Podcasts/Sacred Tension-Satanic Planet FINALbbb49

Satanic_Planet_FINALbbb49 SUMMARY KEYWORDS people, satanic, music, album, baphomet, thought, ritual, track, satanism, podcast, exorcism, label, feel, baptism, released, video, article, read, lullaby, stories SPEAKERS Doug Misicko, Stephen Bradford Long

00:00 You're listening to a rock candy podcast. I am Avery Smith, and I'm here to invite you to bless it are the binary breakers and multifaith podcast of transgender stories. Whatever your own relationship to gender and spirituality may be, you will find yourself enriched or the stories shared by my guests who so far have ranged in religion from Christian and pagan to Jewish, Sikh, atheist and beyond, and have hailed from the US, Chile, Poland, Australia and more tune in wherever you get your podcasts or read along with episode transcripts by visiting blessitt Are the binary breakers.com See you there.

Stephen Bradford Long 01:17 This is sacred tension, the podcast about the discipline of asking questions. My name is Steven Bradford long and we are here on the rock candy Podcast Network. For more shows like this one, go to rock candy recordings.com. In this episode, I speak once again with Lucian, grieves co founder and spokesperson of the Satanic Temple and we are going to talk about his new album satanic planet, and probably a lot more we'll see. But before we get to that, I have to thank my patrons. My patrons are the lifeblood of this show, I truly could not do this without them. This show takes an enormous amount of work from scheduling to recording, editing, mastering and then promoting it is a huge amount of work. And your support is really what makes it possible. And this is my plea to everyone. If you have an independent creator that you love someone that you tune into every single week, a YouTuber or an artist or a podcast or please support them, independent creators really, really rely on you. And so if it isn't me, then please let it be someone else. Because social media is so unstable for independent creators and we really rely on you to support us financially. All right. So for this week, I have to thank terrorists dowless and Fidelis owl. Thank you so much. You're my personal lords and saviors. And if you want to join their number, just click the link in the show notes. Go to patreon.com forward slash Steven Bradford long, and you will get extra content every week. Also, this show is sponsored by the satanic temple.tv. If you're interested in weird fringe, new religious movements, the occult rituals, lectures on all kinds of stuff, they have live streams, they have movie nights, then please go to the satanic temple.tv. And at checkout, use my promo code sacred tension all caps, no space and you will get one month free. All right, with all of that finally out of the way Lucien Greaves Welcome back.

Doug Misicko 03:27 Good to be here.

Stephen Bradford Long 03:28 It's been a while how's life? How are you doing?

Doug Misicko 03:31 Not bad. I would say getting back to normal but not really.

Stephen Bradford Long 03:36 Yeah. You know, we were just chatting before the show about like how both of us you know Quarantine is slowly being lifted. And so it's like we go out into the sunshine and realize that we don't actually like it and then just turn around and go back inside. Back into back into solitude.

Doug Misicko 03:53 Yeah, people are going to start taking it personally. I've been getting a lot of messages from people wanting to meet up or whatever, and just not not there yet.

Stephen Bradford Long 04:02 I understand. It has been a painful, terrible, awful time. It has also been great for some introverts. It has been fantastic. Like I've gotten so much reading done. I've gotten so much writing done. It's actually been you know, COVID has been bittersweet because it's like it's such a global terror and so awful and yet my personal life is fantastic. And so it's like trying to deal with that dichotomy is weird. So you have a new album out and you were teasing it on our last episode that we did together at the very end. So it's finally out and it is called satanic planet. I have listened to the album, especially the song exorcism I fucking love that song. And I don't know how many times I've played it and I was honestly really surprised by it. Because it's, it's feels very alien. It's a very alien and uncomfortable album in A good way. And I like that feeling. I like that alien otherworldly feeling that music can give me sometimes and and satanic planet has that all over the place

Doug Misicko 05:13 where you say alien in a good way. But I think a lot of people have been a little irritated by Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. If social media comments or any gauge, there's some people who are really upset that it doesn't fit nicely in within the confines of the parameters of a specific genre. But how some metal crowd the metal crowd is really, really rather purist about oh, yeah, but they consider metal and we never claimed to be metal in the rest stop that we're

Stephen Bradford Long 05:50 I mean, the the number of endless stupid debates I have witnessed in the metal community, which I am, I'm on the very periphery of it's, it's pretty fucking hilarious. So it isn't metal enough, but I don't know, it has this kind of industrial savage grind to it, that I really, really, really like that I can't really, I can't really think of any other musician that that has a similar feel to it.

