E57 A Conversation with Dan Murphy of All Good Things

KC  0:12  
You're listening to The Itch. My name is KC. 

Dan  0:15  
My name is Dan. 

Aaron  0:16  
And I'm Aaron. And this week we're scratching The Itch to talk about good things. Not just some of them, but in fact, all of them, oh, good things, a band called all good things. And this is a band that we're excited to speak with, we had a chance to sit and talk with Dan Murphy as the lead vocalist and guitarist of the band. And he was telling us all kinds of good stuff about their new album that should be coming out, hopefully this year. It's not officially confirmed when yet, it'll be their debut album for better noise records. And they just put out a rerelease of their song for the glory, and this remix features, hollywood undead. So we've been jamming that a lot. And they also announced a pretty huge tour, they're going to be support for pod on their satellite 20th anniversary tour, that will be making the rounds this August and September, we're definitely excited to have him on our show.

Dan  1:10  
It was an honor. And it's great to have, you know, not becoming rising stars like this band has become, it's not really the success overnight, but it kind of is in a sense, you know,

Aaron  1:24  
in its own interesting way. And this band has a very unique story of how they came to be a band, which I won't spoil right now. Because you'll you'll hear that story in a second. But it is unlike anybody else that we have spoken with so far. And really, that was one of the driving reasons why we were intrigued to talk with this band. 

Dan  1:42  
Yeah, cuz even if you don't know who all good things are, chances are you've probably heard their music somewhere. 

Aaron  1:47  
Exactly. That's right. That was a that's a good teaser right there. Good hint. Very nice.

KC  1:53  
Yeah. During the interview, I wanted to kind of dive a little bit farther into that. But the conversation didn't really lend itself that way. And I didn't want to take up a whole bunch of time talking about before the band became a band officially, but definitely heard some of the catalog doing prep for the interview. And it was like, I totally know this song. I've heard this somewhere. And I look it up. And this has been on multiple WWE touquet video games. All right, cool.

Aaron  2:23  
I definitely, there was a little part of me that definitely wanted to ask about Johnny mundo. Yeah, it just it just didn't come naturally. And I didn't want to force it. There was too much other good stuff happening. Yes. I didn't want to force it. Yeah.

Dan  2:35  
Yeah, but he was definitely kind enough to bless us with his presence for as long as we wanted is what he said. But we only took like an hour, well, an hour and 20 minutes, 20 minutes due to technical difficulties yet again, on my behalf, it's getting really old to be on.

Aaron  2:51  
Twice as two times too many. We're gonna learn our lesson, I think we've got to figure it out. 

Dan  2:54  
For now, I can't stand zoom. I hate it.

KC  2:58  
Maybe if we finally buy that business zoom, we'll be able to get the technical difficulties out of the way. I don't want to reward them with money for their poor performance lately.

Dan  3:09  
Because it's really weird. Like we're sitting there in the room talking all three of us having you know, a conversation, all of a sudden other people join, and then I can't talk my mic just shuts off like app. Only three people can talk in this room zoom decided that

Aaron  3:21  
your microphone is nervous around musicians. It's like, Oh, I feel shy. I don't want to work right now.

Dan  3:28  
I definitely felt that and then you know, I as shy as it is, I get angry.

Aaron  3:36  
Fortunately, you didn't have to take any of your anger out on our guest or on us, really on anybody. We got the problem resolved pretty quickly. And all was well in The Itch world

Dan  3:45  
switched over to our old reliable Zencaster.

KC  3:53  
We hope you guys enjoy our conversation with them as much as we did, talking with them. So without further ado, here's our interview with Dan Murphy, of all good things.

Aaron  4:09  
I know you've been making the rounds. And there's probably parts of your story that you're already getting tired of talking about. So we figured we'd just summarize that for our listeners and hopefully dive into a fairly fresh topics for you. And so I'm sure you've heard this every time you talk with somebody but you guys have had very unique unorthodox story you started out as a studio project, we're all musicians who worked with a company called extreme music to create hard rock tunes specifically to be licensed for soundtrack trailers, video games, and library music. That means it was very successful for the glory in particular had over 100 million streams across platforms. And somewhere along the lines enough people said, Hey, you guys should become a band. And that and you and the rest of all good things decided that you'd agree. So just a few questions about that. First, aside from pure peer pressure, what kind of flip the switch from you guys saying that we're not going to be a band. We're never be in a band to you know, I guess we're gonna be a band now.

