Speaker 1: Uh, well, let's get our guests in here. So now
one of these fine people, Bruce has been here with
us before.
Speaker 2: Welcome back.
Speaker 3: Absolutely my favorite T shirt.
Speaker 1: We asked, Legion of Solace. Yes they are.
Speaker 4: They are, which very much says support local music, and
I love it and it has this beautiful phoenix on it. Yes,
so it's it's like dually awesome of a T shirt.
Speaker 1: And uh, Bruce, I'll let you introduce your your comrades.
Speaker 3: Here, colleagues.
Speaker 2: I've got Malcolm.
Speaker 3: Wood Malcolm Wood welcome, Hello.
Speaker 2: Hello, and I also have Rebecca Knockman with me as well.
Speaker 3: Rebecca welcome, thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, let me turn that mic up a little bit. Yeah,
that Mike, that's my least favorite mic in the room.
Speaker 3: You notice that that one's the one that gives us.
Speaker 1: If there's one that gives us trouble, it's always that one.
Speaker 4: Say hi to me so I can see if you're
sounding good.
Speaker 1: That's that's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I just got to
talk right into it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: These mics are very very unidirectional. Uh so, yeah, so welcome.
So for the uninitiated, for those who don't know what
is Legion of Solace, because and I think I even
might have said this, you bers, when I first heard
the name Legion of Solace, I assumed it was a band.
Speaker 3: A lot of people do. Yeah, yeah, I'm not gonna
even lie to you. A lot of people do. So
what is Legion of Solace? Exactly?
Speaker 5: Well, the founder Tuesday, she shout out to Tuesday. She's
thinks she's watching right now, sutt to Tuesday. She's our
founder and we're the co founders. But also Legion of Solace.
That what we do is to help promote anything in everything
we can put our helping hand into, Okay, whether it's
a band, a venue, or anything else beneficial wise that
will help better the community, whether it's music wise, benu
wise that says helping that helps the music world to
anybody who is backing and trying to have more local
and up and coming bands shows, that's.
Speaker 3: What we're for, okay.
Speaker 5: And we're trying to eventually get to the point where
we be like a big hub of like, hey, well
we had a show that didn't it fell through? You know,
is there anything that we can pick up along the
way we're going to be traveling through Virginia here and
such a well, yes, let me call such such such
such a this venue and we'll try to light something up,
you know, or just even like I said, we we
sponsored No Boy too back called No Boy and we
followed them on their mission of going to glory, you know,
and helping promote them like on the radio shows that
we have. Dark Mistress has a radio show and I
have a radio show Quarantine Malaca that we do music
videos and have anybody come in mind is more requests
form you would come in.
Speaker 3: And we'll just have fun and feel the vibe of
the room for the day. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So now the how how long have all three of
you been involved in Legion of Solas?
Speaker 2: Malcolm and Rebecca were involved before I was.
Speaker 3: Oh okay.
Speaker 6: It started as more of like a social club mosh
pit team, and in two thousand twenty one we moved
into the realm of event sponsorship with Blue Ridge Rock
Festival that year's iteration okay, And after the event, we
decided to move from event sponsorship directly into involvement with
the smaller bands just because of we're not going in
when we're not going into too many details, just some
of the things we saw that we thought we could
change and handle better. Yeah, direct relationships and that that's.
Speaker 2: Worked out quite well for us.
Speaker 6: We actually this September celebrated three years converting to a
more involved entity in the music scene, and it's worked
out really well. We call ourselves full service. We can
do everything but book the show itself. But like we
even catered the pre party last night. When we're not
doing this, I cook for a living. Malcolm also cooks
for a living, So when you put us both in
the same room, it's like a chop challenge working.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And plus we just wanted to kind of find
some way to up the annie of what we did
last year of just coming over and hanging out and
just being a presence. We were trying to be involved
as much as possibly can. And like I said, you know,
when we say we come at you full service, it's
even to the point where I'm an ordained minister, like
I can literally marry in every state of Virginia.
Speaker 1: Would you be performing any wedding tonight at Swermyfest.
Speaker 5: I mean, I can throw one down for you real quickly,
no problem, it needs to be done. It needs to
be done. I'm there for the service of it as
well as we need more. We're trying to change it
up in the world more now, you know, like we
need more different ways of doing it instead of like,
don't get me twisted. Traditional weddings are beautiful, it's very
eclectic and everything else like that, But what why can't
we be more you know, unique. So if you're a
metal hit and you don't want to go to the
traditional ways, come find me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I'm a metal hit too. I love metal hit.
I don't care, I'll sing it.
Speaker 5: You're comes sobody, you know, whatever gets it done. The
whole point about it is is just we're here at
full service for the music because we love music.
Speaker 3: I come from both sides of the spectrum.
Speaker 5: I used to be in a well known band that's
been around Lensburg, Virginia for over twenty years. But even
me growing up following that band before I joined them,
and they were called hateful Bones. You see what I'm saying.
And so I know the whole thing, like all of
what Will is preaching the same thing. The Will was
preaching about trying to be there for the music and
helping there. That's my band down did the same thing
down where we were at, like we were even getting
peeped trying to help get people even to go on
to Blue Red Rock Festival when we want our showcase
of going to do in the after show at Blue
Red Rock Festival. So you see what I'm saying, Like
me following that band is what it eventually got me to.
Where I'm at now is where I want to be
a pretty much hub like you or a spot where
you can come and put your music at where you
can spend your blood, sweat and tears into it. You
don't have to sit there and go through the cesspool
that is the music indust have it done, because I mean,
if you think about it, legitly, it's here.
Speaker 3: That's what it is. It's successful.
Speaker 5: I mean, it's just poison after poison, have to poison.
So I mean, the better make it easier for everybody
as well as the more people who help share it.
And not only not so you're amusing being heard, but
it helps us to push more across, whether it be
America or internationally, because that's what our initial goal is.
We want to be able to be hit up from
people and you know, Australia, you know it les you
know what I'm saying, England and be like hey, we're
coming to America and you know this gig fell through.
