How to Grow a DIY Punk Band in the Age of Social Media with Scooped Up!

by Isaac Kuhlman

Jimmy Barbetti and Jesse Randolph are members of the Connecticut-based pop punk band Scooped Up!.

  • Jimmy, formerly a graffiti artist and graphic designer, shifted to playing guitar around age 20.

  • Jesse, a drummer with a background in metal music, joined the band shortly after Jimmy started wanted to start a band.

  • They pride themselves on their DIY approach to the music industry, handling most aspects of their band from promotions to visuals.

Episode Summary:

In this episode of "Powered By Rock," host Isaac Kuhlman dives into the world of DIY music with members of the punk band Scooped Up – Jimmy Barbetti and Jesse Randolph. Isaac explores the band's unique journey from humble beginnings to amassing a dedicated following, with a special focus on their recently released album, "The Runs."

Jimmy and Jesse share their insights on the evolving landscape of the music industry, the power of social media, and how consistency and creativity have fueled their success.

Scooped Up’s story highlights the importance of a DIY ethic in today's music scene, with Jimmy discussing his transition from graffiti artist to musician and the band's evolution over the past eight years.

They delve into the art of promoting music in the digital age, using clever marketing strategies like parody websites and humorous social media content to engage their audience.

The conversation also touches on the band’s approach to creating music videos, where their creative process shines through in every frame, often reflecting a nostalgic blend of skate culture and punk rock ethos.

Intro Music: Birds Love Filters "Colorado" - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://youtu.be/dqD_jMhZGqU⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Outro Music: Speedway Sleeper "Snail Mail" - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://youtu.be/21-vX3bBagc⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

 

Please consider purchasing some cool merch or some musical instrument accessories at our site - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://poweredbyrock.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

 

Indie Musicians - check out the FREE DIY Rock Career Playlist here - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_2jRJsJubw&list=PL465-TazTQf5tZ9zGHitfmWQpYsbVlF99⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

You can also learn more at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://diyrockcareer.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Key Takeaways:

  • DIY Music Success: Scooped Up’s success stems from their relentless DIY approach, managing everything from marketing to video production.
  • Social Media Savviness: Consistent and engaging content on platforms like Instagram and YouTube played a crucial role in building their fanbase.
  • Creative Videography: Their music videos, especially for songs like "Shoelace" and "Dyslexic," are crafted with meticulous attention to story and visual appeal.
  • Staying True to Roots: Their music and videos often pay homage to punk rock and skate culture, resonating with fans who appreciate authentic, grassroots creativity.
  • Future Plans: The band plans to continue releasing innovative content, with focus on new music videos and upcoming shows.

 

Resources:

Timeline:

00:00 - Episode Intro

01:56 - How Has Scooped Up! Been Able to Gain Their Large Online Following?

24:33 - Scooped Up! Takes DIY to a Whole New Level

33:29 - Influences & Inspirations Behind Scooped Up!'s Music Videos

38:23 - Scooped Up! Talks About Their Newest Album The Runs

53:28 - What's Coming Up for Scooped Up!?

 

Transcript of Episode:

0:00:03 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Since the launch of MySpace and the rise of Facebook in early to mid two thousands, social media has been a staple of almost everyone's life. For the past 15 or more years. Musicians in past generations would have never even considered creating their own online presence. Heck, even being online is a pretty new concept for music. However, now that over 75% of the people in the US use social media on a regular basis, it's pretty hard to be off the grid as a musician or even just as a human being in a western country.

0:00:31 - (Isaac Kuhlman): So the rules have drastically changed over the past 30 years or so for musicians and the music industry. Instead of record labels discovering new bands and putting money into the development of these bands, most musicians are expected to reach a certain level of success before record labels even come knocking. That success in the past usually meant that the band was really good at making music. However, now that success means they have to be good at making great music, gaining a following on social media, getting views, clicks, listens on streaming platforms, move merch, and even distribute their own music and basically create a ready made business that already makes money. Most fans struggle with one or two or all of these new roles they have to take on, but there is a little known band with a pretty dedicated following out of Connecticut called Scooped up that proudly proclaims their diy roots and has gained hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube, almost 25,000 followers on Instagram, and played several shows over the past eight or so years that have helped them become a bit more of a model for other bands to keep an eye on. Are they the most successful band in the world?

0:01:29 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Probably not. But are they a great rising band, having a great time while playing music that they love? Yeah. And there's not many better reasons to be in a rock band than that. So today I'm gonna be speaking with Jimmy Barbetti from scooped up about their diy work ethic and their brand new album that just dropped earlier this year called the Runs, which is a pop punk throwback that going to love. All right, so here I am with Jimmy and Jesse from scooped up out of Milford, Connecticut, small town in Connecticut.

0:02:15 - (Isaac Kuhlman): I've actually been to Connecticut once. I've been to Kent, Connecticut. Drove through New Milford, I think, which is a little bit on that on the way up there.

0:02:23 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, we're from Old Milford, though. Old Milford is way better.

0:02:28 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah, of course. Yeah. New Milford fucking sucks from what I hear, so don't worry about that fucking show.

0:02:33 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah. They have some bad news headlines, let me tell you.

0:02:36 - (Isaac Kuhlman): All right, so obviously, I wanted to bring you on, talk about kind of you guys rise, your story and all that stuff. But I think the first thing I want to talk about is the kind of interesting fact that, you know, Jimmy, you actually started out not as a musician. You kind of started out as a graphic artist, graffiti artist, and you took the visual concepts of that medium and basically moved it over to music. When you started playing guitar, I think it was somewhere around the age of 20 or something like that. So I was telling you before we came on that I've only ever heard of this happen once from a band in Australia called psychedelic porn crumpets, who I fucking love.

0:03:10 - (Isaac Kuhlman): But talk to me about what got you to finally decide to jump over to the music side and start playing in a punk band.

0:03:16 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Growing up, being a musician just felt, like, so out of reach. For whatever reason. Like, I felt you had to be born a musician or, like, you know, you had to have the right upbringing to, you know, pick up a guitar and go and get good at it or whatever. So, like, for the longest time, I just. That was in the back of mine. I never even, like, tried it. I played piano when I was like, a little kid. I took piano lessons, I took drum lessons, but I had the worst add growing up that I would never retain any of that shit. And I just, like, literally, I didn't want to practice, so that wasn't for me. But making art and stuff like, that was my first passion was graffiti art.

0:03:46 - (Jimmy Barbetti): So, like, that's all I used to do was, like, think of paintings and draw and go and paint shit. And then eventually, like, around that time when I was, like, really deep into graffiti, that's when I picked up the guitar. I just borrowed my guitar or my friend's guitar, started, like, learning riffs and writing songs or whatever. And then I started jamming with some people that were just as bad as me that are from my township. And, you know, I kind of got the itch from that, from just jamming with a drummer. I was like, oh, this actually sounds pretty sick. Like, I want to, like, write more songs and actually, like, if I could record a song that I could skate to, like, that'd be lit. So that was my whole, like, goal.

0:04:18 - (Jimmy Barbetti): And then I eventually hooked up with Jesse, who, like, a friend of mine reminded me who is just like, this prodigy drummer. Like, in my head, he's just, like, the best drummer in the world. Like, and not to discredit him, you fucking one of the best around here for sure. But, like, I was like, I gotta get in, Dan. With him, he's like, that would just be awesome, like, be the perfect fit. And he was down to jam, like, the next day. He, like, just happened to be jamming with his friend who plays, like, bass, and we jam the next day, and that was, like, that was it. That was history, you know?

0:04:47 - (Isaac Kuhlman): So would you say you scooped up a couple of good musicians to kind of back you up then?

0:04:51 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Pretty much, yeah. And that's the thing, is, like, I sucked then. Yeah. So, like, they helped me get so much better from just being, like, ready to go.

0:04:59 - (Jesse Randolph): Right. They give them a crash course. Yeah, they literally did how to be a musician.

0:05:02 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, like, they were ready to go. They were ready to be, like, an ataring band. And I was just like, this kid just cleaned up guitar and having to write some song and shit. So, like, you know, us working together, they got me to be so much better as a musician just so quickly than I would have otherwise, you know, they say you should always, like, play with people. Like, if you're trying to learn anything, you should, like, do it with someone who's, like a master at it and you'll pick up so much so quickly, you know?

