ifitbeyourwill Podcast #198 • Gvth Dvddy

Two records in two years, and GVTH DVDDY are clearly not slowing down. Their latest self-titled album pushes the sound even further into the dark—massive guitars, strange textures, raw emotion, and songs that hit with the weight of lived experience. On this episode, we go back to Kevin Robinson’s years in Viva Voce, trace the path that led to GVTH DVDDY, and get into what happens when a band keeps pushing forward instead of looking backward. Heavy, hypnotic, epic, and completely human—this is GVTH DVDDY at full volume.

http://gvthdvddy.com/

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SPEAKER_00 0:29

Here we are, another episode of If It Be World Podcast coming to you as the summer clicks away slowly. Fall soon-ish. We're gonna enjoy the last while here of summer. And on the cast, we are just upping our game every show today. Again, no exception. Goth Daddy is coming in with uh Kevin Robson, who's the brainchild behind. Um and just great, great record. First self-titled records came out, and we're gonna be talking all about it, how it was made. Kevin, you know it's a tradition here at your will that I like to dive back into time a little bit to kind of create a little foundation of where all this music came from for you. What were some of those moments? Like, when did you know music had to be a part of what you did?

SPEAKER_01 1:24

You know, you mean just in my life? Yeah, your musical journey. We're talking big time here now. Big picture, big picture stuff. Well, it was, you know, I I I played drums growing up. I was a tappy kid, so once I got drumsticks, it really, you know, was helpful for me. Yeah, but I had a hiking accident when I was 15, and around that time I had just bought a cassette four-track. And so therapy was just sitting there with headphones on and figuring out, you know, the four different tracks on the cassette and and accidentally loading the cassette in backwards, like, what, you know, in real time discovering all these things, and and then realizing like, well, okay, I'm gonna have to like steal my brother's guitar because he doesn't play it. I need to teach myself all this stuff so that I can put a song. I hear a song, but I can't play all this other stuff well enough to kind of put it together. So the the producing and recording aspects of of like songwriting and all that were were kind of baked into the recording like discovery of it, you know. Like I was just figuring out how to make power chords at the same time. I was figuring out how to bounce tracks and mix and all that sort of stuff. So it all happened at the same time for me. And over time, you know, I I would plateau on certain instruments and be like, okay, that's enough. I mean, once you learn scales and chord inversions on piano, the rest, I'm not gonna be a Rach Mononoff guy. And you have enough in your package to like move forward. Exactly. And with guitar, I kind of felt like I'm never gonna be like a shredder. So just get it to where I can kind of if I hear something in my head, I can kind of figure it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And um, yeah, so then you know, that that found its way into a full-on recording artist career for a decade plus. I got signed to a Warner Brother affiliate when I was 22 and toured and you know what band was that with Kevin, like uh so I was touring with a band called Viva Voce.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Right.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Yes. Yeah, I I had a band called Nine Volt Velvet in in Muscle Shoals, and then Viva Voce was my second band, and we got signed, and from there moved to Nashville, and once the Nashville dream died, I had I had experienced touring in the States and came to Portland and really fell in love with the city. And you know, it was at the time a very blue-collar place where you could have a coffee shop job and and you know, and be a musician. Yeah, yeah. You know, sign and touring. It it's I don't I don't look back on those days with anything other than like pure nostalgia because I feel like that was a a blue-collar time where you could do those things. And I mean, I bought, you know, bought a house and employed a crew and and we didn't really have that high of a sales threshold, but it was like in that commercial thing, you know.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Yeah, and I'm not 1998, is that right, Kevin? Yeah, for real.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

98 to about like the to about 2012, you know. Well, well.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

And do you know like what what did they see in you guys at that young age, just starting up, just kind of like getting your sweat a little bit? Like, how would a a conglomerate of Warner find you and like what was it that they were really attracted to in what you guys were doing as music?

SPEAKER_01 5:25

We were marketable, you know. There was there were the band had a a female vocalist, guitar player, leader, and and it was just the two of us. Yeah and you know, our demos found their way to to one of the people at the head of the labels, and it was at that time when I mean they were just throwing money at anything that was you know like good guitar heavy, like go.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

And so you know those late 90s was kind of like grunge was kind of in its 80s a little bit, but also starting to go, right? Because when 2000 hit, it kind of like disappeared, and rock started kind of to like push forward through the the the grunge ashes, I guess we could say yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:13

