Livestream with Crystal Spiders

Transcript

oh cool we are live I thought my lighting got a little dark but it came back so uh Happy Tuesday happy live stream just a reminder for everyone uh give a chance to jump in and if you’re watching on replay you could jump ahead like two minutes and get right into the um interview and let’s get started on Instagram too here all right and we are now live on Instagram as well all right here we go

hello and welcome to the B weather rual Liv stream where we discuss music the local Lehi Valley PA scene and very beyond today bands social media and more today is Tuesday August 20th my name is Mike and I’m the guitarist and vocalist of bwea ritual hope you had a great week and just a reminder to please like And subscribe if you like what we do here and also go out and support your local musicians especially if you are a local musician that’s the best way to to support and meet all of um you know the people you want to be networking with and all that good stuff um let’s see what else here tonight our guests are Brena and Aaron of crystal spiders I actually have a question about your band name that I want to hold but I I can’t wait to ask uh crystal spiders is a band out of North Carolina that blends classic rock and heavy metal Dynamics psychedelic textures and doomed out bluesy swing they will be playing Ripple Fest in Texas next month a gig with [ __ ] in rally uh Raleigh uh in October 16th and they’re finalizing their third album for ripple in the studio right now we’ll talk about all that and more Bren and Aaron welcome to the stream how you doing tonight thank you so much for having us we’re excited to be here of course excited to have you um anything you want to plug right off the top I know you got a whole bunch of stuff coming up just let everyone know where they can find your music or or shows you got coming up all that good stuff well uh we got all the usual Social Media stuff we’ve got Instagram and Facebook Facebook uh Tik Tok we’ve got a YouTube We’re on Spotify Apple music so uh anywhere that you can find stuff about bands you could look for crystal spiders and hopefully you would find us and we would be there and and you could follow us and

listen uh we have a link tree that’s Linked In Our Instagram bio where that has all of our little ticket sales and blurbs and stuff of course I forgot to say band camp which of course is where our merch store is yes um and then of course the Ripple music shop which has our vinyl and all sorts of other goodies of the musical variety yeah I was looking at some of that today some pretty cool looking um like purple uh kind of not splatter what do you call that when you what put the it was a splatter okay you got it the first time you didn’t even have to get go you just nailed it right off the fair enough all right cool yeah thanks um so yeah go check that out and like I said before they’re in the studio and um have some awesome gigs coming up you want to talk a little bit about maybe um the the two Ripple fests in the in the horror show sure so uh we have been with ripple pretty much since our Inception so our first two albums uh Mt and morieris came out on Ripple I also have another band lightning born that is on Ripple so we are Ripple family through and through and we just did uh two of the European Ripple fests Ripple Fest Berlin and ripple Fest cologne and then we’re super excited when we got asked to play Ripple Fest Texas I have never been to Austin so it’s a it’s a big uh trip for me and I think I don’t think Aaron or Reed have been there before either so it’s totally a first time Crystal spider’s experience to go to Texas where excited about that and then when I saw the lineup I was even more stoked because uh Mars red sky is one of my all-time favorite bands and the fact that we get to uh play with them on a festival is just like mindboggling to me yeah um how did you get like how the relationship with rle come about uh so actually I think that it was a connection through my other band lightning born uh bass player is Mike Dean who has been in Corrosion of Conformity for a really long time and he had met Todd a couple of times and reached out and was able to form that connection and then Todd and I kind of hit it off while we were working together for lightning born so when we were trying to figure out who was going to release crystal spiders I reached out to Todd and he was like of course Brena we love you and I was like well that’s very exciting because I love you too and also it is such an honor to be working with a label that releases so many bands that I love to listen to and also have just turned out to be really good people and uh become good friends over the years yeah it’s really that’s such a cool and interesting part of like a band’s Journey we’re not we’re kind of starting to tap at that a little bit of be like oh my God wouldn’t it be amazing to open four you know name the band like baroness came through twice and we pitched to them um or not twice but with in our our range um so just trying to get used to that and um yeah you know like um like you’re saying meeting meeting bands that you really admire or I don’t know sometimes they say like don’t meet your Heroes and stuff like that but I don’t know it just seems to be like that’s that’s the way you do it go out there and um yeah just kind of and then sometimes Your Heroes become like your best buds yeah exciting why not take the chance right uh so yeah it sounds like Austin is exploding right now too like I think there’s just a lot of like influx uh from the shakeup from the whole Co thing so that should be really uh interesting as well yeah that whole thing yeah I don’t mean to bring that up but like it’s just cool that such a big music um city just seems to be growing too well I’m sad I’ve just been seeing all this uh circulation online about the lost well closing down and St Vitas closing down and I i’a never been to Austin so I’ve never been to the L well but I see my friends post about it all the time and it seems like their cheers their hangout their their favorite spot and so like pretty disappointed then I’m just gonna miss it entirely it seems like yeah that is a bummer and that’s kind of a thing going around with the the whole uh closing venu thing is that something that’s hit the North Carolina scene so there was definitely a lot of

