Furnace Fest

definitely.

Well, we we played Furnace Fest right here, you know, and that was kind of a surprise that kind of got the ball rolling.

We had done one more show, one other show before that, and it was just a blast.

And we knew that 2026 was going to be 30 years.

So yeah, we're, so we're going to, we're going to be doing our last four shows here in the next couple of weeks.

And it's been wild, like back in advance, mostly.

And like having played like kind of some one-offs and some, you know, like furnace festival and like a couple of things like that, you know, like you, you, you rehearse and you have that time together.

And then like, everybody's just kind of making their way there.

I ran into Sparta.

Well, I saw Sparta at Furnace Fest in 20...

Hennessy? Is he playing that? I'm trying to remember.

He must have, you know what, I know he was at this, like, he had already been with Sparta, but I feel like at this particular time, because in the same year he was with Sparta, he was with Joyce Manor, he's always with the Lawrence Arms, and he did that against me run, like, with Blink-182 in, like, Australia, too.

I didn't know he could do that.

He's a fucking phenom.

that day i'm pretty sure neil wasn't there that he was already in sparta but i think they had someone else playing drums because he was out with like joyce manor or whatever it was but i ended up hanging out for like an hour at furnace fest with matt the bass player of sparta that day we had a couple beers and like i took he had never been to furnace fest so i took him i was like you got to see the shed you know the shed it's like where you see all the crazy videos crazy I was like, I got to show you the shed.

And we walked over and like terror was playing.

this.

I listened to some of them because they played at the last Furnace Fest that I went to.

Were they the ones that were supposed to play and didn't play because they got stuck? I think I can't remember now.

They clearly left a huge impression on me.

And I would love if there were a label that was interested in putting this new stuff out.

But I do think that'll come out probably this year.

But in addition to that, Brandon and Jason, the original bass player and guitar player, We got asked, we've been asked to play Furnace Fest two or three times, and every time we've considered it, and two years ago, we were actually going to do it.

We were like about to pull the trigger and do it, but we realized I'm in Florida, Brandon's in Tennessee, Jason's in Kentucky.

She's also very, very invested in heavy music.

I became aware of Bailey Pope through her videos on TikTok and Instagram, where she does these sort of like videos talking about, you know, festivals within heavy music, things like Furnace Fest, talking about culturally within heavy music as well.

A lot of it's very funny.

Sometimes it's very historical.

Like I can't go talk about fucking As While You Dying on the stage at the Chuckle Hut, you know? And so I was like, okay, maybe I could try these like walking videos to work out like more niche material.

I was kind of having fun with it and it was like a way to, you know, engage online.

But then leading up to Furnace Fest just last year, The year before, I had engaged with the Furnace Best community online by doing tour updates on my drive down to Birmingham.

I wasn't driving down this last year, so I was like, I'll do 30 days of Furnace Fest.

But there you go.

I pro- I saw him at Furnace Fest and I went, "You're from Atomic Tom." Anyway.

[laughs]

That's where my, that's where my brain goes.

And

then we got Furnace Fest.

That's in October.

And then we're going to be doing a census fail tour with the band Initiate.

I love Birmingham.

I mean, my, my experience there is like furnace fest.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, I know those guys.

yeah And that's the biggest thing.

I've worked with some pretty big brands in a previous life, but I think that's the biggest thing is how do you stand out from the crowd? How do you rise above the noise that's out there? Because like you said, to use an old phrase, you can't throw a stick without hitting five different bands that just came out with a new album and or a reunited band with the three original members and a couple of side guys or something like that.

We were talking about Furnace Fest earlier and I know Johnny and all those guys over there and Johnny and I have had a lot of conversations about the state of the music festival world and how Some of those are even struggling regardless of who they get to play.

They could have a Pink Floyd reunion show headline and they would still have problems selling tickets just because of the money cost of the tickets and all of that sort of stuff.