I mean, you know, 90 93 to 95, 96 really hard for me. And by the time I got signed and wanted to do that 93 to 96 sound, yeah, was like had maybe like a year left before it was, you know, in CDs and all that were starting to kind of plateau, and the writing was kind of on the wall. Um the label went and solved it and was liquidated while we were on tour, we had to drive back. Yeah, that that was our deciding factor to leave Nashville. It was just like it was kind of done.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Yeah, yeah. Um, and then industry cycles seem taking just to like the cycle of the music industry, like once you get picked up, like it's it's not like you're locked in forever, right? Like there's it seems like there's cycles, and if you're not in on the groove of where those cycles are going, right could be a casualty of that cycle itself, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Oh, you you most definitely probably will be a casualty at some point. It's like the survival rate is nil, right? Yeah, because like what winds up happening is that like you know, you're you're signed, and then you know, we got a publishing deal, right? And then, you know, the guy that they're super passionate at Chrysalis, and then Chrysalis gets swallowed up by Sony, and Sony gets swallowed up by BMG, b BMG gets swallowed by like the Bertelsman group. So but by the time all those corporate turnovers happen, the people who signed you to begin with probably don't even work there anymore. And you know, they're just the new people are just given all this stuff, and they're like, I I like Indonesian hip hop. What is it? You know what I mean? Like New Direction.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Um, so for a you know, that that brief period of time, you got commercials, you got, you know, TV shows playing your stuff, you got movies, you you feel like, oh, you know, you go check the mail, there's checks in there, and and it feels like you're on a trajectory, but it's deception. There's there there was, you know, a a thing that was baked into like that that 90s ideology was that like you know, I was a kid of the 80s, and it never even occurred to me then that like this whole thing known as the music industry would just disappear, would not even exist. And all of the multiple like supporting industries that propped it up, like magazines, photographers, videos, all this stuff would all go away like that. Yeah, yeah. I couldn't even conceive it because you you watch movies, and that's like baked into the B plot. You know, the the girl might have seen a murder, but she was like, you know, she's a violin player and they're getting signed to a major label. It's like wow, as a kid, I'm like, this is a career path. If you're talented and you do if you do this, you can make it happen. Yeah, yeah. That is just that's not really the way the world works.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

And um the music industry seems to be not an industry anymore, really. No, it's it's individuals out there, maybe they'll get picked up, you know, it's clicks, it's you know, visuals on social media, for sure. A total different landscape. So, how have you kind of adapted to uh the shift? I mean, you've been doing music now for about 25 years. Yeah, more, yeah, for sure. What has been the hardest kind of adjustments that you've had to do to get, you know, like the self-titled got daddy out there into people's ears? And like how's that transformation happened for you and how you how you handling it? It were it was a mental one, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Yeah, and it was it's a mental shift of all ambition is a mental shift completely from the previously I had found a skill that I had that had a a commercial value that I could leverage into a job. And it felt like I had kind of won the lottery that I was doing what I loved and I was getting paid for it. But over time, that pressure is not really a desirable sensation. And you know, the the everyone looks at their favorite artist and they're like, oh man, if only I could be like them. You don't want to be like them. You know, they I think that um you know, having my kid, it was like, look, I'm what I what I need to do is completely separate any and all financial expectation from art, period, especially music. Just cut cut it out. Um if it shows up, great, but also like leave it at the door and don't answer it if it comes knocking because it's it's a lie. And that thing that made me passionately stay up night after night as a 15-year-old with headphones on, and that's the thing that I preserved and took back after a lifetime of like after after it was no longer equitable to like go on tour and sell records and all that. I'm I wound up producing in New York for a music production house. So I made I produced music 12 to 14 hours a day for the corporate man and you know made a big boy job out of it. But even even that was just like chasing dollars down a drain pipe, you know. It's just you're holding on to something that you just can't keep going after a while. And it's it's the demonetization of something that probably should never have been monetized to begin with.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

Right. So but I mean it is a I mean, it is a still a job that uh just has seemed to have lost value, like we just even though it is a very, very difficult, um challenging field. Um all art really is just seemed to be like under attack these days for like losing value, like it just doesn't seem society values art anymore the way our you know when we were I say kids kids back in the you know back in the day, yeah. We'd become buying cassettes, uh CDs, we going to shows, getting the T's, like yeah, like there was a way to go about that, just like as you said, just kind of like poof.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Yeah. Like Goth Daddy was reclaiming that for me, right? So not only reclaiming like the sound, the vision, the you know, the ridiculous name, and all of this stuff, like I wanted to create something that was completely otherworldly, so much so that I retaught myself guitar. It's not standard tune, it's not even really a guitar, I wouldn't even call it that. I had to I had to get this little chord stamper here and make chord stamps and write on there what it is so that I would play the songs. But what's cool about it is that I'm coming at this instrument with like beginner wonderment and like newfound discovery. And every time you hear a Goth Daddy song, it's the first time I've ever put those sounds and those chords together that way. It has this kind of immediate, rough kind of like feel to it that I really love. It's not like, oh, here's your CG cowboy chord, you know. Like I just got to a point where I couldn't manufacture excitement about just picking up a guitar and like, you know, yeah, there's so much predictable things that I needed to kind of shake myself out of this mindset, not just of like the industry itself or or how bands are, but just of music itself, how I'm how I approach the entire game. Wow, and something kind of clicked, you know.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

What did you keep from the past? Like, what were some of the things that you said, okay, this is what I want to start building upon to see where it will go with Goth Daddy? Like, I mean, you have such a plethora of experience and and songwriting, and like were there certain aspects of that past that you were like, Yeah, yeah, I gotta carry this forward. I want to tweak this a bit, obviously. And like what were the things from the past that have made its way to 2026 with you?

