Chuck Shute Podcast

Of Limbo

August 21, 2023 • Jake Davies, Luke Davies, Of Limbo • Season 4 • Episode 374

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Brothers Jake & Luke Davies are the singer and guitarist for the band Of Limbo.  They have a controversial new single out this Thursday called "California Demon.'  The song looks at people who may "sell their soul" to make it in Hollywood.  We discuss the new song, their epic music videos, past & future shows, social media and more!

00:00 - Intro
00:13 - Let's Go!!
02:15 - New Single "California Demon"
03:12 - Music Videos
04:14  - Bass Player & Drummer
05:30 - Possible Upcoming Tour & Scottsdale
08:20 - California Demon & Satanic Panic
15:30 - Controversy & Song Lyrics
17:45 - Upcoming Song "Ain't Funny"
20:00 - Other Upcoming Songs
22:00 - Covers & Set List
25:25 - Singing
26:30 - Next Show at Troubadour
27:20 - Playing with Kyle Gass of Tenacious D
28:20 - Financial Difficulties of Touring
35:30 - Festival World
36:50 - Nick Reese & Joyous Wolf
38:35 - Bass Player
39:49 - Partying On & Off Stage
41:44 - Arizona & River Float
43:15 - Maui Strong
43:55 - Jake's Social Media
 46:18- Outro

Of Limbo website:
https://oflimbo.com/

Maui Strong Fund:
https://www.hawaiicommunityfoundation.org/strengthening/maui-strong-fund

Chuck Shute website:
https://www.chuckshute.com/

Support the show

Thanks for Listening & Shute for the Moon!

Chuck Shute:

All right, welcome. It's good to have you back. You guys have been kicking ass.

Jake Davies:

Yeah, it's good to be back.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, love the new song Love the last couple songs. Let's go. That song was amazing. We didn't get a chance to chat when that one came. I know we're supposed to but then got sick or something. So there we go.

Jake Davies:

That was a real fun one. I tell you what we, we, we've been working with a sync agent recently and we almost got it into the new Expendables movie and it was just very narrowly edged out by another song. So that

Luke Davies:

would have been perfect. Can you imagine like Stallone or something driving off a cliff just like your poster shows. And just like a car. Let's go starts right as you hit that apex of the jump that would have been so tight.

Jake Davies:

We right now, we're in Oppenheimer the other day. And then we saw the trailer for the new Expendables lead over and look,

Luke Davies:

we're going to cinema just like leaned over look each other just like God, what could have been?

Chuck Shute:

So were you Who beat you out then what song was that?

Jake Davies:

We don't know. It was it was in the trailer. But I wasn't sitting there with Shazam open in my phone. When we're watching. It was something it was something I was unfamiliar with. Some other rock beat the drum kind of, we're gonna keep some that kind of

Chuck Shute:

sounds fine. That's still cool that you were that close? That's

Jake Davies:

better than not being close at all, I guess. How do

Chuck Shute:

you get closer? How did your you have a manager that that pitches,

Jake Davies:

a sync agency that we've been working with quite recently, and basically, when anything comes across their desk, that they feel that we're an appropriate fit for them, they have a menu of our songs catalogue of our songs, I should say, and they just send out the ones that they think or we suggested the most appropriate for it.

Chuck Shute:

Okay, yeah, cuz I mean, even if getting in like a, like a B movie, or a lesser video movie would be huge, I think.

Jake Davies:

Give me it as the intro of the chuck Schrute podcast.

Chuck Shute:

There we go. Hey, yeah. So then the new song is awesome, too. I don't think people have heard this. This is not technically out yet. Right. Yeah.

Jake Davies:

I don't know if we're live right now or what? But maybe by the time you put this up, which is going to be Thursday night at 9pm. Pacific? It's going to be

Luke Davies:

okay, the video will be out there. But the in terms of streaming services, it'll be out. No, it'll Oh, I guess

Jake Davies:

Thursday night 9pm.

