Lamb of God's Randy Blythe on Into Oblivion, Election Night Inspiration, and the Collapse of the Social Contract

0:00 [SPEAKER_00]: It's easy to hear your favorite artist on WFPK from wherever you are. [SPEAKER_00]: Listen on your smart speaker, live stream from our website at WFPK.org, from Louisville Public Media. [SPEAKER_03]: Fair to middle in as we say down south. [SPEAKER_01]: Consequence podcast network. [SPEAKER_02]: And welcome to another edition of Kyle Meredith with it's the interview series presented by WFPK at WFPK.Forg Consequence and the Consequence Podcast Network, makes making a way here check and it's out if you're not already hit that subscribe button, you'll get new interviews just like this one.

0:44 [SPEAKER_02]: Sit your way every single week you can grab Spotify, Apple Podcasts, NPR, WFPK.org Consequence [SPEAKER_02]: YouTube for the video versions or anywhere you get your podcast from make sure to subscribe to Kyle Meredith with please to give this series a rating and a review wherever you're listening from as well There's always help out so much We've had some great guests dropped by lately just talked with Lily Raeib She plays the daughter of Harrison Ford's character in shrinking on Apple TV plus along with her long run in American horror story [SPEAKER_02]: Juno Temple in Haley Lou Richardson both dropped in to talk about starring opposite Sam Rockwell in good luck Have fun.

1:22 [SPEAKER_02]: Don't die the first gore for Benzki movie in about a decade We also talk with Evan Muscagney about the new cornbread mafia documentary Adam Goldberg Who you've seen in days to confused and friends and saving private Ryan and the equalizer He's also a musician goes under the Goldberg sisters and we got to discuss his latest record We also talk with Mike Patton [SPEAKER_02]: of Faith No More, Manor James Keenan of Tool and a perfect circle.

1:47 [SPEAKER_02]: My Amitial Suzy Porter Thomas Brody Sanger and David Duelis all about the latest season of the Artful Dodger just an example of what you get when you subscribe to the Kyle Meredith with podcast. [SPEAKER_02]: And that's me, Kyle Mere, today, catching back up with Randy Blife of Lamb of God, who now have their 10th album called Into Oblivion.

2:08 [SPEAKER_02]: And Randy and I are going to talk about where the album comes from. [SPEAKER_02]: The very first song he wrote on the night of the election, the most recent one, he was listening to the Cures latest album in full and channeling Nick Cave. [SPEAKER_02]: who we both share the exact same little figurine of.

2:26 [SPEAKER_02]: It's straight into the song's sepsis, so we're going to talk about how the album kind of starts with that presidential election night and the cure and Nick Cave and how the record eventually becomes sort of a full examination. [SPEAKER_02]: of modern collapse of the breakdown of the social contracts he'll talk about some of the authors that he was reading while writing the record and just the usual heavy themes that you get in this is Randy says, you know, he's a child of the Cold War.

2:53 [SPEAKER_02]: That's where things start with him. [SPEAKER_02]: So you should probably never really expect [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, a happy Lamb of God record. [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know that anyone actually does expect that. [SPEAKER_02]: And we'll also talk about the usefulness of protests, the unusefulness of most technology, playing these songs live and not being able to play some songs live.

3:12 [SPEAKER_02]: All that's and more as we discuss the record into oblivion. [SPEAKER_02]: Let's do this. [SPEAKER_02]: It's Kyle Meredith with Randy Blife of Lamb of God. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, how are you been? [SPEAKER_02]: You tired of talking about this album yet? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: You're the last one.

3:29 [SPEAKER_02]: I know, and I appreciate that. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm sorry. [SPEAKER_02]: I got into late on this one. [SPEAKER_02]: What's the howl sticker behind you? [SPEAKER_02]: Howl the Ellen Gidzberg. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, right, right, right. [SPEAKER_03]: So my editor work for Gidzberg for years. [SPEAKER_02]: Really?

3:43 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: So I have a copy, a signed copy of Gidzberg's photographs and out-of-print book that a Japanese press put out. [SPEAKER_03]: And there were only a few of them. [SPEAKER_03]: He sent me one. [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, that's a nice position right there. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: I did the care wax stuff, you know, in my, in my 20s, you know, about the time you should as we all did.

4:04 [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_03]: You should read and shriddled young men. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: And, um, year two ago, I just, I, I wanted, I wondered what it would be like from the other side, you know, now in my 40s. [SPEAKER_02]: and went back and started re-reading the much slower and doesn't quite it's nice and poetic still I guess right yeah like the poetry's there do you look at big sir [SPEAKER_02]: I haven't re-read that one yet because there's like it's a 13-book story of the Carolina story, you know, and I really, I started the pre on the road stuff, part of the story.

