Riff Wood at Download XXIII Donington Park- PipemanRadio Interview

0:04 Hy you have done to censure? Wow? Crazy young. This is pipe Man here on the Adventures pipe Man W four c Y Radio and I'm here with griff Wood Nice here at download. How's it feel? It feels incredible. It's our first ever festival we've ever been to. So this is amazing, super happy to be here. Now. Is it your first you've played at or first you've actually ever even been to or attended? First we've ever even been to or attended? WHOA we'd love to play here someday. It's sixth stage a.

0:47 Lot of people. Yeah, Like, it's amazing that this is your first, Like you picked like the best one in the whole world to pick us your first for sure? Yeah, how did that happen? What a look? A lot of look there you go. So tell our listeners who don't know about you, a little bit about you guys and how this came together. We are a alt rock band from Utah and. We formed when we were eleven years old in twenty twenty nice and we've just been working hard ever since. Wow, So well did your parents encourage you or did they be like, really, you're going to start a band.

1:37 So we actually saw this show on Netflix called Julian the Phantoms, and it has a band in the show. It's like a great little kids show. But that is what inspired us to be a band. We've been pretty much just claimed our instruments and started learning with each other right there. Our parents were very, very supportive with the band. I mean, my dad is co manager with Robin Kimko, and they've funded so much crap for us. It's it's incredible. Yeah, that's great to hear. And it happens a lot these days. Like when I was a kid, that didn't happen, you know, Like I would play an instrument and my dad would be like, well, you. Got a real job, you know, Well we didn't even we didn't even need to.

2:19 Get a job because like eleven or twelve. So they're like, oh, get out of playing video games. So well liked it, maybe they there you go, they did like it. But you still play video games, don't you? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, you got to mix some mix them all. All right. So are you Xbox or PlayStation or or something else. I'm a PlayStation guy. I used to be Xbox, but I gotta PlayStation five recently, and I absolutely love it. Always always been true to Xbox, and I never I'll never change. Nice. Okay, So I want to hear from you because I'm a gamer. I've had every gaming system there ever was. Yeah, except now. I'm like you ever watch Big So you know when Sheldon's in the store and he's trying to decide whether you get the new Xbox or the new PlayStation, that's totally me, like, cause I'm like, which do I want?

3:13 Which do I want? Yeah? Exactly what made you switch to PlayStation? Honestly, I didn't even really do it. My family just kind of got one and then I started playing with it. I'm like, I just I love it. You know. See, I always liked the controller to PlayStation better, but then when I switched to Xbox, you know, I had to get used to it. But I like to play nowadays. I play like Madden Football and I play NHL, and I find the sports games to be better on Xbox. Plus I'm a techie, so there's a lot more I can do besides gaming. So that's why I have the Xbox. Well, I was always a PlayStation person, but then I converted to Xbox. What games are better on PlayStation?

3:56 All the EA sports games Like I play all the EA sports games are all better on Xbox. I think the graphics are better for that, not for everything, Like there's other things that PlayStations better for, you know, but I find the EA sports games are better. I used to be into other games, but then I was so good at some of them that they start boring me. Whereas with football, like Madden Football, I'll like tweak it to make it harder, like I'll play the worst team against the best team. I'll make sure the computer has like the highest levels and I have the lowest levels, because I used to when I played Madden Football, I would I would play and I would beat the computer like one hundred to nothing.

4:43 I know, I do not want to play you and Madden. You don't. I would be smoked. My grandson go ahead. I was just just that. I think it's safe to say it'd be all of us at every video game. Yeah, I've had every Madden since the first one. But my grandson, who's ten, he was a little cocky. I used to teach my son not to be cocky too. Like I would play with my son and he got a little cocky. I'm like, don't get cocky, and then if he did, I would just smoke him, okay, like it would be tie game with two minutes left because I you know, let me tie, and they start getting cocky, and then all of a sudden, I beat him by sixty points. You got to teach them a lesson exactly.

5:25 So happened with my grandson too, Like he's like thinking, like I don't stand a chance against him. Yeah, and then we played and I beat him like eighty six to zero, and I only did it to teach him a lesson. Yeah, And he's like, how did you do that? You know, because you know he doesn't think his grandfather is gonna beat him at a video game. But yes, I mean I had the first console ever. No, So that brings me to a question. You both talk about your all talking about council and consoles. What do you think of playing the same games on a PC.

6:07 I mean, we like to play a lot of Minecraft as some of our games, and I think Minecraft on the PC is really nice. Yeah, okay, a little bit of Fortnite. I think Fortnite's easier on console though, But I think I've heard once you get good on PC, then you're just like insanely good. But it's harder to get used to see. I've never been into the PC. Games never, I've never done much on PC. But yeah, Carson mentioned Minecraft and we were in the When we were in the covid era, I had my school laptop which I played a bunch of Minecraft on, so I got I got pretty good at that. Nice. Yeah, And so what's your favorite game to play? Oh, Minecraft and Halo three, I think nice.

6:48 Yeah, I think I gotta go Minecraft in Fortnite, yeah, I mean. Peak Fortnite was the best video game of all time. I think, so Fortnite all right? And now, so none of you have even mentioned like Guitar Hero or anything like that, and your musicians you can't. You can't really find it anywhere to like buy. I mean, I've looked to. Make a newer version, right, they probably do, probably, Yeah, because I know a lot of musicians. It's that that's how they learned to have lay guitar. Really, Yeah, I'm terrible. That's I go from playing normal guitar and then I go to that and I suck. I don't.

