Lauren and I connected a few years ago and I found out she listened to the podcast! The stars aligned and we finally caught up recently to chat. 

Lauren is a massive emo fan and we chat deeply about her early days playing drums in bands around Glasgow, Scotland that helped shape who she is today. She was in a couple killer bands before this including Boyfriend/Girlfriend and Blue Sky Archives. Both are mathy, epic and remind me of the mid 90s. Find those on Bandcamp. You should also know the other two members in CHVRCHES, Martin and Iain, were in a great post rock band called Aerogramme. Their first release, A Story in White, is epic and worth a listen.

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If you aren’t aware, Anthony’s YouTube channel, The Needle Drop, is insanely popular and influential for reviewing music. How he ended up with this title of Internet’s busiest music nerd, is quite a story.

Recently, Anthony and I connected over the phone to discuss how he got into doing this for a living and what he enjoys most out of reviewing music. Don’t worry, we got nerdy on some real screamo too. 

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Today we welcome Justin Courtney Pierre, who you may know from Motion City Soundtrack, Farewell Continental or The Rapture Twins. 

He recently released his first solo album entitled “In The Drink” that we discuss extensively in this episode and what it took to make it happen. We also chat about his upbringing with friends and family that helped him get into music, his years in speech therapy and the label of pop punk and emo with the band. Plus we talk about his struggles with dependence on drugs and alcohol and what he feels like looking back at those years. Finally, there is a cameo from his daughter that is absolutely hilarious that you don’t want to miss. 

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Today we welcome Ian King, author of Appetite for Definition: The A to Z Guide to Rock Genres. 

This book contains 100s of genres explained and as we will discuss, there’s a way to jump around and learn about other genres by way of like minded artist, genres that connect and specific songs. I had the honor of being interviewed for the book and you can guess which genres I was a part of. We talk a lot about genres in general, his take on emo, upbringing in Seattle, finding out about punk and his amazing homemade emo shirt he was wearing during the interview. 

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The band is celebrating 20 years of The Moon My Saddle with a few select shows and it was time to get David on. This podcast episode is a lot about redemption and letting things go as times pass. One of those is an amazing quote on The Moon My Saddle when it first came out in Alternative Press. It says “David Moore on this record makes Huey Lewis sound like the king of the Delta Blues.” Then, 10 years later, Alternative Press does a big feature/interview on the band. Some things are ahead of their time. David’s father drove his motorcycle across the United States to Los Angeles, California to try and make it as an actor. It never materialized and he came back to Indiana to raise his family. David also made that same decision after Chamberlain broke up, deciding to hang up the music and stop chasing the dream and get on with his life. It wasn’t entirely that simple as you’ll hear. We talk about David’s approach to music, the initial response to “The Moon My Saddle,” the band’s downfall and what David did after that. Also how he’s looking at the upcoming 20 year anniversary shows from that album as an adult versus the boy that first toured those songs. “If this was just about nostalgia, we are self-aware enough to know that we wouldn’t want to do it.” Not a bad way to think about it. 

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Today we welcome Eric Melin from Ultimate Fakebook. Ultimate Fakebook are from Kansas and were on the amazing independent label, Initial Records. They toured with bands from the era including The Get Up Kids, At the Drive In and Motion City Soundtrack. Eric also was in a couple bands before that called Truck Stop Love and The Dead Girls. He’s also a film critic alongside his day job doing marketing/social media and he’s also a world champion in air guitar, which we start talking about as the podcast starts up. 

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Today we welcome Dave Brown. Dave helped start a zine called Muddle, co-founded Better Looking Records, did some marketing and PR under the name Holiday Matinee for your favorite bands and now lives in Seattle and works with Microsoft. Not a bad ride and for someone that was there in the moment and took advantage of what was around him. A truly great chat with someone deeply connected to the inner workings of the scene. 

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Today we welcome Ryan Grisham from Mock Orange! They’re back in the news a bit as they recently announced a 20th-anniversary tour for their very much loved “Nines and Sixes” album. Ryan and I talked about the band’s changes, their high profile producers they’ve worked with, how they were a midwest band but never really toured in the Midwest and their life in Japan that kept them going. Mock Orange should be your favorite band, I hope it is after this episode. Finally, we’ve named the episode The Unknown Blur. You’ll figure it out by the end. It’s pretty beautiful. 

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Today we welcome Chris Popadak from Hawthorne Heights. Chris has been drumming with the band as a touring and session member since 2014 and joined fully last year. We connected because we’ve definitely used Hawthorne Heights as an example of when emo goes wrong and Chris wanted to set the story straight…. When we spoke over email he mentioned that he was into a bunch of the older stuff, the band knew they weren’t emo and to let me know they are still a band! Plus they haven’t stopped being a band, releasing a bunch of music independently, since the emo boom in the mid-00s. Their latest is on Pure Noise Records. Chris or “Poppy” as many call him that know him well, was a great guest and spoke honestly about being a musician with a band with one big song and how far that can take you and what doors it can open. He’s living the dream. Coincidentally, he is from Ohio.

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Today we welcome Nathan Hardy from the band Microwave. Microwave just finished up a little run with Jimmy Eat World and The Hotelier and it was high time to get Nathan to chat. We talk a lot about being labeled emo, his struggle and acceptance of growing out of the mormon church, being homeless for a time and feeling like a big kid when everyone else moves on and “grows up.” I remind him that Microwave is a horrible band name for SEO and Nathan searches his band name on Google for the first time. He also goes in depth on what the next album will be about. The DIY spirit is alive and well with Nathan and Microwave. If you aren’t familiar, check em out then dive into this interview.

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