Doug Misicko 06:25 That's good. I think that's a point in our favor. Absolutely. People get upset by that. But other people, you know, eat that up into, to be honest, I'm really not sure at all, where we're at with like sales, you know, even though TST we've done our our own vinyl addition, the red one, that that's exclusive to TST. And there's three other final editions, each limited to 666 666 being sold through three, one G. I have no idea where the sales are from that. But

Stephen Bradford Long 07:02 I think it looks like downloads on Spotify are doing pretty well. That's where I listen to it. Let's see here. Oh, so you can see the stats you want to do you want to know the stats on Spotify?

Doug Misicko 07:11 I didn't know that was available to everybody. I thought it didn't stuff.

Stephen Bradford Long 07:15 I mean, it just shows how many monthly listeners you have. So you have 5203 monthly listeners, which for an album that just came out is pretty

Doug Misicko 07:23 good. Okay. Yeah. Well, I'll take it. Yeah.

Stephen Bradford Long 07:26 So tell us some about the the story of this album. Where did it come from? How did it start?

Doug Misicko 07:34 Well, there's this band planet B. And that consists of both Luke and Justin who are both in satanic planet with me. And Justin has this band. He started back in like the 90s called the locust. And it's kind of this screamy punk type act that I really like. I've liked them from almost the beginning of their, their music career. And I like Plan A B two. And Justin is also in a band called Dead cross. And he's in Dead cross with Dave Lombardo. Who's Oh, of course. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it was drummer for Slayer and Phantom as sin. Dead cross. The vocalist is Mike Patton. And I was doing an interview with some metal magazine in the UK. And they as part of that, they wanted me to talk about some of my favorite music. And I mentioned dead cross. Their album was freshly released, I think around that time, and that was something new that I liked. And apparently, this caught my pens attention. He showed the other guys and then Justin reached out to me, wanting to know if I would be on his Podcast, the podcast he does with with Luke. So they came to Salem to record it. And we hung out for a while. And then at some point, it was discussed that we should do a project together. But we were thinking like a spoken word type album, you know, rituals, you know, invocation, that kind of thing. And then we started exchanging sound files, and they started getting weirder and weirder. And I started experimenting with like, you know, vocal effects and things like that. But by the time we got into the studio, we still didn't really have anything mapped out and I still have, like, stuff that I would want. I wanted to lay down a spoken word, you know, but that's really boring to, to me, you know, if you just have a spoken word script, and the music is just kind of incidental in the background, you know, that's something you can only kind of listen to once you know, and then it's a novelty item and they would have done fine is Something like that, you know, but when we got into the studio and we started messing with different noise and rhythms and stuff like that, I started just hacking out lyrics specific to those you know, and and I really liked not being heavy handed with message you know, not putting too fine a point on it not being preachy, leaving something to people's imagination and their own kind of subjective interpretation, because I think that's where artistic power can really be, you know, in with certain things. You just really want to capture an emotion more than anything else. Like that's what music should do for you. Right? You're not You're not reading a peer reviewed article or something like that. It's a whole difference. I

Stephen Bradford Long 10:46 mean, I just hear a cat. Did I just hear a cat? You need to show me your cat?

Doug Misicko 10:49 Yeah, the cat. Just loves the Polish ship when it's interview time. Okay. Sorry, I get on a call.

Stephen Bradford Long 10:58 I totally interrupted you. Like, I have six cats. Everyone knows I have six cats. I'm a crazy cat lady. And so anyway. It feels very I don't know. I picture rituals taking place to some of the music like Yeah, well, I like I imagine a black mass taking place to some of the music.

Doug Misicko 11:24 Well, the on baptism track was specifically based on the own baptism ritual.

Stephen Bradford Long 11:30 There she is he she, she, she we are we are completely forgetting that this is not a visual medium at all. And people are going to be so Lucian has a very pretty black and white cat. What's your cat's name? The kitten? The kitten? Yeah. Oh, very original.

Doug Misicko 11:52 She said that name ever since she was a little baby. Ah,

Stephen Bradford Long 11:56 very nice. Like, you know listening to to exorcism hat, which is my favorite song off the album has inspired me to write a black mass roughly based on the like slaying of Aslan The Lion in in the first Narnia book and like Satan Ising that scene turning that scene into because I was raised with that like I was I was raised being read Narnia and you know the have you read the Narnia books? Are you at all familiar?

Doug Misicko 12:31 I'm familiar with like the premise but I have no

Stephen Bradford Long 12:34 okay, well then I won't I won't go on a rant but no like

Doug Misicko 12:37 it I can give away whatever spoilers you like as

Stephen Bradford Long 12:40 land dies, so does Dumbledore that's all you need to know. But the moral of the story i i picture rituals being performed to this music.