Dan Murphy  4:58  
I mean, it was definitely listening. Kind of one of us went on to Spotify. I think I was just like checking out Spotify and she was checking out YouTube she found a ton of videos that other you know, people would upload with their own graphics or you know animated music videos and game music videos that had a few 100,000 views on some songs, I get up and fight some of our older songs. You know, we went on Spotify and those same two songs. So we've been calling the twins. I think they've had a million or something at that point. We were really I mean, probably Yeah, it was more than a million because I remember we were really surprised we're like, holy crap, then all the messages started kind of coming in but it was kind of a conversation with Andrew and Liz where I think over a couple beers we were just hanging out and like Dude, you guys want to play a show man you want to do it and you know Andrew lizard really you know, they've been really successful producers and songwriters in LA and they've done a ton of touring in the past we've done touring in the past but I think we never really thought about this project ever hitting the road and doing that we just kind of fun in the studio and we were like kind of over a couple of beers like Dude, let's just book the show in the valley are no play some covers play the AC DC and like some other random stuff, even some pop chains the honestly with other like artists like Rebecca Black was there and stuff. It was really random. But and even a man there's always like random celebrities. There's like a school here in the valley. It was really awesome, dude. Like, what's his boat from anchorman is like pouring beer. It was awesome anyways. But it was fun placing shows there. And then I think Andrew kind of got the bug. And we were like, you know what we should just, you know, book a show with the whiskey and see how that goes. And then that was a blast. And then ever since that our first show really, whiskey was our first show is all good things. And that was like the funnest time ever. So since that we've been trying to book book shows. But it's been more about writing this album and finishing the album than it has about you know, getting out there and touring. Unfortunately, you know, we wanted to do a lot of touring last year, but we weren't able to.

Dan  6:43  
Understandable. And so you originally put your music out under the name of battle rock, which is perfectly on the nose description for the music. So where did the name all good things come from?

Dan Murphy  6:52  
Oh, man, I wish you had listened to Andrew to answer that question. Because I know that was the name of the band in the beginning. They were like, Hey, man, you want to come over and try to sing some hard rock crap with us. And you know, just back out. They really just didn't pitch it as much it was more just like you want to come in the studio and like yell your ass off and write some crazy rock shit with us. And it was actually they didn't even know I was a rock singer at the time. When I did come in. They already had a couple songs with different singers like around LA. Yeah, they were like later I found out after I recorded a couple times like yeah, we're putting out this crap on like the internet go all good things, whatever. Like, hey, just like what up? No one ever thought twice about I yeah, so I know, I never even knew is called all good things in the beginning. But um, yeah, so I have no story about the Navy. And it was funny because at the time, I was in another band called Bad things which with strong white. I just was kind of I got a gig singing as the new singer. But we never actually put anything out that we recorded but played a few shows is bad things. And I was also pushing all good things in the background. 

Aaron  7:56  
good things and bad things at the same time have nothing to do with each other

Dan  8:02  
And we've also heard your story about turning from a musician who wrote specifically for a movie and video game licensing to full on being a band. But what was the path that even took you from that job creating for extreme music? Like, how did you get to making the video game music for extreme music?

Dan Murphy  8:18  
Um, I mean, just getting into that whole, like licensing library world was like, honestly really weird for me in the beginning, like it was super foreign. And, you know, I grew up in Montana. And you know, in the very beginning, I always doing cover songs, but then I'm only like Middle School in high school is like doing originals and writing my own stuff and trying to book my own tours. And I was always doing the kind of DIY band thing and then moved to LA. And you know, in my head, I was always like, you know, write the most you guys are always every lyric was so personal and like was a story that you go on through or you're like, you know, experienced and then doing the library thing, just in the beginning, the way it was pitched you know, is like, hey, if you want you want to sing some pop stuff, or whatever. And it was just like I was kind of against it in the beginning. But it also I wasn't really writing the beginnings no one really believed I had the writing skill, I was kind of getting hired as a singer around LA to do a lot of random gigs. So but it was a cool experience because I got to learn how other people worked and how they worked in their studios and how other people were shaping songs and ended up being like really the same way that I've always written songs. So the way I dove into that was just kind of letting go and like kind of exercising a writing muscle and like using a different part of like, I was just trying to write different styles of music I've never written before. And it was really fun actually, like in trying to sing in a bunch of different styles. So I kind of like started doing everything but hard rock for the longest time. And then all good things came around and I started singing the way I did back when I was like a little kid and now like maybe, I mean I was definitely like not as good as way pitchy. I was a terrible singer when I was growing up. I still might not be the best thing ever. But like back, you know, back in the day, I was basically doing the same style of music so I've kind of gone through this whole full circle weird, you know, music path, and it's it's awesome. I'm so happy to be doing hard rock again. That's what I first grew up doing.

