Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: So this is part two of our interview. If you missed the first half, feel free to go back and have a listen. So let's. Let's just hover on Verbal Assault a little bit, and then I want to kind of head towards another part of your life.
Verbal Assault.
I'm going to say this. You're not saying it. You could agree or disagree. One of the rare bands that gets better over time than worse.
Like, one of the bands from record to record to record, as they evolve, becomes more and more interesting and more and more vibrant rather than, you know, demo bands that kind of, like, they're awesome at first and they start sucking.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Yeah, opposite for us.
Yeah. We played out so much so early, so young. Like, we were.
Yeah, as soon as I got that van, my dad.
Coolest thing he did was got a van from, like, a police auction that some.
I think it was some, like, drug addicts had, like, broken into. And, like, we had to start it for the first two months with a screwdriver. And I remember, like, cleaning it out meticulously because I was like, oh, there's like heroin smoke in here or something.
But he got us this van, you know, made like, a loan schedule, so we had to pay it back, which is ultimately really cool. Like, you know, there's a cool move, I think, to train your kid to stuff costs money and, you know, but so, like, I became the responsible dude in the van that would, like, track the money and make sure we paid the van payment and, you know, kept that running well.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: Verbal Assault again. Again. This is. This is me saying it, not you saying it. It's like your band. Your band got.
Your band was always good. Not a bad record, but, like, consistently got better. But also, again, I'm interested in your thoughts. You guys seem to take your band a little bit more seriously than. Than most.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. I mean, we. We left on our first national tour the morning after high school graduation.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: Right. Dude, that's crazy.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: It's not. It's not that punk that we graduated, but it's punk that we left the next morning. And I was, like, building the loft, you know, late. Late that night, so. So, like, that's how ready we were like.
Like the day after we were gone.
And then we.
I mean, we just toured so much and. And we played out so much before that.
And it was a cool, really inspiring time to be on the east coast and to be up and down the Eastern seaboard at all these shows and, you know, to see Bad Brains and kind of their prime, you Know, it was like Bad brains were Grateful Dead to me. You know, anywhere they'd play it, I'd go, you know, within eight hours.
So that it was just exciting. And we were so young and it's all we cared about. And I think I was just funny enough to trick my way into the hearts of all these, like, important people. Basically, everyone except Al couldn't crack Al. He was just too big and tough and muscly and mean from, from afar. I just couldn't, couldn't, couldn't use my charms to get through that guy.
But, you know, like, Ian and Kevin are basically my like cool uncles. And, you know, I mean, Ian recorded my first record and then basically put me on the path of what I do today, which is pretty bizarre.
And, you know, Kevin, Kevin gave us a, you know, you know, Kevin talked Ian into recording the record. He wasn't going to do that bunch of Rhode island little nerds. Our singer would like, have like, little pencil cases and like organized tour briefcases with like, you know, song set list, writing Sharpies and like, it just wasn't. Yeah, without Kevin, Ian would never done that. And who knows where I'd be. But yeah, so we, we were so serious about it.
You know, Chris was really good about passing out like Amnesty International or Greenpeace literature. It shows. And he was really driven. His dad was a newspaper reporter and I think he, you know, I think he had that sort of.
It was just in the DNA, you know, to spread information.
And yeah, the.
I think we got good because we played so much because we got that van when I was like 16 years old in one day. And we were just very driven.
So by the time we got to trial, which, let's be honest, that's the record everyone thinks about when they think about Verbal Assault. We were, we were so just ready and knew what we wanted to sound like. And I was egomaniacal enough to make the engineer do it.
He was like, there's no fucking way you want the guitars this loud. And I was like, no, I do. And Chris would back me up.
So, yeah, it was just young, single minded people just kind of thriving in this really cool community.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: I got three things, two comments and a question. Uh, comment one. Trial is a record that you can listen to in any state, in any mood. You can be super excited and you can listen to trial. You could be super concentrated and listen to trial. Or you could be super, like, kind of like bummed and like down. You can listen to Trial. It's like a real, it's a Real every Mood record, which is cool as hell.