7:29 I don't see how you could go from Guitar Hero to playing guitar. Yeah, that's interesting. I feel like there are two different worlds. Honestly, I'm so bad. I'm so bad at the Guitar Hero drums. See, it probably helps. I'm better at Guitar Hero because I played guitar and I sucked. So Guitar Hero is easier because I don't have to worry about pressing on the strings just right or anything. I just pushed the buttons, you know, and I look at the patterns. So that's why I was always good video games, which the sports games, because I would learn the parent Like I beat Super Mario Brothers in one night, because yeah it could. It was on the uh I think it was on PlayStation or what was it on Fuck No Sega or something like that, one of the old school ones, you know. And yeah, so I mean, like, so what I do is I figure out the parents. I never use cheat codes on anything.

8:28 I hate cheat codes because I want to figure. It out. As it's intended to play. So check this out. Well, I used to do when I was like first year of high school. I used to go down to the local donut shop and they would have the video games and I would learn how to rack up the games. You know, becauld say change games because of my generation, because we used to tape a quarter to a string and drop it down and click, and I would run up like ninety nine games, play five get bored, and the kid that was like in middle school behind me. I'd sell the rest of the games for five bucks to them.

9:11 That's smart, see what you missed? Love It can't do that nowadays. You can't rig them like that. They're all rigged. We went to we played an arcade game a few weeks ago and we were like, why isn't this working. We spent like a bunch of money and then we looked it up and it was totally rigged. Oh it is. And what they do with the game itself, even if that stuff's working, they will change it to make it harder. Yeah, to get more money out of you. Yeah, they make it. They make you think that you're just close enough, so oh, next time, I'm gonna get it, But you'll never get it right. So what band for each one of you really did for your like, man, that's what got me into music.

9:55 Green Day? I think it might be the same for all of us and green Day, green Day. Yeah, So what you know, that's funny because I have a grandson that's fifteen and that's his favorite band too. It's like, it's so funny to me that Green Day is the band of your generation. Basically it is crazy, it's weird. I mean, I don't know. It's something about their look and their vibe and like their their music and the lyrics and their music that just connects with this generation, I think. And it started with Green Day for sure, and then we kind of after that we got into rock music and it kind of branched out from there to The Beatles, Radiohead, led Zeppelin, the Police, all these things.

10:39 I love hearing that kids your age know some of those bands, Like I know kids that they don't even know who the Beatles are around, Like that. Blows my mind. Earlier, I swear I was born knowing the name the Beatles. My parents played it all the time when I was a kid. I so I already knew stuff. But then after we listened to Green Days when we started branching out nice. I think Green Day is such a good entry because they had so many influence as it just dates back. You can just go down this rabbit hole and get so many different influences out of it. I think it's also a perfect place to start as a band because especially where we were where we didn't know how to play instruments. But Green Day, most of our songs are just power chords and and I think we connected that it was three people and we were three people in a band.

11:23 Yeah, and so that's why we take so much influence from them. I think that's that is right, that makes sense, and that's pretty cool. And like it's like my generation too. We if we played music, we started with punk because it was basically three chords, so it wasn't really hard to learn, so you could learn, you know, and then that's where I you know, it's funny because my dad, he'd hear me playing the guitar and I like experiment all these sounds I could do, and he's like, you you better give that up because you suck. I'm like, but you don't understand. But it's different than now. Like you guys and I would have the same music interests.

12:03 My dad would have never been at this festival in a million years, okay, you know, and I wouldn't have gone to anything he was going to either, yeah, you know, And that's what's cool about today is like we have these bands like Green Day and everybody else that brings multiple generations together like one big family. And that's absolutely yeah. So what are you going to do next? What's next for you? Wow? Well, like what's actually next in like the next few. Days however you want to answer? Probably, Well, we're going to Liverpool tomorrow. We're doing a Beatles tour. Nice and then we're going back to London because we were already there earlier this week and just touring a little bit more. And then later this summer we're going or we're continuing our tour in the US in North America.

13:00 We just did three shows here in the UK and we got nineteen more back home. Cool. You're gonna have to do the DWP festivals back home? That would be sweet. Yeah, yeah, I cover all those, but those are like this, So yeah, I'm putting that out to Danny Wimmer right now. You know, that's the recent Silly Goose is here. You know, you know the band Silly Goose that played earlier. This is this is him? Okay, So they played they went on a tour where they just crashed places like old school punk bands do, and they went to one of the festivals, played in the parking lot and Danny Wimmer that runs the whole thing was standing out there watching him and put them on stage the next day instead of kicking them out, put them on stage.

13:49 And that's incredible. If anything like that, that's great. Yeah, there's there's an idea you could go on the No Place tour with Silly Goose. That sounds amazing, right there, you go. Hey, last words, you want to give the listeners and also tell them how they can reach out to you on socials and check everything you guys have out. Yes, we are on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, all under the name Riffwood. We're on pretty much every single streaming platform. We're releasing music. We got an album Butterfly and Black and White coming out later this year September eighteenth. And yeah, we're going on tour this summer. You can get tickets for the tour on riffwood dot com slash tour. But to our fans out there, we love our fans and you guys are amazing.

14:37 Yes, well, you guys are amazing and glad to see you over here at download. Thank you, happy to be here. I was great talking to you. Thanks for being on the Adventures pipe Man. Thank you, thank you, thank you for listening to the adventures of plate Man. I'm w for Cui Radio