0:05:26 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah, it's kind of like the phrase never be the smartest person in the room. If you are the smartest person in the room, find smarter people to be in the room with.

0:05:32 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Exactly, yeah.

0:05:33 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Very cool. So what was your. What was your perception of this Jesse Winston guy who was just like, I just learned how to play guitar, wanted to be in a band with you.

0:05:41 - (Jesse Randolph): Yeah, at the moment. At that time, I wasn't really into, like, punk or anything like that. I was really into, like, metal music. I just, like, came out of, like, a progressive, fresh metal band and then, like, a death metal band and a few other bands like that, like, very extreme metal. And that was, like, kind of my cup of tea. And so I was just in a kind of, like, a lull period where I was like, I just came out of a band. I kind of wanted to just not play with any bands and just kind of, like, own my skills and stuff and, like, try to live types of music.

0:06:18 - (Jesse Randolph): And then he just randomly, like, hit me up and was like, oh, I'm trying to, like, you play some punk songs. I'm like, all right, I guess.

0:06:25 - (Jimmy Barbetti): And he was doing charity work, like, down, man. Literally. I was surprised that he was come.

0:06:31 - (Jesse Randolph): Over and, like, smoke me up and we fuck. Get jam around. So I was like, yeah, no, this is cool. Like, it was just fucking around. Like, it was nothing serious at all. And my dad one time, this was so long ago.

0:06:43 - (Jimmy Barbetti): I'm still living with my parents at the time.

0:06:45 - (Jesse Randolph): I think I was, like, 18 at the time.

0:06:47 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, when we started down, I was, like, 21, something like that.

0:06:51 - (Jesse Randolph): At the time. He was a guitar player. He's musician stuff. So he kind of taught me how. A lot of things that I know about musician playing in bands and stuff like that. And he. There was one time after we got done jamming, one of my dad was like, he's rough. You know, he's rough around the edges, but he's got something there. He, like, was telling me, like, I don't know, this is lyrics or with the holes or something there, like, hidden beneath all the shit.

0:07:18 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Well, this is also the first time.

0:07:19 - (Jesse Randolph): Martin shit diamond.

0:07:20 - (Jimmy Barbetti): This is the first time they saw it playing along with the melodic music and not, like, you know, death metals. Yeah, that was true. My fans saw it.

0:07:28 - (Jesse Randolph): Yeah. Joseph played in, like, nineties, like, alternative if, like a Scott, kind of like a Scott pop kind of stuff. So the shit that we played is actually a little more akin to, like, his kind of style music.

0:07:42 - (Isaac Kuhlman): I don't care how much marijuana you smoke, just stay away from those goth kids or whatever.

0:07:51 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah. And, like, I was still grateful for him wanting to jam with me and then, because, like, I knew that at any moment he could just go and just join another band that was way more, you know, put together. Whatever. In the beginning, it was. Our band was so just like a. Just a fun project that, like, slowly, over time, we, like, the bar is raised and, like, you know, once we first play our first show, we're like, oh. We're like, not. Like we weren't even playing on playing shows. We were just playing on, like, recording some songs and then just calling it at that.

0:08:18 - (Jesse Randolph): You know, it was, like, almost a year until we actually played our show.

0:08:21 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah. May not be getting so tight that it's like, we have to. We should play shows. You might as well. And then, you know, it all just fell into place. The name of the band, everything kind of just, like, it came from, like, the most, like. Like, genuine, like, beginning or. I'm not finding the words, but, like, it all just happened on its own, like, naturally or. Dude, it was organic. Yeah. And, like, that's all forced.

0:08:41 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah, yeah. So. So an older kid told you to come join a punk band and you did? Jesse. That's what happened.

0:08:47 - (Jesse Randolph): Yeah, he bothered me. He actually groomed me into being.

0:08:50 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, yeah, right. That put that in right while we out is.

0:08:56 - (Isaac Kuhlman): He's like, I've been checking you out since you were 14, now you're 20.

0:08:58 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Or now you're 18.

0:09:06 - (Isaac Kuhlman): So I think a lot of people who check your guys's music out is going to be maybe shocked because they've never heard of you. But you do have some genuinely, like, big numbers on YouTube and Instagram for, you know, kind of a local band. So obviously you guys have been around for about eight years, but growing that online presence kind of. What. What are some of the key steps that you've seen in the process? Because there are going to be things that you do that other bands go, oh, shit, yeah, we should probably do that, too.

0:09:31 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Well, it's literally from eight years of not stopping and just do, like, just doing that shit.

0:09:37 - (Jesse Randolph): Consistency is definitely number one.

0:09:39 - (Jimmy Barbetti): And like you said, like, I kind of use my, like, graffiti brain to promote us in a way, by, like, I'll give out stickers at every pump show that comes around. We've given out over, like, 50,000 stickers in world and that doesn't translate online. Like, at least you can't really tell how much it does, but, like, stuff like that.

0:09:57 - (Jesse Randolph): It does.

0:09:58 - (Jimmy Barbetti): It does, but it doesn't. It's not. It's hardly like, yeah, you can't say.

0:10:01 - (Isaac Kuhlman): For every thousand stickers I hand out, here's how many followers I'm going to get, right?

0:10:04 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, it's hard to tell, but, like, a lot of people, like, I got an email from somebody last week that doesn't even have social media and they're like, you, I love your music. But, like, they emailed us on Shopify and, like, they're like, oh, I love your music. You gave me a sticker at the green Day concert, blah, blah. I'm like, boom, right there. That proves that it works. You know? And we would have never known because they didn't follow us on Instagram, whatever.

0:10:22 - (Jimmy Barbetti): But, like, it was just a ton of, like, little viral moments we've had. Like, I would make a bunch of, like, one time we made our website, mekstucks.com and I just posted that in a Facebook group. Like, a pop on Facebook. Group captain MGK was all the rage and everyone was talking about him. Literally. This pop cult group, they scroll down it. Every post was like, either someone hating on MDK or someone saying, I want to say love them and shit. So when I posted mdkstalks.com, like, literally that was it.

0:10:48 - (Jimmy Barbetti): The post blew the fuck up. We got like, 7000 website views and it only cost me $15 for the domain. It was the cheapest promo we've ever done. So, like, super little things like, that added up and just bunch of little viral moments that happened that just piled up and living consistency of, like, our grand. You know, it's always been just, like, very consistent, and we stay active online even when we're not doing anything. Like, our last album took us over for, like, about four years to make, but we were still posting all throughout those four years. We were never, like, dead in the water or, like, on hiatus, you know, we were still releasing, like, a song a year and whatever, you know.

0:11:23 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah.

0:11:24 - (Jimmy Barbetti): And the thing I would say, though, like, one of the biggest things nowadays that I like to do is, like, stand in front of the camera and, like, talk about each show that's coming up instead of, like, putting it in text, because most people are going to scroll. They're like, your post, but they're not going to read, like, in the caption, like, oh, they're playing this town at this date or whatever. I should remember this port. At least when you hear it spoke to you, it is embedded in your brain a little more. So maybe they did read the post, then they hear me say it, and then they see the flyer again, and then it, you know, it clicks in that sense.

0:11:52 - (Jimmy Barbetti): So, like, I would say any, like, small band starting out make videos saying, yo, we'll be in this town. We'll be playing here this Friday, you know, and it goes a long way whether you see it or not. Like, it helps where it does, you know? And don't only do that either.

0:12:06 - (Jesse Randolph): You gotta have other music has to be good, too.

0:12:09 - (Jimmy Barbetti): That's true. Yeah, good music. And don't forget, don't forget to play.

0:12:12 - (Jesse Randolph): Your instrument and your father.

0:12:14 - (Jimmy Barbetti): And also just other good content, too. We put out a lot of funny content, so that gives people entertain to. It's not just like, yo, go listen to our shit. Yo, go, come do that. You know what I mean? It's not a lot of that.

0:12:25 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah. And that's, I think, where a lot of, like, bands in the past are like, well, I don't want to have to sit there and create comedy skits and do all this stuff to grow my music. I'd rather just be good at music and let the music speak for itself.

