Speaker 1: I love it. That is called I Get Blamed.
Speaker 2: The band is the Fodds, and we've got Rob Critchley
on the line via WhatsApp.
Speaker 1: Rob, are you there, I'm here, Matt.
Speaker 3: Can you hear me?
Speaker 1: I can, Yes, Welcome back to the show.
Speaker 4: It's great, so much for having me.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I love that track and you would sent that
one to us specifically for today.
Speaker 1: So is that now?
Speaker 2: I know that's not the but it's not quite the
newest single, right because I think you've had a couple
since then.
Speaker 3: Correct, We've been on a bit of a role. Yeah,
it's been good.
Speaker 4: As a sort of spoke about last time, like, finding
people to actually sing for us is one of our
biggest challenges. Yeah, and as we've put more music out,
people have heard it, and as we've approached them, they've
been a little bit more willing to engage with us.
Speaker 3: So we say, so those.
Speaker 4: Guys Headphones Jack, I heard about them a long time
ago and I just reached out to them and they
were like, this is a cool tune, Like, but it
took us, you know, a good sort of six months
to put it down and get everything ready.
Speaker 3: And they're they're busy, they're gigging, and they've got their
own stuff to do.
Speaker 4: So we you know, you've got to fit fit all
these things in around life. So while we're doing I
get blamed. We're also doing like two or three others.
So we found ourselves in a situation where we had like,
you know, I think four pretty much completed songs, and we.
Speaker 3: Were like, we don't know what to do with this,
you know.
Speaker 4: Like, how do how do we even like process it?
So we thought, right, let's just you know, when they're done,
we'll release and we'll give each one a month and
move on to the next one. And it's turned out
to be quite It turned out to be quite a
good process because you sort of not that we're massively relevant,
but you stay like, you know, producing things, and things
keep hitting you know, the outside world, and you know,
it builds a little bit of momentum behind it, and
it's worked out really well for us.
Speaker 3: So we've got songs up to January. We're going to
have a release on.
Speaker 4: Nineteenth and December, and also I think it's the twenty
second of January.
Speaker 3: Okay, we've got and then we've got nothing else.
Speaker 4: So February we're like, okay, we need to write something
or we need to like we've got you know, three
or three or four other songs, right it works, but
they're not really very mature, you know. Like we've got
one out to one singer and he's done something with
it and you know it's gotten okay, but like it
needs a lot of work, and we've got.
Speaker 3: Another one and out to another.
Speaker 4: We've got a band in New Zealand of all places
looking at it one and obviously there's a time difference.
You've got a factor in and yeah, you know, and
we sent it to them and do it light right,
we'll have a look.
Speaker 3: I know, it's only a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I checked in and they were like nothing yet, okay,
all right, and it's coming up to Christmas and people
get busy and of course I don't think we'll have
anything impact from people until January and then okay, so
the timelines like sort of change a little bit and
you're sort of going through all.
Speaker 3: This in your head. Yeah, you really want to put
something else out because everything, everything that we've.
Speaker 4: Done, like you're getting a little bit of a role
and you're.
Speaker 3: Saying, okay, this is this is you know, the way,
a good way of releasing things and a good way
of you know, the way a band should work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I kind I kind of chuckled, because I remember
when we had you on the first time, you were
talking about how there was you had one instance where
you would send somebody, you would send a vocalist a
song to work on, and like six months went by
and they still hadn't gotten the act to you what
they had done, and you finally had to move on.
And from what I call I don't remember what song
it was, but from what I remember you saying, it
all worked out for the best because then you found
another vocalist who just did a fantastic job on it
and the song came out better than you imagined it anyway.
Speaker 1: But so it kind of all worked out.
Speaker 2: But it can be frustrating when you're depending on other people,
you know, to do their part.
Speaker 1: And then you get back to here, right, Yeah, that's the.
Speaker 4: One that's going to be released in January. Oh, So
we found someone who was like really receptive to it,
and he really wanted to get involved and he wanted
to do some music on it, and you know, we
went back and forth and he said, let me try
something like this, and he's doing quite.
Speaker 3: A lot of the work, which is brilliant.
