Talking about Taken Alive with James & Aaron

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Interview Details

Date: Saturday, May 17th, 2025
Location: Burlington
Length: 01:44:46
Episode Number: 56
Show Notes Link: vermonttalks.com/taken-alive-james-aaron/
Short Link: vermonttalks.com/56

Transcript

Becca: What’s new 802? I’m Becca Hammond and you’re listening to Vermont Talks. Vermont Talks may include graphic or explicit content. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to Vermont Talks. It is Saturday the 17th of May in 2025 and I’m here with half of Taken Alive. James and Aaron are here today. Rustin and Joe could not make it, which I’m very sad about. Someday, give it another year or two, we’ll try and get the whole band back on

Becca: because I’d love to talk to everyone. That’ll be fun. Okay, so you guys are equally as important.

Becca: We are the bass player in the drummer, you know that right?

Becca: The most important part of the band.

James: You can have a band without a band. Exactly. They’re just dancing around up in the rafters with melody and all that stuff that no one cares about. Is this true? Lyrics?

Becca: Right, like who needs words to songs? So Taken Alive was formed in 2022. My god, my brain. You know 2009 and 2002, when you say 2022, my brain starts having a fit. That doesn’t sound right.

Anyway, okay, form in 2022. I’m using some buzzwords off of the about page on your website. Nostalgic mid-2000s emo rock with a modern infusion, which I really like. You released an EP called Matches last year and currently, I don’t know if that was a month or so ago, you really stuck in motion. Which that one has a music video, right? Yes. Yes, and that’s on all streaming platforms and it looks like you had a note that says full release end of year 2025 or early 2026.

So no official date yet, but big things are scheduled. I should mention it’s episode 56. I always forget to say that. So VermontTalks.com forward slash 56 will get you to the show notes, which will link to all of your stuff. So welcome, James, Aaron.

James: Thank you. Yeah, good to be here. Thank you.

Becca: It’s a very rainy day. I’m glad you guys were able to make the drive up. So yes, where does the band practice?

Aaron: Typically, well, it has been split, but more recently, more often, it’s been in my space. I live in Berry, Vermont, and it’s kind of like how it gets a classic drummer. So I’ve got all the big heavy stuff or a lot of the big heavy stuff there and kind of set up in my space. And then the other space that we’ve practiced that not so recently, but we kind of jump back and forth is Rustin space. And Rustin is also a drummer.

James: So, yeah, for all the same reasons. Yeah, it’s also though I also live in Berry. So two of us having to drive an hour or one of us having to drive an hour when Rustin comes down to Berry, it’s a little more efficient.

Becca: Right, right. Plus, if you’re out of the city, it’s nice to make noise. That’s always a big thing. People struggle to find good places that they can actually play at conveniently.

Aaron: Yes, we run slightly less risk at my space of a neighbor murdering us.

Becca: I’m setting people. Right, noise ordinances and things. Yes. Yeah, definitely interesting. Okay, so you guys have an amazing sound. I really like the nostalgic mid-2000s emo rock. Do you like is it all rock? I feel like we had this long discussion last time you were on the show, James, where we were talking about like what is genre?

Aaron: Yeah, what are these things like what buckets do you what do you compare yourself to with taken alive? What buckets? How do you feel about this?

James: Yeah, I think first it’s interesting that the last time I was on your show was not taken alive. It was for Bandhive. Yes. And I had just come from a nerves practice where I was the sound engineer, not the bassist. It’s all connected.

Yeah. And then like three months later, they asked me to join the band, you know, the classic sound engineer to bassist trope like that happens all the time. I think it was either the first or second time that I had gone in to help with the rehearsal and that was at Rustin’s place. But yeah, genre is an interesting thing and goes back to what you and I were talking about in the car, Aaron. Without naming names, we came up with a new genre, which is a very popular genre at the moment. We’ll let the listeners and our bandmates try and guess who it’s about. But we came up with the genre name of shoe gaze with double kick.

Aaron: Okay. And there’s a lot of like sweater and corduroy pants.

James: They’re wearing.

Becca: Yeah. I like that. Like shoe gaze in and of itself as a genre just kind of cracks me up. Like I love the name. It just evokes so much weird imagery, though. And you say shoe gaze to people that corduroy and shoe gaze. They go together.

James: That goes well together. Yeah. Yeah. And you have to have the elbow patches like any good professor. Right.

Aaron: The aesthetic. We are not wearing any of this listener.

Becca: Yes. We’re kind of heading back. Like this is not what taking all that sounds like. But.

James: I am wearing a black enter shakari shirt with black skinny jeans and Aaron has a gray or green flannel with a Conorlin Frost shirt.

Aaron: That’s right. And black skinny jeans. Favorite shirt. It’s purple and it’s very comfortable.

James: Conor’s awesome and he lives in Vermont too just down the road. So. He made more Vermont people. Nice.

Becca: The black skinny jeans. That fits the aesthetic of taking all that.

Aaron: That’s the genre. The window. The jeans should be a genre. Yeah.

James: The Vans Converse. Is that?

Aaron: This is a JC Penney special. I’m not sure what they are.

James: Vans Converse. Vans Converse. Clone. I bought four of them and they were cheap and JC Penney is like kind of going the way of the I don’t know Dodo.

Aaron: So I bought them out of these. They’re blue.

James: I was looking to make an 80s reference and say like the video killed the radio star. The Amazon killed the JC Penney.

Becca: Yes. Yes. Yes they did. Okay. Take them a lot. You enter shakari. You’re wearing an enter shakari shirt. So I had to circle back to this. My first concert ever. Enter shakari was supposed to come and they didn’t show up but that’s my first concert ever.

James: What concert was it?

Becca: That’s it. They were I don’t know because I was like 15 and didn’t have internet at the time and this was their 2000. This must have been like 2008 or seven. Right. And they didn’t show up at higher ground but my ticket says enter shakari and I totally could not tell you the other bands on the screen. Got it. But it’s really funny because I’m like oh yeah that band I never saw. But everyone else also showed up in black skinny bands. Yeah.

James: I mean. That’s really interesting because I know that they have played there as an opener. Yes. In like 2009. Yeah that’s funny. And I wasn’t there. I wish I could have been there.

Becca: That’s it. It’s like one of the two things. They didn’t show up and they were the headliner to that particular.

James: And they are the one band you wanted to see.

Becca: I didn’t even know bands back then. I knew the radio because I didn’t have internet. Yeah. Which is so hard to explain to people but it’s like being a kid with no internet. I used to spend like an entire day downlining one MP3 file on my laptop. And like you had to make sure you wanted that MP3 file. Because it probably.

James: You were risking your computer.

Becca: Yeah. Oh yeah. All the weird stuff. That was like Lime Wire days. Yeah. Exactly. But that was the funny thing is I’d be like one of my friends would be like this show in Burlington which was an hour or something away. Like cool. Yeah. What band is this?

James: Yeah. So you just said okay I’m along for the ride. I’ll come.

Becca: They all were wearing their black skinny pants and were like this is the greatest band you need to come. I’m like okay. It sounds like my jam.

James: And then there was no Andrew Chikari.

Becca: They didn’t show up but the other bands were awesome. I need to find out about what this was because this is trivia to me now.

Becca: I think I still have the higher ground ticket to be honest. I tried to save them back in the day when that was filmed.

James: You can send me a photo of that so I know the date.

Becca: I’ll see. I’m pretty sure they were the headliner. See now this has been ten years since I’ve looked at them. But anyway so the skinny pants are part of the genre. That is definitely part of it. It’s very.

I’m trying to think of what other bands I could compare like I could even bring up in the same sentence as taking a live. You’re kind of an anomaly in Burlington, Vermont. The whole scene around here we don’t have a lot of people producing clean.

James: It’s kind of an enigma even outside of Vermont because we’re not in the pop punk space really. If somebody asked me for an easy description I’ll say pop punk but we’re not pop punk.

Becca: No. No. No. Emo’s way more what I would think of. No one else is making emo rock the same way anymore except for like you’re wearing the enter chikari shirt. There are these bigger older bands that I think of.

James: And even for them though they’re much more electronic focused than we are. They have all the dubstep, the drum and bass fives mixed in. Less so now but they’re still very electronic which we are not. We do have electronic elements we’ll have synths and stuff but it’s not like the primary driving force. It’s still, it’s a rock sound with some ear candy mixed in. So.

Aaron: I’ve used like Jimmy Eat World as an example when certain people have asked but that in my opinion like does not cover it or fit either. Right. Jimmy Eat World was more of an answer knowing who I was standing in front of and who was asking that question and like okay they’re at, what band would they know? And then you know I’ve also like Warped Tour adjacent. Okay.

Becca: Like that’s but that’s not a band. It’s true but I mean there’s also the fact that three of the four of us have been on Warped Tour. So that’s definitely a massive influence on like who we are as a band.

Aaron: And the year is two that could mean like Cookie Monster, Metalcore or that could mean Scott Punk too.

James: I mean they did a pretty good job of having a blend.

Aaron: Yeah. Listener’s just gonna have to come out to a show how about that.

James: Which speaking of this episode releases in like four or five days if I’m correct.

Becca: Yes I’m gonna next Wednesday is my goal to have this release.

James: Wonderful. So that’s gonna be well before our next show which is June 27th at Odd Fellows.

Becca: Oh yes.

James: Yes that looks like a great ticket. Yeah it’s gonna be really fun. It’s with Doom’s service who we just saw their sticker over on the 242 door that’s hiding around the corner. Doom’s service taken alive. A band from Maine who I’m forgetting the name of is it Bench? Benches? I’m gonna feel really terrible. And we’re here to kill. Aaron’s gonna hook me up here and save the day.

Becca: Yes it looks like a really great ticket though. I must say I saw that and I was like oh I’m gonna do my very best to make it to this one.

Aaron: That is an all ages show at Odd Fellows. It is with our buddies in Doom’s service. We’re here to kill and better sense.

James: Better sense. So I got like half of the letters in there. Yes.

Aaron: I apologize. You got the majority of the letters. This show was just there’s been so much chaos because it was supposed to be at the lounge and then Nectar’s closed which means the lounge is closed. Yes. And so it’s all like in the last three or four days come together.