4:42 [SPEAKER_02]: Gotcha. [SPEAKER_02]: After that, he just turns into a big knucklehead, you know, and so yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Well man, I guess we should jump out of this record here and let me pay you the compliments once again because it's a hell of an album. [SPEAKER_02]: It's a hell of a heavy dark and plenty of times beautiful record that you guys have done with into oblivion.

5:04 [SPEAKER_02]: So congratulations. [SPEAKER_03]: Thank you very much. [SPEAKER_02]: Are you all the, like, like, do you all have a definitive starting point when it comes to an album? [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I feel like that happened, like when you're young, you're sort of always writing. [SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, for a lot of bands, I've noticed like later on in the career, like they had to say, like, okay, and it's time to do an album.

5:24 [SPEAKER_02]: Let's start on an album. [SPEAKER_03]: I mean, my guys are William Marker always writing, you know, whether it's for Lamb of God or for other things. [SPEAKER_03]: So I remember a definitive starting point, though, like, happened in November of, let's see, when was the last, [SPEAKER_03]: it was November of 2024, right?

5:55 [SPEAKER_03]: They like, Mark and Willie had gotten together, I think, in October, and had done some writing sessions with our producer Josh. [SPEAKER_03]: And normally what happens is they'll bring in some riffs or complete song age. [SPEAKER_03]: And [SPEAKER_03]: They'll learn each other's music and I think the best things happen when they hijack each other songs and kind of change them You know, it turns from a mark song or a Willie song into a Lama got song You know, they're two very different players so they had gone to the first writing session and [SPEAKER_03]: I had put down three year four, four, I think, four tracks, demos, you know, and they sent them to me.

6:39 [SPEAKER_03]: And the first song that I connected with was the first song we released from this record, Sapsis. [SPEAKER_03]: And I started writing that song on the eve of the presidential election. [SPEAKER_02]: It's not ominous at all. [SPEAKER_03]: No. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, it was kind of a beautiful night because I had gotten a new record about the cure.

7:02 [SPEAKER_03]: The last record they did, which is just gorgeous. [SPEAKER_03]: Fantastic. [SPEAKER_03]: And I had listened to the first single, [SPEAKER_03]: alone, I believe it is, you know, several times like, oh, this is magnificent, but I want to hear the whole record. [SPEAKER_03]: So I got in the record, I bought it digitally, and I have it on vinyl, of course.

7:23 [SPEAKER_03]: But I wanted to listen to the whole record in one piece, right? [SPEAKER_03]: I did not want to, oh, listen to this, and then listen to this, and I listened to half the record here, and I wanted to listen to the record, I wanted to listen to one piece, and I wanted to listen to it [SPEAKER_03]: You know, alone, no one else in my car.

7:45 [SPEAKER_02]: So I don't wait to listen to albums as well. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, the first time. [SPEAKER_03]: So I can just internalize it. [SPEAKER_03]: So I went and visited some friends in a rural area of Southeastern North Carolina. [SPEAKER_03]: And then I was driving back. [SPEAKER_03]: And I was like, OK, now I'm going to listen to this new care record in one piece.

8:07 [SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to listen to it as it should be listened to top to bottom. [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm just going to soak it in. [SPEAKER_03]: And that happened to be the night of the presidential election. [SPEAKER_03]: and I just listen to it all the way home and then I that the the first lyrics I wrote were on the eve of the great unraveling I took the long way home because I took the long way home so I could listen to the whole record.

8:32 [SPEAKER_03]: And that's how the record started. [SPEAKER_02]: That's funny, [SPEAKER_02]: how it that's it you just it's it just painted so specifically like you know for it for all the fans who are always looking for metaphors and you know the deep dive you're like no this is exactly that's that's it that's the story.

8:48 [SPEAKER_03]: that's it. [SPEAKER_03]: That's what happened. [SPEAKER_03]: And those are the first two lines I wrote for the record, you know, and proceeded from there. [SPEAKER_03]: And I knew I was going to put them to the first song, Sepsis, because they had sent me, like I said, like four songs, I think demoed.

9:02 [SPEAKER_03]: And I immediately was like, oh, this song is killer. [SPEAKER_03]: And when I told them, that's what I was working on. [SPEAKER_03]: They're like, yeah, we knew you'd love that one. [SPEAKER_03]: They know me. [SPEAKER_03]: They know my proclivities. [SPEAKER_02]: So just like, like, because now, you know, I'm a big care fan too.

9:20 [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, do you hear any of that in that song beyond just the starting points? [SPEAKER_03]: Well, musically, there's no cure in it because my guys don't listen, but, but, but for me, um, uh, beyond the overall sort of gothic atmosphere, I mean, I can still see it. [SPEAKER_03]: No, there is a lot more Nick Cave birthday party era, Nick Cave and the vocal delivery and that song.