Speaker 4: You know that we want people to be engaged with it,
and it works out so much, so much better when
people are coming back and forth and we really like,
we like them to go, can we try this instead
of this?
Speaker 3: Right? Yeah, yeah, let's.
Speaker 4: Let's say, because that's what a collaboration should be, just
sending it should be, just sending a song out and
words coming back and we go, okay, we'll use those words.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So would you so yeah, would you say this is
would you say this has been your busiest period with
the thoughts?
Speaker 3: Oh for sure, Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah. We don't really know anything different, to be honest,
because like we're still such I say, we're an immature band,
like we've we did the Don't Argue projects and that
was just was like regurgitating stuff that.
Speaker 3: We did like twenty five years ago.
Speaker 4: Sure, we still had to we still had to find
people to do that, and that's that's what took the time, right.
And then then when we released Shopping and the ineffectual
Shopping was an old song, we yeah, all old band
didn't want to use so it got released like in
the two thousands, so late nineties, and when when all
wanting to re re record other things from that period,
Like he was with a different band and they put
out a remote album John Covid and Shopping Shopping didn't
make that cut for whatever reason, and so he.
Speaker 3: Says, right, let's do it.
Speaker 4: Let's put a Fotts take on it.
Speaker 3: And we did that. So the song was already there.
Speaker 4: We just like found a a vocalist, Laura, who did
an amazing job. Like I tweaked the words a little bit,
he bumped up the music a little bit, and then
that was that and then the ineffectuals. It was just
like so quick because he put the music down and
it started off with his words and that's basically all
his stuff, so there was really nothing for me to do.
Speaker 3: And he was like, I don't like this. I don't
like these words. Will you change them?
Speaker 4: So I changed them as we went along. So I
was writing as Joe was going back, and Joe like,
you know, sender take it, and I go, his vocals
are always amazing, and I go, like, askedufs terrible, So
we needed to like, you know, make it better to
fit his vocals. As we went along, so and Joe
just turned the things around in a couple of days,
like he was incredible to work with. So me or
we're like, we've got to match this. So we had
to really really level up our game. And so the
willards sort of came out. They don't they don't really
mean anything.
Speaker 3: It's like it's one of those things where you can.
Speaker 4: Say, oh, he's talking about it, so he's talking about that,
I'm not really I'm trying to fit something in together
in quite a short amount of time. And if it
comes out, if it comes out to some someone thinks this,
this is what he's talking about. That's brilliant. That's that's
how I want it. I want it to be interpreted
how you want to interpret right, right, just just like
good words, and that's how I try and write my
words anyway, like stuff that sounds.
Speaker 3: Like it belongs together.
Speaker 4: Right. So, so after the ineffectuals were done, we had
like I've got you know, it's basically poetry. So you
write poetry and then see what happens. See if there's
a a lyric or some sort of guitar or you know,
some sort of beat which goes with those lyrics, with
those pubems. So these all.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, so I so just to clarify too for
a listener. So, so these all start with you, like
you said, you're you're you're coming up with the words,
and that's that's where all of these begin. Right, That's
that's like the that's like the one thing that everything
that the Fodds does as a collective, that's the one
thing that that is the through line.
Speaker 3: Right. Yeah, it's it's my it will always be my words. Yeah,
and in my head.
Speaker 4: You can try and put them to a beat or
a tempo or a and then I put them in
like a shared folder. Yeah, and I'll have a look
at them, and he'll go, oh, I've got this. I've
got this line that I wrote on the guitar. See
if you can put anything together or what he's doing
at the moment with one. Because I've said I've got
these lyrics, he says, I've got something in my head.
Speaker 3: I'm going to try and you know, flesh that out
and use these lyrics for it.
