Hey guys, this is Katie from My Wish Now Is Still Sleeping on WXAV88.3 FM Chicago. And I'm here with Jake from Strung Out for the Fat Records 25 Years Tour. So how's your day going today? Thanks for good, thanks for good.
We're in Boston today. Just kind of getting set up, got to the club a little bit ago. So we're just hanging out, getting away for the show. It's gonna be a great one tonight.
Yeah, cool, cool. So how is overall tour going so far? It's like 25 years of fat rec. And so what's it like for you guys to be a part of something like that?
Yeah, it's really cool, you know. I mean, we've known all these bands for years, so it's like a really great viewing and all together in beauty shows. And it's awesome, and it's kind of totally been wanted to do for a long time. We got all the old school bands together.
And then, you know, some younger bands in the label. Well, the show's been great. Great responses, great turnout. And we're all at the Super Show, be a part of it.
It's really cool. I'm gonna be at the show in Chicago next Monday, because that's where we're from. I'm pretty sure you've played Chicago a bunch of times. What's your favorite thing to do when you come to Chicago?
Oh, everything. You know, like, I actually grew up in Glen Ellen. So like, I have a very soft block for Chicago, you know, my grandpa worker. She called him the North Western Railroad.
So I always go out with him on the train, out to his office. So I just love being back there, you know, and just walking down all the streets, Madison Avenue, and although, you know, the river's there, just walking by all of it. It's one of the most beautiful cities. I think it's the most beautiful city in America.
And I think it's a New York, New York, as well as architecture and style. You're like the second person that said I was talking to Joey from like, yesterday, and he said the same thing. He's like, Chicago is playing better than New York. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's an amazing place.
I love it. I love the history there. And it's just a fun place. You know, I always have a great time.
It's nice. I'm pretty stoked to see you guys at the House of Blues. I know it was at the air gun and they changed it. But I mean, both venues are pretty cool, I think.
So it's amazing. Yeah, we played out with them once or twice. And it's one of the best out of the game. Yeah.
So I'm really glad that the show's going on there because it's a great place. And I just love the area where it is to go. Yeah, yeah, me too. Hard rocks right there and everything like that.
Yeah, everything's right there. You can walk around everywhere. So it's going to be a fun day. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. So this is maybe good. That's this lot.
What do you like to do when you're not playing music? I know it's probably a majority of what you do. But like what else do you like to do? I was just normal stuff to see good stuff, you know, video games, watch movies, you know, I don't know.
I'm just pouring rock and roll stuff. Like it has like nothing else, you know. I used to give guitar lessons a little bit on the side. But we've been pretty busy with our 20 and everything lately.
So, you know, not really a whole lot of time for that. Just do that kind of stuff. And I just spent a lot of time with my girl. And just hanging out.
Yeah, just nothing too exciting. Just waiting for the next four days. That's pretty cool though. I think you can try lessons.
You probably get this S a lot this too. But it's my first time talking to you. So who are some of your influences? Like when you're right, or like when the band writes?
Like who do you guys? What did you say you're most influenced by? You know, I mean, it's nothing these days, but early on, it was everything from Iron Maiden and Slayer and Old Metallica to the sentence and bad religion and this is social distortion. Like just kind of fusing together all the bands that we grew up loving.
And when I met the guys, they were all kind of on the same page. So I was just like, dude, it's cool. We can write punk rock songs with like interesting musical intros and like breaks. And like, we can put in the metal influence.
But we don't want to have like eight minutes on. We want to try to keep it cool. And just the vibe and attitude of punk. Just we love all of it.
So it seems like a really compatible, the kind of huge like the speed metal with like the punk. Yeah. That's epic. And that's just what we've always done.
We've come from the same place that we're at today. And you know, you get influenced by everything. You get influenced by watching a movie. You get influenced by just walking around and reading a book.
And it's like, I will get an idea in your head and then somehow musically you connect it to that. So yeah, you know, there's influence in everything. And you start to be open, I guess. I'll be open to whatever.
And I always know why I knew that. So basically, it's just my classic. OK. I was going to ask you two, like, are you listening to anything in particular right now that you've come across that you would suggest to someone like, hey, check this band out.
Or check this person out. That nobody has heard of anything. Oh, gosh. Nothing that I can really think about the top of my head.
Jimmy will lead American record and listen to that a lot. Gosh, there's stuff that is always hard to think about this lot. But a lot of the stuff I'm getting into like the Eagles listening to a lot of just like mellow kind of like 70s rock almost. But you know, just whatever.
You've got to go through like different waves. You know, and sometimes I just want to listen to like straight gnarly type of thing. And then other times I don't want to hear that at all. So yeah, you just kind of go through waves.