like I would say a Slowdown and a challenge um where undergoing a

potential I guess fight with the City of Raleigh right now there’s an Amphitheater downtown called the Red Hat Amphitheater where um we get some really big bands there I’ve seen Judas Priest there I think Ain you saw coins of the Stone Age there recently right yeah yeah yeah and so it’s a really wonderful asset to our downtown just to be able to go see an outdoor show there and and then of course all the other bars and clubs and restaurants get all the business from the downtown foot traffic so I think we’re all about to band together as the music scene of Raleigh to try to see if we can save it but I also of course understand that there are a lot of bigger things at play when it comes to the development and uh evolution of a cityscape so you got to fight for the things that you care about and you want to keep around it’s part of the culture yeah that’s a good point um yeah and that just that just doesn’t care you know just just rolls over it steamrolls everything um I don’t know Pro progress they say but I don’t know we’ll see all right um so how the band started in well you tell me um how did the band start what came together um how did that go I feel bad because I’m just like steamrolling Aon in go ahead well I mean do you want to beginning so so I just gota keep like feeling these parts of the conversation

sorry but how about this I’ll say about how crystal spiders started then you could say about how you became involved with crystal spiders and then we’ll go from there um so actually I had been playing in a couple of bands lightning born and the hell no for quite a while and I really wanted to Branch out into playing bass and playing in a three-piece I had been singing for a while I played guitar briefly and just really didn’t like it that much and I wanted to give a try at Bas so actually my friend Mike Delo started crystal spiders with me he was playing guitar and uh also trading off on some vocals so you’ll hear him on vocal on the demo that we have on our band camp and then we found our drummer Trad actually through Craigslist because every drummer that we knew at the time including Aaron had way too much going on and was in too many other bands to join us so um that was how malt came about and then uh the pandemic actually hit right around when we were releasing Mt so yeah that was 2020 I think we released it like during the pandemic pretty much and um over that over that span of time just a lot changed like with everybody’s time and interest and I ended up like Delo decided to leave the band to focus on other things because he left to be only a singer in one of his projects because he was having some issues uh with his hand and playing guitar and now he’s switched over to playing bass in The Magpie which if anybody listening hasn’t checked them out I definitely um encourage you to we’re going to play with them with uh [ __ ] at that show coming up so um still good friends and excited about the projects that he’s involved with and then uh frad was playing in doomsday profit as well and he decided to take a step back from music entirely because he was just having a lot of burnout I think and um so in comes Aaron [Laughter] yeah it’s uh pandemic ruined a lot um nobody was doing much of anything really a lot of bands fell apart during Co oh yeah it was me and Brena were kind of bored and started jamming you know which was a lot of fun you know and uh one thing led to another and here I am um I love jamming in this band so very fun band great members low drama always your plus yes number one thing yes but uh yeah it’s it’s a lot of fun I love the new record we’re writing it’s uh can’t wait till everybody hears it it’s a lot of fun cool it’s got a good producer as well so who was the producer well Mike Mike Dean he’s uh he’s recording I consider him a producer because he’s got a lot he’s got a lot of info he’s like you know I didn’t like that that was lame creative feedback he only says that when I’m not in the room I