Speaker 4: So they're always a little bit you know, individual, they're
was a little bit different, but it's basically him and
I like trying to balance what each of us has
come up with.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: We should talk a little bit too about how this
all works, because for for listeners, especially people listening to
the show who maybe didn't hear our previous conversation I
think I had said to you. To me, it seems
like like the Fods, it's not so much a band,
it's a collective, right, because you work with all these
different people. So someone who doesn't know that might be
confused about Wait a minute. You know, you're sending tracks
to this person and waiting for them to get back
to you with this, and you've got this other person
you're you're working with, So this is I mean, and
it's it's worked this way for a while, right, Like
you you essentially you work with a lot of different
different people. I mean obviously some of the same people too, right,
But but but you work with with a lot of
people on these tracks. They all start the same way, right,
They all start with your lyrics. But what happens after that,
each each song kind of kind of has its own, uh,
its own path, shall we say?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, each one has its own life. Yeah, and
that sort of depends on who we choose to to
get involved with because everyone works differently, so some people,
you know, like to spend the time and take it
a bit of effort and you know, work work with
it how they want to work with it. And some
people just want to bang it out and do what
they think.
Speaker 3: Is right and move on to the next thing.
Speaker 4: So everyone works differently, So we don't really know if
we will send it out to a vocalist and we
don't really know what they're going to send back, right,
And that that that's half the joy of it, to
be honest. Like, there's a there's a song on They
Don't Argue EP. It's called Volumes of Silence, and I
love it. I think it's a really good song. And
we did that, wrote those songs like when we were
teenagers at school and I don't I don't really I
was out of the music for twenty odd years. I
don't really remember writing that song. I don't really remember
how it sounded. When we put it together in twenty
twenty four when we were doing the Don't Argue EP,
I was like to well, I was like, I know
this is a good song, but I don't really remember
how I mean, he played it and we were like okay,
like and we built it and we had it good
enough to send out to a vocalist.
Speaker 3: We found this guy from the band j h H.
It's called Jeff. He had this like.
Speaker 4: If you sort of think back to you know, I'm
from originally from Manchester in the UK, and he had
that sort of you know Ian Brown James sort of vibe,
you know, like he he sounded like he could have
been from that era.
Speaker 3: We're like, okay, we'll try him. And he came back
and he did it.
Speaker 4: So differently than what we thought he would do it really,
and we were like, it's amazing, it's brilliant.
Speaker 3: It's different. That's it's like the whole process. That's like
the whole thing. And there's been a couple that come
back and we've gone, oh, no, like what do we
do this? It's really it's really not what we wanted.
Speaker 4: And I really like they've done it in the wrong
key or they done it like so we have to
then make that decision. Do you do you go back
and talk to them and say, right, we know you
we gave you a bit of a free reign here,
but we don't also like you to change this a
little bit and change this a little bit and building
building that way and most people are quite they're open
to that. They don't mind being told what to do.
What was there was one guy is like, I think
it should be done like this, probably, don't.
Speaker 3: You know, You've you've got.
Speaker 4: To be quite diplomatic and you've got to be quite
you know, sensitive to other artists feelings as well, because
they're putting their time, they're putting their time and their
energy and not pain. You know, they're not getting any
you know, not giving them a thousand dollars every time
they some lyrics for us. Right, So it's always a
fine balance and we've got to be happy and they've
got to be happy. And like we as we've gone
out to artists, we we've sort of made that clear
in the in the stuff that we send out to them.
We stay right, would love you to do this. But
if you're not happy, if we're not happy, you know,
we you know.
Speaker 3: We can shake hands and walk away from it.
Speaker 4: And we've got because now we've got like a little
bit of you know, we're on our seven to eight
song with nearly up to you know, doing an album. Yeah,
because we've got that behind us. Now we've got a
bit more confidence and we've got and we we have
the sort of ability to say to them.
Speaker 3: It's I would say, not good enough. It's it needs
to be different, it needs to go a different way.
So it's exciting.
Speaker 4: And these last we're up to seven songs that are
completely and we want to put a song album out
at the end, at the end of Q one, oh excellent.
Speaker 3: And it's been it's been something that always wants to do.
Speaker 4: It's like, uh, you know, it's it's really something that
he's passionate about and say, right for him personally putting
an album out after you know.
Speaker 3: Years and years of writing songs and music, it's going
to it's going to be really something.
Speaker 4: I'm really hoping that it's going to be great for him.
I just want to make sure that what we put out,
you know, in the ten track format, however it's going
to look like, is it's what he wants.