9:47 [SPEAKER_02]: Wait, I got a, I'm going to pull him up here. [SPEAKER_02]: There you go. [SPEAKER_03]: Mr. Cave. [SPEAKER_03]: Hold on. [SPEAKER_03]: Here he is. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, look at that, 20s. [SPEAKER_02]: Wait, you're missing your music. [SPEAKER_02]: You're just like mine. [SPEAKER_03]: But I just pick, I just pick my ear up and I'm gonna put mine back on.

10:05 [SPEAKER_03]: So... Ha ha ha. [SPEAKER_03]: No. [SPEAKER_03]: No. [SPEAKER_02]: Total blues are nerds. [SPEAKER_02]: But two total loser nerds with Nick Cave doll. [SPEAKER_03]: That's right. [SPEAKER_03]: That's right. [SPEAKER_02]: I love that. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Well done. [SPEAKER_02]: That's great.

10:23 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know where my ear is. [SPEAKER_02]: I think my kid lost the ear on this. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: And we'll be right back right after this. [SPEAKER_02]: Welcome back.

10:32 [SPEAKER_02]: It's Kyle Meredith with Randy Black. [SPEAKER_02]: So, so even the election. [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, this album. [SPEAKER_03]: is a full autopsy of modern collapse, it feels like it and I don't know if it's a full autopsy, maybe just like an examination of it and it's not all just like, oh, this is what's happening in America, it's just kind of, I mean, there's a lot of that, don't get me wrong, but it's kind of like this.

11:01 [SPEAKER_03]: I've seen this sort of ongoing breakdown of the social contract, I think, and obviously I am not anti-technology. [SPEAKER_03]: We're using computers to discuss right now, but I think this idea [SPEAKER_03]: that connection true connection can occur via this digital medium. [SPEAKER_03]: It's a false equivalency.

11:27 [SPEAKER_03]: It does not match real life, you know, it just doesn't. [SPEAKER_03]: This is cool because we're zooming in. [SPEAKER_03]: We can see each other and there's, you know, it feels a bit more intimate as if there's human connection. [SPEAKER_03]: But even that, you know, [SPEAKER_03]: is not there.

11:47 [SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's just not. [SPEAKER_03]: And I've, you know, I read a lot. [SPEAKER_03]: And there's a guy I've been reading lately, Douglas Rushcalf. [SPEAKER_03]: He wrote this, he wrote this book, Survival of the Richest. [SPEAKER_03]: And also a book I'm reading right now called Team Human.

12:06 [SPEAKER_03]: And the book is, he was one of the story-eyed early adopters of the Internet, of the promise of the Internet, you know, when it came up because it was a promise and there was, it was sort of self-regulating in the beginning because it was a bunch of nerds of exchanging information and excited about the possibilities of this.

12:28 [SPEAKER_03]: Then of course, it became commodified and, [SPEAKER_03]: You know, the guardrails for off, there's no self-imposed rules or decorum on the internet anymore. [SPEAKER_03]: It's a sewer, you know, it's a fucking sewer. [SPEAKER_03]: And I've been reading a lot about [SPEAKER_03]: about this guy's and other technologists.

12:54 [SPEAKER_03]: There's a guy named Jared Lennier, who's known as the father of virtual reality. [SPEAKER_03]: He's one of the old school early Silicon Valley guys, as well. [SPEAKER_03]: And he wrote a fantastic book called, [SPEAKER_03]: you are not a gadget. [SPEAKER_03]: And then another one called 10 arguments for the, uh, uh, I think it's, was it 10 arguments for you for deleting your social media?

13:18 [SPEAKER_03]: Like, from a very, like, attack heavy perspective of like, look, I was, I'm on the ground floor of creating this stuff. [SPEAKER_03]: It's not good. [SPEAKER_03]: It's not what it's supposed to be. [SPEAKER_02]: Like most people seem to agree with that somewhere back there, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Like most people who's on the internet, even the fucking trolls would say that the internet is trash.

13:44 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, like we see that, the great experiment didn't work. [SPEAKER_02]: And we all wanted it too. [SPEAKER_02]: Right, you know, so, so what the fuck, well, yeah, like how, how do we break it, how do you get beyond it, you know, I was going to break it's going to break itself, it's going to break us, you know, is that it?

14:06 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, because I'm looking at like St. Catherine's will, one of the songs on, again, Yes, excellent album here. [SPEAKER_02]: Like when I listen to that, that was one of my questions. [SPEAKER_02]: Like, is there any hope in a record like this? [SPEAKER_02]: Because there's always like, here's the darkness, here's what's going on, but there's light at the tunnel, right?

14:24 [SPEAKER_03]: There's that that is the most hopeful song on your record. [SPEAKER_03]: Because if you look at the last [SPEAKER_03]: It's ride with me on St. Catherine's wheel, right? [SPEAKER_03]: It's with me. [SPEAKER_03]: There's a sense of more than one person. [SPEAKER_03]: And the way I view this song, Mark started that song.

