Logan Olivero
Central Texas may seem like an unlikely spawning ground for a symphonic black metal band, but long-running Vesperian Sorrow is turning the tide. Singer Logan Olivero joins us to discuss latest album, “Awaken the Greylight,” his wide-ranging vocal influences, his proud affiliation with “the worst band in the world” (Complete, look ‘em up!) and the time his Texas hospitality “backfired” on Polish metal band, Vader.
Created and Produced by Jared Tuten
what's up everybody metal Dave here along with my cohost Jason McMaster bringing you another episode of the talk louder podcast today we are joined by vocalist Logan Olivero of Vesparian sorrow they are a central Texas symphonic black metal band I guess is maybe a fairly accurate description they've been around for a long time since the mid 90s Logan is a recent addition I think he's been with the band since about 2019 or so their current album is called Awaken the Graylight it's out on black lion records out of Sweden you can find it just about anywhere just go online look it up Vesparian sorrow Awaken the Graylight really interesting dude very creative he's got his hands in a lot of cookie jars and it was fun talking to him finding out where his inspirations come from he seems to me like one of those guys that starts a lot of projects because his mind is always racing and sometimes he finishes them and sometimes he puts them on the back burner and comes back to him but he's never just idling it's just constant barrage of creativity it sounds like correct I think that he's um one of these sort of savants but when you meet him you just he's just a dude until you really start asking him about what's going on in his garage you know what I mean you open the garage and it's like holy shit you know I'm talking about his mind and his instinct as far as being a creator I have worked with him we talked about it a little bit but I've worked with him a few times done shows recording studio he's on the Texas metal outlaws record that guitarist from igniter Robert Williams put together with a bunch of different artists and has pretty much everybody on it and Logan was on that and when I heard him sing my mind was blown I think he's done some cover song stuff some parody stuff that I was involved with I think we did a parody of I don't remember what record it came out on shit it might even been on Texas metal outlaws I just don't recall now but cover of that's what friends are for like Dion Warwick that's what friends of yeah and he he I think he was the mastermind behind that and I got asked to put a verse and a chorus on there should it's fucked up man but those that's kind of where his mind is and I guess you know that it makes sense right after meeting him and talking it makes sense that he would come up with something like that right so there's you know a few different facets and styles the hangman's curse project we talk about at some length here which is his like spaghetti western doom death metal bands barely metal but it's such this weird concoction of you know priest robes and hoods with cowboy hats and hangman's noose around their necks and they're playing this you know like kind of twangy all minor key sludgy kind of a thing and all the themes are are like a you know hang them high and a fist full of dollars and you know old scary sound it yeah yeah the guy is the guy is deep and I have yet and I say this a few times I've yet to hear the the latest Vesperian sorrow record which I had the honor of I've performed actually Dave I don't know if you knew this I've actually performed on a song on a Vesperian record in the past and the past yeah and I believe Erica who I replaced an igniter is also on might even be the same song or a different song on the same record where we were we did some cameos on a Vesperian sorrow record which is another really cool sort of lag on the monster if you if that is Vesperian sorrow I'm really glad that they I like Donnie a lot the the long stay singer that Vesperian has had it seems to be there this kind of collective as well as there's you know two main guys will the guitar player and Chris the drummer but they Donnie and Logan are friendly so there's this whole working together to create this thing that is Vesperian sorrow but apparently this new record has all of these different and Logan explains in depth about what's happening but seems that they have created this where do you what what box of metal do you put this in yeah yeah there's a lot going on and and he may talking about a way can the gray light sorry yeah yeah and I thought it was interesting how Logan because basically the band the band itself was not on hiatus but I think there was like a 12 year gap between recorded output so there was this huge gap but the band was quietly still working on material behind the scenes they just weren't releasing anything and then Logan steps in and as a singer and a lyricist and obviously a very creative person he either took it upon himself or was tasked with the idea of sort of connecting the dots from the previous recorded output and bringing it up to speed on awaken the gray light so he's kind of bringing some of the characters from the past into the future or the present rather and so I thought it was interesting that there was this much thought going into the idea of keeping this ongoing theme going for so many years when they could have just maybe put out a record said hey starting today clean slate let's go they felt that it was important to hang on to some of the history that they've created and and put in the time and the effort to sort of again bring the themes and some of the characters up to the present on awaken the gray light so a lot of thought gone into how they were able to focus with where where Logan is coming from is amazing and amazing feet and after every all you guys meet him you'll understand we had a little bit of of Wi-Fi issue on his on his end of things but it's tolerable you guys are have all have been cool about it I should bring that up that you guys and I speak you guys being you listening and watching right now you guys never bitch about our quality control as far as technical difficulties and things like that and we appreciate that because we're just be with some but had man we don't you know it's not it's not about having the best sounding and looking product even though I think that it's okay when you compare it you know this this this project this sort of talk louder thing that we've been doing for three years we just crossed over two hundred and two episodes and with two thousand subscribers and it's not really about getting high numbers to us it's about having interesting conversation with characters that or artists that we know you like or artists that we just feel like have a crazy brain that we want to have on here you know yeah so so Logan definitely fits all he checks all those boxes and the guy I and I start off with this in the interview today about how great of a singer I mean he's holding back he's just if you listen to what he's got going on and he's not like an over like not a lot of people know who he is and he doesn't have a whole lot of records out there but you're gonna hear as soon as you hear him sing you're gonna hear like five or six different voices yeah because he's a singer he's got guttles you know the black metal death metal thing but the dude can sing Jeff Tate shit you know the guy sounds like a trained voice over slash opera singer who can pretty much do anything with his voice and we we talk about that with him today you'll you some of you will be surprised at what might be his influences and I wasn't surprised at all so yeah yeah yeah yeah well you would imagine that a guy that covers that much ground his influences aren't going to be coming out of one box so I I admit I was the guy that was a little surprised by by some of his influences but the more we talked and the more I heard the more I realized oh this makes perfect sense and then I could think of it in a larger context also going beyond just Logan I mean I listen to rock music and metal and now that I think about it I could you know oh I can I can see influences coming from all over the place not everybody just grows up worshiping Rob Halford it's not just it's not just it's not just I mean other than me that's the only thing I worship this church of Rob Halford card carrying member and by the way you could do worst they grow up through confessions here but you're making valid points and it's it's interesting because not all of his influences are going to be rock singers I use that quote you know generically rock singer oh my influences are Bon Scott and Bon Jovi you know it's not that's that's not it he's not he's not coming from there at all so yeah I loved it it was a great conversation yeah one of those guys I think you can accurately call a true artist you know dabbles in a little bit of everything and does a lot of it very very well so not just a one trick pony happy to have him today on the show Logan Olivero from Vespery and Sorrow on the talk louder podcast I have seen you perform I've worked with you quite a few times over the years and we haven't sort of been on recording projects together yeah yeah we have you know we can talk about that a little bit I just want to kind of jump into the middle of the lake with no swimming lessons and just say this this seems random to listeners and people watching the first time I heard your voice I don't even remember what it was to be honest because it doesn't really matter what I recall was being completely blown away at how good of an of of like a singer you are as in like proper vibrato and proper you sound almost trained and you know whether people know who you are as a as an artist as a singer as a writer as a performer whatever it is that you call yourself because you seem to be just an artist that does