0:12:36 - (Jesse Randolph): I'm like, that's fine. It all. Yeah, it all just depends on the person, really.

0:12:40 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah. Well, in 2024, you have to do shit online. We're just lucky that we're, we're already used to doing it before. It was before TikTok. It really even existed. We were already making videos and content online all the time, like, pretty often.

0:12:54 - (Jesse Randolph): Starts to, like, great, feel, like, authentic.

0:12:58 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not just doing, like, the new viral trend. You're actually making your own thing, your own genuine, you know.

0:13:05 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah.

0:13:06 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Comedy or whatever.

0:13:08 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, exactly. But if I do a viral channel, it's me shooting on that viral chapter, doing my own, like, perry of it, you know, I mean, because we've done stuff like that. Uh, right when my album came out, I was doing, like, uh, I'm gonna smoke one cigarette for every father we have. And, like, every day I was doing something like that where I was like, I'm gonna eat one piece of pizza for every father. I'm not sit there and I pretend to eat all these pizzas or pretend, like, cigarettes, and those were blowing up. And that was, like, kind of a parody on, like, the push up challenge. People would be like, oh, man, do you want to push up your follower yet? Whatever.

0:13:36 - (Isaac Kuhlman): And, like, the opposite, though.

0:13:38 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, literally. Yeah. And I was basically was doing the opposite. And every day the followers were going out, so every day I'm saying, I'm your number, and more people are following. And it really was working in its own way. And, like, not in the same way that people, like, follow the fitness pages that were doing that, but, like, it was a vile thing in itself. That was pretty funny for us.

0:13:59 - (Isaac Kuhlman): And I think one thing that you, you do, obviously, that most musicians and most people who, again, are want to be these purists who just think that the music's good enough, you can live off that, but you actually run ads, even to just, like, post on, you know, Instagram or whatever to help promote you, right? Like, that's not something that most bands even think, why should we run ads? Why should we run ads? Like, well, how else can you reach a bigger audience than run an ad, right?

0:14:25 - (Jimmy Barbetti): No, exactly. Well, if you believe in a product that you haven't tried to put out, like, putting ad revenue into it, like, is only gonna help you. And that's what we did.

0:14:33 - (Jesse Randolph): There's just another way to just find one more set of ears.

0:14:38 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, I don't rub it in our face. Now we can't even run ads anymore. We got fans from running ads. So I'm trying to fix that. But that was the dude that was working so good. There was this one video I had running as an ad that literally was just creating fans. Every day we were getting 100 followers, and I had a million dollars. I would put it into that. But, yeah, it was helping a lot when we were doing it and it has helped and that's how we've gotten to this point is like big thanks to ads and shit. Like the YouTube views.

0:15:06 - (Jimmy Barbetti): A lot of those music videos were run as ads to get more people to view and shit and find us and. Yeah, it all goes and adds to the snowball.

0:15:15 - (Jesse Randolph): I think it's just a change in like the, like just, I don't know, like the atmosphere too. Like people want for Covid there. People want it like they want real music. Like coming out of real instruments. Coming out of like real people. Yeah, live, you know, like they want that. I feel like more than ever at least. Like we. I know when I was like a team and stuff, it just felt like I. Yeah, most people were just like the club listen to music and stuff like that. Yeah, I don't know, there wasn't as.

0:15:45 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Much club bangers like usher and stuff pumping so you can dance to it, right?

0:15:48 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah. You're definitely fortunate enough that we're like, we're still a band and I, we're.

0:15:54 - (Jesse Randolph): In New Jersey and there was like, there was a bunch of like dumbbell, like, like kids, like the teens basically over there and they were throwing down like, like phrase. They were like losing their minds.

0:16:03 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, like, holy shit, dude. This, that really felt like a, like a boomer.

0:16:08 - (Jesse Randolph): I was like, these young kids are fucking nuts.

0:16:10 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, like literally, like it has swaps where people are not all into alternate rock and all this stuff. They're like, I'm glad they were sitting down.

0:16:19 - (Jesse Randolph): But it's also awesome. And we are, we're enjoying it because, yeah, we are enjoying this kind of music more than ever. That since we bit the band at least when we started, like lying, I.

0:16:33 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Think that the new version of rock music that's kind of creeping up because if you go back, you look at like, you know, rock music had its heyday, you know, you know, punk, all these, like, scar, all these different genres had their heyday back, you know, before 2000, right? And emo had it like kind of in the early two thousands. But one genre that hasn't really had its own era yet was hardcore punk.

0:16:57 - (Isaac Kuhlman): And that's right now, like exploding. And that's how these kids are just beating the shit out of each other at shows. They're like, we just want to go fight, basically.

0:17:06 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Cool scene. That's like, it's the cool scene now. Instead of like when I was growing up, when I was in high school, the cool scene was being like a drug dealer being into rap and fucking, you know, being hard and whatever. Like, it was just like, think about it. Always shows. Yeah. Not going to shows, not even going to see rappers perform because that wasn't even live rap, the thing. Yeah, that shit sucks.

0:17:25 - (Jesse Randolph): So most of the time, mostly.

0:17:27 - (Jimmy Barbetti): So our band is pretty much a reaction to the lack of rock and during our, like, our hideous fuck being in high school. School and whatever, and, like, going, like, reaching back to when I was a kid growing up to this type of music. Now I'm old enough to make it on rap, too.

0:17:43 - (Jesse Randolph): I want it. I'm not trying to do that at all.

0:17:45 - (Isaac Kuhlman): But this is called powered by rock. So if anybody here is expecting to listen to rap music or talk about rap music, yeah, I think most of us will agree that what you've accomplished is no small task either. And it takes a lot of hard work. So, like, being that dedicated and you guys have actually stayed the same three members the whole time, right? Like, it's one band the whole time. Correct.

0:18:12 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Since our first album came out, we haven't been the same.

0:18:16 - (Jesse Randolph): Halfway through the first album, we. We had to get a new bass player.

0:18:20 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Our original bass player quit after, like, a year, like, two years of being in the bandaid. Um, just like, get. He had to, like, get a new job and all this other stuff. You don't want to be using his time for that.

0:18:30 - (Jesse Randolph): So he was also a metal musician that I recruited that. Yeah, he was.

0:18:35 - (Isaac Kuhlman): He wasn't as, let's get out of here.

0:18:38 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah. But, yeah, he was an amazing musician. That's why. Yeah, him and Jesse and Walter, who was the original bass player, they're who got me to be as good as I am. And then, like, Leo jumped in and he's like, was just as good as a musician. Like Jesse and Leo or Jesse and Walter to like. And also how the.

0:18:57 - (Jesse Randolph): Yeah, he, like, even clutched Jude because we lost a bass player halfway through the first album, which I feel like is a death sentence for most fans. Like, like, it's pretty much the ben's.

0:19:08 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Over and you're paying money to go record and you're like, well, we're not going to make this finished, so let's do an ep, I guess.

0:19:15 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, well, we ended up making it work. And there was also, like, for what we were doing at the time, we were, like, we were surprising ourselves with, like, where the band, like, just how the whole image of the band and everything, just as a band starting, like, six months, didn't get a whole album, like, written. And, like, we had music videos for our three song ep. Like a song for every song or a video for every song. Just like, all this stuff going on that it was like, you know, we can't just stop now.

0:19:38 - (Jesse Randolph): Like, by then, we were actually taking the band serious.

0:19:42 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, like, as serious as we were that, you know, I mean, we've. It's been levels where we've taken it more and more seriously, but, like, when Leo was joining, you had this whole thing kind of set up, so it was like he was down for it because he saw the potential of it, you know, it was all right there.

0:19:55 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah. So I guess my kind of, like, continuation. That question is, like, obviously sticking together and that was like six years ago. So it's been like the same band for six years now, right?

0:20:04 - (Jesse Randolph): Yeah.

0:20:05 - (Isaac Kuhlman): You guys have had ups and downs, right. So, like, what are some of, like, the most memorable, like, high points of the band so far? What are kind of. Some of the things there is? Like, well, I glad we didn't have to do that again or, you know, we didn't have to play at a show in New Jersey where kids beat the shit out of us. Right.