Luke Davies:

to midnight, Midnight Thursday Eastern time, though. Yeah, it's

Chuck Shute:

just been like you've posted a snippet of it though. Right? Like so people kind of have

Jake Davies:

hints at what's coming together. Yeah,

Luke Davies:

little promo pieces, but nothing in nothing at all, you know, that approximates the entirety of the song.

Chuck Shute:

What's crazy this video? The video is really cool to this video. And the last one, let's go. Both the music videos seem they seem really expensive. And like because they're so high quality. Are you able to make it like on a pretty good budget then?

Jake Davies:

Yeah, incredible budget, to be honest, credibly low, small budget, the best

Luke Davies:

thing about? Well, I mean, the first thing and best thing about it is that Jake is pretty much able to handle all of the editing aspects by himself. So that is a huge, you know, element of it financially that we're able to just handle in house. In terms of the actual filming of it. I actually got some buddies, yeah,

Jake Davies:

for St. forestry production with Todd Gurley and our buddy, Tony Rosselli, who's been directing our stuff for a long time now. They give us as much mates rates as they can. They're, they're usually working with much bigger fish than us. But because we've been friends with them, we played basketball on a team with them like 10 years ago. We've been friends with them for years. So they get they know what the operation is. And basically, they're proud of every every one of these videos that we put out. So they do it as little passion project thing with us. And we've been very lucky to have them on our side with that. Yeah.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, that's cool. So do you guys have a bass player yet or an official because there's a drummer in the video, but is he an official member of the band or is he has been drumming with

Jake Davies:

us on tour for last few tours, I think and we've known him for a long time. He has a lot of other projects that he oscillates in and out of but as far as when we're out on the road and we're playing live shows Ian's definitely seeming like the guy that wants to do the job the most and he was down to do this video. As far as bass we've been playing with our good friend, Jason Allen in the acoustic world. But remember of the butcher

Luke Davies:

babies Yes.

Chuck Shute:

Oh, I had them on the girls from the skins are great for those.

Luke Davies:

He played with them for years and years during the formation kind of formula of phases of the band along with

Jake Davies:

Manson and stuff. So he was there with the good stuff, but he's been playing with us, but he unfortunately cannot tour because he's got a big boy life. He's got a daughter, and he works. A big wage job down here. So we are still discussing with other people with options for the touring aspect. But things are good.

Chuck Shute:

Do you have a tour lined up?

Jake Davies:

We've got a couple that are in the in the wings that are sort of written nothing

Luke Davies:

that we can say announce, per se, but we've got one that looks looking like is going to be happening later towards the end of the year with a legacy 80s band that will be a hell of a lot of fun. We'll put it that way.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah. Oh, I can't wait. That sounds like the 80s band. I'm so curious.

Jake Davies:

Yeah, we'll come through Scottsdale for sure. Even if even if we're not playing with them, we'll we'll make sure we'll make a stop there.

Chuck Shute:

Is this is this a band that I've had on my podcast? You know,

Jake Davies:

I am not sure but I definitely yeah, we're not we're hush hush about it. Because we don't know what's actually 100% yet and until it is we we've made that mistake before by getting our penises to erect for an idea. But yeah,

Luke Davies:

we kind of get our hopes up but then it spilling the beans too early is the worst part.

Chuck Shute:

Oh, dude, I know I had I had Dateline NBC call me in early January. And I was so excited. And I did mention to one person and but then it fell apart. And I was like, it would have been that would have been a huge they were gonna use a snippet of one of my interviews. I don't know if you follow the Idaho murders. But that kid that murdered all the girls in Idaho, he his teacher was like a criminology he was taking like criminology classes, I interviewed her. And they said she wouldn't do interviews. So they wanted to use it my interview with her. But then at the last second, the lawyers pulled it and I was like dammit,

