What's up everybody, my name is Emmy and welcome back to Chats with the Freak. I am very excited this week, I have Scott Phillips from one of my favorite bands, Ulterbridge, on to talk about Walk the Sky and Walk the Sky 2.0. We also talk a little bit about the music industry right now and some of the crew that's off the road, so I hope you guys enjoy this interview and big thanks to Scott for coming on and chatting with me, I really appreciate it. I hope you guys enjoy this chat.
This new EP coming out in a couple days actually now, Walk the Sky 2.0. You guys dropped the full record earlier this year back in February, I believe, and I kind of wanted to start by asking you some questions about the first record before I kind of got into the EP you guys are dropping. I thought Walk the Sky was kind of a pretty anticipated record, and I kind of wanted to ask you about how the writing process worked for the record and how it kind of came together. So I guess Walk the Sky came out about a year ago, if I remember right.
We had gotten together February-ish of last year, I think it was the time frame. Mark had been writing, Milded in writing, and through technology these days compared to when we all first started doing this, it's super easy to take an idea and throw it in the Dropbox and share it with everybody else. So we ahead of time sort of had an idea of the way the album was sort of shaping up before we ever got in a room together, and had basically just hashed out everybody's ideas, if there were like a verse and chorus idea, at least knowing the music and sort of the melody of how things were going to be, or a completed song ahead of time. Just sitting in a room together for probably about a week to ten days, I think, that we sort of went through and hashed out from idea to idea to idea.
Some things that were really close to being completed before we ever got together, and some things that were just sort of a shelving idea that kind of took all four of us, plus Elvis, our producer, sitting in a room together and just sort of going through the motions. I don't think I'm going through the motions in a bad way, but just sort of going through the process, I guess that would still be a better term. Yeah, kind of working on things out of it. Exactly, exactly.
Some things that were just, you know, an idea on the spot that kind of formed into a song or something that was already 90% completed and we just needed to fine-tune some things. But it all came together pretty quick. We've been doing this together for so long that it's not a tedious process. You know, everybody kind of knows what they do and, you know, their role within the band and how things come together.
And we're extremely happy with the way that it came out and hope that everybody enjoys the path that we took. Right. Yeah, no, the record sounded great. It was one of those, I have a very weird attention span when it comes to records.
I've already been listening to them from beginning to end in one sitting. But I felt like Walk the Sky was one of those records I could sit down and listen to fully from beginning to end, and I really enjoyed that. It's like a bad attention span of that sometimes. Right.
I really enjoyed the mix of the record. I'm not saying any of your other altruids records didn't sound well mixed, but I felt like Walk the Sky had, like, extra production with it. I actually said that in my review that I put up when the record came out. I felt like the mix and the production on it was so clear and crisp, and I really enjoyed that aspect of it.
Well, thank you. I mean, that would be all credit to Elvis, who we've worked with now. This is our fifth record with him, I think. He's a mad scientist when it comes to, you know, production and mixing and that kind of stuff.
And we had, he's been the producer since Blackbird. He started mixing our albums, starting with Fortress. The Fortress. Right.
Last Hero, and then this record, he did the mix on. And this one's got a little bit extra, at least some of the songs have a little bit of an extra sense, extra to him, which I think kind of helps sort of fill out the sonic landscape. And we're super happy with the way it turned out. Yeah, yeah.
Every song, like, just smack you in the face in the best way possible, and it sounded really full and really energetic, and I really enjoyed that. Because it starts when I get really excited for a record, and then I hear it, and it sounds like it was recorded on a potato or something like that. You know what I mean? And I enjoy hearing really well-mixed products like that.
I really, I can really appreciate that artwork, because I know nothing about producing. But I can always tell if, like, something's off in the mix. You know what I mean? I got it.
Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. So, you guys got the new EP coming out. You guys just dropped Last of Rights, I believe, yesterday or the day before.
And I believe most of the EP is mostly, like, live tracks. And obviously, the COVID pandemic stopped you guys from really pouring earlier this year. So, is that kind of how the live track aspect of the EP kind of came together? Yes, it is.
It is. We would be on the road this year, and, you know, people would have the opportunity to come see us play those songs, you know, live. Throughout, we had, you know, European tours. We had, you know, South America, Australia, and several tours to the U.S.
that were planned that obviously are not going to happen now, at least not in the immediate future. But we just thought this would be a good way to give people the opportunity that we'd hear, you know, these songs from walk the track, perform live, and sort of let everybody break out of their shell of quarantine for a little bit and enjoy some live music. Right. Kind of get the experience of live music as much as we all can right now, being stuck at home and not being able to be out on the road doing what we all love to do.
Exactly. Exactly. So it was last night kind of like one of those songs that didn't make Walk the Sky. Is that kind of how it ended up on the EP, or was it just something you got put together for the EP?
Well, it was kind of a combination of both. We had started working on it during the Walk the Sky writing sessions and recording sessions. Loved the music. There was no melody to it.
There were no lyrics to it. We just kind of had an idea of, you know, the musical side of the song. I had recorded some of it then and had done demos of it during the Walk the Sky recording sessions, but it never got finished. And then, you know, sort of this year playing out the way this played out and deciding to do, you know, Walk the Sky 2.0.