0:20:21 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, yeah, I mean, we've had shitty shows and now we're finally having great shows. So, like, the ups and downs are definitely there. There's been a bunch of small gains on top of each other. We had a poop tub video that went by all for like a million views.

0:20:37 - (Jesse Randolph): It's like talking about poop tubs.

0:20:39 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, but that was like, talking about shows.

0:20:41 - (Jesse Randolph): Everyone does everyone for us. It just basically, like the whole. Just band experience and, like, last, like, what? Year and a half or.

0:20:50 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yes. Since, like, probably six months before the album came out. Like, stuff really started.

0:20:54 - (Jesse Randolph): Yeah, yes. And, uh, like, the almost hurry year to feel, like, longer.

0:21:00 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, yeah, yeah, they kind of.

0:21:01 - (Jesse Randolph): Yeah, just kind of started to pick up for us. And yet most of, like 9% of.

0:21:06 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Our shows were playing or like.

0:21:07 - (Jesse Randolph): Yeah, it just feels, like, better than the last one.

0:21:10 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, I mean, for the past couple of years, we've played decent shows, but, like, decent shows for a local band. Now we find shows that are like, like real band shit. Like, we sold out our album rumors show. Yeah, like our album show, we had, like 200 people there the whole night. And that place, the cap is 130. So throughout the whole night, it was capped out. People leaving, people showing up. And so that was like the beginning of this whole snowball that's just continued to grow.

0:21:36 - (Jimmy Barbetti): And, like, we went on tour and all those shows were literally all dope. They were like. They were as dope as the shows used to be locally, when we were just a regular local band, which is all your passport, so you go and.

0:21:46 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Play for 40, 50 people. That's great.

0:21:49 - (Jesse Randolph): Yeah, perfect.

0:21:49 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, exactly.

0:21:50 - (Jesse Randolph): So, like, so basically just became, like, just kind of worth it. Enough to go burn gas money and time.

0:21:59 - (Jimmy Barbetti): A little more than worth it.

0:22:00 - (Jesse Randolph): Yeah, a little more than worth it. Now to go, obviously kind of do all that.

0:22:03 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, we've gone to show. We've gone and played New Jersey ones to nobody. Like, literally nobody, which sucks.

0:22:09 - (Jesse Randolph): Or Massachusetts or.

0:22:10 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, like, we've done. We've done a couple shows, like. Yeah. Throughout the years, we played plenty of out of state shows, but, like, they're always just, like, hit or miss. We've had a couple really dope ones. Like, it, like, a couple years ago, we played a show in New Jersey that was just, like, a packed house party that we're thrilled for, you know, and that was, like, the taste of what we get now and now all of our love machine.

0:22:28 - (Jimmy Barbetti): And so, yeah, it's really grown at low point.

0:22:32 - (Jesse Randolph): I mean, Covid is an easy cop out answer, I guess.

0:22:35 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah. When Covid happened, we were, like, in the middle of writing this new album, new runs, and we're just not trying to, like, bright signs.

0:22:41 - (Jesse Randolph): I had a feeling that's a low point for every musician ever because nobody guys play shows maybe, you know? Yeah, we actually still play a couple of shows, like, outside gigs at the skate park and whatnot. That's kind of where the skate park shows started. Yeah, because of COVID it was, like, having access to that kind of. Over the years, it turned into its own little, kind of, like, annual summer. Kind of, like, we'll do, like, order to skate park chart.

0:23:05 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah. Now this year is gonna be the biggest there's been that we've had. There's tons of vendors and food trucks and shit. But, yeah, clearly it obviously was a low point because we just. There seemed like no future, whatever. Like, it was all, you know, is there even gonna be an entertainment business or industry, like, when this is done? And it's mostly been at all high points. Yeah.

0:23:23 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Nice.

0:23:23 - (Jesse Randolph): Yeah, also just before, like, a major release, too. It's kind of, like, anxiety inducing because you're just like, oh, is this all about, like, we're about to see the, you know, the results of all this, you know, time and.

0:23:35 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, it's just kind of flopped. Like, where do you. Yeah, we could.

0:23:38 - (Jesse Randolph): So nobody gonna give a shit at all.

0:23:41 - (Jimmy Barbetti): And, like, luckily, they gave shit. A lot of shit.

0:23:44 - (Jesse Randolph): Me personally I mean, I've been. I've been playing fans, uh, since I was twelve, so 15 years, and I've been playing Jordan ticker longer than that. So for me, I've. I've released music hunch and nobody cared.

0:23:58 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Except, like, my mom and dad, you.

0:24:00 - (Jesse Randolph): Know, and, like, the other band members parents, you know, like.

0:24:03 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah, my mom thinks I'm cool.

0:24:05 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah. So now.

0:24:08 - (Jesse Randolph): Yeah, I know, it's. Yeah, it's crazy.

0:24:10 - (Jimmy Barbetti): This new album we were the most prepared for out of everything I've ever done. Like, we put all of ours in this basket, and it worked out, like, just. Just the sheer fact that we had that many people that are on Lemisha. I was hoping, like, if we got 100 people, actually, I was hoping if we had 80 people there, I would have been stoked. And we got more than doubled. So, like, that right there just proves, like, you know, it was all worth it.

0:24:46 - (Isaac Kuhlman): I want to dig into kind of the diy aspect of this because that is kind of part of your ethos, right. It's kind of part of the thing that you stand for. So, you know, obviously, as you're kind of doing this, you've got multiple layers of this, right. So it's not just, like, the graphics, it's not just the TikTok and the, you know, Instagram reels and all that stuff. But you're also talking about recording, mixing, mastering, distribution, merch, all this stuff. Like, is that.

0:25:10 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Do you guys do all that yourself as well, or did you actually go into a studio to record or. How does that work?

0:25:15 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, we have a friend of ours that does all of our recording and mixing, and then we send it off to get mastered by professional.

0:25:23 - (Jesse Randolph): Yeah, we've always had. We've always had the same recording. Penguin year ever since, like. Yeah, first album.

0:25:31 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yes. Playing range.

0:25:34 - (Jesse Randolph): Yeah, our money ran, and he mixes it as well, and then he. And then we send it off to get it. Master.

0:25:41 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Those are the only things you don't do, or it makes a master. But every single thing else we do ourselves, you know, like, distribution and everything.

0:25:47 - (Jesse Randolph): But, I mean, like, we've had, you know, we have help with a lot of stuff with every aspect of the band, from, like, friends to just, like, other artists, like photographers and videographers, and I think we have people that make shirts for us and hats and stuff and patches and whatnot.

0:26:05 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Like.

0:26:06 - (Jesse Randolph): Like, yeah, I mean, I don't know if that discounts us with being DIy or not.

0:26:12 - (Isaac Kuhlman): It's never really been DIY works. Right.

0:26:14 - (Jimmy Barbetti): It's.

0:26:15 - (Jesse Randolph): I mean, it's never really been, like, a big issue for me, whether it was like, I don't know. The way I looked at it was like, not all this be DIY for the.

0:26:23 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Just.

0:26:23 - (Jesse Randolph): So would it be DIY and say, that's what we are, so we can be cool? Like a lock guard?

0:26:28 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Like, yeah, that's not like it was.

0:26:30 - (Jesse Randolph): Always out of necessity because it's expensive doing anything for a van. Like, doing anything at all. And so just when we first started to keep as much of it in house as possible so we don't have to dish out money because we're broke. Yeah, that's basically it. Well, you know, now, as the band does evolve, the band now generates money. You know, we all put in money and stuff like that into the band, so we're able to now do more so we can create, you know, higher quality products and, you know, give people your animate t shirts and manual hats.

0:27:02 - (Jimmy Barbetti): You know, music videos as an example. Like, if we weren't doing those ourselves, we would have to dish out, like, a lot of.

0:27:10 - (Jesse Randolph): Just not have.

0:27:11 - (Jimmy Barbetti): We would have music. Yeah, we would have, like, five show at most. We have, like, 15 at that.

0:27:18 - (Jesse Randolph): And if you didn't have, like, certain capabilities with, like, graphic design or just editing and whatnot, then it would literally be me making a logo on paint, like, when I was, like, 15. Yeah, for my band.