Jake Davies:

wow, that's dead. I feel like often sometimes when you like, put it out in the universe and tell people it's already happening and blah, yeah, it makes it happen more for me in my opinion. But when it gets this sign, like that's a little bit touchy, like a tour where we don't really control, like, our videos or videos coming out by August 25. For sure. And I know that that's a little bit of a lofty expectation. It'll at least like put it out there to the universe that I'm fucking forcing. It also

Luke Davies:

puts a fire under your own and then you have to follow through with it. But your point? Yeah, definitely. When it's when the whole thing is predicated on someone else, then it's

Jake Davies:

a little bit of Mofaz. Yeah,

Chuck Shute:

yeah. But sometimes I've noticed too, like bad stuff, like something like that will happen. Will you lose an opportunity, but then like another opportunity comes along? That's sometimes

Jake Davies:

true. Yeah, true. Yeah. Well,

Chuck Shute:

that'd be awesome. I've hit Scottsdale, I'd definitely love to see you guys and see the show. It sounds like it's gonna be amazing. I've never seen you guys live.

Jake Davies:

That's mental. That is after we run out so many times. That's crazy.

Chuck Shute:

I think Well, you've come here. I think you've only come once since I've followed you. And I think it was like on a Tuesday or something. Yeah, I don't know what happened. But

Jake Davies:

we were up there for my 40th birthday. But that was not playing time. Party time is a different type of planning.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, well, so back to the video, though. So explain the theme of this. For the people that don't know because song's called California demon. So you can kind of guess what it's about. But it's really like, there's a lot of satanic imagery and themes

Jake Davies:

with it. So funnily enough, our uncle Christian conservative uncle has just recently disowned us over this video. Actually,

Luke Davies:

I know why Jake sent it to him. Anyway,

Jake Davies:

I sent it to him because I needed some suggestions for promotional materials of various celebrities that he believes have sold their souls to the devil, so that I can use it in these little clips leading up to this release or whatever. Anyway, so he watches the video, immediately calls her mom, mom calls us how to freak out telling us that Alan has disowned us. And I tried to explain to him like did basically we don't even me I lived particularly believe in a literal Satan. We think that that, yeah, the term the term of like selling your soul to the devil is more of a metaphor for you know, like, selling your artistic integrity to get a bigger deal with some record company or something like that. And then they control you and then you're their little puppet and you have to do their bidding and maybe make songs he don't like very much, etc. But he's always believed in a literal Satan as many Christians and other people around America do these days. And I always thought that concept of like really like factually signing your soul on a piece of paper to the devil and then him giving you Illuminati fame and fortune was just an amazing like I don't know it's a cool little idea for a song even though there's it's a bit of a cliche these days, but it's still I don't know, highly entertaining. So we just sort of ran with that California demon California dreamin and

Luke Davies:

it's about a girl who comes to Hollywood looking for fame and fortune and has to exactly sell her soul away in order to actually get it and realizes that that's the only way that she can achieve that is by doing that

Jake Davies:

and things don't go so well. Yeah,

Chuck Shute:

yeah And don't you think like with with some of the what Hollywood is doing they're kind of trolling Christians like Sam Smith dressing

Jake Davies:

by but then this is the other end of it like I mean, how much are they actually doing weird shit because like you see these Megan Fox videos just talking about drinking, drinking each other blood and you see these weird Bohemian Grove rituals. And some of the guys that you've had on your podcast before like, was named Jay Weidner. Jason Dyer? Jay Dyer? Yeah, I mean, these guys, these guys are all well too versed with like, was a Hollywood esoterica. And I've read that book and they know all too well these elite people are doing some pretty weird shit I don't know if they necessarily believe in a Satan of Satan's and if they're getting Katy Perry to sign on flesh tablets or something crazy like that for their souls. But they're definitely doing some pretty weird shit. So how much of it's real and how much of it isn't? I don't know. That's kind of the fun of the song.

Chuck Shute:

Well, yeah, and then it's like how much do you believe it? Because I feel like if you really believe it, that to me it's all about psychology like if you really believe it in either way, like if you really believe in God maybe then something really good could Avenue but if you really believe that you're you know, Satan and you're selling your soul and all this like you can have some really bad stuff happened.