Doug Misicko 12:53 Well, that's kind of some of the idea to at least on baptism, we wanted to do kind of an extended version of it for the live shows and you know, hopefully do on baptisms on the stage, you know, bring Shiva along Shiva, honey, absolutely as vocalist on the album, and, you know, hopefully make the whole performance kind of an interactive experience for people more than a passive experience where they're watching. Watching the band alone. I kind of feel like it should feel more like they're their congregants at a large satanic congregation where they have

Stephen Bradford Long 13:31 to Yeah, where they definitely had to forfeit their eternal soul to get in. Right?

Doug Misicko 13:37 Yeah. I like the idea. You know, when we do events that are, you know, when satanic planet plays Live, if there's people who are on the fence or really haven't shaken free of their prior programming, that they leave just wondering if they went too far?

Stephen Bradford Long 13:56 Like, am I going to hell now? For people who don't know, because I do have a lot of non satanic listeners. Can you tell people what a what an um, baptism is?

Doug Misicko 14:06 Well, the baptism similar to Black Mass, it's kind of a declaration of independence from superstition. And the baptism ritual specifically tries to wipe away that history and that in those kinds of regressive counterproductive, cognitive programs that have been instilled in somebody, it really makes them kind of focus on undoing that, you know, and being free of it liberated from it. And, you know, to a lot of people that's deeply meaningful, especially people who feel that they came up in a repressive, superstitious environment imposed upon them by some archaic religion. You know, rituals like this really helped kind of anchor a moment in time for them when they have their awakening into a world of real Elodie,

Stephen Bradford Long 15:01 I think I talked to talked about this with Shiva when she was on the show last time, but in terms of an unmapped Hizam, thinking about my own baptism, you know, symbol is powerful, and even, even when we want to, you know, first I feel like for some people, it might not be as powerful. But then there are some people, and especially some communities where symbolism is incredibly powerful. So I was baptized as an infant, when I couldn't consent to that to this momentous community ritual that I couldn't consent to. And it's like, I have lived with the ripples of that social, publicly recognized ritual that I didn't consent to, for my entire life. And I had nothing to do with it, I will, I did not consent to it. And on a, on a social level and psychological level, not that I am somehow, you know, carrying some kind of repressed trauma of that memory. But on a social level, the power of that symbol is enormous, because there are people who remember that there are people and I was raised in a church where it happened. And so now that I am no longer a Christian, and now that I'm a satanist and and baptism is something that I really want to do at some point, because I never consented to that ritual. And no matter how much some of us want to denigrate the power of symbol and ritual, we live in a social reality. We live in a constructed social reality where symbol and ritual has enormous impact.

Doug Misicko 16:49 Yeah, no, we absolutely do. And it's kind of a way of reclaiming your life as your own. I mean, as you said, you grew up in an environment in which she can't consent to this, or it's done to you at an age at which you don't know any better anyway, there's a significant amount of coercion, that goes along with also instilling ideas that might not be the most productive for you to hold. So really feeling comfortable with doing away with that is really important. And part of feeling comfortable with that, I think is, you know, being in an environment with people, where you feel that you're, you're on the same terms with one another, and then you understand this, this element of yourself. And that's why you know, these things can be very important. And I really hope to incorporate that into our live shows, because that makes it so much more powerful than just coming and seeing a band play their absolutely their music straight through the way they the way they recorded it in the studio.

Stephen Bradford Long 17:53 Were you the lyricist? Oh, yeah. Or for all this not? What was what was the process of writing the songs? What, what inspirations did you draw from were there any was there anything? Any primary like symbols or images or pieces of literature that you were drawing from as you wrote these lyrics?

Doug Misicko 18:12 Well, there's one that I didn't write lyrics for. But I pulled a passage from revolt of the angels. And I changed some of the words because there were archaic words for Jehovah in there that I thought would have more impact if, you know, it was clear that everybody knew who we're talking about here. And so is that I always say off. Yeah, right. Yeah. But that so that that was like, you know, that was like the one kind of spoken word track that that remained from the idea of doing a spoken word out. And there's a video for that one now, even. And there were a number of things I wanted to touch upon. Also, when doing the spoken word, when we felt we do something with the standard invocation that the Satanic Temple usually gives if we're allowed to give our invocations where they allow them in public spaces, and they usually open, you know, city council meetings with a Christian prayer, whatever, where we have to litigate when they say no, but we ended up or I ended up revising those lyrics to be more into, you know, to work more with the song as well. And that kind of turned into a song. But we still thought we're gonna be doing a one off out. And so I was trying to cover like different aspects of Satanism in the Satanic Temple. So we had a gray faction track in there and as I said, on baptism, we never actually did do a black mass one or other, or other rituals clearly. And you see that, you know, as we move forward, and I think the ideas became more abstract. You know, you see other types of tracks in the hair. That don't really follow, follow any of that. That's when we got pretty used to the idea that we were just gonna be working on music, you know. And we were doing the studio sessions just before COVID locked down. I mean, I literally had just returned from traveling or it's when I was in San Diego and in the studio and straight into lockdown for COVID. And we had all of the tracks laid out. But then I thought is like a beside or maybe for the next album or whatever. I was in Salem and I started recording stuff and I started working on the stranger's track and strangers was made entirely remotely. And we ended up throwing it on the album. And at that point, I think you see a complete departure from trying to put any any real Satanism specific message into the music. And to me that's progress. You know what I mean? Like absolute to me, we're able to break free of any type of formulaic approach we may have had. And, you know, even though we didn't really confine ourselves very much on the first album, we're still kind of like working through the idea of, you know, evolving from the idea of doing spoken word to actually doing music. So yeah, I don't know. I think we covered quite a few things. And I think