whatever to scratch itches that you have yeah the are you trained did you did you go to school for those now now actually I think there's always been like musicians in my family like my grandfather and my mom's side and my mother had been in a few like Mexican groups where she was singing you know Mariachi Ranchero style music yeah but you know me personally I really never had gotten any training aside from just practicing a lot a lot listening to music over the years singing in my car singing at home I think it was always something when when I was a kid I was always doing I guess it put me in when I was a elementary school put me in plays or little musical numbers so and I grew up they they put me in three different religions so I was a look I was a Methodist Baptist and Catholic just whatever was available so they all had singing too so they was put in there you know choir or whatever but no it was just something that I worked on throughout the years and when I started playing music in the 90s I wasn't actually singing I was like either playing guitar bass and singing but the people that we got to sing I was like no no no hold on this is how you do it this is how you do it let me let me go and so it just went in on one of my first bands like I guess I'm gonna be the singer on this one so wow that's interesting because that's gonna be that way that's kind of how it happened for me too as far as I was a bass player all the singers that we always had you know they were just friends hey I'm a singer and they come over and sing and me and the drummer would look at each other and go well we're not singers and we're better than you so how are you the singer you know not that we were throwing stones at our friends it was just it just happened that way and you know you were just forced to become the singer that kind of like you said now I guess it's kind of you get it a better year for it well you know you know you know I mean this was happening yeah this was all happening I don't know about you but for my situation it was happening when I didn't know shit you know I was just 16 and 17 years old and I don't know anything about what I'm doing I can barely tune the guitar you know so it's kind of like you just know and or it's something that I felt strongly opinionated about or I was following my nose my ears you know yeah and it sounds like a similar situation and this could be I mean plenty of drummers and bass players become frontman you know that had no intention of that where where can just this is we're all over the place there's no rules here but where can someone go here using right now nowhere just with the sparian really no I mean any recordings anywhere like thing yeah it's it's I mean whatever is on on YouTube I guess some people have posted like older demos mine and I mean against the plague stuff is some of the stuff that I've had some of the the hangman's curse or the golden saw it's just done like YouTube really and there's some of course like maybe the work that I did with well then the Texas Metal Outlaws with Robert Williams I mean that's on YouTube Spotify so right and just a Vasparian I mean Vasparian has really been my like my way of getting all this stuff and it's similar to like I've known the guys for a long time and they've known me and they're like they're like well why don't you think how come you're not on any projects like you're not on any full-length you know albums like I'm on some you're there but it just really this was kind of like the most work I've done with this past album you know right yeah everything else it's just been a bunch of demos and you know I've had one full length but there's a co-singer on that so yeah so for for people that may not be familiar this is everything's me on this so yeah so for people that may not be familiar with Vasparian sorrow the band's been around since the late 90s but you're relatively new to the band as the front man I think 2019 or so is that right yeah yeah well I mean Vasparian they they're around like 94 they just that's when they kind of really they had another name and switched over around like 95 96 to Vasparian and I bet's where I kind of knew the guys they started kind of doing shows in the south Texas area and all that so I actually join them around 2010 for a separate project and they're like hey we want to do something different we have a bunch of music that we're working on so I spent a good few months working on on some conceptual new ideas and started doing some tracking and then they decided hey I think we just kind of want to do Vasparian you know a lot of there's a lot of mind changing in the band and I'm like no no that makes sense but I can't do it right now so you know maybe you know the time and so and it was very amicable so I'm like oh yeah no that's good yeah you know talk to Donnie and see if Donnie could do this you know and so around 2019 they're like hey we're remember that stuff we're working on okay so we're still working on it and we like to know just if by any chance yeah I'm like yeah no I'm game let's do it and if it's just about done I can go ahead and step in and finish it off so so Donnie being their their sort of longtime singer yeah still involved or not he was involved and to maybe about 20 I want to say maybe 2017 16 okay and they had they had another Phil and vocalist but forget his name he was in a real decent band in San Antonio Jake want to say Jake his name and he was in there temporarily and I guess he had to go and focus on his stuff and that's when they called me I just the stars aligned where I was like I'm not super busy right now so let's go ahead and do this and the stuff that I am doing let me just put in the back burner for right now but well there you know there's there's um you know I love Donnie you know and that's he's the vocalist for Vaspari and sorrow that that I would watch and right and so you know some of the there's some lyrics I mean I wrote all the lyrics to the set album and I wrote this entire concept this this this at spend like what four years creating something that can be turned into a novel and there are some references to stuff that Donnie had put in in previous albums you know so can you tell us a little bit about this just for people listening new Vaspari and sorrow is what we're talking about it's not out it's not even out yet we're sort of getting it's out it's out yeah it is out it's out it's out there awaken the gray light correct yeah it is awaken the gray lights out there oh yeah so to Jason's point though is can you sort of take us from the thematic references that you're you know maybe from the previous era up to where we are now with yeah that's a bit it's it's kind of like when you when you go back to the old writing I think Donnie had a lot of self-contained stories in the albums you know up to I think Regenesis where it was more an entire concept so what I basically did is create a new universe that was more cohesive that brought a brought in all the other kind of little folklore stories from the previous albums and turned them into events it's kind of like if you look into old literature the idea of something like Beowulf being a being a or Gilgamesh being word of mouth stories people that would sit around a campfire so that's kind of what I turned Donnie's stories into like these kind of like tales that hark into a particular event and so I brought them into and I think in the first song of the album second song rather they kind of you see a lot of different names storm winds and all these different things that Donnie had created to explain why we're at where we're at right now with this album as far as the lore of the story so it is the first part of a three part series hopefully we get to those and it was my way of putting pressure on the band I was like hey this is just the first part so we got to do more you know so of course when you talk to the guys and you talk to Will and Chris I'm like so what's Donnie writing about and they're like I don't know I don't know Donnie's thing so I had to kind of go in there and disseminate what was being spoken about and then I said all right let me create my universe and use those as kind of semi-referenced points and at least just use the name of something so if I'm telling a a long narrative about an event or cataclysmic event that happened I would utilize one of the names that Donnie had come up for a song title you know so that's what history actually is Donnie's stories were kind of like what the people in the village would consider it to be you know what their mythology did so it was kind of like yeah like the Gilgamesh approach you know or like you know studying I used to study a lot of old theology and take like a social historical context of what something like the book Revelations was talking about and it was it a lot of it points to Nero the events of the fall of Rome but the Bible tells of you know what I something a lot more you know fantastical right but that's kind of what I did with with at least song number two and then after that allowed for it it was kind of like all right here's what song number tier is it's kind of a catch up of everything let's move forward here's what this new story is you know we're still going to utilize some of these aspects you know regenesis storm winds in some of the other concepts that were we're we're kind of fleshed out a little bit yeah you you you have a background as a bass player and I don't know what other instruments you might play the target area did you bring any music to this album are you exclusively the the vocalist and and the lyricist on this it was for the yeah for first time I was just kind of like bringing just vocals and vocal arrangements and well there are certain times where I say hey give him the guitar record give the bass so I can come up with a vocal melody for that and so the vocal melodies were