14:49 [SPEAKER_03]: He started the lyrics of that song, and then I co-wrote. [SPEAKER_03]: So the way I view that song is that St. Catherine's wheel, are you familiar with what St. Catherine's wheel actually is? [SPEAKER_02]: Just a little bit, thanks to the band Catherine Will, I looked into it, but please, let's get a reference.

15:08 [SPEAKER_03]: It's a medieval torture device, basically. [SPEAKER_03]: I think it was invented in Germany, because the German interviewer was very excited. [SPEAKER_03]: He's like, it's just a German invention. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like how Cien's Catherine's wheel. [SPEAKER_03]: Very proud of it. [SPEAKER_03]: That's not it.

15:23 [SPEAKER_03]: But it's a wheel that they would strap people to and it would turn at spokes and break your limbs and at basically a torture device, method of execution. [SPEAKER_03]: But it's spinning. [SPEAKER_03]: And I feel like there's a lot of chaos in dismay in the world right now and I feel people, I think people feel like the world is sort of spinning at a control, you know.

15:45 [SPEAKER_03]: and I certainly have felt that at times, so, but beyond this sort of artificially imposed sense of separation that I think the internet produces in us, we are in fact altogether in this world. [SPEAKER_03]: We are all experiencing this together, and if we remember that, if we remember that, [SPEAKER_03]: We are not completely isolated.

16:12 [SPEAKER_03]: If we get off the fucking phone, right? [SPEAKER_03]: And go out and engage with people and recognize each other's humanity. [SPEAKER_03]: Experience each other's humanity. [SPEAKER_03]: Then you'll realize you're not alone. [SPEAKER_03]: And in the last line of the song is these savage days can't break us.

16:33 [SPEAKER_03]: Or won't break us. [SPEAKER_03]: I can't remember exactly. [SPEAKER_03]: I got to get that right before we play it live, by the way. [SPEAKER_03]: But that is me looking at, you know, the modern times are St. Catherine's wheel and we're all spinning on it. [SPEAKER_03]: But if we come together, man, we won't be broken on the wheel.

16:52 [SPEAKER_03]: Not all of us at least. [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_03]: Those of us who come together and recognize each other's humanity and try and have [SPEAKER_03]: difficult dialogue with each other because I don't agree with everything all of my friends say, you know, that's another problem with the with the internet is that it's very easy to fall into these polarized echo chambers online, you know.

17:19 [SPEAKER_03]: I believe this, therefore, you are a libertard. [SPEAKER_03]: I believe this, therefore, you are a Nazi scum, right? [SPEAKER_03]: And it just [SPEAKER_03]: it puts people into these neatly defined little cubicles and that's easy online. [SPEAKER_03]: It's a whole lot easier to do that when you're in line at the grocery store and you're both there buying toilet paper.

17:43 [SPEAKER_03]: Everybody shits, and you have to have this sort of in-person, oh, excuse me, you know, you have to have this in-person interaction, you know, [SPEAKER_03]: People don't accept during like, I don't know, the, well, at times, like, except like protest or or political rallies and stuff, people generally don't run down the street, screaming at other people, right?

18:13 [SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean? [SPEAKER_02]: How do you feel about protests? [SPEAKER_03]: How do I feel about them? [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Uh, I think they're wonderful. [SPEAKER_03]: Civil disobedience, peaceful, peaceful, peaceful. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I've attended many over the years, and I'm not talking about it just recently, many.

18:30 [SPEAKER_03]: They're one of their things that have changed and shaped the course of history. [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's the question, it was going to, because that's usually sort of an opinion although there are stats that are, are you very much in the favor that you're talking about right there that they are useful.

18:47 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't remember how I got it. [SPEAKER_03]: There's not, there, there's not just stats. [SPEAKER_03]: It's not just conjecture. [SPEAKER_03]: It's fact. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, you're right. [SPEAKER_03]: Right. [SPEAKER_03]: I have, I have. [SPEAKER_03]: many friends of African American descent, right?

19:01 [SPEAKER_03]: And we can and do go to a restaurant and reach for Virginia and sit down at a table and eat dinner together. [SPEAKER_03]: And I can pick up the bill or they can pick up the bill. [SPEAKER_03]: And then we can go use the bathroom. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, dude, I got to take a [SPEAKER_03]: This is not ancient history.

19:26 [SPEAKER_03]: Black people couldn't do that. [SPEAKER_03]: My father, my grandfather, right? [SPEAKER_03]: He was a farm, right, and it's very lucky in that my family raised me to despise racism and taught me that it was wrong. [SPEAKER_03]: But my grandfather was a farmer, and one of the people he employed on the farm was a black guy, and this guy had never seen the mountains.

