Speaker 1: W m n H ripped the novels.
Speaker 2: Quoting mid Nights my elliptical ma saw you have no idea.
Speaker 1: The tempts to.
Speaker 3: Which we go.
Speaker 4: And when we'll face a gun is scored a paper abuse,
But who can.
Speaker 2: Bid you go spend like noxious? Seeing that grief a
lad to say to herself to save a lam well
these sasa by a hot.
Speaker 1: S see holt in turn.
Speaker 5: Including the.
Speaker 4: Way shots power start and marry your dad to talk
to to corruption, turn on in too hard and aunt
to build and finally cracks at school.
Speaker 5: Ray how fire slace.
Speaker 6: When last carry, time to change.
Speaker 7: Ties ties.
Speaker 8: Home time you're including to me.
Speaker 9: John, That is the Comets tale. The band is questing
Beast and we have Jane and Shane here with us
live in studio on this Saturday morning. Welcome everybody. We
have entered our number three New Marrow trace of Matt
Connorton unleashed and we're live from the studios of w
m n H ninety five point three FM, Inglorious Manchester,
New Hampshire, where it is apparently snowing outside right now
on this day, March twenty nine, twenty twenty five. I
was not expecting that were you. No, no, did you
actually turn my microphone on? It's on, it's on, Yes,
I know, right, so of course grow Yeah, that's exactly
that was exactly my word for it. But at least
we know it will it'll, it'll melt. Oh that's true. Yeah.
Our birdcam you can birdcam there. They're probably somewhere, probably
probably probably heading south going up. Well we came back.
Speaker 3: Too soon, premature, yeah, migration, yes, yes.
Speaker 9: I'm sure. I'm sure it is confusing to them. But yeah,
so so here we are, of course on this Saturday,
and we have Jane and Shane with us from Questing
Beasts by the way, So I love that track. The
Comets Tail definitely gets the blood pumping. And as I
like to say, if that didn't get your blood pumping
on a Saturday morning, check your pulse, you might be dead.
But good stuff, good stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no, it's a fun, fun intro song.
Speaker 7: Gets our blood pumping pretty much every time we play.
Speaker 9: Yeah, do you play that to open the show or yeah?
Speaker 3: Generally you do?
Speaker 9: Yeah, okay, very good. Now when we had you on
the last time, so what how how long ago it
becomes a blur to me? Yeah, it was, I mean
it wasn't a year ago, right.
Speaker 3: Or no, it would have been right before the Halloween show, right,
so October ish, not that long Yeah, yeah, not crazy
long ago, but long enough that it feels relatively significant.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 9: So what's been going on since the last time we
had John? I know, I know, you've got a big
show coming up tomorrow for those listening live of course
at Terminus Underground.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely sure. So yeah, yeah, so we're getting back
into playing playing out again. You know, last time we
were here, we're talking about how we kind of went
into hibernation for the winter. We totally did that. It
was great and we're out better than ever, ready to
start playing more gigs again.
Speaker 9: Excellent And what so what were you doing during that
hibernation period? I mean, were you did you take a
break from the band, or were you writing and recording
or what was what was going on?
Speaker 3: We're doing a lot of writing, and also we're planning
for our upcoming first ever tour that April twenty fifth.
We're basically going on a quick week long run down
to Baltimore and back up.
Speaker 9: Congratulations on that. That's awesome, thanks, Yeah, very cool, exciting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been great. H our buddy who's playing bass
for us now, Dan se Lance. He helped us book
a out of these gigs, and he's also stepping into
the live role of playing bass for us, which is
awesome and because those are some pretty big shoes to fill,
you know, the guy that we had record for us,
Chase Brian's absolute monster. So for Dan to come in
and be able to pick it up has been really great.
Speaker 9: Yeah. Is uh the track that we just heard, which
is from what's the name of the album again, because
you guys have a whole u birth that's right, That's right?
Is that so that's what the previous bass player?
Speaker 8: Right?
Speaker 9: Or or is y?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah, all the recordings were done with Chase Bryant okay,
Ye Bryant okay, and then he so he so you
recorded with you, but was not in a position to like,
was he ever? Was he ever officially in the band?
Speaker 3: Or was he just basically a hired gun? Yeah? I
mean he lives he lives in la He plays in
a band called war war Bringer.
Speaker 7: But I heard, yeah, he's a he's a busy guy.
Speaker 9: He's not just in that.
Speaker 7: He's playing with a few other bands. I don't know.
I we follow him on social media, Like he's on
tour with war Bringer right now, I think.
Speaker 3: Every but he's got like eight other projects out there, yeah,
my favorite of which being Father Daddy Blues Band, No kidding, Yeah.
Speaker 5: Cool.
Speaker 9: How did you How did you come to work with
him him being as busy as he is. How did
that come about?
Speaker 3: We were essentially just kind of racking our brains, like
trying to find somebody local, and we got sick of
doing it, and we're like, I bet we could find
somebody else for money. And I was like, this guy
is a perfect example of what I want the bass
playing to sound like. And so I just hit him
up on Instagram and we started talking. Yeah, and he
had me send him to the demos and he was
a fan of the demos, and uh yeah, we were
able to work something out.
Speaker 9: When when you first contacted him, was it kind of like, uh, well,
I don't know, I don't know if he's if he's
gonna have time or be interested, but I'm going to
give it a shot and then it works.
Speaker 3: Out or oh yeah, absolutely total shot in the dark.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I don't expect anything of to come
from anything, especially like you know, just messaging people on Instagram.