0:27:31 - (Jimmy Barbetti): So, yeah, it's like, that's what I heard that we lucked out on is that, like, you know, my background is in art and then design, videography, and a little bit of comedy and just all these little things that, like, once the band came and I had music.

0:27:45 - (Jesse Randolph): Gear and shit, when we first started jamming and a practice space, so it's, like, ran out to spend money on that. We have little pa and speakers and shit, you know, we had all that stuff ready to go, so it was just, like, there was a lot of things that just kind of lined up that were, like, for most fans, especially starting off, I feel like that's like a real hurdle to get over. But for us, it was just kind of like a more seamless kind of transition into the next step of being a vein. Dude, we were able to now be where we are now.

0:28:14 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah. Also at this point, I don't have any freaking plan b, so, like, I'm all into this shit. Last couple of years, I've been on no birth control, no bird control. We're all dogging that shit all the way. That helps, too, you know what I mean? Just the fact that I'm like, I don't. It's not a chore. It doesn't feel like a chore to put in all these hours editing videos and making a video every day. Or do I love doing it and it just, like, I can put all my talents into one big art project and it's really fun and awesome to see it, like, you know.

0:28:45 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah. And the question wasn't framed to test your dIy kind of credibility.

0:28:50 - (Jesse Randolph): No, no, I wasn't saying that.

0:28:51 - (Isaac Kuhlman): I know you here is that other bands, other people are going to want to sit there and say, hey, you know, what? What are they doing to get what they get? What. What are they putting in to get the result right? So I think it's very smart when you don't do the recording, mixing, mastering yourself, because you can sit there and do really great work and it take you three years or you could do half ass work and it take you six months.

0:29:15 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah, better for like, three weeks. Right.

0:29:19 - (Jimmy Barbetti): So, no, we definitely wanted, like, a professional touch with our, like, recordings because that's just gonna be listed forever. So, like, yeah. Everything else we can kind of evolve with times, you know?

0:29:29 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah.

0:29:30 - (Jesse Randolph): I think you need, like, an outside kind of perspective on things sometimes, too. When you're so close to the art, it's hard to really see or hear what it really is.

0:29:40 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah.

0:29:40 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Randy are recording. He's the homie, so it's always fun, like, doing it there and, like, you know, there's no asshole. We just smoke and chill and laugh the whole time and just get the shit done. So, like, it's a great process that we got going, too.

0:29:58 - (Isaac Kuhlman): We'll talk. I'll talk more about some of the music videos and stuff like that in a minute. But I do want to bring up the fact that, you know, you have actually, like, put out music videos, right? So, like, these aren't a what I would call, you know, local diy kind of music videos. These are high quality videos. Like, you've got professional gear now. You've thought about storylines. You've scripted stuff out. I mean, even from the first ones. Having, like, house shows be like the theme. Like, you have a lot of the stuff. Again, we'll talk more about the actual concepts or the, you know, details of these. But, you know, you're writing, directing, shooting, editing.

0:30:32 - (Isaac Kuhlman): You know, you talked about having AdHD. Is this like, therapy for you or how does that work when you have AdHD? Because I hate editing and I don't have AdHD. I'm like, fuck, I hate doing this. Like, I got to edit these podcasts. I'm like, oh, this takes me like 2 hours. I'm like, this shit's crazy.

0:30:46 - (Jimmy Barbetti): My AdHD just makes me be creative. Like, if I'm sitting still too long, not, I didn't make something today. Like, I'm just like, I gotta fucking do something that's like. And I smoke a lot, so that kind of helps. But like, that's how, that's my outlet is just creating shit or like just doing something. I don't know, it doesn't, it helps. It makes me kind of like focus on the things I only focus on the things that I'm really passionate about. Everything else I'm not focusing on, you know what I mean? That's like how it kind of affects me. It does.

0:31:13 - (Isaac Kuhlman): And how did you get the experience with the videography and the directing and all that stuff? Did you do something in school or how did, how'd that come about?

0:31:21 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, so, I mean, I've always just made stupid videos with my friends. Like, just like a handy cam growing up. And then like when YouTube started off, I started making skids and shit. Like, there was a couple of times in my life where I was gonna like, be a youtuber. I just never really did. I kind of just made stupid videos for myself and learned a ton of shit on my own. Like, I'm self taught in like Photoshop and video editing just from like starting off at like eleven years old and just like really having all the time in the world because you're eleven years old. If I could do that shit.

0:31:50 - (Isaac Kuhlman): And so when I was eleven years old, freaking Jimmy. I think. Well, we, yeah, we had Microsoft paint and that was about the extent of any graphic design you can have at that point. So, yeah, it's, it's nice to hear that like, kids have disabilities these days.

0:32:02 - (Jimmy Barbetti): I had a, I had a fucking pirating version of Photoshop that my mom got from her design guy at her work. And I was, yes, that's. I told some all that shit.

0:32:14 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Don't tell that the feds are fucking coming, bro.

0:32:17 - (Jimmy Barbetti): This was fun. This is 2004.

0:32:21 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Statue of limitations, bro. Can't get me now.

0:32:24 - (Jimmy Barbetti): But I also did go to college for graphic design and I took photography classes and other stuff, so I honed my skills during those time periods.

0:32:32 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah.

0:32:32 - (Jimmy Barbetti): And almost would just have a lot of free time throughout my life to do all this stuff.

0:32:37 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah, I think there was. I thought I saw something, I think recently, like today or yesterday, where it said, here's a pro tip. If you drink enough, you'll get kicked out of work or something like that. Like, your job will make you go home early or something like that. And I was like, so, like, it's kind of the same with you. If you just smoke enough weed, people won't want you to be at work with you. Right. So you got free time.

0:32:56 - (Jesse Randolph): It just never work. Then you could just be in the end.

0:33:01 - (Jimmy Barbetti): I've never had a job. I'll tell you what, you know, you.

0:33:06 - (Jesse Randolph): Just live under a brick. You have a lot of free time to do whatever you want.

0:33:10 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, yeah. Sometimes you live under a bridge and just work out all your.

0:33:15 - (Isaac Kuhlman): He's like, actually, we just. We rented out this room at some person's house for this interview.

0:33:20 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, no, there's a green screen.

0:33:21 - (Jesse Randolph): No, yeah, we're actually under the bridge right now.

0:33:24 - (Jimmy Barbetti): You can't hear the fucking. The highway.

0:33:41 - (Isaac Kuhlman): All right, so let's actually dig into this music videos because I think this is obviously one of the key concepts of basically your guys's creative motif, I would say. But, you know, your music and your videos kind of are both sort of a nod to growing. Growing up in a small town playing punk music to a dedicated fan base where you focus on playing house shows, skateboarding, causing some mischief, smoking weed, eating pizza, drinking beers and just in general kind of having a good time. For the most part.

0:34:07 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Not all the songs are about that or these themes particularly, but a lot. A lot of that kind of comes with, you know, the territory. With a lot of the videos. The whole narrative actually seems to flow rather smoothly. I actually went and watched every single one of your videos just to kind of see how they flow. And it reminds me a lot of, like, Kevin Smith movies like clerks and mall rats and then another one in a minute. But do you try to keep a running narrative in some sense with your music and the videos even if the songs themselves aren't exactly connected in any other way then how, you know, when you wrote them or is it just kind of like you just like to do that? Like skateboard house shows, like, all that kind of stuff?

0:34:44 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, I think it just happened naturally. I was not on purpose that I don't like. But over time, like, especially with some of the videos for the first album, they kind of, like, live in the same universe in a sense.

0:34:56 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah.

0:34:56 - (Jimmy Barbetti): You can imagine it all happened in the same universe.

0:34:58 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah.

0:34:59 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Even, like, our newest, like, with, like, best days and stuff. Like, a lot of our really good videos kind of, like, follow the same formula where there's, like, something happening and there's all this other stuff. Interacting with that something and, like. Like, with weed song. There's, like, the blunt that gets passed around by everybody, and it kind of follows the story of this blunt that gets lost and picked up and all this other stuff happens in between it, so.

