The Zach Moonshine Show – Pale Horseman - Transcribed by Guilherme Lage
Zach: What the fuck, man? Pale Horseman, you guys are live right now on The Zach Moonshine Show with Metal Devastation Radio.
Flesh: Fuck yeah!
Jason: Very cool! Thanks for having us!
Zach: Welcome, dude, anytime, man, anytime! So, tell us what’s going on in the world of Pale Horseman?
Flesh: Well, covid kept it damper on a few things over here in the area, right now we’re just kind of writing new songs. We got two new songs right now with at least 75% done musically and the album just officially was released a couple of weeks ago and we can’t really do any shows or anything, so we’re writing again.
Zach: Holy fuck! So, this record just dropped and you’ve already got new songs getting ready for the next one!
Flesh: Yes, that’s correct.
Zach: Holy shit, man! Well, at least you’re staying busy, you know?
Flesh: Yeah, we have a pretty high output, we write a lot of music and I guess it comes a little quicker for us than some other people but not everything gets kept either, so these two songs we have are sounding pretty good so far. I was actually just at out bass player house a few minutes ago and that’s where I’m coming home from and recording a demo of updates of my song. I wrote one and then the other guitarist, Eric, wrote one, so...I’m working on it, we were just doing a little demoing a few minutes ago.
Zach: Cool, man, cool! So, tell us how long have you guys been doing this and exactly how did you get started?
Flesh: You wanna handle this one, Jason?
Jason: Uh, yeah, I can take it! So, I mean, I think the band has been around since 2012. They had a different drummer when they started. The other three members, Andre, Eric and Rich are the same. What did you guys do? Two, three records in a split EP without me? Is that right? I think three records.
Flesh: Uh, three full lengths in the splits.
Jason: Three full length in a split without me. I joined in 2016. I met these guys...obviously, we all have been in the same local scene kind of in and around Chicago. But I've played in a couple other bands and kind of met these guys, you know, through some mutual friends. And they were, they were looking for a new drummer and it was a pretty, pretty natural fit for my style. And we all obviously get along quite well and just just kind of work.
So I was it was 2016. It's been four years since then and we've done kind of two records in four years and played a lot of shows in the pre covid era, if you will, hopefully hoping to get back, hoping to get back to that in the not too distant future here, but so far so good. I can't believe it's been four years already. So it's eight years, eight years as a band, which is a pretty pretty long time in this day and age.
Zach: Yeah, man! And so, so as far as this record is concerned, can you tell us a little bit about, like, lyrical themes and stuff like that?
Jason: That’s all on you, Andre!
Flesh: All right, well, my stuff kind of deals more with, like, paranormal type stuff. I'm into paranormal and I was raised Catholic, you know, so I have a lot of, you know, like the Book of Revelations type stuff. And I watch a lot of ancient aliens. So I get a lot of ideas from that kind of stuff. And Eric, the other guy who writes the lyrics, the other guitarist, vocalist and I do most of the political writing. He... he likes a lot of kind of ancient history type of stuff, you know, Templar's and whatnot, things of that nature. So, yeah, we're into like ancient paranormal
and creepy stuff.
Jason: We try to keep it pretty dramatic. I mean, that's kind of all there's a certain kind of aesthetic that we're going for, I think. And we try to try to stick to that to some some form or fashion.
Zach: That's cool, man. I love ancient aliens and paranormal shit. Fuck yeah, dude, that's right up my alley. Yeah.
Flesh: I mean, besides that, besides the few wackos they have that are always say things like aliens from Bigfoot to the tooth fairy, that the history that they give and the geography that they give on that show is, you know, I learn stuff every show I watch. And it's it's very interesting to me.
Zach: Hell yeah, man. Hell yeah! So so for all the gearheads out there, I know they're wondering how the fuck you guys get such a heavy tone, man, in your recording process, what kind of gear did you guys use recording this record?