Speaker 8: You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: It's like you just throwing stuff out into the ether
and hoping you get something back. Yeah yeah, yeah, And
so for it to come back around it's nice. You know,
every once in a while it does.
Speaker 9: You never know, it's always it's always worth a try
because you never know. And it worked out phenomenally well.
Speaker 3: So yeah, basic playing came out awesome. He reported his
parts in like two days, no kidding, Oh yeah, incredible.
Speaker 9: Yeah, you never know.
Speaker 7: You throw it out there, you don't know what's going
to happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, absolutely.
Speaker 9: So, so what was that a matter of just kind
of sending the tracks back and forth.
Speaker 3: And essentially yeah, I mean, dudes were pro so. I
mean he pretty much had everything under his fingers by
the time he came out here, which is convenient because
we only had like, you know, eighteen hours between when
he came out here and played with us for the
first time and when he needed to get in the studio.
Speaker 9: Okay, wow, yeah it was.
Speaker 7: It was a good time.
Speaker 9: Yeah. Yeah, no, that's fantastic. That's fantastic. So the uh so,
the new what's his name again, the new new bass
player or the current bass.
Speaker 3: Player Dan Selan. He plays in Ice Giant, he plays
in Annilist Monday, he plays in Perennial Quest. Yeah, he
plays in other bands too. There's a bunch of them.
Speaker 9: I've heard of Ice Giant. Yeah, so he's so well,
so he's also a busy guy. But yeah, but geographically
he's available.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 7: And the nice thing is he seems to be I
don't know if this is just like a point of pride,
but he seems to be really enjoying conquering the music
and learning the parts, you know what I mean. He's
like posting himself working through some of it on his
Instagram stories like that, and it made me feel pretty
pretty awesome. Yeah, just because you know, we play the
music all the time. For somebody else to try it
out and get fulfillment out of trying to learn it
made me like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 9: Well that's yeah, I mean, that's that's tremendous validation, right,
I mean, you know, obviously you get the validation if
you play it for other people, if you play it
live and people react positively to it, you know, that's
that's fantastic, right, But to also get that validation of
somebody wants to learn the songs and really commits, you know,
commits to learning them. I mean, that's that's fantastic. That's
that's great. How long has he been in the band nowand.
Speaker 3: He just played his first gig with us on Saturday?
So if you've done we've done like three practices with
him or something.
Speaker 9: Oh, so he's very new.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, it's a pretty new development as far as
our live show goes and everything.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but we were talking to him for a while
because of the whole tour situation and everything, but so
like it was gonna happen eventually. But yeah, I don't know,
he's really been doing a great job I think. So.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, excellent. Now for the tour, are you is
there another band or other bands that you've teamed up
with for the tour or you know, because there's different
ways to approach it, right you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So our main tour mates are a band called
Moon Tomb from Rhode Island.
Speaker 9: Mood Moon Toom. Yeah that's a cool name.
Speaker 3: I like that. Yeah, they're cool guys. We picked them
because they're such pals that you know, we couldn't we
couldn't have thought of like a better three dudes to
go out on the road with nice and so we
hit them up and they were super open to it
and everything. And there's I think a total of like
twenty something different local bands. Because one of the shows
is a is a festival. Oh really, Yeah, the New
York show is a it's the Long Island Doom Festival,
Okay at mister Berry's, which so that kind of ups
those numbers a bunch. But so we're super excited to
go out and beat a bunch of these bands. Yeah,
some of these cool shows are gonna be in some
really cool places too, so yeah, it would be a
good time.
Speaker 9: How many dates are you playing?
Speaker 3: Seven dates in eight days?
Speaker 9: Okay?
Speaker 3: Okay, so we get a nice day off in the middle,
we might go to Hershey Park hit some roller coasters.
Speaker 9: Who nice? You should Yes, you definitely should have.
Speaker 3: We've been talking about it.
Speaker 7: I'm feeling up to it. I don't know, I haven't
been to a theme parking a long time.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I haven't either.
Speaker 3: When I was a kid, we went to Hershey Park
for like the eighth grade DC trip and the park
itself was closed down, but I always wanted to go
and hit those roller coasters. But I did get a
five pound chocolate bar while I was there.
Speaker 9: Yeah, five pound chocolate bar. Ooh, that sounds like a
lot of It was a lot of work. It's a
lot of chocolate. But the roller coasters. I love roller coasters.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's my favorite type of ride. Yeah, like
the stuff those ones that are like just like the
big post where you sit on you know what I mean,
and it goes like all the way up. I'm not
a fan of that type of stuff, but on any
roller coaster.
Speaker 9: Oh yeah, me too, Me too. When I was a kid,
I remember being terrified of going on one that went
up down until I until I did it, and it
happened so quick that you know, you don't even know
your upside.
Speaker 3: After what I mean.
Speaker 9: But yeah, yeah, no, I love I love roller coasters. Yeah,
so you should definitely do that. And are you Are
you playing the same set every night as far as
you know, or your time is going to kind of
vary where you have to kind of work with it.
Speaker 3: Some of the shows are four band bills and some
of them are five band bills, so we'll be able
to get an extra song or two on the shorter bills. Yeah,
but I mean we've only got the one record. Yeah,
we're not unveiling any of that new material until the
time is right. Uh, pretty much will be songs from
the first record in various orders.