Stephen Bradford Long 21:30 so too. No, I think so, too. Did you do any of the singing or were you all the? the spoken word?

Doug Misicko 21:37 Oh, um, most of the voice you hear I think on the album, you know, the real screaming parts are usually Justin, he and I are both screaming on on baptism. But But yeah, yeah, for the most part, you know, and the verses and things like that and certainly the robot voices and everything that's that's me.

Stephen Bradford Long 22:00 I love the robot voices the robot voices are so good. Speaking of robot voices Baphomet song with the music video which is fantastic talk some about the because it is your highest listened to Song your most listened to song on Spotify is 45,000 listens on Spotify. What went into that song? What, what especially the lyrics, I think what I appreciate the most about that song is how it seems like you are trying to articulate the duality and reconciliation of opposites that Baphomet represents in that yeah, that

Doug Misicko 22:37 was exactly it. And so um, you know, counter posing these different things cruel, benevolent, the infidel higher offense, those types of things, just into the lyrics of this track in it, that was one of those where we kind of just finished that one off at the end of the studio sessions, because we had kind of like this great musical background. And I kept I feel like I kept overthinking what would be done with the vocals, you know what I mean? And for the vocals, I kept trying to come up with different voices, you know, that was really the only way I could think of to kind of approach the vocals you know, it was almost method acting in certain tracks, you know, at the beginning of the exorcism track that's kind of like my demonic possessed voice, you know, going through that, yes, at the beginning, and the gray faction voice, which I ended up just kind of using on the Baphomet track, we had recorded gray faction first. I was at first kind of going through for this kind of abused ill and desperate sound, you know, and it just turns out to be like this kind of amateurish throat singing kind of thing. And then it I think we start calling it like the evil monk voice or something like that. But But, but it actually like it was getting into a mindset where I was thinking like, Okay, how would an abuse patient have, you know, inpatient may be sound after coming out of like, a week of isolation or something like that, you know, that was thinking

Stephen Bradford Long 24:20 they wouldn't know. So this is what this is what you sounded like when you emerge from quarantine after a year.

Doug Misicko 24:26 Well, my raspy voice in strangers was actually you know, as some kind of attempt to emulate. Emulate kind of raspy respiratory infected type of condition. Strangers is like half of a COVID song. You know, at first I started out with this theme of like the just the horror of the unseen, more generalized, you know, but I had just gone into lockdown so obviously my mind keeps coming back to, to COVID. In the US in the Wirex. You have that reference to cracked and bleeding feeling rough disinfectant not enough, you know? It was actually kind of it was in your psyche. Well, it was actually, right there present in my life. I think. At the point I was rasping those lyrics into the microphone in Salem. I think my hands literally were cracked and bleeding. This was before they had run, like analysis of surface transmission and things like that. And I just disinfected the shit out of everything and went into lockdown. Yep. So,

Stephen Bradford Long 25:39 you know, Have you have you seen the movie The Andromeda Strain, that old movie where they, they have to, like, go into this cleaning chamber and they strip naked and they like have to have all the hair seared off of them and then incinerated and like the top layer of their skin isn't, is incinerated off and then they're covered in chemicals. That's basically what my life was like, every single day when I got home from work.

Doug Misicko 26:10 So I never saw that I grew to hold the real loathing for Michael Crighton Oh, me

Stephen Bradford Long 26:15 too. Yeah. So, speaking of music, and Satanism, I feel like Satanism is having a moment and pop culture right now. Especially with Lil NAS X. And his

Doug Misicko 26:31 video came out the same same time as the Baphomet video came out.

Stephen Bradford Long 26:37 So clearly, his success is due to you. That's why That's why his music video did so well. It's all because of you know, so you had a really interesting statement on your Patreon, a really interesting article about lil NAS X. And I'm wondering if you could recap some of that here.