designed on on guitar they were constructed that way because there are some that ah this has already been written what am I going to be able to like fill in because black metal death metal to put in clean vocals into that can often be a challenge and are you are you are you dead set on a certain vocal style for for this extreme music or you know because I haven't heard the record yet so I know I'm admitting that I'm ill prepared for this chat but it doesn't matter because of your your world is what I'm interested in and not just this one thing but this is part of it I feel like I've heard you use quite a few different voices through different projects and things but on this record is it is it a half and half is it a are you using guttles are you using clean vocals is it is it is it giving the whole gamut ah you know for for for whatever for for whatever poetry needed or you know what I mean because yeah oh yeah this lyric and that lyric might might call for a cleaner feel and vocal tone and then when it gets to this brutality part you're going to want to switch gears and go another way is it is it mix match like that as to whatever makes sense poetically or what yeah it is and it also pushes certain things where there is like you know one would think certain kind of vocals will go here but we don't go that way we kind of say hey let's let's kind of push against that there are several instances of that there's some parts that are like oh of course but that's the thing about Vasparian old Vasparian Chris and Will there's times where I gave him I gave them like four things to work with and here's four different things we recorded them all and then they have to decide which ones they're going to use out of those Will's like well he's not a huge fan of of of you know combining vocals or doing like you know I guess synchronized black metal death metal or he doesn't like combining Chris loves that so we kind of have to we did there was a lot of compromise then I'd go and muck it up further when they decide and I hear said like I don't know it sounds like trash guys let me do another take but there was yeah there was there's within the the clean vocal style there's like five or ten different variations of those so we had to pick which fit well with with with the idea with with the album you know which is not what's not gonna like stick out like a sort of thumb and some did in some were just like fucking do it like that let's let's put that in there this sounds blatant this sounds just like completely out of left field which is fine you know it doesn't have to fit the norms you know with a band that's been going on this long you know we definitely don't have to like fit into a certain little box so there's some parts that I'm like oh this sounds like a black metal part but they said let's do death metal vocals over that let's do guttural stuff and then within each style like I said black metal death metal you know I can go in and you know use a different part of my my throat or you know different part of my mouth you know my head you know you know you know as a vocal you know your head's like kind of like a speaker you know yeah so what style am I going to you know and so you'll hear about like ten different styles within a song layered it's weird and so a lot of the interviews and people from the label were asking me if it's all me I'm like yeah it is you know yeah that's what I've heard you know from the new album is exactly what you're saying and to Jason's point earlier I hear the whole gamut of your your vocal range and ability and so I was going to ask you you know be in a metal guy you know let's go all the way back to when you first started singing and even up to today be in a metal guy I'm going to assume that you have some appreciation for guys like Jeff Tate and Bruce Dickinson yeah yeah Ronnie James Dio and stuff like that absolutely who in your list of vocal idols wouldn't necessarily fit the mold that people would expect based on this type of music do you have any like oddball vocal heroes that you've sort of you know borrowed from maybe even subtly um okay so I used to say that I'll still say it still holds true today a lot of the inflows comes from watching 70s and 80s cartoons the bad guys always had these cool voices you know like Skeletor and Cobra commander and all that that's I mean those guys were were very metal to me but I mean I listened to a lot of like David Byron from the Uriah he loved his voice so to me I was like were you at the show did you go see him play recent no I missed it I missed it and and I it's something another another regret I've been so busy with life stuff you know and it's like I've been and I always find out about these shows like the day after through Facebook when everyone's but yeah David Byron a lot of you know it's the well I mean Willie Nelson grew up listening a lot of Willie Nelson a lot of trying to think Elvis of course is up there grow up listening to that so all that really gets incorporated Arthur Brown Wow I love Arthur Brown's vocalist so a vocal so I tend to there's little things that to this day where I'm listen like what the hell is he doing in there you know so when it's like none metal stuff there's things like that that that I'm often like you know listening to the vocals and and trying to figure out what they're doing well people are still people are still trying to figure out what Bob Dylan is doing yeah thanks Robert Williams was showing me this video one years ago him doing the we are the world and it's like this whole like 30 minute session of him just trying to do one line you know that a music choice yeah that's really really fucked up and strange to me that you brought that up because before I came in here I was watching that special that documentary have you seen it's called like the greatest night in pop or something it's pretty good it's a full it's fucking excellent it's like the biggest stars from 1984 85 and Scott it that's what that stuff Robert Williams is talking to is showing you sending you videos of yeah of Dylan trying to and they show him and and they put him right in the middle you know he's standing next to fucking Prince and Diana Ross and and you know what I mean the Stevie Wonder and Stevie Wonder there so he's just like staring in space and not singing anything and everyone else is just going crazy nailing it and he's just so that him pulling being pulled aside them trying to show him how it's gonna go I think he was just nervous I think I think Prince was actually a holdout because I think that was one of the takeaways from the whole time and he was he was one of the biggest stars of the day but he chose not to participate for some reason I might be mistaken but I feel like I remember that as like sticking with me but yeah you're right they isolated Dylan and they're like okay and Lionel Richie by the way is in charge of corralling all these people yeah wasn't he there I was him and Stevie Wonder where they're just coaching him on like yeah all right now and they're very given a lot of like positive feedback to him Bob really good let's do this again let's do this again he just needed to be reminded he's Bob fucking Dylan and he can do whatever he wanted as long as he got the phrasing right it be fine so the cartoon voices you know yeah see he's a character but he's not he's not he's not he's Bob Dylan there's only like Gargamel one Bob Dylan right I like that Logan brings that up I don't know that we've ever had anyone on the show who cites cartoon voices as a as a vocal and oh oh hold hold the phone I you talk about Scooby-Dee all the time my lessons I well I always thought that like Paul Bayloff yeah original Exodus singer the way it's a part of a part of a part of a you know yeah and I always thought that that was like excuse me if you really listen to it he's doing like Scooby-Dooby-Doo he's not really a singer he's a vocalist so he's doing this he has this high thing and he's got this low guttural thing he's like shouty thing but he's not like going you know ba ba ba and ta ta ta he's using everything in between big and you listen to the next song and he does the same thing but I really love from Manila Road sounds like Skeletor like just dead on like Skeletor yeah yeah and I always thought that like early early death metal um what were voices taken from the for lack of a better term the possessed zombies if you will from evil dead yeah just sort of burp and slurp you know yeah like Killjoy that's what Killjoy sang like all the time yeah what was it um I would say one of the first death metal songs to me was that Emmett Otter's Jugband Christmas the River Bottom Nightmare band yeah you have that bear that comes out and they're singing he's like River Bottom Nightmare band wow and that song Jams that that that that I always wanted to cover that yeah that was like that was 70 that's another good vocals I like a good singer songwriter Paul Williams oh my god yeah this guy writes the saddest songs ever yeah very interesting influences full full circle hill bro what I was going to say to finish a thought um in in my lessons I you know young singers that come in you know it doesn't matter age uh but they're their kids for the most part one of the things I asked them I say how long have you been singing you know they say never or you know I sing in the car in the shower at church whatever right and I say can you do cartoon voices and they flip out because they're not realizing that a lot of rock vocal is truthfully based off of you know what you can do like silly shit you can do with your voice that you realize you're just doing Mickey Mouse all the way down to Cookie Monster yeah yeah you know I stand corrected you're you do say that often that you know that the Scooby Doo element and you know now that we're talking about I can hear like Popeye and stuff like that in a lot of Bond Scott