0:35:22 - (Jimmy Barbetti): And, like, with best days, it's following us, traveling in the van and all these. All these little things. Yeah, every video kind of. Yeah, shoelace found the shoes or whatever, they all kind of have their own little thing going on, but you could imagine that it's all in the same universe and. Yeah, Kevin Smith is a huge influence on me, like, as a filmmaker and shit. Just like. But, uh, Hunter also, there's, like, a lot of, like, shit from the nineties I grew up watching. Just, like, I really absorbed that and, yeah, it's just. It's ingrained into my, like, sense of humor and my.

0:35:53 - (Jimmy Barbetti): My shit that it's just like, yeah, I just. I skate. I like ice skate, but. So that's why there's a lot of skateboarding shit in there.

0:36:00 - (Isaac Kuhlman): If you don't skate, it'd be scooped up's biggest secret, right? You're writing all the skate songs in this.

0:36:04 - (Jimmy Barbetti): I guess so. I'm not the best skater in the world. Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to be a skater or, like, be a pro skater. I just cruise and I have fun. Like, I'm pretty decent what I do, but. Yeah, like, but it's just part of my lifestyle is just, like, you know, smoking weed and fucking punk rock and skateboarding and fucking parties and shit. And that's where all comes out. And that's also comes hand in hand with being good visuals. So we end up doing that a lot, and it just makes it fun for people that want to come to our show. And now finally, our shows are that.

0:36:33 - (Isaac Kuhlman): You know, and I'm going to have to do, like, a still shot of one of your videos. And it's actually in tv dinner. There's another nod in your music video there where you have a movie poster on the wall for the CKY Bam Margera movie haggard, which my friends and I probably watched, I don't know, 100 times back in college in the early two thousands through various degrees of being pretty shit faced. And they always cracked me up. Like, how have these independent films inspired you to direct these music videos in, like. Because that's obviously pretty heavily, like, involved with skateboarding Mark Pam Margera and stuff like that and all their, you know, everybody that was jackass.

0:37:09 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah, yeah.

0:37:10 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Like, and, like, was a millionaire I fucking 18 for making his CK Washington, selling a million tapes. Like, that was a huge influence on, like, what I like to do. Just like, you know, it's like to document shit, too. So, like, drop the whole band making songs, and that song is good. I want to make, like, a visual to it because it just brings it to life. Cky and jackass like that. That shit is also, like, goes hand in hand with, like, punk rock and skateboarding shit. So that was kind of the vibe that we're trying to, like, emulate, too.

0:37:38 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Did you ever buy a reverse microwave, by any chance?

0:37:41 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Oh, it makes it. No, it makes things expand or what?

0:37:48 - (Isaac Kuhlman): No. You don't remember haggard? Did you ever watch the movie?

0:37:50 - (Jimmy Barbetti): I have, but I haven't seen it forever.

0:37:52 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah, exactly. So the whole point, I think, was, uh, rake or whatever. One of the guys in the show, he was, like, a scientist that created the reverse microwave where it makes things really cold really fast, and they're like, aren't you talking about a freezer? He's like, yeah, microwave.

0:38:06 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, no, that would be genius. I wish I had that because I should make that shit. You made me think of this stupid joke I made in one of our other videos where we had this big magnet, and I was like, yeah, there's no chick magnet. But right now, it's, like, not calibrated right, and it's just for colleague chicks and not.

0:38:35 - (Isaac Kuhlman): All right, so let's talk about the new album. Obviously, the runs. It's, you know, it came out in January of this year. It was six full years after your original album, Dumbass, which is a great title for intro album, I think, you know, starting a band in 2018. You're a dumbass. Right. So, anyway, I am curious. I am curious as to how, you know, the recording and the release of this album came together and why was there a reasonably long delay between some of the singles and the full album? Because you were releasing songs and videos, even two, three. Well, maybe not three, but, like, two, two and a half. Maybe even a year and a half before the album came out. So was this. Were these songs part of that album, like, right away, or were you thinking, like, let's just record some singles, put that out? Or how was that. How did that all come about?

0:39:21 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, it was always supposed to be out.

0:39:23 - (Jesse Randolph): Yeah.

0:39:24 - (Jimmy Barbetti): And we just like stuff as it was ready. And we also, like, we just. We have written half the album, and then, like, Covid happened, and then we, like, started writing, like, more for the album maybe a year and a half later. So I wanted to just take a break and now write about fucking lockdown or just, like, depressing shit. And then once we pick back up, we started writing songs and whatever, and it's just, like, there's just a long process of, like, writing the stuff, getting it tight enough to record, recording it all, and just, like, putting it all together.

0:39:52 - (Jimmy Barbetti): We thought we were gonna get it done so much sooner, but, like, going, like, when you're doing all your stuff, there's so much that goes into making an album, and, like, certain things rely on other things. Like, everything relied on the name and the album cover. There's just a lot of things that.

0:40:06 - (Jesse Randolph): Yeah, I think the intention was to release two singles and then the album, and then it just turned into. Yeah, we had to just, like, push it back. I don't know what. When it was that, we were like, okay, this isn't coming out. All right. Got pushed back to call back on that. Too soon.

0:40:22 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah.

0:40:23 - (Jesse Randolph): From, like, 2020 to the release, and.

0:40:26 - (Jimmy Barbetti): We, like, took two songs off. Yeah, we're like, let's write meta songs.

0:40:29 - (Jesse Randolph): Yeah.

0:40:29 - (Jimmy Barbetti): And then we put those on that.

0:40:33 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Shitty songs on here. All right, let's put these shitty.

0:40:36 - (Jimmy Barbetti): That's not happen yet. But, uh, like, we just. The reason why I released that stuff when we did is because, like, reruns was one of the first songs we had written and ready. And during COVID I recorded that whole video of just, like, the tv in different places and stuff, and I just didn't want to, like, be, like, put too much time in between releases. So, like, it had been, like, a year or so since our epic sample came out. So then we released, like, reruns pretty much a year after that.

0:41:03 - (Jimmy Barbetti): And then, like, a year after that, we did dyslexic. And then I think a year after that, we did best days. And then slowly we did, like, shoelace, and then the album came out, like, six months later or, like, three months later. Some shit. Yeah. And, yeah, it needed that much time, and I'm glad we took the time to do it because we could have put it out a year and a half ago, two years ago, but it wouldn't be the album that it is today, and, like, we wouldn't be the band of album today if we didn't put all that time into it.

0:41:30 - (Isaac Kuhlman): And it's funny, because, Jesse, you were saying that we're not here to talk about poop.

0:41:33 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Literally.

0:41:33 - (Isaac Kuhlman): The name of the album is the runs, and you have a guy shitting his pants on the COVID So we kind of are.

0:41:39 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, yeah. If you kind of are, buddy. This right here?

0:41:43 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yep.

0:41:45 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah. So that was one of the biggest things, too, with putting something together that's like, what we. We spent a long time, like, trying to. But we spent a long time trying to think of, like, the album name and the COVID to where, like, it took. We were basically, like, at the, like, our deadline. We had passed our deadline multiple times when we're just like, we need to name this thing. And for the longest time, I had this idea for the runs and this exact cover, but I just thought it was too stupid to make an album that we took four years to make to make it that cover and shit. Like, so for the longest time, we were like, we need to think of something more serious, more cool, whatever it is. And we just never did.

0:42:25 - (Jimmy Barbetti): I remember Jesse being like, you know what? Why don't we go and just, like, shoot the COVID and we'll see how it comes out. And if it's, like, really, you know, if that's it, we'll know. And we. And when we took the COVID and we saw this and, like, I edited some shit and shit about it to make it look real clean and stuff, it just. We just knew that, like, yeah, let's fuck it. Let's just do it. We didn't have any joke songs on the album this time, so just make the album name a joke.

0:42:45 - (Jesse Randolph): Our cool little theme, too.

0:42:47 - (Jimmy Barbetti): They also created for a cool theme because then we have, like, the ace one took like, that picture, too.

0:42:53 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah.

0:42:54 - (Jimmy Barbetti): And, yeah, it was a cool little play where it's like that. It's like home runs, but then you look and you got from home ads. Yeah, it works.

0:43:02 - (Isaac Kuhlman): I'm happy you added two shitty songs to it, so it totally makes sense.

0:43:05 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Right, right.