Speaker 9: Okay, yeah, yeah, but you have so you do have
new material you're working on.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh yes, oh yeah, pretty much. We took
so between when we finished writing the first record and
when we finished recording it, which was about I don't know,
maybe nine month period, we were just working on really
hammering those songs down, and so we didn't write anything
during that time. So it was kind of like this
big there's like a big rush of like creativity when
we you know, played the final note in the studio
and we went home and we're like, what do we
do now? Yeah, we've been working pretty hard and I'm
really excited about the new stuff.
Speaker 9: Excellent. Is it in the same vein? Is it?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 7: It's definitely similar style, for sure, but I think we
delved even farther into each kind of individual element that
we're bringing to it, So it's kind of, you know,
even more thematic. Even more, we spent even more time
paying attention to the different you know, flares and genres
and influences you know what I mean. So there's a
lot of variety, Like there's a lot of variety in
the first record, but what we're working on is kind
of expanding upon each little bit of that variety, I think,
and so each song kind of feels pretty unique, but
also there's a pretty substantial common thread between all of it,
which is something on the first record too. So yeah,
it's been pretty cool. We're not we're kind of throwing
caution to the wind for a few things, and we're
just kind of trying whatever we want to do. There's
some pretty funny ideas that we've just totally ran with.
So yeah, it's like it's like our sound two point zero.
Speaker 9: Okay, okay, cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's basically it's a huge expansion on the first record.
I think it's it's basically everything we did, but we
went in every direction a little bit further.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's I don't know, it's exciting.
Speaker 9: Is a thematically similar in terms of lyrics.
Speaker 3: Or we're not done the lyrics yet, so it's okay,
So the music comes first, right, Yeah, Yeah, So I
mean we kind of have like a storyline and then
we build the music off of the storyline. Okay, and
then the lyrics are kind of like the very final thread. Okay,
I think so it's like that's like really the last
eyes to dot in the tease to cross or okay lyrics.
Speaker 9: Okay, okay, cool, cool. Obviously we talked about it the
last time you were here. But does birth have a
is there a story to it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 9: Or a particular theme? Well, I know there's a theme,
but I couldn't remember how how defined the actual story
was or if it was kind of more just a
loose concept.
Speaker 3: So it's it's kind of both actually, right, So it's
very defined to us, like we know the storyline. It's
like this very defined thing, but we purposefully at this
point like like the lyrics are kind of esoteric, right,
because like you can go really far in the direction
of like wanting to write a good story, but after
a certain point you're taking away from like the quality
of the song, right, Like we don't need a billion
details about like a guy's armor as he's coming up
over the crest of the hill, you know what I mean,
Like you just filled up half of your verse describing
this and so like and what I wanted to do
or what we wanted to do is kind of have
it be a more like personalized thing, right where anybody
can go in and like read the lyrics and try
and derive like what the legitimate story is. But it's
more important, I think, from my perspective, for people to
be able to derive their own meaning from it, Okay, Right, So,
like I would really like to, at one point or
another figure out how to do a comic book to
like tell the legitimate story like straight up, you know
what I mean. But I also don't want to like
go to people who have maybe derived their own meaning
from the songs and be like, you're wrong, this is
what it means, you know what I mean, because it's
like that's kind of a slap in the face, and
like I wouldn't I feel like you're whatever your meaning ism.
Speaker 9: Which is how it's supposed to be, right with music
or with any kind of art. Really, it's what you
we might have talked I've talked about this with a
few people on the show. We might have talked about
this before, but I know that I've experienced that where
it's kind of like, you know, a song means something
to you, and then you read an interview with the
person who wrote the lyrics and they talk about what
it means and you kind of go, oh, that's different
than what it meant to me, And then there's that
weirdness of oh, now I kind of feel differently about it,
you know what I mean?
Speaker 7: Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, I think for our music specifically, Yeah,
I think that would be a pretty funny instance because
it's so specific. So you know, there's so much left
to interpretation in the lyrics that if and when, you know,
inevitably we do have a concrete representation of what the
whole story is. You know, We've said it before. This
was part one of a concept of a few albums
that we're planning on releasing recently.
Speaker 3: Won't make a trilogy, Yeah, we want.
Speaker 7: To make a trilogy, and so you know we're working
on installment two of that. So it's expanding upon, uh,
this storytelling universe, you know what I mean. So it
would be pretty funny for us to just drop all
that information and have people, you know, kind of learn
what it is. I think I'm gonna speak a little
bit on lyrically for the first album, there's some very
literal world building. So the song we just listened to,
there's some very literal, you know, pre you know, description
of what's going on some exposition, Yeah, exposition exactly, And
it's not really up for interpretation when you sit down
and read it, you know what I mean, It basically
tells you, you know, what's going to happen. Yeah, and
then you know all the other things beyond that, when
we're singing about emotions and you know, things happening, it's
it's all pretty up for interpretation. And I think we
want to make music that is true to what we're
trying to do story wise, and then also is up
for interpretation and receivable to someone who knows nothing about
the story as much as possible. And I think we've
tried to dive into that even more so, Okay, on
our current writing lyrically anyway.
Speaker 9: Yeah, No, that's very cool. I look forward to, uh,
you know when eventually, I mean you probably at this point,
do you have any kind of an eta on when
when you might start recording the next one?
Speaker 3: Or yeah, I don't know, like a year or I
don't know, one hundred years, somewhere between those two.
Speaker 9: Somewhere somewhere between one and one hundred.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I wish I could have that crystal Ball.
But you never know what's going to happen, you know.