Second, thanks. I'm gonna go on record as saying you have the best guitar tone out of anyone in hardcore.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: Oh, that just little thing I threw together, dude.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: Unreal, right? So here's my question. Why Giant Records? Like, what. What is that? How did that happen.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: At the time?
Let's see, how'd it go?
You know, our first record, Positive Force, Kevin and Positive Force just. It kind of, you know, just sort of fizzled out.
And so our first record was quickly unavailable and we were like, fuck, that sucked. You know, and we couldn't even get copies for a while. And. And no Shade Deposit of Force. They tried, but that, you know, they'd like. I think they had kind of an unscrupulous manufacturer and just that whole 80s, you know, just kind of.
We. We had the. The feeling of, you know, a record that becomes unavailable quickly. And Giant came out and it was Steve Ricardo, really cool dude. Had a very clear vision. It was shockingly us.
Dagnasty, Uniform Choice, even a little later and Government Issue and.
And then some other bands later. But.
But he, you know, he kind of put his eye on these, you know, that like, that's a coherent, coherent lineup.
And, you know, he pretty much had me at Government Issue. And then with Dagnasty, it was like, this is.
This could be a really cool thing. It wasn't as indie and punk is a lot of stuff, but it felt like, you know, could be a. Could be a very smart, smart move. They had good distribution because of Dutch East India, and it felt like a potential smart fit rather than.
I mean, we didn't actually have any. There wasn't anyone else, hey, we want to put your record out at the time that I can remember.
So it seemed like the best option. And we had like a lot of those songs we'd had for a long time and were like, didn't literally didn't have a label that. I can't think of a single label that was in. In play at the time. And so yeah, we. We did it. The. We signed the thing. They gave us 5,000 bucks to record, which at the time was insane.
We spent all of it and then somehow that fucking label fizzled out too and Trial became unavailable really quickly again. And. And we still this day, the exact rights of that album are still a little dubious.
So that happened to us again and should have listened to Yan Makai and not done that. I don't think he told us not to do it, but, you know, in spirit he did.
He listed all the pitfalls of going that route.
So, yeah, Verbal, that. That's. I mean, now as Verbal Salts started playing shows again a couple years ago, and, you know, it's pretty obvious that not having your records available out in the world for 30 years, not good for the band, you know, so it kind of shows that if we had available records for the last 30 years, probably be a hotter night out than it is.
And I'm very happy with my old band, but it's a bummer that our records kind of befell that fate.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: I saw you guys in New York. Monica and I flew out to catch the second show, and it was, like, phenomenal.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: Didn't know you were there.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: Well, I didn't know you at the time.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: I was not right up front. And it was great because it was like a class reunion for a lot of my. A lot of my buddies from all over the west coast were out to see was really cool, really special.
Yeah, it was great, actually. I was supposed to.
Anyways, long story short, I want to hit a next chapter, but let me tell you, my favorite Verbal Assault record is on.
It is. Oh, my God, dude, that record. I could go. I could go on, but it is phenomenal. But even. Even up to and including Exit, like, just interesting. Cool band went on, explored a lot of stuff. Then you moved over to D.C. to go into college. And I want to kind of bring it back full circle here. And we talked about business, and I kind of use that term and please, anyone associated with Discord, forgive me. I don't mean it in a negative way, but, like, the discording of, like, how do we charge for things as punks?
Like, there's no.
One of the things I talk a lot about on the podcast is those guys just kind of being like, oh, well, how do you make a record cover? And then just taking apart covers, making a template, cut it, like, screening it, cutting it out and assembling it.
And how if you tell the story now, it doesn't sound like that big a deal, but that idea that back then there was a whole industry, and that whole industry just seemed like, well, that's the record industry, and if you want to play in this, you got to go there. And they were like, no, why don't we just figure out how to do it ourselves?