Speaker 3: Can you hook us up? Yeah?
Speaker 5: But if not already have our own you know, eventually
in due time land space property where we can throw
on our own leaders and solves of it. And it's
not paid to play. It's you come in and you
get paid and you play. You see what I'm saying, Like,
not you paying and sell tickets? I mean yes, obviously, yes,
we want you to promote and try to help push
to where.
Speaker 3: Some of your people will buy tickets. But it's not
going to be a guarantee.
Speaker 5: Like how you got to go play on these big
festivals and like Sonic Temple whatever. You know what I'm saying,
like you gotta you gotta go out there and put
in some extra work to do so.
Speaker 3: But we don't want that.
Speaker 5: We want you to be able to come in and
have as much fun as you can, enjoy the full experience,
because that's what that's what happened back in the day,
you know Woodstock. You know people they were just coming
and having a ball. You know, it wasn't like pay
to play. They probably would looked at you, stupid with
a guitar case. Of course, it's crazy.
Speaker 3: Now what about you were back at how did you
get involved in this?
Speaker 7: So I actually met Malcolm back Blue Ridge when he
was working for Hafel Bones, Okay, and I was just
a bubbly, bouncy little child. So I was like, what
can I do to help? And he was like, here's
a ticket or backstage pass. You can go ahead and
help us with pictures and a whole bunch of other things.
And so I just kind of picked up and followed
him around. And it's always been a big part of
my life to just help bands. I've got tons of
friends down in Radford and Roanoke area that are bands.
I've got friends down in Woodbridge, Virginia that are also
bands trying to get big. And so when he was like, yeah,
we're actually converting it from just this group that we
hang out with. We're going to go big and we
want to do stuff with it, I'm like helping people.
I'm in what can I do?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh, excellent, excellent? And so how long I may have
asked this before, but how long has this? How long
has this existed? It's been a number of years now, right.
Speaker 5: Right, Well, to give the backstory, and I'm not going
to stay in the other club. It initially started off
where we all met in a whole other music club.
Like we was even to the point where when we
says the club experience, meaning is like most people thought
we were MC's Yeah, because we were, because we were
the whole battle vest. We had our heart patch, we
had our you know, but we didn't have the three
piece on the back, like it literally says leads to
solid music promotion because we want to, you know, separate
ourselves from that look. But we love that look because
that's what's in rock and roll. That's what's always You
always wears your battle vest to a festival. You've always
wears your battle vest to a monspit. You've always done
you know, you've always had your stuff where Hey, this
man I saw back in nineteen eighty seven, and uh,
they rocked my world and I had to get some
kind of memory, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you gotta you have that jacket.
Speaker 5: Where it has those war wounds where you know, like
I was in that modspit of you know, Metallica where
that dude almost got his neck burk.
Speaker 6: You know, even even before the age of the battle vest,
it was the washed out, acid washed denim jacket the
eighties with with your your old favorite band T shirt
that you've worn one too many times, so you cut
the front of it off and iron it onto the
back of the jacket. Now it's totally aware.
Speaker 5: But yeah, so that's initially what it was, and it
was the club experience. But and we were doing both simultaneously.
But to uh, to get ourselves more format and structured
and stable within the music community, to know that we
are dead serious about this, we took away the club
aspect for a little while and then uh just focused
and so focus on just.
Speaker 3: Fine bands, fine bands, fine bands.
Speaker 5: Like I said, I wanted to do my radio show because,
like I said, I've always wanted to be on radio
show earlier to you.
Speaker 3: You've got the voice for it. Yeah, I try. I'll
show you a little skin of what I do.
Speaker 5: But like, if you like, if you wanted to listen
to it on fing radio, cool, I would like to
do that also. But my thing was is I wanted
to be the visual one because I've always entertained being
on some kind of stage. So, you know, in order,
especially when I'm not doing my music, I miss music
so much that I would rather you know, start a
radio show where I can have the music video up
and me sitting in the corner like showing all right
and just going at it, you know what I'm saying,
Just having fun and banging, getting the crowd wrapped up,
rilled up, and have an entertainment, just pretty much purely
bringing as much true passion to this thing. Because when
I grew up, it was you know, it was rebel radio.
Say oh, you don't want me to play that? Screw
you d You know what I'm saying, It's done, it's on.
So that's what I mean. I grew up in that
area and I would love to get that back because
it's some of the things that we grew up on
in rock and roll and how it went it should
have never changed.
Speaker 3: It wasn't broken. Let's not break it again, you know
what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: Let's fix it and put it back the way it was,
because obviously it was going better that way than it
was you breaking it and trying to sell it, you
know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So I'm all about rubber radio.
Speaker 5: I'm all about, you know, just going out there and
having fun, just enjoying music, like how anybody would do.
I would love to be able to have somebody call
in and say, hey, man, that last song you play
we're on a road trip, but it set the moment
for our you know, our thing.
Speaker 3: And it's not even a band. I know who is
that band? You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: We want to get everybody passionate and loving music again
instead of just being like, well, I listened to Slip
Night from nineteen ninety eight for you know, the past
twenty five years and Creed the Farms wide open, you know,
some Lincoln Park from back in the day, and you know,
we want you to be able to still open your
mind and be collected to new stuff and not just
to be stuck in the same world.
Speaker 1: Right, It's hard to get a lot of people, it's
hard to even get them into new stuff. This is
a subject that comes up a lot on the show
because a lot of people they get to a certain
age and it's like, I mean, if I had to
guess what the averages, I would guess thirty. But I
think for some people it's like when they graduate high
school where they just kind of go, Okay, I've heard
all the music I ever need to hear. I'm only
going to like music up to this point, and anything
after this I don't like because all the good music
has already been made and people just get locked in.
And I like to bring up my father is a
great exception to that. My dad's in his seventies. He
lives on the seacoast and he listens to WUNH, the
great college station there because he loves to hear new stuff.
He's always listening.
Speaker 3: To new music.
