10 years at Welcome to Rockville 2026 - PipemanRadio Interview

0:04 Hi, you have done to censure. Wow for you young. Listen, it's the pipe Man here on the Adventure of Pipe Man W four C Y Radio and I'm here with Jesse from ten years Yes, you're at Welcome to Rockville, yes, sir, or welcome to Code Yellow. Welcome to Rainville. I know, right, yeah, yeah, it's Florida.

0:45 Though it happens, it's what it's to be expected. Like, especially this time of year, at three four o'clock, you can guarantee there's going to be a thunderstorm no matter what. Absolutely. I use it as my alarm clock during the day. Uh huh. See. We did a tour with way back in the day called Project Revolution with Lincoln Park and Chris Cornell and our slot time was five o'clock and they called us the rain band because it just it just happened all over the country that way. Wow. Yeah, so you're the reason where code Yes, it's all our faults. Yes, rain dance, we need to stop that. I know, we need to go ahead and play and get it over with and that that way it all goes away. Well, maybe what you should do is like play a rain song, the rain song. The Yeah there I was thinking that too right after I said it, and we did just have Jason Bonham doing the led Zeppelink experience.

1:34 The awesome right, that's crazy. Yeah, the singer he sounds so much like Plant too, dude. The ability for people to to mimic and pull off and just the the level of skill that musicians are at now is insane. It's insane. I think we're making a comeback with musicianship because a few years back I was like, man, we need real musicians again, and leads and you know, jamming and all that. I do think that it you know, fashion and culture and music and everything. It goes in waves. But yes, if something has substance and authenticity, it will last.

2:17 It might come up and down, but it will always come back around. You know what I think too, Okay, I look at bands like that I've ever viewed like a Leonard skinnerd or anybody like that, and icons are always these nicest people that have no clue to a rock star. And I think that's the key, because to really be a true musician, you don't give a shit about becoming a rock star. You just want to play music. You couldn't say it better. I mean, the main focus should always be the love and the passion of the creativity of it and let the chips fall where they may. If you're a rock star on stage and when you see somebody play live and you're, oh, my god, that's a rock star, and then they get off stage and they're like Michael Jackson with a high pitched voice, it's like, but when he's on stage, he's a killer. And it's just that's I think that people talk to everybody that's ever met me or knows me, they're like, you're so normal. I'm like, because the character I'm on stage, I'm an entertainer. At that point, I love that you just said that. Yeah, I'm a character on stage because my job live is to be an entertainer, and then to write and create is what I do personally with myself, and that's that's where.

3:21 I fall in love with it. And then I learn how to display it and entertain it to the masses in a way that hopefully portrays the song. Yeah, and listen, as somebody that would be in the audience, I can totally tell if somebody's dialing it in, if they're having fun. Yeah, you know, and like part of fun to live music is. It isn't perfect, that's absolutely it. And like for us, we can travel ten hours to play for thirty minutes to an hour, so when we're on stage for that time, that's when you really get lost the moment. And people like I interviewed earlier today, like what advice do you give, and I'm like, get lost in the moment when the music is happening. Don't pick your I mean, you can video it and get your phone out, but like really get lost in the moment, you know, and enjoy that you are here and you're not watching this at home on a YouTube.

4:17 It's funny because I was just talking about this with my son the other day and then he made a comment like being funny, like you do that. I'm like, yeah, when I'm doing the media, it's for like thirty seconds. Because I said, it annoys me when people were out there recording the whole video, watching the whole set with their phone and they'll never look at that video ever again. Yeah, when I have them right front row and center doing that and their phones up the whole time, I'll just come over and mess with them. I'll just pull their phone down about where their chest is, like keep you gotta care if you keep your phone up. Just look out of your own eye holes. Yeah, the perspective's a lot nicer than looking through a little screen. So I don't know, it's it's maybe because we're a little old school and we're probably that weird trend, that transition of being alive before the Internet and then being alive while the internet's so present now.

5:12 So we get it from being lost in the moment totally. And like back in the day when I was a teenager, like, we didn't have phones, we didn't have internet, and you didn't think about all that. I think about that every time I jump into a pit and I ham somebody in my phone. I'm like, I didn't have to do that when I was a teenager. No, No, I mean at this point, we kind of are cyborgs. You know, we are always on. We were always living in the entertaining, just constantly entertaining around the clock. But that's what I'm saying. When you've come and you've paid tickets or you're like us, you're performing, like, get lost in the moment while you're here. Rock Field is happening right now, be here, be present. I think Drew of the artists too, you know. Yeah, and funny you mentioned about what you do, did you see it was because it went everywhere several years ago.