is popeye yeah that's Popeye yeah exactly yeah yeah that's Popeye shit yeah exactly and it and he and he was one I mean dude what the fuck is David Lee Roth doing on the first Van Halen record yeah that's in that's in that's mad scientist shit and he didn't even realize he was creating a whole fucking thing uh with just all of the the the you know you know whatever he's doing yeah he's like the craziest shit he is he could have been a cartoon like you know voice actor with the amount of voices that he's able to like do you know David Lee Roth was just amazing at that yeah anyone who hasn't done it yeah they need to do themselves a favor and listen to it's on YouTube the acapella vocal track for running with the devil yeah oh yeah it is the best shit you'll hear all day all week all year and it's mad genius it's fucking unbelievable of what's going on there and so yeah it kind of ties in with exactly what we're talking about speaking of voice over don't you did I read that you do voice over or did voice over stuff yeah I threw that in as just a little I did actually it was weird I moved when I moved to this area and I wanted to go into voice acting I gave up right away but I only did a little because the competition is super high and but I did stuff for like Whole Foods so funny wow well sorry for Whole Foods and they they were kind of turned off at first because they said I didn't sound Hispanic enough they were inferring that Hispanic sounding person so but no I modified it for him like what do you want you want he's still late he wants South Texas you know you want some guy from Arizona that looks like Snoopy's cousin you know like right like what do you want and you know like no when I go over to you know get the groceries with my family you know like you gotta get you know I was like you know like what I love that and the guys like asking me if I could do different voices you know I was like it's hard when him I'm asked to do it but I'll you know he was asking for Homer Simpson and Regis Feldman you know wow all with me but I was like yeah I can do a bunch of that stuff but it's I'll have to just be it's like spur of the moment you know I can't write on you know I still I still choke even on stage I still choke you know so everything has to be kind of like fresh and spur of the moment if they if I'm on stage in someone's system and like hey remember it's so when so is birthday I'm like oh shit that'll like and that'll be in my mind the whole time that's totally normal action yeah and then I'll forget to do it and then I'll see the person that asked me to do the shout out now I'll run away from him because I knew I realized I fucked up and didn't say happy birthday to grandma you know yeah or saying remember to thank the band before I'm like oh what's the name of that fucking band unless I know the band you know that's that's the thing I fear the most so I'll have to take notes and put them on the stage on the set oh dude welcome to my world that's no it's normal I've realized that it's fucking normal like like there's notes on people's set list I'll see I'll come up after them and I'll see their set listen it says hey don't forget to do your laundry after the show tonight it says it on the fucking set list shit like that somebody puts down grocery list instead of the set list well so speaking of being on stage are you guys I'm are you are you gonna tour this album or at least do so you got any gigs coming up I know touring is a is a pretty lofty proposition yeah expensive all but any gigs to promote awake in the gray light no we do want to do at least one good album release show and either at come and take it or lost well probably leading to lost well cuz it's interesting who just the stars kind of have to align and maybe when it's not so hot try to do that we'd love to get on some festivals because like touring right now just isn't really I mean post pandemic touring and free I mean slightly before pandemic I mean touring really wasn't what was you know the thing that a lot of bands that had been doing this for a while we're looking to do anymore is just I recommend touring to any band that it's just starting and you're like 21 22 go go out and tour have a good time lose a lot of money and get mad at each other yeah but experience that because you need that you need to do that you just described college yeah it's it's it's and I and I went on my first tour after college so I was like and it sucked but I would never trade it for anything like anything else because that experience really taught me about the business and taught me about what we do but so I'm not gonna I don't feel like we are gonna tour we've had some offers um European tours or whatever like short-term ones but even with that there's just so many logistics that just it becomes this mess and and even so much of not just um not just money but like just there's a lot of mental fatigue and there's a lot of things that you're gonna be jeopardizing you know it's like is this band even gonna exist after we do this you know yeah so we'd love to do something I mean there's stuff like Hell's Heroes which would be fantastic to get on or you know since we have a different sound on the album I mean even something along the lines of prog power would be great because this is definitely the most prog power friendly album we've had I think it's important that people realize the different faces of this of Vesparian who's been around a long time yeah um in this area central Texas and uh has been mainly Chris drummer Chris and guitar Will and I feel like um for the most part extreme metal is the generic term I know but yeah it seems to be you know the needle moves around a little bit and and the way you're talking about this new record I feel like the needle kind of it's starting to almost crack the glass yeah I think it's it is um we call it extreme metal um I say this album kind of because it's been so long since we put something out um I think it uh it pays homage to just 90s style music you know 90s style metal you know from Europe you know it's got a bit of that melodic death metal in there it's got that melodic symphonic black metal and it's definitely got a lot of stuff that reminds me of bands like you know stratovin you know so it's uh it's a very 90s sounding album it pays tribute to a lot of that sound um I'm sorry did you say stratovarius yeah yeah yeah yeah you're you're your your Wi-Fi is a little sketchy but it has weird I don't know what's going on with it hadn't been it hadn't been too terrible so it's all it's all good we're kind of used to it um but but yeah I mean I know exactly what you're talking about now now I really need to go hear the record and I apologize for not digging in deeper you think uh did I was gonna ask you since you mentioned Europe and I hear obviously a lot of very obvious European influences in the music uh do you know off the top of your head what country in Europe might be your strongest foothold or is it just kind of across the board do you have one place in particular that seems to really latch onto you guys we get the best reviews from uh Finland I think right now they uh Finland really likes our stuff and I like finished stuff too I mean yeah it makes sense you know I do like uh yeah I think night wish was out of Finland you know old night wish um they love music and Finland they just love art and music yeah so if it's if it's fucked up meaning you know out of this world they probably like it even more meaning yeah yeah I mean maybe we'll be one of those bands like like man of war that you know they'll play a small little bar over here but you know they're playing like stadiums in Germany or in Germany that's exactly that's that's exactly why I ask because I could see uh you guys attracting a broader audience I think you know Europe in in general just has a greater appreciation for metal and especially once you start adding in the symphonic elements or the power metal type influence or whatever because it's also based on classical and Europe has such a rich history in classical music more so than the United States you know United States has a rich history of jazz and country music and rock and roll yeah but Europe has this blues yeah but Europe has this I mean centuries old history and ties to classical music and I think a lot of uh the type of music that you guys play in many other bands of your of your genre uh I could just see it having a more natural wider audience in Europe maybe than Texas or the United States hey what was the band just for because I'm half brain dead right now what was the band where that you mentioned them earlier and I've seen them live and if you remember I was just totally flipping out on your set what was the band that you guys wore the hoods oh yeah the hangman's curse hangman's curse thank you I even have a t-shirt I really really enjoyed that project yeah um it seems that you only did a handful of shows yeah but I believe that you had some material didn't you make did you have a record I did have a few demos that I put out with that okay I kind of I've had that I mean that project since 2011 2012 wow yeah and I've been I still haven't put out a full length for that you played iron fist fest with igniter and vesparian played I think as well I want to say they did yeah yeah and I think that was the one with uh hell star mm-hmm um maybe aggravator uh uh shit some uh like three Houston bands what was that Texas missed I know that it was that Texas missed yeah maybe militia played I want to say maybe militia played to yeah I think they did I think they played outside um then you guys played outside hangman's curse so trying to describe let me see let me see if I can describe that project today Dave have you heard of hangman's curse I saw it in in Logan's bio and I saw some photos so I saw the aesthetic and everything but I haven't heard yeah