Doug Misicko 26:56 Yeah, I mean, it's always kind of disappointing to me when we're doing some of the important things that we're doing, you know, especially some of the really expensive litigation we go through, like, for reproductive rights, and there's not a whole lot of attention paid to it relative to something we don't have anything to do with, which is, you know, exactly the condition of the little NAS X video out to me for a statement on somebody else's artwork. And honestly, I couldn't say exactly what the nuances of the message were, he was trying to express and as people were asking me for interviews, little NAS X starts releasing more statements, which I also felt kind of made my statements irrelevant. Like, they're asking how do you feel about this as a Satanist? And it just seemed a little ridiculous for me to claim I felt one way or the other about it. I could have my suspicions I could have my personal opinion, but I didn't really feel like it was my place to say like, as a Satanist I feel this because if you're a satanist and you watch that and you think well, right on that's the shit more power to you enjoy it, you know? And I'm not part of that crowd. That is Jews pop culture stuff just because it's pop culture and decides to hate certain works of art or whatever just because they're doing well amongst the mainstream. Some things of merit actually have done good work in a widespread environment. And I know a lot of stuff in my opinion that wins Grammys I don't understand what it's supposed to be worth. But hey, if you can enjoy it, enjoy it enjoy everything you can don't don't feel like you need to that you're upping your own kind of worth as an elitist by hating everything that people like. But the little NAS X video it's not necessarily my genre or not my my art you know, it's it isn't your cup of tea.

Stephen Bradford Long 29:10 Yeah, yeah. Which is okay.

Doug Misicko 29:13 Doesn't mean I doesn't mean I dislike it. It's just maybe I'm not the guy to comment on it. But also like, there's I don't think there was any sense and asking like as a Satanist. How do you feel about this? Because that type of representation of Heaven Hell, Satan, it's so prevalent so as to be just part of the backdrop of people's minds when they have these kinds of representations of duality or whatever. That's just raw material for anybody to work with. Like you'll see me get pissed off and make commentary when people are spreading bizarre Satanic Panic narratives and in implying that these things are true or outright stating, of course, that these things are are true, but when you know it It's somebody taking a trip to heaven and then going back down to hell and doing a lap dance to Satan or whatever. Like, I think that's supposed to be taken symbolically. And it's certainly not a commentary on Satanists as a community, or whatever. So I wasn't going to do any interviews about it. At first, I should have stuck with that. But pretty soon I started getting reached out to by the journalists who I would do favors for, you know what I mean, people who would amplify at our work before and really wanted a fresh angle on this hot news story or whatever, and hoping I would talk to them. So I started talking to journalists about why I wasn't talking about the little NAS X video why I didn't feel like it was my thing to talk about. And so that opened the door to interviews, and much to my disgust, some of the journalists decided to really cherry pick my quotes. And it's funny how they do this for the least significant stories just to try to really, really maintain some kind of sense of outrage or whatever, they really want the conflict or whatever. So you'd see some articles where it seemed like I was saying, I endorsed the video, you'd see some word seemed like it was suggesting that I was irritated by it, you know, that it was a poor representation of Satanism or whatever. But the truth is, is that I wasn't taking a position on any of that. And I thought it was ridiculous to ask me to take a position on on that. And I thought it would have been ridiculous for me to have one really. So

Stephen Bradford Long 31:34 yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, to me, it is very much a statement about the gay experience in the conservative world, like that, to me, and like listening to what Nazarick said about it, that to me it and he used satanic imagery to convey that. And so I fucking loved it. I thought it was fantastic. And I would 100% You know, do a do a lap dance for Satan as a you know, as a statement of my queer satanic identity. But for me, watching it, it was clear that it was more about LGBT than it was about Satanism. The video wasn't

Doug Misicko 32:18 even an hour old little NAS X video when a friend of mine texted me the YouTube link in I had never heard of the artist even so I watched his video. And I could tell that money was put into the video, you know,

Stephen Bradford Long 32:34 oh, my God, I really so. So it was the actually I had the exact same thought with the Whap video. I'm like, so many children could be fed with the money. Like so many. So many public schools build so many parks can be built from this music video.

Doug Misicko 32:52 My thinking was that, you know, more to the immediate point for me was that this was surely a high profile act, right. Like this video was going to be seen far and wide. But it didn't occur to me that that controversy would would happen. Like I didn't understand, I still don't understand.

Stephen Bradford Long 33:12 Really, can you specify which controversy? Just the

Doug Misicko 33:16 controversy about the video at all the alleged outrage, I know that the press really tried to foment outrage and reached out to people like myself, I think hoping that I would be pissed off about it or whatever, you know, whatever angle they can get on it. But I just I don't think it was entirely just a reaction of the press trying to get a reaction there. I think there was a there was real outrage there from what I understand. But I just I don't understand that. I mean, to me, it's not any more malicious than some of the Looney Tunes cartoons. on one shoulder a devil on the other and

Stephen Bradford Long 33:59 I you know, I'm pretty sure probably the pole dancing to hell and then giving Satan a lap dance had something to do with it.