Dan  9:58  
Do you think that's helped you be kind I'm a better singer having to sing all those different genres along the way,

Dan Murphy  10:03  
do you like 190 100% like, and also, I'm always like, I'm here in my studio and I pretty much record and pretty much everything I've recorded ever is just here in my studio, I do all the vocal editing myself, except for all good things, all good things is actually recorded over Andrew in Liz's studio, and Liz does vocal production editing. So she's kind of behind the glass and kind of telling me what she wants to hear, which is really kind of nice, because usually I'm here alone in the studio, like, really indecisive and wondering if this lyrics right or if I saying this word, right, and it's crazy. When I'm in the studio with Liz, she's great. She will tell me how to like, you know, shape my mouth and like, what emotions I'm feeling you know, it's just like, this is instruction that I'm usually not really thinking about if I'm singing a word, and I'm like, spacing it out too much, or I'm like, falling too much on a melody stuff I don't really think about and I just record here and edit it and like, Oh, damn, that's a really good idea. And so I think when we have each other to bounce this stuff off of, and that's lyrics to like, there's we go back and forth with lyrics endlessly. Like, we'll think we're done. And then I'll be in the studio, singing a song and we'll be like, Oh, dude, that's not right. We got to swap these words around, or whatever. And like, it's nice, just to have that communication back and forth. We trust each other and can kind of like, you know, when we're both happy with the song, in the end, we're like, Oh, dude, we finally did it. And the song is the best it can be. So it's good to have it.

KC  11:18  
Yeah, you can tell that you guys have a lot of creative freedom as a band and you have the space to go many different ways.

Dan Murphy  11:26  
it's nice. We've always had that which is kind of cohesive self produced everything, you know, Anderson, insane producer and list to Yeah, we just never really had an instruction, it's just been Do whatever you want, write whatever you want. And we've just been so lucky to have that. Because I know a lot of times, it's, you get forced into a thing, you know, and obviously, with for the glory being as massive as it was, for us, you know, not really ever seeing that happen. And you know, like, obviously, we're gonna try to write another for the glory, but it's funny, it's just like, you hate that pressure of like, all you got to do it again, you know, it's like, I'm, we're not trying to think about that we're just trying to write like, in the beginning, like just songs that came to us, they don't have to sound the same. They're just, I don't know, this whole process has been so funny. Because in the beginning, we just didn't think twice about anything we put out. And now that we've got this big album coming out, it's just, we've really kind of buckled down and try to focus on how to make the song, you know, as big as it can be, and really kind of Peel to the original fans.

Dan  12:22  
So do you think the writing process has changed now that you've coined yourself a band all good things? Or do you think that you're just putting more pressure on yourselves now because of the success of past songs?

Dan Murphy  12:33  
Um, I mean, there's not really a ton of pressure because it's like, we just had so much fun writing all the time. The songs are coming, we just pressure is kind of like narrowing down the songs into an album. We have, like so many that we like, and there's so so many demos that we never finished and like, actually finished demos. That didn't make the album. I mean, originally, we thought we were going to put out machines Deluxe with like four extra songs. So we had those like done and like ready to go. And then I don't think any of those maybe one of them. No, two of them are making the album I guess. But you know, there's always these songs you love and then they never make the cut. But I think that'd be a good question for the next record, when we get off this tour and, and go back in the studio, we're actually planning on bringing in a recording rig. So we'll see if we can get some demoing done while we're out on the road pod. So it'll be fun. Can't wait. Nice.

KC  13:19  
Yeah. Speaking of that, with you guys signing with better noise is that the kind of perfect label for you guys to join up with?

Dan Murphy  13:27  
Yeah, man, it really is, dude, it's like when you're searching for who would be the perfect fit for the band? Yeah, definitely better noise was the cream of the crop. We flew out to New York and met up with the team and they were all super cool. We met you know, Alan and a couple people out here in LA for a meeting and like, they seem to have the same kind of vision of where we're going and what we could be and how to be kind of like our own, you know, unique slice of the better noise roster that doesn't necessarily sound exactly like everything else. I think they're gonna kill a job of doing that finding, you know, awesome, unique sounding artists that don't necessarily sound all the same. And really, they just been signing more and more cool bands. They just signed Asking Alexandria, which is an awesome band, no stoked to see the roster gone and also relatively great indie bands. It's pretty cool. Yeah,

KC  14:12  
it's funny you mentioned that because we were talking about the roster and there was one name that kind of stuck out like a sore thumb and it's a Nelly Furtado. There's a future collab for you I was gonna say I mean not heard about our next angle we making like a bird Yes,

Dan Murphy  14:41  
we are Yeah, I think that there is a management thing or something I think I someone or delay will work with her. But yeah, the Ross is saying Dude, I mean, the scene Motley Crue five finger and you know, yeah, crazy bands up there. It's It's an honor to be part of it.

And then them having a film division opening up, which we're like, Yeah, well, when we saw that Like you guys have heard your story and then saw that label. They're like, Well, okay, that's just that fits like a glove, right? They're like, hey, yeah, film division. We like to incorporate our music into what you're like. were used to writing for films were clearly the guys that you want. 

