Interview: Plus/Minus

+/-, or Plus/Minus, is an American band formed in 2001 out of New York, NY. Known for blending both electronic and traditional instruments, they have sought to use electronics to recreate traditional indie rock song forms and instrumental structures.

I first heard their 2008 album You Are Here, which I loved. Pitchfork media gave it a stellar review at the time and compared Plus/Minus to one of my favorite bands of all time, The Dismemberment Plan.

Members

• James Baluyut (vocals, guitar, keyboard, producer)

• Patrick Ramos (vocals, guitar, keyboard, drums)

• Chris Deaner (drums, sampler, banjo, clarinet, vibraphone, video production)

Transcript

[00:00:00] Daniel Schauer: [00:00:00] So I am joined today by plus minus they're an American band formed in, I think 2001. They're on a New York, New York. If you look them up online, they'll say known for blending into electronic and traditional instruments. Instruments. They have sought to use electronics to recreate traditional indie rock song forms.

[00:00:47] I'm not sure if they would agree with that, but what I heard from them first there 2008 album, you are here, which I just loved. I think a friend of mine had turned turned me onto it and [00:01:00] had given me at the same time in album from the dismemberment plan change. Which I think Pitchfork media actually gave a stellar review at the time of your album and compared it to dismember Pius album.

[00:01:13] So I was super excited to hear it. And yeah, I've been kind of hooked ever since. Let's go around the circle and introduce ourselves.  I, everyone knows me if they listen to the show. So we'll start with you, James.

[00:01:27] James Baluyut: [00:01:27] Uh,  Oh, introduce myself. I'm James. Uh, I play guitar and I sing, uh, yeah that's me

[00:01:36] Daniel Schauer: [00:01:36] Do you do the audio  production too?

[00:01:40] James Baluyut: [00:01:40] uh, I mean, yes.

[00:01:43] But we all kind of do it. We're all kind of like doing it as a, as a group.

[00:01:47] Daniel Schauer: [00:01:47] Cool, cool. Uh, Patrick,

[00:01:52] Patrick Ramos: [00:01:52] I, hi, I'm Patrick. Um, I play guitar and, um, [00:02:00] sing about a third of the time. And I also mostly do at least on James, his songs whenever he tells me to do or basically what he can't do.

[00:02:12] Daniel Schauer: [00:02:12] Okay.

[00:02:12] Patrick Ramos: [00:02:12] And sing and sing at the same time.

[00:02:14] Daniel Schauer: [00:02:14] Gotcha.

[00:02:16] James Baluyut: [00:02:16] Which is most things

[00:02:17] Daniel Schauer: [00:02:17] , uh, no, sign me up for one at you, man. Patrick, that sounds awesome.

[00:02:21] And then Chris could you introduce yourself please?

[00:02:25] Chris Deaner: [00:02:25] Sure. I'm Chris. Uh, and, uh, I play drums and various other small bits, but it's mostly drums.

[00:02:32] Daniel Schauer: [00:02:32] Cool

[00:02:33] Patrick Ramos: [00:02:33] Chris does what James and I can't do. Okay. On the pad, in addition to playing drums,

[00:02:42] Daniel Schauer: [00:02:42] you know....  Yeah. Drums are a, are a special or a special skill that's for sure. Um, I really actually loved your drum work by the way, Chris.

[00:02:51] Um

[00:02:52] Chris Deaner: [00:02:52] Thank you

[00:02:53] Daniel Schauer: [00:02:53] do any of you guys have like side gigs or, is Plus Minus your main money maker, as they say,

[00:03:01] [00:03:00] Chris Deaner: [00:03:01] that's what we live off of all the money, all the money that comes in, from Plus Minus

[00:03:08] Patrick Ramos: [00:03:08] we sleep on mattresses made of cash.

[00:03:13] Daniel Schauer: [00:03:13] Uh, I assume you're, you're joking. Yeah. Yeah. I hear ya. Music is hard to make money on these days. That's for sure. A lot, a lot of people making music.

[00:03:24] Chris Deaner: [00:03:24] but this is the main, main creative outlet I would say. As a band. Yes. Our main band.

[00:03:29] Daniel Schauer: [00:03:29] Cool.

[00:03:30] Patrick Ramos: [00:03:30] Yeah.

[00:03:31] James Baluyut: [00:03:31] Yeah, it was, there was a time, um, like in the, in the nineties, uh, where Patrick and I were, were in the span versus, and we were more, more or less professional musicians, but, uh, most of this band, uh, most of this bands, lifetime, we've been, uh, Yeah, doing jobs here and

[00:03:55] Patrick Ramos: [00:03:55] Even

[00:03:55] Chris Deaner: [00:03:55] I had another thing for a while

[00:03:57] Patrick Ramos: [00:03:57] And even, even if

[00:03:57]Daniel Schauer: [00:03:57] Yeah Chris, were you a film maker or [00:04:00] like a video production person for awhile or something like that?

[00:04:05] Chris Deaner: [00:04:05] Uh, no, not really. I, for fun, I would, I shot at what, three or four of our videos. Um, and one of them won an award. Uh, so I would shoot edit

[00:04:14] Daniel Schauer: [00:04:14] direct. Yeah. That's why I thought you were a filmmaker cause you won an award.

[00:04:19] And I was like, Oh, well, I mean, he's probably doing this at least on the side. Okay. Truly on the side. Sort of like something back burner on the side. Yeah. Okay. Gotcha.

[00:04:31] Patrick Ramos: [00:04:31] Yeah. Even, even when we, James and I were in versus, and even though that was more of a full-time thing, mostly, uh, it was, it's hard to. It's hard to in New York city to even, unless you're doing it year round, it's pretty hard to, for it to cover all your overhead.

[00:04:53] So in, in, in between tours, I was still, you know, temping here and there, or there was [00:05:00] a good period where I actually had a full-time job and they were crazy enough to say, just take a leave of absence and you go on tour and come back when you're done. And I was like, Hey, do you know of any other, any other jobs like this?

[00:05:14] James Baluyut: [00:05:14] Yeah. Well we basically, for a time we all had jobs. Right. Cause we were trying to go on tour and the

[00:05:26] Daniel Schauer: [00:05:26] New York's is expensive as they say, right?

[00:05:29] James Baluyut: [00:05:29] Yeah. Yeah. This is like the worst place to be in a bib. And is it as far as like, well, you know, you earn all your money on the road basically, and then you have to come back to the most expensive city, maybe the second, most expensive city in the country.

[00:05:45] Um, and it just doesn't go as far, actually. I don't think

[00:05:48] Patrick Ramos: [00:05:48] that's true, but, uh, but go ahead. Sorry. What's that, that, that doesn't know the, the Mo the most expensive city real estate wise, it is San Francisco, but cost of living it is New York city.

[00:06:00] [00:06:00] Daniel Schauer: [00:06:00] Let's get pedantic real estate prices. For sure.

[00:06:05] Patrick Ramos: [00:06:05] I like to point it. I like to point these things out.

[00:06:10] James Baluyut: [00:06:10] Um, but yeah, I, you know, Uh, at least for the, uh, you know, obviously it's easier to get noticed here is that, um, cause there's more people, I guess. Well, maybe it isn't actually, maybe there are too many bands here too. Maybe this is the worst place to live.

[00:06:28] Daniel Schauer: [00:06:28] I've been to New York city. I love the place, but I cannot get a feel for how diff like I've tried to make it as a musician in Seattle and Tacoma out here.

[00:06:40] Um, and, um, it's, you know, the competition is stiff out here. So I imagine with the population density and like a Manhattan or the surrounding boroughs that, you know, it would be even worse. Right. So, um, I guess, yeah, it doesn't surprise me that it would be, um, a kind of like, [00:07:00] you got a lot of opportunity to get noticed, I guess is maybe a good way to phrase that.

[00:07:04] What do you guys think?

[00:07:06] Patrick Ramos: [00:07:06] But you're also competing with about a million other things on any night that you're playing. It's not. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I mean,

[00:07:17] James Baluyut: [00:07:17] that's, it's, it's probably just a mixed bag, you know? Cause I think you can, there are bands that I saw that they would play every month. Yeah. You know, which I don't, I dunno if you can do that in smaller towns and not, and people not want to like yeah, for sure.

[00:07:35] Daniel Schauer: [00:07:35] No, it's a balancing act. You can overplay to your audience for

[00:07:38] James Baluyut: [00:07:38] sure. But I think here you can. You can play a lot. And you know, I don't know, people were always telling us we should play once a month. And I was like, you crazy, you know, but I guess people do it. And that's how they,

[00:07:55] Daniel Schauer: [00:07:55] is it hard to book a venue to cut you off?

[00:07:58] I thought you were done champs. [00:08:00] No, no.

[00:08:00] James Baluyut: [00:08:00] Um,

[00:08:02] Daniel Schauer: [00:08:02] like in, in Seattle, I'll say that you've got to like, basically justify that you can more or less fill the venue. Um, somehow, um, before the, the likely book you a show, unless they know you or get a reference.

[00:08:17] James Baluyut: [00:08:17] Yeah. Yeah. That's tough.

[00:08:19] Daniel Schauer: [00:08:19] Is that the case in Manhattan or is it like, there are so many venues that like, if you're willing to go to a, to a place off, you know, off of, uh, The main drag for, for lack of a better word, uh, that you can find a place to play and make some money.

[00:08:35] James Baluyut: [00:08:35] I think, you know, if you are opening for other people, you can, you can play anywhere. And, you know, I mean, that, that's a challenge too, actually, but, um, but yeah, if you want to headline a show, you, you better be able to. Get some people for sure, for sure. You

[00:08:53] Patrick Ramos: [00:08:53] know? Um, yeah. That's, uh, that's always a consideration that you don't, even, if you [00:09:00] get the show, you don't want to burn the club and then never get asked back.

[00:09:05] Daniel Schauer: [00:09:05] That's true. It's true. Even if they didn't ask you in advance, whether or not you can fill the venue, if you don't fill the venue, they're not going to ask you back. Is that what you mean? Yeah.

[00:09:15] Patrick Ramos: [00:09:15] Yeah. I mean, I think we've been mostly lucky in New York. I can only think of one show in New York that I was like,

[00:09:27] Outro music: [00:09:27] I guess we're not playing here.

[00:09:32] Daniel Schauer: [00:09:32] So just to like level set, the whole idea of this. This kind of podcast is based on the idea that if you wanted to and you had like 300 bucks, you could probably start recording your own music. No problem, probably for even cheaper than that. Now these days Which kind of has driven it was unfortunate that that coincided with the birth of Napster, which kind of like almost killed the music industry in some ways, you [00:10:00] know?

