On this week's episode of Sunday Uncensored, the boys are joined by a very special guest who is a rock star in his own right-wing sense of humor. He's a former member of the band Meatloaf and the lead singer of the rock band Five Finger Deathwish. We talk about his career in the music industry, how he got his start in the business, and what it's like being in a rock band.
00:00:00.000Welcome to our special weekend show, Sunday Uncensored.
00:00:04.000Every week we produce four uncensored episodes of the TimCast IRL podcast exclusively at TimCast.com, and we're going to bring you the most important for our weekend show.
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00:00:51.000So let's talk about those lockdowns, because we were mentioning just at the end of the show, you mentioned Pete Parata, and I've mentioned it a million and one times.
00:01:29.000I saw the video, the first video that he posted that got like 1.9 million views, which is...
00:01:34.000Which is actually very impressive for a new artist, because people don't realize the YouTube game, without having the labels and all the other stuff, how hard it is to get people's eyes on your music.
00:01:43.000But without the big challenge, I think this is probably good information for people who are trying to get into the industry, I would say, from my perspective, unless you have the streaming playlists, unless they put you in rotation, After you hit your marketing, that's it.
00:01:59.000We get a certain number of plays in the videos, but it's very similar to how it works for YouTube.
00:02:04.000I put up a video, it gets a couple hundred thousand hits, and then disappears and ceases to exist.
00:02:08.000And that's very similar for what happens with the music we put out.
00:02:12.000It gets a big blast, gets tons of traffic, and then slowly starts dropping because people have to manually choose to put it in their playlists because it's not going to appear on rotation anywhere.
00:02:20.000I have a guy that can help you with that.
00:02:23.000But there is also other ways of doing this, which I kind of configured if you want to talk about industry stuff, because I went from being on a major label, you know, and having like five or six number one radio hits and globally and whatever, whatever, to being completely excommunicated.
00:02:40.000So I can I can say we put out three songs and all three have charted on Billboard in some capacity.
00:02:52.000I had like a 15 second clip of a cover of Take Me to Church on TikTok, and it went viral, and then I made it available two days later, and I made like $50,000.
00:03:04.000I charted at number four on Billboard overall in rock, and I charted at 17 in alternative, which alternative, you have to have like 10 or 20 times the amount.
00:03:15.000Much much higher it goes up as the genre changes.
00:03:19.000So metal is like for me Do you guys still even bother to register as metal?
00:03:26.000Yes, like metal so small it's like to be number one at metal like, you know, it's like nothing some people do it for posterity like five-finger will still release in both genres just to piss off the metal heads because Not really metal.
00:04:16.000They basically replicated Babymetal because it wasn't really taking off, you know?
00:04:22.000I mean, her weird bubblegum stuff, I think, is not a fan of, but her metal stuff, or ish, or whatever you want to call it, I actually really like.
00:04:28.000Well, because the musicianship is done by guys who are our age shedding, woodshedding in a basement, you know what I mean?
00:04:33.000Like playing djent, like... If you take all the music away and you put a different singer, you'd still like it.
00:04:40.000The dude that filled in for our... We just did a tour last year in March and April and May, and our drummer couldn't, Jason couldn't Handle it he had to go home.
00:04:51.000So we had someone come out the guy that came out I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say this but he plays for one of those bands drums and he is Nasty, yeah, you know.
00:05:26.000Because that way, if you have a singer or an artist that is kind of the focus, and you get the rest of the band as faceless, nameless people, then you can just hire people that are available.
00:05:35.000Or if you're like me and you don't get along with people and you fire them constantly, no one will notice that you're getting rid of your band members.
00:05:57.000He's a very nice guy, very good person, amazing videographer, not the strongest drummer, and I replaced him for Tim Young, who's one of the fastest drummers in the world, and a guy who I've been playing with for 17 years, right?
00:06:10.000And we reconnected, and then Levine proceeded to steal my laptop.
00:06:18.000He stole my laptop, he changed all the locks on my lockout space in LA and then was like, I'm not letting you in your storage facility because he was keeping his drums in my storage and then changed my locks until he could get his drums.
00:06:33.000So these are the things that, this is why.
00:08:17.000I put him in the band, this, that, the other.
00:08:19.000And because I wasn't on the BLM tip, I wasn't in the BLM cult.
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00:09:46.000Because, listen, this is the way that the left goes.
00:09:50.000They're holding on to basically, they're basically just holding on for deal life to what I created and trying to move past all this and, you know, whatever.
00:10:43.000I think that's the, when they're also going down to be like, Mike, my guy.
00:10:46.000Yeah, but there's also songs on Disobey called The Conversation, right?