is it a three-piece band and you played guitar is that right bass bass I think I was playing bass I started off playing guitar um I've had so many different band members joined that um and thank god for the hoods right you can yeah you can replace the it's uh yeah it was kind of like my idea to create the first like spaghetti Western you know metal band which which I think I was successful in doing and it uh it was way back when and we started just doing just handful shows in the San Marcos area and uh but I was very I grew up watching a lot of uh Italian Westerns and I really I preferred those over the American ones oh yeah because they're way grittier and just these random movies like blind man and keoma and blind man had you know uh Ringo star in it and keoma Franco Nero is some of the the the music really stuck with me there's a certain sound and and one of my favorite composers um uh at the time of course was uh Enio you know but I really started falling in love falling in love with a Bruno Nikolai stuff and I was like what was the other guy that does that like that's the stuff so I kind of was um heavily influenced by uh Bruno Nikolai in this series of movie called sartana and uh and some of the jango movies um sorry I live right by a train so you'll hear that they've been blowing their horn that's all right but uh talking about country western stuff an old train comes by you know yeah but uh you know uh I like I like I mean close to a lot of like um unofficial jango movies they're like hundred you know close to a hundred of those and the idea where you have a character that's almost supernatural that uh you know carries a coffin around uh wow so that's that's kind of what I wanted to project this idea and since you know I've been living in Texas my entire life you know I thought it would be appropriate but it was a fun little thing um we got to do some interesting um you know uh we played with mortise mortise mortise okay uh and that was a fun little set because they didn't his stuff is all keyboards and we got to play and and we're doing this weird spaghetti western doomy stuff epic doom stuff um and uh then um who else do we but we did the iron fist fest um I'm thinking about notable shows um and a few other ones I want to say that uh we're supposed to do some we're supposed to do some with um war beast back before Bruce had gotten real sick you know so and he was a fan of that project too the the point I was making was was that it was just it quickly became one of my favorite yeah I would I was I was trying to make it trend and oh thanks yeah I was pulling I was running into the venue into the inside at that iron fist fest and pulling my friends out you got to come see this shit right now and I pulled Mike from militia in there and we I had him watching he was getting off on it too why we watched your entire set ah wow after your first song and it was the weirdest coolest shit that I had seen in a long fucking time because and you just mentioned it it was like okay you're wearing hoods so you can't see who who the there's no you it's lack of human right you're you're alienating yourself on purpose you are creating this minor cord seated in bluesy country but it's doom metal uh and and satirical not not really laughable to me not I wasn't I wasn't laughing I mean I was just in I was I was probably grinning ear to ear but it was epic and it was uh the strangest shit I had seen and I've never seen anything remotely close to it as far as the spectacle that it was no and and you know guys in cowboy hats and like basically priest robes and hoods playing this doomy spaghetti clean guitar parry my spaghetti western but then going into this like sort of plotting doom shit what are some of the song titles what were your what was your content about in hand man's curse well there's one called the trails without end um there is one called two long years of blood stained gold uh another one that's a movie title yeah that's what they are they're very similar to how a movie would like those old spaghetti western titles are just the you know um have a good have a good funeral my friend that's a spaghetti western title but one of them um was similar to that I think it was uh I kept changing the names that's my problem I'm so ADHD at times that's where I keep changing things and they can never be perfected but I didn't have one called the past as a woman and I buried her at dawn um and a stranger never lost uh yeah there's a few in there that they just have that long epic you know spaghetti um I think the something beware for the hangman is coming something like that there was just things that I can't remember off the top of my head and they're my songs it's funny but um yeah I strove for that idea you know it's it's but I would change them so much so often because I was trying to reach that point where I'm like this is what it is and I think when you saw it that was kind of like the peak of what it was supposed to be and then after that we really didn't do too much pandemic hit and it was just like let me um focus on other things and joined Vasparian and put that on the back burner well that's that's too bad because uh would for someone like having I don't know a Halloween party or something you guys would have been so perfect oh yeah for that and the cool thing is about a about a project like that is you could have played with power metal bands black metal bands rock and roll bands and I think that it would have like gelled with whatever uh sort of motif the club might be or the the package might be going for yeah um and and that's rare um you know my band broken teeth was kind of like that we played with metal bands and we played with blues rock bands and and it was just four on the floor rock and roll but it was kind of scary at the same time um and I feel like you guys had a lot of element um that lent itself to what I described you can play you could play if anything like sort of loud rock you guys would have worked and not everybody can you can give that review if it's a review uh that it carries over like who not every rock band can play with a death metal band or a black metal band because the mixture of uh of listener might not work as well uh but I think that hangman's curse had I don't want to call it gimmick but you had enough uh uh uh uh dressing to to work with a lot of different things and that it's rare that's where I'm going with it it's rare when so whenever I see an act like that I'm like this is fucking great it was like and you know you think about bands that that wear the hoods I've seen like super dark you know cathedral kind of doomy shit not cathedral the band but just you know long notes you know with they'll have a synthesizer and they're all wearing you know similar get up you know they're wearing hoods and robes and it's just very they're just like monks you know or something and uh and then of course you've got midnight it that makes it super popular now and they're they're fucking amazing but their venom meets motorhead so if and that's that's rock and roll I mean venom and motorhead I mean it's rock and roll but once again proves what I'm saying is like with that sort of aesthetic they can you know in midnight plays with old power metal bands and thrash bands and death metal bands and it fucking works fantastic not that anybody stole anybody's idea it just makes me think of the mentors which are not appropriate for every audience ever no but they're fun yeah they are fun and the idea of the hoods with half naked old men wearing hoods playing toilet you know south park's favorite band you know because it's just toilet humor uh seem to carry over I can't think of anybody else that was anyway something like that that uh was you know entirely different but related to so many different things I just thought was genius and I want to command you once again for oh I appreciate it for having such a really cool uh mind uh that that you know is not like everybody's mind I mean um so yeah you you're appreciated for for the things that you come up with and you I feel like you could probably write novels and movies because of your stuff like that I mean they um I'm just assuming that you that you are it's one of the reasons I wanted to have you as a guest as well so I'm glad that we started chatting about it yeah um there's um can you tell us a good show with uh with a member with cloven hoove which that was yeah that important thing for me it's cloven hoove but with the hangman's purse right you completely opposite bands but it was more to me about vanity it's just like I really want to play with cloven hoove right it got their records you know and I love you know they're on my NWBA channel bucket list you know yeah they're one of those uh those underground new everybody's heavy metal bands that not every fan of that genre knows about or has a full record by they might have them on a compilation or something and I think George Call was the singer yeah he was for a while and he's a Texan he's from here in cloven hoove is English now he still hits me up he's still trying to get more hangman's curse merchandise for me so oh really see so it's not just me and Mike Solis and and Bruce Corbett it's it's uh it's a lot of us saw it and got it yeah um really really really fun uh so so you're working on some novellas some you've got some long winded brands that turn into movie scripts what do you got well I guess so yeah I mean it's one of those things that like I'm so busy that I'm trying to like do several things at the same time where if if I could find a place to do with it at I could probably do something like I was like well let me develop small projects that if I come across a good location I can call two or three people and we can get something going with that if that becomes fruitful where I'm able to say oh well people liked it then maybe that can expand and