think uh it’s been a lot of fun writing it and uh I can’t wait to hear I can’t wait till everybody gets to hear it yeah awesome uh you had mentioned that well one is one of my number one things is is low drama but the other is that you talked about you know being fun to jam with the band and all that kind of stuff what is it is it a specific thing that um that really kind of caught your your ear your attention about it well I i’ um I played with Brena and the hell no for a short amount of time once they uh their drummer moved away and uh they needed a replacement so jumped in there and um so I was already used to playing with it I would say one of the biggest things I love about the band I’m in is the musicianship um great musicians uh it’s my opinion I couldn’t think of anybody i’ be playing with so very cool yeah that’s always I feel like that’s always the hard part right finding the right people yeah without the right people it just doesn’t go anywhere yeah so Andy profane has a comment here I’m just gonna throw it up on the screen right quick he says can’t wait to hear the new record thank you we are so excited about it Andy definitely have to give Aaron a plug on the new record too because uh Ain speaking of great musicianship can play a guitar he can play bass he can play drums he’s like got his own Onan band thing going on so he he be throwing some riffs in the mix and so uh we’ve got a couple of interesting songs on this record but Aon Aon brought some of the Rifts to the table so I’m excited for everybody to get to hear those awesome would you start with Aaron what’s that what what did you start with a specific instrument or you just like really drums yeah that was my first Passion you know um I’d beat on everything my mom had you know her pods or pans all that stuff and yeah they gave me a drum set but it didn’t stop there I started you know playing with other kids I knew and they had guitars and bases we had a place to practice so they would leave their stuff at my house I would go down there and mess with it you know and I started it was just kind of came naturally especially since you see you you see them play it you see what they’re doing pay attention you know and uh sort of picking it up and never really got the whole vocal thing down very well not so but yeah I do love playing bass guitar drums it’s it’s a lot of fun it’s especially fun to put it all together and make a song so yeah I I think it’s great too um what do you record as well like um like amateur you know don’t sell yourself sure you have done a lot of work on the practice base in turning it into like basically the demo Zone we’ve now got everything miked up we went through this whole little project where uh I actually had received like an old like 20 2010 or 2012 Mac Mini and so like we like took it to the computer shop and had it like completely like rebuilt revamped and made that into our little uh recording computer but Aaron has gotten really good at doing some mixes so that made writing this album really easy because we would just go in and I think at least one or two of the songs was just us coming in and like I just got excited and started randomly noodling on some Rifts and then before we knew it like two hours later we had a whole song like Ed in Dem came out of nowhere yeah it it’s so much fun I remember Aon was like I took it home showed it to my family they were like whoa this is you guys is so awesome so I was like I hope everybody that listens to the record gets the same impression that’s what we do for right super exciting yeah very cool Erin as a writing drummer um let’s see I feel like that gives a really good so I always like to try to um encourage um all the musicians I play with to write and sing as much as they as as much as they can even if they’re not going to do it in the band just because I feel like it gives you a perspective on two thing well one uh if you sing and play at the same time you can only do so much which kind of um not saying there aren’t times where we step out and like shred and do all the fun stuff too but when we want to keep it simple like that’s just a good reminder if you have to do more than one thing of like hey just give it a little you know keep it simple and then you can do both things well and um yeah so I’m just curious too one um I feel personally attacked by this whole

