Yeah

... like, all that stuff, nobody was really doing that.

Nobody really cared about it at the time.

It was a very small thing, and it started building and building and building.

So [sniffs] and I mean, we feel like those songs that we put on Pillars are quintessential songs.

Like, that Hopes Of Harmony, Abnegation song, I mean, if it was, like, if it was on the right label, and I mean, I think it sounds awesome.

Like, their version of it sounds awesome.

Like, it's not like it's a big-selling thing, so why would AI waste the time? But, uh, is it gonna be the point where, like, AI just wants to do everything and cover it all and-

Mm

...

I mean, there were always, like, maybe 100 to 200 kids there all the time, no matter what, 'cause they're, that's the place you would go to hang out anyway.

So it really built a, like, an unbelievable scene here, and we had a lot of really cool bands that were from here and were close enough knit, like, you know, ear, like...

So we're, like, 30 minutes outside of Pittsburgh, so we had Pittsburgh, Greensburg, Latrobe, Ohio area, West Virginia, where the original Zao's from.

All those areas would have bands come into Pittsburgh, and, you know, Greensburg, whatever local clubs we had, and it was just unbelievable.

And, and even before this, like, whole thing, like, this metal, hardcore, like, thing, there were...

Mm-hmm.

Uh, uh, so I, I'm guessing that was like literally a collision of those two ideas that were, whether you intended to or not, was that kind of like the inception point?

Yeah, I think that, um, you know, a lot of us, like...

And I, I have to credit Nathan for this 'cause like we did have a very, like, cool scene in our area, okay? Um, and Nathan was really like the first person I met that like knew of like this underground DIY, like hardcore, like pseudo metal.

Like, 'cause this- When we started Creation, you know, I was like just a metal guy.

Like, I listened to like Suffocation and like death metal and like, you know, Slayer and all.

Like I, that's kind of where I was.

But Nathan kind of introduced me to the underground, and it's hard to s- 'cause it like, I, we didn't, I didn't get into like the hardcore scene, like Gorilla Biscuits, like New York's.

Mm-hmm