Speaker 1: Like you wouldn't get into You wouldn't get into a
car with my dad and you're the oldies station on
the radio. This is not gonna happen. He loves hearing
new stuff and he's always been like that. But that's rare.
I feel like a lot of people they just get
to a certain point and they go, oh, that's it.
Everything after this I just don't.
Speaker 3: I just don't like right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm thirty seven and I still want to go
find newer things. That's the whole reason for this, as
well as how can you say call this work like
this is I literally do cooking, but when this is
supposed to be a second job too, Yeah, it's not.
Because we have so much passion and love for it. Yeah,
it's a vacation. Yeah, yeah, I mean the whole entire
time me and Becka was on the way up here.
We have not been able to decompress from our years
of stress because the whole incident Blue and Rock Festival happened,
and you know a few other places just disappearing, like
Epics Center only coming around for one year.
Speaker 3: We have not been able to find, you know, affordable.
Speaker 5: Festival to go to, you know what I'm saying, to
decpress and enjoy what we love and hearing new bands
and finding new bands or whatever, yeah, around my area.
So it's like coming up here is our decompression to
reset our minds to be able to deal with the
rest of distress of the year that's going to come
to us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you see what I'm saying. Oh yeah, absolutely, So,
like that's how.
Speaker 5: Much we love music, is that it helps us in
more ways in one yeah, you know, other than just
passing time, Like oh that was just that was just
a good song, you know what I'm just I'm glad
I accidentally listened to that. No, no, this is we're
really going. I literally sat there, sat there. Sometimes not
here recently because I've been busy with working as a
cook yeah, that I would sit there and I wouldn't
even tell him.
Speaker 3: Like the next day, like I barely got three. I
was asleep. Man, I've been.
Speaker 5: I went down what I call it, you know, the wormhole.
I went down the rabbit hole, and I went so
far that it's like I'm, you know, pretty much the
mad Hatter sitting there on my twentieth cup of coffee
or tea, and just like, man, let mean, what do
I find? Because once I start finding new stuff that
I've never heard in my life, whether either they've been
signed to something a label that is not very fancy
or one of the big labels, I'm all about finding
new music. Like That's why I have a segment in
my thing called Mystery Bands with Malachi.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: So like where I spend at least thirty seconds to
a minute dead radio solids and just sit there and
go scroll, scroll, just so I can also knock out
two birds with one stone and prove that it is
not that hard to find new music.
Speaker 3: Well that's the thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's easier than ever. There's no excuse not to
not to.
Speaker 5: I mean, you have Apple, you have you know Spotify,
you have all these other.
Speaker 7: Things, but you got TikTok.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you got TikTok. You got all these bands.
Speaker 5: Like That's how I'm finding some of these bands that
are before they get too big where you can't play
them because I don't have any certifications to play through
my radio station except for on Twitch. They'll let so
much go. But if you start playing some godsmack, right,
you know, it's like all right, no, we got to
meet that, you know what I'm saying. So I have limits,
so as long as I stay where I'm supposed to
be at, which is the content of local and up
and coming as well as requests and every now and again,
like I said, I love my Rebel radio, So because
I'm on to Rebel to the core, every now and again,
you might see me sneak something in there, even if
it's like thirty to forty five seconds of you know,
five minutes alone or you know what I'm saying, like
something really cool that everybody to kind of just keep
the hypeness and the joy of the room. But other
than that, that's what our platforms are made for, is
to help up and coming and anything local.
Speaker 3: Where do you stream I do it?
Speaker 5: I've been on the mix on the mix of going
back and forth between Facebook and Twitch, because Facebook for
the longest time was letting me play whatever, even if
it was something well known.
Speaker 3: And then it cut to the point where as long
as it.
Speaker 5: Was local and the AI couldn't pick it up, I
could play it on Facebook. And then I was like,
all right, I was tired of losing all my fans
because for the longest time, for like the first few years,
I've been doing according to your malcoa almost little almost
five years, yeah and some And when I first started out,
I was playing to nobody, even on Facebook. It was
like one two people come in and like, oh, you're
playing videos. No, no, we don't go away. I don't want
to listen to that. I don't want to see the
light show. I don't want you know what I'm saying, Like, so, uh,
for a couple of years I played to myself, which
is fine. I still went on there and say, all
have fun. The experience is what it was needed, and uh.
But I initially started doing it on there, and then
when they started really hardcore getting into it, like pretty
much redstream and immediately blocking your your feed, it was like,
all right, now I need to find something else. So
I went to Twitch. Okay, we're on the mixture of
Twitch and all that, and now that Discord is coming
more suis to of actually doing live shows. Yeah, I
feel like over there they would give you. And then
this is like some places like Patreon and all that,
if you do a lot, they don't care what you
do over there. You can literally go over there and
spit into a bucket, you know what I'm saying, all
day long and the har entire time, and they wouldn't care,
you see what I'm saying. So yeah, that being that,
it's all depending on the where you go and how
much you want to pay. So Twitch is kind of
like in our feed because right now what we're doing,
we're running this company off our own wallet.
Speaker 3: Yeah. This is not like we're out here scamming people
and getting it all over. No. We Actually that's what
I'm said.
Speaker 5: When we go to you go to our Legion of
Solace dot com page, and you go to lesion on
and you buy merch that money is not going into
our pockets. If it does help to us to either
a get up here to do something or a B
two spots or something, yes we might use a little bit.
Other than that, most of that money goes to Hey,
use this band said they needed a sponsorship. They're about
to go on toward there's short two hundred dollars in
between two to four hundred dollars.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, we all talk amongst each other.
Speaker 5: You have enough to do it this week, Yeah, put
the money together, send it off to them.
Speaker 3: There you go. Like everything that we're doing, we're running
straight out of pocket.
Speaker 5: Like I just bought a new gamer laptop just to
make sure I have good enough multitasking streaming.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to be able to do this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: It's all my own TM.
Speaker 5: And it's not like we're you know, it's basically like
I said, we're gonna be becoming an LLC, yeah and
all that stuff. We're working towards all everything, but it's
just got to do what we got to do for
right now.