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Like kind of like the sonic, the son, there's like a je ne sais quoi of of sonics that like I would listen to records by like Hum and Starfly 9 and these bands and just put them on, and just the guitar sounds themselves would be like main characters in a movie, you know? And and I've listened to them so many times that it becomes almost like this mantra-like experience where you know, I I'm I've gone away from it and full circle round to where that music of my childhood is shoe gaze, is goth, is aggressive, loud, alternative. When that music first came, it was like a breath of fresh air. You know, I I grew up in small towns in the south and punk punk rock, as it's understood, like Discord records, that never came through my town. It went from the radio, it went from cherry pie to like nirvana. And when that happened, it was just like this, it felt like it was okay. You don't have to be perfect, it was okay. And so pulling that attitude into the here and now, it's like I'm keeping all that punk scrappy, even the beginner guitar thing, forcing myself to like just be a beginner, but I'm standing on a lifetime of experience and how to compose a good song and how to find a good tone. And yeah, who I've got like old dog wisdom with new puppy energy, and you know, and having a kid really ramps up that new puppy energy a lot. Technology now is mind blowing, so it's no longer as laborious to get like in a record done and even like five years ago, like it's crazy how exponentially quicker, like the year my daughter was born, 2022. I was like, well, that's it for me, you know. Like I'm I'm like that that's been fun. I was getting ready to like kind of sell off all my stuff, and then UAD, Universal Audio, made these little pedals that are like amps and a pedal. And I'm like kind of a snob when it comes to that stuff. I'm like, no, no, no, no. But like I said, technology is now caught up to where, you know, a buddy of mine, I was like back and forth. I'm like, these modelers, man, I don't, I don't trust them. I don't know. You know, they say this pedal is really a Vox AC30 amp, or it's really a whatever. And you sent me a screenshot of U2's fear show where the Edge did not play an amp at all. He played all of his guitar stuff into one of these pedals. They apparently couldn't afford an amp blowing up, so they're like, get a bunch of these and back. We got a billion dollars at stake here. So he's like, I think I think you could try it if it's good enough for Edge at a billion dollar show. So I tried it, and sure enough, like this pedal that it's actually named Ruby, and my daughter's name's Ruby.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Well, yeah, it really is like a Vox AC30. So I was able to like sit there with my giant pedal board and headphones on and like tone sculpt, like I would do when I was a kid, spend half a day just finding the right distortions and fuzzes and all that. Like that becomes almost like a band member, you know. When the distortion kicks in, you're like, hello old friend, you know, worked on you for a while. Like it comes with so I can there's like a thought put into all of it, and it's all happening really quick, yeah, you know, two and a half minutes, but in that there's a lot there. It just it's therapeutic, it is the long way around to say that like being able to like spend absorbent amounts of times on finding like the new ones, which are these guys, and then you know, and then go back and rediscover like the old ones, the punkifier. That's like you know, this was like the song to blur woo-hoo song. But like the fuzz on this is straight up Velvet Underground, what goes on in your mind? And so there's there's that joy that I will always get from that that I just fused into the songs that became Goth Rad.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

And were those songs like were those songs had been kind of a part of you for a while, or or did you just decide, okay, I'm gonna I I'm making Goth Daddy, I'm gonna make a record, I'm gonna start putting songs together. Like, was it literally that's what happened?

SPEAKER_01 19:47

When you hear the self-titled The First Record that came out last year, when you hear the first song, Dreamscape, yeah, that was the very first Goth Daddy song I ever wrote. So I knew when I hit that first. When I first hit the first chord, I was like, oh, this is this is something, this is a whole new thing. So I just started a folder, and the funny thing is I didn't know what to call it, so I just called it Goth Daddy and started throwing like I wrote Dreamscape, put that in there, and then Mind Racer, all these songs, they just started coming because I was like, oh, this is cool, that sounds cool. So just put them in there, put them in there. Yeah, wrote like about I don't know, 30-something demos, and just kind of sat on them for a while. And my family moved to Portland, Oregon in 2023, and I met Jake, who I'd known before. He's he's an amazing drummer and um one of the co-owners at Revival Drums here in town, and met him at a barbecue. And I was like, What are you doing? He's like, Well, nothing right now. My band, we all, you know, taking a forever hiatus. And I was like, like, what do you do you want to play? He's like, Yeah. I was like, Well, I let me send you some demos. It's kind of weird, but like, see what you think. And he was like, he wrote me back, he's like, Yeah, this is weird, but I love it. Let's do it. So we got together and it was pretty effortless, you know. Um the demos were, you know, just finger drums, kick snare, and that kind of thing. I didn't want to really fill in all the details. We got together and just bashed it out. It was pretty, pretty simple. That first record was kind of figuring out the recipe of like how how how you put it together. Yeah, now I think once we did that and got it off the books, it was just like the second one just came like that, and we're already like over halfway through pre production on the third one. Like it's we've got a demo pile of 50 plus songs, like it just you know Kevin.