Yeah and different names and details flying back and forth but to your point it’s come together and we’re just talking on the way up here. I haven’t set foot in that building since like 2005.

Becca: Yeah they definitely kind of closed stuff down and then. Just like that door. Yes. Yes I thought it was very slammy today. So Fisher I was there when they reopened and that’s cool. Shout out to Fisher again. Everyone in town is shouting out to Fisher all the time because he’s always putting together this stuff. But yeah he found he bought bought like speaker systems and also found from Jim’s basement. He’s have traveled over to Odd Fellows thanks to Brian as well as Fisher and then setting that whole thing up because that space is very solid. I must say I was very impressed. Hopefully we’ll have some fans. The only thing I’m worried about is the heat in that place but it’s huge open space.

Aaron: Just talking about that.

Becca: Yeah bring a fan.

James: There will be fans there but whether they are the cooling kind or the heating kind we will that remains to be seen.

Becca: You might want to bring yourself like a hand fan and be like you’re from the 19 oz or what have you because you might be toasty and you might really appreciate that fan.

James: That was also a joke which I think flew over everyone’s head of the humans the human fans which will warm up the room even more will be there.

Becca: Organic heaters. Yes.

Aaron: I will have a cooling fan as purchased from Home Depot that sits at an angle by my throne.

James: I need to get those. Otherwise I will die. Yeah. Yeah but as long as we keep the crabcoring to a crabcoring the what does attack attack do?

Aaron: Crabcore. Yeah. Yeah the knee thing. Yeah. That’s where it comes from. Bad jokes they’re not all good. Yeah. You’re on it.

Aaron: The last time I was there there was a lot of that going on because it was 2005.

Becca: Yes. Yes. Back in the day.

James: We’ve now mentioned both like grandfathers of electronic or enter shakari in the attack attack. We have the British side and the US side covered. This is not where you thought this podcast was going to go.

Becca: I thought about attack attack a long time. I don’t remember that genre as well. I was too hardcore. I don’t remember these things. I was very in between the buried me back then.

James: Oh my gosh. I thought about them.

Becca: I didn’t mention it on the drive up but I thought about them. See and I had that attitude because I was you know 16 so I was very in to between the buried me.

Aaron: They had like the suits right? Was that?

Becca: They were probably they might have done something like that. They were very vegan and into composing their music. I forgot that they’re vegan.

James: Yeah. There was seven of them and they’d compose it and then learn it. They didn’t write it like on the guitar. They composed it on a computer and then learned it. And I was so like the gods of metal or whatever. There are some sort of prog metal core screaming. That’s it. I don’t care about genre.

I’m very bad at defining genres. People are really good at it and I’m just like yeah they were heavy. They played higher ground. I want to say it was April 24th of 2010. It was like the 22nd, 24th, 26th.

Becca: I was at that one. With Mastodon. Yes. It was so good.

James: Valiant Thor and one other band.

Becca: I like that you remember the date of that

James: show because I saw them and I was so amazed. I remember a lot of early shows and then after that they all just kind of blend together. Right.

Becca: That’s kind of how I’m too. I remember the moments that they show. Now I’m like I don’t remember how many shows I’ve been to. Back then I could count them off and now I’m like many.

James: I’ve seen some stuff. I can tell you I have been to 153 non-local shows as a patron. Nice. If you can’t show as worked or local shows, I have no idea it’s in the thousands. Right.

Becca: Right. Well that’s a, I don’t remember.

James: I keep a list of all the ones that I go to as like I want to see this. Cool.

Becca: Now that’s awesome. I miss the days of having ticket stubs because. Yeah.

Aaron: They were kind of cool. We didn’t have like all, I don’t know about you guys but I don’t have a great CD collection that managed to survive the ages. My parents are like look at this album. I got it this day and they have the art and everything. Like they have this reverence to the thing that I feel like we lost it. I had it with this ticket stubs though. I was like this stub and I still have them. That’s it. I just, they sit in a box somewhere.

James: Yeah. It’s funny that you bring that up because I can actually tell you the very first day I bought an AFI CD, which was July 4th of 2008. And I can tell you that because that was also the very first day that I interviewed for a job as a little 14 year old or 15 year old. Can’t even remember how old I was but I can remember the date at McDonald’s of all places. And of all places, not to shame McDonald’s but I’ve been vegetarian my whole life.

Aaron: That’s the of all places. I’m vegan now as of 11 years ago. It’s been a long time. It’s been a minute. Yeah. I can remember my like actual first viewing of a musical performance and then my first like, oh that’s my first show. Like it was ZZ Top at the fairgrounds and then like a month later it was Hawthorne Heights with a bunch of people I don’t remember at higher ground. Nice.

Becca: I’ve also saw Hawthorne Heights back in the day. Yeah.

Aaron: Bringing up all these names I’ve ever thought of. It’s so long. Yeah. Good event and to your point since then it’s like, ah, mush brain mush.

James: Most of the times I’ve gone and seen emo bands was not here in Vermont because they usually don’t come here. Like I’ve seen Jimmy at World in Vermont two or three times. I’ve seen Pennywise a couple times. That was fun.

Cool. But mostly it’s been like Boston or Albany for emo bands and here’s like, I’ve seen still-roasted pickups or sick puppies. It’s like the metal or the- Yeah, I remember sick puppies. Like Indy Rock. Yeah. Right. But you’ve both seen emo. So like emo does come here. Yeah.

Becca: I’ve just missed out. It used to.

Aaron: It used to and it’s like everybody still remembers. A lot of people still remember. But I guess circling back emo I feel like would be a more at the moment. Yeah.

James: I saw Bayside. I take that back. I saw Bayside. They’re emo. That was a fun one. It’s a 99 cent Lodo show.

Becca: Yes.

Aaron: That brings me back. Oh my God.

Becca: They still have them. I’ve gone to a few of them. There’s one this month I think.

James: Oh nice. It might have already happened. There was one in November.

Becca: Yeah. I don’t know if they do them as often as they used to but they definitely still do them.

James: And I don’t think it’s necessarily bands that they actually play on the buzz anymore. Like sometimes it’s not really a fit. They don’t play this.

Becca: They’ll play the person specifically because they’re doing a Lodo show with them. I saw Meg Myers which was really something. That was probably seven or eight years ago now. That was wild.

James: The four times. That was really, really odd show. I think she was on something. It was like a very weird visceral experience with a lot of stabbing and screaming and rolling around on the ground. And they’re like a cello player who was so legitimate like watching her do that. That sounds more like an Amina Palmer show. Yeah.

Aaron: That’s where my head went. If I can pronounce her name properly. Stumbling over my words.

James: Yeah. That makes me think of one of the strangest bills I saw which I loved. It was fantastic. It was Sick Puppy’s headlining, terrible things direct support and violent Soho opening. So you had like Aussie Grunge, Emo and Hard Rock.

It’s like this is not really a fit. It’s really cool. It was a great lineup. I love all three of those bands now. But it was a very strange lineup. Yeah.

Becca: We definitely got some of those odd ball doers coming up this way.

James: Although actually I take it back. I’m mixing up two different Sick Puppy’s shows. The one with terrible things. It was Sick Puppy’s terrible things and Play the Angel out of Montreal.

Really cool. Like Pop Rock Band. The other one was Sick Puppy’s the band with the keyboards that I can’t remember. Crash Kings and Violin Soho. And that’s a little more of a fit.

But again, like kind of Pop Rock between two Hard Rock bands or a Grunge and a Hard Rock band. But it was a fun bill. We’d fit on that bill. Yeah. We could play that.

Aaron: Listener, if you are in Sick Puppy’s or Violin Soho or…

James: Or Shim. Shim comes back with a silver project. I’d open for Shim. Okay.

Becca: Last random higher ground story since it all comes back to higher ground most of those bigger shows. Because I was very into the heavy stuff at some point, my friend talked to me and she’s like, I got you at this ticket. We’re going to go to this concert for your graduation present. I’m like, oh cool. Avenged Sevenfold. At higher ground. At higher ground. Opened for Hollywood Undead.

Aaron: That’s brutal.

Becca: It was so bad. It’s so weird. And I hated everyone in the crowd.

Aaron: I also hate you for seeing that because that’s awesome. It was like they opened it.

Becca: I’m like, this is the greatest thing ever. But then it devolved into Hollywood Undead and it was just the worst people in the crowd.

Aaron: It was the weirdest mix.

James: Was this 2011 or so?

Becca: Yeah. I know people who went to that show and said like, can I go see Hollywood Undead? And I don’t think I realized that A7X was opening. That was it.

James: You had this weird mix of very serious metalheads and these very odd children who really liked Hollywood Undead. That’s the only show I’ve ever been out where I almost got in a fight. And I’m a pretty like chill person. This kid in the plastic stripey glasses wouldn’t stop like hitting me when the band wasn’t even on. And I was like, can you not? And then they proceeded to be like, I’m at a fucking concert.

What did you expect? And I was wearing my steel toe boots. So I just turned and stomped and they like fell into their friends and like, I don’t know what happened after that.

They disappeared. What is this crowd of people? It was so weird. But yeah, I just had to think that it was just weird mix of people wearing black and then people wearing like hot pink in the same room. The neon wrap or whatever they called it.

Becca: And the flat brim hats and the plastic glasses you couldn’t see through that they wore for some reason.

Aaron: The slats, right? Yeah, the slats. It’s like you have like Venetian blinds on their face. Like what is happening? Like why? Anyway.

James: Yeah. I feel like we could go on the stories like I’m another one’s popping into my head and I’m going to refrain from telling it inside tracking.

Becca: Talk about taking a lot because taking a lot was nerves. That’s something we should also mention because I saw slivers of one. You haven’t played many shows. That’s another thing. We should talk about this.

Aaron: We played ten. I think this last one. I think this last one was number ten. Yeah. And then as this unit.

Aaron: Eight. Yes. Yeah. Yes.

Becca: Correct.

Aaron: You guys joined. Let me get this right.

Becca: Did I write it down? Yes. Tell me.