But yeah, I'm not like a guy to be like, you know, knowing about like the up and coming stuff so much. I just don't really care. I get you. What happened?
But you know, there's definitely a lot of great fans out there doing stuff, you know, matching triggers and awesome new bands. Yeah, we've been playing shows with those guys a lot. So that's been a lot of fun to see them. And yeah, you know, and there's, you know, a little stream throughout an awesome world.
They're not new. They're doing around for a while now. But like, it's like a younger, upcoming kind of them. Like those guys are freaking awesome.
So yeah, those sorts of stuff out there. But we just kind of, you know, I'm 40 now. So I just kind of go back to 7. I was in two when I was just game.
Have you guys been on Fat Rock like since you signed to a label? Have you been on Fat Rock the whole time? Well, yeah, before we put out our first full length of fat, we had done like a 7 inch on like a small local California label like I had to go with the even more. It was just like the most 7 inch.
And we got like a demo out. But then yeah, we've always done with that. We put a couple things on our fearless records back in the day, like a couple of 7 inches. But most of everything's completely under fat records.
I got a chance to talk to Erin yesterday. And I was going to ask you, like, what do you think is different about Fat Rock compared to other labels? Well, we've never been on other labels. Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah. But all I can say is that Fat Rock is completely great to be at, because they give you all the control. They give you musical control. They don't like demands like your demos and like, you know, OK, what songs are going to be on the record?
Like I know some labels feel they're very generous. They're very fair. Some labels don't even pay their their. You'll sell like $200,000 records and like no one even to check that.
Like it's always been super, super cool, like very trustworthy. And it was just very fair and generous. So there's never a point where you're like, oh, we need to find something better. And you know, like the major labels and stuff, like back in the day, a lot of bands are kind of jumping over to those.
I think that, you know, could take them somewhere bigger. But most of the time, you know, one out of 10 bands may be half success on a maker label. And the other nine just get kind of lost in the shuffle. And it just wasn't a good place to be.
Most of them would get dropped after a record or two and end up coming back to fat. So we kind of saw that happening. We were like, well, you don't really want to take part of that. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
That's always been my favorite label. I would say pretty much like all the bands on it. I've always been, you know, in like my top 10, at least, you know. Also, you're consistent label.
You know, and you can really, you know, mics is like a friend of art. Yeah. Like, like just friends that we could hang out and go out to dinner with. And then, you know, talk about when other records are always super cool and casual.
And they're not good. And you know, they're not difficult either. They're not difficult. They're not having to stress them a little bit.
They're a big luxury to have. So, you know, just remember that we didn't want to take off. So it's cool. You know, we've seen the label really kind of have a resurgence in the last few years, too.
And we're really tight with them and it works over there right now. So it's a very good place to be. Yeah. I would say the two.
So that makes it be a work holiday station and each year there's College Radio Day on this year. It's October 2nd and it's when all the stations come together and they celebrate music and pretty much a trial of radio and just let people go, you know, you know, radio isn't done. especially college and stuff. So I was wondering what your opinion was on college radio.
If you thought it was important for the contribute to the music industry and if you guys have had any experiences with any college radio? Well, I mean, yeah, of course I think it's a valuable thing. I think any sort of way to get music outside of the industry sources, like the major radio station, anything outside of that is good because those stations are all completely paid off. It's all completely like, you know, they're in the pockets of the labels and the managers and stuff.
And it's just so, I think college radio, and I don't know if it's important today that was pre-internet and all that, but it was always very cool because you had this alternative, you know, I would let you get your stuff played. And of course college, the demographic is right when you want that age group is exactly the people you'd like coming to the shows. So yeah, it's really important. And I'm so glad that there's still good college stations out there.
And for us, we've never been super, I don't think we're like the darlings of college radio or anything, I think we've not played on like some stations in there. I don't know if it's a modest mouse or anything like that. But, you know, but I think it's great. You know, I think any outlet to get your music played is good these days of all the streaming radio and all the different internet channels.
That's all beneficial too. But we're all pretty old fashioned and I can definitely relate to college radio. I mean, something we grew up around. And yeah, definitely a very important thing to keep going.
Yeah, so thank you so much for taking time on your day to day to talk to me and everything. And I hope that your show goes awesome tonight. And I'll see you guys on Chicago on Monday. And I'll come say what's up if you guys are by your booth or anything like that.
I would choose myself. Okay, cool. Yeah, we'll be definitely hanging out. We'll thank you, Katie.
I appreciate the interview. I'll be able to hear that. All right, thanks. Bye, bye.
Bye.