[00:10:00]But the other point is that like, it's cool that anyone can make their own music. And so I do want to kind of talk about some more technical stuff. And since you are all apparently involved in production I specifically want to make sure I don't let any we go don't let us go past the time without talking about the isolation series of videos that you guys did during COVID, because I mean, number one, I love, I love the new material that you guys have put out, but like on top of that, I just I'm interested in technically how you pulled it off, like, is it a classic music video style where, you know, you had a.

[00:10:36] Uh, S a studio recording for lack of a better word that you were, you were playing along to, or was it live recorded?

[00:10:45] James Baluyut: [00:10:45] Uh, D is that that's where you, Oh, no,

[00:10:50] Daniel Schauer: [00:10:50] no, no. Where do you want to start?

[00:10:54] James Baluyut: [00:10:54] No, I, I just, um, let's start, I

[00:10:58] Daniel Schauer: [00:10:58] mean, I'm a nerd, but [00:11:00] that's the first thing I like. Yeah,

[00:11:01] James Baluyut: [00:11:01] yeah, sure. No, yeah, no, that's, that's fine.

[00:11:04] Um, Cause it, the first part, it was like, you know, I was like Napster, that was a while ago. But, um, but yeah, but you know, before we get there, I would just want to say like, um, like the history of this band is really about the self recording. You know, I don't think this band would really exist if. That wasn't an option and that kind of stuff really started happening in the late nineties.

[00:11:39] And we're kind of just chasing that in this band. Um, you know, I mean, I don't know if people, and I don't want to give a lecture here, but like, it really was hard to create. Uh, studio quality recording before, um, before like the late [00:12:00] nineties. And, um, you know, if there's anything that this, that I think this band is about, it's like, it was kind of like, you know, bore, not out of like trying to figure out how to use this new software.

[00:12:17] You know, um, as far as those, those isolation solves, they kind of began. I don't know. Where did we get the idea? Do you guys remember?

[00:12:28] Chris Deaner: [00:12:28] Uh,

[00:12:30] Patrick Ramos: [00:12:30] I mean, Chris, I thought Chris was the,

[00:12:35] Chris Deaner: [00:12:35] I'll just say me. Yes. Well, that's true. I don't remember like the, certainly the.

[00:12:43] James Baluyut: [00:12:43] Yeah. I mean, the ideas came from Chris, uh, initially.

[00:12:49] And, uh, but

[00:12:50] Chris Deaner: [00:12:50] like the idea of like,

[00:12:52] James Baluyut: [00:12:52] yeah, like deciding to do it, where did that we'll do

[00:12:56] Daniel Schauer: [00:12:56] the songs where you did the videos, I guess would be my [00:13:00] questions

[00:13:01] Chris Deaner: [00:13:01] now. So that's, so there's two parts of it. Like one, how did we decide to do it? We're not quite sure. I think probably as possible. I was just like, Hey, we should.

[00:13:11] I'll just record something and that's what happened. So I, I, on all of those songs, um, I started them on the drums without any melodic or song structure at all. So for a guitar, that's very true. What am I to start with? But there's a couple of them where it was just the drums and I was implying structure.

[00:13:34] Through that. And then I recorded it with three or four different iPads and phones and sent those to James or Pat and they chose which one they wanted to take next. And then the song was crafted out of that. So it really did just start with non melodic drums. I guess one of them started with the guitar that I, that I recorded, but that was just one part.

[00:13:55] The rest of it kind of just. Formed organically out of that [00:14:00] first time we ever wrote like that, like truly like a three and a half minute drum take that was behind no song. And then a song had to come out of it. That

[00:14:08] Daniel Schauer: [00:14:08] feels like a daunting task as a guitarist and vocalist primarily like, you know, I can cobble together a drum part or a bass part, but like, uh, Man to just get like the super complex.

[00:14:20] Uh, are you talking about the first one in your isolation, Sirius or Chris? This is what you're

[00:14:24] Chris Deaner: [00:14:24] talking about. Well, all of them. Yeah. Yeah. So the first one, I actually sat down and played what I thought would be the quintessential, like, like the normal, the most normal plus minus song I could think of including.

[00:14:39] Th th where the chorus was and where, where the verses would be and how long, how many repetitions of the verses in five at that tempo. And like, that was on purpose to try, it's like a softball. It was like, Hey guys, we can do this in our sleep. Right. Like this is a plus minus song. Um, and it, that, that's what it was, you know, [00:15:00] like you're not to be exactly that.

[00:15:01] Yeah. Um, the other one, the second one, I guess I started with a guitar part. And then the third one, uh, that we released was also just me playing a drum track and then sending it on.

[00:15:19] Outro music: [00:15:19] Oh, okay.

[00:15:33] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:16:08] [00:16:00] Daniel Schauer: [00:16:08] Right. Because it was like a, it was like a sit-com right. You had multicam recordings of him. Right. So like you could switch between them. That's what you're talking

[00:16:17] Outro music: [00:16:17] about. Okay.

[00:17:20] [00:17:00] Sure.

[00:17:29] Daniel Schauer: [00:17:29] Yeah.

[00:17:29] Patrick Ramos: [00:17:29] So April, April and may. So I think we were,

[00:17:38] Daniel Schauer: [00:17:38] yeah, we're talking like freezer trucks, right?

[00:17:47] Outro music: [00:17:47] Right.

[00:18:10] [00:18:00] Patrick Ramos: [00:18:10] and in, in when we were doing this, um, I think only James was set up. At home with, you know, proper recording gear. Um, so Chris and I were, I was sending, you know, the, the video that I use to film the, whatever I was playing is both is both the video and the audio on the recordings. Um, and the vocal on that song is me singing into my ear.

[00:18:42] Buds are here. What are they? AirPods earbuds.

[00:18:46] Daniel Schauer: [00:18:46] Um, you're talking about the sun starts with the LA LA LA LA LA.

[00:18:50] Patrick Ramos: [00:18:50] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:18:53] Daniel Schauer: [00:18:53] I was going to ask you specifically if you had recorded the audio because you're standing outside [00:19:00] at the time, right? When, uh, in the video, as far as I recall. Right? So like, uh, like how did you not get all this?

[00:19:06] Like when the background noise, like, you seem like you're standing and shitty. I don't know. Yeah. COVID thanks. One thing you did for us, I guess, huh? Gave us a nice recording environment outside. Yeah. And it was, um, I don't know,

[00:19:27] Patrick Ramos: [00:19:27] but I was saying that the nice thing about that whole process to me was, um, more, it did remind me a lot of, for tracking.

[00:19:36] No, cause said for tracking, uh, just because. Did you, I didn't have any other choice than just to use my phone or an iPad to record. Right. And so, you know, I mean, those things, these things sound pretty, pretty good. Oops. My garage band is crushed

[00:19:57] Daniel Schauer: [00:19:57] it's all right. Okay. So I'll get the backup recording. I'll [00:20:00] just sub it in for Pat recording resume when you can.

[00:20:03] Patrick Ramos: [00:20:03] Um, and um, we started.

[00:20:10] Oh, probably less taxing.

[00:20:13] Daniel Schauer: [00:20:13] Quick time, Claire. Oh, interesting.

[00:20:53] You mean to try and find like a chord progression or like a melody or something that you felt like, uh, went along [00:21:00] with that as opposed to starting the other way around. Cause that's how I write songs. I mean, uh, I don't know about you guys, but that's normally, I think of like a duh, duh, duh, uh, to, you know, give an example.

[00:21:50] Outro music: [00:21:50] Okay.

[00:21:55] Did

[00:21:55] Daniel Schauer: [00:21:55] you like the, the difference in the creative process that you guys experienced there? [00:22:00] And also, uh, was it the case that like someone took the drum part that Chris had sent and like added their part and then bounced a mix or they just upload a wave or a file of just their part and understood that eventually someone would try and mix it all together.

[00:22:17] Patrick Ramos: [00:22:17] James did all of that. So like, if, if Chris sends something to me, like on that. Time, we're talking about the . Um, I had an idea to just put it, so I, I recorded playing along to the drum track that he sent and it was incomplete. Um, my, my tracks, my parts actually were longer than his. What he sent me. So I just made sure that I got every part that I had written that I want it to be in there.

[00:22:45] And so it was, it was enough. I just sent that off to James. He chopped it up into what he, what made sense to him, sent it back to me and said what, you know, and over the course of writing it, and we made some changes, but like sometimes [00:23:00] I would send him something and I'd say, you know, at. You know, two 44, cut the drums out and then add this part at two.

[00:23:11] You just using time as the, you know, There's a guide. Um, and then it was, I guess the, the process of it for me was fun in that way, because it didn't when we're in the studio, we do tend to get, or maybe, yeah, I should speak for myself a little precious about I get precious about it. Yeah. Ideas and, and, and you, this was kind of, I did find it also kind of freeing to be doing it alone.

[00:23:41] Like I didn't. You know, it, wasn't kind of in the room feeling a little, you know, under pressure when you're trying to track something in a studio. Um, so, so just doing it at home without anyone out that was liberating in a way. And also, so just that, not being precious about it, [00:24:00] just, okay, well, this is the part, this is.

[00:24:04] I'm just going to send this off, see what happens.

[00:24:07] Chris Deaner: [00:24:07] I don't think there's any notion that this in the beginning that we were going to release it, maybe like we didn't, or that it would ever be on an album. This was like something that was purely, uh, to document our time, like what we were going through.

[00:24:21] Like, but not, not in a sort of like, Hey, COVID sucks. And, uh, that we're going to write about that, but just more like. We're kind of all in isolation, but we're going to try to still be together. How can we kind of keep coming? How can we write that down? And so that made us a lot less, um, pressure. It made me a lot less precious, like.

[00:24:40] I had no idea, really what was going to come of whatever I recorded. And I would do those in like two takes. It'd be like one, two. I got to go make dinner because it's just like, I didn't, I didn't have the time to do anything else. Like my, my eight year old was pressing record. And so I'm like, press record.

[00:24:55] Don't knock that one over, press record, quiet take. And then I was like, okay, [00:25:00] stop. I got to go make dinner. So like, it was really not a lot of time to be precious about it, but, um, I think they turned out pretty well. The other thing I will say is like, we, we do work. It was not unfamiliar to us working in this manner because, uh, when we do record, we record in, uh, either our own rehearsal space or at somebody's house.