I can create something with a bigger budget that's essentially what I'm doing and trying to weigh out what's uh you know a Roger Korman sort of thing where let me let me focus on something with a low budget first the cheapest of of the cheat you know and and tape that to and using like maybe a fan film or something to that degree where if people are receptive to it on YouTube I can get something funded for something bigger you like this you know how about this is what I really want to do if you like that something like that will reflect on it so right but yeah you know those are different things that I'm making of an experience thing it's it's I already have it all written out pretty much so the two other albums and the side albums that go along with it that's why I spent so much time you know racking my brain for four years because I kind of wanted to be a one and done so when the guys are ready to go at it again I was like all right I already got the concept and idea and some of the song titles ready for this so kind of like when they filmed back to the future two and three at the same time you know it's it's you have it already kind of planned out you know yeah yeah you know it's efficient it's yeah it's interesting you you just jarred my brain a lot I thought for a long time that blizzard of Oz and diary of a madman were recorded at the same time but they were not that what I'm sorry cut off a little bit yeah I um it in my in my mind I recently found out uh that again I and I thought this for years that that Aussie Osborne's blizzard of Oz and diary of a madman were recorded at the same time and they were not oh so this this thing that you have going with Vespery and where you have like ultimately this one and then two other records not in the can but you pretty much have your concepts pre-written yeah makes me few makes just for some reason made me think about you know everything done at the same time and you mentioned back to the future two and three do you think that that possible is it possible that that could muddle the idea to record two two records or make two movies in the same I mean you're like on set for two years or something yeah yeah well it's it's it could but at the same time it does take a long time to develop the ideas for certain things and bridge like I'm a you know I'm a stickler for like uh for canonical like cohesiveness so things need to make sense for me yeah so um I spent a lot of time rewriting and rewriting I'm like no nope and writing diagrams and things like that maps um and if it doesn't make sense uh I had like last minute I had to change the spelling of a particular song so it could match the narrative you know the spelling just spelling um so uh yeah that does if I have the framework for the idea and where the story is going to go already planned out it's less time for me to actually have to like focus for like 10 hours straight and you know and and try to like write and draw stuff about so um it helps out a little bit now I'm just saying I'm a planner but it could be completely different we could decide to say we're gonna go in a completely different direction and that's kind of what one of the ideas was being thrown around recently was that well we want to go back to this kind of black metal and I'm like cool I already thought about that you know potential idea uh that that possibility so I already have like a whole set side storyline that ties into the universe to that I'm like oh okay cool so I got that going um and then they have old material uh that had never been put out like an album and just worth of material for that's a lot more melodic sounding I'm like I already have ideas that are going to be for that for two EPs for a side story that's not involving like the main characters and they're like cool that works out so we are now at a point where it's like they spent a lot of time just in between these albums um just like I guess like uh perfecting what they had um but now it's at a point where like we really need to put this stuff out you know I don't want to wait that long you know 12 years or whatever do you feel like and I'm not asking you to talk shit about your brothers here uh but but do you feel like I mean because I'm I'm talk about procrastination uh you know uh some of my projects haven't put out a record in four years or more yeah so do you feel like you know if there's no deadline do you feel like it's a danger to wait that long you know yeah absolutely yeah you need to have um I need to set deadlines for myself yeah because it it's something that I keep looking um I think that's gonna work but yeah no I think that um you definitely have to do those that put those deadlines on and you may not meet them and you could be flexible it's all right as long as you're giving yourself a little bit of space to kind of work with yourself and you know yourself you know how you can uh react or you can uh work with those uh deadlines well it's other don't kill yourself don't kill yourself if you don't meet them it's other people's calendars as well um which is usually the issue it's if you can get the material meaning the band or the music say you're the main lyricist in any project uh it can be just putting the music together for the lyricist to be able to have you know a footprint to land on top of and then yeah it's a logistic nightmare sometimes as everybody knows Dave knows Dave's a journalist he knows if there's a deadline he's got to stay up all night get it done yeah yeah and I do work you know better with a deadline because otherwise to Logan's point I will rewrite it rewrite it rewrite it rewrite it wake up tomorrow rewrite it again because you're never if you're given that time you'll always find ways in your mind at least to improve it or so you think so you it's hard to you know just shut yourself down unless somebody is demanding that you shut down or yeah time is running out or whatever best advice that was given to be with regards to that was from uh in one of one of my uh it was uh this he was a professor at UT he was an art professor but I was at I went to Texas State and he was one of my painting teachers Paris Smith at Logan you know what your problem is is that you just keep working on all your stuff and you can never find a stopping point and you need to leave your shit alone and he said like leave your shit alone it's done yeah and so I was showing stuff I was like it's almost done but this one is done this one you can use another you know a couple of days on but that's it don't go further that's find it find a stopping point because there's a find a goddamn stopping point you know I've heard people I've heard people say you know when is a piece of art done right and do you know that it's done yeah exactly and I don't know if the artists themselves that's what I'm saying I don't think the artists themselves given the opportunity will probably tweak it forever it almost requires an external deadline to tell you it's done because it's just in your nature to kind of always massage it and make it a little better or a little different or you woke up this morning and now you have a different perspective on it so you try to you know align it with that so I can completely appreciate the need for an external deadline I think in the world of of for lack of a term pop culture popular you know art it took me a long time to learn this but letting the song or the piece of art or the piece of literature you you're writing or whatever let let whatever it is let it become what it's trying to become otherwise you'll be a ranting madman just for days and just going and throwing stuff away and going you see like scenes in movies where there's a creator and they keep wadding up paper and there's a montage and this shitty Hugh Lewis song going on the background now one new drug you know and you're trying to you know I don't know trying to and it's just it's shit is real so I learned a long time ago that you have to just let it is this a butt rock song okay let it be a butt rock song is this you know a thrash metal song let it be a thrash metal you know don't try to that's where that whole shit comes in you know don't reinvent the wheel yeah let the wheel be the wheel and whatever this thing is you know are you making is this a chocolate chip cookie is this a banana cream pie you know let it be whatever it is trying to be and taste like so you can move on to it to something else and I think that um you struggle with that Logan I think that it's something I do yeah yeah well we all do and hey man I tell you I was gonna say I think all creative people are like that to just to some degree or another I was gonna say when you were talking about the the the the the person going crazy and wadding up paper and everything my family gets really nervous when we start watching the shining around halloween because they liken me to the Jack Nicholson character and the shine the kind of the guy that's about to go insane as you know a writer that's about to lose his mind but yeah I could totally relate to that Logan I wanted to ask you there's a couple things you were kind enough to send us some bullet points in an email and there was a couple things that jumped out at me I wanted to ask about this band complete that you okay I hit a nerve I hit a nerve okay so you admit that this is probably one of the worst bands of all time but yes a part of this band and and apparently the band guar is big fans of this band complete so yeah tell me about complete mostly I want to know why do you think it's one of the worst bands I thought I think that I know that it's their but they are the best they're they're they're they're the best okay I didn't reconcile that I want to stay around like 2005 or six I came across them on YouTube and we were hanging out I was actually hanging out with this guy Karen McCloskey's playing this band vets way back when