Luke Davies:

Yeah. self fulfilling prophecy.

Chuck Shute:

Exactly. Yeah, it's crazy. It's a cool video. Either way. It's cool. Like nautical che right now. I feel like it. It may be used to be in the 80s. But I feel like it's kind of like not been talked about as much. Although recently Yeah, they had like,

Jake Davies:

a whole Satanic Panic thing happened. It's really quite funny. Like it researched with the Sam Smith thing and with Gaga Oh, hey, Poppy, obvious here. And all the rest of it. Yeah, it really had a resurgence to say Satanic Panic thing. But I mean, we'd finished recording the song about a year ago. So that was before the Sam Smith thing happened and all the little NAS X and all these guys doing it. And I was like wow, this is really planned and perfectly to our to our song concept. We'll have to use none of this stuff for the promo. Well, yeah,

Chuck Shute:

and then there's the whole like Audrina chrome stuff, that we're now I'm getting demonetized for saying that we

Jake Davies:

got this whole thing taken off the algorithm or whatever.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, probably. But anyways, that is an interesting conspiracy theory. I don't, it's not there's no evidence. So I'm just gonna say that right now. There's no evidence of it. But there's a lot of people that really truly believe that as a recap your

Jake Davies:

buddy, your buddy Jay Dyer certainly does, but I don't know what to believe about. It truly did like the depths of it. I just, I was just a fun concept for a rock song, you know, and we played into all of the, the satanic symbolism and

Luke Davies:

we knew the imagery would make for some pretty visually striking moments. So it just kind of came out that way just through from an artistic perspective. And it's funny that like Jake was saying the uncle element and stuff like that, we really had zero intention of, of making it seem like there's any advocacy or anything like that was not the plan. It was just let's make some an artistic video that, you know, to some extent isn't, you know, Expo ze but also just really delves into the idea of it. Yeah, artistically. So,

Chuck Shute:

we're telling the story. It's not saying

Luke Davies:

not It's not jumping on either side. It's just telling the story. And it's

Jake Davies:

certainly not like oh, this is this is a wonderful thing that said this wonderfully. She she gets in a botched plastic surgery, and she's like, turned into a little monster. By the end of

Luke Davies:

the end. She's black that yeah, she's a monster. Monster, like big claws and fingers. And you know, it's just it's, it's pretty.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, and even orally, I feel like, you know, selling your soul. Like you guys said, Could you be the metaphor about it? Like, how many stories have you heard of girls? That's the whole me to thing is like, these girls sleep with these producers. Movie part. I've heard stories, I can't remember it was telling me a story recently, where this girl like, had sex with to the bouncers and then like, didn't even get to see the band. They were just like, oh, just getting the band

Jake Davies:

down. That's pretty rough. Fortune, right. Unfortunately, yeah, I don't know. It's a pretty known idea, but it does. It does play into a lie. We weren't expecting sort of the kind of reaction from our uncle or I but it kind of like alluded to, well, maybe maybe some like the public's going to have this kind of reaction. And I posted this little promo last night of Bob Dylan talking about selling is sold to the captain, the crack the chief of this chief of this world in the world that we don't see or something like that, and some some persons are already chiming in on the biblical and like that Well, Bob Dylan is a is a devout Christian and, and he's talking about Jesus. And I was like, we don't really talk about striking bargains with Jesus too often. Either way, I think that it's a good sign that people are going to have pretty strong reactions to it one way or the other and bring on all the controversy published. Yeah,

Chuck Shute:

that's good for the song that's good for people talking about it, loving it, or hating it, right? Yes. Yeah. Is that do you think about that now, like with you, because I know, people don't follow Jake on Instagram, dude, it's like the best fall because you're always posting like articles and shit. And it's like, and most of them I'm like, Oh, that can't be real. And then I google and I'm like, Oh, shit. That's, that's real. I think I said this last time. But, I mean, so it's really fascinating. Do you ever think of working more of those kinds of stories into your lyrics? Because I feel like that could really get you some attention for the songs.