Speaker 1: At the top, I was curious about the streaming because
my experience with this show is so like, right now,
we're streaming a Facebook and YouTube. Yeah, and what what
has been happening lately is so Facebook. I'll get a
notification afterward that says you're sharing ad revenue with whoever
the guests music that we played was, which is fine,
and then I just click except so so it stays
on Facebook. They don't take it down because for there
was a little bit of a period where they would
actually just.
Speaker 3: Take it down. Now they don't.
Speaker 1: And with YouTube, I usually get a notification that just
says sometimes it'll say your video is blocked in certain countries,
but never the US, which is good, and and they
just you know, I can't monetize it, which I don't
expect to be able to anyway, because I'm you know,
it's copyrighted stuff.
Speaker 5: But once they see that you're an actual legit FM
and AM radio station, yeah, they probably like, oh, well,
he has the the credits to do.
Speaker 1: So I think you're right, because I because I used
to get blocked, like on Facebook. They would block it,
and then I would file the appeal and I would
say that I would say, we're a federally LICENSEDUFF and
radio station. But I had this whole spiel, and then
after a while they just stopped blocking it. And then
and then instead I started getting the ad revenue share
of thing. So yeah, but you said so, but Twitch
doesn't give you a hard time.
Speaker 5: So I'm playing something extremely well known, like a well
known bay like five a death punch.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm a god or something that.
Speaker 5: Immediately as soon as you hear like, oh that's for sugar,
Oh that's you know, bullon Parade, that's this.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 5: If it ain't got that, it's good, like anything that's
up and coming. That's why I try this, like, because
I'm one person and I can't get all the way
around America and deep into the bowels of it. That's
why we, like I said, we have the Legion of
Solace to where you can come into any of our pages. Yeah,
talk to us right and say, hey, man, I came
across this band that I saw last night at an
underground show. Here's their credentials, here's what this is. Here's
a good video that you can put upon your show,
or you can just come in and drop the link
in to my radio a radio show. Yeah, it doesn't matter.
As long as it's not something well known, We're good.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was curious about that too, because I could in theory,
I could stream this to Twitch and it's set up
to do that. But the only reason I don't is
because I've just heard horror stories about them being super
touchy about.
Speaker 5: It is what it is. I think it's more along
the lines, especially like if you can fighting it, like
with you having all the conditionals to do so, yeah,
they're immediately like all right, well we'll let you go
and we we'll leave you alone.
Speaker 3: I have a feeling that feeling.
Speaker 5: The only time they've ever bothered me is actually if
I'm putting up a legit video of like, you know,
Loan of Shores and I put up you know, the
hell fire video and you know, actually put it to
where people can go back and rewatch it, then that'll
be a problem. But if it's a band or unlike
up and coming band or local band, it's not gonna
be it's not gonna be matter because there's not on
their registry to be like, well we can't we can't buck.
Speaker 3: There's no stopping that.
Speaker 5: That's why that's why I was like wanted to also
talk to you, like how did you even be able
to get disappeal on that field radio? Because I wanted
to figure out how I can do that same thing
down in Listbord, Virginia in my home because that's literally
what I do. I sit in my studio and I
just go down the rabbit hole and find up and
coming bands and design bands or whoever somebody comes in
and request. Yeah, and play it like we've been playing
a bunch of the bands like Dead by Wednesday.
Speaker 3: I'll play them just about all the time on the
radio show.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I've played Uh, I played Sepsist all the time,
playing now bite what inverter? Yeah, we play all the
inverter guys. You know anybody that we I've ben't come
across personally or just I found a monst going down
the rabbit hole. Okay, I'm playing on the radio show,
And like I said, you're always welcome, And I'm even
about to start on what's up app things to where
you can call in just like on your show. Like
your show, you can call in and talk to me,
and you can do your request per calling and we
can even have a conversation. Because my podcast is whatever
it is about music, whether we can talk about the
whole it doesn't matter what genre you want to talk about.
The Diddy situation. Let's talk about the Didy situation. Yeah,
I geme my opinion on it. Cool, you know, blah
blah blah. It's totally unsensored. And that's the great thing
about twitch too, you can use as long as you
set the the things right where it's you know, saying, hey,
this is supposed to be something that's over eighteen blah
blah blah blah, and then next thing, you know, you
can do whatever you want and talk, you know, about
whatever situations you want. Yeah, because I like, like Will,
I'm a very I'm very I as you could tell,
I'm trying to keep mine my composure about me and
not trying to do anything stupid and just automatically like
I'm on my own radio show and just go at it.
I'm just one of those type of people. Yeah, I'm very.
I don't have no filter. I have no filter at
all whatsoever. So like you, it's even worse when I'm
in the kitchen. I kid you, not even worse when
I'm in the kitchen. So the thing about it is,
it's just we're all here to have fun, man and
live life. And our passion is music. My music is
always in passion. Like my passion always in music, even
when I was in middle school, all that stuff, growing
up with a chorus, the band, everything that I possibly could,
even to the point of getting kicked out about the
music teacher because I'm wearing a Maryland Manson shirt. Oh okay, yeah,
you know what I'm saying. My music teacher could not
staying anybody who wanted to start a band. If you
want to start a band with some trumpets, trumboes, some flutes,
some sacks, He's down for that, right, but he wasn't
for the whole Oh you coming into Maryland, Masster. Sure,
Oh you got a navana, get a class. Yeah, I'll
come from all that. Yeah, it's awesome.
Speaker 1: And you're so you're from Virginia and Bruce, you're in Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: I'm in Massachusetts. I grew up in Ohio. I've been
out here for years.
Speaker 3: And Rebecca, where are you from?
Speaker 7: So I'm from northern Virginia, like right outside of DC.
But for the past four years I was actually out
in Colorado and just recently got back to northern Virginia.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, all right, very good. What what set you
to Colorado?
Speaker 7: Personal life issues. I kind of had to abandon ship
pretty quick and get out to safe zone with momtcha,
and then rebuilt up. And now I'm kind of picking
up the messes of what happened. But we're getting better
and we're going up and good yeah.