Speaker 2: So I would imagine I would imagine too that there
must be a challenge inherent in that. I mean, you know,
I know it's you're not you're not at the stage
out of probably thinking about the order of the tracks
or anything, I would assume, but when you when you
do get to that point, because because of of the
way this project works, and like I said, it's more
of a collective than a band. So each song, you know,
you've got different vocalists, you've got different you know, each
song kind of really takes on its own character because
when you're putting an album together, artists try to approach
it like, Okay, there has to be you know, regardless
of when or how these songs were written or how
they were recorded, et cetera, there has to be some
sort of cohesion that that kind of binds all these
songs together. And I wonder, I mean, are you already
thinking about the challenge of that. I mean, obviously there's
a through line, right because they all start the same way.
They all start with you and your words. So maybe
that maybe that's the answer, Maybe that's the through line,
But I don't know, I mean, are you are you
already thinking about that?
Speaker 1: At this point?
Speaker 4: We have and we we sort of throw it out
there and you know, when a song gets completed, so
we've got like a seven track list of the moment, okay,
and as the two ball are very different, So what
you're saying is that absolutely correct.
Speaker 3: We can't decide on what track to open with.
Speaker 4: We've pretty much decided what track to close with, and
then there's you know, everything that goes on in the middle.
And I think we'll probably only know this once the
ten tracks have been finished. You know, we'll see I
know it can be an important thing. And we do
want to do physical albums, you know, we do want
to you know, put this as an old fashioned LP,
like five songs on one side, five songs on the other.
Speaker 3: So they've got to be logical from that perspective. Yeah,
at the moment, You're absolutely right, they aren't logical.
Speaker 4: And I'm not saying I'm worried about it, like I'm
going to get ten songs on an album and it's
going to be we are going to be good. It
is a challenge for us, It's it's a it's an
interesting challenge, the one that we've never had to face
before because I don't argue projects. Was just like, we
know the order because that's the order that we used
to play them live when we live every Yeah.
Speaker 3: So we knew kick that was going to be in
the middle.
Speaker 4: We're going to know that Metal Dog is the opener,
and so that's how we did it then, because that's
what made sense to us this.
Speaker 3: You know, we've not played one one of these songs live.
Maybe that will change.
Speaker 4: I don't know, but it's it's something that we have
thought about. And every time a song, even even if
it doesn't complete, you can sort of see where it's
going when it's like in mid flow, and we can
we can slide this in between these two songs that
that could make a difference. So when we go through this,
he sends me, what's happened, he says, this is my
seventh song order. Yeah, yeah, no, no, So it will
be a conversation that we will have in probably February
or March.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, something too that I don't think we touched on
this the last time when you were on the show
before us. But I don't think we talked about distribution,
because I'm curious now you don't you don't have the
fons is not on Spotify, correct.
Speaker 4: We we were having problems with them, okay. A few
other artists have said the same thing to us. So
we were on Spotify okay, and.
Speaker 3: We're doing okay. And I don't know what caused it.
I don't know if if.
Speaker 4: You or anyone else out there who has been through
issues with Spotify, they don't really want to talk to you.
They'll talk to your distribution, right, and the distribution will
come and talk to us.
Speaker 3: And every month Spotify would.
Speaker 4: Not like what's in huge numbers like two thousand or
fifteen hundred or two thousand.
Speaker 3: Streams. Yeah, particularly the ineffectuals.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, And so you.
Speaker 4: Know, we we weren't doing anything with We just put
it out there and let it and I was always
you know, sending links and sending stuff, but you know,
we don't buy and downloads or.
Speaker 3: Anything like that.
Speaker 4: We we try and produce it organically or try and
but we tried to. So after every month, you know,
Spotify will go two thousand streams off gone, and we
don't go distributing, and they'd.
Speaker 3: Say, oh, you're.
Speaker 4: Either getting on playlists that aren't you know, genuine.
Speaker 3: Or the bot run or whatever.
Speaker 4: And so after six months of this, we were just like,
it's just not worth.
Speaker 3: It because you're fighting like a huge conglomerate. Oh yeah,
there's there's nothing really could do. So there was just
no real point. And when we.