0:43:09 - (Isaac Kuhlman): You gotta keep the shitty songs on there. Keep the concept of the theme alive.

0:43:13 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Oh, and it made for, like, the perfect marketing campaign because all I just had, like, I thought of so many stupid, funny things to do with poop that, like, anything with. To do with poop is marketing the album. So it's like, you know, the poof jug in itself was margin, the album.

0:43:28 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah.

0:43:29 - (Jimmy Barbetti): But like, you know, so it was good.

0:43:32 - (Isaac Kuhlman): I will put a disclaimer here in the episode that says, like, none of these songs on this album are actually shitty. Jimmy just believes.

0:43:38 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Oh, yeah, no, don't worry about it. Those songs are shitty. They're all shitty in a good way.

0:43:46 - (Isaac Kuhlman): It's twelve songs of garbage, but we put them out anyway.

0:43:50 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Four chunks.

0:43:52 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah, 14 songs. Well, twelve songs of garbage. Two songs of shit. So there you go.

0:43:55 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Oh, you like that?

0:43:57 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah.

0:43:58 - (Jimmy Barbetti): So that was the thing is we wanted to just do twelve, and that's why we took two off. Oh, let's just replace them with two better ones. But then when we got it done, it was like. It was so short of an album. We're just like, you know what? Fuck it. We already have these songs recorded. Let's just put it on. I think we're.

0:44:11 - (Jesse Randolph): I think we just found out that we're a 14 song album kind of a band.

0:44:16 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah.

0:44:17 - (Jesse Randolph): Because of the nature of. Of the song. Like. And it's so quick. Like. Like, twelve songs. Like, our first album is even shorter because there's a few songs in there that are, like, 15 seconds long. Like little joke songs.

0:44:31 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah.

0:44:32 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah.

0:44:32 - (Jesse Randolph): So, like, I don't know. So that album literally goes by, like, I think it's fun.

0:44:37 - (Jimmy Barbetti): I think it's 18 minutes.

0:44:38 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah.

0:44:39 - (Jesse Randolph): So it's 18. This literally needs pretty much even our.

0:44:42 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Album with 14 sockets.

0:44:44 - (Jesse Randolph): Speaking of albums isn't easy. Right. There's, like, usually albums a lot. 45 minutes, like a half hour.

0:44:50 - (Jimmy Barbetti): I love a nice, solid half hour album.

0:44:53 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah.

0:44:53 - (Jesse Randolph): I was just like, it has to be anything, but. I just, like. I feel like usually there's kind of, like a form things, and obviously our music doesn't really cater to that, so it's like, yeah, we kind of need 14 to piece it up a little bit. So it actually feels more like a, like, full length.

0:45:11 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, yeah. Make it worth the money.

0:45:13 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah. Put it in perspective. Fans who are watching this episode right now, to this point, could have listened to both of your albums already by the time they got to this point in the interview.

0:45:23 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Oh, you're right. Yeah.

0:45:26 - (Isaac Kuhlman): So that's like, a little, like, you know, Pink Floyd and the wizard of Oz. It's kind of like that they can just play both of your albums back to back and get here and then podcast. People will be like, fucking smoking weed to be like, holy fucking shit. They got so meta right now.

0:45:51 - (Jimmy Barbetti): You took a sip of the water.

0:45:52 - (Jesse Randolph): Right when the fucking.

0:45:53 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, yeah.

0:45:59 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Let's dive into some of the songs about it, because on the new album, because I think, you know, obviously there's some of my favorites. I do. I do love the song and video for dyslexic. I kind of want to point this one out because, though, the song and the video kind of don't have anything to do with each other. Because you say on the site, you know, the song is about two people who have feelings for each other but never kind of realize it about themselves. Right. So, like, they're. They're kind of blind to this, you know, affection.

0:46:24 - (Isaac Kuhlman): But then when you make the music video, your band is working at a diner and getting robbed for pancakes. So what sent you in the direction for that video?

0:46:31 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Oh, I don't know.

0:46:33 - (Jesse Randolph): There is usually no correlation between the songs and the music videos out.

0:46:37 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah.

0:46:37 - (Jesse Randolph): And then. And the names. The names usually have nothing to do with the songs. And the songs have nothing to do.

0:46:42 - (Jimmy Barbetti): With the music videos. Yeah. If you think of tv dinner, like, that song, like, if you listen to that song and close your eyes, it. It plays a movie in your head where I'm, like, jerking off again, coughs, cut my dick off or getting caught in my music or whatever. We were not gonna make that video. You know what I mean?

0:46:56 - (Isaac Kuhlman): So you don't want to have ibroemydic.com in an actual, real setting, international thing.

0:47:02 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, I'm not gonna recreate that. That's another one of our websites. That, like, was funny. How did first. But yeah, the reason why we did that video there was because that was, like, the breakfast place that I went to every day. I was always with the dude that owned it. And I asked him one day, like, I've also filmed, like, stupid skits in there before. And I was like, yo, let me do a music video here.

0:47:20 - (Jimmy Barbetti): And then he's like, all right, cool. So remind me, doing the. Okay, I'd just like, then imagine to that whole scenario, it would be cool if you just got robbed or whatever. And like, he was like, yo, I'm getting stacks in the back. And then we bring dang cakes. So I wrote out a script to every 2 seconds of the song so that I knew what was going to be played every. Every 2 seconds. And that video was the easiest to shoot because of that. You just have it in order. And, yeah, it was a lot of fun to do.

0:47:44 - (Jimmy Barbetti): I think it came out really sweet.

0:47:49 - (Isaac Kuhlman): I know that this has been a comparison for you guys for a long time as far as the music goes, but a lot of people say it's, oh, they're like blink from the early albums, and I won't even take it one step further. I say it's kind of like Green Day from the early albums mixed with blink from the early albums, which are two of my favorite versions of those bands. Because pretty much anything passing samiac, I don't like anything past insomniac by Green Day. And I actually really love Kerplunk, probably that and insomniac are my two favorite dookies, good. But Kerplunk is fucking great, dude. Range is fucking great. Cheshire cats great.

0:48:21 - (Isaac Kuhlman): And everything after that's good by blink winning, too. But it's like, I like the way that they did their music back then. When I was, like, they were tight with the sound, they knew exactly what they wanted, right? So if there was somebody who was, like, looking for that sound in a band, I'd probably point them to the sound, to the song shoelace and say, listen to this. And the reason why is because not only is the song quite good, it's only like a minute and 40 seconds long or something like that, but the video you did for it is probably the most artistic and kind of most interesting creatively of all the music videos, because you actually spend time going through this story about these, you know, Chuck Taylor, converse all stars. It's the story of this shoe. And imagine the song title doesn't match up with what the lyrics are necessarily talking about. I mean, you could. You could theoretically kind of morph it into that or anthropomorphize the shoes or whatever.

0:49:12 - (Isaac Kuhlman): But I think that when, you know, you're doing this artistically, it looks incredible. And you're using that 60 millimeter film, which you haven't really used a lot. Right. Until, I think you did two videos with that. But talk to me about this process, because this was one of those moments where I was like, okay, they're not. They're not fucking around, right? Like, they've got some ideas. They. Even if the song theme isn't really matched up with shoelace, like, the title, and then this thing that they're doing with the shoes actually kind of makes a lot of sense. So tell me about the process for that video.

0:49:44 - (Jesse Randolph): I guess I stand correct if that is the one. Yeah, the one song that matches the.

0:49:51 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Song and the contents of the song. So, yeah, that was the first video we did on film. I did. I did a short film. If you go on YouTube and you said in junior Barbetta, you can see all my personal, like, stupid shit on YouTube. I did a short film on film that was, like, my test to see if I can even pull it off. And it was kind of developed, right? And, like, whatever. And so that. That came out really good. So I was, like, the reason why I got the camera and started getting into film, because I've always loved the look of film and all of our photography. I can, if I have control of it, if we're setting it up, it's usually mostly all on film.