[00:25:22] And then we'll share out. The will we'll we'll, uh, uh, bounce the mixes and then put them, put them somewhere and then we'll have conversations in, uh, some sort of chat app. We use Slack actually, but whatever it was at the timer is now and say, we should do this here, do this, here, do this here. So that translated pretty, pretty seamlessly.

[00:25:42] Like we were used to working in that way. A little going into this. Cool.

[00:25:48] Patrick Ramos: [00:25:48] Do you guys, James has done, yeah.

[00:25:51] Chris Deaner: [00:25:51] James has had him when I, when I start talking, he's like, I'm out of here. We'll just

[00:25:55] Patrick Ramos: [00:25:55] leave.

[00:25:56] Daniel Schauer: [00:25:56] Whatever that guy comes from, Kelly Clarkson. I'm done [00:26:00] whatever,

[00:26:02] Chris Deaner: [00:26:02] you know, all the time, never going to live that down, but it was good.

[00:26:09] I was actually gonna, I was gonna. When, when we were making the album after you are here, which is Xs on your eyes, um, on the tour with Kelly, I was. Cutting drums, like, meaning, like I was editing drums that I had recorded for Xs on tour with Kelly. So I would just like sit in the green room and like get pro-tools light and then just like cut by transients and like move things around and, and fix it up.

[00:26:33] And then. Export it and send it on in that. So we were like working on X while I was on tour. Kelly is that democratization of audio, like is sort of that, uh, your thesis for the show made me think about that. Like, we were able to finish that album while not being all in the same place the

[00:26:51] Daniel Schauer: [00:26:51] whole time. So cool.

[00:26:53] Do you guys all use the same DAW? Are you all using a pro tools or a flavor of.

[00:26:59] Chris Deaner: [00:26:59] Uh, [00:27:00] not in our, we don't do a ton of the editing in our houses. Um, where at the space we have logic, which, which is like 12 years old now is like the oldest it's so old. Um, I think James has, and it's pretty old. Like, I think you are here was, was recorded on new endo.

[00:27:21] I don't know if you remember. Nuendo.

[00:27:23] Daniel Schauer: [00:27:23] Oh, wait, now that that rings a bell, but I couldn't tell you too much about it.

[00:27:29] Chris Deaner: [00:27:29] And then I think we did, I think we use, or I was able to use pro tools, Ellie, um, for Xs, but we don't really, we don't really share stems as much as we just share bounces, then talk about times and then we'll go into one spot.

[00:27:43] Like we'll go into the studio and like, uh, mess with it. Hm,

[00:27:48] Patrick Ramos: [00:27:48] cool. James is, uh, James is texting me. Or slacking. I got cut off. Did you guys? I said, no, we're still on. Can he, can you rejoin? He should be able to rejoin, right?

[00:27:56] Daniel Schauer: [00:27:56] Yeah. No, same link. Same like, yeah, absolutely. [00:28:00] Um, but yeah, let me know. He

[00:28:03] Patrick Ramos: [00:28:03] said he's he said he's.

[00:28:04] He said, he's trying. I got, uh,

[00:28:09] Daniel Schauer: [00:28:09] Well, hopefully the internet doesn't fail me now, but if we need to, I guess we can make a hard left turn to like us on cast. I, I have a few contingency plans, uh, for these, uh, shows, uh, because yeah, it's cool. When you land a big interview and then a not cool when like something goes wrong and you fail to actually record the interview.

[00:28:32] Yeah. Um, So hopefully he'll rejoin. Uh, I guess let's do, let's do a quick review. Mike's um, What, what are you talking to me through Chris?

[00:28:44] Chris Deaner: [00:28:44] Uh, what is this? A Shure SM seven B yeah, I think SM seven B a. And I'm going through a focus, right? Scarlet. I got both of these things recently. Like within two months, I didn't have [00:29:00] anything here before.

[00:29:00] They're like Pat was saying like all the recording, all the audio is done with, uh, for the drums with, uh, just iPad and phone. Speakers and microphones, um, things sweetened it a little bit. It was still, still pretty great. It's also, still kind of hurts a little bit like the kick drum on Pat song hurts me when I hear it, because it kind

[00:29:22] Daniel Schauer: [00:29:22] of just, I mean, you're a drummer.

[00:29:23] Are you ever happy? Are you ever happy with the kick drum

[00:29:28] Chris Deaner: [00:29:28] infrequently? Occasionally.

[00:29:32] Outro music: [00:29:32] I don't

[00:29:32] Chris Deaner: [00:29:32] know what, I don't know what Pat got for his mic.

[00:29:37] Patrick Ramos: [00:29:37] Uh, this is, I actually bought this, uh, okay. I think maybe 20 years ago it's a road NT one. Um, I think James had had, when he was trying to, um, when you first started recording, when the first album at home. I was kind of intrigued by it. And so I [00:30:00] kind of started to try to set up a home thing.

[00:30:02] He actually bought a new sound card and gave me his old one. And so I ended up buying this mic, but I never really got it set up. I had, um, we were recording at his apartment and then we were on tour and then. My wife became pregnant. And then I just was like, well, I just kind of put it, actually brought it to this space or studio and put it in the closet there.

[00:30:23] Um, and never used it. Um, and so this same as Chris, uh, when you start to realize that, uh, we are probably going to be in this kind of, uh, in this quarantine or at least this kind of lockdown mode as a country for him. Good while I think still, I was like, well, maybe I should get some stuff so I can do it here.

[00:30:44] So I bought the same thing that Chris got, I got the Scarlet. Um, or is this

[00:30:50] Daniel Schauer: [00:30:50] the one with the two combo Jackson? The front. So like XLR slash, uh, slash quarter-inch inputs on the front. Yeah, that's

[00:30:58] Chris Deaner: [00:30:58] the one what's the four I four or [00:31:00] whatever I think is what it is. Uh, so for me it was like, I think, I think it can record a total of six in, so I also got two AKG overheads.

[00:31:11] Um, and then I'll, this is my like area where I have my drum sets right over here. This is also where the videos were shot. And so I'll just have those two overheads. This guy for a kick drum mic. And it's pretty much all you need for a good drum. Sound.

[00:31:26] Patrick Ramos: [00:31:26] You got a different one than I did. You got the one more inputs?

[00:31:31] I

[00:31:31] Chris Deaner: [00:31:31] think so. Yeah, but it doesn't have six in the front. It's like two in the front, four on the back. And then if you're in, if you're recording and allow you to use all four or all six to like record,

[00:31:41] Patrick Ramos: [00:31:41] I believe. Yeah. I think you got the. You got the better one.

[00:31:46] Daniel Schauer: [00:31:46] Okay. And dropped between the, uh, the focus, right.

[00:31:49] Scarlets and my current interface, uh, which is, uh, RME baby face, which is a similar number of channels, uh, as far as in and out. But, uh, [00:32:00] it just has a better. Software mixer basically lets you do like a loop backs. I'm not sure if you guys are Mac or PC, but I'm a PC guy, uh, or have been since I was in high school.

[00:32:10] So, um, it is nice to have like the loop back feature in my software. So that's cool. Um, man, uh, any work from James? Like I don't wanna

[00:32:20] Chris Deaner: [00:32:20] like he's restarting his computer. Okay. No worries. What he was saying is like when he was trying. He said the words are, it keeps saying lost connection to host. Okay. Um, so he's gonna try restarting and then he's gonna let us know,

[00:32:40] Patrick Ramos: [00:32:40] would it, uh,

[00:32:42] Daniel Schauer: [00:32:42] if we need to.

[00:32:44] No, I don't mean to say that you're not interesting. I just don't want to leave him in the dust and have him like come back and be like, we're talking about like how, like, he really could have worked a little bit harder on summer dress Mon you know, like come on or something like that. Like, that's [00:33:00] a complete joke.

[00:33:00] I love that. I love that job. Yeah. I love that song rather. Uh, but, um, Should we, uh, talk about working harder on, on that note, Chris, what do you mean?

[00:33:13] Chris Deaner: [00:33:13] Well, when you load in and you're loading out at the end of the night, playing a show, sometimes, you know, he just doesn't work as hard as the rest of us. I'm just kidding.

[00:33:22] Some,

[00:33:24] Patrick Ramos: [00:33:24] one of us, one of us is just not usually there at load. Uh, uh, I'm not going to name names, but.

[00:33:34] Daniel Schauer: [00:33:34] You

[00:33:35] Patrick Ramos: [00:33:35] guys last name starts with a B. Oh,

[00:33:39] Daniel Schauer: [00:33:39] did he, is it so honestly all the pre, uh, show, uh, like research I did basically I've, I've dropped four or five lines from my research results. And every time you guys have been like, um, I mean, not really, no.

[00:33:56] Um, so I'll just go ahead and [00:34:00] confirm a few, like, kinda like, uh, Assumptions that I had had. Is it true that James wrote most of the songs from you are

[00:34:06] Outro music: [00:34:06] here?

[00:34:10] Chris Deaner: [00:34:10] Well, it's kind of the same mix every time. It's like, I'd say like a third or that's in two thirds are James. And then like, as in terms of like predominant writing.

[00:34:23] Um, but we all, we all have a part in all of, almost all of the songs, something like summer dress. Like when it's just, if it's just like him and a guitar, like that's just him and a guitar. But, um, I I'd say the mix-up is about all, this is about the like, Pat almost always has, is a third. Right? Pat? I don't know like that.

[00:34:44] Yeah.

[00:34:45] Patrick Ramos: [00:34:45] Yeah. I mean, generally any song, any song I sing, it's my song. Uh, and we are, but we also. Like most of it, uh, even with the exception, like Chris was saying of [00:35:00] the ones that are just like James on an acoustic. Um, but even those, you know, we always generally all have a hand in at least, you know, editing, you know, even in, in the song writing, like, be that guy, you know, that, that part, this, what if you went here

[00:35:16] Daniel Schauer: [00:35:16] with that part

[00:35:17] Patrick Ramos: [00:35:17] or not?

[00:35:18] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and there, there are times that, you know, James will think of a part. Or Chris will think of a part in one of my songs, like a fourth or third or fourth, you know, another section that I'm like, Oh yeah, that works. And we use, uh, and, and that goes for James's songs as well. It's like, we, it's never, um, it's never, I mean, we do except for the first record.

[00:35:42] Um, it's, it is a band now. Um, yeah,

[00:35:47] Chris Deaner: [00:35:47] we don't Mount the songs, but we used

[00:35:50] Patrick Ramos: [00:35:50] to, we, it depends, right. X is,

[00:35:54] Chris Deaner: [00:35:54] X is in, like, you are here actually were a lot of, those were just kind of written together, [00:36:00] um, like megalomaniac and songs like that were just like, yeah, those were just jammed. Right?