19:53 [SPEAKER_03]: So my grandfather said we're going to go to the mountains. [SPEAKER_03]: We're going to go the mountains and this is a big deal back in the day. [SPEAKER_03]: People don't just drive wherever the hell they want to gas as expensive, you know, not everybody had a car. [SPEAKER_03]: So he said wait till we get the crop taken in.

20:08 [SPEAKER_03]: That's into the season. [SPEAKER_03]: We're going to take it in and we're going to go to the mountains. [SPEAKER_03]: Me and you. [SPEAKER_03]: And they did, so they got to the end of the crop season, all the crops got taken in, and they got in the car, and they drove from Southampton County, Virginia into the western part of Virginia, and they got to see the mountains, right?

20:28 [SPEAKER_03]: However, before they left, my grandmother had to pack lunch for them because they couldn't go eat in a restaurant together. [SPEAKER_03]: right? [SPEAKER_03]: That's reality. [SPEAKER_03]: My grandma told me that whether I told me that herself in person like I had to go by had to pack lunch for them because they couldn't go near it was illegal, right?

20:47 [SPEAKER_03]: It would have been bad. [SPEAKER_03]: So what changed that? [SPEAKER_03]: Black teenagers coming into restaurants and sitting down at the counter, you know? [SPEAKER_03]: Black teenagers getting their [SPEAKER_03]: You know, and white people, some who stood with them, people came down from the north and people from white people on the south who stood with them, and got their ass kicked.

21:15 [SPEAKER_03]: That was protest. [SPEAKER_03]: That was civil disobedience. [SPEAKER_03]: That changed things. [SPEAKER_03]: That changed things. [SPEAKER_03]: It wasn't because politicians suddenly said, hey, we got to treat everybody the same. [SPEAKER_03]: No, it was people who put boots on the ground, who put their ass on the line.

21:32 [SPEAKER_03]: So yes, protest changed things. [SPEAKER_02]: It feels like that's where we are and I've read them. [SPEAKER_02]: It is where we are blunt force blues I don't remember exactly how I got there from that song, but that's what made me think of that as I was you know Reading those lyrics and listing that song right there.

21:50 [SPEAKER_03]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I like maybe violence But that song is not about There's there's some state violence is that that song is [SPEAKER_03]: You know, I tend not to like say that song is about this because I kind of kills the mystery of the music, but that song That sort of impetus for that.

22:12 [SPEAKER_03]: I think comes out of a sort of rootlessness. [SPEAKER_03]: I've felt in recent years as if I don't really belong anywhere And I'm trying to figure that out And we'll be right back right after this Welcome back. [SPEAKER_02]: It's Kyle Meredith with Randy Blife [SPEAKER_02]: And I do. [SPEAKER_02]: I see the protests and you go, you have to people that's like, what are they doing?

22:32 [SPEAKER_02]: Is this worth it? [SPEAKER_02]: And what's the old line about history and the moral arc? [SPEAKER_02]: Moral arc, that's the one. [SPEAKER_03]: Moral arc, the moral arc swings towards justice. [SPEAKER_03]: That's it. [SPEAKER_03]: It does, but it doesn't swing until someone starts pushing.

22:50 [SPEAKER_03]: So people, I think people are, I think people are disheartened, I think they feel. [SPEAKER_03]: tired, I think, I think there's a lot of dismay, but you have to take hard, man. [SPEAKER_03]: We can't be beaten into nihilistic apathy. [SPEAKER_02]: And knowing that, I mean, hello, I'll reference what a year lines again, too.

23:14 [SPEAKER_02]: If I got it right, you've known me by a different name, and maybe I'm taking out a context there, you know, re- [SPEAKER_03]: But that is that is a Mark Morton line. [SPEAKER_02]: Well, so yeah, it's still there in the song. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's there. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm saying it's like it's knowing like there's always been a monster that we've had to go up against.

23:33 [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, nothing's ever been easy. [SPEAKER_03]: And I think that's I think that that in this soft life we live now, this like, [SPEAKER_03]: Convenience, unthinkable convenience. [SPEAKER_03]: I was talking about my grandmother. [SPEAKER_03]: I wrote about this in my last book. [SPEAKER_03]: My grandmother was raised during the depression, right?

23:54 [SPEAKER_03]: As a child, in the depression. [SPEAKER_03]: And when I was younger and I would wine and complain, she'd be like, you don't know what hard times are. [SPEAKER_03]: And I always thought, yeah, whatever grandma, you're an old lady. [SPEAKER_03]: And then as I got older and learned about the great depression, [SPEAKER_03]: and learned about the things she went through.

24:14 [SPEAKER_03]: She grew up in the depression, she was raised during that. [SPEAKER_03]: Then she went through World War II, then Korea, then Vietnam, and lost her husband, and it's just, she's been through a lot. [SPEAKER_03]: you know, and she lived to be a hundred years old. [SPEAKER_03]: I was right by her side when she died.