And I know that they're not the only people all that, but they're the people we're talking about now. That idea of taking apart a record cover and figuring out how to screen it and do it and get your records pressed and charge whatever you want to charge. Yeah, that to me is the template of almost any kind of business. Like any business out there, you could essentially take apart the record cover of and figure out how to do your own version of it. Any thoughts on that before I go further?
[00:11:44] Speaker B: Just the phrase backwards engineering is something I use a lot in my life where I do it a lot. Take shit apart to figure it out.
And that aspect of the early days, simple little thing. But I can tell you've identified it kind of like I have as like a.
Just like it's like the first crow with a stick or so. Or the first.
It's. It is big. It's very fucking big to figure out the tabs and like. And Jeff was smart enough I think to figure out all the registration points, which I.
I still don't know much about that but.
But it is, it is like a DNA kind of moment to me where like that. That is the seed sprouted into the. The whole thing.
Yeah, it's. And it's usually a couple smart or sometimes just lucky dudes, but to have like Makai and Jeff Nelson, like the brain trust that just started the most organized, like coherent curated label, just a blessing on our fucking whole lives to, you know, it just warms my heart.
That's kind of what spawned it totally.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: And going back to the beginning of our conversation, it's like kind of a template of how to. How to do business, but like do business and not be an asshole and like be smart about it. Because very like what they did was like, I know they're kids, so I'm like, I don't want to like try and rewrite the story to fit my narrative. But seeming now many years later seems very smart. What they did, like quite like, like thought out to a degree. And I use a term like when I'm. So the way I started my business, I. I worked for another company and I was kind of like tricked into working for this other company. It's long story, I won't go into it, but I was working for this other company and it was ran by a total asshole and like a total rich kid who had never worked in a normal job anywhere, grew up in their parents rich kids.
Well, listen, I think you can grow up with money, that's one thing. And then I think you can be a rich kid. And it was ran by just this rich kid total asshole. And the way he would talk about things was if anyone was ever like, hey, maybe we could do it like this or do it, like, that was like. Like, you're an idiot. You. You don't get it. You don't. You can't get it. And the whole time I was in that company, I was just observing this guy who I just deeply just disliked. But it's also like learning a lot from him. Like, learning a lot from being in the industry and actually learning quite a bit from him.
And I kept thinking, this has got. This is like a record cover that I gotta disassemble. And it's a term I use. It's like disassemble, like. Or break down the record cover. Because it's like, okay, there's clearly a way to do this way, way, way better. And also to not be a dick about it and actually create, like, a way, way better services, better impact.
When I started my company, it was all literally just pulling apart a record cover and figuring it out. Now, the way I'm talking about it sounds calm, but it was like years of studying something, paying attention to something, and then the moment where I was like, I'm starting my own thing was like, kind of a panic moment of like, oh, shit, now I'm on my own.
But the way I've built up the company has been consistently about that. And it really does start with the idea of, like, there's no, like, there's no forever thing. Everything can be deconstructed. I, like, you said, like, reverse engineer it, figure out how to do it, and then rebuild it better.
And.
But around that is like the pricing piece. And. And actually, before we get to the pricing piece, I want to hit on the, like, you know, when you say Ian kind of set you on this path? First of all, before we say anything, how crazy is it that you redid the. The basement of the Discord house where Minor Threat used to practice? Is that. Is that nuts?
[00:15:38] Speaker B: It was the first floor, but.
[00:15:40] Speaker A: Oh, the first floor.
[00:15:41] Speaker B: Yep. Yeah, yeah, the. I keep meaning to put on my website a little section of just every Ian interview, because he always sits in the same chair, the same mug in front of the window. You know, like, you're. I stripped all the lead paint off his windows. And so the wood windows behind him, I just wanted to put like 30 different pictures of interviews of my work instead of the houses. Just have a full Ian in front of my stripped windows.
This is comically weird. I just looked up Makai art that stares at me every day.