00:10:50.000If you read the lyrics to No Masters, if you read the lyrics to Officer Down, I have never shied away from discussing the important topics that are going on socially or personally.
00:11:02.000Our biggest hit songs are about me hitting rock bottom and finding sobriety.
00:11:08.000Not just sobriety for me, but what that does to the family afterwards, right?
00:11:13.000My brother tried to murder me in 2010.
00:11:14.000There's a song called Remember When, that's all about that.
00:11:17.000Then on top of that, I was in the witness protection program for 10 months because he hired a hitman to kill me.
00:11:22.000There's a song called Foe, a friend on that.
00:11:25.000And the actual phone conversation, the phone call he called And left on my voice message is on the record of him threatening to murder me again.
00:11:40.000And so he got caught breaking in, tuned me up, didn't like that I lived, and definitely didn't like that I cooperated with law enforcement.
00:11:51.000If it was five years before, it would have been the coat of the street.
00:11:54.000But I went through the process of recovery and I found God and it's not my place to take somebody else's life and revenge belongs to the Creator, right?
00:12:54.000I was hurt, and I didn't act, I didn't respond spiritually.
00:12:58.000So, in essence, everyone, you know, when the war's over, it's all spare and love and war, and the, you know, the war's over, and it's just like, I, you know.
00:13:09.000It reminds me of, I think it's a Buddhist saying, like, holding onto anger is drinking poison and expecting the other person to die, like at a certain point.
00:13:16.000Or holding onto a hot stone waiting for the other person to throw it at them.
00:13:20.000You only burn a hole in your hand, you know?
00:13:22.000And I think that, listen, I think that there's a period of time for everybody where there is self-righteous indignation.
00:14:10.000There is a certain amount of feelings can surprise you and grab a hold of you.
00:14:16.000But you really do have the ability And it takes some practice, I understand that, but you really do have the ability to look, take a step outside of yourself and look at the fact that you are overcome with feelings.
00:14:28.000And that's one of the things Tommy was talking about earlier with meditation and stuff like that.
00:14:30.000And I meditate, I don't do it as much as I'd like to, but it's something that has really taught me that my emotions don't have to control me.
00:14:38.000Even though they do every time I get in the car, right?
00:14:44.000I'm not saying that I'm in control, but I do know in the back of my mind that it's always an option to let whatever I'm feeling go and let it go away and not have to live in that emotion.
00:14:56.000And that kind of thing is something that's very valuable to have that perspective, I think.
00:15:00.000Well, I think that's not taught either, right?
00:15:02.000I think this is something that men who don't talk about anger and how to deal with it, right?
00:15:09.000We spent our careers putting our frustration and our feelings into music as a creative
00:15:14.000force but there are also, that's the tip of the iceberg where I think when I was younger
00:15:19.000I thought that was the end all be all, right?
00:15:23.000But you know at some point you have to take, you know, it also impedes your creativity.
00:15:30.000If you're only painting with black and gray, you're only going to get black and gray.
00:15:34.000If you, once you release yourself of such heaviness, you have access to more different
00:15:43.000colors, you can tell stories better, you can create, you know, you become limitless in
00:15:51.000Like, you know, I believe God shines light through all of us.
00:15:55.000And that it's our job to upkeep the prism and keep it clean so that we can refract different shades and colors that make life worth living.
00:17:01.000But I'm like, I got cancer from being alive.
00:17:04.000You know, so it's like, you know, sometimes courage is the absence of fear.
00:17:09.000It's a judgment that something else is more important.
00:17:12.000And so, you know, having the worst possible thing happen to me from the closest possible person in my life happen, what else are you gonna do to me?
00:17:47.000Her parents are from Denmark, and my grandfather was a New York City undercover detective after he fought in World War II, and she's never been to Denmark.
00:17:56.000We come from a very poor family, so I flew.
00:18:22.000My mom had to go to Al-Anon after my brother tried to kill me because she actually borrowed money from me and gave him some of it.
00:18:30.000And I found out about it and I was like, you have to get help.
00:18:33.000But that's a family disease of alcoholism.
00:18:36.000A lot of people think that if they have a child or a relative that is The best thing they can do is keep giving them and they're eventually going to come out of it, but the disease is a rapacious creditor and it does not allow the person who's suffering to, you know, take credence.
00:18:51.000We have to hit rock bottom often, very, very low rock bottoms in order to have a come to Jesus moment, so to speak.
00:18:59.000Have you guys experienced this as you're getting bigger?
00:19:04.000I'm asking you this because it feels like you did, but the harsh betrayal of people you thought were your best friends.