conversation go ahead so what was a what was the I I didn’t hear the no there wasn’t I was just wondering what the attack what do you mean yeah you’ve been singing a little bit time travel do some do some backup vocals in the band you know yeah do a little bit of that um I I guess what I was going with it was like you have you have a Songwriter’s perspective too it’s not just like a guitarist perspective a drummer’s perspective a bass players perspective like you put the whole thing together so I feel like when people get used to doing that they look at their individual Parts different too and would consider maybe consider playing things that would serve the song you know because the whole thing definitely definitely I mean honestly I’ve learned a lot as far as that goes over the years you know yeah like I feel like um I I’ve played in bands where I’ve tried to do too much you know um and I kind of stepping on people’s feet like see how much double base I can put in the song you know and it’s just not necessary sometimes and you’re exactly right serving the song is the most important thing you know uh because like I said before everybody in this band The musicianship is great and there’s no need for me to do anything to step on anybody’s toes in this band so um you know everybody can shine so it definitely helps it definitely helps I started off on bass and I was the same way I’m like I’m gonna put 110 into this Baseline all the way through the song and then and after I started writing I was like oh I don’t really know if I have to do that the entire way through or hey I’m going to let guitar breathe here or this is the time where the Bas steps forward so that’s exactly right uh one of our good friends uh Ash told me one time we were going to go and watch a band play and he was like I don’t want to watch him play you I was like why he was like because they’re bige player just does way too much he was like man that guy needs to learn to you know ride it and rock it man he’s just yeah sounds like he’s doing a solo the whole time and I’m like I go you yeah it mean I’m a keep it simple stupid songwriter man I’m like same I also think of the studio as like it’s like if you’re cooking and you know you need some salt but like be judicious with it because you can always add it but you can’t take it away so if you go in there with like just good bones of a song I drive mik crazy because I always go in there and then I’m like yeah and then I want to put four different harmonies on but I know I’m G to get a geep too like I put extra things on there get a mix down and then you have the things to add back during the mix which I find he ends up doing a lot of like oh no that high Harmony I don’t know that’s not really working but then you know what it ends up back in there ducked in and just adds like that little extra flavor towards the end of the mix that I think is a nice way to approach the studio experience because even if you can’t do it live all the time you know you want a simple strong powerful live experience but then I feel like your opportunity to be a Creator excuse me it’s when you get into the studio and you can really carve out this listening experience for the person who’s going to be hopefully listening to your record more than once and notice different things every time they listen to it if they only listen to it once thank you sir for your $25 and I appreciate you but uh hopefully you get more than one listen out of it so how how much do you are you thinking about that when you’re writing like are you considering the audience in there or you’re like ah this is going to be great because we can do call back back and forth thing or like how far deep do you get into that or you just are you looking to I think it depends on the song because uh some of the ones that I’ve written or done I’ll start like at home and I’ll add some layers and I’ll do kind of like one version of the song that has some elements to it that I like then when I go take it to the rest of the band it becomes a different song based on everyone else’s uh additions and their parts that they write and then we can build on it that way in the studio but I think I I try to just I think Aaron probably laughed at me a couple times when he was first like learning some of the crystal spider song and I was like no when you playing this song in the way that you think about the tempo it’s like it’s like a cramp song but you’re like kind of mad at it but you want the person to be thinking that you know like they’ve been stuck at the beach for a really long time and they just want to go home man but like nobody else wants to go home like that’s the vibe of the song He’s like I don’t really know what you’re talking about bud

I’ll do

my yeah I love when uh or you ever like I just was watching something I I forget what the band was but they were in a studio uh recording in a house um it might have been the Chili Peppers actually and they were just talking to each other about like oh we’ll do this part you know just just musicians speak it’s and then you they cut to him playing it it’s just really oh yeah the diddly doodies

yeah all right so one thing I didn’t uh I forgot to mention off the top is I saw your name your band name initially and I’m like I bet you I know where that come from but I wanted to check and make sure um yeah where did that come from uh Uncle acid in the dead beats so we love Uncle acid like that’s been one of the things that brought the people um from our band together like that was one thing I put out there like ah I was reading through and then I saw Uncle Aid and I I decided to write so um yeah love love them they just released a new record have you heard that at all which one Uncle acid um they put out a record called what was it called shoot I think I missed it which is gonna make me feel really guilty okay it was really different for them hold on um why can’t I remember the name of this record it was all a dream that’s why this is why because it’s in Italian oh so basically they put a record together that is well they say it’s like the soundtrack to a movie that doesn’t exist but it’s like an old jallow film soundtrack kind of thing so it has like f like uh Italian actors um doing like voiceover phone calls and actually acting out parts and stuff so it was pretty interesting um very long well that is going to be on my list of things to do pretty much as soon as I get off of this live yeah it was it was a cool uh first listen so it’s called n Ora blue um not not much like their other stuff I mean it’s still Uncle acid but um definitely taking kind of a right-hand turn there so it’s like nephew acid yeah there you go anti acid I don’t think that that means what you think it

