,
And and actually that was the last show where we ever allowed them to sing
publicly together. Imagine that really. Yeah, so that should tell you something
there. You guys played with the Gym Blossoms. Huh we did those guys.
Yeah, I can see that. I can see that being a good
Yeah. But I guess too though, with with your sound. I mean,
there's probably a lot of different bands you fit well with. I would
think you know your your sound. It's it's very accessible, very radio friendly,
but also this you know, a mix of influences in there. You
know, the Sawing Kids is, like I said, I opened with that
today. That's so catchy. But but it seems like everything is, you
know, it's very sort of you know, you've got those singalong choruses that
you know, really hook people in. And uh, who can you tell
me who's Who's a band that you've Are there any bands that you've opened for
that we're kind of maybe you went into it thinking I don't know if we
fit has Has there been any kind of an odd match that you've had with
a band that you've opened for? Well, yes, I would say so.
So. Uh. Actually, I think Smashing Pumpkins will be interesting because
the more I listen to them and the more yeah, I realized that they're
much heavier though, yea, than really we are now. You know,
back in the day, we were writing more rock oriented stuff and now I
kind of consider our stuff sort of indie pop yea, And so it's veering
away from that. So it'll be interesting to see how that goes. But
you know, uh, you know, we used to occasionally play Bike Week
and I was we've never been a biker band, right, and people have
there thinking they're going to throw us out of here, and actually there are
a lot of people that dug our stuff. So I I've learned you can't
you can't make that judgment going into it. But probably the other one that
was a weird fit was Jason Derulo. Oh no kid. Yeah, it
was a long time ago. Yeah, but uh yeah, we were asked
to come play with with him and it was just as he was, like,
you know, at his prime, and it was weird, but it
sort of was fun. It sort of went okay. I can see it
working, though, can you. Yeah, Because I'm trying to think now,
I'm drawn a blank. What was his really big big hit. I
don't even remember because I don't know. He had more than one single that
did well, but there was one that was huge and I can't remember.
I can't remember what it was now either that he had a short shelf life.
I think he was he had come and gone pretty quick, did But
but yeah, but I can see that working, you know, because again,
your sound is so accessible that you know. Obviously a lot of different
you know, different kinds of people are gonna like it. Is that something
you do consciously like in terms of writing and recording the music? Is it?
Do you consciously try to make songs that you know with with good hooks
and and big, you know, sort of sing along choruses. I think
that, you know, every songwriter probably gravitates to something. There's something that
you know, as you're noodling around on your guitar or humming melodies or whatever
it may be, there's something that catches you about it. Yeah, And
I find for me it's uh, you know, I think I grew up
listening to pop radio and uh, you know, from all eras. I
enjoyed all of it, and so I think those those melodies stick with me,
and those are the things, you know, I find I won't write
a song unless I feel like there's a catchy melody that's going to draw you
in somewhere in the song, and so right, that's usually the basis of
it. Then you try to build around it. So I guess in that
sense it is intentional. Yeah, yeah, well we are, we are
approaching the end of the show. I do want to get one more,
one more song and at the end. But guys, this has been wonderful.
Thank you both so much. Thanks for having much Absolutely appreciate absolutely.
And what do you want to make sure our our listeners know about where to
find you online? Social media anything, website? We are? We are
every where. Uh. We get that question sometimes, you know, where
can I find your music? And I think my answers, where where can't
you? I mean it should be We're literally on every streaming platform. We're
on YouTube with the videos, We've got our website best not Broken Dogs.
That's kind of headquarters. I'm trying to think of what else, all the
basic stuff. I mean, you know, we're probably most actives on Instagram
and Facebook and that kind of stuff. And and we keep updates on hit
us up on Instagram. You know, we'd love to, you know,
have somebody you know make a comment. We uh. We like responding and
interacting with our fans, you know, it's it's great fun for us,
you know. And if you've seen us at a show, you want to
see us at a show, you know, give us a little a little
shout out and we'll let you know what's going on. Absolutely, and do
you do you have any shows coming up this weekend that you want to plug.
We're in in Vermont this weekend, right, yeah, yeah, we're
playing up in Burlington, Vermont place called Red Square. It's an outdoor show.
Uh, get there early because it fills up fast, especially if the
weather is nice. I should saying doomsday. Yeah, but it hasn't rained
much this summer, so we should be Okay. That's why Carlo is wearing
his red shorts. He has these on all weeks, same part. Yeah,
he can't take him off until the show. That's our deal. Oh
yeah, alrighty well that's that's that's your business. Oh Matt, you have
the close of that right sure, absolutely, guys, thank you again so
much. Mike from my Queen City Cabinetry says, awesome guests today, Matt,
thank you. Yeah, guys, thank you so much. And we
will end with this track. This is called low Lights. This is yeah,
this is kind of a little a little darker. Yeah, it's a
different it's a different tune. This is a Mark tune. This is one
of the one of the new singles that's coming out on our new EP.
Very good. Oh when is that out? By the way, the EP
well, it was supposed to be soon, and it's been pushed back a
little bit. I would expect it shortly after Labor Day, so check on
our social media. It won't be long. Excellent, excellent, all right,
So we're gonna end with this. This is thanks again, guys,
and this is low lights from the band Best not Broken. Check this out.
I am your skin. You drink a little moment. This is such
a little child. What are you saying that you're off the teeth in saying
that you in fine? Now love the truth in the night in the meantime,
in this down show, and then that I think about you and the
light doesn't feel right. Put another one. Let's gets born? Who and
then it empties out? You want another? Now? A lot of people
don't do the same with that shot. Then I like you. If I
see my little shop here, not what canna tell you? One? Lets
gets gone in the nighttime, if mail's night, let it get a little
crazy and sun in the nighttime, in the lower light, in the meantime,
in the stun chack I a man, I think in abocha in the
lower light doesn't feel right in the nighttime. If it feels right, let
it get a little crazy inside in the nighttime, in the lower light,
cool in the mean time, feeling the stal chaving think is about in the
lower light doesn't feel right. It like Frankenstein and I'm the Gecko and I
like it. This Hour on WMNH is sponsored by CGI Business Solutions, located
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