Speaker 3: Good, good, very good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you are joining us, we have members of
Legion of Solace here with us alive in studio. What
are some of the things that you that you see
wrong that because Bruce, you had made a reference to
this earlier, you said some of the things that you
see wrong in the in the music scene that that
are part of the motivation for why you're doing the
things that you want to fix or help with.
Speaker 6: The biggest issue is pay to play. Yeah, if you
are providing talent and you are providing entertainment, why do
you have to pay me to do so?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 6: You are the artist in that situation. Shouldn't you be
paid for your art?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 6: So if you're invited, if like Jen, you don't get
you don't get invited to Mosaic with a bill, you
get invited to Mosaic with a hanging hook.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, she doesn't.
Speaker 4: But I do pay an entrance.
Speaker 3: There is an entrance, there's an entrance for you.
Speaker 4: That but but that's the jury show, so.
Speaker 2: Right, right, right, right?
Speaker 6: So, so the the entrance for you is to be juried, correct,
But so so, but what once you're invited to be
on the bill.
Speaker 2: There's no more money, right right.
Speaker 6: So and like so some of the bigger festivals, not
only do they have an application fee if you're not selected,
it's a non refundable application fee. Really so if it's so,
like to take Blue Ridge for example, if they're booking
one hundred and eighty six bands for the four days,
they might take six hundred applications. Now, of those six
hundred applications, they might only book forty of the small, independent,
unsigned bands. So now that's five hundred and fifty bands.
That just gave seventy five dollars application fee per band.
Wow that they don't get back. Now, how many gigs
could they have driven to for that seventy five dollars?
How many meals could they have bought while they were
on the road for that seventy five dollars?
Speaker 3: Rightactly?
Speaker 2: That that's where we come in.
Speaker 6: A lot of these promoters, especially like at the merch
table things like that. My opinion is the venues are
making a nice up charge on the liquor at the bars.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's where they make their money.
Speaker 6: Off, and especially ticket fees, especially with some of the
national acts, even if you're not going through Ticketmaster, Live
Nation or any any of the big demons in the
ticket industry, even like e Tics or front Gate Tickets,
ticket fly, You're still paying convenience fees. You're still paying
a third party just for printing a ticket or putting
your name on a list, and that that has to stop. Yeah, Like,
I understand that venues need an income as well, and
I understand that the service fee has a purpose, But
why am I paying a nineteen dollars and seventy five
cent service fee on a thirty five dollars ticket?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Well, the thing is too if you if you buy
tickets online through Live Nation, Ticketmaster, it's the same thing spent.
Like for a big tour. Very often, you have no
idea what that final price is going to be until
you get to that last screen and you might be
going to see you know, you might think it's one
hundred bucks a ticket to see whoever, and then and
it's it's set up, so you don't know until you
get to that very last screen. All of a sudden,
there's all these fees and maybe you bought two tickets
for one hundred bucks and it's gonna be two hundred
total and uh, or you know, you might be savvy
enough to think, wow, it's not gonna be two hundred bucks,
this is gonna be more than that. There's gonna be
some sort of taxes or whatnot. And you get to
that final screen where it's you know, time to click
purchase now, and it's like almost twice as much, right,
It's it's incredible, I mean like.
Speaker 6: That, And it it's pricing a lot of the younger
generations out of the bigger shows and out of the rooms.
So it's also putting our local music scene and our
younger music scene in jeopardy because every day we're losing
small music venues because people are so disgusted with the
way that it's going on at big music venues sure
that they're just walking away from live music altogether and
just and they're going back to the grassroots, going back
to the bar, sit down, have a couple of beers,
pay a five dollars cover charge, listen to three or
four quality bands, or like in today's case, it's for
me fast eight quality bands.
Speaker 2: It's what twenty bucks to get in the door tonight.
Speaker 6: If I remember correctly, I believe so yeah, so, and
and they do have a bit of a service fee
at the venue, and it's like maybe five or six
dollars per Yeah, you know, so, which makes sense. You
have to you have to help keep the lights on somehow.
You have to pay the staff, which is which is respectable. Yeah,
but five six dollars service charge is no different than
giving your giving your waitress or your bartender a five
dollars bill on your way out the door, saying thank
you for what you did, right, right.
Speaker 1: But it's not a situation where you're you end up
paying twice what you were expecting.
Speaker 5: Right yeah, right, Well, seeing that's the glorious thing about
all the smaller bands. The band like events is like,
come on now, I'm just like tonight, you get how
many bands you get to go watch for that Bucky
know yeah yeah it's twenty bucks. Like, man, I don't
even know these bands. Why I should I have to
pay this much? Because hell, you know you have those
type of people.
Speaker 6: Right, I just I just want to take a second
and mention all eight bands on the bill.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, please?
Speaker 6: Opening is Diamond Edge, followed by Exception, then Lone Wolf,
James Joint Damage, Hero and The Horror Casting Shadows Dead
by Wednesday, and then Sepsis will be headlining the party.
A reminder, doors are going to open at five, music
starts at five thirty, and it's going to go almost
continuously until roughly the eleven o'clock hour.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, very good.
Speaker 6: And a tomato tomato, taffaa tafeta. Either way, it's easy.
It's easy to find at one ten Western Avenue in Lowell, Massachusetts.
Speaker 3: I'm ninety nine, it's taffay. We're argument time.
Speaker 6: We have been having that internal discussion since about Tuesday ourselves.
Speaker 3: There is no way you.
Speaker 5: Should definitely hear you should hear our founder Tuesday. She's
like she's trying to say to it's kind of like
she's calling it taffy sometimes. But to answer your question
more so, another reason why we try to do this is,
like I said, I've been on the Blue Ridge two years,
the first two years of and thank god we didn't
have to pay the play. But I've seen everybody else's methods.