Jason: I think this one I mean, I think Andre jump in obviously to a specific of the gear stuff. But I think from my perspective, the big difference on this one relative to some of the others is just sort of where we did it. So we did this record in Electrical Audio in Chicago, which, you know, I don't know if you're familiar, but it's a pretty, you know, pretty well-known studio. It's actually Steve Albini’s Place. So we did not record with Steve, but we we ran into Steve a couple of times, which was pretty cool. But we recorded with Sandford Parker, who's a big you know, he's a very well known producer, kind of in our in our circles and kind of local to Chicago. And he's done some pretty, pretty big name stuff. So I think just the combination of really spending a lot more time with the
material kind of, you know, going into the studio, kind of demoing it just really, you know, sort of taking our time and kind of getting in there and back at the not that what we did before was not professional by any stretch. But I think this was, you know, from my perspective, this was a huge, huge step up just in terms of the process and obviously the quality that kind of came out of it.
Flesh: Yeah, the live room there for drums especially is is pretty amazing. Pretty much second second to none around here at least. And I think that had a lot to do with it as far as the drums and then, you know, with the guitar and the bass and the rest of the instruments besides the drums, we went into it really wanting it to be a really hefty sounding mix. You know, we have been told of going into we want not really like bass heavy and bottom and heavy and with Sanford during the recording and mixing process. And then again, when we had it
mastered the same thing, you know, we wanted extra extra heavy, extra beefy, extra heft. So, yeah, this one definitely came out a little a little more about than than our other recordings. And we were pretty happy with it.
Zach: Hell yeah, man, yeah. I was blasting it this morning in the car fucking on the way to work, dude. Just fucking jamming the fuck out , I was loving it, man fucking. But that's one of the things that I noticed was just how heavy it sounds, you know. And then, yeah. Like you said, the bass, the bottom end of it is really like the drums and the bass, the guitar is just crushing, man.
Flesh: Thank you, yeah! And the bass guitar itself, I feel like this record more than any of our previous records that maybe the split in 2016, you can really hear the bass guitar as well on this one, I think more than most of our other material. So we're really happy about that too.
Zach: Nice!
Zach: So, I got some questions for you guys coming in from the listeners in the chat room. Let me see here. Bad Wizard wants to know: what is your favorite place to play locally?
Jason: Well, that's a good one. I mean, probably probably Reggies in Chicago is one of our favorites. I mean, that's that's the place that we probably played the most. And that's that's kind of the go to sort of metal... metal venue in the area. I mean, obviously, you know, the Metro Up, I really feel is an awesome venue. That's a that's a great place to play, but it's a little a little tougher to get on shows there. You know, I'm used to used to love playing at the Double Door. Unfortunately, it's no longer no longer around. But that was that was another kind of personal favorite of mine as well.
Zach: Hell yeah! Well, Thunderous wants to know...
Flesh: I guess we love we love playing...
Zach: I’m sorry, go ahead!
Flesh: So I would just say that we we have a lot of local breweries that we like playing as well, but as far as a more professional venue setting, it will definitely be Reggies.
Zach: Hell yeah, man! Breweries. That'll bring me to another question here in a minute. But already Thunderous wants to know, how are you guys practicing now with the covid situation.
Jason: Really the same way we did before. . I mean, I think we're you know, we're all pretty we're all pretty judicious about the whole, you know, the whole situation. I mean, I think, you know, we're not we're not being reckless. I think we're all keeping our keeping our circles pretty small and, you know, mask wearing and all that kind of good stuff. But we've got you know, we've got our own practice room. It's pretty you know, it's pretty nice. It works for us. And so it's, you know, kind of control, controlled access in and out. So it's not you know, it's like we're sharing it with a bunch of other people or anything like that. So it makes it a little bit easier.
Flesh: Now, coincidentally, when we when we just finished the record, that was pretty much right when when covid started happening after we you know, we're pretty much done with the recording, mixing, mastering. So we actually didn't practice for about three or four months and we happened to be in the studio at that time. So and then and then it happened. So, you know, a couple of guys in the band have young children and some of us have elderly family as well. And so we took three or four months off, but now we just started getting together
again. And the building we practice in is this pretty good, you know, the hand sanitizer and it's gloves and masks and everything else and, you know, restricted access so well. But, yeah, we just kind of started getting back into it. And then, like I said, just starting to write a couple of new songs, you know.
Zach: Right on, man. Another question, JMC t wants to know, where was the best place that you woke up drunk?
Flesh: Jason’s basement!
Jason: Yeah, that is that's a good that's a good one to be back in the back of the college days, I woke up in a bathtub one time. I was pretty, I was pretty, pretty outstanding. And that's probably my personal, my personal best, waking up in a bath. I'm a little bit disoriented and not really knowing what the heck happened was pretty, pretty outstanding.