We thought this would be a great track to be attached to that. So Mark and I being local with Elvis, who also lives here in Orlando, it was easy for us to kind of come in to finish our parts and polish what needs to be polished. While in Spokane, Washington, which is about as far away from Orlando as you can possibly get without being in Canada, was able to do it. Again, let's go back to how technology has changed over the years.
Was able to basically record his parts in his basement, send the file to Elvis, and then have songs sort of put together there. And I think going what we were going through at the time, when the lyrics were actually written, which was, you know, basically over the summer, makes it sort of very relevant to the situation that we're all in these days. So I think it's a very timely song for 2020. Right, right.
Yeah, this year's been crazy with everything being shut down and stuff. And I agree. I think it's a very fitting song for kind of the era we've been in, because everyone in the music industry is just kind of hurting right now, not being out there. So it's cool to see artists like you guys still putting out music and still trying to do stuff.
And I guess we'll say this way possible that we all can right now. Absolutely. Absolutely. So you kind of touched on it a little bit, talking about how it's easy in these days to kind of throw something whether they're in whatever state that they're in, whatever country that they're in.
And you've been in the industry for a long time with Creed and now Alter Bridge and some other various projects. How would you say that the industry has, I guess, changed over the years? Do you think it's changed for the better with technology, or do you kind of miss how, like, it was kind of in the 90s with everything kind of being more, I guess, raw and more local? It's a little bit of a double-edged sword, honestly.
I mean, I think that for making music, it's become much easier, as opposed to everybody having to fly out to a studio in New York or L.A. or whatever. I think there's people that are making fantastic records, and they're doing it from their garage now, as opposed to having a rent of, you know, super-high-dollar studio somewhere that, you know, has acoustically treated walls. The making music aspect of it has become much easier, and it's been, I think, a great thing for everybody.
You get to see a lot more people that might not have had that creative outlet are able to do it now and be very successful with it. As far as the industry itself and, you know, making a living doing it, I think now all of that has really kind of shifted more to the live side of things. That's why, I think, you know, when bands are able to do it, that's why you see them touring as much as they do. You know, making a profit on albums nowadays really isn't much of a thing at all, you know, and, you know, sharing music and being able to, you know, download a billion songs from iTunes or whatever, you know, outlet that you use is awesome.
As a user, it's awesome. As an artist, I definitely don't get to see, you know, royalties from that. You know, they're very small. But, you know, I'm not complaining.
I got into this business to play live music, and that's what I love doing, and I think that's what we all love doing. So it's not a complaint. It's just sort of different than when we started. Yeah, it all shifted, definitely.
And I think that, especially right now in this time, when everything's shut down, and sometimes being able to go out, I know that I've seen some people doing key stuff like the drive-in shows and whatnot in the socially distanced, like indoor shows. But I feel like a lot of bands right now are making much of their money on merchandise, and I definitely agree. And like you said, it's not necessarily a complaint, but it's really changed even in the last 10 years from making money for records to making money on merch. Yeah, yeah, that's very true.
That's very, very true. And we actually did a bring up merch, and not being honest, we did merch drive earlier in the year for our crew. You know, guys that have been with us for a couple years or a decade or whatever, you know, those guys are out of work, too. They're not able to go out on the road and make a living for themselves or their family.
So we threw, you know, sort of a one-off T-shirt design or hat design or whatever. We did basically a fundraiser for those guys to try and, you know, help alleviate sort of their burden of not being able to tour. Yeah, no, I totally agree with that. I'm actually really glad you mentioned that, because I feel like a lot of people don't realize that just because there's not live music, it's not just, like, the band that's off the road and not just counting, like, the musicians.
But I don't think a lot of people realize how much more there's a live show than just, like, the four or five people that are in the band. Like, there's so much more to that. And I think that might be one good thing coming out of this. I feel like a lot of fans are realizing, oh, we're the 90s guys.
And there's more people and audio tech photographers like me that are just sitting at home, like, okay, when are we going back out, you know? Right, exactly, exactly. I mean, for every band that's out there that's, you know, three, four, five piece, whatever it is, you've probably got eight to 20, you know, crew guys that are with that entourage, with that band, that are out of work. I mean, completely out of work.
They might be able to pick up something local, but that's their livelihood, is being on the road, you know, day after day, doing shows, you know, setting up shows, you know, running TA, running lights, selling merch, whatever it is. Right. You know, they're definitely hurting, for sure. And that was something that was really important to us to try and hopefully we'll do it again here in the next month or two.
But, you know, something that we can do to help them out. But it was really important to us. Right. No, I really, I think that's such a good thing that I saw people like you and some other bands doing that because it sucks.
And not a lot of people realize that it's like, oh, well, go get another job. It's like, no, would you tell, like, a doctor that, like, their hospital to shut down? Oh, go find another, like, place of employment? You know, that's not how it works.
Exactly. You were exactly right. Yeah. Yeah, it's totally crazy.
But I think that's all I have for you today, man. Thank you so much for taking time to talk with me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you. Thanks so much, Scott. Have a good day. All right, you too.
Bye. Bye.