Doug Misicko 34:07 Yeah, I guess. Are you right? I think it's the homosexuality.

Stephen Bradford Long 34:11 It is. It is 100% The homosexuality I mean, I you know, I bet a lot of it had to do with here is a superstar. who is who, whose previous image was very like, heartthrob, dream boy. You know, he did Old Town road he and he is black as well. And then I think he is skewed a lot of gender stereotypes that are expected of a black male hip hop artist. And then and he just like, went so hard into the queer aesthetic, which I absolutely love. have, like that's an aesthetic that I adore. And I think there was probably a cultural cognitive dissonance about that, you know, I wonder if that was part of it.

Doug Misicko 35:12 Yeah, I think so. I hope one of our videos gets that kind of controversy.

Stephen Bradford Long 35:17 I mean, clearly what you need is me. Okay, a big hairy bear on a on a on a pole. And I will give Baphomet a lap dance. This is I'm happy. I'm happy to put like little pasties on on my jiggly bear hairy breasts. And I will give Baphomet in Salem a lap dance for your music video, it will be a fucking hit.

Doug Misicko 35:45 Well, people will love it, it'll be more of a hit. I guarantee then if we release it without a video, I'm short and videos are to your track releases. Oh my god, yes. Baphomet video in you know, everybody saw that. And then we were working with guys doing a video for exorcism. And for whatever reason that just fell through and I hope we're still gonna get an exorcism video at some point. But we ended up releasing the exorcism track without a video. And I you know, I'm actually one of these music listeners who seldom sees the video, you know. So I didn't know that this was really important. Then we released exorcism and I thought this is a solid track, you know, people are gonna eat this up, they're gonna love it. It just really, nobody really paid attention. There just wasn't a video, you know. And then people you know, pissed off about not being metal or whatever people like maybe this isn't actually industrial enough for whatever, it's just not genre specific enough people getting pissed off about that. And we already had on the scheduled to after exorcism release the video for the self titled track satanic planet. I thought, Okay, people are really going to be pissed off at this because not only is the video now, this whimsical cartoon, but it's also the music is is much more difficult to pin down because it's kind of, it's different from what we had already released, the other ones being kind of like dark and grinding, and this one almost more upbeat in it goofy, okay, they're really going to be pissed now. And that one came out. Nobody said, Nobody got it. Yeah, like, the other ones got, you know, these, these critics coming out and having their, you know, their, their problems with it is ridiculous as some of them were. And then we released a silly track, and nobody had a problem with that at all. So I'm just totally confused. Now, I have no idea what people like,

Stephen Bradford Long 37:54 well, you know, I, this is an experience I have on a near weekly basis, writing my blog, where I've just come to the point where I've decided, you know, I've, I've realized that I cannot predict what people will like and won't like, like, I have no clue. And so I will come up with an idea for an article or a podcast episode, and be like, Oh, my God, people are gonna fucking love this, like this is you know, they're going to be all over this. And it's a dud, like, no one reads it. And then there are there's other stuff where I'm like, Okay, this is a weird, niche, boring thing. You know, like a review of an of a, of a book of theology by an Eastern Orthodox theologian, no one's going to fucking read this thing, and it blows up. Like, I've just decided that there is no rhyme or reason to what people like, like, I cannot predict what people want. I'm getting

38:51 a little better with some things. I know if I spent a good deal of time writing an essay, you know, spent like, couple days, many hours, like just researching, writing, putting together an essay and then posting it. That's going to be the least popular thing.

Stephen Bradford Long 39:08 Yes, exactly. It's always the ones that you spend the hours on.

Doug Misicko 39:12 I take some silly selfie wearing dumb sunglasses or something.

Stephen Bradford Long 39:16 Yeah, the pink sunglasses it as long as you have have pink sunglasses, then it's a hit.

39:23 Yeah, exactly. Well, I mean, in a single picture, too. There was a like when the satanic planet video was released. It had its premiere through one of the music magazines, I think revolver premiere that one. And I noticed that when we put it on the social media, we put the article that the video was embedded in, and then later on when it was released on YouTube. I just posted the direct link to the to the YouTube video and then it seemed to catch on. And I honestly think that Going to an article and then seeing the video in the article was too many steps. It's too

Stephen Bradford Long 40:04 much. Yeah. Right? Because it's directing people to read it like people will do that. Yep, exactly. No, I mean, I this is I feel like Twitter especially is really designed to work against creators in a lot of ways I but I just refuse to how do I want to say this? What do I want to say? I'm more and more I'm like, no go read the fucking article. Like do do the do the work and and read the article because this thing is full of hot takes and I'm not ever going to post it. Post those hot takes on Twitter ever. So I'm I'm trying to reduce most of my opinions. And most of my, I guess you could say more controversial views in prose form in an article or a podcast, because it's just safer that way. And it's like trying to

Doug Misicko 41:03 boil it down in the most uncharitable way in a tweet is what you end up with.