6:00 What Corey Taylor did one time, I don't know. I mean we were blessed enough to tour with him with Stone Sour and he would go out after shows. This was on Family Values tour many many years ago, and he would go out with an acoustic guitar, out in the crowd, unexpected, into the parking lot and play. And he did this fifteen twenty years now. That's so cool and it's just like wow, that is someone that loves the moment, loves the act of playing music, and it's not about how famous you are, it's about enjoying actually doing it. Yeah, And there was one gig that somebody was on the phone but was like Ryan's face and kind of moving away is like you know, and he made a comment like put your fucking phone down, you know, as Corey would say, put your mother fucking phone down, and you will. You're like, oh, exactly, exactly. You know. So what do you going on after Welcome to Rockville that the listeners need to know about.

7:04 Well, we are currently in the middle of working on new music where we're deep into hopefully having some stuff released late summer this year. We are going to Europe in September, in October Europe, UK. Well, we're trying to squeeze in before we go over in like July August. We're trying to work out some headlining stuff here in the States before going international. And then just when the music comes out, you just that's when the. You hit the road there it is, yeah, And how does it feel to you as an artist plane in the States, opposed to planning Europe, opposed to UK, opposed to South America. You know, I would like to say it's it's all the same, and the energy is just the energy, but it is different.

7:47 It's absolutely different. And I think that in the beginning back in the day, like we played rock and Ring, Rock and Park and a lot of big European festivals, and America has now modeled after that, and we figured out how to do the same thing and it feels like that same crazy energy. But like we did a big one in Japan and they are pin drop quiet between songs and then if you say make some noise, it's all at the same time and they hang on every word you say, so, it's it's a different energy because over here we're just constantly just wide open and screaming. Over there, they're so just hanging on every little thing you say to do. So it's a different experience. That's second time I've heard that. So it gives it like a thing of the different cultures and how they act.

8:31 And now, do you know how it happened that the US festivals have become more like the European festivals? I do. I'll just throw it out there. I'm just given just from touring and seeing it. It's obviously Europe was they had something they were doing it right that we just didn't really quite have over here yet. And I know that we were trying to model it after them. I don't know the the logistics in the business part of it. Whimber. He went to hell Fest, Okay, And that's what I was told, went to hell Fest and used that as a model, which is a great model to use.

9:13 His name alone is absolutely on the very tip top for throwing this grandiose of a festival. So yes, in the States, he's the man. So yeah, like I've been doing his festival since the beginning, and just how he has transformed the industry for festivals here in the US, where it used to be more of like a carnival than a festival. Yeah, we did, and now it's an experience. Yeah, we've done all that stuff where it's a traveling thing that's like half a dozen bands, like we've done Family Values, Project Revolution, Carnival of Madness, like all these things. And then you got like o Osfests, Warped Tour, all that stuff, and it's cool. But like this level of just four days in the same place and it's just wide open, is this is totally He's pulled it off because this is europe vibes all day.

10:00 And here's the thing too, because you already said how he is. In all these years me doing Wimmer festivals, I always ask artists how he treats you. Nobody's ever said a bad word ever. We've never had any issues. We've We've always to run something. This large as skill, there has to be a level of professionalism, which he obviously knows how to do, in the right infrastructure to put underneath it to make it happen. But when we show up, it happens. The only thing we have to do is dodge the weather. That's that's it. But other than that, it's it goes off without a hitch. Well, you know what's great too, As an artist, this is like the most stressful thing you could probably do.

10:41 It's not usually necessarily your gear, you know, and you got a loan in and if you have stress for loaning, that's no good. Yeah for the show yep. And I've never heard artists feel stressful being at a Wimmer festival. Yeah. I mean, I think the most stressful far is whenever you're just trying to get the lay of the land and you're walking around and you feel like you're in a scene from Spinal. Tap where you're always lost. But that's just that's not his fault. That's just the size of the place. And I would think you were going to say it was, uh, you know, try and find catering. That's part of it, just getting the lay of everything, like where where's our dressing, where's catering? And it's it's just because you you have to just get in it.