SPEAKER_00 21:54

Like, how you said 30 songs, like yeah, like those all came together just to. You what you do as your normal process of getting at like can you open that door to your process a little bit? Like, how does a goth daddy song come to be? Like, what are some of the ways that they are born?

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Well, I have a wall, like I have one, two, three, four, five guitars up on the wall. And the guitar for Goth Daddy usually it has to have a Bigsby. Yep. And because I realized, like, if you want to infuse like the feeling of something, it doesn't necessarily require you to dunk your head and be baptized in it. Like if you want something to sound bluegrass, there's ways to do that. And if you want something to sound shoe gays, maybe instead of strumming all four chords, maybe strum two and bend the last two or whatever. So I'll I will forever leave all of my studio stuff on. I'm I'm not precious with it. So it's near all my kid toys. It's like in the house. So I'll be cooking dinner. Pretty central. Oh, yeah. I can listen to mixes. There's this airfoil app. You can tether it onto your phone so you can mix in real time off your phone. And and so like it becomes a fluid part of like daily life. It's not like I'm going into a room and shutting the door and being like leave me alone for an hour. Yeah, none of that. Like, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

You know, I'll just yeah. Yeah, is it like a line that will come to you first? Like the lyrics always come after, like the music is always first, and then the lyrics come in?

SPEAKER_01 23:36

Usu usually, yeah. I would say like probably 99.9% of the time. Like I'll just plop my fingers down on a fretboard that I have no idea what any of it is. Like I have to have a I work in cubase, and cubase has this amazing audio to chord function. So I can just literally drag, I'll plug my guitar in, just jam out an idea. I have no idea what it is, what chords, nothing. And and it will just tell me, like, oh, you're doing D minor to F to whatever. And so I'll retroactively kind of pull it apart and figure out, you know, how it can go. And then and then at that point, figure out be, you know, the drums and the bass is usually my favorite part of it. So it's cool to get like the guitars down and then get the supporting substructure underneath there and find the melodies and the hooks and that. But that's really it. I mean, it'll kind of come from an attitude, really. Yeah. Like most of it, I read something about Charles Thompson, Frank Black writing pretty much the first three or maybe even four Pixies albums, like in one sitting or like in one consolidated time. And I totally get that. He would he said that he would stand in front of a mirror and play the song. And he said, and if I felt cool, it's fake. And there's yeah, and there's there's there's some truth to that, man. Because like my wife, my wife got some big full mirrors. I'm like, let me just try this crap. I put a guitar on, I stood in him, I wrote a couple songs. I was like, maybe there's something to this of like of actually having to look at yourself and be like, I don't believe you. This is not real. Am I convincing myself? Yeah, yeah. You're like, okay, I'll buy that. You know, I'll buy that. I love that. That's a great idea, though. I mean, yeah, um, but like that's the got that. That's it's almost honestly, like I there's very there's only so much credit I can even take for some of this stuff. Like I've put I put the work in, I know how to carve out 300 hertz when things are muddy and all that stuff. I know compressors and all that garbage, but like sometimes it all comes together and I'll listen back to it and be like, man, like cool. It just kind of it just kind of happens, and you know, I'll it'll come together, a keyboard and a bass, like one of everything. There's not a whole lot of oversalting the soup, and that's by design. There'll be one guitar, one keyboard, one bass, one vocal, and one drum, what and those five elements. Now make them as big as you want, multi- you know, multi-track them, like make it as massive as you can. I think I had six vocals on every song, but but let there be one focal point, you know, not many harmonies, not tons of percussion, not the mellotrons and the claps and the shakers and all that. Like leave space for things, you know.

SPEAKER_00 26:50

Yeah, interesting. Well, I mean, I think that the the sound that you're developing is you know, I just love it. I mean, it's so original too in the sense, but it has that nostalgia at the same time. But you're re-thinking it all, and through this conversation, I'm realizing this. You've you've ripped it apart and are deconstructing and reconstructing um through the instrumentation really of what what what the sound is going to be. 100%.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

You know, because like in your mind, like when you when you like I love these bands, they they have made me who I am, but like a Pinterest board is not your style. That is just like a list of your influences, right?

SPEAKER_03 27:36

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

And so much so now that like you can you can literally have Fleetwood Mac rumor drums, you can have all this stuff, and it kind of strips away a lot of the original creativity of it. It's like if you're a shoegase band, it's like here's your pedals, here's your guitar, and here's your acceptable chords, and now go. And I and I think the better way to do that is to kind of assimilate your influences into a recipe of something that hasn't been digested before. And like even if it's not necessarily everybody's thing, just shoot outside of the targeted range for something, you know?