I mean we it took forever to get the first one,
and I think we've got a more streamlined process at
this point, but yeah, you know, anything could happen.
Speaker 9: So but so, but you both talked about a trilogy.
Does that mean that you've already got the you've got
the whole story mapped out already, or.
Speaker 3: Like big story points that we want to hit mapped out. Yeah,
But I mean it's it's cool to leave like certain
things open, right because like, for example, on the first record,
we had finished the record, I just did air quotes
for anybody listening, Yeah, and we had like six songs,
and I was like, it doesn't feel right, you know,
And so I was like, we got to write two
more songs, and we ended up doing Beneath Red Leaves
and Titans Grip, which have ended up being two of
the most popular questioning beat songs at this point, and
nobody else wanted to write them. But I was like,
look the story, we can add some more detail else
into the story, and these riffs rule, I don't see
why anybody could be opposed to it. And then everybody
was mad when we were recording them, and so it
came out awesome.
Speaker 7: Mostly me, I was mostly angry in doing it.
Speaker 9: I don't know why.
Speaker 7: I was just like, all right, well you want some
more guitar, you're gonna get it. Yeah, And it came
out with a good So you were able to channel
that anger, yeah a little bit. Yeah, it feels feels
really epic. Titans Script is actually our current most stream
song on Spotify. We passed like four thousand streams today,
I think, which cool.
Speaker 9: Congratulations. Yeah, that's great, interesting metric, but but no, it
matters though. Those metrics do matter. No, that's very cool,
very cool. Do you have anything that you play currently
that's not on this first album when you play live
or no.
Speaker 3: No, we've talked about doing some covers and stuff, which
is now a lot more of possibility that we've got
Dan in the live setup because we were just playing
to like recorded bass tracks before, you know, from the record,
and so opportunities for that are kind of more available now.
So I mean, I'd be down to explore that kind
of stuff for sure, But for the most part, were
just playing stuff from the record and trying to promote
that we've got a ton of vinyl that we need
to get rid of. So what do you mean, oh,
just like vinyl records.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're trying to play the songs that are on
the on the record for people to try and entice
them into buying it.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I got you.
Speaker 7: I got many copies that we have.
Speaker 9: You could be so we have less of them. Was
that hard playing with with bass tracks live? Was that challenging?
Speaker 3: H I mean the process of like setting up the
ableton session and everything was and that's why I had
Jane do it. And uh but uh yeah, I mean
once it's all been set up, it's not that bad.
You know, a drummer is kind of a machine. Okay,
so having him played to a metronome is pretty easy.
As far as getting everybody else locked.
Speaker 9: In, it wasn't It wasn't weird for him, or maybe
or maybe it was, but he adapted.
Speaker 3: He adapted pretty well. I don't think that there was
like a huge problem for him. You know, each each
song has kind of its own counting and everything. I
think that was the only like learning curve.
Speaker 9: Okay, yeah, gotcha.
Speaker 7: He's he kind of takes most things in stride. If
I'm going to be honest, we threw a lot at him, really. Yeah,
We're like, hey, you gotta.
Speaker 3: Do this, this and this, and he's got a hard job.
Speaker 7: Yeah, he's got one of the hardest jobs in the
house for sure.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 3: He's back there singing too. Oh he is, okay, Oh yeah,
some backup vocals there.
Speaker 9: That always impresses me. Your drummers who can sing while
they play, you know, because drums is the most you know,
you're using all four of your looms. It's the most physical. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And he's doing like harmonies, like the chorus harmonies on
like tip scrip and stuff.
Speaker 9: That's great.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, dude, he's He's crazy.
Speaker 7: Watching him do it too. I Mean, there's a there's
one part I think it's in the second course of
Titans Grip where I'm looking at him when we're in practice,
I'll just be looking at him. He's leaned over, you know,
to the mic to try to sing, and the arms
are going and he's playing so much complex stuff on
the drums and he's just keeping his head here, yeah,
and nailing the note too, and then he just finishes
and looks at the rest of us. Pretty much every time.
Then he knows well we'll look at him and just
give him an affirming nod of yeah, that was on,
and he just always goes, you know, some iteration of like,
you know, lips out, like you know, heck.
Speaker 8: Yeah.
Speaker 9: Very cool. Oh, by the way, you're getting some love
in the chat room here, Bradley Hurley says, can't say
enough great things about this band. I'm a huge fan
of this band. And Jane Oh shouts out Bradley, what's up.
Very very nice, thank you for chiming in there, Bradley, excellent.
Speaker 7: Thank you, Bradley.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, oh, we were talking. We had an interesting
conversation off here two about lyrics, circling back to lyrics
for a moment because you know, I was commenting now
it's it's nice when I you know, I don't mind
making radio edits for our guests, but it's nice when
I don't have to and I never have to make
any radio edits requesting beasts, which is nice.
Speaker 3: Because we don't hit the swearing. Yeah, what's interesting about this.
I think that's a very like conscious decision on our part,
because it's like, I don't know, you can throw a
ton of swears into a song if you want to. Yeah,
like I don't know, personally, it's like a very weak
creative decision. I mean there's so many words, you know
that like I don't know, choosing to swear for like
edginess sake is like kind of weak to me. And
what's funny is that I that idea kind of came
from with Corey uh, what's his name, Slipknot Corey Taylor, Yeah,
because he made that switch. And when I was like
super young and angsty, I remember being like that's lab
You're not gonna swear anymore. And then I got older
and I started like kind of like, you know, listening
to the Slipknot sort of evolution, like the maturity and
like the lyric writing and stuff, and you know, I
mean you go back and listen to that first record
and some of it's like headbanger stuff, but yeah, a
lot of it like I don't know, spit it out,
like I really want to go and listen to that
right now. Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 7: Yeah, good song, great song, Like I don't know.