Jake Davies:

We, we've had different discussions.

Luke Davies:

And we certainly have, there's been periods of time where I've been more concerned about, you know, it causing alienation with certain potential fans that way, but more and more, we see more people, you know, I guess just tell their story and tell their opinions throughout their music, etc, especially these days. And if it's controversial, then it's probably a good thing. Now, nowadays, there's so much like the same thing, what you're saying if there's any sort of publicity, it really is good publicity. And it's hard to kind of filter through the amount of stuff that's being put out there these days. And if you've got any sort of story to tell if it's somewhat interesting, whether it's controversial or not, it's probably better just to speak the truth and put it out there and to do it rather than be fearful of alienating a certain potential you know, group of people are fans that you could be getting otherwise

Chuck Shute:

well exactly like you guys I'm sure you saw the Oliver Anthony song that just blew up and it's been labeled a conservative like right wing but he's gone mountain said like look I'm I'm a moderate like I'm just middle of the road I felt like the song was more anti establishment and we're anti government big government big corporation that

Jake Davies:

it to be anti Corporation. And anti rich man above Richmond is like now that's that's a crazy right wing, extremist conspiracy or something.

Chuck Shute:

Okay, like that's yeah, so but a lot of people relate to that song. I mean, that thing blew up. Song and you can hear that he's pissed off in his in his voice, like even not even just with the lyrics, but just the way he's singing. And he's like, so much emotion. Like, I think he's you guys. You guys should do some songs like that. I feel like that can be really popular.

Jake Davies:

Yeah, thank you. Well, that's a good suggestion. We got one that's a little bit not as in your face and extreme of a subject is that coming called? ain't funny, which is kind of about how you're not allowed to joke about anything anymore. And that everybody's offended by everything. And basically, if there isn't a bit of a joke in the joke, then it's not funny at all. What's that? It ain't funny. Unless it offends somebody.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, that's that I can't wait to hear that song. That sounds amazing. Because it's so true. Like today, even today, they said that they're not gonna be taking the song. Fat bottom girls off a queen's Greatest Hits because it's I swear to God, Oh, yeah. That's good. I thought I mean, I guess technically, I think if you read the article, it says like, it's a children's streaming service or something, I guess. But even for kids. I'm like, I mean, uses the word. Fannie. Is that offensive? Is Fannie offensive. Now we're being in

Jake Davies:

love these days, they would want the fat bottomed girls for kids. Angle. Yeah, I

Chuck Shute:

thought it's fat shaming to take that song off.

Luke Davies:

Wow.

Jake Davies:

Yeah. It's a it's a pretty weirder, weirder world as far as what's trying to get cancelled and what's what's allowed and what's not and straddling that line, but like you said, it might be might be wise for us to touch on it a little bit more. Because as it stands, we're not some monolithically huge enterprise that is going to be taken down and ruin the livelihoods of a million other people with jobs underneath this, it can only help

Luke Davies:

basically, I need to let Jake off the lip. run wild with all of his ideas, and our music is

Chuck Shute:

what it educates people like I never really paid attention to the news and all this shit. And then, you know, 2020 happened. And I started, like, looking into some of this stuff. And, you know, Jake's article, a lot of stuff. Jake's post that has actually helped me learn about a lot of this stuff and like, hey, go like a big corporation that's named after a very dark rock is that's another one that I'm like, it owns like everything. I'm like, Oh, I never knew this was you know, two years ago, and so I don't know, can make a song but I think it goes very viral.

Jake Davies:

They're definitely getting exposed a bit more.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, you guys have other songs to Lucca, because I saw your Facebook post about how all these songs that you guys have been working on and for years are finally coming together.