It's me and Ian playing ping pong. He fucking crafted this. Speaking of crafting. Made a little cardboard thing and glued on Photos and did letterpress.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: That's sweet, man. That's really nice.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: This is table tennis. And to this day I'm still a fucking vicious ping pong player.
[00:16:37] Speaker A: So it must have been crazy for you just being like this. Like, I know you guys are friends and you know, you saw a minor threat and all that, but that's, that's an insane piece of history to be involved and just even have done work on that house.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: That's pretty cool.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I do often wonder, like, would I be a fucking carpenter right now if it wasn't for that? I honestly don't know.
[00:17:02] Speaker A: Well, and where I wanted to go with that was you'd been around. Like you kind of learned the DIY stuff from punkin hardcore and also some of the activism stuff from early life with your mom and then some of the financial stuff from your dad buying the van and teaching you that financial responsibility.
Been on tour, you've done all these things, but then you're going and you've got this friend who gives you a shot. He's like, hey, can you finish this, this piece of work?
It sounds like in your story mentorship played like a pretty big role because even when you moved out to Olympia, you had this person who took you under, under your wing. 7 seconds took you under the wing. The guy from Vicious Circle took you under the wing. So what are your thoughts about, about mentorship?
[00:17:47] Speaker B: I think about it a lot because builders, I think are usually kind of like secretive and, you know, competitive and not exactly like that by nature. But I've had so many glaring examples of just people extending, you know, knowledge and just kindness and direction to me that I have, especially with this passive house thing, which is like an atypical thing. So I've, I've built some of the earlier ones in towns and there's a bunch of young guys doing it. Some, you know, a lot of guys have worked for me and I've, I've tried to be kind of extra generous with the info, you know, try to stay in the very cooperative lane.
And I don't know that I've been anyone's exact mentor yet, but I've been helpful as hell, I think, and you know, being like a direct one on one mentor.
I won't claim that I am one, but, you know, with like all my carpenters, I just try to be the most positive, helpful, you know, any knowledge, fair game. Like when the, when we were, when I was flirting with, you know, who are now my partners, you know, during that kind of year and a Half phase. You know, my pitch was like, I'll teach you everything I know and, you know, share all my great ideas with you. Take them or leave them. You know, if you want to sign up at the end of that, do it. If not, you know, no worries. I'm happy to, Happy to share.
So, long story short, I think it's just that I've tried to, you know, continue.
It all goes back to punk, but it's, you know, not be a dick and be helpful rather than, you know, just hold on to the little advantage you might have. Like that, you know, that's the beauty of the passive house component of what we do. It's like, I want everyone to do this to, you know, to help help with climate change and stop all our friends from getting sick from mold and toxic materials and, and all that. So it's really, it's really sweet to have the craft combined with, with those more important things I strive for around.
[00:20:30] Speaker A: Around, like, pricing and all that. You had that, that mentor who'd been like, dude, what are you doing? You're building these really cool things. You're not charging enough. And this is something Jason Farrell said in his podcast is like, a lot of punks struggle a bit with that. Like, is making money bad? And going back to all the old Discord stuff. And it's like, you look at the price of those records and of course, how much things cost now is so much more different. But even like, when I was younger and I was touring, there was this, like, the first band that I ever heard charge $5 for 7 inches. People were like, they're charging $5. Can you believe it? It's like, dude, it is beyond time to charge. You should be charging way more than that.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: You're out of the scene.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: Yeah, totally, man. So, like, how have you dealt with that? Like, that kind of, like, tension that people have around, like, making money or charging their value or any of that.
[00:21:21] Speaker B: I'll just, I'll just say it. Like, I, you know, I was in D.C. for the bulk of the fugazi years, maybe not the last few, but like, I, I got to the point where, like, I, I was in my head, I was kind of begging, like, dude, charge seven bucks. You know, like, you know, like, come on.
