RECORDS LiVE

Donna: Hello everybody, how ya doin’? Welcome to my home. Isn’t it great? I love living here. This is my favorite spot in the house. So thank you so much for joining me today. I’m Deviant Donna and welcome to the first RECORDS LiVE. A music talk show where we talk to some fabulous musicians about music that influenced and inspired them. And…

*Doorbell Sound*

Justin’s here! Let’s welcome him on stage, everyone.

Justin: I love what you did with the place.

Donna: Thank you so much. Ya know, my decorator charged me too much but we love it.

Justin: I got some records here for you.

Donna: Thank you so much

Justin: Just something from the big ol’ stash.

Donna: Wow, thank you so much. Isn’t it such a blessing when your friends bring you records. It’s the gift that keeps on giving isn’t it?

Justin: Absolutely.

Donna: Amazing. Should we listen to some?

Justin: I think we should.

Donna: I love it, let’s go. I’m going to go with the first one. Let’s start with the top of the pile. We’ve got Pixies – Wave of Mutilation. I love this record player; I just got it. Isn’t it beautiful?

Justin: Oh yeah. It’s so beautiful. I haven’t seen anything like this in my whole life.

Donna: It’s amazing what A.I. can do, isn’t it?

Song Plays: Pixies – Wave of Mutilation

Donna: Alright, I see you, Justin.

Justin: Many emotions I get from this song.

Donna: I was just about to say. Looks like it brings back a lot of memories. Your eyes just kind of glazed over there.

Justin: First, let’s talk about the lyrics. The song is about a guy who rides a car, drives it into the ocean and goes on this huge odyssey while he’s mutilated. All within this music bed that’s so uplifting and very positive and very danceable and friendly. I love the juxtaposition and that’s been a very big influence on me. You have something very dark and beneath it something very light-duty and very accessible.

Donna: So, just to clarify, it’s the mutilation that’s light and accessible?

Justin: I would say the music is.

Donna: Gotcha. Ok. Just so we know. It’s important.

Justin: The lyrics speak out to me the most. They’re very out there. Where else are you gonna hear a song like this? It’s that independent music sound that you can only get in the Indie scene. You can’t hear this in the mainstream. You’ll never hear this on the radio.

Donna: You’re going to clarify for me because often times I associate [Pixies] with a post-punk vibe. So what about this is the independent niche for you?

Justin: I feel like it’s not talked about. This band is not mentioned a lot. It’s like you go thrifting and you find a very hidden golden treasure that you want to claim for yourself. That’s how I feel about this band and this song. The whole sound of the band has always been influential to me.

Donna: I love how current this sound remains as well. I feel like so many post-punk bands that are creating sounds and songs nowadays are using Pixies as the prime example. They’re so important in that scene.

Justin: Yeah. Their dynamics are excellent as well. They go from soft to very loud for the choruses. I love that. It’s very simple, very explosive. It starts out with the bassline and just the drums and the lyrics for most of their discography, then it just explodes in the chorus. I just love that. A big cacophony of noise, this wall of sound to really blast you in your face. It’s unexpected moments in music that I really appreciate.

Donna: I absolutely love that. We have this Stooges record coming up next. Let me pop it in the player here. Go, A.I., Go!

Song Plays: The Stooges – Search and Destroy

Donna: I feel like these two songs bounce off of each other so well. Whenever I think of Pixies… I mean, c’mon, right? This was probably their main influence.

Justin: I feel like they were. This record is another huge influence because the production of it, and the mixing of it, is trash. It’s what makes this song so great at the same time. Again, it’s the lyrics, the chord choices, the progression, the rawness of it. The whole record is called “Raw Power,” and this is the first song on that album. What I love about this song is that it just kicks you right in the balls, right when it starts. You put the record on, drop the needle, and it starts out like that. Nice and no bullshit. It just goes right to the point. So that’s always been a big influence for me. Any record I would put out, I want a great first song.