Zach: Well, speaking of brews, man, what are some of your favorite what's what's some of your favorite beers to drink?
Flesh: Oh, my God. How much time do you have?
Flesh: Our number one beer to drink is Gnashing of Teeth, gnashing of teeth at the brewery.
Jason: We did we did a collaboration with...we brew the beer with them when our last it was kind of after our last record came out and that was they've done it several times since it actually won a gold medal while one of the big beer festivals, um, I don't I don't remember which one, but it was one of the big ones.
Flesh: I think it was the US Open with Delaware.
Jason: It was one of them. It was really hot, actually. It's like their only gold medal winning beer. So they're they're a great brewery. They're good friends of ours. They've been probably probably the most supportive of our band of anyone. So, really good guys. But we actually we're all we actually all are big, big fans of beer. I myself am I collect beer, kind of. I have a basically a climate controlled room in my basement like a walk-in cellar. And I collect a lot of, you know, strange, rare beers and big burly shots and things of that nature. So I'm
probably a little bit more adventurous on that front than the rest of these guys, who kind of stick to their iPads and, you know, go with it. But I'm actually I'm actually drinking a Phase three brewing company, Adara IPA right now as we talk. I like them as well!
Zach: Uow, that’s insane!
Flesh: And you guys, if anybody listening ever is in the area and hasn't checked out,. Part check it out. You know, tell them to make more matching teeth because it's a really good beer.
Flesh: We also give a shout out to some of the some of the other local breweries that we play at and have a treat us real good. Blue Island Beer Company in Blue Island, Illinois, and also Metal Monkey Brewing in Romeoville, Illinois.
Jason: Yeah, it's a bit of a it's a bit of an embarrassment of riches. It kind of the beer in the brewery scene in and around Chicago. It's pretty it's pretty unbelievable. There's everywhere you go, there's like great stuff being done.
Zach: That's fucking insane, man. So you guys have your own beer.
Jason: We do, we do.
Flesh: We do. It's not available year round. But they've made it. They made, what, three batches now, probably since they first came out. And what was that. 2018.
Jason: Yeah, three or four. Yeah. Hit them up on anyone who's listening, get them up on social media and tell them to keep making it. Because we do and they don't, they don't listen to us, dudes. It's a double draft IPA. Etc.. So it's kind of one of the it's a it's a very, very good, but it's actually pretty drinkable. It's not to like, what's The AVV, like six something I think it's not it's not anything crazy. Flesh: Yeah, have five and a half, six somewhere in there. Yeah. So, yeah, it's definitely very drinkable and very refreshing. I could go for one right now. As a matter of fact.
Jason: Yeah, I wish I had one.
Zach: Do they do they ship them out or is it only available locally?
Jason: Yeah, it's only available locally, they're not a huge, they're not a huge brewery so they don't I think most of their stuff is on site and kind of take away. But, you know, they'll do they'll do a decent sized batches of it. They can do it and everything.
Flesh: We can ship some to you. You get you get their ship, don't you, Jason?
Jason: I get shipped all the time, I don't think it's a little it's technically not not legal, but I I just incriminated myself now so.
Flesh: OK, well shit. Yeah. We'll ship some. You're in the States, aren't you?
Zach: Yeah, man, I’m in Tennessee.
Flesh: Oh, nice. I love I love Memphis. Are you anywhere near Memphis? Love that city!
Zach: Yeah, yeah, I’m about an hour away from Memphis.
Flesh: Oh fuck man. Some good breweries in town too, man!
Zach: Hell yeah, dude!
Jason: Yeah I, I warned you that we could talk about beer for hours on end. You found the wrong story.
Flesh: We're all brewery buffs.
Jason: I'm actually, I'm actually I'd be I'd be remiss without a little plug as well. But I'm, I'm actually the part owner of a which is which is like flavored honey wine. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it, but it's kind of one of the up and coming things, what's called standard mood in Villa Park, Illinois. We actually just had our soft opening yesterday for the tap room. And so it's going so far so good and doing, what we can and kind of the era of covid. So I have to get the to get...the shameless plug in for that as well.