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Yeah, I love that. I love what you're saying too, of just finding moving away from standard cordage, you know, like finding new chords and like you know, recording it so you remember what they are. But that there's I mean, there's a there's six strings and there's a lot of spots along the neck with different tones, and like it really starts to become kind of a puzzle almost that you can you know put together and create an image using it.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

Um during the pandemic was when the seeds for this started getting sown, and I went through during the pandemic, I opened up Sonic Youth tuning guide and literally tried every single Sonic Youth no lie. And and then I went through Swerve Driver, then I went through all of them. I went through Kurt Vile, um Christopher Cross sailing. And what I found is if you want to write a song that feels like Christopher Cross's sailing, just tune your guitar like that. And every time you play a chord, you'll be like, damn, it sounds like Christopher Cross sailing. Kurt Viles in my baby's arms, it's it's an open B minor tuning and it's beautiful. And is the minute I had this resonator guitar tuned in that, I just hand picked this song. I was like, this is a gorgeous song. This sounds marginally like you know, in those styles. So if you can have some guitar, it's guitar is the only thing that can, it's what you tell it it's gonna be. Right. Okay. I I started to get uh angry when I realized how many years have been taken from me. I don't think I'm neurotypical, and I don't think I look at a guitar the same way that other people do, and I definitely can't don't approach it that way. Yeah, and I think when some like, oh dum dum, you can literally do anything with this instrument, you just get away from the mindset of like what you've been told. Right. Um, and that's standard cordage, basically, right? Like that's it, yeah. And and then you realize, oh, that might be the secret of like B-52s, you know, these bands that had one guitar player that was mad, like it moved all kinds of yeah. But you kind of have to step away from being like, okay, you're not gonna have that wall of sound that you love, you know, that drop D that's not gonna hit you. But but the good news is that you can kind of come away with something that's completely new and different and has never been heard before. It can sample from all those things that you love, but it's not gonna be, you know, that it'll be something else.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Yeah. And all the better for it. I mean, for sure. These are like happy discoveries, yeah. And probably frustrating at times too, trying to like, how am I gonna piece this or how am I gonna transition from this cool thing sounds yeah, like yeah, but I mean, that's the craft that you signed up for and have been doing for all of these dare I say decades.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

You know, 100% I've been doing it quite like over 30 years, and you know, I I it's it is therapeutic for me now, and it's worth preserving for that for that purpose. And I'm very grateful that Jake is is we're of the same mindset, and it's more for us. And I'm grateful that you know, Cloud, who who runs Velvet Blue Music, that put out our last two records. I I sent him the first one. I was like, we've known each other since I was 22. And again, all of this, you know, you were talking about this music of our childhood, it's come back into my life, and my 18-year-old self would have been stoked to hear what we're doing at 51, you know. And and amazing, and so Cloud, I went on tour with him when I was 22, and here I am, 51. He's still at it, I'm still at it. And I was like, hey man, can I send you this record? You make cover and he was like, This is weird, dude, but I'm into it. Well cool. Yeah, I mean, it's been a real like heart-filling thing, and I think the the best thing to do for Goth Daddy is to not disrupt that, you know? And we're already gonna do the third one with Cloud.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

So I want to talk about Viva Volchin. Okay. It was a huge band back in the day.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

I mean, you guys put out five five, six, seven records, six full lengths with EPs and singles and all that in between there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

And your um partner at the time, wife, yeah, she was you guys were married. Yeah, what was that relationship like in that band? Like, how did it begin? And like I I also read that your last record was when you guys decided that as partners it just it wasn't working anymore. And that was kind of the end of the band. Can you kind of just quickly walk us through kind of you know what happened and how it started and kind of how it ended?

SPEAKER_01 33:28

I mean, yeah, I mean, it was basically my first both of our first forays ended being a professional recording artist band. I had had bands before Viva Voce, so did she. And I met Anita at a concert and our bands just start playing together. And so we started Viva Voce as like a side project of our two bands. Well, that it wound up getting more attention than both of our bands. We wind up getting signed to a Warner Brothers subsidy in in the nine late 90s when you know they were just swallowing up any band that seemed marketable. And we we went, you know, we had a merry-go-round on that that label and just kind of learned all the lessons of why it's a bad idea to sign to a major label. Um, but toured out and experienced Portland, which is where we ultimately wound up moving to from Nashville, Tennessee. Yeah. And had about a 10 to 12 year run as an indie band after that. And yeah, went went from, you know, I recorded everything we did, and and after that first record was like went back to the four-track ethos. And you know, this town really celebrates mom and pop stuff and homemade things and my you know, local businesses and things like that. And a lot of towns, Nashville isn't the only one, but a lot of places only really will validate your art if it's got the stamp of approval from London or LA or New York or something. And and we moved to Portland and slowly became, you know, a headlining band and then got picked up by different labels and started touring. Played on the Shins Wincing the Night Away record. They wanted some female vocals and percussion, and so we went and kind of hung out while the Shins were recording that watershed album. Wow. Yeah, we were it was cool. We were in the studio while they were carving it up. Um and then did like the two-year album campaign with them, where we were like the opening band, and then Anita would sing backups, and then she got grafted into like the Saturday Night Lives, and like we were whisked into their whole touring cycle, you know. So there's all these wild memories I have of being alone backstage with Jake Gyllenhaal and everything, all just like hanging out. He's like, Hey, will you come in here? They need a photo, they need they want to take a photo of me for Broke Back Mountain. I'm like, sure, what do you want me to do? He's like, just let me cup your butt cheeks. I'm like, all right. So I'm like making out with Jake Gyllenhaal. All the wives are like, you know, jealous in the back, but it was it was, you know, and then you know, as things go, we we had another band, like we we had a band called Blue Giants, you know, being in a two-piece taxes on you after a while, and we wanted to kind of spread out and have other people collaborate. I think Anita had wanted not to maybe be in the front, you know, it gets kind of taxing doing that. And so I stepped up and and did that.