Donna: So, based off of what you just described, how do you personally feel about The Ramones?

Justin: They’re an influence too. They almost made the list. The Ramones have a lot of The Stooges in them. They were heavily influenced by that same sound. Their simplicity along with the pop melodies have always been an influence for me as well.

Donna: How do you take all of that influence over into what you currently do with your band members or also on a personal level?

Justin: Punk rock can be very basic sounding but with this song they’re using a very excellent chord progression that really pushes the message forward with this song. He’s talking about how he’s the world’s forgotten boy, the one searches, searches to destroy. So, he’s filled with angst and he wants to just let the world know about that. He’s channeling the lyrics through the chord progression. Trying to find the right chord progression to fit the lyrics has been important to me and this song has been exemplifying that for the longest time.

Donna: So, based off of that, do you think the chord progression or the lyrics came first?

Justin: I would say the music came first. Right off the bat it spoke to me. That immediate sound that I approach and then the lyrics came. Usually, I pay attention more to the music and the mixing primarily, but with this song they both went together.

Donna: I love how they all play off of each other. I think that’s so important with a cohesive album. Going back real quick to the production, I understand how by modern standards it may be considered “trash” so to speak, but I feel like they’re such a quintessential band and that nitty gritty analog sound was part of so many bands at the time. I associate that production style more with the time period, rather than with the issues in production themselves, but that’s just me.

Justin: Yeah, that was a big factor as well, could be budget constraints and stuff like that. What’s ironic now is that a lot of musicians are trying to sound like that. They’re trying to sound lo-fi and gritty because that has a lot of character. Digital recording these days, which most musicians do, including myself, has this pristine edge to it. They released some plugins that you can throw on your audio channels to make it sound like it’s played on a record player, or it sounds like it was recorded to a tape machine. This song has been an influence on the overall kind of production I would like to achieve. Once you have that gritty character, it speaks out a lot differently than if it was pristine and digital.

Donna: What about the pristine and digital sound makes you want to push away from it?

Justin: It’s that it sounds like everything else. There’s pros and cons for sure. You get a punchier mix, more clarity, but for me the character, the realness, the rawness comes from a grittier sound. Especially with drums. That’s how I tend to approach things these days. You want that hi-def sound for a podcast or something, but a whole music bed, you’re trying to set a tone, send a message, set the vibe for who you are as an artist. This song has been one of my go-to’s for “let’s write a fast straight-forward song.”

Donna: Straight-forward? I don’t necessarily think that song is straight-forward if we really get into but let’s just move on. I feel like we’re going to get caught up on that.

Donna: Alright, tuggin’ at my heartstrings with Black Sabbath. Something I personally grew up on so this is very near and dear to my heart and I’m very excited that we get to talk about this. This is so different but so similar to the post-punk vibe that we’ve been discussing.

Song Plays: Black Sabbath – Children of the Grave

Justin: This is what I’m talkin’ about.

Donna: I love it. It just eases right in.

Justin: I was talking about immediate and straight-forward but something like this makes you listen and tune-in a little harder. Then eruption. Straight away you get these great sounding guitars, great sounding drums. The whole production of this record is the complete antithesis of Raw Power, but it doesn’t take away from the poignance of it, the powerfulness of it, the importance of it to me. This song and how it relates to me and how I write music, is that you get a nice heavy riff, and you just jam on it. You just make it nice and heavy.

Donna: As a guitarist yourself, what is the main thing that you look for in the riff? We can call it heavy; we can call it indulgent; we can call it all these fancy terms but if you really break it down, what is music to you? Is it mathematical? Do you break it down by scales? What is the thing that you most look for or are drawn to when you are creating?