Yeah. Like, we're really happy. They chose for the glory to be in a film and really happy their website goes in alphabetical order. So that's also very cool. Thanks for that. Nice, but, uh, yeah, no, it's awesome. Man, that sounds exciting. They actually were nice enough to fly miles a night out to Vegas to be a part of it. And cast. This is a couple of gas station clerks, which was a lot of fun. It's something out of our comfort zone. But we had a blast. And it was actually, you know, once we were doing it, and it was just really fun. It was a blast. Can't wait to see it. It's gonna be awesome. Just to see all these artists, you know, acting like playing his part. And yeah, I can't wait. Yeah,

Aaron  15:57  
yeah, we had talked to from ashes to new about that. And they because they're part in the film. Was there actually a band? They're playing their own song? I actually did not. Yeah, yeah. It sounds like there still is still a little bit under wraps. I mean, I don't know. You know, something. I don't know if you've seen whatever the final cut is yet or not? No, they hadn't at the point that we talked to them. And so I don't think it has some mystery there.

Dan Murphy  16:19  
Yeah, I think there's a lot of mystery. Do you like yeah, I actually flew out there in August to be in a different scene, and then it kind of a we had to cancel because it COVID so I think they reshot it with different characters, or something. I don't know how we got a part of the film. It's fine, whatever. But uh, also, our song was tied to it too. So I was like, Oh, yeah. I want to be in the film. And they were like, all and they were like, dude, you guys want to fly on the gas station quick. So we were pumped. We secretly really want to be in it. So we're having your first time doing any kind of acting? Oh, yeah. I wouldn't even call it acting either. I don't know. I might have been playing myself as a gas station clerk. It was fun. Yeah, it was good. The bonus part was just kind of like being in the studios. And yeah, it was funny, man. We got Yeah, we were set up in a funny studio, which we found out there was paperwork that was left out. It was like a porn shoot the day before. finding evidence everywhere, which made Oh, oh, yeah. Double, but like hilarious. It was a fun trip. We got to get time. Are you able to confirm whether or not your clerk survived? We have no idea whatever happened. cleric might have died of his own, like alcohol intake or something. drugging is kind of your worst employee ever. Okay. Yeah, might be me, an actual gas station clerk.

Aaron  17:51  
We're looking forward to the retaliator is like you are and we're expecting a lot of musicians that we like and probably a pretty high body count. So based on based on what little we've understood of the film, so for real man.

Dan Murphy  18:04  
What's funny about that is like, you know, putting for the glory. And in that film, we were like, How the hell is this gonna work to be totally. Especially it's an uplifting, powerful song gets you through a really tough situation. So I can imagine the only situation is getting someone through in that film is a dude run from like, a few sub humans trying to like rip his head off or something like that, because it definitely seems like it's gonna be a gory one to watch. So I'm excited. I just excited to see how it all comes together.

Aaron  18:34  
I hadn't really thought about that. You guys have had songs licensed to so many different things, but the general vibe of most of what you put out is this more like anthem like encouraging, like, making it through tough times. It didn't really hurt me. It's still a slasher film, whatever might be a weird place for that to be Yeah.

Dan Murphy  18:52  
Nice. Nine kills is on the on the soundtrack. And that's very fitting, you know, where we go to be on there. And maybe it's like a really uplifting moment, but it's kind of funny, because it might be our first like, horror placement or something. There's a lot of like, reality shows that like, I've seen heard our stuff and like, you know, some jail shows or like, a lot of like, there's some darker stuff that uses like our older catalog, like some of our never surrender. I surrender and stuff like that. But yeah, for the glory is one of our most uplifting songs.

Dan  19:22  
It was also picked up by the NHL to use during the playoffs correct?

Dan Murphy  19:25  
Yeah, man, it's they're still using it. Like it's so cool just to watch like, I'm such a hockey fan. So I watch almost every playoff game and being able to hear my song and they're like, once or twice like every other game is just unreal, man. It's just such a cool feeling. Really. We're huge blues fans at The Itch. Nice man. GLORIA will cover Gloria please do that would be forever be loved in St. Louis. Are you guys gonna make your mark you guys as blues fans, you tired of that? Or will that be the anthem forever? For Sale. It

Dan  19:58  
was retired after 2019 Which is probably why we haven't won a playoff games.

Aaron  20:04  
But nonetheless, if you came to St. Louis and played it, you would that would you endear yourself very much. Yeah. You'd be heroes quickly.