Zach: That’s cool, man! Me and my wife were actually watching videos on YouTube not too long ago about how to make that shit, because I've never actually tried it myself and I've always wondered that hard to make.
Flesh: It’s not that hard to make, my wife and I just made a couple of batches ourselves.
Zach: It doesn’t look that hard.
Jason: It’s pretty easy!
Flesh: Basically just make some honey and water and let it sit for a while.
Zach: Hell yeah, man! And let me see here. We got another question coming in from the listeners, I guess going back to waking up in the bathtub. Lady Red Lady Red wants to know what do you prefer better bubble baths or hot tubs.
Jason: Oh, hot tubs all the way. I love hot tubs.
Flesh:Yeah, I’m a hot tub guy too, lady. Lady red hot. Yeah, all the way. I don't even remember the last time I had a bubble bath. That's... that's a woman thing. I think it's more it's more of a woman thing I think what with the bath bombs and all that.
Jason: Yeah. I'm like I'm old and broken down and bad knees and everything else. The are out of the way to go.
Zach: Yeah. It's pretty hard to get in and out of those fucking little things.
Flesh: And he's the youngest one in the band so that just tells you where the rest are.
Jason: Yeah, that’s true.
Flesh: I’d like to get a hot tub, actually. I’m thinking about putting one in my garage.
Zach: Another question. Thunderous wants to know what do you what do you guys wear, boxers or briefs.
Flesh: Thunderous! Aw, you know what? This is a good question because I personally wear boxer briefs.
Jason: I do too! Boxer briefs are the way to go!
Zach: Me too, man!
Flesh: You need a little bit of support there, you know what I mean? It couldn’t just be slinging on wangling bambling from tree to tree.
Jason: Boxer... boxer briefs are optimal on the comfort ratio. So I think I've done extensive, extensive research and extensive study on this topic. And I think that's the way to go as depth.
Zach: Yeah, that’s definitely the way to go, man!
Flesh: Thunderous! I want to know what Thunderous wears, with a name like Thunderous! I’m thinking he’s a boxer man!
Jason: Thunderous...Thunderous, probably commando I think! It’d be the best answer!
Flesh: Ooh, man! It’s rough in the summer time though, man!
Zach: Probably like, like steel, steel, fucking armor, some shit, man. Another question. Lady Red wants to know, who would you guys love to, to tour with if you if you had the option to play with anybody.
Flesh: I know I can answer this question for both of us.
Jason: Yes, I know Andre's answer. I bet he does mine. I will answer for Andre. Andre, his answer is Godflesh.
Flesh: And Jason's answer would be Neurosis.
Jason: Nailed it!
Zach: Fuck yeah! Another question, how many instruments can you guys play?
Jason: Point five!
Flesh: Yeah, define play, you know what I mean?
Jason: I, yeah, I, I actually just got a really nice guitar and a family thing. I got a nice Les Paul, but I have no idea how to play it.
Flesh: I mainly do guitar and bass, but I mess around. I'm not, I'm not a real
musician. I'm just a noise maker, I like noise.
Zach: So, When you guys are jamming out, you don't you don't jump on each other's equipment and shit and fuck around or...
Flesh: No, usually no! and I'm not the type of guy that could sit down and crank out Zeppelin tunes and Beatles tunes and to pick up an acoustic and do all that. Our bassist actually, Richie, he can though, he's he's probably a better guitarist than I am. As far as that kind of thing, you know.
Jason: Yeah, he's probably the best pure musician in the band. I mean I've been playing drums since, like seventh grade and been in pretty actively bands almost the entire time. You would think, you know, just by being around it, like you would pick up some guitar or some bass or something just by being around all those years. And I like literally doing the nothing to the guitar. It's pretty ridiculous.
Flesh: But yeah, I can I can keep a beat on drums. I could probably I could possibly play like some Ramones songs or something like that. But other than that, I can't play, you know, I can't do any High on Fire or anything like that, you know.
Jason: Yeah. Well, I don't know about Andre and the rest of the guys. I mean, I'm I'm totally self-taught, so I never took any lessons or anything on drums. So it's all just, you know, listening to stuff and bashing away in the garage over the years and trying to slowly get a little bit better.
Flesh: Yeah, I think that's pretty much where all at, you know, I mean, naturally, you get some pointers here and there over the years just from friends and things like that. But none of us have really ever taken lessons or have any degrees or anything like that. We're basically all self- taught by ear. I don't think any of us knows how to read music or anything like that, you know.