Speaker 9: Sometimes what catches me off guard is when it's like,
you know, it's one thing, if it's if it's metal,
certain kinds of metal or hip hop, but if you
hear you know, just a singer songwriter and they've got
like the S word just in there. It's like, you know,
because it's like, oh, you're a singer songwriter, but ooh
you're edgy.
Speaker 3: Right, you know.
Speaker 7: Variety is the spice.
Speaker 3: And that's not to say that I think as like
a blanket rule, like swearing in songs bad or lazy,
you know what I mean? But I do you think
it's a tool that like should be used at certain points,
Like like my buddy Joe plays in this band called
Dirt Byre and he's got the song called Fentanyl, and uh,
there's this really powerful part when he first comes in
to this one line. He says, you keep fing around,
And I'm like, it's super powerful because of what he's
talking about, you know what I mean. Sure, but like
I don't know, a lot of times I'm like, it
doesn't have that same effect.
Speaker 9: Right right by the way, Jane looks like you're getting
some familial love in the chat room. Mommy loves you, Janey, Shelley.
That's your your mom.
Speaker 7: That's very nice, very nice, Thank you mother.
Speaker 3: We love Shelley.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I love you too.
Speaker 9: No, that's great. Actually, the subject came up to with
our first guests today. Uh, waiting for Z. We're on
and we're talking about it's nice one when you have
supportive family members. Also, oh, I missed this comment earlier.
Kyle Gatto is in the chat room man says more
than Matt, what's good brother, welcome Kyle. Yeah, I mean
it's it's Uh. I also think though, too, it would
be weird because of the style and the genre of
the music that you do. Sure it would actually it
would be strange word in there, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, nobody's thinking of like I don't know,
mid century or like medieval times, and like you know,
everybody's running around with like swearing a whole bunch. I
don't know. It feels like it should be more like
regal and like hoity toity and you know, almost have
a bit of a curtsy just embedded in the lyrics,
you know what I mean. I feel like there's like
a certain level of like, I don't know, fanciful that
it like needs.
Speaker 9: No, I know, I know what you mean. Although if
you watch like some some of the Monty Python movies
that are period pieces, it seems like there was a
lot of swearing back then, but absolutely, yeah, no, I
know what you mean though, Yeah, I think I think
profanity would be very awkward in your music. You know,
it would almost be like, I don't know, there's I
think that genre it just it doesn't fit. But no,
so I and I think it's great that you're you're
so conscientious about the lyrics that you you know, use
you know, there's so many words, you know, the English language,
we have so many words, you know, so why not
be creative?
Speaker 3: Yeah exactly, I mean we spent so much time arguing
about like the sourus related really opinions. Oh yeah, when
we're writing lyrics. So when we write lyrics, generally it's me,
our drummer and our vocalists all working together. Sometimes Jane's
into Jane generally helps more with like the melodic elements
of like the vocals and like the rhythmic elements of everything.
But as far as like the lyrics goes, it's like
the three of us generally kind of going back and
forth about what the best way to say like what
we're trying to convey is, yeah, and so it prevents
it from like being kind of like over ing in
like one person's style. You know and we get this
kind of cool average. I think that works out really
well and represents the band as a whole. Yeah, pretty beautifully.
Speaker 9: Yeah, No, I think that's I think that's really cool.
I think we should play another track from the from
the album you did send me another one that you
wanted to highlight.
Speaker 3: I think beneath Red Leaves, right, was it?
Speaker 9: Let's see I'm looking. Uh yes, beneath Red Leaves. Fantastic.
Yeah we can. We can give that a spin, and
then at the end of the show we'll probably play
another one from the album. I have your do you have?
Because I do have the album pulled up and I
love love your music. I think it's really good. Absolutely,
so I check this out. This is called Beneath Red
Leaves and the band is questing Beast.
Speaker 10: I wend it back you thro was gone, I say,
good as tack. I see the piece pea so bad,
pas see too back now.
Speaker 4: Seek the time s not said leave the most the hide.
Speaker 10: Its faces has called he.
Speaker 5: Used to all.
Speaker 10: We got frock, wort, spill the snow with snorty kill,
got five soul.
Speaker 5: Got broad.
Speaker 10: The coming seel not too long.
Speaker 1: We got bron Smeros.
Speaker 3: This field, disky is this will Clive.
Speaker 5: My rides were got broadwise.
Speaker 3: A fine let seal song get.
Speaker 4: His way and Spike swim heels go grass courts his
shield and nightfall he escaping nor.
Speaker 5: Me the jack.
Speaker 4: I wanted time stumping it through the door, No fa back,
I see be overt in the.
Speaker 11: Man sending me for scares you you know at that
time say nothing, He's.
Speaker 10: Thanks, You's call me a swom yet by now yourself
when shuts killed, don f soul?
Speaker 8: Okay that.
Speaker 10: The coming su you liever that by final course comment
our line you bead to die g brothers.
Speaker 5: So okay, right, okay.
Speaker 1: Kay.
Speaker 9: That is beneath red Leaves. The band is questing Bees
and that is from their album Birth That is so good.