Ye go in through this as well as the whole
the whole way of the thing about it is it
sucks because it should not have to go down the
way It us Like we were trying to do a
sponsorship to that we did do a sponsorship to them,
and we made a big giant, you know, drop poster
and all that to be put somewhere where they told
us to do never got put up. We were supposed
to put on the big teleproperters, teleprompters with our picture,
you know, our logo. We was actually put upon the
you know Savenger Hunt and all that stuff, but every
nothing was properly advertised. We want to stop that because
if people are paying to help you run this thing,
our our thing for legion assoloshould have been up instead
of at art. I have pictures of it where it's
sitting at our tent site. Because they didn't want to.
Nobody was communicating well enough, nobody was doing their job
per se.
Speaker 1: And just to be clear, this is something that you
paid for, yes, like out of podcast yes, and what
did they have an excuse ready for you?
Speaker 5: We didn't even say nothing about it, like the next
year that we tried to go do the same thing again.
A Well, we need to have an insurance policy, especially
if you're going to have a vendor setup, whether you're
selling selling something or not, you need to make sure
that the insurance on it is what a meal.
Speaker 2: I think it was two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that we haven't had an insurance policy on just
our of us.
Speaker 5: One of the set up spot to bring the information
to people who love unsigned bands and up and coming talent.
Speaker 6: And it was literally or just in case like somebody
fell down and hit their head on a table or
are or like our our ten by ten canopy blew
away and hit somebody, which twenty twenty three would would
have made a lot of sense for that policy.
Speaker 5: Right, which I understand it's understand about how some kind
of insertience policy, but it's all depending on what you're doing.
Like with us, we're more like you come into the
you know, coming into a new state, and it's like, hey,
here's a welcome center. That's pretty much what we are
after we get more stuff established. But even so then
we roughly sell most of our stuff online. Yeah, we
were for that year, we were going to push to
try to get more long lives our dot com up
and going and having traffic going to it. Yeah, but
it didn't happen that way because for one, they didn't
put our banner anywhere. They didn't have us up on
the on the big teleproperties which were supposed to happen,
what three times every third band?
Speaker 2: Okay, three times a day all four days.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, for every third band on each set of stages.
It's supposed to go three times a day. Yeah, we
had ever happened.
Speaker 2: We had a group of fifteen people not a single
eye sawt Oh wow.
Speaker 5: I mean literally, we have friends that we that me
and Becca know from going to multiple festivals that we
were like, hey, if you see it, sap a picture,
text it to me, even though it might take the
whole rest of the day to send it to me,
because we're around.
Speaker 7: So many people, not added like another eighty set of
eyes just from that individual group of people that I
was hanging out with. I was like, keep an eye out,
no one.
Speaker 3: So that's the saying, we.
Speaker 5: Want to stop that thing because that's something that you
can easily be bypassed and that none of us could
see because we're either we're in motion to another spot
or you know what I'm saying. We want to stop
the n needy not necessarily even if it was that's
a problem. Sure, we don't want it to happen anymore.
And then once we once we establish our own thing
of doing our own concert thing, that's where we wanted
to be. You want you to come in, live comfortably,
drink it the water. Relax, he's talking to your show.
We might even have some crew that will help put
your equipment up there after you set it up there
to where it makes it quicker for you, whatever the
whole point about it is. And then at the end
we hand you some money. Yep, as long as you're
helping to push, promote and all that. Share share share
share share that brings a lot more and the whole
another thing. Competitiveness bands, that's another thing we want to stop.
We want everybody to work together. We want to prove
to everybody there's enough out here for everybody to get
their their dreams desired, right right. There's no need to
sit here and fight like, oh well no, no, we
don't need that, man, because they're gonna outshine us tonight.
Because my voice is a little rasping. We just did
three shows the other night, you know, and I'm hitting
you with the you know how you're doing the all
faith you know voice. You know what I'm saying, like,
oh well, whatever, so be if that's what happened, y'all
did a great show tonight.
Speaker 3: Everybody has an off night. Stop the competitiveness work with
each other.
Speaker 5: Stop saying well they're not just because they're not in
our genre and we're doing heavy metal with the growls
and screams, and they're they're more clean vocals, like like
I saw knock Fest. It was Behemoth, but you're a
slip knot bowlbeat.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I was security for that concert show because I was
my first official paid job, and I don't know how
many fights I had to stop that night because Bulbat
and Yep and.
Speaker 3: That, and you got a slipknode like come on, And.
Speaker 7: The biggest thing was like personal from something not themselves.
That was the tour where everybody started like fighting each
other and like hitting each other with all the spikes
on their jackets and everything like that.
Speaker 3: So I didn't hear about any of this really.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so it got really bad. I think the show
previous to the venue that I was working at was
like down in North Carolina or something like that, and
people started grabbing their umbrellas and beating each other with it,
and we don't, like, that's not a part of our crew.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's just crazy what we've all seen experienced in
our time of being is because before I met back
and she was traveling with our peoples all the time,
going to festivals more than me. I didn't start going
to festivals until well know, like eight nine years ago. Yeah,
you know what I'm saying, and fell in love with it.
I said, screw one night, or I'd rather pay that
money that you would pay to have the VIP event
all that stuff and go literally stay there and camp.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because that's.
Speaker 5: It makes it that much more memorable, that much more
fun that you could meet new people that are in
that world. I have just about every friend I've met
I've met at an event. Yeah, and I've been really
good friends except for like my childhood friends. Yeah, so everybody,
like every time I go to a festival, it's a
new friend. And I've met a new person in a
new state, city, country. You know, it does not matter,
you know what I'm saying. That's the whole point. We
want to communicate and do this pretty much like how
it was back in the day. Hey, Ozzie, you want
to come play with you know, Jimmy and you know
everybody else. Sure, I'll see you on the next flight.
All right, Cool, we get it done. You see what
I'm saying, we wanted back to the way back it was.
It was much more or easier back in the day
than what it is today.
Speaker 1: Right right, Well, Ozzie might not show up, though I
wouldn't depend on him.
Speaker 3: I mean, well, I mean I guess if he's if
he's still having that ant addiction, right.