But, you know, they were so popular and like, you know, in my just practical head, I was like, you know, inflation, you know, just scale size. Like, you know, you could start a small retirement for yourself, you know, you know, that like the five dollar thing went on for so long that I, I Got to the point where I was like, I don't think this is practical. I don't think I support it.
I'm gonna pay to see fucking Fugazi. I'd pay 30, but.
So I personally got to a thing where I was like, I would usually talk to Ian about, like, I was really good about blurting these things out.
I can't remember if we ever talked about it, but if we didn't, what I would have said was like, yeah, how about six bucks? Maybe they finally went to six bucks. Did they?
I don't know.
But I got to a point where for several years I was like, I felt like Ian was making too much of a point and that he was like, superseding just basic practicality where like, seven bucks might, you know, pay your bad members a little more. So I don't fucking know. But I got, I got to the point where I was like, this is crazy.
You're just, you know, you're underselling yourselves. And I didn't. It's not like I wanted to be rich, but, you know, $5 was practical in 88 by 94.
Everything's more expensive.
You know how the world works. That's a long winded way of saying I, I, maybe I got over, you know, getting stuck on a number and, you know, maybe that was a help in my business career just to, like, you know, charge what felt right and practical and just to me for things, you know, later in my life when I became a business person, like, I, I did have a frustration of a good friend that I, I thought was just making a point for too long. You could just raise the dollar amount. God damn it.
[00:23:58] Speaker A: My team, my company actually had to, had to have an intervention with me. We were doing like a retreat and they sat me down and were like, we need to charge more. And I was like, no, this is blah, blah, blah. And they're like, no, no, we have to. And it was just like, really, like, I actually got like, super upset. Like, kind of got like, like, it was like a thing I had to get over. And I also had a client who refused.
They were like the Pete in the scenario where they're like, I'm not paying you that little. Like, this is what mid.
Like, this is like what kind of like mid market would be. So if you're not like a super high one and you're not a super low one, this way you're going to be. And that's what I'm going to pay you. So I had like, kind of interventions on Both. And it's funny like years later looking back on it, it's like there's so much like, so much honesty and integrity with like really trying to like make sure your, your, your pricing is fair. And also it's like, and from a place of just like longevity being able to do things the right way, pay people fairly, give people benefits, you do have to have other factors in, but it's tough. Like if you grow up in that DIY culture and that do in the punk scene, it's a hill that a lot of people have to climb to get there in the right way.
[00:25:09] Speaker B: I totally agree. I kind of got some scolding from my partner just this morning because I was gonna start with this but like literally today was kind of a kick in the, like a punch in the gut day. Just, I think the whole tariff thing just sank. The next job that I was pretty positive was a sure thing.
So just this morning just got the vibe like, oh, this very important job in severe doubt and looking at my 13 dudes and I'm like, like I might have to call and consult you later how the hell to do this kind of thing. But it's not all like roses and perfect. Like I as of today have a Trump related big problem. And to tie that with the money component, you know, as part of this whole build up with the company, you know, I just have lots of smart people. You know, we started a real 401k for the dudes about a year ago and real health benefits and did a, you know, did a smart analysis of what we really, really need to charge. But I still fight to stay on the overly competitive side because I, despite doing pretty sexy projects, I, I just don't want to be the guy that's just charging more just for the sake of it. But you know, we're paying ourselves well, paying the dudes. You know, retirement paid time off, like all the stuff I thought I always would do, but I always found it hard when I literally wasn't charging enough.
So.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: Yeah, man.
[00:27:03] Speaker B: Yep, combining.
You get it, this is what you do. But the, you know, finally being at the spot where I'm actually paying for all the things that I assumed I would be feels good. It's also pretty damn expensive. So wrapping my brain around that just, this is literally just the last three years.
And it turns out I'm still cheaper than most builders in town that are building fucking shitty toxic mold boxes.
So you can do it all.