Justin: I like to make it as memorable as possible. Going back Pixies for a second, with their lyrics, you’re not going to want to forget that. A song about this whole odyssey, whatever he’s doing, crashing his car into the ocean. But what I look for in a riff is if you could hum it, or if you could pick it up and play it on any kind of instrument, no matter how bad the instrument is. It could be a three stringed guitar, or a ukelele at a thrift store. You could play the same riff and people will know, like “oh yeah, I know that riff.” That’s what I look for, so I try to write riffs that are memorable. You could hum it and generally speaking when I’m writing a song, I want it to translate well if I were to turn it into a chiptune.

Donna: Do you have a group of people in your life who are the testers of said music? When you’re a musician you have a slightly different ear than everyone else does, so how do you properly assess whether something is going to qualify as catchy or relevant?

Justin: I take it to my bandmembers first and foremost. I have a demo and I’ll show it to them, and then I tend to trust their opinion a lot because it’s two more minds. We’re a three-piece band. They’re very tasteful in music as well, so I would trust their opinion. Then I would show close family members if I’m up for it. Usually, I’m pretty secretive with my family. I trust my band members a little bit more. If they like it and I like it, we’ll build on it.

Donna: What does that process in writing look like for you guys? Do you guys all take turns writing lyrics or riffs? What does the energy exchange look like for you?

Justin: I tend to write the majority of the music. What they throw in is the foundation, like the drums and the bass. Which I don’t necessarily have that kind of ear, so I trust that they’ll have a nice backbeat and bassline to contrast with what I’m playing. I write about 90% of the songs.

Donna: How did you guys realize that your styles, in terms of how you collaborate, were able to melt together well? Was there a light-bulb moment where you guys realized “we’ve got something here?”

Justin: We combined all of our influences. I brought my influences, and they brought their influences, and we had a Ven diagram. In the center we had Weezer, Queens of the Stone Age, Black Sabbath, Hendrix, Zeppelin. A lot of the oldies and a lot of the newer bands as well. When we started realizing we played well together, when we first started playing with my drummer we started jamming and his best friend is my current bass player. We all just started playing together in a rehearsal studio and we had this chemistry. You either have it or you don’t.  I play with a lot of people and sometimes something just clicks. I was very fortunate. 

Donna: That’s amazing. You guys weathered the pandemic together. Were you guys still finding ways to write together during that time?

Justin: We were doing zoom meetings and stuff like that. Messing around writing stuff not for the band, something different.

Donna: Did something beautiful come out of that messing around?

Justin: Yeah, we had some different stuff. You can hear it on SoundCloud.

Donna: What’s your favorite track off of what has resulted in that collaboration during that time period?

Justin: We worked on one song that’s an instrumental. It’s based on a very finger-style chord progression, and it goes into a heavy riff kind of like Black Sabbath. I love Black Sabbath, I worship them. It’s a song that meshes Pink Floyd with Black Sabbath. My drummer who also makes videos, he’s been the cinematographer and director for most of our videos, he made a video for it, and I think it’s on YouTube. We made an original instrumental and video for it.

Donna: I love that. It’s crazy what comes out of those moments where we have extreme downtime, I feel like there’s always a good way to create something beautiful out of that, so props to you guys for using your time wisely.

Justin: That’s all I do, is just write.

Donna: Then all you do is use your time wisely.

Donna: I love that you have this one here. We’ve got Surf Curse – Heathers. Let’s pop that one in here.

Song Plays: Surf Curse – Heathers

Donna: So, this one’s a little more modern. I’m not surprised by the progression of the sound that is on this list, but why don’t you tell me where your heart lies with this one?

Justin: It reminds me of when I was a senior in high school. That’s when I first started going to backyard shows and hole-in-the-wall venues like do-it-yourself vibes. To me, this song sounds like a lot of the bands that I saw. It still holds a nice place in my heart. The melody of it, the whole thing just comes together and speaks to me.

Donna: I understand that you’re one for nostalgia, so besides the backyard shows is there any specific sense-memory that this brings back to you? What is a specific moment that you get thrown into as this song starts to play?