means uh let’s see U um what else we got here for you I just want to shout out some people from Instagram because I haven’t been paying attention to you and I’m sorry so chick Lao hxc thank you for joining identical to band thank you for joining Josh Burke thank you for joining um cult icon thank you for joining in Atlas burning band thank you for joining thank you for joining yeah okay well colon NC represent what’s up folks um let’s see here I have a couple more questions for you and then we’ll wrap up you you were mentioning something before and I wrote it down just so give me a second to get to it um oh you’re talking about burnout um oh the burnout burnout is so real I’m I’m having a little bit right now just maybe um talk about that and maybe any kind of other advice you have for bands who might be either suffering from that or just starting out and well I’m going to tell you I think um this whole line up got some burnout I know I definitely did but we all collectively talked about it um well we all three of us went through a job change like within the same year I had had a really bad job burnout and um I got a new job I’d also had kind of like just two brutal years of constant rotating illnesses like I had a pandemic baby and then after I had the baby it was just like one thing after the other um so even while we were getting this lineup up and running it was like every two weeks I was canceling practice because I was down with some other thing that like I couldn’t I couldn’t uh meet up I just got over covid again yeah so uh man just when you think you you got up you really don’t but I I got a new job um Reed got a new job Aaron’s kind of in a job transitioning phase right now and then we wrote that record we put a ton of of work into getting a live set for Europe we did Europe we came back we put down the bulk of um the album in the studio pretty much right when we got back and then uh played another few little weekend tour runs in the spring and then we just collectively decided like some are off from shows man like we just need a break like I’m so tired yeah um but then of course we all have like family and we have day jobs and we have other stuff going on so as much as we wish we had all of the energy and time in the world that we could be putting into pounding the pavement and making a million records like we got to sleep and we got to make money and pay bills and be with our family so I think for us collectively we all talked about it like we took maybe almost like six weeks off from even practicing or like getting together um just for kind of a reset and then we came back and like we wrote a couple little jams and we completely like cleaned and rearranged our practice space and that was really like a Zen reset that I think got all of us re-energized um then we took a couple months off from listening to the mixes because Mike had a lot of other stuff going on so we’ve just come back into those with like a fresh perspective to finish the mixes and really like knock out the end of the record and I just think we did play we did play one surprise gig this summer with Ruby the hatchet um which was a lot of fun cuz they were on tour with baroness and uh oh awesome they just like kind of randomly stopped and rale and then asked us to play with him and I was like okay it’s you guys so I said we weren’t going to do any shows this summer but we’re going to do it yeah but um I will say that like for me personally gosh I guess it really ended up being like four months with no shows maybe that one show or something like that and we we’ve still taken it kind of easy like one show a month um we got like a couple things we haven’t announced yet for the rest of the year but I just think a lot of bands put too much pressure on themselves to be like constantly turning out content constantly releasing music constantly putting together tours like the booking is one of the things that just throw me nuts I was like dealing with the back and forth of trying to nail down the venue trying to get the lineup well are we doing gear sharing who’s making the flyer okay well we like that that is really exhausting to me mentally so all of that burn me out speaking of my covid crap I keep coughing so I’m going to go on mute when I’m not talking not coughing in your ears um yes um you mentioned uh content as well um it is kind of this like I don’t want to say thing you have to do but kind of um it’s part of the marketing and all that kind of stuff is um I feel like you have it pretty well together is that something like do you get help are you doing it yourself do you get help from the label at all how does that work uh we share responsibilities I mean she she does the brunt of it but you know we all try to help out with social media yeah it’s um you know trying to find things to put on there you a lot of people are like you know we should put something on there daily it’s like what the hell am I supposed to put on here every day what do you want us to do we’re constantly looking for ideas too so are you is are you comfortable on camera or is that something that bothers you because I am not comfortable and it just like you have to get used to it yeah we we’ve talked about like trying to you know find something to do you know some like uh something live you know uh interact with people a little bit yeah uh we we’ve definitely talked about it it’s something that’s you know possibly could be done soon in the future so just gota find a good concept something to entertain people I will say like at band practice we usually end up laughing a lot and having a really good time but we like never capture the magic like you just kind of have stick phones in each other’s faces like the whole time that you’re playing and then just catch like the hilarious jokes that people are telling to each other but then you get on camera and you’re like I don’t know man you know you saying music man I don’t know we don’t we don’t take ourselves that seriously at practice we we have a couple videos that Aon and I were getting pretty Savvy with like how to set up the camera and take some at practice but it’s hard to strike the balance of like do I really want people listening to our band practice on their iPhones crappy like speaker yeah or should we be working a little harder like up the ante on the quality I think there’s some bands out there they’re nailing it but um we’re we’re we’re limping along we’re doing it I feel like people are very um lenient on quality like well I should say quality like um captur hey that’s really like refreshing to hear I’m G to keep that I’m tell I’m G tell Aon and Reed like we’re listening to the record and we’re like know man it’s not good enough like you know people are lenient on quality whatever okay yeah people like shitty things now so whole new thing it’s like McDonald’s man we’re the McDonald’s of Stoner Rock like they just leaning on quality but you know what sometimes you just need something greasy oh come on that’s not