SPEAKER_00 36:49

And you know, six records is a good run, 12 years is a good run. And I mean, you're on some pretty nice labels too. Like labels had some pretty amazing artists as a catalog, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:02

For sure. Yeah, the last record we did was on Vanguard Records, right? Um, and that was my favorite one, you know, and ironically, it it was the one that got like probably the least amount of attention or love or any of that. I think by that, by that by your sixth record, people are like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, right?

SPEAKER_00 37:21

Well, I mean the title too, The Future Will Destroy You is right. I should have put comma and put Kevin Robinson. Yeah. I mean, I love that record, but I've been so into Rose City. I mean, yeah. Some of that stuff, I really that love that label too, right around those years. Like you put stuff out with them in 2006, 2009, right? Like, yeah, they had some amazing artists happening around then when they were just kind of starting to get going. Yeah, Bar Suk, Christian. Yeah. And I totally like never I mean, I'm sure I listened to you, but you know, like your brain kind of reads the more music to listen to. Yeah, no, I know. And like, what was it that you learned the your biggest lessons from those years doing Viva Voce? Like, what did you take from that you needed to move forward? And what were you able to let go of? Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Okay, good, good question. I mean, what I probably took from it the most was that you know, Rose City in particular was one that didn't really hit until I think long after the cycle of promotion and all that. The Timbers, the Portland Timbers still use that as a battle cry at their game. So they're you know, they used 20,000 people will sing that, which is wild. That's crazy. So I I think my takeaway from it was is is that like, you know, I we put a lot of pressure on that because it became our bread and butter. And it became there was that period of time where you could have a blue-collar existence and be an indie rock band. And I really bought the notion that that was a viable career path. Because, you know, as I grew up in the 70s, 80s, like you would see that this is you, if you work hard, you know, there's something you sell and all this kind of stuff. So you you really work at this thing to where you understand that ultimately, even though it's art that you're making, there's a transaction of commerce that's going to be involved, and there's an audience, a buying audience and all that kind of thing. I think I think the the hold on loosely but don't let go cliche of rock and roll is that like you know, the the entire you wake up and everything's different. Like all of the machine, the magazines, the photographers, the writers, the whole machine that made all that work is all gone.

SPEAKER_02 39:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:57

And and so a lot of people are still having a hard time training. I mean, I hear artists all the time talk about like record deals and all this stuff, like it's back in the day. And it's I think that my takeaway from that time period was that I'm grateful that I got to experience what that was like. I got to get in the van and travel around the country like countless times. I got to travel Europe, I got to go around the world, you know. But um how quickly how quickly things change and and you know, and and being able to adapt is is is the thing. And my my the lesson, man, that's a loaded question. I mean, I learned a lot. I learned a lot that like, you know, maybe it's probably not the best idea to have your partnership and your relationship and the love of your life involved in the business aspect, regardless of what it is, whether it's music or a shoe shop or whatever, because at the end of the night, when you clock out, you take it home and you never you never leave. And that identifiable part of like what's our relationship and what's our business, you know? Like the record label president came to our wedding. So our our our our whole relationship was cooked and being in a in a band together, so that like once that rug got pulled out, you know, it was like you know, it was kind of hard to separate it after that. Yeah, 100%. And you know, I see people do it all the time, and I'm like, I hope, I hope for the best.

SPEAKER_00 41:42

Yeah. But you know, it's I mean, they it seems to be in a traction sometimes that for sure, like two artists kind of just fuse together and then you know, they're married, you know. And but I I I see that because I work with my partner, right? Yeah, like she's my boss, and yeah, it's tough to separate those two. Oh, yeah, come home, you know, because it's just more work again, and it's like you never kind of get a repose in your mind of the work stuff, it's always present all the time.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

Exactly. Not only that, but with art, like every decision you make, every interview you you have, every photo shoot, you know, there's it's it's stressful. Like there's with Goth Daddy, it's none of those things. Like, you know, I don't I don't give a shit if someone writes a bad review. That's whatever. But like, you know, we would that would carry on into van discussions, and that would that would be a dark cloud. There would there would there was pressure behind that, you know? Yeah, but I just I've I've separated uh not not just physically, but like mentally and spiritually from the notion of like my worth being identified by albums sold, you know, because all now all those things can be manipulated and my eyes are open. Like I didn't know back then, you know, when you when you're green, you really think that people are on the covers of magazine because they're that popular, you know. You don't realize, like, no, their label is spending mad coin for that. Like, you don't realize that all of this is just money. And um, I think now the that wool comes down, you can kind of get back to the thing that you were into when you were a kid, which is like the the passionate side and remove that commerce side and kind of get at something that's a little more inspiring than than something that has the the pressure of being commercially successful behind it.