Stephen Bradford Long 41:08 Yeah, or someone writes a medium article about me, which is always fun. Which has happened, actually. But so what's what's in the future for satanic planet? What do you have planned?

Doug Misicko 41:20 Well, we're actually working on we're exchanging sound files again and talking about putting together the second album, and we've already kind of cohered a couple new tracks that I think are very interesting. If you were worried we weren't going to keep it fresh and creative and weird. Don't worry.

Stephen Bradford Long 41:45 I love I love the weird, weird is up my alley.

Doug Misicko 41:48 Yeah, no, it's sounding really good. So far, we have a couple songs that sound pretty lullaby ish, in a very evil way. Which is also partially a result of me getting more more musical with my vocals themselves. So excellent. And also some of the music, giving space for the vocals to work kind of leaving space and demanding that the vocals really lend the melody to it. So it's a Yeah,

Stephen Bradford Long 42:23 that's great. You're saying

Doug Misicko 42:24 it's entirely it's entirely new, you know, there's no, no formula really where you can go in and be like, well, you know, I just found out I just do these things. And this works out like, actually, no, I think I do hear apps that do that, but we don't do that. So I think I think the next one will be better than the first and we're looking forward to touring. But we still have no idea when, where, how that's gonna gonna work out. You know, we had a have a booking guy in a band manager, and they were looking into festivals. And it doesn't seem like it's really an option right now. Because the festivals now are kind of making up for the time they lost. So a lot of the festivals that are going to be playing coming up. We're booked over a year ago. So we missed that boat. I think we have things coming to us for 2022 and 2023. I know we'll end up doing some stuff in 2021. Just not clear on, on when or where yet. And I'm not in a huge hurry, but it'll be fun. You know,

Stephen Bradford Long 43:42 I'm absolutely I'm just I just have this visual image now of you singing lullabies. So dear listeners, you can all look forward to like metaphorically climbing and solutions lap and him singing you a lullaby. That's, that's the image that I have in my head.

Doug Misicko 43:57 Right? I don't know.

Stephen Bradford Long 43:59 See you we'll see you a terrifying lullaby.

Doug Misicko 44:02 Yeah, you might want to. I want to hear it before you somebody to actually be there with you personally,

Stephen Bradford Long 44:09 before you crawl into his lap. Very good. Well, that's, that's fantastic. And so do you have a record deal for a certain number of albums?

Doug Misicko 44:22 Well, here's the thing. We decided not to go with a label. Oh, gee, is is Justin's imprint. So I mean, it is a label but it's it's it's his it's an independent label. Right. And so we actually put forward the the money for the production costs to the CDs and the vinyl and in everything else, because, you know, we were shopping labels, we were talking to labels, and it was it's a little discouraging for me. You know, the guys I'm working with have been in the business long enough that you know, They know what to expect. And nobody threw anything at us that was, I guess, out of line, you know. But to me, like the idea of a label taking, like, half or more, or whatever it was of even the digital sales,

Stephen Bradford Long 45:18 which demoralizing? Yeah,

Doug Misicko 45:21 you're getting such minor micro payments on anyways. And they literally don't have to do anything, you know, to get those out there. That's discouraging. But to be able to keep all the revenue, and frankly, I feel like we had our own kind of marketing already established, you know, as artists, the entire band, have some following you know, that we could get the word out there. And I think we did that. I don't know, if the label would have been able to do better for us, getting us out there, then then we were able to do ourselves. And now, you know, the, the revenue generated from the sales just goes back to us. And yes, we I prefer it.

Stephen Bradford Long 46:11 Absolutely no. So I think my friend, Matt Langston interviewed you. He's the frontman of eleventy. Seven. I think he is, yeah, he's great. And, you know, he was in the music industry with a label for years. And just the stories he tells of how horrible and demoralizing it was, by the way, fun fact, Matt Langston, former like a Christian pop star from the band eleventy. Seven. His his music is the theme music for the satanic ministry ordination lessons. So yeah, so he's done this nice, big turnaround. But no, I independent is, I think where it's at. I've just heard so many demoralizing stories about the music industry.