[00:36:06] Daniel Schauer: [00:36:06] Um, really that's so cool.

[00:36:08] Megalomaniac is one of my favorite songs from that album on the way I love those things. Yes, I'm going to correct your Wikipedia article and like quote my own PA podcast as evidence, uh, for, or a citation for, for the correction.

[00:36:25] Patrick Ramos: [00:36:25] Oh, see, I didn't, I didn't realize that. What does it say? It says that James wrote all the songs

[00:36:29] Daniel Schauer: [00:36:29] rampantly.

[00:36:30] I could quote, I don't want to waste the time, but like you, like, yeah, it just says that like James basically wrote all the songs after, um, someone noticed a. Uh, track that he did four verses and liked it and said, Hey, can you record a whole album's worth of material for me? And then like he did all the songs.

[00:36:50] That's one thing I read.

[00:36:51] Patrick Ramos: [00:36:51] Well that, yeah, that is true for the first record, which is this self-titled long playing debut album.

[00:36:59] Daniel Schauer: [00:36:59] There [00:37:00] is an album before the one that I'm aware

[00:37:02] Patrick Ramos: [00:37:02] of. Right. That's actually the, that's really the birth of the band. And that, that is true. That's actually a birth of the plus minus

[00:37:10] Daniel Schauer: [00:37:10] there, like a Latin you're like a whole new world for me right now.

[00:37:14] Oh my gosh. It was really, so

[00:37:17] Patrick Ramos: [00:37:17] that was no, no, no, no. Uh, yeah, my kids are older now, but I would've, I would've, I would've been right there with you about 10 years ago. Um, I've uh, I've, I've all of those. Disney movies have kind of, uh, it's

[00:37:35] Daniel Schauer: [00:37:35] like lucky you

[00:37:36] Patrick Ramos: [00:37:36] PTSD you. No, I'd like some of them get out before frozen came on, man.

[00:37:44] No, no, no. I was right in the throws of that and my kids were in elementary school. Yeah. When that came out,

[00:37:49] Chris Deaner: [00:37:49] James James was able to get. Back a row rather he restarted and he still can't get back in. So like maybe like I have a whole new link. Yeah.

[00:38:03] [00:38:00] Daniel Schauer: [00:38:03] Um, I don't. Oh, and let's federal make editing. I'll difficult though. Uh, well, I guess we don't have a choice, so here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna set that up. Uh, give me a second to open a new tab and be like, I'm a nerd.

[00:38:17] Outro music: [00:38:17] Hang on.

[00:38:21] Daniel Schauer: [00:38:21] Here we go. Uh, and then I'll send out a new guest invite link to the Facebook messenger.

[00:38:30] Patrick Ramos: [00:38:30] Oh, okay. I'll send it. I'll share it.

[00:38:34] Outro music: [00:38:34] Uh,

[00:38:36] Daniel Schauer: [00:38:36] yes, the

[00:38:36] Outro music: [00:38:36] thing I want.

[00:38:39] James Baluyut: [00:38:39] Yep. That one,

[00:38:41] Patrick Ramos: [00:38:41] there you

[00:38:42] Daniel Schauer: [00:38:42] go. Um, and no one talked for a second. Okay, we're going to switch. Oh no. Why does it say go alive?

[00:38:58] Wow. I hope that all works.

[00:39:00] [00:39:00] Patrick Ramos: [00:39:00] We will see, I sent it.

[00:39:03] Outro music: [00:39:03] Hey, Pat,

[00:39:07] Patrick Ramos: [00:39:07] I think we do. We end this and we jumped on the other link. Is that what the deal is?

[00:39:10] Chris Deaner: [00:39:10] I think so, Sharon Slack,

[00:39:13] Daniel Schauer: [00:39:13] I did. Hello, Jane. Welcome back. Yes, I can. Hopefully everyone else joins us. It's going to be a bit of an editing challenge. It's going to be a nice crossfade.

[00:39:27] Oh, you can't hear me? Uh, hang on. I'll check.

[00:39:36] Yeah. Can you hear me now? Murmur. All right. Cool.

[00:39:40] Outro music: [00:39:40] Murmur.

[00:39:42] Daniel Schauer: [00:39:42] I, I also don't know what happened. Um, as, as most tech support that you've maybe ever received has gone. Uh, the, the answer is not, let's not find the root cause, but the answer is, well, let's try this as a solution. Uh, [00:40:00] so, uh, w we'll let everyone rejoin here.

[00:40:02] Check,

[00:40:02] Outro music: [00:40:02] check, check.

[00:40:11] Daniel Schauer: [00:40:11] Oh, so it's via. Okay. So is it Metta or meet Meda? Well, let me ask you that, James.

[00:40:20] Outro music: [00:40:20] Let me tell,

[00:40:21] Chris Deaner: [00:40:21] is it insurance or insurance or insurance?

[00:40:25] Daniel Schauer: [00:40:25] Uh, I mean, where I'm from it's insurance.

[00:40:29] Chris Deaner: [00:40:29] Insurance is definitely Jeff. Right? You guys, you guys watching those cool jifs. People are sending around. I mean,

[00:40:37] Daniel Schauer: [00:40:37] as the owner of a CIOs city's website back in the day about like, I think dragon ballsy, if I'm honest.

[00:40:44] Um, yeah. Um, yeah, it's Jeff for sure. And JPEG with the, like all four letters. You got to have an E in there. You're not sure if you understand, are you sorry? Sorry about that.

[00:41:02] [00:41:00] Outro music: [00:41:02] I don't.

[00:41:05] Chris Deaner: [00:41:05] Just kind of just talking smack about you. Mostly,

[00:41:12] Daniel Schauer: [00:41:12] we went to this view and like everyone's face was kind of cut in half. It was suboptimal to be honest, but like it's cool. It's cool. Uh, we're going to just go live and then like when someone else joins, Oh, here he is. What's up. What's

[00:41:25] Outro music: [00:41:25] up Patrick. Hey.

[00:41:27] Daniel Schauer: [00:41:27] Hey, the Internet's a great thing. Hey, remember how we were talking about how difficult it was to do a studio quality recording, uh, back in the 1990s.

[00:41:36] Well, could you imagine that like a few years later we could stream live? Like we could, if I chose be streaming live to the internet right now, like Facebook and like YouTube all at the same time and it'd be super cool. Yeah. Um, yeah, that's nuts. Weird turnaround, right? Hmm.

[00:41:53] James Baluyut: [00:41:53] Have you, uh, have you done the simultaneous stream?

[00:41:56] Yeah, no.

[00:41:58] Daniel Schauer: [00:41:58] Plus when I reached out to you guys about [00:42:00] Patrick, I messaged you on Facebook. You can manage the Facebook master or at least have when you guys have been talking to me. And it seems on the yeah. So, what I do is, um, I mean, I make enough money that I don't, I don't need people to be my patron or whatever, and like buy my stuff.

[00:42:20] Um, so I'd rather people just like give money to charity, uh, which is why I was reaching out to you guys. I. I wanted your permission to basically play your songs in the background and then just jam electric guitar along to it, because that's what I do in my spare time. And if I can convince someone to give a few hundred bucks to charity while I do that, like why the hell not?

[00:42:41] Right. So, yeah. Um, I wanted to ask your permission before I did it, because I know how I'd feel if someone did that to my music without asking. So yeah, that's how we got in touch, but yeah. Yeah.

[00:42:56] James Baluyut: [00:42:56] Yeah. W I was actually looking at this, uh, at this restream [00:43:00] platform when we were doing our Facebook lives. Cause it seemed lame to only go to

[00:43:06] Daniel Schauer: [00:43:06] one.

[00:43:07] It is like right spot.

[00:43:09] James Baluyut: [00:43:09] You know, when there are all these places you could stream too. I'd

[00:43:13] Daniel Schauer: [00:43:13] say they're like three or four Reece streaming services. Right? So like the idea of streaming to multiple platforms that wants is called re streaming. Right? castor.io. That was the original one I used. Um, there is, um, also a restream or S yeah, restream the IO.

[00:43:32] Could you try again? I don't know. Siri. I can't try again right now. Um, but is that mine or yours? I actually don't know. I don't think it's mine.

[00:43:43] James Baluyut: [00:43:43] I don't have Siri,

[00:43:44] Patrick Ramos: [00:43:44] so it's not mine now. Mine. Wow. Interesting. Well sent him Siri. Yeah.

[00:43:53] Daniel Schauer: [00:43:53] Ah, let's not worry about that. I mean, the hairs take over eventually anyway, so yeah.

[00:43:58] Moving on.

[00:44:00] [00:44:00] James Baluyut: [00:44:00] I, for one, welcome our AI overlay

[00:44:06] Daniel Schauer: [00:44:06] to quote Kent Brockman for the sentence, our new overlords. Yes, absolutely.

[00:44:14] James Baluyut: [00:44:14] So where were we in the conversation? Sorry. I, I apologize. I don't know what happened to my stuff.

[00:44:20] Daniel Schauer: [00:44:20] Oh, it's all good. It's all good. We will, we will nailed it altogether. Seamlessly, like cross fades and things like that.

[00:44:29] Uh, I'll be like Georges, Lucas, look like a sweet fade, a sweet cut or whatever. That's this column. I

[00:44:36] James Baluyut: [00:44:36] believe when I left the PA Patrick was talking about something.

[00:44:41] Daniel Schauer: [00:44:41] That's a good hint. Um, what would you like to suggest maybe he was ducking?

[00:44:47] James Baluyut: [00:44:47] Um, was it, was it tacos likely, likely it was food? Um, no. Yeah. I think you were talking about the, [00:45:00] uh, you had been talking about how, you know, went in the studio.

[00:45:07] It was. You were more precious and in this scenario you were less so

[00:45:13] Daniel Schauer: [00:45:13] yeah. Cognizant of like the times gone by maybe is how I interpreted that. Yeah.

[00:45:19] James Baluyut: [00:45:19] That's at least where that's as far back as I can remember. And that's no reflection on. And anything, but either my poor memory or my bad computer. Yeah.

[00:45:30] Patrick Ramos: [00:45:30] I think you may be right.