24:32 [SPEAKER_03]: I was couldn't be proud of her than it had been there with her. [SPEAKER_03]: But she told me a lot of stuff and I wrote about this in my last book that made me realize, you know, we've always faced difficulties. [SPEAKER_03]: There's, I hate to say it, but no one promised you a rose garden, you know what I mean?

24:55 [SPEAKER_03]: But we live in this world of absurd convenience and comfort and when things are uncertain and uncomfortable people tend to freak out now, you know? [SPEAKER_03]: They expect, oh, everything's okay. [SPEAKER_03]: Look, I'm 55 years old. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to... [SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to have to think about the possible collapse of American democracy and World War Three.

25:17 [SPEAKER_03]: Right? [SPEAKER_03]: I should be chilling. [SPEAKER_03]: I have a good career, right? [SPEAKER_03]: But this is the time I was born in. [SPEAKER_02]: But here we are. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Here we are. [SPEAKER_02]: There's a, there's a Wilco Lerick that I've always enjoyed, Jeff Tweetie, he said every generation thinks it's the end of the world.

25:34 [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: And that's true, every generation. [SPEAKER_02]: It's always something, right? [SPEAKER_02]: We made stuff, I feel like, I mean, I don't know, it was real, it was real at the time, but you know, it's easy now to look back at the 90s and think we just made stuff up to be mad at, you know, compared to what we're going through at the moment.

25:53 [SPEAKER_02]: That's what it feels like. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Well, I mean, how will do you? [SPEAKER_03]: I'm I'll be 45 this year. [SPEAKER_03]: Okay, I'm I just turned 55. [SPEAKER_03]: I am I don't know if it was the same for you, but I'm a child of the 70s. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm a child of the Cold War and I grew up.

26:13 [SPEAKER_03]: on into high school, until the fall of the Soviet Union, which was what 89, I believe, like constantly convinced that at any moment the Russians were gonna press the button and the Nix were gonna come, and then we were gonna press the button and the Nix were gonna go over there, and then it was just gonna set off this chain reaction, and the world was gonna fucking blow up, and then we would have mad max.

26:36 [SPEAKER_03]: Right. [SPEAKER_03]: And that's what was reflected in the culture. [SPEAKER_03]: And even in things like, if you look in the Japanese culture, like Godzilla comes from the hangover of the Adam bomb, right? [SPEAKER_03]: That's where Godzilla comes from. [SPEAKER_03]: So there's this sort of unease, this sort of apocalyptic unease during that time, and before me, from the Cold War.

27:00 [SPEAKER_03]: And then that went away for a while, like I said, you were saying the 90s. [SPEAKER_03]: like the Berlin Wall fell down, you know, David Hasselhoff is standing on the Berlin Wall, singing everybody come together wearing a good-lowing fucking jacket, you know, with labels and it's crazy.

27:14 [SPEAKER_03]: It reads like, yeah, humanity, right? [SPEAKER_03]: And then now, but, but, but during all that time, you know, the nuclear weapons never went away. [SPEAKER_03]: And now, either this, I have [SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's social, more like you were talking about. [SPEAKER_02]: I think that's what I think that's what I was getting back to.

27:38 [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, it's like, you, yes, exactly. [SPEAKER_02]: You can do the Cold War and you can do Bay of Pigs and you can do World War Two and, and, and, and, et cetera, you can just keep going back. [SPEAKER_02]: But I don't know, man, it's something about like, you know, we, everybody would still say excuse me, you know, when walking past the other person.

27:56 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, people have become really self-centered, you know, really self-centered. [SPEAKER_03]: But that's not sustainable in the long run. [SPEAKER_03]: as much as I can be misinthropic at times and want to be alone in a grumpy old man, the old saying no man is an island is true.

28:18 [SPEAKER_03]: We are social beings and our very survival is a species from the very beginning has depended on that. [SPEAKER_03]: So this level of polarization and isolation and self-centeredness is not sustainable, not if we want to survive. [SPEAKER_02]: and so you put it in an album. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, exactly.

28:38 [SPEAKER_03]: What else am I supposed to do? [UNKNOWN]: Ha ha ha. [SPEAKER_02]: That's, I mean, when you're making a lame of God a record, I want to roll my eyes at myself as I asked this question, by the way, because there are expectations of lame of God from the fans' point of view, right? [SPEAKER_02]: Are there?

28:55 [SPEAKER_02]: No one's expecting a happy record. [SPEAKER_03]: No, no, no, no, that's one thing. [SPEAKER_03]: If they are, they haven't been paying attention. [SPEAKER_02]: Right. [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe it's just natural. [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe this is just natural. [SPEAKER_02]: And again, this is my viral moment.

