Bad Omens Interview with Meltdown at Riff Fest 2023
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00:00All right, once again backstage here at Riff Fest with Jolly from Bad Omens. Good to see you, brother.
00:04Thank you. Thank you for having me.
00:05Yeah. Hey, by the way, you just mentioned that you're from Sweden, obviously.
00:08So how do you get mixed up with the guys from Bad Omens?
00:10I mean, you've probably answered this question a billion times, but...
00:12I did answer it yesterday, and it's like a long answer. I just keep saying the universe.
00:17The universe, yeah.
00:17Because, you know, I was over there, and I had another band, and right when that band kind of fell out to not wanting to tour anymore,
00:23that's when I got in contact with Noah and, like, through my friend, our first bass player, Vincent.
00:28And, yeah, since then, you know, we just got in contact.
00:33Just a crazy small world.
00:34Yeah, exactly.
00:34And then you just spiraled into this, honestly. That's how it went.
00:37Yeah, I didn't know who I was going to be talking to for the band, and I was going to ask them who the greatest rock band to ever come out of Richmond, Virginia was, which is...
00:43The Lamb of God.
00:45Guar.
00:49Yeah, no, like, solely from Richmond, Virginia, isn't the answer Lamb of God?
00:53Well, I guess I was going to say Guar, but, yeah, Lamb of God's pretty good, too.
00:56We are. You know what I'm saying? We have municipal waste.
00:58Oh, that's right.
01:00There's a lot of...
01:00I saw a pair of glasses for municipal waste today. That's why I had those in my head.
01:04Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just... I don't know that much about those guys. That's a crazy band.
01:08I just know they're some crazy punk, I think.
01:09Yeah, they're a crazy band.
01:10I used to like punk rock back in the day, so...
01:13Yeah, that's unreal. So, what's going on in the Bad Omens world? I know you guys dropped the record last year and stuff.
01:19Is there anything in the works? Do you guys prepare for anything?
01:23I mean, we're just keeping very, very busy.
01:25And then now that we're... It's hard to, like, get free time to do anything else but tour.
01:29But when we do, when we're off for a month or whatever, we try to get a little creative now and get some new ideas started and, you know, have something to work on off stage.
01:37But that's the point. Like, the next tour needs to be prepared. You know, the visuals needs to be thought over.
01:42It's a lot of just off-stage, off-tour work as well. It's a full-time gig for sure.
01:47Yeah, how much preparation does go into doing what you guys do on stage?
01:51Because what you guys do, yeah, it's a lot, huh?
01:54It's a lot, yeah. We have a whole team and then being able to outsource to people that are creative to help us with the visuals
01:59and try to fit into whatever concept we have got going.
02:02And then, yeah, and then, like, whatever the money is allowed is what we're going to do.
02:05We're going to make it look as big as possible.
02:07And then there's a lot of, you know, preparation that goes into that.
02:10Like, are we going to be allowed to do that there? Can they do that at that venue?
02:14We have to, you know, try to get venues that can accommodate such a show and et cetera.
02:18It's like, you know, a lot of things to consider.
02:21Yeah, there's a lot of cogs that are working in the same direction.
02:25Absolutely, absolutely. I, myself, am not dealing directly with those things.
02:28Right, right.
02:28Happily, fortunately.
02:30Yeah, they insulate you a little bit from that, I'm sure.
02:32Yeah, that's good. But I know that there's a lot of work going on all the time.
02:37Yeah. So are you surprised in the last year about, I mean, the bands really popped?
02:43Was this something you could feel or is it, you know...
02:46It's like I said, you can't say, I never put a timestamp on it, but, like, if you don't expect some good shit to happen, they might not.
02:52So obviously I've always been like, oh, it's going to be great.
02:55Like, whenever, like, you know, I always visualize bigger and bigger and then I'm still just on stepping stones to where we want to go and whatnot.
03:00But this is awesome, obviously. It went really quick. One year, like last year, but we were touring the whole time and, like, I was always seeing the same people.
03:07I was always, like, we were in a bubble almost and then everybody else on the outside could see a little different perspective than we could.
03:13We saw it in the rise of people going to our shows and engagement and, you know, yeah.
03:19And then, yeah, we had songs on the radio all of a sudden that was actually spinning and, you know, you could definitely see it taking a real turn there.
03:26And it was really cool. Absolutely.
03:27Yeah. And you guys live in a different world than the one I grew up in, you know, because we didn't have all this Internet stuff.
03:33Yeah, exactly. It's a completely new thing.
03:35There's even, like, I keep saying, we had a real good leverage through TikTok.
03:40Yeah.
03:40And, like, how a song got popular there and through that whole engagement, a lot of other people started listening to us through that way,
03:48which is an awesome thing to happen to a band like us, which I don't think that, you know, we're not a TikTok band.