Speaker 4: Left Spotify, the Ineffectuals had seven thousand streams. Whi's not
bad in itself it's okay. Yeah, our Spotify rapped came
out even though we were off Spotify, and I have
not been on since since August. Yeah, they said, and
our Spotify rapped that our biggest song of twenty twenty
six was the Ineffectuals, which had been streamed thirty three
thousand times real, So they right, So they have just
you know, sort of admitted, and I put a post
on there and I was I was a bit angry,
and maybe I should have, but as I said, like
in your vanity parade, that is Spotify, I raped, you've
admitted that we had thirty three thousand genuine streams and
that's what's in our Spotify rap. But we when we
came off your platform. You called every single month and
it stands to seven thousand, and.
Speaker 3: We didn't have any comeback. We couldn't ask the question.
Our distributor was scared of Spotify. They don't want to
talk to them because we've got so.
Speaker 4: Much power, And we were like, it doesn't really matter
to us, right, It's great that we were getting stream
and it's great that people were.
Speaker 3: Listening to it, right every time, every time, you know.
Speaker 4: We we tried to interact with them, or we tried
to understand why they were treating us like this, and
like basically what had happened is at the start of
every month Spotify would say, oh, even, you know, fifty
cents from your your streaming right, but we're going to
knock two thousand streams off, so you down to like
ten SAIDs or you.
Speaker 3: Ows money or something like that. It was. It was
just brutal. Every month we were like, oh, what they're
going to do this month?
Speaker 4: So we don't really we're not in this for the money,
in this for the streams, like hopefully we get people
to listen to us, hopefully don't like it. Yeah, but
you know, we're at the end of the day, we're
really doing it for you know, to get this album
out and to make sure that what we put out
continues to be quality.
Speaker 3: And since we've.
Speaker 4: Come off, we're not we're not sitting there like looking
at streams and we're not worried about it.
Speaker 3: And it doesn't matter when the first of the month
comes around and right, you know.
Speaker 4: There's nothing there to to to do. So I don't
know if people I don't really follow it, to be honest,
I don't know if people are listening on Apple or
these are or wherever else. Sure, on everything else, so
you can still get it.
Speaker 1: But like, of course, yeah, you know, Spotify is.
Speaker 3: Just such a they're not going to be bothered at
we're not on it. It's going to make zero difference,
right right. It saves us just like the.
Speaker 4: The thoughts and people have been very supportive about it
and come back and said, like, I wish we could
do this, but we need I think it's you know
a lot of people still think that, you know, our
song could make it. You know, it could get a
hundred thousand streams, it could get a million streams.
Speaker 3: Yeah, do it, you know, do what's right for you.
Speaker 4: For us, you know, I don't think we're ever going
to get a hundred thousand streams or a million streams.
You never know.
Speaker 3: But if they do, they can go to you know,
any other platform forther than Spotify. So it's just a
little stance.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it will make no difference, but it's made us
feel better.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: Sure, Well it's difficult because you're in a position where,
you know, and this is kind of the position that
everybody's in in a sense, is that we're all sort
of at the mercy of you know, it comes with
big tech. And don't get me wrong, I love I
love tech, and I love that we have all these
resources that we didn't have when I was growing up
and so forth. But you know, you're really at the
mercy of these platforms, you know, no matter what you're doing.
Like for example, I wasn't able to stream you know,
I like to stream this show to Facebook when I'm live.
I wasn't able to do that for a month because
I was banned from live streaming.
Speaker 4: And and and.
Speaker 1: They don't like to tell you why. They don't.
Speaker 2: They like to tell you that you did something wrong
and so you're banned from And it was the only
thing I was banned from. My account wasn't banned or anything.
I just was banned from streaming. They like to tell
you that you can't do this anymore for a while,
but they don't like to tell you why. You know,
it'd be nice to know why, so then I can
avoid doing it again, But they don't like to tell
you that. But we're all kind of at the mercy
of you know, And they don't like to talk to you,
just like Spotify doesn't like to talk to you. Facebook
doesn't like to talk to you either. I'm amazed that
I was able to get as much information as I did.