oh no but I I’m G to keep that make myself feel better at night is really what I what I meant was like video quality or shots they want the content obviously to be good but they will look past some of like I always think too like when I listen to bands that I really love like Uncle Aid they don’t have the highest Fidelity recordings or anything but man do I love them I love a a good low quality recording yeah exactly yeah as I as I’m constantly telling everyone the fuzz pedals man oh yeah it’s really just making your Bas sound like [ __ ] and who doesn’t love that yeah you just you see all those mids you just scoop them right out throw them away I feel like you you wanted to hear my bass playing but that really wasn’t what I was going for at all

so uh okay so cult icon says what up thank you for posting there um DJ Dolan 21 thank you for joining darkfire thank you for joining Al Robinson photography thank you for joining I am Courtney thank you for joining I haven’t seen you a long time and I appreciate you jumping in here friends and watching yeah we appreciate it all right um and give a thumbs up if you too are leaning on quality fire Emoji actually there’s our clip of the the are you leaning on quality listen to crystal spiders listen this interview yeah I was gonna I wouldn’t go that far um can you as is there anything um maybe just a couple little quick wrap-up questions and then we’ll just have you plug everything one more time um you had mentioned you know you’ve kind of put the brakes on playing and touring for a little bit and focusing on recording anything are you trying are you stepping out into any new genre things or are you trying any instruments on the new if you don’t and if you don’t want to talk about it and keep it tight lied I totally get it but I’m just curious because we always try to like ah what else could we get in here is there is there something that spice it up a little bit well I I’ll take this one Aaron because this is the third crystal spires one I’ve been on all three so as far as this one is concerned um I will say to me this one is about Aaron and Reed getting to put their spin into crystal spiders like as far as having input into the writing and really uh being able to put their uh signature on tone and style so as far as that’s concerned I think it’s just like a super Solid Rock and Roll record but it’s still got um some of the Doomer and slower song aspects too from the first two records so I will say in that sense it is a departure and a maturation from um malt has got more of that like low fi Punk Rock Edge morieris uh really a lot of that was me and Trad almost like twopiece and then Mike putting on the guitar spin in the studio so it’s a little bit of a darker pandemic record yeah frankly um so this one’s got some more like higher energy um rock and roll tunes and I think uh there’s there’s definitely some some up upbeat bangers on this one more so than on the last one and then from from here I think we we have a lot more ideas for being creative and branching out into some different genre pools but for this one I think I mean I don’t really want to speak for Aaron and especially Reed for them not being here but I think you guys both had maybe a lot of energy and a lot of ideas that you’d been like sitting on from not having made a record for a couple years and I think you can really like feel that energy and that passion on this record for sure awesome the the bangers were you like did you look at the last record and be like it’s all right we did it looking back on it like you said it’s maybe a little dark or a little this or a little that was it something that you were like we want to do this I can’t be trusted I’m not a good judge of my own stuff cuz sometimes I I’ll go back and listen to it I’ll be like yeah you know what actually that was that was pretty good that was better than I remember and then sometimes I’ll go back and listen to it and be like what the hell was I thinking like this is awful but um no this one was like I don’t really think it was so much a reflection other than the fact that like both Aaron and Reed had learned a lot of the songs from morieris and some of the ones from Bol and had been playing sets with me for a long time and then we started writing so I think at that point you guys had your like kind of feel of how you were playing crystal spiders and all the songs we’ve been doing and I think a lot of that like kind of naturally poured into the songs on this record but I don’t know Aaron what do you think no that’s exactly right um you know it just getting to play those songs off those two records it kind of you know changed my view of you know way I played things I started writing things a little bit different and you know I’m very appreciative of that it’s always fun to step into a you know