03:53Well, now, when all of that stuff is actually started, there are artists that can almost be considered TikTok artists or social media artists.
04:01Like, their whole thing is, like, they've never played a lot of shows and they just become artists out of social media.
04:07That's a completely different thing, obviously.
04:09Right. And at the end of the day, I mean, you've got to make the music, you've got to play the music, and you have to present it to everybody.
04:15Yeah.
04:16And it can't just be living on this on your phone.
04:18No. No, no, no. No, exactly. I, myself, try to stay off the Internet as much as possible a little bit these days because I think it's healthy for me
04:28because it has been a lot bigger, and I kind of don't want to see all of it or see how big.
04:33It's just easier to put myself on a normal plane like I'm just a normal geeky dude.
04:37So it's just nice to – I have my Instagram, whatever, and I cater to that, but I try not to read too much about us
04:42or if there's even haters out there that say something, like, I'd rather not read about it.
04:46Right. Yeah, let somebody else do that.
04:49I know there's always people that are not going to like everything that you do, and that's going to be okay.
04:52Yeah. You know what? You've got to please yourself first.
04:55Exactly.
04:55You know, with the Internet and everything, and even the world that we live in,
05:00everything's kind of crazy about how small everything's kind of gotten.
05:03And do you keep in contact with your parents a lot?
05:07Yeah, I went to one point, and I do live now on the other side of the pond.
05:11Yeah.
05:12But I'd say that we, at least in the off-tour scenario, we peep in, like, every week or episode to have a little FaceTime chat,
05:19and it's always good to see their faces, you know.
05:21Now that we've been touring, it's always a little harder to do that.
05:24But as soon as I'm off again, I'll see that everything is good back home.
05:27And when you tell your parents, I'm going to go to the United States and play in a band, what do they say?
05:31I think they've always known that I needed to chase whatever I was chasing.
05:35Okay.
05:35Because, like I said, before even I got over here, I was touring with another band from Sweden.
05:39We were out all the time, we didn't make any money, and they knew that.
05:42But they knew I was hustling off touring to be able to do what I was doing, like I was working normal jobs.
05:48Just, you know, I had a work mentality.
05:50I wasn't now just, you know, partying and drinking and losing all my money.
05:53I was very, like, you know, trying to save as much as possible so that I could go out and tour for a month with the band.
05:59That we're just going to, you know, lose money on it.
06:00And we'll go home again and we'll make money so that we could go out and tour.
06:03So, you know, it all started there.
06:05And they just knew that that was what I was doing.
06:07That was making me happy.
06:08And that's actually pretty cool.
06:10Like, they've never said a single thing that would ever, like, deter me from my road.
06:13Like, when are you going to, you know, see it different?
06:17Are we ever, like, no, they knew it was only this.
06:19And I went, now, I guess.
06:21Like, you know, it's been good lately.
06:23Yeah.
06:23So, I'm glad they didn't.
06:25I'm glad they stuck with me.
06:26So, what's in the future here for you guys?
06:29Tours?
06:30And when do you plan on hunkering down and recording anything?
06:34Man, all of that is on schedule.
06:36And then, I know that we have a very busy year next year.
06:40And that's pretty much all I can say without someone telling me what I'm allowed to say.
06:43Okay.
06:43All right.
06:44But, like I said, now, it's been a long time.
06:47Here, hang on.
06:48Turn that on.
06:49There you go.
06:49Shit, there we go.
06:50No one could hear what you were saying anyways.
06:51Yeah, cool.
06:52After this whole time, right?
06:53No, okay.
06:54Okay.
06:54Sweet.
06:54I just probably pressed it in the middle.
06:56So, what he was saying really was, this is what he was actually saying.
07:00I forgot it.
07:01I forgot what my trail was.
07:03You said you got a busy year next year, but you really can't talk about it.
07:04Yeah, touring-wise, I think it's going to be a very busy year.
07:07And then, like I said, it's been a minute since our album is coming up on one.
07:11It's over a year release, right?
07:13Yeah, exactly.
07:13That's what I'm saying.
07:14So, that's in our head.
07:15We need to write new stuff.
07:16And that's always fun to get creative again and see what that's bringing us.
07:19Do you have stuff in your head or stuff maybe we're going to?
07:21We have a little bit printed.
07:22I think we have some cool ideas that I'm really excited about.
07:25Keep exploring fully.
07:26Absolutely.
07:27We have a little bit of what direction we want to go in, and I think it's going to be awesome.
07:34Yeah.
07:34Well, listen, it's really great to meet you.
07:36I know Anne Erickson over here is just a gigantic fan.
07:39She wants to say hello and everything like that.
07:41But thank you so much for being part of RIPPES.
07:43I can't wait to see you guys play tonight.
07:45Thank you for having us.