You know, YouTube doesn't like to talk to you unless
you're you know, unless you have you know, a million subscribers.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, we're all kind of at the mercy
of that.
Speaker 4: Like there's so many you know, radio shows and podcasts,
and they like to tag bands on there, so the
band actually knows that they're going to get played, which
is really nice for the band. It's really nice for
the for the podcast or for the radio show because
they'll get you know, a listener for that hopefully. And
if you can't tag something, you just don't know. So
even trying to find out, you know, if you do
okay on radio, it's not easy. You know, you've got
to you've got to really you know, hunts for stats,
and you know, we we use sort of I try
and use what's called Online Box Radio and they do
a few stats every now and then and they show
which radio stations played it. But I'd say probably only
twenty five sense of the radio stations actually subscribe to
online Box, so you're not getting a full picture, right.
And the one thing, the one thing with Spotify and
they did it so cleverly is they show you exactly
what is. You know, what's being played, and you can
see that you've had, like, you know, ten streams or
one hundred streams, and you know, it gives you a
little bit of visibility around what you're actually doing.
Speaker 3: And I've read.
Speaker 4: I've read something the other day.
Speaker 3: You know, if you're not getting those streams, it's what
stops you making music. And I thought it was really
quite poignant that you're not doing it for yourself, you're
doing it for other people. And I think you've you've
really got to be making music for yourself. And once
you get into that mindset, it doesn't really matter what
goes externally.
Speaker 4: You know, you can do whatever you want and if
you want to play gigs, you can play gigs. And
if you want to, you know, set a goal for
stream and you can do that or get on radio.
Speaker 3: Well, if you're not.
Speaker 4: Doing it for yourself first and foremost, then it doesn't
really make too much sense to be doing it, because
if you can't make yourself happy when you're doing it,
it's got to be a joyful experience just making music.
And it's one of the things that we talked about
when we said, like we'll come off spot because it
was just making things that a little.
Speaker 3: Bit too much harder. And we've got you know, we've
both got day jobs.
Speaker 4: We spend them all our time, you know, chasing up
and figuring out what's going on.
Speaker 3: And we're just like, you know, want to try and put.
Speaker 4: It out there, yeah and move on and like say, yeah,
that was a really good song. We had a great
experience with this this guy who sang it with us.
We'll try and replicate that and the next time we
go and then you know, we go again for another song.
And the model, which we have absolutely stumbled upon because
we don't know what we were going to be doing.
Speaker 3: It works well for us.
Speaker 4: So it's just like it's a good hobby from I
get home from work and you know, I sit down
for a couple of hours. If I could do it
all on my phone and I can distribute to radio shows, yeah,
find different contacts that may be able to help. And
I don't know, like people may be getting a bit
annoyed with me, but I spent quite a lot, spend
quite a lot of time like sending emails out and saying,
you know, here's.
Speaker 3: A song which we think maybe maybe a good fit
to your radio station.
Speaker 1: That's what it takes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, that's the way we do it. Now.
Speaker 2: I can relate to what you were saying about radio
because so one of the things that I do in
my business, I'm a college radio promoter. So clients hire
me to send their music out to college radio stations,
and I do all the follow up and the tracking
and everything and that. But the tracking is the most
challenging part because a lot of these stations don't report
to any kind of a service. So the only way
I know for sure, you know, is when the when
somebody at the radio station, the music director or the
program director confirms directly with me that yes, we've we
have this track in rotation. Okay, can you give me
a spin count? The answer most of the time is no.
Speaker 1: You know, but when we can, we.
Speaker 2: Can tell you if it's in you know, heavy rotation
or light rotation or whatever. But it's But it's the
single most reliable way is just getting that information directly
from the station because there's so many you know, it
used to be easier too. There used to be college
music Journal, which technically still exists, but not in its
old form, and you know, you could get information through them,
but now that you know that went away, they completely
changed how they do it. They don't really do what
they used to do. And now there's all these different
services that you can subscribe to. But it's it's more difficult.
Like it's easier in one sense to find services that
report whether your music is being played at different stations,
but it's hard to find one service that reports all
of it. And and then to you know, and and
actually and and some of these radio stations. They're just
like the big tech company. They don't want to necessarily
talk to you either.