kind of a new genre and you know took me a little bit but tempos are crazy you know everybody playing slower you know but uh oh yeah sometimes you still bust out like what was TR even doing there that was crazy I really appreciate that now after having learned that Chad’s a good drummer man he really is he had a lot of really unique stuff on those albums it was a lot of fun to play I mean I’ve changed some stuff up a little bit but it’s not because I’m being a jerk it’s just because I don’t not sure what the hell I think every lineup has I think every lineup has a different like personality and a different feel even to the same songs for sure but I think it’s it’s exciting to me to see how things evolve and I I think this record is definitely gross for crystal spiders and I learned so much from Reed like he’s he’s a very good guitar player he’s really really good and I’m like not that good so he’ll be like he be writing stuff and playing stuff and I’m like I can’t believe sometimes I’ll be playing it and I’m like how do I how do I know how to play that now like my fingers just fing yeah yeah it’s like maybe trying to keep up with him the whole time even though like still half of the time I feel like he’s looking at me like Damn it BR you don’t practice this enough at all and I’m like can I just play the one string do I really need all four how many notes are on this fretboard I really don’t need that many of them really do I this is base get out of here but you know he puts up with me that’s how you really I mean that’s how I shouldn’t say that that’s not how I started but really when you find people who are considerably better than you it does really lift you up too so that’s always I’m still a keep it simple stupid girl though all the time man don’t put too much pressure on yourself man rock and roll exactly is that something you have to remind people of um constantly or is is that I’m stupid yes [Laughter] but yeah when I when I’m in the studio um actually a lot of times as I said I’ll I’ll add more things in here there or I’ll make suggestions uh of things to add to the arrangement and then I’ll be like listening and my usual question is it’s a matter of taste like it’s not that it’s bad it’s done well but do you need it because if you don’t like there was also a quote that I read the other day I’m going to forget who it was like Coco Chanel or something it was like every time you’re about to leave the house look in the mirror and take off one thing and I was like you know what that’s a good that’s a good perspective for a record like yeah every time you think you’re done turn one thing down or take one thing out like yeah do you really need that extra Harmony or like that extra F I’m not attacking you Aon of course you need it drums have been done a long time that’s I think one of the things that people really like about the doom and Stoner genre is that like you want to get kind of a hypnotism you want to get like long slow yeah exactly I mean trans kind of yeah that doesn’t mean it’s easy and that doesn’t mean God yeah and that doesn’t mean it’s boring but there’s Beauty and simplicity sometimes I yeah I I’m constantly trying to fly that flag and just be like hey what can we take out there is a there is a point in the process where you should be dumping all the ideas out on the table and all but there’s definitely a step where it’s like all right now remove everything until you’re missing something and then put that thing back and then you’re probably around the right spot there all right I got one more quick one for you thank you for sticking with me um brenon this is a little bit more for you but I would interested in hearing Aaron side as well are you ever nervous about when other people come into the band uh and they want to contribute or um you know you really dug this feel on this song and you know everyone feels things differently everyone times things differently all that stuff what’s that are you sure it’s not for Aon just Kidd oh really no there’s like a joke about uh my bluntness sometimes is like uh my thing is everyone is always welcome and encouraged to bring ideas to the table but also be prepared that I might [  ] on them it’s not because I don’t love you it’s just because if I don’t like it I’m not gonna just humor it indefinitely which also I might call it butt rock is what I might do and if it’s butt Rock I’m G to tell you that it is yeah and that might hurt that might get you butt hurt that you were butt Rock but you know somebody was going to have to tell you and you’d rather it be me um save it for the butt but no I don’t get nervous the I guess the only thing is the um the flavor of my personality can be an acquired taste when it comes to the uh the brutal honesty but I just don’t like to waste people’s time you know and I don’t say