Aaron: Yeah. And so the first two shows were October 2022. Middle East upstairs in Boston and Monkey House opening for Keep Flying. The Monkey House one. The Middle East upstairs was like a four or five band local bill. So for that one I went down and did tech just for the band like for in-ears and that kind of stuff since I do sound. And then the one at the Monkey House I ended up mixing

James: and which I was really cool because that actually started a friendship with me for Keep Flying which was really fun. They’re like amazing people and I’m happy to now call John and the rest of them but especially John, good friends. Just saw them in Nashville like two weeks ago at the time that this comes out. Really cool new record called Time and Tide. Go check it out. It’s available everywhere.

Smart Punk has vinyl. They’re playing Boston in early June or late May. They’re playing Montreal on I think May 27th, 28th, something like that.

So go check them out. And then they were planning on playing a show in March called the Mega March Birthday Bash which I was booking. It’s a combination of Sub Sam’s birthday and my 30th birthday at the time. This was two years ago. And so we were getting them on the 10th, now 32 now I feel so old.

Becca: Time goes by.

James: Yeah. Or the bravery. Time won’t let me go. Anyway, it quickly came up. And hey, our drummer and bassist that have kind of been filling in can’t make it for that show, Aaron’s going to do drums and do double duty but we still don’t have a bassist. I know the songs. I’ve filled in on bass before I can do that. Okay, cool.

You can fill in. And then we added a show at Higher Ground opening for, was that the Thank You Scientist show? I think so. Who’s playing Burlington on like Thursday this week. So if this comes out on Wednesday, tomorrow night, Thank You Scientist is back at Higher Ground.

Aaron: So check it out. Very good band.

James: Fantastic. They have a new singer now. I don’t want to check that out. And that was I think March 3rd. And after the show, literally standing in the showcase lounge, the floor of us are in a circle and Rustin and Joe say, so do you guys want to join the band? Like what? Where’d that come from? The whole point was to have a band where you can just slot people in, replace people as needed. You know, they’re all just essentially session musicians.

Right. And it came down to, no, we think you’re a good fit. If you want to join, you can. And so I think I decided the next day and we had to beg you for like a good few weeks. It was after the next show, which was three weeks later that it was like, by the way, are you in?

Aaron: I was just setting expectations. I was just stringing you guys along.

James: I started the campaign. I remember this specifically. I changed Aaron’s nickname in the Facebook group chat to drummer boy B.L .I.

Aaron: And I said, we’re not calling him anything but drummer boy until he joins the band. And it worked. We’re calling you Aaron now. He did. He were no longer drummer boy. That was also speaking of Brian Leclerc at the birthday bash, the second of those two shows in March of 2023. I gave him a hug.

James: Unbeknownst to him, part of giving him that hug was I taped a set list to his back from our set. And so for the entire subsam set, he was walking around with a nerve set list taped to his back. It was fantastic.

Aaron: I have a photo of that. Pretty sure.

James: I love it. I have a Instagram store. I’m sorry, Brian.

Becca: Remind me. This is going to kill me because Better Things played that show. You were there doing sound, I think.

James: Better Things played the keep flying show at the underground. So that was a year later after the second birthday bash was canceled due to the blizzard that didn’t cancel Chaperone. Good for her.

Bad for us. But the second year is supposed to be subsam, Better Things and Valerie Faults. And so that unfortunately got canceled.

We were able to finagle Better Things onto the keep flying bill as well as McAsh. Unfortunately, subsam couldn’t make it. They would have had first choice because they were the headliner and McAsh was already confirmed. So we only had space for one more band.

So we, again, apologize to Valerie Faults. We only had space for one. They were chill with it when we told them. They understood. But yeah, that was a fun show too. It’s interesting. It was also a McNay show. So it was done at seven. It was really nice.

Becca: Yeah, definitely. Kind of nice for you guys when you have to lug everything around. Cool. Okay. So when did the Nervs name get dropped exactly? Because I think Nervs was at least a handful of shows, right? Yeah, it was after that.

James: So the March 2023 shows were the last ones under that name. And then the name officially changed in October of 2023. Got it. Okay. Which I always joke about this. It’s a great time when a war starts and you’ve just rebranded to take it alive and set up a Google alert like two days before. Oh no. And then a war breaks out and you’re getting all this thing about hostages.

Becca: Every single SEO.

James: This is not what I expected to see in my inbox every morning.

Becca: Oh yeah, that’s slightly morbid.

James: And it has calmed down. But yeah, poor timing on that. And it’s actually an aviation reference. It has nothing to do with war or kidnapping. I mean, aside from like hijacking. Right.

Aaron: Yeah, it’s one of those like, you could pick, I don’t know, purple sweater and corduroy pants is like a band name. And it like, no matter what you play, like if you, they’re like, you can kind of take it so like, like you can take anything out for a spin if you like lean into it.

I guess is what I’m getting at. And then it just so happens that like taking it alive is like, you know, just some people that could sound like, oh, that might, that sounds like heavy music or that sounds like, I mean, we all listen to heavy music. And so it’s, you know, not unfair to say that some of like the band influences come from that corner of the room.

It’s not like it doesn’t present itself as that live all the way. But that is to say, like, I feel like since then we’ve kind of leaned into it. And it’s, I think it fits very well with the emo

James: flair, like the email side of exactly like it could be anything. And then you like give it a listen and then people are like, okay, yeah, I see that how that fits in. And that’s not to say our name is as good as the use. That’s a fantastic name. But I like our name.

Aaron: I’m saying it’s better than the used and Bert can come fight me for it and any news is good news.

James: Yeah, it’s the change was necessary. There were several other bands going by nerves, which was NRVS. Yeah. And people always asked is it nerves or nervous? And this was before I joined the band before they released anything. I was like, I don’t know. But they stuck with it because they’d already had like a bunch of stuff printed to be fair. And I was like, okay, but before we do more, let’s consider this and we all voted to change it. And we went through so many names. We had a spreadsheet with over a hundred names in it. Nice.

Becca: And it’s incredibly hard to pick something. Yeah, which coincidentally enough, actually, I’m not going to say this because then somebody’s going to take it and use it. But really awesome band name and sir here.

James: Yeah. A friend and I were chatting and it involves something that we talked about earlier. I’ll give a hint. It’s in the group chat. You can see it and I’ll tell you back.

Aaron: It’s a quarter right. It’s a quarter right. Yes.

James: Yeah. Quarter right pants. That’s a good name. But yeah, friend and I were just chatting and she was using voice to text and I was like, oh, that’s the perfect name.

Like just a little mix up of, you know, what voice to text things versus two words that sound the same or just both differently. Right. But yeah, so taken alive for like two people listening who actually care about aviation versus like the other 99% of the listeners on the podcast. You have squat codes, which identify your plane to ATC and there’s three specific ones that you use in emergency. 7500, which is hijacking. 7600, which is no communications. You’ve lost your radio or 7700, which is a general emergency. And the way you remember those is 75 taken alive, 76 radio fix, 77 going to heaven. I was like, oh, taken alive. That sounds pretty badass. Like we could use that. Right. And so we did.

Becca: I totally thought of aliens when I saw you changed the name.

Aaron: That’s what I thought of. That could be little green men have taken me. That’s a good like t-shirt idea or right.

James: It would be, but also taken alien would have been a really cool name because it would rhyme. Right. We could have had the rhyme taken alien.

Becca: Wasn’t that a whole like show or movie to taken for some reason that evokes alien images as well.

James: I think so. That sounds familiar. Maybe that’s why I jumped to that immediately in my mind was little green men. I think you beamed to it. Yeah. Although jumped actually works too because you can like hyper jump. So I apologize for stealing your thunder. I’m not getting your unintentional joke.

Becca: You’re all good. But yeah, I could totally see a shirt with like taken alive and the little tractor beam or something like that.

James: It’s coming out to be a right. There you go. Even better. Joe does our design for the most part. So Joe, when you listen to this, you better listen to this. Yes.

Becca: Your band support the band.

James: You’re doing this now. This is our next shirt design and it’s very simple to colors white and green or maybe just green on black.

Becca: Right. You can get screen printed. Yeah. Okay. So the band, I know we talked about band high last time. That we talked about like the music industry. Yeah. Are you applying all of these concepts to taken alive? Like what, how are you using your band high of Mojo with taken alive? You have a very specific formula to doing these things.

James: So that’s a very good question for taking a lot specifically. I’m very opinionated on many things, but recognizing that it is Rustin and Joe’s band. They allow us to have input.

It’s typically a vote, but ultimately Joe and Rustin are the deciders. When it comes to production stuff, that’s more my realm because that’s my background especially. So Rustin and I will kind of nerd out about like the playback rig, the lights, that kind of stuff. Like we have lights that are completely programmed to our set. Cool. Which if you’re coming to Oddfellows, we’re not going to use them that night because it’s a DIY show.

It’s going to be a little chaotic. It’s too much for us to bring that in and we don’t want to be like, hey, this is going to be really cool, but you guys can’t use them because they’re not programmed. Right. Somebody would have to sit there and either program them ahead of time or run them and there’s no one to do that effectively. Right.

Aaron: That show will be a great example of like scale or like scalability, ability to kind of scale in one direction or the other with production and the songs that we choose to put in a set and like the length and really everything about it. Like to your point, audio lights, like we have different tools in the tool chest that we can kind of pull out and kind of like a Lego.

You can stick it on top and like there’s a little more to it now or you can kind of leave it at home if we’re playing it out fellows or if there’s a timing component that we need to be mindful of and that’s like I guess stealing your thunder for a bit. Like in thinking about like the mental tools in the mental toolbox and like the approach to the way that we think about doing things and how scalability is kind of the way that we approach that as well. Like everybody in the band has kind of their default like this is my strength, like this is kind of my realm and what I do all day or not. You know, obviously like Russ and Joe like started this band and you know, in thinking about James like your background and my background, like everybody’s got their like comforts on right and what they can bring to the table. But like in the same way that we’re able to scale to the left or to the right or forward and backward on visual and audio production, we kind of take a similar stab to like decision making.