[00:27:36] Speaker A: All right, so I'm going to ask you a couple personal questions before we Head into the end of the interview. I don't know if you remember, you did an interview for a book called All Ages, like many, many years ago.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:27:48] Speaker A: And so I was like, dude, whatever happened to Pete from Verbal Assault? You know you did rain. Well, right? You did rain like, like the sound of trains. And then you seemed to disappear.
And it was a different time, right? Like the, the. The Internet was like kind of a. Just becoming a thing, you know, there wasn't a ton of stuff online and you were this dude that was like such a.
Like a, A force in the scene. You'd done so many bands or you'd done bands and they'd been really cool bands with lots of releases. You'd done a ton of touring.
[00:28:20] Speaker B: You'd.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: You'd been one of the bands who like, really started opening up Europe for North American bands, which is like a whole other podcast we could do. And then you were gone. So what was up with that grand.
[00:28:32] Speaker B: Link to Center Trains was fucking awesome.
But, you know, financially and you know, popularity wise, but not great.
And I loved the band so much, I didn't care. And we toured for years, but we had all those like. Remember, like the maximum rock and roll, not they wouldn't review or 7 inch. Do you remember that whole thing?
[00:29:00] Speaker A: Because it wasn't like, wasn't punk.
[00:29:02] Speaker B: It wasn't punk enough.
And it was, it was the same month that they did A Bad religion. Noam Chomsky, 7 inch, a bad Religion. You know, they were like touring in buses at the time in Europe. And I was like, it's like, what is punk, Tim? And you know, finally just called him and was like, what's up? He's like, yeah, it just doesn't sound punk to me. I was like, all right. You know.
And you know, as, you know personally, I was like, I haven't actually read Maxim Rock and Roll in four years. So maybe, maybe this is just an honest divergence between two. And like, I, I knew Tim, like, or, you know, I've played Risk with Tim, stayed at his house.
We were tight, but he just hated that band. He said it, he said we sounded like Rush, which hurt me because I've always hated Rush.
[00:29:48] Speaker A: Hey, hey, hey, hey.
[00:29:49] Speaker B: I'm sorry, man. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna be one of those middle aged guys. It's like, I always loved Rush. No, like three Dungeon Masters Gone crazy with.
[00:30:01] Speaker A: I'm seeing three different reactions. I got Mike popping his fist in the air.
I got Monica smiling, like, totally laughing and smiling.
[00:30:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: How dare how dare you. All right, okay, so.
[00:30:13] Speaker B: So we can deal with that in our third podcast. But so. So there.
There's that.
And then I mentioned this in a podcast recently. Never gonna say this, but, like.
Like, Discord helps rain like the sound of trains.
And Ian, like, lent us money to record the demo tape. Same with. Same with all the seven inches. Probably the record, too, I think, even. Yeah, but we were never, like, a full Discord release. I was always like, fuck. So I had, like, Tim and, like, Ian. They're like, you know, like, totally supporting, but, like, Ian's like, nah, it's just, you know, it wasn't his thing.
And then after several years of touring, I noticed it wasn't lots of people's thing. Just too many notes. It's like the Amadeus thing, and it just ran its course.
We had an awesome, really fun European tour where we knew I was going to move to Olympia after it. And by then, I was fucking just tired my ears. Like, the tinnitus thing was insane, and I wanted to just do something kind of tangible. So that's why I went out to Olympia to study organic farming, which was right when that interview in the All Ages book was. So that book makes it seem like I, like, left for a career in organic farming. And it was like, three weeks of shoveling manure, and I was like, fuck this. I'm never doing that. Like, I can't do this. That'll be terrible.
That led to the construction thing, and I actually moved to Olympia.
I shouldn't say that I was, like, retiring from music, because I've told the story on, like, five podcasts now. I'll do it really quick. Two days before I left D.C.
ran, like, the sound of trains recorded right next to the Black Cat. Sunny Day Real Estate played their last show at the Black Cat. The last night we were recording, I knew those guys. Nate had. Nate had actually jumped in the verbal assault van to our. One of our Vancouver shows in 1989.