11:22 You just got to get out there and find it. I have all the Wimmer festivals that you've done, which one's your favorite. Man Louder than Life is incredible. I love the media artist lounge there. It's amazing. I know the name is probably good, but we did was it the very last rock on the Range? Oh yeah, before it became Sonic Temple. Yeah, it was. It was epic. It was huge. I mean, the roster was you know, I had a bunch of bands. I loved on it and everything. But like even the last one we did louder than the Life, this last one recently, and it's it's just a well oiled machine. Like it's just awesome that you can fit this much into this.

12:05 And it's cool that each festival has a different theme to it. It's like in Europe you have all these different festivals and they're different, and it seems like he's copying that too, but the same person running all of them. Yeah. Yeah. If you have a theme or like a directive or a target to aim at, you can you can kind of model it all around that, Like even down to the part of the country you have it in. If you're gonna be out west, it's gonna be a drier climate, it's gonna be in it, so you just you give it a different vibe. It even down to slightly tweaking the genre of music, you know. I mean it's he's done a great job totally, and you. Know there's been the trials and tribulations. Lear in life used to be at a terrible venue. Yeah yeah, and what do he do? He made the switch real quick.

12:46 He didn't try keep forcing the issue. Now the new venue is amazing. He truly is. You know, we could talk about this forever, but like he's done it right. And we've done Matt very ambitious festivals. We did a Blue Ridge Rock Fest a. Couple of times, and where you at the last one, because I was we luckily we the last. One we did. We said, the only way we're doing it is if we do the pre show on the Thursday or the Wednesday the day before and come in. And we did it when it was just Scott staffed by himself and like got in and got out, like staying in there and getting trapped in there. That's if you really want to see how to do it wrong, tell you that one. I was there and it was like Woodstock ninety nine, oh yeah, or you.

13:30 See the documentary like Fire. Yeah, yeah, it's totally Actually was kind of like Fire too, because like all the houses men of them had ever been cleaned y'or overflowing people were like flipping over golf cart things. Is to get this large of a crowd together, and if it starts coming unglued and the tension starts happening, you've got mutiny. Man like, then there's no way you can contain that that many people. So you got to keep them happy. And you know what, I've never been to a wimmer festival. It gets uncontained with that many people. And we were just at I came back, I had to do coverage. There's a pop up show today for a day to remember. I was over there. I snucker, you were over there, Okay, So I was over there and I'm thinking myself, like, this is gonna be wild to see what happens with the crowdsurfing for this, and it was totally under control and perfect.

14:24 Well there's there's ways to handle that there. You can have if you have overzealous security guards. That are like throwing people on the ground and like being an agro, you don't want them at the end catching the people crowdsurfing. You want the energy to stay happy. So it's like, if they're going to CrowdSurf, catch them, get a line to get them right back out. They're gonna do it again. Don't try to police that and tell them no. You tell a crowd no, guess what are they gonna do? Good luck with that? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Is there anything else you want to talk about about? What anything you got coming out, anything going on that we haven't talked about yet. Mainly, just keep an eye out for new music. We we've. Like always musicians always say it, we love what we're doing. We're very grateful to still be doing this for this many years. But like we'll really got our nose to the grindstone on creating some new stuff. So hopefully just keep an eye out for it should be out soon.

15:13 I think the music will end up probably being your best because I think as you evolve as a musician, learn your craft, that's when you really can get created. Yeah you and kind of leaning into your identity. I think sometimes identity crisis can happen where you try to be you did this, You try to be something so drastically different that it it almost is contradictory to what you are, and it's like own your identity. No, no, what people like. If you're the best cheeseburger, hut around, Mike, cheeseburgers. Don't try to make sushi, I know. Right, yeah, you know, like like with Eminem's now their every company's making em and ms, but it ain't liking Eminem exactly. So there you go. So there's nothing like ten years. Got to keep it real and.

15:54 Hopefully we have avoided the codes and it'll be a great rest of today for you and all the rest of us. We're going to do a sun dance, not a rain dance. Do it. Thanks for being on the Adventures pipe Man, Thanks for having us. Thank you for listening to the Adventures of Pipemin on w for c u I Radio.