I guess in a roundabout way that’s the point that I’m trying to make. If that makes any sense at all, it’s just options, you know, like it’s always good to have options whether we’re talking about bringing lights or not or what the set is or what isn’t or who we’re going to go record with or not or what kind of posts, what interval like it’s that’s kind of the flavor I feel that’s thread throughout the entirety of the band is like options and flexibility and scalability. Yeah. And that’s part of the design of it.

James: Like and there’s certain things that we can’t do without like because we are playing to some limited tracks for like added percussion sense that kind of stuff because like we don’t have a keyword live. We can’t do without in years. So we’re always going to have our split, which means we’re just going to bring our microphones to keep it easy and run through that. But for example at OddFellows, I’m probably not going to have a vocal mic because I do some shouting on one song and make what are your marks between a couple of songs while like somebody’s tuning. Right.

I’m not adding that much. It’s like, okay, if we’re going to pair it down, I don’t need to do that. You know, save us a little time and also just makes it an easier setup.

Becca: Yes. Which these DIY shows where everyone’s tearing down and putting everything up in 10, 15 minutes as quickly as you possibly can because there’s not enough room. You can’t leave everything all set up between all of the baeons most of the time.

James: Well, and that’s the beautiful thing for us is we’re not using cabs. So since we’re all direct, there’s less stuff for us to move aside from we have the split, we have the in-ear rack. So we’re trading off in one way, but in our opinion, let’s us put on a better show because we can hear ourselves really well.

And we’re not fighting feedback off of stage wedges, that kind of stuff. We can hear each other fantastically. We can have our own individual mixes. Like if somebody wants to at a DIY show jump into the crowd, we can do that and still have our mix in our ears.

Aaron: Flexibility, you can drop us in any room.

James: And exactly, it’s going to be the same for us. But on that note, it’s we played higher ground last March opening for actually, I’m not going to say their name because they’re now canceled.

So I’m not going to give them the promotion. But my base was cutting out. And because I was wireless, I literally just walked out to front of house to talk to Brady, who was running sound was like, Hey, I think this is what’s going on.

Can you do me a favor and swap patches real quick on the rack and I’ll keep playing. And he’s like, OK, cool. And I got that. And we solved the issue. Yeah.

Had I been not wireless with the base, I could never have walked out there to talk to him. Right. And I remember after the show, Elliot from which band was playing that night? He’s in a bunch of different bands as the drummer, Elliot Lester. I can’t remember which of his bands was playing that night.

I think it might have been. Heavy band. Yeah.

The new one blanking on the name. I’m sorry, Elliot. But he came up to me as like, dude, that was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Like you just walked out there and you’re still playing. I’m like, oh, yeah. And it’s like I could hear to wireless in any.

Aaron: Yeah, you could hear when the problem solved.

James: And like I definitely messed up as I was talking because I’m like trying to talk while playing bass, right? And I’m not that good.

Becca: That is one of the hardest things in the world. Yeah.

James: I don’t know how Rustin and Joe sing and play at the same time. Like I can barely do that.

Becca: I can’t play guitar. I cannot play bass. I can’t play a bass line and sing, but I can play guitar just fine.

James: I am very much a root note bassist for most of our songs. There’s a couple of songs that I do have a little more freedom to play around with. And on the new record, I think it’s going to be a lot more.

Yeah, it’s going to be a challenge. But speaking of the new record, going back to that flexibility of who we work with, we’re really lucky to have an amazing team on the record. We’re getting mixes back from James Paul Weisner right now, who has worked with Paramore under oath. Think all American rejects it.

Aaron: If I’m not mixing up with Howard Benson. Kind of folks.

James: Yeah, like any big band between 2005 and 2010, he’s been involved in some way.

Becca: Is this someone you met at some point in your career? Or did you just happen to reach out and it worked out?

James: Yeah, he’s a friend of a friend of Rustin’s. Nice. So Rustin reached out. So we have Gary from Sound Acres producing. He collect all the files, sends them to JPW. JPW then does the mixes. And once we approve them, they get sent to Mike at Rogue Planet Mastering.

And it’s just night and day, in my opinion, from… And you know, keep in mind, I do sound too. I would never try to mix our own stuff. One, because, you know, if you have somebody at the scale of JPW. Right. Like, and you can afford it, you’re going to do that. But two, my expertise is more on the live sound side of things. Even though I can do studio stuff, and I love live recordings, it’s like, no, it’s there’s a time and a place to recognize, hey, right, we could do this ourselves, but it’s going to be better if somebody else does it. Right.

Becca: But that’s also there’s a whole networking aspect and the fact that you have that name associated with the album. Like, yeah, this is a big deal. Congrats. That’s really fucking cool, honestly. I just want to point out how professional everybody is. Like, I know Rustin, because I worked with Rustin for a few years. And I know how professionally and serious about his music, his sound.

I know how serious James is in terms of, like, what shows you play and who you play with. Like, this is all very carefully thought out, and it’s not… It’s interesting the way you approach music. Some people approach music with such a… Like, I had Burley Girlies on the show.

Yeah. I love Burley Girlies, but it’s just such an interesting amorphous thing, music in Vermont, right? Because you guys have such a clean… That’s it. It’s very clean sound.

I don’t know if that’s the in-ear monitors or what helps. I don’t want to call you Prague Rock, but exactly. You have such a polished, clean, professional sound that also kicks ass.

So, like… Thank you. Like, I’m not surprised that somebody who, you know, helped Paramore out would be willing to help you guys out, because you have put the work and effort and you have a very serious attitude about this. So, congrats. That’s really wonderful to hear.

I’m really happy for you guys. But, like, you approach it as not… I don’t want to say a business, but you approach it in such a serious way where you do carefully think out social media posts. Like, what are you going to sell as a band? How is the album going to be marketed? Yeah.

James: And that’s part of why we don’t know the release date. Like, we’re getting mixes back right now, which Aaron’s been good and done his homework. I have not yet listened to the second round of revisions or the first round of revisions that’s, you know, the second round of mixes, but first revisions. So, I think you can speak more to…

Becca: Can I say one last thing? I just want to circle back to Boyle Girls. Just because I don’t want to be like, I’ll leave them hanging. No, like, they approach things almost from a cultural attitude, right? Like, the band is based in the cultural idea, and, like, that flows up and outward into their sound. And it’s just such a different vibe.

Sitting down with them and talking about, like, the plan is not… It’s just not the same attitude, but you produce such amazing… That’s my point, is I just wanted to say, like, everybody has such amazing different qualities.

Aaron: Well, that’s just music. Like, there’s that much space, like, in the music window. Like, you could have… Like, there’s so much that… It’s going to sound way more like philosophy than I typically am, but, like, there’s so much that is music, right? Like, and they’re, like, it’s accessible to everybody as it should be. And that’s what’s special about it. Like, we’ve all been in projects before where the approach has been different than this, and it just so happens that, you know, for Taken Alive, it’s… You know, it is what this is, like, what we’re talking about.

It’s… There’s a bit more calculation to it, but there’s also a… I don’t think any one of us would ever say we’re ever done learning, right? Like, you, you know, you iterate and improve or, you know, get a little closer today and tomorrow and the next day. And… But, like, end of the day, it’s something that we all… Like, there’s a reason we’re doing this. We enjoy it and love it and it means something to us. And, I don’t know, that’s just kind of what’s cool about it, is, like, it is different than what some other people do.

And, like, we’ve done that approach too, and it’s just a new thing for us. And, over to your point, like, knowing Rustin, you know, project management. Like, there’s a lot of project management occurring, you know, on the other side of the… Curtain. The curtain. Yeah, I’m thinking like Wizard of Oz.

But it’s just… And that’s fun too, and, like, in a different way, and that gets you something different. And so far, I’ll speak for the whole band. I’ll do it. We’re very excited, because I am very excited for… about what we’re hearing, like, in the revisions of the mixes and what’s coming next. And it’s just a huge step in the direction that we’re trying to walk in. And… Yeah. I don’t remember what the initial question was. I’m so sorry.

Becca: But it’s… I think it came from James, actually. I’d circumventated the Burley Girlies Com.

James: It was about the mixes we’re hearing. Oh.

Aaron: It’s a perfect… I’m, believably, excited for that. And just, like, 200% nailing it. Like, not that there is any universe out there in which, like, the people we’re working with wouldn’t be 200% nailing it. But it’s just to hear and see the stuff come full circle. And, like, okay, I recorded drums for this last July and did some other stuff last September. And just to… You know, okay, well, a couple of steps down the line, you’ll hear these mixes back. But, like, just for that to happen. And to, you know… It’s just so exciting to

Becca: see you guys have been working on this for a while. Get closer and closer, yeah.

James: Yeah, it’s a long process. We did, and that’s how Stuck in Motion actually came from Rustin’s solo project. So they did that all at home and then sent it out into JPW to Mix. Nice. Which is funny, because it’s our most successful song to date, and it’s only been out for two months.

Becca: Yeah, I noticed that you guys have a lot of YouTube views on that one.

James: Yeah, that one really took off. And Spotify Radio started pushing it, which was fantastic. Cool, nice. And to go back to what you were saying about different approaches towards music, I think that’s a really interesting topic. But I also just want to shout out, because we’ve mentioned Bandhive a few times. Aaron was also my co-host on that podcast for many episodes. So if the banter just ends up going off the rails, that’s because we’ve done this, I don’t know, like, 50 times before. We have bantered and sidetracked many a podcast episode. I’m an expert at that. I’m fantastic at sidetracking.

Aaron: Captain Tangent over here.

James: Yeah, Captain Tangent, and we’ll have to come up with my catchphrase later. Distract-O-Boy. Captain Tangent and Distract-O-Boy! But yeah, different approaches to music. And I think this is something that we talked about when I did the Bandhive episode, was there’s nothing wrong with just doing it for fun. And ultimately, that is what we’re doing as well. It’s just doing it for fun. But we’re approaching it from the, hey, what would a professional band do? And that’s neither one of those is right or wrong.

It’s just a different approach. Some of, like, I love going to see Cooked. They’re so fun live. Guarantee they’re just doing it for fun, because they love doing it, you know?

