The Back Lounge Podcast

Unleash The Archers vocalist Brittney Slayes joins me for Episode 28 of the Back Lounge Podcast! The powerhouse singer talks with me about becoming a Mom, balancing parenting with the band, the new album, upcoming tours, and the drama that recently surround them (and other bands) for utilizing A.I. with their art, which leads to a bigger topic of how people treat each other on the internet.

Sevendust vocalist Lajon Witherspoon joins us for Episode 26 of the podcast to discuss the upcoming Sevendust record "Truth Killer", current and upcoming tours, how to keep chemistry with a band for 25 years, being a dad, growing up in Nashville, and more!

One of my all time favorite guitarists, Rob Arnold, joins us for Episode 24 of The Back Lounge Podcast! Rob is a guitarist, producer, and audio engineer most known for being the long time guitarist for the Cleveland, Ohio, US based band Chimaira, and during this episode I got to nerd out with him over some old Chimaira nostalgia, talk to him about his recent solo album, what he thinks about the current state of the music industry and how it's changed over the years, digital vs tube amps, and a whole lot more!

Vocalist/Producer Chris Harms from Lord of the Lost returns to the podcast for a second time fresh off of a #1 album in Germany, and while preparing the band for the German preliminary show for Eurovision. We spent some time catching up and just talking about random things like learning languages, going to shows, growing up with older technology and being nostalgic about music and TV shows, He also shared the band's experience touring with Iron Maiden and how they look forward to doing it again, talked about the unique marketing for their album "Blood and Glitter", and walked me through the process of how they will compete for the Eurovision Song Contest.

If any of these episodes get me into trouble, this will be the one... Stage Manager, Lighting Tech, friend, and all around awesome dude Andy Shaw joins us for Episode 20 of The Back Lounge Podcast. Shaw and I toured together for quite a few years, and on this episode we sit and recount some of the hilarious tour stories that we remember from our time on the road together.

Lighting Director Carrie Heisler joins us for Episode 18 of the podcast to give us a behind the scenes of what it's like to be lighting up the Detroit Redwings and Detroit Pistons on a nightly basis. Carrie recently went viral in the metal community for programming lighting entrances for the Redwings with a lot of popular deathcore, death metal, and grind bands, which is something that has never happened in the sporting world.

Suicide Silence guitarist and founder Chris Garza joins us for Episode 16 of The Back Lounge Podcast, in one of the most authentic, real, and brutality honest conversations I've ever had with someone in the music industry. We talk about the beginnings of Suicide Silence and how they helped create an entirely new genre, their successes and failures, how they've had to get uncomfortable as a band and work on themselves, their future touring, their upcoming record, and how they refuse to let any band deliver a better show than they will.

Guitarist/Content Creator Nik Nocturnal joins us for Episode 14 of The Back Lounge Podcast for some discussion on his Trap Metal project, his upcoming album with Termina, recently traveling to New York, creating content, and we had a ton of laughs along the way!

In a last minute episode that I honestly didn't think was going to happen, Christopher Bowes, the brains behind Alestorm and Gloryhammer, joins us for Episode 12 of The Back Lounge Podcast! We started off pretty casual, and the more the episode went on we just started getting off the rails and had a ton of laughs talking about stuff like German Gangster Rap, how weird but amazing tour bus drivers are, getting drunk at country concerts, writing songs for dogs, buying a pet giraffe, and how wild it is for Chris to live in the US now.

Legendary Swedish bassist Peter Iwers joins us for Episode 10 of The Back Lounge Podcast to talk The Halo Effect, running a Brewery and a Restaurant, touring, collecting Star Wars stuff, and more!

Chris Harms (Lord of the Lost) joins us for Episode 8 of The Back Lounge Podcast, and he is easily one of the most honest, open people I've ever had the pleasure of talking to. We talked about Lord of the Lost's recent releases, their upcoming tour with Iron Maiden, Chris's musical background, staying true to who you are, discovering Slipknot for the first time, and he even gave me some German lessons while we were at it.

Episode 6 of The Back Lounge Podcast features vocalist Alex Taylor of the Sheffield, UK based metal band Malevolence! During our conversation we got to talk about the band's new album "Malicious Intent" and how the band is super hands on with all of their stuff, we bonded over German hip-hop, talked about discovering music as kids, donkey kicking holes in the walls at hardcore shows, and much more!

For the 4th episode of The Back Lounge Podcast, I had the pleasure of having vocalist Vicky Psarakis of The Agonist & Sicksense back for what will most likely be one of the longest podcasts I ever have. We only spent about 5% of the podcast actually talking about her bands, and the rest was just real, open conversations about a lot of different stuff.