things out of like it’s not that your idea isn’t good or it’s not that like I don’t like you or the way that you are doing something but I do this a lot of times when it comes to like the sharing of things on social media or like I’ll just say dudes I’m getting really tired and I’m getting really burned out I really need you guys to like step up and that’s what I love about these guys is that they do like they don’t make me put it all on my shoulders yeah and like I like that about sharing the songw writing too it’s like I don’t have to feel pressured to do everything myself nor do I have to feel like I can’t count on them or or worse that I would be like telling them it’ be okay to like have a song or do an idea but then meanwhile I’d be in the studio like how am I gonna fix this like I don’t have to do that at all because you know I’ll just be honest at the start and I’ll be like yes this sounds like a crystal Spider song let’s do it or that’s that’s a good way to actually no you could save it for later and that’d be okay for you and me yeah and then everyone else but I don’t know Aon do you feel like I’m nice enough about it ever since I started playing with you even in the other band I mean one thing I was warned about it for is like can you handle constructive criticism that’s a great question you know I mean honestly yeah I mean I would I appreciate it if somebody tells you you know hey what you’re playing sucks it’s kind of like if you’re walking around all day and you got I made Aaron get a new drum kit is what happened I made Aaron get a new drum kit yeah I mean it’s true that thing was not what was the problem with the old one it just it it didn’t it didn’t have the right tone man you could ruin almost anything by saying that couldn’t you yeah no he tried out for the band and I was like a love you killing it you got to get rid of those drums man I I was just like you could be in the band if if you could get new drums and he did it wasn’t easy but but tell them about your drum kit it’s the best right yeah yeah I love it you’re gonna hear it pretty soon when the record drops yeah well that’s how I knew Aaron was like Aaron was down to clown because he was like oh you just completely made me get an entirely new instrument and I was fine with that and actually thanked you man it sounds way better it’s a way better kit that’s cool so what would you end up getting Pearl decade all right 100% Maple shells they it’s just a all around great kit you can’t do much to make it sound terrible that’s the ones you want yeah good real wet salmon kit I love it all right very cool um just want to shout out BR Rex and uh Brody 2447 thanks for joining over on Instagram we are just wrapping up here um yeah so it’s uh Brena and Aaron of crystal spiders and they have a lot of stuff coming up you actually just want to maybe just let ad run know one more time um all the stuff you got going on do you have a release date yet for the the new record no we have to turn it in first because uh the the vinyl delay is like long so yeah pretty we were hoping it would squeeze in this year it will not so it’ll be at you sometime in 2025 but um I can tell you the album title which hasn’t been announced yet but can can I guess does it start with does it start with an m I was gonna ask you that oh so three in a row all M yes metanoia oh cool is the album title so breaking a little news here thank you yes well you know had to give you a treat for sitting through all of our BL uh yes well thank you very much for that and uh thank you for coming on um both of you um it was great to chat with you and yeah is there anything else you want to just let people know iest Texas you should go if you can make it happen please please do because the lineup is amazing there’s going to be like no overlaps I will be partying the whole time so come hang out with me um if you dare I might constructively criticize you you know I’ll be on my best behavior uh and then we will be playing with [  ] on October 16th in Raleigh so you know if you’re in the area or even if you’re not come on down to rywood we’ll there you go awesome all right well Brena and Aaron of crystal spiders thank you so much for jumping on the stream with us and talking through everything we’ll love to have you back whenever you um you want to come back or when you drop your record let us know please and then um we’ll have you back on we’ll talk all about that thank you so much Mike this was so much fun yes it it was I had a great time and just to Angel if you’re watching y she definitely is and I just want to say thanks to all the Chatters too um yeah and for um commenting and all that good stuff so yeah thank you very much and we will see everyone next week um I can’t remember who’s next week but I always do this so angel will post about it soon