[00:45:30] And that's when you, you split sounds about right. But Chris was talking when you, when you were disconnected. So I thought it was personal between you and Chris. Do you have something to say to each other,

[00:45:46] James Baluyut: [00:45:46] you

[00:45:46] Patrick Ramos: [00:45:46] know, when they hash it out now,

[00:45:48] Chris Deaner: [00:45:48] come on. I've learned my lesson.

[00:45:52] Daniel Schauer: [00:45:52] I did ask Patrick and Chris about their mix that they're talking about. So I want to get your mic and audio interface if you don't mind.

[00:46:00] [00:45:59] James Baluyut: [00:45:59] Oh yeah. Um, I am using this, uh, Apogee one. That's from like, It's probably a decade old, maybe it's like old USB and then I have this, uh, Electro-Voice , which is, um, which is a broadcast style, Mike, I guess it is.

[00:46:26] Um, yeah.

[00:46:28] Daniel Schauer: [00:46:28] Is there an also, or a condenser. I'm sorry.

[00:46:31] James Baluyut: [00:46:31] I think it's

[00:46:32] Patrick Ramos: [00:46:32] a dynamic mic. So dynamic. Yeah,

[00:46:34] James Baluyut: [00:46:34] yeah. Yeah. It's just like, it looks like it's just, yeah, it's just crazy. Yeah. But, um, you know, I think, uh, I, I use this for a couple of vocals laced lately and I was like, I should bring that home for the pandemic.

[00:46:54] Um, But you know, that the make that Chris is using, we've actually done a few [00:47:00] final vocals on that. The rest of the road, the Shure SM seven. Oh,

[00:47:07] Daniel Schauer: [00:47:07] Chris has not Patrick yet. Yeah. It's been a long day. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:47:13] James Baluyut: [00:47:13] We we've actually done some final locals on this and on that and, and on this one, so we're kind of like, it doesn't as long as it sounds good.

[00:47:22] You know. Yeah, for sure. I actually have a condenser here, but, um, but I, I prefer this for some reason anyway, um, back to the conversation.

[00:47:34] Daniel Schauer: [00:47:34] Oh no. Before we move on beyond the nerd stuff, uh, what's your DAW, your, uh, your digital audio.

[00:47:41] James Baluyut: [00:47:41] I. Uh, I use logic. Um, that's actually what the band uses, um, logic and reason.

[00:47:49] Um, and that's what I have, like every, but we've gone through many it's

[00:47:57] Patrick Ramos: [00:47:57] mostly because of the names of the two. Yeah. [00:48:00] Yeah. That's

[00:48:01] Daniel Schauer: [00:48:01] so, well, I mean longevity isn't I mean, yeah, they go hand in

[00:48:05] James Baluyut: [00:48:05] hand.

[00:48:05] Patrick Ramos: [00:48:05] It made sense to us.

[00:48:07] James Baluyut: [00:48:07] Yeah. Uh, I was using stupid ass jokes for awhile, but, uh, it didn't fit well with.

[00:48:15] Daniel Schauer: [00:48:15] Well, have you ever tried the emotion with it?

[00:48:17] It totally crashes everything. It's awful.

[00:48:22] James Baluyut: [00:48:22] Sorry,

[00:48:22] Daniel Schauer: [00:48:22] dad jokes ever.

[00:48:24] Patrick Ramos: [00:48:24] Yeah, I, um, we do the

[00:48:26] James Baluyut: [00:48:26] same. We, uh, you know, I think we've used in this band, Cubase and window.

[00:48:34] Daniel Schauer: [00:48:34] What'd you think your Cubase and then approach

[00:48:38] James Baluyut: [00:48:38] and logic? Um, I liked it when I had it, you know? But, I mean, you know, it's like you, you just use whatever you can, um, when you can, and especially in the nineties, I think I actually was really good at new

[00:48:58] Patrick Ramos: [00:48:58] endo.

[00:48:59] I liked new [00:49:00] endo. That seemed to be the most user-friendly.

[00:49:04] James Baluyut: [00:49:04] Yeah. Um, at the time, you know, when I switched to max, it just, I never. I never caught hold of a new endo again, but, uh,

[00:49:16] Outro music: [00:49:16] um,

[00:49:19] James Baluyut: [00:49:19] yeah, it's, it's, it's sort of like, cause we've, we've also rented a lot of studios over the years, um, and we've had to use other people's computers and we kind of just use whatever there, whatever that person has.

[00:49:32] Um, yeah.

[00:49:35] Chris Deaner: [00:49:35] Oh, is that why we were using, I was using pro tools on tour with Kelly because we were renting that one place and we recorded everything on pro tools from that one spot,

[00:49:43] James Baluyut: [00:49:43] I think. So that was the hardest actually to learn.

[00:49:47] Daniel Schauer: [00:49:47] Yeah. Um, really for me, yeah. It's actually pretty a, a pretty steep curve to learn, but, um, I mean, yeah,

[00:49:57] James Baluyut: [00:49:57] it probably is, but [00:50:00] I think it's more like Cubase or new window.

[00:50:03] Then than pro tools. I think pro tools stands on its own and it probably works the best. Like it crashes the least and it's the fastest. Hmm. Um, but it's, you know, and learned elsewhere. And then I tried Ableton live once and it was, I just couldn't really do anything there. So

[00:50:26] Daniel Schauer: [00:50:26] see, when you see a free one on Udacity at all.

[00:50:30] It's a very common one that comes up for podcasting, which is one of the aspects that I talk about on my show.

[00:50:36] James Baluyut: [00:50:36] Yeah. I've used that, um, for, do you know what odd is? I think it's odd. Oh, gee. Um, yeah, the original gangster gangster. No. Um, no, it's, it's some higher format that I guess a

[00:50:55] Daniel Schauer: [00:50:55] desk. Yeah. GG lossless audio format.

[00:50:58] Sorry. Yeah, right. Yeah. [00:51:00] Gotcha. You gotta like, be like a file extension LGG. Like I'm such an, like I thought you might be talking about like original gangster. Yeah. And maybe nobody calls it a dog. I mean, wait, wait, what

[00:51:13] James Baluyut: [00:51:13] do you mean? Maybe I'm so out of it that nobody calls it dog. But, um, but I think audacity can read that if I'm, if I'm and, um, you know, there are those, uh, multitracks going around of songs that were in guitar hero.

[00:51:34] Yeah. And I think that's the only time I used audacity was like, somebody sent me the. The multi-track files for a couple of queen songs. And then I, yeah. But, um, but yeah, you know, you use, whenever you can, you know, it's a miracle, it's a miracle that all of this, that all this exists in the

[00:51:57] Daniel Schauer: [00:51:57] first place. So.

[00:51:58] I mean, my first [00:52:00] recording of album of an album, or even any song was like on a, a digital eight track recorder. Right. But it didn't have like a digital audio export. So like my plan, my master plan as a teenager was what I'll do is I'll, I'll get my audio interface from my computer. And then once at a time, like I'll do vocal track one and I'll, I'll hit record on my, on my, on my computer and try to hit play on the, on the eight track at the same time.

[00:52:26] It'll be fine. Won't be so hard to line up. Right. And I mean, you laugh. So you know what happened when I tried to do that, it didn't work out super great. Yeah.

[00:52:35] James Baluyut: [00:52:35] Yeah. I think we recorded a record like that actually in the nineties, one of the verses records was basically played out of our role in the vs eight 80.

[00:52:49] Daniel Schauer: [00:52:49] In tumors, the PR 1180, but also a, uh, a boss instead of a rolling same, same day,

[00:52:56] James Baluyut: [00:52:56] but it was the same thing. It was like, I hit play and [00:53:00] I played as many tracks as I could out into the interface. And then. Went back and tried to land them up. And it was, it was yeah. The small nightmare.

[00:53:12] Daniel Schauer: [00:53:12] Yeah. Do you guys use any audio plugins these days or suites these days?

[00:53:17] Um, I have a few go-to that I, that I go to, for instance, if you look around my room right now, you'll notice there's tile in the background and like a, a wood wall behind me. And like there's no audio treatment in the room generally. So like to get a good audio tape often for music, you know, without reverb, but I'll have to use effects and sweets like that, like isotope or things like that.

[00:53:41] Do you guys use any of those?

[00:53:43] James Baluyut: [00:53:43] Uh, we. We have a few waves plugins that we use. Um, and then, um, a few of the sound toys, plugins, um, and then [00:54:00] I just got the even tide, each nine plugins, but generally I'm like weirdly not very many. Um, interesting. Yeah.

[00:54:14] Daniel Schauer: [00:54:14] What's your favorite delays? Cause you guys use a lot of delays from, from what I hear, at least in my ear.

[00:54:21] I mean,

[00:54:21] James Baluyut: [00:54:21] I usually just third of

[00:54:25] Daniel Schauer: [00:54:25] their panels. Like no problem. I have a pillow problem too. I have a helix and a very ax. If you can see the very next book.

[00:54:34] James Baluyut: [00:54:34] Mm. Gotcha. Um, yeah, I mean, I have this thing called echo boy, which is a sound toys login, but that's like fairly recent. Um, but they're usually analog glaze.

[00:54:48] Um, the one that I use a lot is the 80 80, which has, you know, it's sort of like runs away really easily. Um, [00:55:00] But yeah, the, the, the plug-in situation, we, I think we bought a set in, in the early two thousands from waves and that that's basically it, you know? Wow.

[00:55:16] Daniel Schauer: [00:55:16] And we Wi-Fi on the cheap. That's awesome. Well, I mean,

[00:55:19] James Baluyut: [00:55:19] you know, we, we have to update it.

[00:55:21] No, just

[00:55:22] Daniel Schauer: [00:55:22] to be super cool that you guys are like, honestly, Most people, I talk to update them. Yeah, of course they make you update them. Yeah. And then they're always charging money for it and stuff, but like, yeah, most people I talk to drop, you know, 800 bucks on a plugin suite and, and upgrade it every time there's a new version that comes out.

[00:55:40] So it's cool that you guys have produced something so high quality from, from my perspective with, without dropping, you know, 20 grand.

[00:55:51] James Baluyut: [00:55:51] Yeah. Oh, of course. Thanks. Um, I think the thing, you know, like w we've been [00:56:00] on people's computers where they had all of them, You know, they had the whole waves collection.

[00:56:07] I was always like, well, what happens when we leave here? And we don't have that plugin. So I basically just been using one or two the whole time. And that's basically everything else is just, we compress it on the way in. In that sense. And it's, it's, the guitar has delay. It's a pedal that

[00:56:33] Daniel Schauer: [00:56:33] we, which means that it's on the recording.

[00:56:36] So you don't have to worry about not having the pedal later, if you record it with the pedal at the studio. That's what you mean. Yeah.