And hilariously, at the border, I turned around and asked him and my friend Lenny if they had any, like, legal issues. And Nate was really quiet and shy at the time. He's like, oh, yeah, I have a warrant for throwing a cinder block through a McDonald's window.
And we're like, Nate, he's like, the totally, like, shy, quiet kid. And.
And so all you people that make fun of the Foo Fighters just know that Nate was keeping it real.
So Sunny Day Real Estate played their last show.
Me, Nate, and William hung out at a table on the Black Cat, and I was like, you know, it was their last show. They were kind of emo. I was leaving dc. I was kind of emo. And I was like, you know, I'm moving to Olympia tomorrow.
And they were like, we should start a band. I was like, we should start a band. And we. So for like an hour, we got all kind of stoked up, like a. I mean, this is like a movie scene to me. Bartender comes over. It was a corded phone with a super long cord.
He's like, to William, are you William? He's like, yeah. He's like, phone's for you. Weird. It's like 2am Long story short, Steve Kroll.
William comes back to the table and he's like, that was Dave Grohl. He wants me and Nate to be in his new band.
I was, like, serious.
But William and I. William and I played together for, like, a couple years during that whole thing and then during the. His whole, like, leaving of that band. And we have, like, 12 glorious unreleased songs just waiting for the right singer.
So I wasn't, like, going to retire and be an organic farmer. Like, I thought I had a band at least for that hour.
And then, I don't know. Construction. I'll be honest. Construction.
The more I did construction, the less I wanted to practice really loud music and basements after, like, using nail guns all day.
And then the first kid showed up, and right around then, I did a little tour with my friend Lois.
We recorded with Brendan Canty a little bit, but then after that, the little baby crawling around, I thought that would be my time to, like, pick the guitar back up. But the first kid hated it when I would play guitar because I would drift away. So she would always, like, push the guitars over. And she was like.
She didn't like my chops. And.
And then I started building our first house. Then we had another kid building our second house. And then, like, the guitars just went away for, like, two decades. Seriously. It just became like a not.
Not something I did. I was just fucking tired and my ears ringing all the time.
So it's taken a while to get back to.
[00:35:19] Speaker A: All right, we're going to head into the crucial three.
Three questions that increasingly more difficult as we go up. But before we do anything and we'll put all the links to your company and everything in the bio. Question number one. If you were to think of the most impactful person for you in your entire career and career being whatever you want to. How you want to define it, who's the most impactful person and why, It's Ian.
[00:35:45] Speaker B: Come on.
Yeah.
Just such a lovable but massive figure in my life. Think about him all the time.
Think about funny shit he said all the time. I thought today I was driving, got cut off, thought about him. I remember this time we were driving to a softball game where same thing happened. Someone kind of cut him off, and he was just like, have some fucking compassion to the other driver.
Just always stuck with me.
That's what you yell at the guy. Like, have some fucking compassion.
Yeah. It would have to be Ian, man. And not to overdo it, but yeah.
How to think, how to act, how to work in this world, how to kind of create your own environment and how to just be true to what you really want in this life.
It's got to be him.
And then maybe a close second to Tibor Brewer, my carpentry mentor. He was a very similar.
Holy.
Had a storm. Close second would be Tibor Brewer, my carpentry mentor.
[00:37:05] Speaker A: All right, what's one thing in your. Like, in building up your business now we're talking specifically about your business. What's one thing you learned about yourself through doing that that you really like about yourself? Like something you've discovered about yourself that you're like, hell, yeah, I feel good about that.
[00:37:22] Speaker B: I've shocked myself with the kind of the capacity, like, the big project capacity to pull all these long, complicated things off and remain great friends with all the people involved, including the clients. Usually, like, I kind of getting very used to it, but I often can't believe I'm building these crazy projects from start to finish. I have a lot more help now, but especially in the olden days, it was like, how the fuck did I do this?
So that's.
I guess that's the part that kind of surprises me and I guess makes me feel good about myself, I guess, at this stage in my career.