Dan Murphy  20:12  
I love like endlessly during that cup round. That was so cool. Yeah. Who would you say your team is? Uh, you know, I grew up when I was a I grew up in Montana. So I never had a team. So I had an aunt and uncle who lived in New York, and I got to go visit them in the city every once in a while and I got to like, I never got to see again there. But I got to do like one of the cool like, behind the scenes tours in Madison Square Garden, and like, you know, bubble hockey for the first time and see how we're built and like, it was so cool, man. So I grew up a ranger fan just because I have family out there. Then I think like every other kid, you know, I was a Gretzky fan. So just following him around, and I actually got to go see him play in Calgary, on the king's and on the Rangers when I was a little kid because Calgary is the closest city to me with a team It was like maybe 10 hours away from me. So we drove up there to see them a couple times and saw Gretzky play and then you know, when he went to the kings and I moved to LA you know, obviously was a long time difference but just feels like being a kid again. I fell in love with the Kings like watching Gretzky at traded there. And, and then, you know, being in the city and being able to go to games like every week, it was like, Oh, hell yeah, this is so cool. I've adopted them when I moved here like 1012 years ago, and but really, I'm just a huge hockey fan. I thought I could just watch the Kings I watched like, too much hockey really mean, our drummer. We're both like, watching almost every game. It's ridiculous. It's crazy. When the season ends. I'm gonna have so much off time. It'll be awesome. Good thing you're going on tour at that time, right? I can't wait now. It's gonna be civil. We're gonna have some TVs on the bus, that's for sure.

Aaron  21:47  
Would you say that that NHL placement is your favorite placement? so far have any music

Dan Murphy  21:52  
100% I feel like maybe I've peaked is like an artists and a human. And I really thought that it like, I don't know, like, you know, from Little kids standpoint, if you're like, telling me when I'm 12 or whatever, like I'm playing street hockey or something like Dude, your stones gonna be in the playoffs? Like in one like, I don't know. And it's like almost every game like they've done these montages of all these epic old cup rounds and how these teams like hold up and Yeah, dude, I've been like trying to save everyone that I can grab on my phone just so like, I can go back through and just, if I'm ever on a down day, I can be like, at least I had this one time.

KC  22:32  
Nice. Well, speaking of for the glory, what's your thoughts on hollywood undead? Joining the remake of the track because I mean, it was already successful as it was, but haven't hollywood undead? join up with you guys? I'm sure was a thrill.

Dan Murphy  22:50  
Yeah, we were super excited, man. We wanted to collab with them. But we weren't exactly sure like we didn't really think it'd be a collab on an older song You know? So but we were so excited that you know, the team of better noise had this kind of vision of what it could be and could connect us with Hollywood and then we were able to kind of you know, send them the song and Jerry tears and Charlie got back and we're super pumped on it and you're like, dude, hell yeah, we want to be on this and we want to rewrite the bridge and Yeah, dude, it was just the easiest collab ever. We just basically sent them the track and they recorded their home studio and same was kind of we wrote we're like you get the song you get the vibe man. You guys know exactly how to write so you do you and bring your energy to it which you know, they've got this cool awesome unique vibe that I don't really think any other band has. And I was just like, dude, you guys do you and and it brought this awesome life to the song we're super stoked.

KC  23:41  
Yeah, it fit perfectly.

Dan Murphy  23:43  
Thanks, man. Yeah, people are people are stoked and like to be honest, like a lot of the library stuff we do is like always been library stuff you know, whatever I keep calling it that but um, we've written it's all good things in the past it's been you know, just trying to make each section kind of stand out and be different and that's why we kind of did throw kind of rap rock sections into some of the older songs and maybe not so much on the new stuff. I've never really considered myself like a rapper. You know, I've like I like to write it and I like to scream and stuff like that. And it's funny when like these parts come together like the for the glory original rap bridge that I wrote like, it was one of those things I'm like, let me just step out for like a second. I sat down for 20 minutes and just like had this idea like let's throw this rap in and then like get through it a listen to Andrew the dude Yes, lay that shade down. It's so and so. Being the song and I just I never thought that that'd be like our biggest song with this crazy screaming rap section in the bridge. And I mean, I actually love doing a live every night is a blast. I'd rather if I'm gonna rap. I rarely like scream it because I don't feel like maybe I don't know if I've got the flow to just like, rap a whole song, you know, but uh, yeah, I'm glad people are digging what came out because it was a Yeah, yeah, it was very unintentional. Almost. It was just like, that song came so easily. It was like the craziest writing process for that song we wrote in an afternoon and like three hours and it was pretty much Done, then it's crazy. And look where we are now from furthermore. So yeah, hopefully we'll get more of those songs sent down from the music gods in the future. There you go.

Dan  25:09  
I'll admit, that kind of is what got me paying attention to your band because I'm a huge hollywood undead fan. I've been fans of them since they initially came out. And it's very rare to see Charlie scene Co Op with any other artists. I can. I think you could probably name the ones on a hand of how many times he's done that. So it did help, like kind of put you on my radar, so to speak. Awesome. Yeah. So the other thing I wanted to ask kind of along that lines was I don't know if you saw this, but like j three t also put this out on a press release saying that, you know, it was an honor working with one of the best bands out there making music right now. So what does that feel like when artists that I'm sure you've probably been a fan of for so long is now turn around complimenting you?