[00:56:42] James Baluyut: [00:56:42] Yeah. But, uh, like, you know, it's, it's kind of a bummer, like, uh, you know, we have all of our old records or they're dumb. Um, all DAW is that we don't have any more. So like, we can't access the [00:57:00] thing anymore.

[00:57:02] If I wanted to go remix one, it's now impossible, you know, and whatever. Okay, let's talk about that. Actually, we had one weird plugin that we used at that time. It's gone now. It's that that provider is gone. So

[00:57:21] Daniel Schauer: [00:57:21] one of the things I've done on my charity live stream on that topic is, is there, there is a plugin from isotope.

[00:57:29] But, uh, this podcast might as well be called the isotope appreciation hour, by the way, if they want to sponsor me at any point, feel free by the way, to chat or get me a free version of to buy it. Yeah, please. Yeah. But so like, I've done things like they have this music rebalance tool that literally like, let's see, all you have is like the CD quality version of.

[00:57:51] The song that you recorded. Right. And it's all just mixed together, but you want to like remix it, I've used this tool to basically separate out all [00:58:00] the trumps, separate out all the bass, separate out all the guitars and separate all the vocals. Well, actually it's bass drums, vocals, other, right. So like keyboards and guitars.

[00:58:10] But like, I did that to like, A couple of trace morass songs and like played it along to make it mine right. Where I was singing Jason morass and playing his guitar. But like the horns were backing me up from the original album, which was super cool and questionably legal, but, um, uh, it was hard to get in touch with him.

[00:58:30] He didn't return my Facebook messengers. Um, Like you guys. And I felt like he wasn't going to miss the, the a few views or whatever. So I went for it. Um, but you can get away with a lot of cool stuff with some plugins these days.

[00:58:46] Patrick Ramos: [00:58:46] We might need to do that because I did just recently, I was telling these guys.

[00:58:53] Uh, there was a song that was in contention for Xs on your eyes, that all the, all the music [00:59:00] was done. I had done several vocal tracks for it, and I just. Just did not meet it. I just didn't mean that I didn't like it. So I scrapped it. Um, and then, right, so that was what, 2007 or something? Maybe 2000. Yeah, 2008, early 2008.

[00:59:19] Um, I came across the, uh, on my Apple music shuffle. It came on in the car. And it had, it was probably one of the last, you know, uh, mixes that was sent out. I probably said to James, just erase all the vocals. Just give me, just give me the, except for that. There's one section where there's vocals. And so I must've liked that.

[00:59:42] So, but the rest of this song has no vocals. And so I was in the car and I just listened to, and I started singing along with it and I was like, Oh, This is way better than what I had done before. So I mentioned it a few nights ago to James and he's like, well, I don't know if we're gonna be able to find that, that, uh, so maybe we can use that [01:00:00] software that you're talking about to take the version we have and.

[01:00:05] Daniel Schauer: [01:00:05] Hey guys, I'd love to just help you out as fan. I have the software. I could split it into stems. If you want

[01:00:14] Patrick Ramos: [01:00:14] brought to you by isotope,

[01:00:17] James Baluyut: [01:00:17] we're making deals.

[01:00:18] Daniel Schauer: [01:00:18] Uh, no. I mean, technically we just kept isotope for making some money right there that out. And we send out a sponsor requests, obviously.

[01:00:29] James Baluyut: [01:00:29] Yeah. I mean, but, but that it's, it's like a problem, you know?

[01:00:34] Like will any

[01:00:36] Daniel Schauer: [01:00:36] of the DWS exists? Basically, ever since I got Cubase for free with like this crappy little audio interface I got originally. What was like a, uh, ha two inputs on the front, like your Scarlet's had two inputs on the front that were combo Jackson, a couple of quarter inputs on the back that I could do to get a total of technically six, but effectively two mikes and, and [01:01:00] a few quarter-inch inputs.

[01:01:02] Um, and I got by with it for a long time. Um, but it came with Cubase, which I found very difficult to learn. Uh, and then a few years later PreSonus came out with studio one, uh, which was their DAW. And I used it ever since. It's actually, I found super fun  because I just keep upgrading the same TW it's super convenient, right?

[01:01:23] Like it's backwards compatible. I can open the songs that I recorded originally. Way back in the day.

[01:01:30] James Baluyut: [01:01:30] Yeah. I think that's, that's good. As long as they exist. Exactly. As long. I mean, you know, I guess, I guess as long, I mean, you know, and part of that is you. Keep buying that software, but, well, yeah,

[01:01:44] Daniel Schauer: [01:01:44] I'm anxious about exporting stamps, right?

[01:01:47] When you're dealing. Yeah. The song. Yeah. I guess kind of do admin work to, to get around some of this stuff, but it's that spot?

[01:01:54] James Baluyut: [01:01:54] That's the other problem? I think I'm too lazy to do that. Kind of be on top of archival. [01:02:00] Stuff. I should have been doing it the whole time.

[01:02:03] Patrick Ramos: [01:02:03] I do have some, you gave me some disks, CDs backed up backup CDs of like the early albums, but like where are we going to put this?

[01:02:14] Yeah,

[01:02:14] Chris Deaner: [01:02:14] I think I have the same from like some their studio work that we did, but yeah, where I have to buy the drive, the drive,

[01:02:27] Daniel Schauer: [01:02:27] the

[01:02:28] James Baluyut: [01:02:28] player. But you're smart to, um, to only use one. See, I think I kinda just used, as I said earlier, we just use what we, what was available to

[01:02:38] Daniel Schauer: [01:02:38] us to reset for that. Absolutely. Yeah.

[01:02:41] James Baluyut: [01:02:41] But you know, say, uh, if it was a two inch tape, there'd be no question of whether we could play it back.

[01:02:49] Daniel Schauer: [01:02:49] Unless you didn't own it. Right? Like, like it didn't the Beatles have to go through something or they ended like buying backs and their tapes and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. A big thing. [01:03:00] Um, I definitely want to not let you go without asking a few other questions.

[01:03:06] I know that. We'd set aside. Oh, wow. We're 10 minutes over. I don't want to be disrespectful. So thank you guys for staying with me. Um, is it, is it cool if I ask a few more questions or do we have to wrap up? I'm fine. It's

[01:03:20] James Baluyut: [01:03:20] it's fine with me. I was, I was gone for a good 15 minutes.

[01:03:25] Daniel Schauer: [01:03:25] I appreciate that. That's very generous.

[01:03:27] Uh, that'll be all. Thank you. Um, do you, do you make a habit of reading comments? On your YouTube posts or our, uh, our, our other posts, like your, your social media posts. Cause I could see an argument for both directions after experiencing it over the series

[01:03:48] Outro music: [01:03:48] of years.

[01:03:50] Chris Deaner: [01:03:50] No, I don't

[01:03:54] James Baluyut: [01:03:54] personally. I do. Um, but I don't really [01:04:00] put a lot of, um,

[01:04:05] Put a lot of weight into it. Either way. There are certain people who really like us and that's cool and there's certain people that will put it, whatever comment on that actually doesn't happen that often. But like, I kind of just like I to look at it, I'm like, Oh, that's cool. Someone wrote. I guess it doesn't matter to me.

[01:04:33] It doesn't. I mean, I do appreciate when people do right. But like, I don't really, you know, like it's, it's, uh, you don't know who that person is, you know, like that, that person could be crazy, you know, they could be really cool. They could be, um, could be my mom, you know, but I, you know, so I kind of like, I'm always [01:05:00] like, Oh, who is this?

[01:05:02] But yeah, I do read them.

[01:05:05] Daniel Schauer: [01:05:05] I do like the attitude, man. Yeah.

[01:05:07] James Baluyut: [01:05:07] Like it, you know, like if someone has something nice to say, I that's nice, you know, I

[01:05:16] Daniel Schauer: [01:05:16] read them. No. Yeah. If I could only read the pasta ones, sign me up. Absolutely.

[01:05:22] James Baluyut: [01:05:22] You've had Patrick at you read them. Well, I,

[01:05:25] Patrick Ramos: [01:05:25] I do tend to be the one that's doing this social media stuff.

[01:05:29] Right. So, so I do respond to things like things where people say, um, I don't the social media stuff. There's very little negative stuff. It's like people just, I mean, in terms of like, Instagram Twitter. Hmm. And for, for, for our posts, generally, it's people who like us. Um, there's no, we're not, we're not in the position to have like, Haters, you need to be successful.

[01:06:00] [01:05:59] First

[01:06:01] Daniel Schauer: [01:06:01] presidents, I guess, is what you're trying to say, right. Because it's not like randos coming in and suddenly, well, maybe some are, but

[01:06:07] Patrick Ramos: [01:06:07] like, I don't, I don't think enough people will care. Only the people that care are looking at it. Um, I think it might've been different for some of the YouTube stuff.

[01:06:16] Uh, some of the stuff that got a little bit more traction, like one of, uh, what's the song that, um, That's a video that Steve did, uh, that was uncertain was, you know, it was a featured YouTube video when it was released. So there, that thing was viewed over 250,000 times. And I think that day, or in a, in a day and a half, so there, there, there were some, I read through a lot of those comments and there's a lot, that's just some of it's just, you know, what you would expect.

[01:06:46] Uh,

[01:06:46] Daniel Schauer: [01:06:46] but yeah, I don't. And by that you mean awful. Just absolutely

[01:06:50] Patrick Ramos: [01:06:50] awful. Yeah. Just like someone don't make you, you know, this is, you know, like we were talking earlier about how, you know, [01:07:00] technology allowed you kind of democratized recording music. Um, In the same way that I think social media allows people to have a voice and people who watch it, it allows to have a voice.

[01:07:15] It doesn't necessarily mean that everyone should

[01:07:19] James Baluyut: [01:07:19] no, no, no.

[01:07:20] Daniel Schauer: [01:07:20] Like this aspect of it has been healthy for sure. But

[01:07:25] Patrick Ramos: [01:07:25] I guess what I'm trying to say is like, even it's going to sound like a Dick thing. I'm sorry. Terrible thing to say, but you know, just cause everybody can record. Doesn't mean

[01:07:35] James Baluyut: [01:07:35] everyone should.

[01:07:38] I mean, you know, we, we were also talking like, when we were sort of testing our mics before we got on with you. Yeah. We were like, well, you know, what is, what's on your list for worst songs of all time? And like, you know, those are, they're actually popular songs, right? Some of the things that [01:08:00] we. Flipping hate there, they are very, very, they're very popular Mueller songs.