Zach: That kind of it reminds me of, I don't know, here recently, you know, Metallica was putting out all these videos on YouTube of like old shows. They showed one from I can't remember what it was, but they was where they I was watching it and during Am I Evil, they all switched up places and James Hetfield got on the drums, Kirk go on the bass, Jason Newsted got on the guitar and Lars Ulrich got on the vocals and it was and they did Am I Evil and it was actually fucking badass, like it was fucking hilarious, man! Lars was fucking jumping off the fucking drum riser and fucking going all across the stage. I was like, holy fuck, dude, this is like a totally different version of Metallica that I never, never imagined. But it was it was actually pretty fucking entertaining, man.
Flesh: Wow, I’ll look for that, I didn't know there was anything like that around. It'd be nice to do something different.
Jason: They posted one that was really cool of the like the Kill Em’ All era tour, it was like them playing in The Metro in Chicago, which is a venue that I mentioned earlier, is just a great place. But that was I mean, it was probably like late 80s or something. Yeah. That was that was a really that was a pretty cool one to see.
Flesh: I will definitely seek that up because that sounds very interesting. Yeah. And Lars on vocals especially.
Zach: Yeah, I think it was I think I know it was a Justice tour for sure, but I don't know, I'll have to I'll have to try to look around to see if I can find it, man, I’ll send it to you guys!
Jason: Well, for as long as they didn't have short hair and weren't wearing eyeliner, it's probably a pretty good.
Zach: It’s before all that shit! So, coming up next, like, what's coming up next for you guys? What do you guys have planned? Coming up next, do you have anything planned or is it just sort of just see what happens?
Flesh: I was just going to say we had a couple of shows planned. Our last show we played was actually on Leap Day, February 29th of this year at Metal Monkey Brewery. And then that's when all the shit hit the fan shortly thereafter. And we had a couple of shows scheduled, I think, in May and July, and they both got canceled. And that's it. Like I said, just because of the pandemic that's going on right now, we really can't do anything but put right and maybe record. I don't even know if recording studios are open now. I would assume they are, but we are not at that stage anyway, you know.
Jason: Yeah. I think it’s interesting because I think from my perspective. So I've been in the band for four years. This is this is you know, it's kind of refreshing in a sense. It sounds a little bit weird, but this is sort of the first time that, like, we just don't have, you know, fifteen things going on. So we've always, you know, I don't think we overdo it on the show front, but we're pretty we're pretty active. And, you know, you find yourself trying to write new music and then you've got a show, you know, six weeks out. And the next thing you know, it's four weeks
out and it's two weeks out. And then you're, you know, sort of putting the writing process on hold, you know, freshen up the set list and kind of get reacquainted, you know, some of that stuff. And so not having that is, you know, for a short period of time, like, it's not the worst thing in the world, because I think it sort of allows you to, you know, really focus on the writing in the creative, creative process. But I think you ultimately I mean, speaking for myself, I think I'm speaking for the other guys, too. I think we all obviously really miss, you know,
playing live. And, you know, there's some friends of ours have done some live streams, Olympic venues and things like that. I mean, maybe, you know, maybe there's something kind of in that vein that we can do between now and the end of the year. But I think, you know, being able to just really focus on the writing
part is pretty nice without some of the other stuff.
Zach: Hell yeah!
Flesh: But is nice definitely having time and not being under the gun to try and get a set down and practice for a show and everything like that. But it's just a damn shame we weren't able to do an album release show because that would have been really cool.
Zach: Yeah, I can imagine it, man!
Jason: We'll probably have the next album done by the time we can do it on the
show, so we’ll have a two album release show.
Zach: So there you go, fucking double album show.
Flesh: Right! Will be, you know, almost celebrating our 10 year anniversary coming up pretty soon. So we'll do a 10 year anniversary of album release times two or something.
Zach: I got another question from Lady Red. I guess this is sort of with Halloween coming around the corner, she wants to know what's the creepiest venue that you ever played at or did anything creepy ever happen to you guys while on the road?
Jason: That's a good one.
Flesh: That is a good one...Jason?
Jason: No, take it... I'm a little bit stumped there. I don’t think uh...