SPEAKER_00 43:40

Do you think, Kevin, that was kind of at the crux of Goth Daddy is to reimagine who you were as a musician in a situation that we are now where, like you said, the music industry has you know a dagger in its heart. You know, it's like doesn't breathe much anymore. You have to go out and hustle. To get your music listened to and oh for sure. I mean record deals are like, you know, a silver b not a silver bullet, but a diamond in the rough, I should say. Right. Right? Like most artists as you were saying that your recording studio, you can do it right there and then you can like slap something down, listen back to it, add a few little things. Like it's kind of organic now. Um what was the crux of goth daddy in this re renewal of your musical self?

SPEAKER_01 44:31

I mean, I think that having a new kid, being uh a new dad, realizing that like the old me went out the window like a bag on the highway, just gone. And I it's not a guitar that I'm playing. It it doesn't even resemble a guitar. I could hand it to you and you play it like a guitar. It's it's m its own thing. And so I think approaching the guitar with this beginner, I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm bringing a lifetime of experience to that. It kind of has forced me into doing something completely new that pushes me every time to like the edge of my comfortable, comfortable limit. And and with that comes out something new and exciting to me that like we can work with and turn it into a song, you know? But it it's definitely a rebirth. And I think even with the band name, which I think is cool, but it's also very like clear that these hopefully clear that these individuals aren't taking themselves too seriously.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't think so at all. Like I think it's raw and true. Like I think you're on to some truth in all of as you said, through all this experience that you bring with you. That's why I asked you about kind of what did you leave behind, because it does seem like you have to let go of stuff to find this new path that you're on. And this, I mean, excellent new record too. Uh G V DV, I mean, this came out this year. I mean, you put two records out in two years, full length. Yeah. There must be something going on that's amazing. And a little bird told me there's a third one that's gonna be coming out not long from now. Yeah, we have this sudden surge of creativity.

SPEAKER_01 46:27

Fifty something songs in the demo pile for the next record. And every every it's crazy. Every time I pick a guitar up, it's like there's there's a song shows up. And I think the surge is that I feel like for the first time in my life, and this includes Diva Voce, this is includes my solo stuff, like anything I've done up till now, I feel like this is like probably the first time I've created music that I can separate myself from, like observe the observer, and kind of be proud of and into the end result. I think any artist or performer kind of has this like disassociative experience of seeing or hearing themselves. It's like, ugh, you know. I saw a video of Michael Stipe listening to his vocals on losing my religion, and he was like, oh, you know, and I'm like, oh, I get it, you know. And but like this is the first band where I I I hear songs, I'm like, I get what you're doing. Uh go go for it, buddy. You know, I'm into that, you know. Um freedom backing about words. I I'm I let it's also very I've done a lot of phys philosophical leaps and bounds. And on there's there's a lot of this that doesn't involve like just pounding out a a song or something like that to bring it again. And I think yeah, you can have it. Um I I think that's probably been the biggest thing is you know doing doing the work on the person and not just in the cliche of like ego death or any of these like, you know, metaphysical buzzwords that are pretty popular now of like, you know, work, you know, man in the mirror and that kind of thing, but really under like really getting to the core of like what you need to let go of and that kind of thing. And even if that includes let go of tuning the guitar normal, like just head off head off into the jungle that you've never been in before and and trust, you know, and your mind look I read somewhere like your mind takes the shape of whatever it holds in there, right? And so for the longest time you can just digest all the influences of like the sound and the chameleons and Starflyer 59 and Echo and the Bunny Man, and you just hold these things in your mind. And then so many times when the comes time to make the art, a lot of people be like, oh well, I hear what you're doing, it's it's derivative of this, or it's it's like a Pinterest board of all your things. And sometimes you get something that comes out that is n what's the word, it's it's respectful of those influences, but it's something completely new. You know, when when you hear the Beatles, you don't hear the Hollies or Buddy Holly or whatever, but you hear where they pulled from. And and I think that Goth Daddy i is is that mixed with the philosophy of of a lot of solitude and a lot of silence, to be honest. And there's very I'll take very little credit in any of it because I I wrote it and I sang it and I produced I did it on this laptop that I'm you know, but the truth the truth of the matter is written, recorded, and mixed. Yeah, all of it. But honestly, it's just kind of showing up, and it's like, you know, you'll just start, oh hello there, weird chord, and like what what sounds good there? Sure this does, and then you know you're done, and then you're done. You're just showing up and being being a good steward of what's been given to you. And I think after a while you you can kind of separate, like, yeah, watch me cook, you know. I'm I'm I'm hot shit. Or you can just be that look, I just was attentive enough to kind of receive the transmission and to do it justice and then move on. And I'm not precious with any of you know, we're gonna be hopefully an album a year band until the wheels run off the train until we can't keep it up, you know.

