Battle of The Bands Vol. 1

Walt and Krysta each pick songs from their generation to show the other.
Walt - So What by Ministry
Krysta - The Words Best Friend Become Redifined by Chiodos

Episode Transcript

(00:08):
Hey, it's Walt. Welcome backto another cool story bro. I'm here
with Christa, Hi, and weare doing a cool experiment this time where
all right, I'm older than sheis. We come from different millennials,
different generations, that's what I'm talkingabout. And we each picked a song
this week and we're throwing it atthe other person and trying to pursue,

(00:32):
like trying to get them to likeit and turning them onto something new.
And she's got a song for me. And it's a pretty interesting experiment,
don't you think. I think it'sthe best experiment we've ever had. I
think there's gonna be many more episodeslike this, So here it is.
Check it out. We're gonna turnyou onto two songs, or she's gonna
turn me on a song. I'mgonna turn her onto a song and hopefully

(00:53):
turn you onto a song. Socheck out this episode. A cool story
bro. For this episode, weeach picked one of our favorite songs from
Mine was from my childhood? Okay? Was yours more teenage? Uh?
Well, I guess mine's more teenage. You're okay, mine's like the older
twenties. So it's like but equallyas important to my musical upbringing. What

(01:19):
was the name and artists of yoursong? Okay, I chose one of
my all time favorite bands and oneof the most influential band. The most
influential band to me musically is Ministryfrom right here in Gloria's Chicago and the
song so what which is from themind is a terrible thing to taste?

(01:40):
And you said the genre was whatindustry? It's industrial? I mean,
yeah, how would you define industrial? Like what separates that from them?
Oh? My god? Well,industrial is very uh. I mean it
traces back to like Craftwork, TestDepartment and Noybouten, lots of bands from
the eight seventies into the early eighties, and it was very mechanical. They

(02:02):
would use found sounds like dumpsters andmetal and stuff like that, and they'd
beat up beats and it would createa very hard, angular type rhythmic sound.
But here's the thing I would say, industrial music is very rhythmic nature,
which is why they incorporate samples whichyou heard when you were listening to

(02:24):
the song, and they become rhythmic. And I think there's a lot of
that kind of thing in industrial music, and it becomes very very primal you
just hear the things like you weremoving when you heard the song, you
hear the tom's, the bassline.That just there's something very primal and natural
about how you respond when you hearthat kind of music. So I think

(02:46):
that there's you incorporate the primal withfound sounds and beats and metal and stuff
like that, and that kind ofincorporates industrial music, which by and large
is dance floor music. I wouldagree, like the bass was very compelling
for me. Yeah, so I'veheard the name Ministry, but I've never

(03:07):
listened. Now, I mean,we could do we could do an entire
college course on Ministry and the evolutionof the band because they started as a
well, they became a they werea synthpop band. When they released their
first album, they were on amajor label and wasn't really what the band
wanted to be. So they kindof rebelled against it and became added,

(03:30):
became harder as the next decade wouldgo through, and they added guitars,
and then they kind of became apretty like a metal band, but it's
still under the industrial umbrella, andthey were one of the godfathers of the
genre. And so what the songI picked for you is so amazing because
it is it's long, it's repetitiveinasmuch as it's the bassline, and then

(03:55):
there's the heavy section, and thenthe not have the groovy section, and
then there's vocal. Then there's avocal section. But what makes the song
so unique and masterful in my opinion, all of those parts are incredible.
But it roll. So there's arolling It rolls through how which which section

(04:18):
plays over which parts? Meaning likeas you heard, we didn't hear the
whole song because it's something it's somethinglong, but like you heard the groovy
intro part, then it got tothe heavy guitar part, the thrash part,
and then it dropped into what waslike a verse with the vocals.
Then it picked back up into thechorus, which had the heavy guitar parts.

(04:39):
Again by the end of the song, they're doing the heavy guitar parts
over the verse. Oh, soit gives that layered effect. It's so
it's very and then it just keepson going and so it just it elevates
the entire every time it comes around. And whether it's uh with the where
the vocals and the thrash guitars are, it rolls around. It's just it's

(04:59):
a mass full way of crafting asong with one simple bassline that kind of
rolls through the entire thing. Butit's a good bassline. It's like one
of the best baselines. But Ijust find the song fascinating and masterful.
I'm going to give it second bestbaseline because I think if I were to
pick the number one best baseline,it has to go to Fallout Boy Dance

(05:21):
Dance Boom boom boom boom boom boom. There's nothing that gets better than that.
But what I did like about Ministryis immediately, yeah, that bassline
was very captivating, and and thenI liked you right because there were different
sections of the song, but thebaseline was like the through line. It
tied everything together, so you keepcoming back to the plot melodically exactly,

(05:42):
which I thought was really quiet.And I think that that's one of the
things, like you can hear thesong. You hear the song and you
think, oh, it's one thing, right, it's but when you think
about the song beyond just hearing it, you think about it, then you
discover that they create different emotions everytime they hit whether the whether the vocal
is playing with the thrash guitar ornot creates a different emotion, and they