Zach: Any haunted fucking venues or anything?
Jason: I don’t think so...I mean , so, there's a place in Chicago. I actually don't think we played there since I've been in Pale Horseman, it’s called Liar's Club. Yeah. Yeah. That's like it's a place, you know, a bunch of our friends own it, work there, great spot. It's actually on... I think was like the Travel Channel. They had one of those like Paranormal Ghost Hunter type shows and they actually did they did a thing at Liar's Club on that show and that building's been there forever. I suppose there was like some murders upstairs and things like
that. And one of my one of my good friends has worked there for a long period of time. And he's talked about, you know, some weird some weird stuff that sort of happened in the basement with you have stuff moving around and, you know, lights kind of going on and off on their own and just weird stuff like that. I personally have never witnessed any of it, but that's, you know, the urban lore is such that, you know, Liars are supposedly supposed to be on it.
Flesh: Yeah, we’ve never really had a paranormal experience with the show that I'm aware of, but, man, I sure wish we would.
Jason: Yeah, I’m all for it.
Flesh: We should start bringing Ouija boards or something when when we play do something.
Zach: There you go. That might, that might conjure up something.
Jason: Apparently we're just not evil enough to some of the summon the...
Flesh: Yeah, with the amount of satanic and demonic shit we got in the house, I mean I got books of demons and satanic bibles and Anton Lavey books. My wife's get all kinds of serial killer shit paranormal stuff. I mean, you think it would be an open door for these guys to come in and say hello, but nothing so far,
nothing.
Zach: They're probably just chilling and enjoying the music, man. Shit's pretty fucking heavy, dude, I gotta say.
Flesh: Thanks, man! I appreciate it, such a nice compliment.
Zach: Well, I'm about out of questions for you guys. Is there anything else you want to let your fans know?
Flesh: Just check us out. We got Bandcamp, Instagram, Facebook, Pale Horseman with an A, not Pale Horsemen. as people often mistake us for our vinyl on Bandcamp, it's only twenty bucks. And help us help us get some money up so we can make another one.
Zach: Yeah! And this is Bandcamp's first friday of the month too, so you guys get one hundred percent, right?
Flesh: Perfect time to buy, yeah!
Zach: Fuck yeah!
Flesh: And thanks so much for having us on the show. And thanks to Lady Red and Thunderous and everybody else for the questions, we appreciate you listening and taking an interest in what we have to say.
Zach: Hell yeah, man! Before I let you guys go, I got to get you to make us the station tag, alright?
Flesh: You got it!
Zach: All right. Whenever you're ready, say something like this is Pale Horseman and you're listening to Metal Devastation Radio.
Flesh: Together in unison or one at a time?
Zach: Whatever you want, man.
Jason: How about Andre? How about you say this is Pale Horseman and I'll say you're listening to Metal Devastation Radio.
Flesh: Ok! Hey, this is Andre and Jason from Pale Horseman!
Jason: And you’re listening to Metal Devastation Radio!
Zach: Fuck yeah, man!
Jason: How about that? That was a good radio voice! I got a face for radio, boys!
Flesh: Let's let's try it again. I think we can do better. I'll say radio with you at the end.
Zach: Alright, alright! Take two!
Jason: That’s getting tricky!
Flesh: Take two, ready?
Flesh: Hello, this is Andre and Jason from Pale Horseman.
Jason: And you are listening to Metal Devastation Radio!
Zach: Fuck yeah, man! You guys want a job?
Flesh: Let's see which one sounds better. Radio, radio, radio.
Jason: Yeah, little effect there.
Zach: Oh, yeah, man. Well, what I'm going to do now is I'm going to blast some more Pale Horseman for these motherfuckers so they can lose their minds, alright?
Flesh: Fuck, yeah. Thank you so much for having us.
Jason: Yeah, we appreciate it. It's a good time.
Zach: There you have it, folks. Pale Horseman live on the Zach Moonshine Show with Metal Devastation motherfucking Radio. Like I said earlier, put your speakers in your fucking windows, put them on your front lawns, put them wherever the fuck you can, make your neighbors fucking hate you. This is Pale Horseman on the Zach Moonshine Show.
FOR DUST THOU ART (2020) by PALE HORSEMAN
http://dlvr.it/Rh4g9Z