But it’s so cool to see them. Like, they’re a fantastic band. But it’s a very different approach from what we’re doing, where it’s very calculated and saying, hey, what would our favorite bands do?

That’s what we want to do. And so, for example, on this latest record, as the blaze player, the bass player, I’m not actually on it. And that was a conscious decision, one, because I was really busy. It was the middle of summer, and they were doing the recording sessions, and that’s busy season for me with Live Sound. I have several venues around here that I work with, and I’m just slammed in summer.

There was a period last July and August, where I did 34 days in a row of between Live Sound and Day Job and other stuff, like, just nonstop. Yep. And I love it, and I wouldn’t trade anything for that. But I said, look, for these new songs, one, I’m not the best bass player around. Our guitarist, Joe, is a really great bass player. I know bands like Matt Hoes or other co-hosts on the Bandhive podcast.

For his band, the lead guitarist would do the lead part, the rhythm part and the bass, because that would create the best product. Consistent. Exactly. Yeah, it’s just locked in.

You don’t have those little timing idiosyncrasies that it’s going to make the tightest sound. And for us, I don’t care about, okay, I’m not on the record. Whatever. I’m still part of the band.

I still play. Whereas other bands might say, no, I want to be on the record. It’s like, that’s fine. If either do it really well or just do it for fun. And so it’s kind of just the whole vibe.

There’s not much of an ego involved unless somebody questions my production decisions. Rustin can tell you all about that. And then I’m like, no, Rustin, we’re doing it this way. This is the right way to do it. So I remember specifically when they first, the in-ear rig 1.0, as I’ll call it, the order of inputs was vocals first, then instruments, then drums or something like that.

I was like, Rustin, this is completely backwards. That’s not how anybody that does live sound does it. It needs to be drums, instruments, vocals. And he had learned that on Reddit from some church guys or something. And church guys are notorious for doing things backwards in the sound world because they’re not often trained as…

Becca: Audio professionals. It’s usually volunteers who are figured out how to do it. And maybe they can mix really well, but they’ve not, in many cases, stepped into a professional area. So we fixed that.

We are now on version 2.0, 2.2, something like that. But for certain things, we’re like, hey, we need to make this as easy as possible, just drop it in and have any engineers say, OK, cool. I know what to plug in where. I’ll be very opinionated about that.

James: But then when it comes to actually making music, like, hey, whatever’s going to make it best. And in a way, it’s the same thing. It’s like, we need to do this to make it the best, make it the easiest for the people we’re working with.

Becca: All right. I want to talk about… Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Erwin.

Aaron: No, I was just going to tie that off and say that ties into us making conscious decisions to kind of leave as many doors open always as we can, like giving ourselves options. Part of that is being collaborative. And the big thing is we take… We know where we want to try to end up, and we walk backwards from there.

And the common thread throughout all this is we take what we do seriously because we care a lot about it. Because like really, really, most anybody else, you started doing it probably because you enjoy it. Like, it gives something back to you, whatever that is. And whatever that is can change over time, too.

But there is a return, a reason why you keep picking up the instrument. And so because of that, in part, we take what we do seriously, but we don’t take ourselves seriously. And so that kind of feeds into what you’re saying. That’s sort of a whatever’s clever approach. And once personalities mesh well, like it’s… Right.

Becca: That’s half the struggle of making a good band. Right. It’s just getting a group of people who have the same sort of okay attitude to practicing, showing up, a million different things need to fit together to have a good vibe and enjoy being around each other. Yeah.

James: And speaking of practicing, that’s one of the really nice things to playing to tracks is that we can just practice individually and we try to practice together. But Joe lives… Now he’s going to be in Connecticut soon. But during the past couple of years, he was mainly in Long Island, then D.C. Yeah. So as of June, Joe will live in Connecticut, only about three and a half hours away, which is much nicer.

Just close. But there have been times where… And actually the first show the band ever played, they had never played with Joe in the room before. So this is when I was doing monitors for them in tech. And literally Kevin and Joe, who are now in Geeked Out from Plattsburg, makes them a couple of times really fun band live. The four of us, the two of them, Rust and I went down.

And for three of us, that was our first time meeting Joe in Boston. Cool. And we’ve done stuff like that where we’ve done a couple of emo nights lately. So we’ve been a couple, I think four.

Aaron: Yeah, four. Where we either… Two here and two at Brighton Music Hall, which was really fun.

Aaron: Rust and I or Rust… You and I and Rustin have gotten together to, you know, knock out a rehearsal before. And it might have been Sans Joe or I think it might have been Rustin and I once and you weren’t there or something. And because of the… Yeah, that was sick. Yeah. And because of the approach, we’re able to just still kind of all come prepared and whether we get a practice in, that’s great. But if not, we’ve played a handful of songs for the first time together as the full four piece in front of a live crowd. And it’s like we’ve been able to… So, you know, feeding into flexibility and options and blah, blah, blah. Just kind of approaching everything from that angle and to have that work to…

It speaks a lot to the individuals in the band and everybody kind of having the same mindset of like, oh, I have to be ready for this. But also, you know, there’s the tech and then just the… It sounds simple, but there’s like a lot of, you know, brain space and power that goes into like… Accepting all the little bits and pieces that feed into like, oh, I need to be ready to like play this. Yeah.

You know, for the first time when people are watching me. Yeah, it’s interesting. And it’s… Yeah, I feel very fortunate. And I think we all do that. We’ve, you know, we all kind of do this, you know, personality and, you know, God, my brain’s blanking. A work ethic.

James: Just, you know, the whole nine. Yeah, that’s very important. And oh, what are you going to say, Becca?

Becca: I want to talk about the in-ear monitor system because I know a bit about this in the sense that I know a bit about recording stuff. Yeah. Through being a musician, doing the podcast, various life things. I have dealt with some of this. I never played with in-ear monitors, though.

Yeah. And this is like this huge hill that I see a lot of bands don’t use them, but the bands who do use them, it is a marked difference. Like, and I don’t mean it in like a good or a bad way because I love I love the local bands.

I love the vibes and the energy and like all of it. But the in-ear monitor systems, if you’re constantly using this, that gives you the ability to record everything easily, right? Like that, that is suddenly there. So then you can play with each other without actually playing with each other. Yeah. That that’s so huge.

James: We do a lot of playing with each other.

Aaron: I’ve been sit down, you. I’ve been like being a drummer, right? You think of, you know, upstage center, like center behind everybody else from the audience perspective. Right. And I’ve found myself like a handful of times now. Like that’s not where I am. Yeah. And it’s just because of, you know, everything else that needs to be on stage and when and timing and all that. Yes.

James: And when you’re far stage right for one of our shows, like downstage right. Yes. Yeah. It goes. Thank you, scientists. Head all their. Yep. Like they’re like a nine piece band. So they have crazy back line.

Aaron: A couple of the Emo nights I’ve been upstage left just because of like whatever. And but because of the in-ear monitoring system, you know, and when I mean, you can kind of get most all the way to where you want to be with like wedges. If you know, if there’s room for a wedge monitor, but like I am completely removes. I could be on the other side of the room and still, you know, hear what I need to. And that’s the, you know, you. Same reason you were able to walk across, you know, the room 200 feet to go talk to the front of house person.

Like about some issue while you were playing and listening to the mix back. It’s just flexibility. Like another thing that allows us to practice independently and play independently together. Physically or also played together, but more spread out, if it makes sense.

Becca: Your experience actually, like you’re listening to the in-ear monitor. So. Does it basically take away all of that weird atmospheric difference? Because I think most people who’ve played out, I guess people in the audience, if you haven’t been a musician, you probably don’t realize how shockingly different it is to play in a practice space versus going out on stage. It sounds so incredibly different. And when you’re set up to play, that it is jarring. Like if you don’t do this regularly, your first show out, you’re like, I can’t hear the basis. I can’t hear the guitars. I can’t hear the vocalists. Like things, the sound quality is extremely lacking. Even if you have great what you’re calling wedge speakers, the monitors on stage.

Half the time you don’t even have that. And a lot of these little tiny bands, a lot of people who just haven’t gotten to play in a certain, you know, you haven’t played at higher ground or something. You haven’t had great sound people helping with live sound.

Aaron: You’re hoping the guitar player points their amp at you or something.

Becca: Exactly. Obviously, you can’t really do that on stage unless you’re standing in front of their amp. So your experience using in-ear monitor, can you like kind of talk us through that for people who haven’t? Because that’s it. Like, what is it like? What do you have to do? I’m assuming you have to mic the entire drum kit every time, right? Good point. What’s it like?

Aaron: Like, what do you have to set up? I’ll let James speak to like the tech specifics. But I just one thought that kind of popped into my head. My brain immediately is up to my practice spot in my home. It’s I’ll let you correct me if I need correcting, but it’s pretty dead. Or at least where I have the drums set up. It’s pretty like a dead sound.

James: And when you have some gobo’s up around you as well, so that helps a lot. Yeah.

Aaron: But the point being, it’s just like it’s by design. I want to, you know, because not have the neighbors murder me, but like it’s very.

James: So you never know. Yeah. And but but that being the space where I practice just the most because that’s just at home, my ears get used to that. And so I think I hear you that like if we weren’t on IAMs or playing, you know, in the past with other groups that aren’t on in your monitor systems, you kind of have to expect whatever like you cut you. I mean, on one hand, that does sort of force you if you if the potential exists to like, I might be playing in a room tonight that sounds completely different to how the setup sounded last night or tomorrow night. Like that on one hand kind of forces you to like just play to yourself or like if you’re the drummer, play to yourself and like trust the other people to, you know, play with you. But another great thing just from a drummer or my as a drummer perspective about IAMs,

Aaron: that does, unless you have like crowd mics and, you know, some extra bits and pieces in the mix, which is still different if you have things in your ears, even if you’re pumping crowd sound in, it’s still going to sound different than if you just didn’t have something in your ear holes. But like for me, at least the trick is that is different and it feels different. But if you get used to that and you have you have a ton of control over what the mix is and what you can hear more of or less of or left to your right ear or whatever and it offers consistency. Like so in a way, your ear drums aren’t receiving the same, you know, signals as if they were just naked and then like in an odd fellows. But you’re able to depend on and kind of lean on like, I know what this is going to sound like for me and like get comfortable with that and kind of get good in using that as a frame of reference.