0:50:28 - (Jimmy Barbetti): So all of our pictures are already on film. I was trying to just do a video on film, and it always seems so out of reach and just so far fetched. But over years of researching it and finally getting the money to get the camera and practice on that shit, I found nervous ready to do that music video on film. And since I was doing it on film, I wanted to make it more of, like, a art artistic video. So that's where I guess the concept of, like, following the life of a pair of shoes, like, kind of came from and. Yeah, just like, I just did the same thing that I do with all my other videos where just, like, a bunch of shit happens, whatever. But, like, this time, it's just the perspective of shoes and there's no.

0:51:02 - (Jimmy Barbetti): There's no personality to be put onto it except for whatever the viewer puts on.

0:51:07 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Exactly.

0:51:07 - (Jimmy Barbetti): There's ways to interpret it.

0:51:08 - (Isaac Kuhlman): And it gives you, like, bits of nostalgia. It gets you bits of, like, emotion. And it's like, it's. It's. It's like almost a Pixar or a Disney movie, like, where they do their shorts, right? Where it's like you're cheering for a robot or, you know, or some shit and you're like, I don't know why I'm emotional about this fucking thing that's not alive, obviously, but, yeah. Oh, fucking. The leaf finally went out to the ocean or whatever. Like, what the fuck? Like that for a day.

0:51:33 - (Jimmy Barbetti): I'm sure people shed a tear when. When the shoes were thrown into the tree at the end.

0:51:37 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah. No, what are you doing? You've killed these trees or the kill shoes.

0:51:43 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Oh. And that's just like a natural thing on my skate park is there's really just a shoe tree. So I felt like that was the perfect ender to just throw the shoe in the tree. And I made that little art piece of, like, a thing.

0:51:53 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah, I mean, it fits very well. And I think, again, one of the things I like about this is everything that you do. Like, again, like I say, there's kind of, like, this flowing narrative. And it's not. It's not like it's one continuous movie, but you have recurring characters. You know, you have, like the guy who's trying to deliver pizza and somebody knocks it out of his hand or takes it and he gets back in his car and leaves. You got, like, you know, like, you know, the weed song and all this stuff. You're basically using the backdrop of your city and characters like friends and as characters in real life to kind of tell the story of Milford, Connecticut. For somebody who's never been there, it's actually pretty cool to see because it's like, oh, this is like a lot of other small towns, a lot of other cities.

0:52:33 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Not necessarily east coast towns, but it could be Midwest, it could be California, could be Texas. It could be wherever. And it gives people that. That feeling that they're connected to it even without even being there.

0:52:43 - (Jimmy Barbetti): That was really cool, actually. And I haven't thought of it like that. And that's when kind of like, comparing us with Emmy Smith. Like, that makes so much more sense. Like, with clerks, he just, like, hired or he has people he knew into the video, into the movie. And that's where we live. Yeah.

0:52:57 - (Jesse Randolph): Oh, yeah.

0:52:58 - (Jimmy Barbetti): We also only shoot in the summer years. We try to make Milford, Connecticut look like fucking Southern California by just. Only shooting those nice out. A lot of times it's shooting up. So no, don't. Don't get the wrong idea of this.

0:53:11 - (Jesse Randolph): Place being so global warming. We have summer until, like, October now.

0:53:16 - (Jimmy Barbetti): So heading into California and spinning up, it's kind of nice. Yeah, we are Southern Connecticut. Yeah.

0:53:22 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah. Southern Connecticut. Soco.

0:53:26 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Soco. Same thing.

0:53:41 - (Isaac Kuhlman): You've released a couple more music videos, I think, since. Or maybe one after the album came out, I think something like that. But what else do you guys have coming up? Shows, music videos? What else do you have in the pipeline?

0:53:53 - (Jimmy Barbetti): We do have one more video that we're gonna be putting together. It's just like a compilation video footage. I haven't even really started working on that yet. But that's just gonna be something we stock together to kind of, like, cap it off sometime soon, in the next month or two. And we got some shows lined up. We got the skate park show August 24.

0:54:08 - (Jesse Randolph): We got one in Jersey.

0:54:09 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, we got another skate park show in New Jersey. And then we got another skate park show. Another October 19. So October 12 will be in New Jersey. October 19, we'll be back in Muffford.

0:54:18 - (Jesse Randolph): And there's a house show.

0:54:19 - (Jimmy Barbetti): And there's a house show in Milford now. Just one. Oh, there is two. There's one hash on Milford that is on the first. And then another hash in Yukon area storage, Connecticut. And that is the 28 September, right? Yeah. And that's. That's all we're doing for shows after that. We're gonna just focus on writing stuff. We got. We got two banger office written right now. We don't know if we're gonna put him on an ep or if we're just gonna fucking send it on another album or what we're gonna do. But those songs are at least come out a single sometime whenever we talk and get around to it.

0:54:56 - (Jesse Randolph): But we're gonna re record some old songs, maybe.

0:54:59 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, that's nothing. We're gonna rerecord two songs from our first album just to kind of bring them up to speed on how, like, quality wise, we only do something.

0:55:07 - (Jesse Randolph): We still play them live and stuff. So I feel like the songs are kind of different from how wrote and recorded them. So tighter.

0:55:18 - (Jimmy Barbetti): The quality would just be way better, too. Yeah, just Regan. So that'll just be a little thing to hold people over. And then other than that, we're just going to try to write fucking really good song. Just keep the ball rolling.

0:55:28 - (Isaac Kuhlman): So before we jump off, is there any shout outs or plugs or anything else that you'd like to talk about before we end the interview?

0:55:34 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Shout out Brian. I fucking owe him $20. I got you on Friday. My bad, bro. I only got 18. Oh, yeah.

0:55:43 - (Jesse Randolph): If he sees any cover, the other two.

0:55:45 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, I'm gonna give that to him on Friday.

0:55:48 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Go check out the runs, obviously. Go buy the album, merch, all that good stuff.

0:55:52 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, yeah, go watch your stuff. If you didn't, if, like, this podcast wasn't enough to go to pique your interest, go and watch a music video. Ours. It'll. It'll pique your interest.

0:56:02 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah, yeah. You can go check out the poop jug and the electrical socket for trick.

0:56:08 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, that'll have to work. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Thank you, man. Thanks for having us on.

0:56:12 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Yeah, of course. And so you guys check out all the links below and make sure that you go check out scooped up because they fucking rock. And if you like, you know, like I said, pre famous, pre really famous. Green day and pre really famous blink. I think you're gonna love scooped up. Go ahead, Jimmy.

0:56:27 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Hey. Oh, wait.

0:56:28 - (Jesse Randolph): We're just trying to stay pretty famous.

0:56:30 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, we're just pre nutting all. One last shout out is shout out to homegrown. That's how I found your podcast, because you did the podcast with homegrown, who I've been following forever, and then they just recently got back together. Everyone's stoked about that, if you're into their shit. And I literally bought tickets to the California show that's coming up with no plan on how I'm gonna get there.

0:56:52 - (Jimmy Barbetti): And now I'm gonna have to sell them because it's now coming close to the show, and I have no plan how I'm gonna get there. But yeah.

0:56:59 - (Isaac Kuhlman): Gofundme get me to California.

0:57:01 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, yeah.

0:57:02 - (Jesse Randolph): So that you wound up in California?

0:57:05 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, I was going to sell some stuff and maybe work, but me and we haven't ever shown the day after, like the house show on the 21st is the day after the homegrown show, so I can't make it work.

0:57:16 - (Jesse Randolph): You was about to sell this guitars to do see home?

0:57:18 - (Jimmy Barbetti): Yeah, I was gonna sell my spine.

0:57:22 - (Isaac Kuhlman): What two songs did you actually cut from the album and add back on?

0:57:26 - (Jimmy Barbetti): No, it was. It was.

0:57:28 - (Isaac Kuhlman): That's the show for today. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you learned anything or liked what you heard on the show today, please show us some support and subscribe to this channel and like comment and share this video with a friend or put it up on social media. I hate to keep asking, but without those small actions, the YouTube bots pretty much ignore this channel. Putting these videos out is a lot of work. If you want to show your appreciation, please consider purchasing some of our musical accessories or merch from our store at Powered byrock.com.

0:57:53 - (Isaac Kuhlman): you can reach our blog and follow us in the links below as well. Those are the plugs and that's all I have. I'll see you soon for the next episode. Until then, rock on.

 

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