and I was in a band vows and ashes and so a couple of my buddies there where and we found this video on YouTube and this footage that came out from the mid-90s of this band it was just so odd sounding and it was uh it was these group of middle-aged men performing and what looks to be a bingo hall and it sounds like all their instruments are off just the perfect disaster and um and the singer of that band is just so I mean off key and missing teeth and his hair's in a palm and he but he's so passionate and he's doing these amazing stage moves that it's just weaving around the stage not carrying what's going on it's just a beautiful piece of art you know the whole thing put together and it was where I remember just being stricken with with just amazement and wonder and so I become obsessed with them naturally and um and uh they they had I mean they had thousands and thousands of views you know people were putting these comments like greatest band of ever of all time you know so they um I started I found out that these guys were out of Fort Worth so I um contacted I found I found what the guy's name was during the MySpace days and I found uh that this guy this gentleman's name was Curtis Brumbolo and I was able to find his number and I called him and I essentially convinced him to get the band back together and I brought him over to Austin a few years later and became good friends with him and um after about I don't know I had been playing every South by Southwest and and they're just a strange group of guys they're kind of like uh Kurt was the main you know the main vocalist of it it was it was kind of you know whenever I'd hang out with him it'd be like hanging out with Rocky Erickson but with more drugs and it was it was it was just an adventure with him and they um uh from yeah like I said from 2009 on to 2000 I want to say 19 or 20 uh before the pandemic they had done every South by Southwest and I asked Kurt how were you getting on these South by like had several bands that have been trying to go oh they just call me like what do they mean they call you they just call me so and he went and I'm like who calls you what as some guy and we were on there and it's always turned out that they were playing at some nice place or whatever like so they had their fans they had it was like this underground cult fan following for this band complete um I think I met one of the guys that worked with that Pandora radio you know he was a huge fan so one day I was I was uh and I was friends with with Casey um and yet just rejoined Gore and I remember going to uh there's one venue and also I forget the name though on off of uh like Seventh Street um around that area uh or Red River around Red River and um Gore was playing and so they're doing this whole bit and it's it's mimicking complete stage banter and and I was like wait a minute and so I call you know after the show I'm calling Casey I'm like dude is that you know was that complete you guys were doing there all complete stuff he goes yeah yeah the guys are fans that complete I'm like Casey you know I play in that band it's like no you don't and I'm like yeah Casey I play in fucking complete like everyone from Gore is like hey guys Logan my friend Logan he's uh he's he's incomplete and they all came over and like taking pictures with me and asking me questions oh wow yeah so um Gore loves complete they just got they have a weird following completes got weird stories they're like they're saying that they're for a long time trying to get complete at the guarbeque um but it was so difficult for you know to get complete to respond or something to that degree you know it might won't make sense yeah it's complete they're just you know but yeah there there um I know there was like one or two documentaries like being made of them um I do know that one of the editors in Texas monthly was excited because they went over the current went over to the uh Texas monthly bill just to take pictures there and the editor came down because she knew of who he was and she got excited and started taking pictures with Kurt um but yeah sadly Kurt passed away not too long ago a couple years ago so complete is um no longer uh but in complete incomplete they're incomplete but yeah there's a lot of material that I still have what I'm wanting to put out um I do have some acapella stuff that I recorded on my phone with Kurt um wow it's just uh l continue to put out complete treasures um for the next few decades I guess you know just a little surprise us because there are fans and you know people out there that were just hitting me up but it's an interesting listen they're just one of those um they became a youtube thing you know one of those huge phenomenas that um that's still to this day a lot of people can't explain are they trolling people are they you know are they just who they are and their music when you're listening to it sometimes it sounds like old captain beef heart yeah like trout mask wrap and it's so people are like what's their time signature what are they doing and you ask her and I said Kurt what what are you going for what you trying to do and he's like oh I'm just trying to sound like Van Halen I'm like god damn off by a mile but yeah he is that on one his most their most favorite uh famous show he has this haircut like this perm and he said he was pissed off at it because he was trying to get at the time he was trying to get um the Sammy Hagar do you know he said his sister did it for him before the show and it's like it's I'm trying to get look like Sammy Hagar up on stage but you know I'm on a I'm not a Van Hagar fan well people are gonna have to look them up because I never heard of them until I saw that in your email and I was you know immediately intrigued when you were so emphatic about it being the worst fan in the world I'm like I gotta ask them the best worst bad but um you know it's probably one of my proudest moments you know it's like I never got to play stop by Southwest until I played complete you know all the projects and all the things I had done like um and it's it's something that it's to me it's a special kind of like it's uh it's what is music and what is art you know and if these guys are doing something like this it kind of begs to question you know like it's it who uh what are we doing with with our lives what what is all this that we're trying to push for an aim for but uh it's I describe it as like deconstructionism you know it's yeah they deconstruct everything that what we perceive to be and I've known a couple of people that have you know degrees and music and I show them complete and they're just divided on it some of them are just like spellbound by it and others are insulted by it right right this is horrible what the hell man I think they're so mad about it you know something that put that puts it in a little bit of perspective with with you sharing your feelings about you know I never played South by Southwest until I was in the worst band in the world right kind of thing or whatever yeah um hundreds and hundreds of artists uh send their demo material in and their registration fees to South by Southwest every year so South by Southwest just on registration registration fees for someone trying to get someone an intern to press play on material and you know vet all of these artists they take their 20 buck registration fee only to call them and say nope sorry we've we've listened to your material and we think that it's not you know sorry try again next year and this happens this has been happening for years and years and years and years and years and South by has probably made millions of dollars off of this uh racket if you will and I'm not to sound crass but the the where I'm going with the story is is people who submit their registration fee and their their latest demo or their new record or whatever only to get shut down or told another no you know rejection letter kind of a vibe um hey Kurt how do you how do you how do you get in South by man I want to get in South by ego oh man they just call me they just call me yeah they just call me yeah so this is this will give a reality this will give a reality check to to how it really works and and then you and then you go to you know to the the oracle the scholar and play them complete and they're either can justify what's happening you know that it's be this quirky you know you mentioned time signature and obviously it's not just rock and roll it's this this this mathematical fucking uh frankenstein and also this quirky it's what kind of music is that uh it can be appreciated by a scholar or someone who knows music it could be you know from Disney pop princess to to the the craziest jazz shit ever and some and meet in between and go oh yeah that's interesting and then someone else would be like you know tighten their tie and go that's noise and walk on by yeah um well I mean it's it's all it's more than likely a bunch of guys that decided to make a band in their mid 30s and they had no idea how to play instruments and they got high and they got they got fucked up and they they decided to go up on some stage and do that in front of a bunch of people which is wonderful they just like yes y'all think you've got a band this is what we're gonna do all right and there's someone in the audience if you listen closely on one of the videos and the singers that Kurt is so confident and he goes you're all ready for this one and someone just yells out fuck him and he goes hey you say no but listen to this right and they just started off and it's it's just that that confidence that they have and joy you know it's brought a lot of I had a lot of people that actually when Kurt died people hadn't messaged me you know they're condolences you know and I told them they complete brought me so much joy you know wow call it what it is you know but at least you know they did that for