If that makes sense, like it’s dependable and consistent. And it’s quiet and it’s quiet or well, I’m deaf as hell. But for you, it’s quiet. For me, it’s it’s as quiet as I can have it be. I don’t know.

James: It’s quieter than you’d have a wedge. Let’s put it that way.

Aaron: One thousand percent. Yes. And that’s another great point that this system for me, like. Help this will have helped me preserve my hearing. Yeah, I have some serious hearing issues and I had actually I had invested in some really nice molded IEMs years ago because of that issue. And it just so happened like, oh, we’re using them awesome. As a band, I already have them. But like that’s that’s another huge benefit is you’re not going to blow your ears out.

I’ve worked with other musicians who are, you know, my grandparents age and they cannot hear. And it’s because they do this night after night. And so that’s that’s a huge blessing to is like the health component.

James: Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, I think any band that is playing one one show per month or more should invest in it. And like, I know it is expensive if you’re looking like four to five thousand dollars for the whole rig.

But if you’re a five piece band, that’s a thousand dollars and you can use this for basically forever. Right. You’ll have it. And you will save your ears. A set of hearing aids is like two or three thousand dollars if you get decent ones, not even great ones. And you don’t want hearing aids. So spend that money on some really cool gear and microphones and in ears and protect your ears.

So you don’t have to spend that money later. If you’re playing once in a blue moon, then, you know, maybe whatever. Right. But it’s really, you know, to your question, like from rehearsal to playing a show, we’ll do minor adjustments on levels for each of our own mixes.

Right. But overall, we get it dialed in and like then, you know, there’s a couple of big advantages there as well as that. One, you never know what kind of engineer the venue is going to have. So if you’re dealing with a monitor engineer who’s not fantastic or an engineer that’s doing both and is not fantastic, you’re kind of at their mercy.

Aaron: Or if it’s like a weird room.

Becca: Yeah, you could just have that. And doing it yourself. Right. But the other thing is that.

James: One, you don’t have to spend time fucking around with. The monitor mixes. And if it’s a combined position, they can just focus on front of house and make that sound fantastic and not have to worry about, you know, the bassist saying, I can’t hear myself. I need more bass because I can literally just turn around my iPad and slide up the fader.

Aaron: And what’s that conversation for? Like, nope, we’re good.

James: Focus on what you need to. Exactly.

Aaron: Like that person’s having a good night now. Yeah.

James: And it also gives us typically then more time. Whereas if most bands would say, hey, we had 20 minutes for soundcheck, we ran one song and times up, we can say, oh, we get to do two or three.

Because we didn’t have to spend all that time dialing in monitors. Just we’re good. You do you mix front of house. We’re going to run a couple of songs, you know, and we can also adjust.

I’ve seen bands do this who are on ears that they are mixing themselves and ask the engineer for adjustments. It’s like I literally don’t have access to your system. But so for us. If we were on wedges and had to ask and there’s no dedicated monitor engineer, that’s that awkward thing of, hey, sound guy, can I get more XYZ? Yeah. And that just that’s never a good look. You know, I understand that it has to happen, but it’s not a good look. It distracts from the performance and the show. Right.

Aaron: Whereas the moviegoer is aware that they’re watching a movie. Right. You’re breaking the fourth wall, essentially. And you’re not doing it in the really cool Deadpool way when you’re doing it in a cheesy look, we didn’t get the style then earlier way. Right.

James: And let me tell you this, no professional will ever do that unless something is really, really wrong. Right. They will not get on the mic and ask for an adjustment. They will grin and bear it or they will find a way to resolve it.

Aaron: Unless you’re Ronnie Radke in that one video, I saw him yelling at his front of house guy. Yeah.

James: But in which case you’re a jerk. Was he yelling about front of house or monitors, though? Because I’m sure they’re at a level where it’s separate.

Aaron: Who knows what he was yelling about.

James: Yeah, it’s Ronnie Radke. Probably was not deserved. But more so to. You know, we never have to be put in that position because we can just turn around and do it ourselves. And if we’re not hearing what we want to hear, it’s something that we’re doing wrong. But the other thing is that we know exactly what’s going out to front of house on an individual basis.

So if something is going wrong, we can identify that very quickly and tell the house engineer, like, hey, my base is cutting out. Can you repatch this cable for me while I keep playing? You know, because that’s the thing that happened.

And then I was talking about earlier. From a tech perspective, it’s actually pretty simple. All of our inputs are direct. So they go to a split. And by direct, I mean, we don’t use amps.

Becca: We just. Right. Right. You said you aren’t carrying cabs around. Yeah, places so much gear.

James: Yep. I have a Kemper profiler player, which is a little pedal. Rustin has the HX stomp, another pedal, and Joe has a quad cortex pedal. And so all three of us literally have our bass or guitar and a pedal board and then like a backup bass or guitar.

And that’s it. And that’s why we can spend time on doing lights, doing in years, that kind of stuff, because we’re not lugging in like an 80 pound cab and head. And so it gives us that flexibility. But so all of those inputs, as well as our vocal inputs, go directly to the split.

And from that split, it. Basically duplicates the analog signal. One path goes to our X32 rack, which is our mixer, which sends our mixes then to Sennheiser G4 units in the case of the three of us downstage. Aaron has a wired connection because why spend a thousand bucks on an extra wireless connection or 500 bucks if you split a unit that you don’t need.

You know, just 70 bucks for a Bairinger P1 P2. I can’t remember which one to use. The better one. Yeah, I think the P1 is better than the P2, which is kind of backwards. Yeah.

Yeah. So I’m going to assume it’s the P1. And it’s just two XLR cables.

Super easy. And then the other half of that split just goes to the front of House Snake. And so it’s an analog split. Four odd fellows, we might do a digital split. We’re debating on what to do or we might just send stereo. We’re in talks with Jeff about that, waiting to hear back. Or at least I’m waiting to hear back from Joe, who is coordinating with Jeff. So maybe I should reach out at some point directly and be like, yeah, we don’t need to put Joe in the middle here.

Make him do work while he’s off studying to become a doctor. We have a couple of different thoughts for that just because it is so different than what most people are used to at a DIY show. And so my suggestion for that, which I don’t know if they’ll want to do it or not, was, hey, if I’m going to be there and we’re doing a bunch of this stuff, why don’t I just take my board and mix the show for all the bands and then hand the iPad to a friend that knows what they’re doing for our set and say, here you go, have fun, you know, right? Like don’t hurt our ears, basically. But going back to the health thing, when you’re using in ears, it’s like you’re wearing earplugs. So if there’s nothing coming through, it’s just you’re looking like a 25 to 30 dB reduction, which is fantastic. Because then you can just pipe in whatever you need on top of that. Yeah, like if you’re in a room with subs, if you’re playing at any real venue, they have subs, I’m not going to need the low end of the bass, but I’m going to want that attack.

Aaron: You’re going to want that attack. Yeah.

James: I was like, oh, you pre-irled that. I did. Maybe by the third time we’re on this on this show, it’ll be a video podcast and then people will see the terrible. Disgust. And I’m the one that’s supposed to make the bad band puns. That’s. And if your house burns down in the next couple of days, look out for matches.

Aaron: That’s a.

James: I self-punned us. Yeah. What does that say? Like Deadpool say, it’s a fourth wall break within a fourth wall break. Yeah, something like that. Sixteen walls. I should have brought you a matchbook. We have matchbooks that are amazing because they have Aaron’s face on them. Nice. From that thank you scientist show, Brian Leclerc took photos and Aaron’s just making this stank face while playing the drums is amazing.

Becca: I might have seen this on your Instagram.

James: Yeah, we posted it. Probably. He didn’t know that he was in there. So it’s like I’m bringing one over and I’m going to film your reaction.

Aaron: He’s got a live reaction. I need you to open it now. And he opens it up and I can’t remember. It was like, oh, you did something like that. It was priceless. Um, that was good. The perks of you and Kate only living like 15 minutes away. I could just be like, hey, I’m coming over with a matchbook. Made in New Hampshire, by the way, they’re the only company in the US that still does custom matchbooks is in Littleton, New Hampshire, no, not Littleton, somewhere south. But New Hampshire. Yeah. Anyway, absolutely recommend the in ears. I think everyone should do it.

James: Oh, and to go back. So all the vocals and the instruments have to go through no matter what, because otherwise we will not hear them because there’s no stage volume. Exactly. Right.

Aaron: So like we give ourselves everything. Well, and then front of house get like take what you need.

Becca: How many microphones do you bring besides like the instruments? Obviously running through how many mics on the drum kit? How many mics the vocals? Like those are kind of clear, right? Yeah. But like ambient mics. How many of these are you bringing? Like what do you so for ideal scenario?

James: I mean, yes, but we’re not using all of them because I just take my mic kit. So they are all there. Vocal mics, bass, guitars, that’s always in there. For an ideal show, that’s four vocals and then three inputs for the instruments. Then we’re almost always going to have kick because I need to hear what Aaron’s kick is doing. I think you like that as well. And then in an ideal scenario, we’re going to do snare top, rack one, rack two. Um, if we add ambient mics, then we’re at 16 inputs because then we also have our synths percussion and what’s the third one? I always forget what the third track is.

Synth percussion. Oh, third guitar. So Rustin puts down his guitar for half the set, specifically on covers and he’ll grab his mic and move around and be a frontman. Yeah, which we love it when he does that. But so then we’d have an extra rhythm guitar to settle in the mix under Joe because otherwise he does a lot of lead stuff and just be a thin sound. Yeah, right. So yeah, third guitar. And then with all of that, that gets us to 16 channels. If we again are using like the ambient mics, technically we go to 17 because we have a talkback line from front of house that we patch into the back on the talkback input.

And then we have some funky routing stuff, which we haven’t really used yet. But like we have digital splits of, you know, here’s yourself vocal, which is uncompressed, has a different EQ. And then there’s your vocal for everyone else, which is compressed. So you don’t have to worry about fluctuation. So it’s more about hearing it rather than hearing yourself. We have that set up, although we haven’t really messed with it much.