Justin: Thrown into a time with minimal responsibilities, where you can focus all of your time on music. Going to shows was like clockwork. You don’t even think about it, you just go to a show. Hearing a band like this, they know how to throw a show and seeing everyone go crazy, everyone is in one vibe. They’re just there for the music. Nothing else matters but that. That’s what I live for. I just saw this band live, and they still have the same energy. It’s a big crowd.

Donna: Do you still remember the first small venue show you went to?

Justin: Oh Yeah.

Donna: How old were you?

Justin: I must have been 16 or 17.

Donna: Does mom know about this?

Justin: She probably does. I’ve been to so many. It was in Pomona actually. Another hole-in-the-wall spot, I was playing in another band at the time. I was playing in many bands before I started my own.  A similar sound to this, a lot of punk energy. I remember walking in, and this dude has a big Marshall stack, and he’s playing Ramones-esque music. I see people dancing and vibing for it. I thought that could be me one day playing music. When you play live your energy is based a lot on the crowd. If it’s a dead crowd you’re going to be bummed out, but every show is an experience.

Donna: What is one of the best shows that you’ve ever played with your current band, or maybe even a show that you remember to this day from your younger days.

Justin: It would be here (DBA 256). I’ve played here upwards of ten times. Last year I played here for my birthday show and there was a big crowd. It was a very memorable experience. I didn’t let it be known that it was for a birthday, it was just that I felt like they were there for that, and there was a lot of people there. We ended the night on a great note. It was very memorable, a favorite show that I had been to. It might have been that first do-it-yourself show that I went to. That set the vibe entirely for the trajectory of what I want shows to be like, and how I’d want to go and see them.

Donna: Ya know what’s really funny actually? The first show I went to, the first concert was, as a guitarist you can probably appreciate this, Buckethead.

Justin: Really? Oh my god.

Donna: I was literally 16 and I remember very vividly wanting to go with my friend, but my mom was like “you’re not going alone.” Because I was 16. She went with us and in the middle of the show he pulled out this giant bag of toys and he started handing it out to the people in the audience. My mom got a My Little Pony. I should have probably saved it; I honestly don’t know where it is. Now I’m kind of regretful.

Justin: Buckethead, I remember him from Guitar Hero. “Jordan,” that’s the only song I know.

Donna: His album, Electric Tears, is very good, but he’s a little bit of a freak, so ya know.

Justin: Oh yeah, I do admire his playing style. I haven’t heard him in a quite a bit.

Donna: I was a die-hard Guns N’ Roses fan for quite a while, so when he replaced one of the band members I was like, “Oh wow, this is quality stuff.”

Justin: I didn’t know that he played for Guns N’ Roses.

Donna: Yeah, in the mid-2000s. At least that was my gateway to him. It was cool. I was learning guitar at the time, so it was kind of very on brand for me. I don’t listen to him as much anymore because…can you separate the art from the person, is the big question. I’m gonna say, no.

Donna: I’m a little surprised by this next one. We’ve got some Velvet Underground here. I love the Velvet Underground. But the way this song is structured, in and of itself, pleasantly surprised me in your lineup. So, what’s the tea?

Song Plays: The Velvet Underground – Venus In Furs

Justin: I wanted to narrow it down to accessible songs. I could have gone way out, but I wanted to end on a note like this for this kind of vibe, where the more experimental side of me would come out. I first heard this song when I was 14 or 15. I listened to the whole record front to back, and the first couple of songs I thought “ok, cool, cool.” When this hit, I was thought, “what is this shit?” I never heard anything like it before, and I love the way he sang. He influenced me, Lou Reed, instantly one of my favorite singers. The stuff he’s singing about in his songs, like what the fuck?

Donna: I love that he was part of such a thriving art community when this band was created. He took out all of this unspoken truth out into this record. Things that are very much relevant to daily life, but they were taboo to talk about; and then all of a sudden, this band shows up.