(06:04):
are able to use the same structures, just moving the pieces around over which
is playing on what part to createthe song that actually elevates. So it
starts out the level we heard andthen it grows and grows it by the
end, it's like it all outthrashing where they scream and over what is
the verse? The verse is overthe heavy part, and it's just a

(06:25):
euphoric high point. It's great.I love when any it doesn't matter if
it's a band, you know,a pop singer like DM music, like
whatever it is. I love wheneverthey're able to do that well. It's
something that I hear a lot inhouse music is the layering of vocals on
top of each other. And it'sweird because I feel like it almost puts

(06:46):
you in like a like a minimeditative state, because there's so much stimuli
happening at once right that there's nogood way for your brain to attach onto
one thing. But it's done sowell together that it creates one thing and
it kind of just puts you inthis like I think bliss is like a
good word. Sure, Yeah,it's it's cool. Yeah, And it's

(07:09):
tricky to do because it has tobe done right where the parts don't step
on each other. Yes, ithas to be. There has to be
space in the mix frequency wise,so like you can't have too many low
things going on that jumble up witheach other. You need to spread out
the frequency spectrum and make sure thatthe parts, you know, interact in

(07:30):
a way that they work together.And that's not an easy thing to do.
So when you can, especially withvocals, it's pretty pretty special.
Trent Reznor is really good at thattoo. If you ever listen to like
the end of Closer, he justkeeps on adding another part. Here comes
another keyboard part, here comes anothermelody, here comes another rhythm, and
so by the end of it,it's like so much stuff going on.
It's and I actually really like that, and I always find myself doing that

(07:54):
a lot in Stabbing Westward music andmusic that I do. But then there
are points where I'm like, amI doing And I just actually had this
conversation earlier today, I'm like,it might I might be doing too much.
You have to pull it back,edit yourself. I think that's the
hardest thing when you're making music isthe editing, Yeah, because you can
get so hyper fixated, especially onyour concept of what you thought something would

(08:16):
be or could be. And Ithink sometimes you have to let the song
lead you in a way. Butit's so easy to just mmmm, what
if we did this? And mmwhat if I did that? And then
it just never ends. Yeah,well that's the thing. Yeah, I
mean you could. You could goon for days, and I that's my
biggest thing is I do tend togo on for days trying to like I

(08:37):
need to add something. I justdon't know what I have to haven't figured
it out yet, and eventually I'mjust just gotta stamp it and go like
push it out the door. It'sdone. But anyway, speaking about a
lot of stuff going on, thesong that you chose is what the words
best friends become redefined by chiotos whichand I specifically picked this song because the
other day we were looking at theflyer for when we were young to right,

(09:00):
and you were pointing out first wasbands you were familiar with, and
then you saw a couple that youenjoy so like obviously you were familiar with,
like my chemical romance fall up Boy, they used you enjoy Anne Berlin,
but you overlooked Chioto's And I waslike, how dare you waltz?
How dare you? You don't understandwhat a musical masterpiece of this band is.

(09:20):
Well, I'm I've heard of theband, and I'm pretty sure I've
heard some of their songs in thepast, but I haven't heard this song
until today. Oh it's abop andit's everything. It has a section for
everyone, really, I mean exceptfor maybe unless you're a country music lover.

(09:41):
Maybe there's nothing in here for you. But you know, but you
never know. Try it, checkit out. There's a This song goes
and three and a half minutes.It goes through so many different changes in
different parts, and I thought Ihad heard all the parts, and then
it dropped it to this one thatwas kind of like like dance floor I
don't know what, and I'm like, wait, what just happened? It's

(10:03):
pretty impressive, I know. Thisis what I love about them is that
there's elements to their music that istheatrical. There's elements that are it is
like ballroom dancing. There's elements thatare thrash and metal. And what was
interesting though, is because when Iwas listening to your song first, I
literally pointed out, like, oh, that word intro right, that sort

(10:24):
of like synthed over like words.I thought it was interesting that, like
completely blind, you and I actuallypicked a very similar songs in different ways.
It's kind of funny because I thoughtthe same thing when it got to
the one section in the Chota songwhere it had kind of like a affected
voice much like the ministry. Sowhat song where it's like we kind of

(10:46):
chose very similar but from different eraspretty interesting. I mean, I think
that's kind of the fun thing aboutdoing this thing where we come from two
different generations but throwing songs at eachother. This is gonna be fun to
turn you on all kinds of stuff. And likewise, absolutely, and that's
funny too, is like you andI. It's because I'm a pipe season
because you're a virgo. That's exactlywhat is exactly what it is, that's

(11:11):
the connection. Well, I'm gladyou see it too. It's the stars,
is what it is. That's whywe picked the same song. Oh,
let's see what we do next time. Bye.