And they're gonna be playing if you are listening live
on Saturday, they're gonna be tomorrow night. They're going to
be Sunday night at Terminus Underground. What time does that
show start?
Speaker 3: The doors are at six o'clock. I believe we are
on at seven. We're opening up that show.
Speaker 9: Well, who else is on the show with you?
Speaker 3: Do you know? Off Dog eight Dog and Sunset Electric?
Speaker 9: Oh nice? Yeah, we've had we've had both bands on
the show. Oh cool Dog eight Dog was with us
a couple of weeks ago. Actually, yeah, really really cool.
Oh yeah, they're they're amazing.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 9: So a song like that, I mean, does that take
a while for that to come together?
Speaker 3: I mean in terms of just honestly, that was probably
one of the faster ones, was it. Yeah, So that
was one of the last two that we wrote, right,
the ones that we had mentioned before we started playing,
and I had had that rift the main riff that
button't it for a little bit, and Jane, I think,
had had that intro kind of written out from something
that we had messed around with during practice, and so
we essentially just like fused those two things together, came
up with the solo section, and I had a little
alternate version that became the outro, and uh, yeah, we
knocked that thing out I think in a day.
Speaker 9: No kidding.
Speaker 7: Yeah, solo section chords.
Speaker 3: The solo took forever to write.
Speaker 7: Yeah, for a long time. I would say the solo
section chords and the fast like thrashy part probably one
of my proudest moments. Also, so having an awesome guitar
solo on top of it, too, and that was like
the cherry on top. That was like the last thing
for the song. That song, that song is super hard
to play live.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's probably the hardest on the record.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, it's so fun.
Speaker 9: Yeah yeah, I'm fascinated by that because I you know,
I I'm a musician. I used to play in some bands,
but I never played in anything that did anything that
you know, with time changes and you know, demanding. Yeah, yeah, exactly, so,
so I'm very impressed. Yeah that's uh, that's that's really good. Oh.
By the way, in the chat room, so Bradley Hurley
uh said to your mom, Oh you should know your
daughter has helped my recovery and life so much for
the better. Oh so very nice.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 9: You're getting a lot of love in there. That is awesome.
That is awesome. And then so when does the now
when does the tours start again?
Speaker 3: April twenty fifth is the first day of Horror playing
Ralph's Okay in rock Yeah, that one is going to
be with so Moontomb obviously, Horror, Perennial Quest and mercury
Burns first.
Speaker 9: Oh okay great yeah yeah, yeah, we had mercury Burns
first on a couple of months ago, and we've had
Horror on too. So yeah, that's that's that's really strong.
That's great. Now with the with the tour, will this
be your your first time traveling out of New England
with the band? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah yeah. Well the furthest we've gone up to
this point is that we played out in Connecticut at
some point last year. Okay, but yeah, this will be
the furthest out we've gone in Maryland, I think in Baltimore.
Speaker 9: Okay, yeah, we're in Baltimore. What's what venue do you
do you remember?
Speaker 3: Yeah? We're playing the Depot Okay in Baltimore.
Speaker 9: Okay, nice? Nice? And then, uh, do you have so
who's is it just the four of you now live
now that you have a live bass player?
Speaker 3: Is it five of us?
Speaker 9: There's five of you?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, so we've got lead singer, two guitars, bass player,
drummer okay.
Speaker 9: And then so so before you would play with bass tracks,
did you always have a live drummer. Yeah, yeah, you
did always have a live drummer. Okay, all right, that
makes sense. So it's just a bass player that you
didn't have before officially, Okay, got it.
Speaker 3: And it's a lot easier to get away with not
having a live bassis than a live drummer.
Speaker 9: I'm a bass player, so that makes me sad. But
but no, I understand though, because bass players are hard
to find sometimes.
Speaker 3: They really are, and they're in such high demand, you
know what I mean. Like, I don't know, if I
if I wanted to be a career musician, I definitely
would pick up, like, you know, like a higher gun
type guy. Bass or drums is like what you want
to do, you know.
Speaker 9: Yeah. My theory about yeah, because drummers are hard to
find too, and in fact, we've seen you know, Jenny
knows this. We've had so many bands on the show
where the drummer specifically is in like ten different projects.
And my theory about that is, you know, when you're
growing up and you first you become interested interested in
playing an instrument, and you have the conversation with parents,
you know, I want to play drums, They're going to
try to talk you out of that, oh for sure,
because nobody wants live drums in their h you know,
in their attic or whatever.
Speaker 3: No, especially if it's being played by somebody who doesn't
know how to do it right.
Speaker 9: Exactly. Yeah, that's the worst. Yeah, drums or the tuba,
or probably the two that your your parents are going
to try to actively talk you out of, like, well,
do you really want to play that?
Speaker 3: Are you sure you want the violin?
Speaker 8: Right? Oh?
Speaker 9: Violin? Yeah, that one could be a problem too, but
uh yeah, so yeah, drums and uh, drums and drummers
and bass players are usually the hardest to find.
Speaker 7: So you're bringing up some some childhood memories of me
setting up a secondhand drum set in my parents' basement. Really,
oh yeah, and since my mom is probably still watching,
I wonder if she remembers opening the door to the
basement and yelling down to me to please stop.
Speaker 9: Oh really?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 9: Oh man, did you did you continue to play drums
or my?
Speaker 10: Not?
Speaker 7: I I never really played drum set, so it's funny.