SPEAKER_00 50:47

But I I like we guys are on a great run right now though. Yeah, yeah. It's like and the songs too are like I list I was just comparing the two like the two albums from 2025 and 2026, just to see if and I'm I really just even over a year your growth is like just putting it all together. It just feels more it's richer, you know, like you've let it stew on the stove for an hour or two, you know, and it just has this rich quality to it. Thank you. And it leaves you kind of wanting more. Like that's awesome. And one other thing I've noticed, Kevin, and you tell me if I'm wrong on this, but you usually end your records with a reflective kind of song. Maybe a bit slower, maybe a little bit more like you're getting the listener to like kind of reflect upon after you've given them all this meal to chew on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:46

Do you do that like intentionally, or is that something that oh yeah, like the way that records are put together is really meticulous. Like how BPMs flow into one another and end ending side ones and side twos on reflective numbers is key because you know, you when you see a show and you end on a high note, you you're coming back for an encore. And when it's the final song of the night, you want to end on a on a lullaby. You want to you know, you want something that's a little a little more reflective and yeah, that's 100%.

SPEAKER_00 52:23

I didn't I didn't realize that flow. Like, I mean, I talk with a lot of musicians, and I know that the ordering of the tracks is super important, but nobody went that deep of listening to the beats per minute and listen looking at the flow of the waves and like how it all kind of and how we as humans respond to it, right? Because it does have this visceral kind of personal and I loved what you said about the stewardshipness because all of your experiences brought you to where you are now. You know, and all the music you've listened to, I mean it's all gonna influence you, but it's like you said, it's this kind of a piece here, a piece there, a piece here, and I'm gonna mold something new together with it. I mean, I I think that it's super authentic what you put together here and what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 53:10

High, high compliment, thank you. Like I think honestly the the authenticity, and I'm striving for more of that, certainly lyrically, and I'm always pushing myself to to be as honest as I can without without delving into cringe territory, but like really not putting my heart out there. Totally because I think honesty and authenticity is something that will separate human-made art from non-human-made art. And I d neither record has any pitch correction on the vocals, like there's no like there's push and pull, like Doom Kitty is like one solid performance of drums. J there's no edit. Like, that's Jake playing that song. And so I think Yeah, and with that, you know, there's things that you could get you could beat map it and all that stuff, but it's like, no, just there's tracks on there where you can hear me step on the pedals and you hear the squeaks and the pops and all that. And I'm just just leave it in because it feels it feels honest, and it's you know I'm a f there's a place for songs that just put you in a vibe or a mood or party, party, party, or whatever, or you broke my heart and I hate your guts, or I love you so much. But there's something about that that honest integrity of songs that like really hit you that you keep coming back to like a like a security blanket of like I wanna you know, I want to hear this again because this is real.

SPEAKER_00 54:46

Totally, totally and I and I I think it's a common thing too happening nowadays where bands, uh artists, singers, songwriters are doing this live thing in the recording studio as well, where yeah, they sit around. I mean, this has been done in the past too, but it seems a revival of this coming back together, face to face, and playing together. Yeah. With all the scars and all the tweaks and the pops that we're making music, we're making art here, you know. It's not like we're trying to like make this manicured AI garbage, you know. It's like we're touching real things with real people.

SPEAKER_01 55:23

It's the only thing you that can't be messed with, you know. Like we're we're a legit band, and we stand on stage and we play these songs. And you you there was a difference between album one and album two because that was the progression of figuring out and then becoming and becoming, you know, and I I I know that this stuff will far outlive me, and I've made a lot of songs that I probably don't want to hear again, and or like, you know, I guess I hear the kid that I was, and I would like to create some art that has maybe a little more uh maturity to it, not just musically, but you know, mentally and philosophically as well.

SPEAKER_00 56:09

Well, you can check out a box. I got a box. Well, Kevin, it's always a pleasure. Thanks so much for for sharing your thoughtfulness and insight. I think your words are gonna help a lot of the younger kids out there trying to make their way in this because they hear experiences that you had to go through and that you went through. And Kevin, look, Goth Daddy, you know, two records, two years. People go out and check it out. Don't turn it off right yet, because we're gonna play Doom Kitty right at the end of this, so you get to hear what Goth Daddy does, and you'll love it. Kevin, all the best. And Chris. I hope we continue this chat in 2027 when your next record comes out, mate. We got it. We'll do it again.

SPEAKER_01 56:57

Let's do it again. Let's make it an annual thing. Oh man. All right, brother. Thanks for chatting, Chris. Cheers, man.