a lot of people yeah that's what that's what it's about anyway yeah it is it's what can you do can you entertain people can you create this thing to kind of vex them too you know well you know people are going to say the same thing about the butthole surfers yeah because when you think about what the butthole surfers when they first started out they to me it kind of feels like it was somewhere on the same planet as complete yeah yeah because they called the name the butthole surfers gives you the first inkling you know right right I think we all scratched our heads you know the first time we heard butthole surfers or mr bongol or or as you mentioned earlier captain beef heart you know that stuff that just sort of is a melting pot of all these seemingly disparate elements and then someone has the balls to put it together and throw it at you you know yeah really and your reaction is like oh I you know I've never been here before I don't know what this I don't know what to make of this you either love it or hate it or you're afraid of it or you think it's genius you know one or the other I was the other thing they caught my attention was I got to ask you you said there's a funny story about eating barbecue with the band Vader oh yeah yeah okay so there was you know I shouldn't mention too many names but I'll say my my old guitarist Marco I was in this I always tell people I was in a Polish death metal band which for the most part everyone was Polish and but they're out of Chicago Polish immigrants and Marco Martel was in malevolent creation at time and so we brought him in the van Varian I love Varian he's like a brother to me but Varian was his good friends with Peter from Vader and he basically made that connection to where he can get Marco our new guitarist into Vader at least for like a little tour and I think that's when they were playing with overkill I want to say maybe about 2012 or so you know and they stopped by Austin I said fuck it man guys are hungry I'll go take you all to get some barbecue and so we're ordering barbecue and these guys they loved it they're just like and they I think they had gotten like a second helping or whatever so I'm watching them placed date and they had like they're sweating profusely afterwards they told me that they had they had just like this uncontrollable diarrhea because of the barbecue I was like yeah you eat too much of all that sugar and barbecue so they're like they're not used to it they're from Poland you know it's all like you know you get a lot of potato stuff and all that but when you have all this greasy brisket and and that was kind of my fault you know I just wanted to show them you know some good Texas barbecue but uh yeah they uh they're like yeah you know this is uh we're holding it and squeezing assholes in in in our stage you know and holding it in tight so we are not exploding in pants yeah yeah yeah that's a good one I yeah I had to ask about that because that jumped right out at me we're yeah no we're kids that's I mean that stuff happens on stage where you're like ah am I gonna have to take a piss am I gonna go what's you know so I always try to like every time before a show I'm like I try not to eat heavy at all you know not too much coffee plenty of water but not too much where you have to go piss on stage enough to where you know you're gonna sweat it out you know yeah don't definitely don't drink a lot of beer you know there's a whole thing there's a whole I don't know if you got that Jason but you know well that's it's a good this is a good sort of uh performer's advice and make it as generic as possible there's a window and sure everybody's different but yeah but for the most part uh I give myself a minimum of two hours before I perform though where I don't eat I'm not drinking a lot of water you know it's sure I wet my whistle but that's really it you know I can I can drink as long as I'm not slamming oh I got a hydrate no you know if you're dehydrated it's too late you can't just slam a bunch of water you know that's not how that works is the quarterback gonna go time out I have to pee no it doesn't work like that yeah so I I you know give myself at least a two hour window I know some performers don't they give themselves like four hours before they they have to play but I guess it's mainly singers that yeah because you know it's if you're if your guts full of barbecue if you will and then you're gonna try to sing I mean all that barbecue is pressing against your ribcage pressing on your lungs you've got no air does a basketball player eat you know two pounds of barbecue right before he goes on the court no so it's hard when you're when you're on tour you're eating a lot of shit you like you're eating the worst food that's available to you you know what like little like shithole town that you're gonna land in you know and it's it's it's whatever they got is is it that one dairy queen that's gonna be there is it that one waffle house you know and what greasy food are you and that's the only thing you're gonna have for the next like day or so you know and yeah sometimes people invite you to your their house like hey we got food at the house I don't know why I want food at your house you know I don't know who you are who's been touching the food you know but it's always that you know come on over we got food well believe it or not sometimes it's safer sometimes it's safer to eat at the barbecue at the dairy queen yeah it is sometimes it's safer to eat to buy a loaf of bread than it is to to eat what's available there anyway giving yourself at a window so you're not having to you know so so an accident doesn't happen while you're whether it be it whatever wherever it's going to come out you need to prepare for that not to happen as best you can yeah so I do remember that stage at what's it called that old emos that stayed it up outside you know so imagine them they're playing there that you know they're on that stage trembling you know and it's just gyrating their gut you know the whole time man like oh I still feel bad you know cold shivers yeah oh oh that's the worst man yeah yeah I played that stage a few times I didn't like it you're you're tensing up and you have cold shivers that's not a good look yeah yeah it isn't it is I don't know but it also depends on the band you're playing with if I'm just playing bass and we're playing some sloppy you know whatever mute sloppy music that I'll have a few beers on stage you know well that's a different that's a different kind of a mindset but if it's a if it's some kind of authentic and that has any math to it and it's vigorous on your body the performance you know the whatever it is you're putting your body through much like an athlete you need to be careful about when you eat and what you eat at all times the day of performance that's all it's not a law it's just some good round advice and you'll hear a lot of people that's why you see skinny ballerina for the same fucking reason I guess you know when you think about it yeah hey listen where can people go and and and listen and buy better to buy the new Vesperian sorrow okay so right now you can go on our labels website the black lion black lion out of sweden they have their the whole band cap set up so you can orus i think there's a cd t-shirt combo right now okay cool um so that's the best place to get that they got a few other albums you can get because they did um reissue i think regena um you can get those two if you want you know i might talk to Oliver he's a really great guy he's our you know he's the one that runs a label at black lion so you know he was interested in getting some bat catalog i'm like why not do um you know the whole set you know get it all together but for right now you can get it i mean you could go to target also good target.com and i think on walmart i think they have the album there too um amazon you know wherever you could stream it if you want on youtube for free you know i don't you know you can go on uh spotify and stream the whole thing too also so um it's there i know but through the label we do have um t-shirts available there's like some sort of like package deal so but you can buy the you can buy the cd and the record uh is is available now we're working on the record uh we haven't with a cd's out already oh so the cd's out uh record we'll be working on that uh we're probably going to set up a store and like independently we're going to be doing that setting up a a shop or something uh to where we can sell though so you're you're doing a vinyl release separate i want to do a vinyl release yeah okay i'm set on that i want to do vinyl i want to do cassettes too oh cool wow yeah i mean if i'm doing something that's like uh very retro looking you know a lot of the stuff is very retro based you know the thematically it's it's different you know it's very old-school sci-fi so i want to have that feel and then you know compile some videos in a VHS you know do all sorts of stuff like that go like gray light is the name of the latest release um you can find it basically anywhere uh including target and walmart sounds like band camp is where band camp yeah yeah black lion records black lion records out of spenin let's go on their side and you can find it there right on very cool cool man uh logan thank you so much for spending time with us today man it was great to get to know you a little bit uh you've got a rich history in in music here in central texas and uh it was fun getting to hear some of your stories and uh uh and and check out your new album uh Awaken the Great Light is the latest from vesparian sorrow folks check that out check it out on black lion records uh you can find it online almost anywhere logan thank you so much for your time on behalf of my co-host Jason McMaster i'm metal dave glesner along with our special guest today logan from vesparian sorrow [Music]