Doug Misicko 47:00 Yeah, I have some friends who've made it in the music business, or at least to the point that that's their job, you know, and they worked with labels. And I consulted with with them and uniformly, the answer was, if you can do it, do it without a label. And no, if you have that, if that's available to you go for it. And when we were talking to labels, you know, we had the benefit of, you know, more than one of us having lawyers willing to look over the contracts and stuff like that. And seeing real non starters, that would be red lines

Stephen Bradford Long 47:40 they need, they need to take your your testes, they're going to you know, take one of your arms.

Doug Misicko 47:48 Well, you have labels, trying to take even a piece of merchandise now. Yeah, that to me, that's insane, you know, especially since that's much at all, but through their merchandise.

Stephen Bradford Long 48:03 Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say. It's pretty clear that that is the only way they make money is through the merch. Yeah,

Doug Misicko 48:11 yeah. And my understanding, too, is that CDs don't really sell either. Unless you're on tour people, for some reason will buy him at the merch table, you know, and that's your best bet of moving CDs. I really have no idea how many we've sold. You know, I don't know how much of the vinyl is sold, or how many of the CDs have sold. Get better as every track comes out. And as the videos release, one of the videos we have coming out next week is directed by a talented director named Lola blank. And she had been doing a podcast interview with me, she has her own podcast and I mentioned satanic planet. And she said, Well, if I can ever do a video and somehow, you know, this escalated into her actually doing a video for the devil in me track. But it's also the video comes out next week, but it's also a submission now in the LA shorts. Film Festival. Wait. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, yeah. So it's a pretty prestigious Film Festival for short film to be in. And it's a it's a really great video and I'm looking forward to that coming out.

Stephen Bradford Long 49:25 Nice. I can't wait. This show will wait, what day of the week. Is it coming out?

Doug Misicko 49:29 I don't know. I just know it's coming out next week. And okay, I emailed and said we know the date is and Fangoria is going to premiere though.

Stephen Bradford Long 49:39 Oh, nice. I love Fangoria. So if it's, so this show will probably come out Saturday morning next week. And so if it's if it's out by the time the show releases, then I'll put it in the show notes so everyone can go check it out. Oh, yeah, it

Doug Misicko 49:55 should be out by then. Okay, perfect. Yeah,

Stephen Bradford Long 49:57 I'll put that in the show notes. So um, I think we're coming up to the end of our time here. Unfortunately, it's always super fun hanging out with you. Any any final thoughts that you want to impart to people?

Doug Misicko 50:10 Don't take it personally if I'm not hanging out with you.

Stephen Bradford Long 50:14 Yeah, he's still he is perpetually in quarantine now.

Doug Misicko 50:18 Yeah, I came out of quarantine. I did all of a couple days, and I still like pocket. Back to it. It was

Stephen Bradford Long 50:29 I think I said this before we started recording, but I'll say it again. My partner who is ridiculously introverted. I mean, he is the most introverted person I know. He was living his best fucking life through COVID. And honestly, I was too because I am a sweaty underground gamer boy. And I have been practicing my whole life for COVID. Like, I have been in basements playing video games for hours practicing my whole life for this moment. But the other day, he was like, I think I'm so depressed because people are out now. And it's really getting me down. Like he's, he he looks around and there are other human beings. And it's like this massive source of depression for him. Which I understand.

Doug Misicko 51:18 Well, I think when we're touring, it's going to be one of these things where it's going to be this wild theatrical live show, and you're going to be seeing fire, blood, you know, all kinds of things going on eyes. And then your Yeah, and I think everybody's probably going to be thinking like, wow, backstage parties must be wild movies and you know, snorting cocaine or whatever. In reality, I think it'll just be like, reading a book in isolation, you know, going out for sushi somewhere.

Stephen Bradford Long 51:52 That's the best. That's the best kind of party. So no, Adrenochrome Well,

Doug Misicko 51:57 there's that but that's just, you know, that's just the live at this point. You know, that's for 99 years old.

Stephen Bradford Long 52:07 Awesome. Well, but you know, be sure to remember if ever, you need a big fluffy bear to lap dance on Baphomet for music video, just let me know I will be there.

Doug Misicko 52:16 Hey, right on,

Stephen Bradford Long 52:17 okay. All right. Well, everyone go listen to satanic planet. It is streaming everywhere. I think it should be streaming everywhere. It's definitely on Spotify, which means it's probably everywhere else. My favorite song is exorcism. You should listen to that one in particular, but the whole album is fantastic. And also check out the new music video. It will be in the show notes. And I think that's it.

Doug Misicko 52:48 Thank you so much.

Stephen Bradford Long 52:49 Yeah, of course. That is it for this show. As always, the music is by the jelly rocks and eleventy seven. You can find them on iTunes, Spotify or wherever you listen to music. The show is written and edited. No, hold on. This changed. This is different now. This This show is written and performed by me Steven Bradford long and is edited and produced by Dante salmoni. And as always Hail Satan. And thanks for listening