Speaker 1: Dirt.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love the dirt. Jenny and I watched that.
Speaker 5: I love that.
Speaker 3: I love that movie. I fell in love with it.
Speaker 5: And also, you know, the longest little wristband I ever
had was a Moley Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: For the longest time.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I mean I'm a big fan of the
old I grew up with a band right behind my
my grandmother's house.
Speaker 3: Oh really yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean when I was saying, I would hear them
playing everything from clapt Into you know, Disturbed to whatever,
like they were just very eglected to what they do.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you are just joining us, we have members of
Legion of Solace here with us live in studio on
this Saturday morning. It's a very special Saturday. Tonight is
Swarmy Fast at Taffia in Lowell, which looks like now
have any of you been there already I have, Yes.
Speaker 3: You have.
Speaker 1: It looks from what I saw online, it looks like
a nice place.
Speaker 2: It's it's a nice room.
Speaker 6: It's very it's a very dark room, Okay, I have,
in my opinion, has very much an old speakeasy feel
to it.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 6: It's kind of a galley down one side where you'll
find the entrance, the ticket window, the bar. There's a
permanent merch booth as well that'll will probably expand upon
for all the bands.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 6: There is a small sitting lounge off in the corner,
so if you need to get away from the loud
of the stage area itself, there's some comfy chairs in
the corner. Yeah, and then you can move into the
actual square concert space as well.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 6: But look, look, room looks to hold I'd say just
a gas maybe three to six hundred people comfortably.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, Yeah, so decent sized room. Absolutely is big
stage or.
Speaker 6: Good sized stage, very good sound quality, a very punctual venue,
which I like to see some some venues will be
like yeah, show goes to eleven two thirty years, still
waiting on the headliner. But where this particular venue is located,
it's also around a brewing company and it's in a
residential district. They're in a high rise complex with some
studios and some loft spaces as well, so they to
be very conscious of their time.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I laughed when you said that about the punctuality.
Speaker 1: And because people in this area around Manchester, probably some
people probably remember the bomb Shelter.
Speaker 3: I don't know if any of.
Speaker 2: You were, or I have heard stories.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and yeah, I I remember. I remember playing
there and none of the bands that I were in
were headliners so to speak. But I remember going on
stage at two a m. And you know, being the
only ones left in the room. Yeah, So I appreciate
a punctual venue as.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's there's some There's a lot of stories about
the Bomb Shelter and some of them are some of
them are good stories and some some not not not
that great.
Speaker 6: But while we're speaking about Swarmy Fest, I just want
to take a moment and mention all of the sponsors
yes for the event as well. Not only are we
the lead sponsor and co host for the event, we
thank our family here at Matt Connorton Unleashed for joining
us as well as BPS Records Speed Demon Promotions and
our friends over it and h Guitars.
Speaker 5: Okay, big shout out to those guys, especially for me
because they actually worked on my guitar for me. They
did a great job on it, brought everything back, helped
me out with it because I'm not very I guess
smart with the whole internal part of the guitar. So
I mean, I had to have them check it out.
My thing was making my guitars making some weird sound.
So he was like, yeah, that's some dirt and it's like,
come to find out, you know, it's called dyslexic wiring somebody.
Speaker 3: The person that I got it from, and it makes sense.
Speaker 5: The person I got it from it was a little dyslexic,
you know, so all the wiring was just like it's
backed up. It's like it's still weird, but it still works.
So it's just it's just what it is. But so
I mean, big shout out to Guitars, thank you for
looking out for me. Guys did an amazing job. We
will be also doing a write up about our experience
with going to go see the Spot of Guitars. I mean,
it just made me feel like you're a part of
the family the moment that you walk in. So it's amazing.
Big shout out to those guys.
Speaker 3: And we met them at a show. Was it was
it the first Swarmy Fest? You remember we met the
guys from an Age Guitars.
Speaker 7: Yes, it wasn't the first.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were really nice.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but Paul did mentioned that they were. They were
one of the sponsors of the original swarm.
Speaker 2: A couple of years ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, yeah, I think we were the first.
Speaker 1: The first two was a yeah, might might have been, Yeah,
might have been.
Speaker 3: And that's what we love.
Speaker 5: That's saying that being able to show that you can
come around and work with anybody who is locally doing
something like this like Stepsis, like you know, uh, everybody
in the sponsorship as well as the venue itself. Yeah,
and we see how we all you could all work
together and still make them an amazing show and have
fun and not be so stressed out of pay to
play being on somebody else's time, like strict time was
being like going to Blue Ridge like with us, literally
we there was there was no venturing around, you know,
so we literally had to stay in spot and.
Speaker 3: Wait before our time.
Speaker 5: Just we didn't want you to be lost just so
happen to get caught up with some fans and you know,
waste too much time.
Speaker 3: Yea. So it's just it's just it is what it is.
We like what we're doing and we love what it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now are any of you, because Malcolm
you mentioned you play guitar, Yes, are any of you
currently in bands? Active bands?
Speaker 5: I'm in between bands. I'm working on trying to get
my own one backup. Okay, okay, be able to be
touring and traveling. I was doing it that when I uh,
when we first initially started this, I was still doing
this with Legion of Solids as well as my band.
It was it was a twofer to be able to
help spread the word along the music community to every
other local band that no matter what state we went to,
because we were traveling. We used to go up come
up here to Ficiate Cantina and you know Hellstore, Maryland.
We did the Blue Rays and we went down south
to the Outback, the outback atv Park and all that
other stuff. So we we we've ventured out of quite
a lot of places and a lot of places that
we do show. There's a lot of local bands that
don't even know that. They're like, there's a Mike Connerton
out there that's actually allowing you to go, hey, can
you this on your show? And it's not like, well
you need to give us a commission for playing your
your song on the show, or you need to do this,
you need to go through this, you know wormhole right, No,
it's just legitly you come to us, we want us
to play it.
Speaker 3: Well, we have two radio shows.