29:10 [SPEAKER_02]: Or do you think what are their darker aspects happening in humanity right now? [SPEAKER_02]: That's going to be this record. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but I think that with every record dude, every record. [SPEAKER_03]: So like from the very beginning, the first, the very first song I ever wrote for this band that I tried out for with, we were called Burn the Priest.

29:31 [SPEAKER_03]: Um, was a song called Dwayne, that's just a working title that stuck, but it is about. [SPEAKER_03]: misinformation and disinformation via mass media via television at that time because the internet did not exist as it really in a broadly available scale. [SPEAKER_03]: Nobody had that except for super nerds.

29:51 [SPEAKER_03]: And the lyrics to that song very well could be applied to modern day existence with everyone via the internet. [SPEAKER_03]: The first song we ever released was [SPEAKER_03]: a song on a split 7-inch with a band called Zed and the song is called Ruiner. [SPEAKER_03]: And it is about consolidation of power within the hands of just a few wealthy individuals.

30:18 [SPEAKER_03]: Some of whom who have the nuclear codes. [SPEAKER_03]: You know, that song was released in 1997 on a 7-inch. [SPEAKER_03]: The lyrics I read through them, you know, a couple of weeks ago, that's today. [SPEAKER_03]: So it's been the same thing, man. [SPEAKER_03]: I joined this band in 1995.

30:36 [SPEAKER_03]: I've been writing different variations of the same fucking thing for 30 years. [SPEAKER_03]: 30 years, man. [SPEAKER_03]: And it seems like, I don't know. [SPEAKER_03]: It just seems like there's a, the zeitgeist right now, people are catching up. [SPEAKER_03]: to what I've been saying all along.

30:56 [SPEAKER_03]: I mean that's the hope. [SPEAKER_03]: Oh yeah, well it's a too late who knows. [SPEAKER_03]: No. [SPEAKER_02]: What is the nature is healing? [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, maybe that's the part we got to get to. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, well, didn't that, yeah, you managed to hire humanities, a virus, forever, and about that too.

31:17 [SPEAKER_03]: So maybe we'll fuck things up so bad that the plant will shake us off like a bad cold, maybe there'll be some sort of unbeatable disease that'll end up with. [SPEAKER_03]: outside of all that. [SPEAKER_03]: What's outside of the impending apocalypse? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there we go. [SPEAKER_02]: No, it says you still sound, I mentioned this because you're bringing in 30 years, 30 some odd years in this.

31:45 [SPEAKER_02]: You still sound as farocious as a vocalist in this genre that cannot be easy. [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not good at much else, I don't think. [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just, I'm surprised anybody that's doing [SPEAKER_02]: is able to sustain that over this career and still like it. [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't sound like you've lost it.

32:05 [SPEAKER_03]: And I don't know, I haven't yet. [SPEAKER_03]: And I don't, I don't know, man. [SPEAKER_02]: Did you have to learn how to keep it at any point in your career to, I hear about musicians doing that? [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, I definitely have learned to control my voice, you know, over the years, I definitely have learned when to control my voice, um, that being said, like, for it to be honest in this type of music and for it to come out that way and be ferocious, because there's tips and tricks and little stuff that people do when they're sitting in their home [SPEAKER_03]: about this loud?

32:46 [SPEAKER_03]: No, no, no, no. [SPEAKER_03]: There has to be an unhinged component to it. [SPEAKER_03]: There has to be for it to be honest, right? [SPEAKER_03]: Like, I just recorded vocals. [SPEAKER_03]: I just helped record vocals for this band walls of Jericho up in Salem. [SPEAKER_03]: I helped produce a few songs for their singer Candace.

33:06 [SPEAKER_03]: a little hardcore band. [SPEAKER_03]: They've been around a time. [SPEAKER_03]: She's fucking loud. [SPEAKER_03]: She's not doing little tricks and stuff. [SPEAKER_03]: She's letting it fucking rip. [SPEAKER_03]: And for it to come across as real and ferocious, you have to let it rip. [SPEAKER_03]: There has to be some unhinged parts of it.

33:26 [SPEAKER_03]: And so far, my throat just hasn't given out. [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe it will one day. [SPEAKER_03]: Who knows? [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't know, which is also we get to hear that the other side of that on Elvachio. [SPEAKER_03]: because there's no hiding on a song like that, especially it wouldn't be like no like no like you know I enjoy singing and and if they write a song that will allow me to serve the music by singing some I love doing it.

33:59 [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't hurt as much man when you guys play this so you get it like [SPEAKER_03]: Do you play every song on the am or is are you all planning to I don't know yet night now we when we go out on this tour We're gonna play some of the new record and we'll go out and press your test So like we have ideas like we'll probably play this in this and it will have to see what connects because a lot of times You'll be like yeah, this is gonna be awesome the crowd's gonna love this and sometimes I do and then sometimes it's like [SPEAKER_03]: you think it's going to be killer, you know, and it's weird.