Speaker 4: That's all taking a leaf out of Spotify and Big Text.
You know, stands the If big tech won't talk to.
Speaker 2: You, right, right, why should w E R s in Boston,
why should they talk to me either? You know, and
they do but you know, but but but you mentioned
it too. You have to be persistent, right, and that's
that's really what it takes. You have to be persistent.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, we we send an email out.
Speaker 3: For every release.
Speaker 4: And one of our problems is as well, so we
we we've got a list. I don't know how.
Speaker 3: Many email addresses are on it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel guilty. I feel I do feel quite guilty,
but I know that it's kind of happen. So we
send send this out and it takes like a few
hours to send to every radio station. Well, we we
don't stick to one genre. Oh you know, some of
our stuff was a little bit heavier.
Speaker 3: Some of it.
Speaker 4: You know, it's come out as a bit bluesy. You know,
there's punkin there. So every time we do a different song,
you know you're looking for so, you know, for I
get blamed, I was trying to send it out to
punk stations if that's such a thing, you know, like
a little bit more punky, right, and fanzines and podcasts
and all that sort of stuff. And then after I
get blamed, we released is very much enough And that
is definitely not a punk song, you know. That's that
that's a little bit moody and a bit bluesy and
a bit ballady, and it's very different for what we
what we again sort of set out to do. We
know we wanted to do something a little bit different
and for us, like being different is great. But when
we send that song to the punk channel that we
sent to last week, they're like, what is this you
just sent us? We can't play this, And I'm like, well,
I class ourselves as, like in the Massive Inverted Comments,
a punk rock band. And if you have a look
at the term of punk, it's basically anything, you know,
like it's not like sticking to conformity and like playing
two courts, you know, like.
Speaker 1: Right, of course it can be.
Speaker 3: Punk can be pretty much anything.
Speaker 4: And listen, you listen to a band like the Clash,
an original punk band, you know what, the biggest punk
band around probably and you know, they do Clypso music
and they do Middle Eastern music and they've done all
sorts and it's just like punk can't be just you
know what is stereotypically thought of like a punk song.
It's like a short two minute blast, right, And so
I know that we're sending you a blue song, you know,
give it, give it a try. You don't have to
play it, you know, and the next one will probably
be more punk, right. But like some people come by
and just so you know, on subscribed, delete me from
this playlist.
Speaker 3: You know, some are quite thanks for this, but I
can't play this.
Speaker 4: That's fine, you don't. You don't need to play everything,
you know, everything's a little bit different.
Speaker 2: I actually I feel I feel like the what you have,
I mean, it does all you can put it all
in the broader category of indie rock. I feel like,
you know, I mean, it all fits that certainly.
Speaker 4: That's exactly what we if we do market That's what
we market ourselves as an indie punk crop band.
Speaker 3: So we're sort of straddling genres, you know, and that's
what we want to do, right And.
Speaker 4: Going back to your point about the album, we've got
like a a blue song and a punk song and
then shopping and the ineffectuals which are probably just indie rock.
And our latest release, which is a matter of time,
has got a lot of synth in it.
Speaker 3: It's got like a SyncE where at the bottom of it.
So I don't I don't even know who to send
that to be honest.
Speaker 4: Do we send that to Electric because it's got a
bit of cyincionata are they going to like that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Or do we send it to the punk people like
It's been played on a few rock chields and I'm
like that's great. Well I'm not too sure it is rock,
and so I just hope people see it for what
it is. It's like, what's trying to be a little
bit different and not send you like the same sort
of thing every time. And some people really appreciate that,
and some people don't like it. Well, it is what
it is.
Speaker 1: We should we should tell people too.
Speaker 2: You are on band Camp, which that's one of my
favorite resources for music.
Speaker 3: It's it's a great place.
Speaker 2: Everything's on band camp and band camp too. Something a
lot of people don't realize is that you get a
high quality file, a high bit rate file from band
Camp that you don't necessarily get. So, for example, if
you're just streaming music on YouTube, you know you're better
off streaming music on band Camp and downloading it from
there because you're going to get a much higher quality file.