00:19:10.000You said that already, but for both of you guys.
00:19:12.000Oh God, so back in 2009 This band was on tour and
00:19:19.000my ex ex-wife now at the time went to this show and She was going there thinking like oh, I'm gonna go hang out
00:19:28.000with people that I know that I'm friendly with And I told her, I was like, I really don't like the idea of you going to a show without me because people get that the wrong idea, you know, chicks from shows, you know?
00:19:38.000Um, but she, she's like, no, it'll be fine.
00:19:40.000You know, you know, all the guys that are there cause it was, it was shadows fall and five finger death punch.
00:19:46.000So she goes and the singer from from Shadows Fall is gets completely hammered.
00:19:52.000And then he's like basically chasing her around the place.
00:19:56.000And then he follows like she goes into the ladies room and he follows her into the ladies room.
00:20:01.000He climbs up on the toilet and he's looking over.
00:20:03.000And Ivan from Five Finger Death Punch comes in and grabs Brian by the hair and throws him on the ground because he's like, yo, that's Phil's, you know, that's at times my girlfriend.
00:20:15.000So the fact that it was Ivan, the guy that I wasn't ever in a band with, I'd been friends with him for a lot of years, but You know, I wasn't in a band with him.
00:20:23.000He's the guy that goes and steps in and says, hey, and my friends that I used to be in Shadows Fall with, and I had never spoken a bad word about this band.
00:20:30.000They kicked me out and they wanted to get another guy.
00:21:14.000So like we I've been, you know, talking them up and being
00:21:17.000the guy and, you know, it's not like all that remains had the mojo where
00:21:21.000like I could be like, you know, oh, screw them or whatever, you know,
00:21:24.000never never said a crossword or bad And then, you know, none of them can step in, step in and say, hey, don't fuck Phil's girlfriend.
00:21:32.000Just just hearing your story about, you know, this guy that you worked with, who turns on you, it's either him or me, Doc Coyle.
00:21:39.000I'm just like, you know, I've had my experience with that, too.
00:21:42.000And it's just, I gotta say, man, it really strips your faith in humanity.
00:21:46.000I don't know how you guys feel about it.
00:21:47.000Well, the way that I look at what, look, I think that in my Like I said, I actually really did like I prayed for all these dudes for like months every day Like I literally put my phone under my bed So I couldn't answer my phone till I hit my knees in the morning and force myself begrudgingly and then I got peace over it And then the day I stopped praying the guitar player who quit called me to apologize So it's like one of those weird things, but I think in in understanding How what motivates people I think to Doc's credit
00:22:27.000On the record I was supposed to be on, we wrote a song for his mother who passed away, and then his dad died, completely unexpectedly.
00:22:37.000And I think that when somebody is using substances, and they're dealing with loss, and they're dealing with that, you start to feel like everything's being pulled away from you, and I think that The band was seeing, in real time, because I had taken a political stance, my star started rising exponentially, where I was hundreds and hundreds of thousands of new followers on every single platform.
00:23:05.000So you would think, from a business standpoint, it would be not beneficial for the label to want to remove me, but the liberal blinders, blindside of them, they couldn't understand that There's a place for everybody and I should be allowed to have freedom of speech.
00:23:24.000And so I think he felt like he was losing control over everything in his life and so this was the only thing he could try to do.
00:23:59.000And then I got called for Five Finger.
00:24:02.000I think the only reason why I got called to fill in for Five Finger is because he was busy.
00:24:08.000Because he had already had a really successful run for them.
00:24:11.000And then you know Ivan who he mentioned was having a really bad time staying sober and so ultimately they thought me being there because I had known him for just as long would help and it had the opposite effect where he was like became defiant and resentful of me that I was there and I couldn't really reach him and then finally He had to be he had to go take care of himself and so they asked me to sing instead of sober coach which was terrifying but You know, it all led to me getting signed to the label.
00:24:44.000And John had these songs, and the other band that I was in wasn't really doing well, and then they wanted to replace me because they thought I was going to be the new singer of Five Finger.
00:24:53.000So, basically, Bad Wolves got signed by default.
00:24:57.000So, I changed the name and then added a bunch of songs to the album.
00:25:02.000Sounds similar to the mistake that Hayley Williams' family made, or she made, with Paramore.
00:25:07.000Yeah, I don't know too much about the backstory.
00:25:11.000I'm not going to pretend to know a lot about this story either, but just for my understanding, because I think I've talked about it with people before, that she got signed, but she was like, I want to have this, I like this band.
00:25:23.000I think it was because she was romantic, like she was a teenager interested in this guitar player.
00:25:26.000Well, I think they were together for quite a while.