34:37 [SPEAKER_03]: It's just like, I don't think there's any accurate way to predict how what's going to connect. [SPEAKER_03]: And sometimes it's just, it's delivered different lives. [SPEAKER_03]: So for me, that's one of the most exciting things about putting out a new record is going out and pressure testing songs and seeing what happens in front of an audience.

34:55 [SPEAKER_02]: Fearing out, do you get the points? [SPEAKER_02]: And maybe it was somewhat with these songs, too. [SPEAKER_02]: like, that song doesn't work live, you know? [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yes. [SPEAKER_02]: Not like it doesn't act, but like that's too difficult. [SPEAKER_02]: Or whatever it is, you know, in the studio.

35:10 [SPEAKER_03]: Sometimes, for me, I'm confident that I can pull anything we've ever done off. [SPEAKER_03]: Right? [SPEAKER_03]: It definitely can be difficult. [SPEAKER_03]: And sometimes, when they write a set list, they'll put a song, and it'll be towards the end of the set. [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm like, absolutely not.

35:28 [SPEAKER_03]: You got to put that more towards the beginning because that requires so much air. [SPEAKER_03]: And so much, and also, maybe the range is really, really super broad on a particular song. [SPEAKER_03]: And by the end of the set, I might be a little bit fried. [SPEAKER_03]: I need to come in a little bit pressure to do something that I did call.

35:46 [SPEAKER_03]: But sometimes, you know, it's weird because my guys, we can play anything. [SPEAKER_03]: I know they can and then sometimes someone will get up in their head about something, they'll be like, not doing that. [SPEAKER_03]: It's like, dude, we've played that song for 20 years, you know? [SPEAKER_03]: It's like, I don't know, I'm having problems with it.

36:05 [SPEAKER_03]: And if someone is, you know, it's normally one of the guitar players, if they get up in their head about something they're like, I can't do that right now. [SPEAKER_03]: We're not going to be dicks to be like, okay, cool, you know, that's, that's where it is right now. [SPEAKER_03]: Maybe you'll be able to do it later.

36:22 [SPEAKER_02]: It's a weird thing, which I wasn't saying, but I got that word in sports that nobody says it's one of those words. [SPEAKER_02]: You don't say that you get the thing and then. [SPEAKER_03]: that what that what I'm trying to actually was like the get the gifts or something like that was a yips yeah yeah yeah yeah we'll say the word either because it's kind of like that it's like oh yeah because that's you know because it's suddenly they can't throw a ball because their brain is done it in the neural pathways get fucked up [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I mean, I don't think any of my guys have ever had the fucking yips.

36:54 [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's just like a weird head thing every now and then, you know? [SPEAKER_03]: And if it's bothering someone, like if I were to be like, I cannot do this song if I were to be like, dudes, no, they would be cool, man. [SPEAKER_03]: They'd be like, okay, cool, dude. [SPEAKER_03]: Because I mean, [SPEAKER_03]: Back in the day, it wouldn't be that way.

37:12 [SPEAKER_03]: It'd normally turn to a big blow up our argument, but we get along better than we ever had before. [SPEAKER_03]: So we try to be respectful when it's important to each other. [SPEAKER_02]: It's only rock and roll. [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's just, it's just heavy metal, man. [SPEAKER_02]: It can't not be understated, that's, what is this album 10?

37:28 [SPEAKER_02]: Is that right? [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, this is the 10th one is Lama God and then we have the burn the pre-s record and then the cover's record is burn the pre-s. [SPEAKER_03]: So 12 overall, but yeah, this is the 10th one, I'm a God still anything like that. [SPEAKER_02]: And you guys are still doing this and the fans are still, I like I read the comment section when you guys release the singles and like people still love this stuff.

37:46 [SPEAKER_02]: You guys are still doing the thing that's connecting to the people. [SPEAKER_03]: we're trying and painting the the most beautiful picture of humanity while you're at it's yeah well I mean you know these are dark times I'm not going to stick my head in the sand like the fucking ostrich which I don't think they actually do that I think that's just a myth.

38:07 [SPEAKER_02]: make that up set one of those things. [SPEAKER_03]: I think it's made up. [SPEAKER_03]: I don't think ostrich is actually stick their head in the sand. [SPEAKER_02]: I'll ask one next time. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah. [SPEAKER_02]: Seriously, man, congrats on this. [SPEAKER_02]: I can't wait to hear how these zones, you know, turn out live and do their thing out there and I'm really happy that I could be part of the end of this press cycle for you.

38:29 [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, sir. [SPEAKER_02]: And you, me and our [SPEAKER_02]: And it's always a blast talking to you seriously. [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for taking time. [SPEAKER_02]: Take care, man. [SPEAKER_02]: My thanks to Randy Lamb of God's New Record into oblivion is out now. [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks to you for checking on the episode, hit that subscribe button before you get out of here.

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