Dan Murphy  25:48  
Yeah, I'll be honest, I read that and was a little like, shocked. I was like, Really? Wow. Like high praise, but he's like, he's the nicest guy ever. Man. I haven't even met him in person yet. I've just kind of assumed like this, you know, with you guys. And just seems like the most awesome dude. You know, I just want to like play a show. Those guys would go hang with him. You know, just chill with Johnny three tears. He's the most genuinely like, Nice, dude. He's so easy to talk to you. So yeah, I'm just stoked. He has given us props, man. It's really unreal. Like, it's crazy. It's really cool to be, you know, we've always been in bands and tried to tour and obviously, this has been the end goal forever. And we took this side kind of library approach to get to where we are, you know, just to be on some charts and flyers now and tour posters with some of these artists that I grew up listening to. It's just like, the coolest thing in the world is pretty awesome.

Dan  26:37  
And so we also know you got a new album coming out later this year, your first with better noise. Assuming you can't tell us more about the album title and release date. All we know right now is that the theme of the album is kind of surviving the apocalypse. Can you at least clarify one thing? Like will there be gas masks involved?

Dan Murphy  26:53  
teamed up with the coolest artists for this album for the cover? Yes. Not as in your face. But yes. All right. It's funny how many bands have started doing that too, we kind of thought we were on to something unique when we first started putting the worlds doing these gas masks now. So we're like, crap, we got to run away from because it really is like theme of the band. And like what we've kind of done is try to create this city scape and like different parts of the city. For each single we actually have like artwork made for nine of the songs. I think we're trying to do 13 songs in the album. I don't know if we'll do art for every single song. But the kind of the idea is like picking a part of this city that we've built with this really cool artist named Vitaly. And for each song kind of created its own, you know, unique moment or event or part of the town and you can kind of see the other part of the town in the background. And yeah, it's really cool, dude, there's so much detail. There's artists, if you've seen the kingdom cover kingdoms a song, like the first single we put out, this is going to be on the next album, and you can zoom in on that artwork forever. And that guy just went to town like he there's so many details in there. It's just crazy. And then I even went and I was like, whoa, I'm gonna go on zoom and I like put Murph on there and like added a couple easter eggs in there just because we've had fun playing with it and just got the artwork back actually, like the booklet artwork. And he kind of sewed a lot of the different images together and it's just, it's awesome. Do we actually want to come out with like a, I don't know how we're gonna do it if we just wanted to do posters or like a book or like a hardback book or like bigger prints. But some of these some of the art these guys come up with it's just so epic man, I like I want to blow it out you can and there's so the files are so big, I could print on a billboard. It's just like after this is going to be going to design merge all day cuz we got to design a bunch of merge. And I'm pretty much going to go nerd out on these guys images and just zoom in and try to find Cool Bits and pieces to kind of turn into t shirts for design ideas. Because he's just such a cool creative dude. Like I think there's a lot I can work with. Nice.

Aaron  28:49  
That's awesome. I'm envisioning, like you guys being the kind of thing where you have this a post apocalyptic panoramic landscape. Like each panel is like a song or something like that. There's so much creativity you can add to it from that angle, too.

Dan Murphy  29:01  
Yeah, exactly, man and then even in the future, just kind of like building off of that too. With with artwork in the future. And yeah, man, just really cool scenes that we've created. And we've got artwork done for our next well, at least next couple of singles and you know really excited about that, too.

Aaron  29:16  
It's all gonna be awesome. So kingdom and then is the Can you confirm is the hollywood undead version of for the glory on the album as well? Okay, yeah, yeah, sometimes you see people that come out these days, and these kind of earlier singles are part of an album, sometimes it's more just like an introduction or a teaser, like, kind of take up time in between, you know what I mean? So I never quite know.

Dan Murphy  29:39  
The way I look at it is this is our first release, you know, like is all good things. I want better noise everything else before this was, you know, machines was an album, I guess, you know, it's kind of like it feels like this is the first record but of the band. You know, everything else is a cool back catalogue to have, but it's just kind of, we wanted to bring over the biggest song, kind of redo it and it's also there's one other song On the old record that's going to be on the new one. So just a heads up. So

Aaron  30:03  
what would you call machines more of like a compilation or maybe like, like a best covers of the things that you guys had done. As far as that like that library music called it

Dan Murphy  30:12  
goes or no, machines was the point where we were like, crap. Like, we're transitioning away from being a library band, and we're not going to pull it out under about a rock anymore. The band name like enough people know our band name now or we can put out release and maybe people will find it now. Okay, that was always the idea. Like, dude, let's let's do an album. But I don't want to do like, you know, don't put all your eggs in one basket. Let's just do nine and like, whatever put it out. That was a new this real. This album is like, dude, we had like, you know, 2030 songs that we were, like, stoked on and narrowing that down to 13. And then you're adding on to the old ones. It was really hard to like, fit what we wanted on this one, you know, but yeah, I'm just really excited, man. It's a really cool collection of music can't wait.