00:25:28.000I mean, like every song she wrote was about him.
00:25:46.000That's the this is the mistake when people are You know, I'll put it this way.
00:25:50.000I've gotten I got a stern warning from a good friend of mine who's also Famous who said that The mistake a lot of these people make is two things, like you're rising, you're a rising star, and then you think that your friends are also capable of handling what you're handling, and you bring them with you, and now you've taken someone who doesn't know how to handle it and put them next to the brightest star in the sky.
00:26:18.000When I got back to doing All That Remains stuff after doing the Five Finger Death Punch tours, the shows, Jason Costa, our drummer, asked me, he's like, hey, do you think that we can get to where they are?
00:26:30.000And I just looked at him, I said, no, because there are people in the band that will not do what the people in Five Finger Death Punch have done.
00:26:39.000I know that you know this person won't do this, this person won't do this, and it doesn't happen without all the people involved saying whatever needs to happen to reach the next level we'll do.
00:26:50.000But you force someone Who has no experience with, so actually I'll put it this way, I was talking to somebody about what we're doing with Rotational Coast and stuff, and they were like, whatever you do, just make sure the people who go on the show have experience with the press.
00:27:07.000Because if you get somebody who doesn't, who hasn't dealt with it, who doesn't know what they're gonna do, those people are gonna fucking lose their minds.
00:27:13.000And so I'm like, I think all of us have experience with the press.
00:27:19.000At least knows what it is and what it means to sit in a chair.
00:27:23.000And so I just, this is like a warning I got a while ago, like, yeah, man, there is, you know, you bring people, like, someone comes to you, and I'm just saying it's kind of what it's not, like, this is what it reminded me of when I was reading about the Paramore stuff.
00:27:59.000And in our case, the drummer and I were co-owners, but he was also, you know, he was I don't know where the source of John's resentment toward me started, because he's apolitical, but things were happening where we would go places and people would recognize me and hand him their phone, and I'd be like, that's the guy, he's the drummer, and they're like, oh cool, can you take a picture of us?
00:28:46.000Tommy Lee is the most famous guy in Motley Crue by far.
00:28:50.000But it's about if you don't do press, if you let yourself go, if you are awkward, if you are fat, if you don't want to be around people, if you are Under the influence.
00:29:04.000There's many things that go into why you're not being present or in the public eye.
00:29:10.000Or if you just reject that and don't want anything to do with it, you can't be mad at the other people who have to pick up the slack.
00:29:15.000I had to do almost 100 interviews a year for two years, to almost three years, because no one else could do press.
00:30:57.000Yeah, they were like, he's the guy to go for and then there was I don't know if you guys ever heard of the band jellyfish early 90s and The drummer was the lead singer.
00:31:06.000Oh, yeah, and it was just I'm sorry, dude.
00:31:09.000This is bad idea Yeah, because he can just sing you get a drummer and so they tried putting him in on the stage, in the front, with a stand-up drum kit, while he sang and played, and I'm like, just half the guys, I mean, I was a little kid at the time, but watching this stuff as I'm older, I'm like, that's a ridiculous thing to do.
00:31:24.000Like Soundgarden, you know, Chris Cornell was the drummer, and then he was like, I have this voice.
00:31:33.000Nothing more, Johnny Hawkins, amazing singer, he was the drummer.
00:31:42.000So, Fall Out Boy's story was, Patrick Stomp, they asked him to play drums, and when he played drums and they were trying out vocalists, he sang and they were like, holy shit, you sing instead, we'll get a different drummer.
00:31:53.000And the guy, I think the guy's name was Andy something.
00:32:04.000We did a tour with The Damn Things, which is a band that Andy played drums in, and super nice, like nicest guy ever, but he's extremely antifa and I'm just like, oh, you're getting conned by them.
00:32:17.000I got a funny story for you guys, just last thing.
00:32:19.000You ever hear of the band The Hush Sound?
00:32:23.000I don't know if this is offensive to the band members, but they're not particularly famous, but they do small shows and they sell out.
00:32:30.000They toured with Fall Out Boy, they were on Decadence, so they were in that sphere and they had three albums that came out through them.
00:32:40.000When I was in Denver, I was at like a Best Buy or something, and I bought some CDs, and I bought like Death Cab for Cutie, because I was a big fan of theirs, and then I remember seeing on MySpace this band Hush Sound, and then I was like, it was like, I don't know how you describe it, but one chick, Greta, sings and plays piano, and then there's a guitar player and singer, and it was like dual male-female vocals, so I grabbed their new album.
00:33:00.000I'm driving back from Denver to Chicago, after living there for a little bit, and I have only two CDs, so I'm just spam-blasting these bands.