Aaron: No, no ride symbol mic in our ears. Yeah, we’re going with that. My symbols are loud as shit.

James: We don’t do snare bottom. We don’t do hi hat. We don’t do overheads. That is always up to the venue. I have those mics with me. So if they want to do it, I’m saying, OK, cool, I have these. We can use this or if you have something that you want to put up there, that’s fine too. And it’s just their call of how much effort they want to put into it and what the room is like an odd fill is we’re definitely not going to use or want symbol mics in any way. Right.

Becca: It’s not big enough. Right. And our vocal mics will pick it up. I actually have a push to talk switch on my pedal board for my mic because I do so little. Right. And it just picks up ambient noise.

James: That’s exactly right. And so one of the engineers when we played Brighton, when Aaron was upstage left, I am downstage right. She said, hey, you know, Joe’s vocal, who is downstage left, is picking up a lot of symbols when he’s not singing. And so there’s things we could do like we could put an opto gate on there or use a lily pad, but that’s just more stuff to deal with. Right. So I said, well, if we’re ever in that situation again, why don’t we just put Aaron upstage right behind me? Because then Joe is furthest from it.

Rustin’s in the middle, same as either way. And my mic’s off most of the time. Right. And I’ve learned to tell engineers that I have that because they’ve been scared about like, I just lost the sound like, oh, yeah, because I’m not stepping on it. Don’t worry, it’s fine. Right.

Aaron: Another check in the like, you know, why are I am a good idea? Or like it’s the flexibility. Like for me, like it’s it’s going to sound exactly the same. And, you know, control that can be whatever I want it to be. I can pull that thing up on my phone and toggle with it.

James: I think I’m the only one that uses the iPad. Yeah, I’ll use phones. Rustin has like a 2008 iPod touch or something. Nice.

Aaron: Yeah. It’s just control and flexibility and like moving me around. It’s like whatever is clever. Like again, just, you know, what gives the sound out there like. It all, you know, I filter is back to like, you know, best performance and how can we give that and, you know, make the people, you know, who’s spending their evening with us? Like how can we make their night a little more enjoyable? And that’s probably hearing a little less symbol in the vocal mic. So I just.

James: Yeah, it’s a learning experience. And because of that, too, like with the push to talk, for example, I did that because of the symbols specifically. And even when you’re on the other side of the stage, it makes a huge difference. And but that’s also for my own benefit, not just for the audience, but I don’t need all that extra symbol in my ears either.

Right. So if my mic’s off, that’s fantastic. I can focus more on everything else. I don’t have to have things cranked as much. It’s really helpful or, you know, put a high cut on the vocals, which you can do. But then all of a sudden, if you go too far, you’re losing the clarity of your vocals. It’s a fine line to draw there.

Becca: Yeah, that’s really interesting to think about because you you’re noticing a lot more about what the mics are picking up by having it directly in your ears, right?

Aaron: Yeah, which is exactly what’s being amplified out to the crowd, even though you’re it’s a little different sound, but you’re hearing it really clearly. Yeah, it’s really interesting to think about. I think we’ve all had the odd experience of hearing a recording of someone being like, damn, then you go to their show and you’re like, uh, because that’s that’s it. Like the studio experience is so different. Yeah. Then, you know, the way they practice most likely is so different than what they’re doing on stage.

I honestly think a piece of that is a lot of people just it just sounds so different that it’s really hard to put on the same exact show that you did when you recorded wherever you recorded. It’s like a comfort thing, too. Like getting in the zone or whatever. And it just that lets you kind of bring the zone with you almost.

James: Right. But, you know, going back to what I was saying about, I think everyone should do it if they play more than one show a month, which is a lot of the bands in Burlington, like because there are multiple bands doing things like please protect your hearing. I’m going to do two things here. One is shameless self promo. The other is a humble brag involving you, Aaron.

What’d I do? The first is if anybody wants in ear rigs, I am a dealer for many brands, full warranty, all that. But I’m happy to chat with you about it. Even if you don’t buy anything for me or don’t buy anything at all, I just want you to protect your ears. And if you do buy something, try and get you the best deal you can find. But like I am more than happy to sit down for an hour and chat about ear rigs and not get anything out of it, aside from hanging out and having a good conversation over lunch.

Like that’s so please feel free to hit me up at madrockxvx on Instagram or email is James at James dash or hyphen cross dot com. But the second thing is even if you’re not going to do. You know, the extra production stuff we do like lighting, synth tracks, that kind of stuff, you can still have a massive benefit from ears in clarity and protecting your hearing. That’s what better things does.

Yeah. And they’re on ears for most of their shows. Not all they’re doing one in June.

The the subsam 10th birthday show at First Republic Brewing. And they’ve agreed to use wedges for that one because of a very tight schedule from the venue. And we have an hour and 15 minutes to load in the entire P.A. and the first band. It’s going to be fun.

Aaron: It’s it will get there, but it’ll be fun. Yeah. Oh, we’ll make it happen. Yeah, it’s we’re not going to have to load in through a basement and go up a very tiny elevator that we’re fighting to use with the public as well. Going back to this. Better things to the Fletcher Free show last year.

Nice. And it took like four hours to get everything going because there was a strict you can’t make sound till 6 p.m. thing, which I get they’re open. But also just getting the stuff in took forever because there’s one elevator and they wouldn’t let us use the front door. And then the public was also using the elevator to the OK, you have to wait for it to go up and down three times and like finally get the next load.

And like and none of this is a diss on Fletcher Free. Like they are operating an amazing resource. It was just the circumstance of like, hey, this is taking forever because.

Yeah, there’s multiple roadblocks. So again, like shout out to them for even doing the show. It was really fun.

It was cool. But doing it in an hour, 15 minutes is going to be a very different vibe. It’s going to be throw and go, get the monitors up, get the vocals up. And then as we progress through the night, add more mics so we can finally record subsam at the end of the night for their big birthday set. But anyway, so better things for that show is going to use wedges because it would just be a lot of extra stuff and we don’t have any time to do that.

James: They’re all still using amps. So that is something that can be done. For taking live, I think that show would be almost definitely a hard no. For multiple reasons, but with better things specifically when they did their comeback show at Higher Ground, I was mixing that one.

And we did a bunch of rehearsals and all that kind of stuff. And they’re not to a click. There’s the count in for getting laid in New Hampshire had a click. And then it just cuts out

Aaron: as I smack myself in the face. Yeah, click on the mic.

James: It literally just counts mark in to start the song and cuts out. And that that is the only portion of click because it’s just going from the recorded intro to the start of the song.

And. After the show, Aaron was like, yeah, I thought they were doing the whole show to time code because it all sounded so tight, so cohesive and the effects. And so I was doing the vocal effects at front house, I just practiced a bunch like I was literally sitting at home. I had recorded one of the rehearsals and set up all my effects and scenes for every song and all that kind of stuff and then did that live.

So I was like playing the board as I was going, writing the faders at different points, that kind of stuff. But more so, they had that tight, cohesive sound because they were on in years. Like that just it made it better because they could hear themselves properly. They weren’t fighting.

They could move around. Brian jumped into the crowd at one point, but he could still hear like and that is so important. And like we all know the hardcore bands. Yeah, you can jump into the into the pit and scream like that’s fantastic. You can jump down there and play. But imagine doing that and being able to hear exactly what you want to hear. Imagine doing that and not having your ears ring at the end of the night. Like, I mean, if your ears aren’t only ringing constantly, if they are sorry, you’re out of luck.

It’s too late to reverse that, but you can prevent it from getting worse. If your ears aren’t ringing at all, start wearing earplugs for every show you go to. Start using in years for every show you play and.

Becca: Sound quality difference. Yeah, I’m sorry, but you can spend a hundred bucks on earplugs to wear as you’re playing with your band. It this that also kills your sound quality, though. You can’t hear each other. I have spent way too much money on earplugs just to wear at concerts because they keep driving me nuts, because I can’t hear anything clearly. Like I’m coming here to hear the show, but I don’t want to be deaf.

So there’s a real balance to that and they get you over that hump. You have to worry about sound quality and you don’t have to worry about your ear drums exploding.

James: There’s also a big thing about that is most of the engineers who are mixing your shows will mix one or two songs without earplugs and then put in their earplugs.

Yeah. And so there’s certain things like if you want to hear some detail or something, I’ll pull out my earplugs for 30 seconds and hear some detail if I need to adjust any cue or something. But realistically, these shows are so loud that they are being mixed with earplugs and it’s much quieter at the back most of the time.

Yeah. So if you’re up front, you better be wearing earplugs and to be honest, keeping in mind that, OK, maybe you’re using like, you know, one dollar foamy versus two hundred dollar custom molded earplugs that the engineer might have or even like a forty dollar set of ear easers or ear racers. I can never remember how to pronounce.

Becca: Different because the high fidelity earplugs have become a whole thing.

James: But the mix that you’re hearing is probably being mixed on earplugs. I saw one engineer hit his air pods in.

Becca: Yeah, that’s becoming more and more common.

James: He was using that for reduction because it’s yeah, the active supposedly flat, which I’m not sure about that. But. Put some earplugs in if you’re going to a show because the person in the back of the room is probably wearing earplugs too. And a lot of the times I find that the mix sounds better with earplugs in because they are killing some of that overbearing top end that you find in small rooms where. There’s vocal mics two feet from the drum kit, you know. And it really just makes such a big difference.

Becca: You should send me some of your stuff, whether I don’t care if it’s from your website or what, just what you recommend for bands. I’m interested just because I like learning about sound stuff. But also I think it’s so important. And I know a lot of the bands I talk to you end up checking my stuff out. And I can be like, no, if you’re interested, check out James Cross’s stuff. And I can either link to you or whatever you want to do. Yeah, I would I’d like to link something like that up on my website.

James: I should make like a blog post that a resource talks about the basics of in-ears. I mean, there’s there’s bunches out there, but there’s also a lot of people who get it really wrong.