Speaker 5: We have Dark Mistress, which is the founder, and then
we have Corcy Malachi, So you have to radio as
well as you can just write any one of us
that's in the crew and just say hey, this is
a band.
Speaker 3: I think you guys should check out.
Speaker 6: We're a far cry from the days where you showed
up at the studio with the studio with the forty
five in your hands of the envelope.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: By the way, we have some folks in the Facebook
live chat.
Speaker 2: So Tuesday faith is is that is our Presa founder?
Speaker 3: Okay, very good?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Tuesday says, thank you for having us and allowing
us to tell y'all who we are. Oh, absolutely happy
to do it. Angel Don stark Uh says, and I
think this is about you, Malcolm. That's one reason I
love you lol.
Speaker 3: No filter about the show that you do. Yeah. Yeah uh.
Speaker 1: And Angel also said Manson yes uh. Chris Queensberry is
in the chat and says yeah, says I keep pushing
on supporting local skies.
Speaker 5: Yes, he's another person who is very hardcore into the
the scene. He's actually a part of a mash team okay,
and like they actually go out and support just about
every band that's around the Central or Virginia area.
Speaker 2: Shout out to the Icon Pit crew.
Speaker 5: Icon, I got friend, I got mad Frans Indent and
it's another lady who actually makes merch.
Speaker 3: It's inside the Icon crew.
Speaker 5: Like, we know quite a few people that are in
the crew that we could, you know, reach out to
the help out and make it even better.
Speaker 6: If you have if you have been to Blue Ridge
Rock Festival, Incarceration or Sonic Temple and have seen the
bed sheet sign pit here flying between two two by
one by fours, that's either the Icon Pit Crew or
our good friends in the Hounds of helmash team.
Speaker 5: Okay, all right, so yeah, we we tryed Like I said,
we try to put ourselves out there as much as
far and as deep as we can't into the news community.
Let people know, like we have a spot straight strictly
for local and up and coming talent. Well, you don't
have to go fight through it. You don't have to.
If you don't want to upload it on YouTube, you
want to play it strictly through us, you can do
that that way. It saves you money in stress of
like how many numbers do we have today? Wilson, You
know what I'm saying exactly, Yeah, like who goes? I mean,
don't get me wrong, I don't like looking at the incise,
but I do because you know, just for my own self.
But the thing about this, it is a confusing situation
to deal with in general, But why not you know
what I'm saying, It's worth it if you know that
you can make it that much better for somebody's dreams
to come true, whether that dream just be one hundred
thousand people hear my music, you know, even if it
is through a playback. People saw all music and like
we we shared to big shout outs to Ireland metal heads.
They allow us coming to their private me and allow
me to share my my radio show over there where
they can come in and actuallyquest something from over there
because we don't know anything there, you know what I'm saying.
But we want to be international, so the only way
we can do that is actually pretty much dig ourselves
into wherever we can.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Evan Gordon is in the chat and says, love you guys,
love my Legion family.
Speaker 2: You see that is our founder and president's husband.
Speaker 3: Yes, oh, very good, very good. All right.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm going to say this correctly.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: Zia, Oh that's oh, Zia.
Speaker 2: Shout out to the prep crew at the Cut Live
and Gloucester.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: Zida says, my friends are on the radio, Love you guys,
Bruce Heberlin, Junior, Malcolm and Becca.
Speaker 3: Miss you guys. Wishing I was there with y'all. Very nice.
Speaker 7: Uh so you can make it out.
Speaker 1: Uh. Brandon Morris that's in the chat, said something I
can't read on the air, but also throwing the horns
just in myles from four HM Clothing I was on
the show recently, says, let's see four HM clothing line
loves y'all.
Speaker 3: Very nice, very nice. Oh.
Speaker 1: Brandon also said this I can read on the air.
I can't wait till tonight.
Speaker 5: Right, very good, hen't wait for the night we both
talked about it's going to be a great party.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, our friend Maria Banish is also in there
and says good morning.
Speaker 3: Good morning, good morning, And I just want to make
sure I didn't miss anybody in there. Well, we are.
Speaker 1: The time goes quickly. We are already approaching the hour.
So remind us anything anything the three of you want
to make sure that we know about tonight and anything
that you want to make sure that we know about
Legion of Solace before we conclude the segment.
Speaker 6: Just a reminder, doors open at five, music starts at
five thirty continues till eleven. If you want to know
more about Legion of Solace, you can find us on Facebook,
I believe we are on Twitter, Instagram, and you can
also find us at Legionosolace dot com. We have a
full merch and a reminder. Any purchase that you make
helps us put it right back directly into the local
music community and help keep entertainment on the stages in
your towns.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, Leason of solid dot com. You said, did
you say the website, yes, w Leason of Solace dot com. Yep,
So everybody check that out and uh, thank you all
three of you for coming in today. Thank you for
having this has been wonderful. Yeah, we'll do it again
in the future, definitely, definitely. I would love to be
back on here, absolutely absolutely. And then we've got BPS.
Speaker 3: Records coming up third hour. Is that correct, Jenny, Yes,
BPS Records.
Speaker 5: Big oh, big shoutout, real quick, big shout out to
BPS Records, because you know, I saw y'all's podcast the
other night and y'all shout out to us, so all, respectfully,
we need to shout out shout out back to y'all
live on the stream too. Why not send that retort
back the same way did you send it to us?
Thank you for shouting us out and letting people know
who are and that we know we're sponsoring this show
when we're here to help.
Speaker 3: Very nice, very nice.
Speaker 1: And uh we'll close the segment with the I'm gonna
play another Dead by Wednesday track. This is one that
because they were on the show with us last week,
it all gets to be a blur. Was the last
week I think it was last week, the last week
of the week. It might have been the week before,
but they were here talking about the show tonight. They're
gonna be uh, they're gonna be playing today. This is
one of the ones that we didn't get to.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: This is called uh Mars in Exile. So we'll close
out this segment with this. But if you are listening
live on Saturday, we have another hour to go. BPS
Records coming up next and Legion of Solace.
Speaker 3: Thank you again.
Speaker 5: You