Actually my trajectory he as a musician. I started on piano,
and then I started playing percussion in like middle school,
middle school band and stuff like that, and then I
started playing marching percussion in high school. So I played
I played like xylophone and stuff like that, like pit
percussion for marching band. And then also during concert season
I would play pit percussion, but during marching band season
I would play snare drum, but I think I was
when I was a senior, I was marching snare, but
I marched some other things in parades too. But I
picked up guitar in high school at the same time.
The drumming didn't really come with me in any sense
of the word after I graduated high school.
Speaker 9: Yeah. Yeah, Oh, by the way, your mom says in
the chat room, that's a lie. She's an eyes yelling
at you. I guess to stop.
Speaker 7: All right, Well, maybe you know, all right, maybe some
selective memory on one or both parties. I do firmly
and I will have a firm stance on the fact
that it was not the preferred okay situation.
Speaker 9: Okay, understood, understood. Yeah, but that is an unusual trajectory though.
I think you're right in terms of because I feel
like I forget who we were talking about this with.
But I feel like most most people who play drums,
who play other instruments as well drum, they usually get
to drums at the end, you know, like they like
they start on guitar, bass, or piano or whatever, and
then eventually they get to drums. But it sounds like you, well,
you started on piano, right, but then Yeah, but drums
was early.
Speaker 7: Yeah, drum drums were early. I think I started on
I think I started on piano when I was like seven. Yeah,
and I still play piano. I still, I still play
piano pretty regularly. But yeah, I think it's interesting. I
think I started picking up percussion in fifth grade.
Speaker 1: Maybe.
Speaker 7: I think I was eleven or twelve when I started
picking it up, so, you know, only another five years later,
and I kind of did things in stages. I left
a lot of piano behind as far as my main
focus once I kind of got into high school. My
mom will also agree with this. I stopped actually really
practicing for my lessons, so I would learn stuff that
I was playing. You know, I was in the school
jazz band and stuff like that, so I would practice
that stuff kind of. But I stopped taking formal piano
lessons when I was maybe fourteen. I don't blame her whatsoever.
She didn't want to support me doing it if I
wasn't actually going to practice any of the material. And
I had Yeah, I was like, I don't want to
learn classical music, like I want to play cool stuff, right,
I want to play guitar now, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, not rebel, yeah, real rebel.
Speaker 7: It really only served to hold me back really in
the future. I'm fortunate enough that I was able to
like get back into everything kind of universally, you know
what I mean. I ended up playing drums.
Speaker 9: No, it's not true.
Speaker 7: I did play drums in a band when I was
in college and we were not good really yeah, a
little punk band, you know. But yeah it served me
well as far as all the other things that I did, yeah,
you know, musically, but yeah, very interesting. I'm back into
piano pretty regularly now, you know. I play guitar every week,
but no drumming. They hate it when I get on
the drum sets.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's bad.
Speaker 9: But actually starting on piano though, that's good because I've
heard a lot of I've heard so many music teachers
and instructors and even Berkeley professors say that ideally, when
when you're young and you're starting out getting into music,
that's the ideal place. Keyboard, any kind of keyboard, is
the ideal place to start in terms of building blocks
for learning how to play music. Like that's like the
single best place to start is learning how to play
a keyboard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would agree with that. I mean yeah, because
it's just up and it's just up and down. There's
none of this like dumb sideways stuff where like you're
repeating the same exact note like on guitar. You know, there's, however,
many different places to play each note that's like in
the same exact octave.
Speaker 8: You know that.
Speaker 3: It's like, I don't know, there's it's a lot more
open to interpretation than I think that playing like piano
or something like that is. And so it's really easy
to see the more linear nature of music in that
way and trying to like figure out a guitar fret
board and be.
Speaker 9: Like exactly only and what's that right, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And I guess there's research to these shows that are
really it's the fastest way to train your brain to
understand music and understand music theory and everything is just
learning on the keyboard, but which I didn't do, unfortunately,
I wish I had.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean it would even give you like
a really good rhythmic foundain if you wanted to switch
over to like drums or something like that. A lot
of people consider it to be a pretty percussive instrument itself.
Speaker 9: Right right, Yeah, exactly, Well that might explain your trajectory
there in the beginning with.
Speaker 7: It definitely does. It's everything. It was an easy you
know bridge, Yeah, it's everything. It's it's melody, harmony, uh,
you know, bassline me, you know what I mean. Yeah,
I definitely because of that, I'd say my biggest strength
in this band would be composition, you know. It's It's
interesting my technique and my proficiency on the instrument on
guitar has had to develop. I mean, I've become an
infinitely better guitar player than I was when we first
started writing music in like twenty nineteen. My my actual
playing was just so behind every step of the way
when I was learning guitar. But my main skill is
being able to take I call it piano brain, you know,
whenever we're doing anything, I just I got the visual
piano in the sky okay, okay, and I kind of
have to translate from guitar to piano in my mind
and then back to guitar.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 7: It makes communicating with him not great sometimes, and and
everybody else too. This stuff going on in my brain
is sometimes hard to explain, but giving the opportunity to
put it down and then explain it in terms of
everyone's individual instrument and understanding. I've been told I do
a good job and it's probably my biggest I would
say it's probably my biggest attribute and contribution other than
like the technical side of things, okay, as far as
like tech actual technology, yeah, and setting that stuff up.
So yeah, you know, let me just talk about myself.
Speaker 9: For a bit.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 9: That's uh no, that that's very interesting, And yeah, I
think everything you says you said, they're really bolsters that
idea that you know, learning on the keyboard is the
best way to start.