Speaker 4: I was shocked the difference. I didn't really listen to
bank Camp. I knew it was out there, and then
I I got sent some bank Camp stuff and I
listened to it and I was like, this is brilliant.
And then I put it on a Spotify playlist and
it was terrible on Spotify.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so you know, it was really my opening that
that bank Camp's quality was so much better.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's like I said, that's something that's something people
don't realize.
Speaker 1: Rob the time does go quickly. I want to make sure.
Speaker 2: So I think we're going to end the segment when
we when we wrap up in a couple of minutes
with that song A matter of time. I really like
that one a lot later in the show too. I
might I might circle back and play a couple others
if we have time, but I want to make sure
because we were talking about, you know, not being on
Spotify and where you are. Discoverability is a term that
I use a lot. We want to make sure people
do know where to find like where's the best places
to go for people to find the fods and and
to keep up with everything that you're doing.
Speaker 3: And you can.
Speaker 4: We're on Facebook and we're on Instagram and obviously bank
camp is a good place for us, and we're on
everything else apart from Spify. Yeah, just Spify that is
I know it goes on for us now and there's
there's gonna be some new places.
Speaker 3: I can't remember what the card off the top of
my head because it's all who basically does.
Speaker 4: All the all this sort of stuff. But there's there's, there's,
there's you know a bunch of new I guess they're
trying to disrupt what Spotify and Apple and all these
but like there's posts on our Instagram which explain it,
and we're saying right now, we're not on Spotify, we'll
we'll we'll try these places and the you know, the
sort of people who've got.
Speaker 3: Been in the same sort of situations have got fed
up with big tech.
Speaker 4: I guess I think that they're run by bands. Let
me let me just have a quick look on my Instagram.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and.
Speaker 4: They were run by bands, and they said that they're gonna,
you know, pay a little bit more and look after the.
Speaker 3: Bands a bit better. So we'll see what. We'll see
what happens.
Speaker 4: What's foot it's what is it? So subvert subvert right,
so that this is going to be like a new place.
Speaker 1: I didn't know about this, So check it out.
Speaker 4: And you know, if if new bands want to get
on there, and it looks to be quite an interesting place,
and what's happens. You know, anything that you know gives
smaller artists a bigger platform is you know, something that
we want to be involved in.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and we always need disruptors coming into the frame.
You know, and and better to have more options than less,
and and and all of it too. And you know,
it does get scary when when you've got something like Spotify,
that that becomes so dominant and and so important, you know,
you know, to the point that as as you talked
about earlier, to the point where your own distributor is
afraid to even challenge them on anything. You know, that's
that's how powerful they are. And that's that's too much.
That's that's too much power concentrated in one place.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, and you say, they're only going to get better.
You see the other day Netflix Sport MGM.
Speaker 1: They bought Warner Brothers, Netflix, Warner Brothers.
Speaker 4: Yeah, how big Netflix going to be? You know, if
that's happening, it's insane. The next thing Netflix, Netflix will
probably buy, you know, well another story platform. Man can
imagine it by Amazon or something like that. Yeah, just
get bigger and bigger. So, I don't know, it's a
strange and interesting place.
Speaker 1: It is. It absolutely is. Well.
Speaker 2: Listen Rob Critchley from the Thoughts. Always wonderful to talk
with you. I really enjoy our conversations. We'll definitely do
this again in the near future. Obviously, you've got uh,
you've got more music coming, so there's always more to
talk about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, when we get more, and.
Speaker 4: We'll let you know about the album and please which
order we put it in, and yeah, that would be
that'd be a good place to uh to talk next.
Speaker 2: I think absolutely absolutely. That sounds great. That sounds great. Yeah,
so we'll we'll talk soon for sure. We're gonna let
you go and I'm gonna hit this track a matter
of time. Another great another great song from the Fods.
We'll let you get going, but Rob, thank you so
much and we'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 3: Man, I appreciate you. Makee look after yourself.
Speaker 1: All right, I will thank you, take care bye bye
je all right.
Speaker 2: That is Rob Pritchley from the Fods, and I do
really enjoy talking with him