Aaron  30:51  
Are you able then to confirm if there are any other guest appearances besides hollywood undead?

Dan Murphy  30:56  
Yeah, we got higher the hero on a train. That's a win right there. Yeah, nice. Yeah, it's gonna be sick, too. It's probably like maybe maybe the most epic song on a record too. Like, it's such a, I don't know, the intro is just this anthem. It's so sick, dude. It's the biggest intro ever. It's like, something every boxer should walk into the ring to that's one of the kind of thing hieros been killing it lately. So you guys kind of like converging right there is that's like when when we saw him actually, I wasn't even like the label that put that together. We we saw him here in LA and, like, loved and we're like, dude, like we ever need someone to rap and bring some energy. So I'm like, we got to get this guy on it. And then, you know, just following him on social media. And then I think maybe you saw I think he follows back after we got signed. And we kind of went back and forth a couple times. We just said Hey, man, you want to come over the studio and try to lay down some on the song and we kind of thought he'd come in and, you know, just feel it out and write something to it. But when he came in, he had the whole thing written and like finish this, like, I'll just write it I'll go in and he went in and like the first take, we're like, Alright, it you're done. Like not probably like three takes. And then we're like, Well, yeah, now we have the lead. So that's easy. And then just do whatever you want. Over the end, they started doing this like, Yeah, well, like, excuse me this like thing and holy shit do what is this? Keep doing that. And the end is just like this intense. Crazy. This is chaos. It's awesome. It was really crazy. Because it was the hardest song on the record right to because it's actually the only song we had to. We had a co writer on to where we had to, I guess but this guy Kj came in and we rewrote the chorus like five times and ended up changing the key in the end. And we're like, oh, that was it. We needed that so bad. So you know, it's a low key change in the in the chorus. The intro is like so big. It was hard to like, like, Damn, like, where do you go from there? Like, when your intro is so big, like how, you know, it was just a really a complicated song, right? But in the end, I'm stuck and hierro adding it all to the and it's just like this chaos. I'm excited for people here.

Dan  33:03  
So do you think when you guys go back on tour, like I believe that you guys just announced a tour with a pod and fellow label made from ashes to new? Do you think that you'll be doing a lot of the new music that's coming up on this album or kind of a bunch of the library stuff from Yeah,

Dan Murphy  33:16  
I mean, I think we want you to be honest, we've got a short set. So just to keep ourselves entertained and happy. I think we're going to switch to set up like every night like we want to just kind of play new stuff all the time. Okay. I mean, awesome, there's that we're all just gonna fight it over the summer favorites. You want to play the bigger songs. But to be totally honest, if I could pick and choose I'd be like, I'd dropped for the glory every night and just play the other stuff because I like a lot of our other songs like, as much as I love for the glory. It's like, man, I want you to hear the new new, you know, a six new songs No one's ever heard, which is kind of, you know, whatever I want to hear. It'll be interesting. I don't know people. I know people are gonna sing these songs back we've never toured whenever like we've only played a few shows as this band so it's just gonna be crazy to see if anyone knows any of the words and you know if they don't maybe we'll just delete like the new record or if they do only play the old stuff I just excited to feel it out and see how people take it in and be awesome.

Dan  34:15  
Yeah, it's just nice to bask in the excitement of having live concerts again, that's for sure.

Dan Murphy  34:19  
Seriously, like been awesome waiting around like endlessly for us to get shows it was always so hard for us as a you know, studio project to get booked on to these tours and stuff like that. And we finally started getting dates booked like a year ago and we were so excited and like our album was kind of penciled in and everything looked like it was falling into place and then Corona hit. And we were like ah you know everything for everyone obviously had to be rescheduled pushed back but we were like geared up to release the album a year ago and everything and you know, I'm glad we didn't put it out there and I think that the songs would have helped a lot of people through the crazy year that it was there's definitely a lot of songs that I think were perfect like lyrically for for what we went through but I'm glad we waited the the the full year and we can like get out there and push it with an awesome band like pod and from ashes it'll be such a cool tour man such a good first tour for the band. We're pretty grateful to be on this lineup.