Becca: And there’s like information overload. Just like this is how you set them up. And this is a good basic setup because that’s it. You start looking to buy something, which the whole Internet. If anyone’s wondering why Google sucks, it’s because Google stopped trying to teach you things and started trying to sell you stuff, which is exactly the same of basically every search engine in the world. So you want to learn something instead.

You’re looking at buying stuff. I want to learn like I want to know what bands actually need to do and what a good base setup is for, you know, your standard three piece punk band. Like, where do they even start with this stuff? Because I’ve been in this world for a long time and in years weren’t a thing. Back when I had it out of the early to not early, but, you know, 2009 or whatever I started playing out in high school bands. That was like not a thing. I just never saw that.

James: Yeah, it was only at the biggest levels or the bands who really needed it. Right. So, for example, like. If you’re doing arenas, you might have had in years back in the nineties or late eighties might. Right. You know, the select few.

Becca: Right, which is not your high school. Right. Where most of us came from and most of the bands around here. That’s it. There’s just yeah, there’s a big curve to actually like, oh, there’s a there’s a real value to the in years. It’s not just like a cool piece of gear that you don’t really need. Like maybe you almost need

James: this and how serious you are and how much you care about your hearing and all of these questions and your voice, too. If you’re a singer, yeah, which I’ll get into that in a second. But like bands, it’s becoming more and more common for a reason because it is the way to go. And I know there are some artists that say, I can’t do that. I’ll never do that.

But it really is the way to save your hearing and your voice. Using a couple of examples, I know if I was using them as far back as 2003. And they needed to because. And I mean, if anyone doesn’t know this about your favorite bands, I’m sorry. But your favorite bands most likely you’re playing to a click. AFI absolutely was like they have so much since stuff, especially after 2006, but in 2003 already. And but also enter Chikari.

And I think around like 2009, 2010, judging by videos, only the drummer had ears in. But they have so much in their tracks. Like if their tracks go down, they cannot do a show. Yeah. And that’s not any diss on them.

I love their music. But for us, if our tracks go down, we’ve had that happen. We just keep playing. It’s fun. You know, like. We can do it without that. But we can add that like 2 percent of ear candy, like the percussion in the sense. We like that.

So we do it. But also if you’re a singer. Struggling to hear yourself in a monitor mix.

One. Find a better sound engineer. Or to learn how to project properly. But if you are projecting properly and still can’t hear yourself because this is a problem that a lot of people have, if they’re doing their own, like, you know, your average band that sets up a show and doesn’t know how to mix because that’s not your job. You as a singer can just get a simple why split and plug it directly into like a Sennheiser G4 or a short PSM 300 and get just your vocal directly to your ears.

Yep. And you will be able to hear yourself. Now, do not turn that up too high because then you’ll sing too softly for front of house.

Right. But find that balance where you can hear yourself at a comfortable level and still get your vocal out over the band. And that will save your voice and your ears because you won’t have to have it cranked, you won’t have to have everything else so loud. And that makes a massive, massive difference. As far as, you know, one of the biggest compliments I’ve ever received mixing a show was for a bit at the underground.

We were doing three downstage wedges, but the center wedge would be turned around as a front fill. And this guy was trying to turn it around and pointed at me and said, I’m not going to be able to hear. He’s like, no, don’t worry, you’re going to be able to hear. OK. And at the end of the show, even though he was only coming from the monitors to his left and to his right, not the one directly in front of him, he came up to me and said, I’ve been playing music for 20 years. That’s the first time I could actually hear myself.

I was like, yeah, because I went in and rung that out and got all those feedback frequencies so I can make you loud enough. And a lot of people just don’t do that because they don’t know how they don’t know what they’re doing. So if you go to a real venue like higher ground, Brighton Music Hall, they know what they’re doing.

But if you’re playing a little like 50 cap, 100 cap, you’re going to be lucky if they have a monitor. Yeah, right. And it’s those situations like, oh, cool, I have a Y-split on my vocal. Boom, done. And that setup would cost you like 900 bucks because it’s just the transmitter and a $10 Y-split cable. Right. You know, so at the very least, do that. You know, and obviously you can’t do that for the full band, but it gets cheaper as you scale up. So it might be $900 for one person. Right.

Becca: And then the scalability. If you if you have that kit in mind where it’s not the $5,000, most, right, that’s it. Most bands around here don’t have five grand to drop on stuff. They want it. They’re working towards it. But the $900 and adding pieces and parts to get there, they could they could do that.

I think a lot of people, I’ve heard people say that they’re like, I want in ears. We just we don’t have the money. We don’t even know where to start with it. It’s too much to drop immediately. Yeah. And explain that in this here informational blog post.

James: Yes, absolutely. That would be great. Let me also just say, though, there are cheaper wireless in your units and you don’t want to get those. They all invariably have issues. You’re going to experience cutouts. You’re going to experience random bursts of noise, like whatever it is, you don’t want that.

And that’s not to say that the shore or Sennheiser units are invaluable. We’ve had that happen like one show. Somebody rubbed up against our antenna and I got the loudest burst of static I’ve ever heard. Nobody else in the band heard it. It was just me. But like, I literally remember yelling mid song because I was just so shocked at what happened and it was OK. It happened.

You know, like that’s always going to happen. But yeah, like the shore PSM 300, which is like 900 bucks, you can split that into dual mono, which is what we do on our g force. So now you have two people listening for 450 bucks. You add a mixer and a split and a second PSM. And you can have a four piece band on in years for, let’s say, you get the Bairinger XR 18, which I don’t recommend you can you can get better ones. But if you have a budget XR 18, like 500 bucks, 1800 for the two in your units and then a split, which if you’re doing 16 channels, you can get from seismic for like 300.

So you’re looking at 2600, 2800 with a rack, 3000 with all the cables. Yep. That’s, you know, if you want your own mics and all that, which I recommend, you can do that, but you don’t have to. You can rely on the venue mics and just say, hey, you patched through our stuff. Right. I’ve seen people say, oh, you don’t need an analog split.

It’s heavy and does this and that. You can use this other kind of split, which just sends outputs from your mixer. Don’t do that.

A lot of sound guys will say, I’m not taking your post gain and I’ve allowed that at times and then the vocal is coming through and it’s just entirely clipped in their signal chain. Yeah. And so more and more, I’m just saying, no, I will not allow that. If you want your ears, that’s fine, but you need to have an analog split or we’re not using it. So be careful. The good thing, though, you

Aaron: know, in circling back to that this sort of setup becoming more popular over the last 10 years is the barrier to entry is much lower now than it was 10 or 15 years ago.

Like a fact, both 10 from a price standpoint, from a, is this gear available locally for me or online at a price point that’s, you know, and and there are options.

James: Seen this before.

Aaron: Yeah. And I mean, you’re dealing with, you know, a dozen or two dozens of different components. So if you really want to, you’ll be able to plug and play with cheaper alternatives to kind of get that feel. I mean, the first thing to start with maybe is a pair of cheaper in-ears, which do exist.

And, you know, and that’s that’s where I started, like with cheap gear. And then you kind of learn, you know, what this can do for you, you know, what what it can’t do for you, doesn’t matter to you. And then you can kind of plug and play and keep going. And that’s, you know, in a more cost effective, like piece by piece way. So you don’t have to deal with, like, you know, some Godzilla, you know, threshold for entry, because that’s off-putting. I wouldn’t if I had to drop five grand on something to get started like that.

Becca: Right. Right. Not only is it five thousand dollars, but can we even implement it?

Aaron: It’s a big investment and it’s a big it’s intimidating. It can be intimidating for somebody who’s interested in saving their hearing and exploring, you know, other like performance options. 100 percent. But so the good thing is like over the last 10 or 15 years, it’s become much more accessible. And I think that’s the big point. And yeah, I mean, you know, neither one of us or the other guys are ever like done learning, we’re always iterating and improving. And but like backtracking, like there is a place to start that does exist. And you know, it’s a one step at a time, little by little, the egg learns to walk on to backtracking.

James: Oh, I was going to go with one step at a time.

James: Oh, that one step closer.

Aaron: Everything you say to me points deducted.

Becca: OK, all right, we’ve been chatting for a while. I don’t have the exact timing, but I think

Aaron: it’s once we start talking about new metal where we’re ready to break stuff. Done. OK. Go to your room. OK, somewhere I belong. There he is.

James: All right. For a while.

Becca: So that was unintentional. I’m sorry, Becca.

Aaron: It’s closing time. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

Becca: Oh, OK. So stuck in motion. Listen to it. Check it out. It’s good stuff. What we will be playing it. Oh, EP was matches. Yes, matches. Check that out. Also good stuff. You are playing at Odd Fellows, which day? June 27th to Friday. Perfect Friday show. Odd Fellows in the New North and very cool spot.

James: Right across from Bengala. Yes, get some food. Come see a show.

Becca: Park on the side streets. Yes, I learned that last time. Park on the side street. Yes. Taken alive.Band .com. You have your own website. We’ll plug that. But check out the show notes for today. I will.

If you make this informational blog post, I will certainly get up on the show notes page, which is going to be vermonttalks.com forward slash 56, which will also link to all of the Taken Alive social medias and things and link tree and Spotify, etc., etc. Anything else before we call it quits for the night? Thank you so much, James. And thank you so much, Aaron, for coming and chatting with me.

Aaron: Thanks for having us and letting us kind of nerd out a bit.

James: And it was awesome. We’re going to get yelled at. You’re going to get yelled at. Our band is about in your monitor. Yes. They were like, try not to focus too much on the tech. I was like, if she asks.

Becca: I love it. I’ve had a deep interest in them, but that’s it. I just I don’t have any to play with. I don’t know a lot about them, so I appreciate it. And I appreciate the fun chat and the memory road of the emo bands.

James: That was fun. Punt or any? Yes, the punishment.

Aaron: Yeah, I’ll leave it at this. The in-years are a big part of letting us do what we do live, which is make people feel something. Yes, that’s that’s the goal.

Becca: Wicked clean. That’s very professional, wicked clean sound. I am congrats to you guys. I’m excited to see you play. I will be at the Odd Fellow show. Hell, yeah. Hell, yeah. Thank you so much. Have a great day. All listeners, goodbye.