[01:08:11] And like, you know, if, if you put up their comments versus stuff that I like, there's probably more people liking that stuff. And you know, there's no accounting for anyone's tastes. So like I don't, I try not to take any. Any of the comments to, to, um, to personally, because it's like, You know, it's could be like anyone.

[01:08:39] Yeah. You

[01:08:40] Patrick Ramos: [01:08:40] know? Yeah. I don't internalize any of that stuff,

[01:08:44] Daniel Schauer: [01:08:44] but it's lucky you guys, I, uh, I made the mistake of reading the full YouTube comments funds for like, uh, uh, one of my early songs that I posted back before, like they had the, uh, the filter on for, for the comments, you know, like the let's let's [01:09:00] eliminate the craziest basically filter or whatever they added.

[01:09:02] Um, man, It was a rough, rough night, like man,

[01:09:07] James Baluyut: [01:09:07] uh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, I, I think that's, uh, you know, you, you really can't please everybody, you know, but like, you know, I think in our situation there's like a, whatever, there's a small group of people that like us, that they're not really gonna say anything.

[01:09:30] They're going to like most of what we do and, you know, and I, you know, I appreciate that, but I also don't, you know, that's like, those are our people, you know?

[01:09:43] Patrick Ramos: [01:09:43] Yeah. Like, I think there's a difference between like, I will internalize a negative review, you know, that will be like, Oh, like a critic review, critical.

[01:09:54] Yeah. Critical. The, uh, like, um, Yeah, it got [01:10:00] critics review, but now anyone can write one, but like, you know, from, from, from publications that are, uh, I guess more, you know, well-known, those are, those are a little

[01:10:13] James Baluyut: [01:10:13] difficult to swallow and, and, you know, that's just a guy too, or that person yeah. That, you know, it's true.

[01:10:21] And you know, when we were coming up, you know, Pitchfork was like, You know, they, they went out of their ways sometimes to be, to, to be awful to some people. Cause it was, I mean, they, you know, that's what the that's a Pitchfork is. Right. It's like they come out with their pitchforks and like, you know, I have a F uh, friends, you know, I'm not going to name their name, but like they got a zero on Pitchfork and like, you know, And the reviewer just spent the whole time talking about [01:11:00] like, they didn't really even listen.

[01:11:03] They just kind of crapped on them for the whole review. You know, I think that's just, it's like, it's lazy. It's, it's a waste of time, you know, for everybody helping anyone right now. And it's, it's just like, why, why put that up? Why just, you just don't review it, you know, like, You know, you're, you're trying to tell people not to buy the thing.

[01:11:31] It's like, you know, I don't know. I think that that's just mean-spirited and an awful, but, um, you know, and, and it's just, it could just be one guy and you don't even know maybe that one guy has it out for that kind of event, you know, it's like, so I try not to dwell on that stuff, but it is hard.

[01:11:55] Daniel Schauer: [01:11:55] Have you guys ever paid for a Pitchfork or a media outlet to do a [01:12:00] media?

[01:12:00] Uh, an album review. I was asked at one point to like, if you pay us some money, wait, you can do that. Yes. I'm not sure how many readers you guys have, but I didn't know. You could

[01:12:13] James Baluyut: [01:12:13] do

[01:12:13] Daniel Schauer: [01:12:13] that actually glowing review and it cost me about 15 bucks. Um, yeah, but

[01:12:20] James Baluyut: [01:12:20] I guess, I guess I'll say in minutes, I guess I'll say no, but the thing is like we have, we have publicists.

[01:12:29] Yeah. So if they're making that deal. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. But I, I certainly haven't.

[01:12:36] Patrick Ramos: [01:12:36] Hey, I must I'm naive. I just, I thought that was just antithetical to, to the review process.

[01:12:44] Daniel Schauer: [01:12:44] I would have thought so too, but yeah. I mean, any,

[01:12:48] Patrick Ramos: [01:12:48] any

[01:12:48] Daniel Schauer: [01:12:48] reputable, yeah. Viewer. I turns out you can get scientific papers published if you pay a fee in certain, certain journals.

[01:12:58] Right. So like you can get [01:13:00] by a lot of different things. Um, but, um, yeah. Uh, it's interesting to know if you guys have ever run into that.

[01:13:07] James Baluyut: [01:13:07] Um, no, but, uh, I will keep it in mind.

[01:13:11] Patrick Ramos: [01:13:11] Can you, can you send along the information, the person that reviewed your record,

[01:13:16] Daniel Schauer: [01:13:16] like to pay me or myself out to write a very positive review for their album?

[01:13:22] D DS magic. Tell us no, you're fine. I did want to ask, because you are the, for first, a group of guys that has done any kind of like international touring. Um, like, was that like a whole new world? I had to quote a Latin again. Uh, or, uh, like what was that experience like? Um, had you had part part of you guys already experienced that during versus it's not clear to me during my research.

[01:13:55] James Baluyut: [01:13:55] Um, bye. Go ahead.

[01:13:58] Patrick Ramos: [01:13:58] No, yeah, no, I was just gonna say we, we [01:14:00] did, we did tour, um, At least when I was in, versus we, we did one tour of the UK, um, was supposed to be a longer tourist, supposed to be all of Europe. And we were supposed to be opening for throwing muses. Uh, and it was thinking of it like a month or five or six week tour or something.

[01:14:22] Uh, but then she found out she was pregnant and canceled the tour. That was a bummer. So our label at the time, uh, salvage the. Flights are, are, are already are airfare to, uh, put together. Uh, I think, uh, Was it two weeks, two or three weeks. It was something like that in the UK, which was fun. Um, but that was, that was it.

[01:14:44] That was the only international. Oh yeah, no. We also went to UNO in that they didn't work out either. We were supposed to versus was supposed to play all tomorrow's parties. And, uh, we had some bad luck. Yeah. We had bad luck. We all went over, but, uh, the lead singer ended up [01:15:00] having a medical issue and never made it over.

[01:15:04] But we had, we had a good time in there. We drove over, took the, drove through the channel over to Paris. We didn't, we, we played for Mark Robinson team. We, we backed up Mark at the ATP, but that was it. We didn't, we had a show booked at the, at the carriage with, uh, with wasn't that supposed to be opening for, um, mission of Burma.

[01:15:27] Correct. Yeah. And then

[01:15:29] James Baluyut: [01:15:29] we went to the show. Yeah. I

[01:15:31] Patrick Ramos: [01:15:31] don't know if you, did you go to the show? You went to the show. Yeah,

[01:15:33] James Baluyut: [01:15:33] you do. Okay. But, um, yeah, the main thing I remember, but that the tour was, um, I was just telling the story. We were. Driving on the wrong side of the car, right in England

[01:15:51] Daniel Schauer: [01:15:51] getting used to this is both.

[01:15:53] Isn't it suppose, have you ever done that? No. No. I bet it's

[01:15:59] James Baluyut: [01:15:59] budding now, [01:16:00] but it's like, it's like this awful feeling where, um, you know, you've. You know, you consider yourself a good driver and you've you have all these instincts built up after many hours on the road. And then you get there and it's like, ah, God, now I have to look the other way every time.

[01:16:19] Like,

[01:16:19] Daniel Schauer: [01:16:19] ah, it's like nightmare that you never thought to actually think of. And like, instead of showing up to school in your underwear, like it's on the wrong side of the road.

[01:16:30] James Baluyut: [01:16:30] Yeah. It's like, it's like awful. Cause you know, when we were doing it, we were driving around like five people and you know, you have to be super on it to like just.

[01:16:41] Do it correctly. And then we drove into France and then we were on our normal side of the road, but on the wrong side of the car, you know, and that's, that's no good, you know, it's a stick shift and the. [01:17:00] You know, the stick is on the wrong hand.

[01:17:06] Daniel Schauer: [01:17:06] Yeah.

[01:17:06] James Baluyut: [01:17:06] Clutches the clutches on the right than on the correct side. So like EV you know? Yeah. So that was a nightmare, but it is a good time. It was

[01:17:17] Patrick Ramos: [01:17:17] a good time. But I guess getting to plus minus answers, answer your question. Um, yeah. Uh, you want to jump in Chris and talk about

[01:17:26] Daniel Schauer: [01:17:26] what about your first international tour?

[01:17:28] Like when you went outside of the country to play music and get paid, what was that like?

[01:17:33] Chris Deaner: [01:17:33] Oh, and get paid. Um,

[01:17:35] Oh,

[01:17:37] Daniel Schauer: [01:17:37] are those two different lines? Uh, we actually

[01:17:41] Chris Deaner: [01:17:41] did get paid well, I played in other bands before plus minus. So I did go to Taiwan and play a music festival there called spring scream. Um, and that was, that was eye opening, super fun.

[01:17:58] And then I also. And [01:18:00] that's what that same group played in Norway, um, would just busk on streets. Um, so like that was, those were my first international trips, I guess, technically got paid. Cause we were busking. And so like we made some money that way. Um, but the lions

[01:18:17] James Baluyut: [01:18:17] did you self-fund that? Yeah, the

[01:18:20] Chris Deaner: [01:18:20] Norway one.

[01:18:22] Yes. That spring screen one, they paid the. Air our airfare to come over. Um, but nothing else. And so we had to like make up the rest of it while we were there, which was still felt like luxury. At that point, it was like amazing to get paid. Like basically you get a free flight to Taiwan. Um, so, but then the first, but the first like real, real tour, uh, was, was plus minus I think, outside of the, outside of the U S to Japan and Taiwan.

[01:18:54] Then when you did that eight times, how many times did we go to Taiwan to Japan?

[01:19:00] [01:19:00] Patrick Ramos: [01:19:00] Is it

[01:19:00] James Baluyut: [01:19:00] six, five or six? I feel like it's, it's

[01:19:03] Patrick Ramos: [01:19:03] six. I think it's six for you guys. Five for me.

[01:19:06] James Baluyut: [01:19:06] Yeah.

[01:19:09] Daniel Schauer: [01:19:09] Six different times you went to Japan, right? To be clear. Uh, how many shows did you play every time you, you went overseas and went on to,

[01:19:19] James Baluyut: [01:19:19] uh, generally it's like.

[01:19:23] What five to eight shows each time, like,

[01:19:27] Patrick Ramos: [01:19:27] well, in the beginning it was longer in the beginning. Yeah. In the beginning, the first couple. Oh yeah. I was gone for like three weeks, the first two years, 2004 and five Hmm.

[01:19:41] Outro music: [01:19:41] Back.