Aaron  35:11  
I was just thinking as you were talking about, you know that like the kind of the setlist arrangement I'm like, most bands kind of your typical thing is like, we're gonna play like our biggest like, highest energy stuff. Most like anthem like stuff usually at the starting the finish you want you want a good intro and a good outro and I'm like, all good things. That's pretty much the entirety of your music is in that vein, so I'm like, you may have a short set, but I'm like, that's gonna be like pure energy happening right there. Yeah, you want a band to get you riled up for the show? Like,

Dan Murphy  35:39  
I'm just like, like, all of our songs are like, you know, format that we have a lot of songs are long too. And like yeah, trying to fit in six is even hard and a short set. So I want to like somehow seem them all together. But there's some rearrangements in there. So yeah, there's there's so many songs in the new record you want to play but I also love playing get up and fight and the old ones like we want to play stuff that'll fit on the tour too. Like I am the enemies like a great kind of more leaning towards the rap rock side of things. But I'd love to bust that out. I'd love to do like break through this wall. I was kind of a cool bridge section. I think there's a lot of like elements of the old are all good things that would like really work with you know, the fans a pod in from ashes. You know, hopefully they'll love the new stuff to you, man. It's just it's gonna be all an experiment for us. And just, we've only done a couple of gigs is this band so we you know, it's crazy. It'll be so awesome to just see how fans react.

Dan  36:28  
Yeah, no, this you guys have been run out with a bunch of big festival announcements. aftershock. Welcome to rockville rocklahoma even the Virgos cruise next year. Are there any particular artists that you're particularly hyped about? Seeing or sharing this the stages with? Oh, man,

Dan Murphy  36:43  
I mean, every one of those, those flyers I could go off and they're all like, there's so many good bands on all this fires and like we just got added a I don't know if it's 100% in front, but I'm pretty sure we play in Blue Ridge Rock Festival and Danville, Virginia too. And like you just look at their their site and you're like, holy crap. It's like every awesome rock band out there right now. And like that Virgos crazy said like Rob Zombie man, like, that's gonna be so sick. I love zombie like, you know, and I don't even have to play on Island. I think it's only him. So I just get to hang out and like party and watch Rob Zombie. It sounds like the coolest time ever. So yeah, it's gonna be a lot of fun dude. And obviously, like, after shock Metallica is playing on that Sunday when we're playing in Sacramento. And I mean, dude, just being able to see Metallica. I've never seen him live before. So like, yeah, just I'm, I'm almost half more excited just to like, get the set done and watch a lot of live music do like I haven't seen shows in so many years. It's gonna be just so exciting to pull up. I mean, see pod every night, it'll be awesome. But then to pull up to these festivals that are like kind of in between all these dates on the tour and see all these other kick ass rock bands. It's gonna be a blast and can't wait.

Aaron  37:52  
That's that's a good segue, I guess into what we kind of usually use a sort of our, our last segment. We call them rapid fire questions. But really, they're they tend to mostly be bands talking about other bands. Because one thing that we really enjoy is hearing from musicians. Like, who their influences are, who they're, you know, who they love. It's just such a big circle of everybody and influence and in fandom and whatnot. And so I guess we'll start off with this one. Who are you listening to lately?

Dan Murphy  38:20  
Oh, dang, I could just look at my most recent added. Okay. The added we actually the band just sent me a 12 Foot Ninja right.

Aaron  38:29  
Yeah, we actually just added them to our our new music playlist last week.

Dan Murphy  38:34  
So I mean, they're Australian and both of our band mates are Aussies and they discovered them. We've just been like jamming them all the time, which is hilarious. They're they're so good. They're awesome, man. Um, dude. Yeah, I mean, my I've such music add like I I'm all over the place. I haven't found like a brand new record. I've listened to start to finish and probably other than that, Oh, actually, dude, I've been listening to sabotage a lot lately, too. And that was a band of fans turned me on to I don't know, they're just such such an epic Dan. Like, they're crazy. And they're playing one of the festivals we're doing. I had never heard of them until we did a couple of these live streams over quarantine. And we're asking for cover suggestions. And everyone started firing back sabotaged, like over and over and over. So it was one of those bands that the fans kind of turned me on to and they're signia that'd be another cool collab in the future.

Aaron  39:20  
So you guys, were all for encouraging collaborations.

Dan Murphy  39:24  
We have. We have another one in the works, too. I just can't tell you too much about it. But we're kind of trying to iron that all out, too.

Aaron  39:31  
That's all right. We'll take what information we can get. We like we just like to hear good news. About a song or an album that changed your life.

Dan Murphy  39:41  
Song or an album that changed my life. I mean, the song. The album I listened to the most as a kid was probably Back in Black by AC DC. It was like my uncle was obsessed with it. Like it was like the return of AC DC and he was like the greatest return of like Have any band is is like the you know, so he was just wrapping it up. Yeah, so I mean that was a such a huge album for me like as a kid, like I love that all