Speaker 7: Well, what about you?
Speaker 9: And by o way, if you're just joining us, we
were joined by questing beast. Here in studio, we have
Jane and Shane here and so I'm curious about your
trajectory now, Shane.
Speaker 3: So I had almost none of that. I always wanted
to play guitar. When I was seven, I got appetite
for destruction and I would be listening to that and
be like, how are they making these sounds happen? It
was the first time I remember hearing like stereo guitar
parts and noticing that like each guitar was doing totally
different things, and so that so more than like even
like you know, slashes soloing being you know great or whatever.
It was the interaction between the guitars, like the riffs
and the way that the playing the two different things
culminated in this one new thing that's ultimately way better
than the individual things on its own, always really spoke
to me. And so when I inevitably started picking up
guitar at like twelve years old, that I started going
towards rock and roll, like immediately. Yeah, And Jane and
I started writing music together when we were like fifteen, Yeah,
And it was funny because I had taken I had
a guitar teacher at the time who had kind of
like burnt me out on it because it was like
I didn't feel like I was really learning a lot
of stuff, and I felt like, you know, very stagnant.
So I stopped playing for a while, and then one
day I was like trying to figure out something that
I was hearing in my head. I was like, oh,
I wonder how you play that, And I didn't play
it right at all. I played a totally new thing,
and I was like, that's not the thing I was
looking for, but it's pretty cool on its own. And
I ended up talking to Jane at that point and
being like, hey, I came up with this thing, like
do you want to write the rest of it with me?
Speaker 9: And yeah, and that was so that was really the
beginning of sure, yeah, of all this right, Oh yeah, wow,
yeah a long time ago.
Speaker 7: Yeah, fifteen years later.
Speaker 3: Wow, it sounds a.
Speaker 7: Lot different than it did when we were hanging out,
just playing through a couple tiny little in his bedroom.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I can imagine, Yeah, I can imagine. Well before
we run out of time. So I want to make
sure we remind everybody about you know two things. Of course,
you know that you got the big show tomorrow night
at Terminus Underground in Nashua, and then and the tour
and uh and also too where people can go online
to keep up with everything that you're doing.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, if you're on Instagram, you can find us at
Questing Beasts. There's no punctuation or anything. We really lucked
out on that screen name there. We're also on Facebook.
Those are like the two primary social places that we're at.
We stream our music everywhere and we've got the link
tree on the Instagram page and on the Facebook page,
so it's very easily accessible. You can find our music anywhere.
Speaker 9: And yeah, excellent, excellent. Yeah, so be a terminus tomorrow
night and then the tour starts. What was it start date?
Speaker 3: April fifth, Yeah, at Ralph's Rock Diner.
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, congratulations on that.
Speaker 3: That's amazing, thank you. Yeah, we're stoked for that.
Speaker 9: That's amazing. And in a moment, we'll play one more
track from Birth to close out the segment. But Jenny,
do you want to remind people to give people your
website because you've been up to a lot as always,
trouble as usual.
Speaker 7: You can check it all out at Gencoffee dot com.
J E N N c O f f uy dot com.
Speaker 9: Excellent, excellent, Jane and Shane, thank you both so much
for joining us. Thank you, it has been wonderful. And
what should we I'll let you pick. Well, we'll play
one more track from Birth to close out the show.
What should we? What should we play?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 3: You want to do corruption?
Speaker 9: Corruption?
Speaker 3: It's one of the heavier ones. I'm trying to push
it out there. It's the it's like the only song
that hasn't hit like a thousand on Spotify.
Speaker 9: Yet, oh no kidding.
Speaker 3: And also I'm trying to I want to do a
side project where I do death metal vocals. So if
you didn't a death metal band and you need a vocalist,
you call me up.
Speaker 9: All right, all right, and let's see if we can
push some streams on this track.
Speaker 3: Absolutely sounds great.
Speaker 9: All right, So we'll close out with this, and if
you miss any part of today's show, it will be
up in just a little bit at w M and
H radio dot org and my website Matt Connorton dot com.
And here it is. This is called Corruption. This is
from the album is Birth, and the band is Question Beasts.
Speaker 6: Scribe their stop talk, I shot in my mind, I
still diagrams and fellows how long.
Speaker 8: As my thoughts guts back died. She's told a trainer, No,
look one side, I ain't married. I'm going.
Speaker 3: St the full on around sun Sho.
Speaker 1: It's see.
Speaker 5: I don't where.
Speaker 10: Bird Boats Such Pad, stop Car, Don't Away, take you
back Car Roads First, take about Such and stop Card,
Don't Wait, Take you Back Car Roads, Rise, Where came Back,
full of Through three times, Fall Shot only Tree and
the Ball, Flash Shot, Stop Car Down Away, take Back
Car tepagle boys at Baker.
Speaker 1: Rob black.
Speaker 3: Like black die.
Speaker 1: Try by the way, wish.
Speaker 6: Spries, let's call the crimson bills.
Speaker 1: So long as my.
Speaker 6: Eyes gets to the side wood through cocaondus cocotta birds
across local little child and the cruise or us to
Joy and the mess.
Speaker 1: All all the.
Speaker 6: Pasperis outside to start very Bno, all, let's try that first,
your suffering.
Speaker 4: And shine.
Speaker 5: Shot see.
Speaker 1: Bring them in the back. Don't look up.
Speaker 10: So you'll turn to go sn the boat sun stuff.
Don't go away that sore horbat