00:33:07.000One day I'm at the Metro, You know the metro in Chicago, I imagine.
00:33:11.000And I'm in the bathroom, washing my hands, and then Bob, the guitar player, walks up to my left, starts washing his hands, and then I dry my hands, and I look over, and I'm like, are you Bob from The Hush Sound?
00:33:22.000And they were doing big tours, so he's a moderately famous guy at the time, they were doing the Honda Civic Tour and all that stuff.
00:33:29.000As I'm leaving, I see him outside, so I talk to him for a little bit, and I'm like, yeah, dude, I got your guys' album, Like Vines, it's really good.
00:33:35.000Every single song, I think it's fantastic.
00:33:37.000And then we just shot this shit, me and a couple other people.
00:33:40.000That's it, I left, didn't see him, met the guy.
00:33:51.000So I'm walking down, it's like right by Paramount or something like that, and everybody drinks coffee, all the rich people.
00:33:56.000I'm walking down my street, and motherfucker is walking the exact same direction with his dog, and right when we get to the corner, I stop, and I'm like, Bob?
00:34:43.000In LA, you never can tell like, I mean, if he still plays music, you never can tell if he's playing with someone and just something hits and next thing you know, he's on some fucking gigantic tour or whatever, you know?
00:34:52.000You know, I think he's just doing his own thing for the most part, like in playing music.
00:34:58.000I know that he's got like a dog walking business, but I will say this for Bob.
00:35:04.000Like his music was so good I for the life of me couldn't understand why it wasn't bigger why they didn't make it because like I Started listening to their music again.
00:35:11.000I'm like, it's just so fucking good does it cost money?
00:35:15.000It costs money to to you the the cost of exposure right like and that's that's the thing like what I you know what I've had to deal with leaving My former band is that, you know, I have a music video on YouTube that has 450 million views alone, right?
00:35:35.000And it's like billions of streams, all like global.
00:35:49.000We use as a window stopper, just sitting on the ground.
00:35:52.000Yeah, but it's like, you know, the the reset button of like how you know like I I just I recently had I Spent a lot of money at metaverse talking upwards of tens of thousands of dollars to get my my Instagram profile reinstated
00:36:14.000It was an external hack, and they said that only eight people could have done it, and that it probably cost upwards of $100,000 to have my profile deleted.
00:36:31.000Basically, they acid-washed the metadata from my profile.
00:36:36.000To make sure that I could never have it again because I had almost 400,000 real fans on there who paid for concert tickets.
00:36:44.000I sold out my entire tour with no radio promotion, no anything, just from the power of my Instagram.
00:36:52.000You know, it's the pettiness of like, if I can't have you, no one will.
00:36:57.000And that's what the slave industry of the music industry is about.
00:37:01.000People don't want to talk about this in a way that's productive, but the reality is like, for example, Kanye West said, like, ridiculousness shit, right?
00:37:12.000So his whole anti-Semitic thing was ridiculous.
00:37:16.000And I have an issue with it, because my stepfather, rest in peace, was a wonderful Jewish man, right?
00:37:22.000And I grew up going to school with people who were Jewish, and I have friends who were Jewish, and it's not, just because someone from a record label has a last name, it doesn't represent the whole of a race of people.
00:37:36.000But what there is a problem is, is that within the music industry, and the entertainment industry, Amongst all races of the, you know, 100 millionaires, the 100 million guys plus up to billionaires.
00:37:50.000They're all unilaterally on the same tip.
00:37:55.000So if you piss one of them off, regardless of whatever their belief system is or their race or whatever, you're fucked.
00:38:02.000And then they also control the media and people are like, ooh, who's up?
00:38:06.000Because the outlets, No longer can survive off print sales, so they have to pay for it in advertising on their websites.
00:38:15.000And so who pays for the big dollars to advertise on the websites?
00:38:19.000Who's paying for the pieces to be written?
00:38:39.000With every project we try doing, book, music or otherwise, they're like, oh yeah, we're gonna help you, we're gonna make it all work, here's what we're gonna do, and then the very last thing they say is, now all you gotta do is promote it on your show.
00:38:50.000And it's like I get it you think like that's and so this is why we got books that are coming out and then these companies are like yeah yeah we can do all these things for you and then when you promote it on your show we'll get sales and I'm like well then what the fuck do I sign with you for?
00:39:02.000Well you don't need to that's the whole point you know and it's like I like even even with Even without my Instagram page, right?
00:40:17.000So so it's very easy because especially people who like us will be censored in certain places and people are invested and they want to get the information.
00:40:27.000The email list becomes your whole life.