[01:19:44] Patrick Ramos: [01:19:44] And then we also did, plus minus did do two European tours, uh, mostly Germany. Hmm. And then, uh, Russia, I think,

[01:19:56] Daniel Schauer: [01:19:56] yeah, we've successfully can [01:20:00] confirm a single aspect of my pre-research by the way, this entire interview.

[01:20:05] I think every time I've tried to like the like, Oh, I thought I read this and you're like, I mean, not quite

[01:20:13] Chris Deaner: [01:20:13] three tours.

[01:20:15] James Baluyut: [01:20:15] We've yeah, we've been, we've done a little quit, quit. I mean, you know, It's, it seems like, you know, a distant memory now, but we've done a lot of, of those, you know, of different countries and it was great, but, uh, you know, the Japan one, it was sort of like a dream.

[01:20:38] When we went there, it was like this alternate world where. Um, the word touring was civil and you know, everybody

[01:20:50] Daniel Schauer: [01:20:50] liked this. Yes.

[01:20:52] Chris Deaner: [01:20:52] Except for, do you guys remember the first couple of times we ended our songs, like in between songs [01:21:00] just like deadly silent. So like there there's clapping for about. I dunno, two or three seconds, everybody claps, very appreciative.

[01:21:11] Everybody stops, nobody talks. And then we're like tuning or something. And it's like, it's incredibly, off-putting the first couple of times that happens because you just feel like you're bombing. Um, there's no espresso machine going off. There's no, like there's just, nobody's talking at all. There's no beers, clinking crazy.

[01:21:31] Quiet.

[01:21:33] James Baluyut: [01:21:33] Yeah. I, I didn't feel like we were bombing though, because the, when they do apply them, It's like

[01:21:44] Daniel Schauer: [01:21:44] turned on a noise gate or something. Yeah. Yeah. It

[01:21:47] James Baluyut: [01:21:47] w it was like, uh, it was, it really was like a little like, uh, an applause track. For a second.

[01:21:55] Chris Deaner: [01:21:55] I definitely take that to me and that we were doing awesome when everybody's stopped.

[01:22:01] [01:22:00] James Baluyut: [01:22:01] Yeah. That's the difference between you and me? I was like, Hey Jimmy.

[01:22:07] Chris Deaner: [01:22:07] I was like, I'm good.

[01:22:10] Daniel Schauer: [01:22:10] Very, very.

[01:22:12] James Baluyut: [01:22:12] That's all, I need

[01:22:13] Patrick Ramos: [01:22:13] positive sense of self,

[01:22:16] James Baluyut: [01:22:16] but, uh, yeah, it is, it is a quad because, um, I remember also like, uh, tuning yeah. The guitar and being able to hear the, you know, like we have those tuners that mute your signal. Yeah. But I could hear the strings as I was. That's how

[01:22:41] Daniel Schauer: [01:22:41] during the

[01:22:46] Chris Deaner: [01:22:46] cause we were playing with some bands at that time. And so I wasn't even 20, 20 feet away from you, Jimmy. I don't know. Like that was a ways away from you. And I could hear Jimmy

[01:22:54] Daniel Schauer: [01:22:54] strings. They're like a rubber band pluck. Yeah. Don't you [01:23:00] know,

[01:23:01] Patrick Ramos: [01:23:01] but then, but then you realize there that that's, that is, that's just how.

[01:23:05] That's the way it is. That's the custom of, they want to hear it's disrespectful to the, to the band or the, to the act to, to, to be making noise in between. They kind of want it, or at least we were told at least that, like, they want to see what you're doing between the songs. When I hear you, you know, talk amongst each other, you know, it's all part of it, which was just, you know, obviously strange to see when you.

[01:23:33] Are used to playing, uh, shows elsewhere where, uh, you're competing with the din of the, of the audience talking. Yeah.

[01:23:43] Chris Deaner: [01:23:43] Yeah, for sure. Like, if, like, if you're doing well in a rowdy area of the world, you're just going to be like, That rowdiness we'll keep going through and to the next song, whatever that is shouting or nothing, another one, or like, but that's totally quiet, [01:24:00] but I think those first tours were eight to 10 shows.

[01:24:03] There were many cause we went, we went pretty far in India, Japan. It wasn't just what I do.

[01:24:11] James Baluyut: [01:24:11] I do remember, you know, like playing an actual quiet song better is amazing. Yeah, that is because it actually sounds there's nobody talking, people are saying. Yeah. So you have like, you know, you know, when you have your like super sensitive song, when someone's like, Yelling some crap or like, you know, you can hear the bar.

[01:24:38] There's like tons of people at the bar, just talking like that just doesn't happen there. They're just like watching.

[01:24:44] Daniel Schauer: [01:24:44] Yeah. It's actually a way I measure a good open mic or a good performance at a, at a bar is if I get the people at the bar to, to shut up for a second, like if they quiet down the chatter goes down, like I know that I must be doing something pretty good right now because everyone's shutting up to listen to me.

[01:25:00] [01:25:00] But, uh, yeah. Yeah, just to kind of reflect on the, uh, on, on, on your point about whether or not you were bombing earlier. That's what I,

[01:25:10] James Baluyut: [01:25:10] you know, I mean, you know, that's the most, I don't think any other countries like that, you know, that we've played. Every other show we played was like, you know, if people liked us, it was like, Crazy loud and, and rock us and, and fun, you know?

[01:25:35] And not, not that there wasn't fun when in Japan, it's just like, it's, it's strange. Yeah. This is different.

[01:25:41] Patrick Ramos: [01:25:41] Take some adjusting. It's different than any other place in the way that the audiences behave and. Cause like our Taiwan, our Taipei shows that one is in particular. I don't remember what year it was, was nuts.

[01:25:57] You would have thought we were the biggest band in the world at that [01:26:00] show.

[01:26:05] Daniel Schauer: [01:26:05] Pretty good.

[01:26:08] Patrick Ramos: [01:26:08] Amazing

[01:26:08] James Baluyut: [01:26:08] alternate rates. Yeah. It's, it's, it's great to, like, I don't know, to feel like, like you're connecting, you know, w you know, you get that feeling sometimes when there's just 10 people in the room also. And, you know, I, I much, you know, whatever the show is, it's like, um, there are some nights you just haven't.

[01:26:40] You know, and that was, that was one of those nights. But I, I, you know, I remember, and I'm going to say this and we, we played the show on our very first tour in El Paso, Texas, and, uh, Whatever it was, you know, like the 10 people there [01:27:00] were really into it and it was the Mo it was probably more fun than any show on, on that tour.

[01:27:06] Even the ones that have way more people. Yeah. Um, and there's, there's just no accounting for the, I mean, the only reason to do this is to connect with people, you know, and, um, and if you can do it. And then like a genuine way it's that's makes it worth it, you know?

[01:27:31] Outro music: [01:27:31] Is that too

[01:27:31] Patrick Ramos: [01:27:31] philosophical?

[01:27:34] Daniel Schauer: [01:27:34] No, it is. But like it's kinda kind of untouchable, it's it? Uh, ineffable, right? Like, um, it's hard to put my finger on, but like, you know, when you get it, it's like pornography, I guess in that way.

[01:27:45] James Baluyut: [01:27:45] It's weird. Yeah.

[01:27:50] Well, that's more of an everyday sort of feeling.

[01:27:55] Daniel Schauer: [01:27:55] This is in reference really rare.

[01:28:02] [01:28:00] James Baluyut: [01:28:02] I think it was trimming. Uh, so mine was too. Oh, sure. Sorry. I was talking about the Truman. Absolutely two

[01:28:13] Daniel Schauer: [01:28:13] teeth. No of teeth. Good. I been. Up for 23 hours. So, Oh boy. I would like to wrap really? Yeah, I didn't, I have sleep problems, so let's not like, feel bad annual because don't worry about it. But like what I do want to make sure not to leave without asking is if you guys got a funny story that jumps out to you from, uh, from, from the years.

[01:28:41] James Baluyut: [01:28:41] Put us on the spot there.

[01:28:44] Daniel Schauer: [01:28:44] I'm just kidding. I mean, it must be funny. Uh, I must laugh.

[01:28:49] James Baluyut: [01:28:49] I mean, there are so many that would probably, uh, it would be hard to think of one. You got one, Chris, Chris, you're usually good [01:29:00] for this.

[01:29:00] Outro music: [01:29:00] I don't have one.

[01:29:03] Daniel Schauer: [01:29:03] Do you have three D I don't know what you need, but I don't have one.

[01:29:08] Chris.

[01:29:10] Chris Deaner: [01:29:10] I haven't forgot them so many. Um, uh, you know, you're, so you've been out for so long. I don't know.

[01:29:21] Daniel Schauer: [01:29:21] I'm not going to sleep for another four hours, best case scenario. So, so don't worry about too much. It's just my, my wife would like to sleep. See me at some point tonight. Hmm.

[01:29:31] Chris Deaner: [01:29:31] Uh, no, I actually can't think of, it's hard. It's hard. Cold start funding story.

[01:29:36] James Baluyut: [01:29:36] Yeah. If it comes up organically in the conversation, I think we can, we can regale you with it.

[01:29:42] I think there

[01:29:43] Daniel Schauer: [01:29:43] have been funny, funny stories that have come up actually. So I'm happy to go with those, but yeah. Uh, it's just a final question. I like to ask any, anyone who was a live performer, because by that, I mean, thanks so much for your time, guys. I, I don't want to put you on the spot. So [01:30:00] you've been super generous with your time.

[01:30:02] You've rejoined the stream and we'll get it all put together

[01:30:06] James Baluyut: [01:30:06] to, with the magic of editing it. But I bet this will be super awesome.

[01:30:13] Daniel Schauer: [01:30:13] Wait until you guys see what I put together. I think you'll be impressed. Well, I do want to say it's just a thanks for being so generous. And I will send you this video for like pre-review before I posted anywhere.

[01:30:26]And I'm going to use this software called de script so that it is transcribed for hearing impaired. I'm not sure if you guys know anyone who, who, um, who can't hear well, but, um, it's something that, uh, I'm a little bit passionate about, so I make sure it's scalable, accessible to everyone. So, yeah. Thank you for joining and staying late and yeah, I have a great very weekend, Ron.

[01:30:48] Thanks for having us.

[01:30:49] Patrick Ramos: [01:30:49] Thanks a lot, Dan. Thanks for having

[01:30:51] James Baluyut: [01:30:51] us. It was fun. [01:33:00] [01:32:00] [01:31:00]