Guess I'm kind of an expert at it, which feels bananas because I.
Throughout several days a week, I'm like, how the fuck do I do this? And just able to figure it out and pull it off. Big, big project energy, I guess, is my observation about myself that I kind of, like, been able to pull off a lot of cool shit.
[00:38:41] Speaker A: Yeah. All right, final question for anyone listening to this who's staring into the oblivion of possibly working a career that they just don't want to do, or they're like, I just want. I just don't want my life to be an endless series of working jobs that I hate, but kind of feels, like, scared to do something Else any advice that you have for anyone who's kind of thinking like, how do I follow my passion? How do I find that for myself.
[00:39:09] Speaker B: Using myself as the guinea pig? I am so glad I acted on the instinct I had when I was just kind of exhausted from music to pursue like a tangible craft. Like, I knew I was happier when I did things with my hands and you know, did something skilled.
I'm thrilled that I listened to that. I was thinking of farming and that turned into carpentry and I guess, I guess listen to that kind of deeper instinct if you're like, if I went down the computer route and I, I could have like, I literally went to, I think one of America's first computer camps in Buddhist Connecticut in like 1976.
[00:40:06] Speaker A: Oh my God.
[00:40:07] Speaker B: Like my dad was like, you're doing this? And I was like this. I hated it. I was like, this sucks. And just played basketball the whole time.
And to this day I can't find a file on my fucking computer to save my life.
So I would say especially, I mean, they, you could do it at any part in your life.
I mean, don't commit career suicide because of me. But I'm an example of someone that listened to that, that it wasn't like a screaming like you need to go do hard physical labor and fuck up your back and become bald and tired.
But I knew there was something in me that knew, like I was happiest, like building making, you know, and I had a little bit of an untapped itch. Like I wanted to become good at, you know, some sort of craft based, tangible thing.
And computer stuff is totally tangible and legit. But I'm picturing lots of people sitting at their laptops like, what the fuck am I doing?
And there is other shit out there. And like, you know, I've. In my industry, I've seen a bunch of like my. A lot of my energy nerd friends have gone from energy nerds to full builders just because like they want to enact the, you know that a lot of my friends do energy modeling, which is like predicting how the building will work.
And I've seen a couple of them become incredible builders just to fulfill that goal. So there's other shit out there, like, especially young people. Fuck, become an electrician. Jesus fucking Christ, you'll be rich, you'll be so needed. And I mean, the world is going to electrify despite all the fucking ups and downs.
It just fucking has to.
So there's like a bazillion careers out there in the electrical based field that no one is doing. I can't trick my daughters into it, I don't think at this point, but maybe you can.
[00:42:21] Speaker A: This has been awesome, man. Thank you so much. Anything you want to say as we sign off?
[00:42:25] Speaker B: Oh, I just appreciate it. I've really enjoyed all the podcasts of yours that I've listened to and I seriously do I need an emergency session tonight because this fucking tariff thing might have just fucked me arm and I need some consulting or some therapy.
[00:42:44] Speaker A: Drop me a text if you want to talk. We can talk.
[00:42:47] Speaker B: I think that's what you do. I've still never been clear on what you actually do, but we can talk about that later.
[00:42:52] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Listen, and just as we're closing off, man, I just want to say I'm in a very privileged position where I get to speak to people that I spent my life listening to their records and kind of help me think bigger and think about the world. And you're one of those people. Verbal Assault is a really, really, really important band to me.
And getting to see you in New York was such a trip. You know, Monica was laughing about it because I was on like Cloud 9. So thanks for everything you did then and also thanks for what you're doing now, man, because I think is super cool.
[00:43:25] Speaker B: Appreciate it. Thanks, Aram Y.
[00:43:28] Speaker A: See you next time. Thanks, Mike.
[00:43:29] Speaker B: Thanks, Monica.
[00:43:30] Speaker A: Bye. Bye.
[00:43:41] Speaker B: One step beyond sa.