Justin: Right, definitely taboo at the time, controversial and censored even. A lot of the influence comes from the performance of the song. And again, the production. One of the worst produced records of all time. That still adds so much character. What I love about this song is the melody for the chorus. It influenced the way I should sing because I have a very limited range. But if Lou Reed can make it sound good…I pull that influence a lot from Lou Reed.

Donna: I have a feeling he just smoked a lot…of various things. But don’t do that, it’s not worth it to get that kind of voice.

Justin: Oh, no, no. I’ve got to keep it straight.

Donna: Drink your water. Hydrate, everybody.

Justin: That reminds me…

Justin holds up Hydroflask

Donna: There you go. Snaps for the reusable water bottle everybody. This song really reminds me of a movie about Sparta from the 1930s. It’s that very stagnant melody. It’s very repetitive. It’s tribal almost in a way.

Justin: It sets the tone, there’s imagery. When I hear music, I picture a setting or a color. For me, this is teal. Like I’m walking through a hall.

Donna: Hold up, so you’re one of those people who’s got synesthesia.

Justin: I think so, yeah.

Donna: That’s what it’s called in case you didn’t know. You see music as color.

Justin: Yeah. When we dropped our first record, I had to select the songs in a specific way according to vibe but also according to how I felt the color was.

Donna: You color code your albums?

Justin: Yeah, it had to mesh, you know? I could place green with some obtuse color. It had to work out well.

Donna: That’s amazing. Is this a color wheel situation? Do they have to be complementary colors, or do they just have to be in the same color family? How does this work in your mind?

Justin: It depends on the vibe I’m trying to present, but usually it’s in the same color family, at least. The palette has to be complementary.

Donna: Do your band members have anything to say about that? Do they ever get frustrated with you because you’re like “No, but the colors?” Like “Justin, what are you talking about?”

Justin: Not really. It’s already been established. Red has been the color of our band logo. I associated red with it and it’s also on our symbol designed by our bass player. We chose red…well, I chose it for that matter. When we first started jamming and I wrote our first song together, I always pictured it as red and that stuck with it. I almost thought purple, but it didn’t end of going that route.

Donna: Do you feel that now as the band has grown, that color is still relevant to your vibe?

Justin: It plays a big role, but now we’re adding different influences to keep moving the sound forward. Don’t get stuck in a box. It’s already a box jam-packed with a bunch of shit. It’s more about adding external influences from a variety of experimental or hip-hop or miscellaneous.

Donna: Based on the things you’re working on currently, what are some things you’d like to continue adding on or improving upon in your current work?

Justin: We’ve been adding a little surf sound to our vibe. Our recent single has that kind of sound. We want to pull a bit more of our influences from the more experimental side, so it’s not so repetitive. Just keep it moving forward. We’re called Paleshifter, meaning we’re shifting sounds. We’re constantly evolving. It’s a genre-shifting band. That’s always been the idea of the band. Right now, we’re kind of a garage rock, surf rock band. I want us to keep moving forward.

Donna: Where do you imagine yourselves in 5 years?

Justin: I like to break new ground at the end of the day; a signature sound that you can hear and think, “Oh yeah, that’s Paleshifter.” We kind of have that now, but I want to keep embellishing it.

Donna: My final question for you is, what is your dream venue to play?

Justin: Woodstock. A big ass festival.

Donna: I hope you’ll take Coachella instead.

Justin: Or Coachella, yeah. I can see it now.

Donna: Yeah, Paleshifter at Coachella.

Justin: Yeah, to be on that lineup is already a huge achievement. I really praise a lot of independent bands that have been thrown on that. They’re very fortunate. I haven’t been there, but I always see clips and it looks very awesome.

Donna: I think it’s a fantastic steppingstone for so many bands, and I think you guys are heading very much in the right direction. I think the sound you’re producing right now is very popular in the rock genre currently. Hopefully, sooner rather than later, you guys will end up exactly there.

Justin: Thank you so much. I’m wishing for that too.

Donna: Fantastic. Justin, everybody, from Paleshifter.