Luke Davies:

Yeah, we're about to be posting pretty consistently I think over the next we're definitely the rest of the year, we've got a whole bunch of videos that we're going to be releasing to, from retro actively I guess for songs that were unable to finish the videos for prior. Like my kind of girl has got a video coming out on it. So I'm running out of time. We were unable due to COVID and other circumstances that happened in between restriction on things like that. But we finally kind of got those ducks in a row. We're releasing those videos. And yeah, we've got a back catalogue of songs that we've been working on for the last I don't know, three, four years. That should be coming out if not, this year, the next year too. So I think we're gonna be doing a lot of pretty rapid releases. Yes, excited about it.

Jake Davies:

This one's that this one's the big big one California Damon is the one we put a lot of our like creative juice and scheduling into for the last long while because she said it was a hell of a video to put together lots of moving components etc. But now it's finally finally getting there. We're gonna have a little bit more free time to go through the catalog and polish up this that and the other and get the videos out for those. Yep.

Chuck Shute:

And is it all just still gonna be singles released or you will be an EP or an album

Luke Davies:

or an EP coming pretty soon and we got maybe a couple more singles in the chamber to come out and then I think early next year is probably going to be an EP would be my guess. Yeah.

Chuck Shute:

Okay, nice. And so then

Jake Davies:

we went and recorded again with our friend Mike Pepe, our favorite producer out at fab factory studios and that with that, our favorite drum dude and we do four songs in five we did five songs so that's probably enough for

Luke Davies:

including a cover and we got another cover we did last time that we haven't released I think we got about 10 or 12 songs that are pretty close to being done that will be releasing over this year next year.

Chuck Shute:

Okay, so then you play those songs live now. Are you going to wait and

Luke Davies:

wait? We have quite a lot of them live Yes.

Chuck Shute:

Okay. How do you how do you decide a setlist like because you open for like when you're opening for Buckcherry or Candlebox you adjust the set depending on

Luke Davies:

definitely dependent on the the band we're playing under or playing with and then the audience also time restriction is a big big thing because there are certain songs that you know although they may be more capturing or one of the one of the ones we imagined that the crowd will like more hits a seven minute song for us to do live or something we've only got 30 minutes it's kind of hard to justify and taken up you know nearly a third of your set time with one song in a situation like that so there are a lot of factors that really go into it.

Chuck Shute:

And what about the covers because I know like you've done you know the Chris Isaac song and the doors but those are not on Spotify those only just for Facebook

Jake Davies:

the Chris Isaac one we just been playing a lot during the unplugged thing I guess we've got a recording of it lap and bear was in the band. We'd never put that on Spotify but we are we are talking

Luke Davies:

till the one that we've done live before that we did with Pepe last time we can probably

Jake Davies:

oh we've got a we've got this Elton John Benny in the jets and also we've got coming up and access never tear us apart the way we sort of decided on covers usually is if there's something that we can bring to it that really makes it our own that's maybe not so much the case with your Chris Isaac one we're pretty pretty straight and narrow with what he does

Luke Davies:

and that's because we did it acoustic yeah you know like but a lot of these other ones looking back the fight fear right was a little bit of a different spin on the Beastie Boys one also the Viva Las Vegas was a big there was a big difference between the kind of happy go lucky Elvis version to a kind of more dark somber you know rendition via son we

Jake Davies:

haven't we haven't changed the the the time signature from four, four to three, four on that one and made a whole new riff on the melody. Yeah, basically, it'll be the Las Vegas was just the lyrics at the end. Yeah.

Chuck Shute:

Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, I love I love and bands do covers and like you said when they put a different spin on it, because otherwise I'm like, What is the point of that? I mean, it goes live for fun. Yeah.

Jake Davies:

And often other people will give us suggestions for sounds like Oh, you gotta you gotta you guys should cover this in because it's kind of like already down in our world. Okay, well, I guess your thank you for hearing what our kind of direction is Yeah, and knowing that yes, we kind of we love Alice in Chains. But us putting out a cover of Rooster doesn't make a lot of sense to me because you can't improve upon perfection for one and two. Like, what are we going to predict a change

Luke Davies:

to exactly yeah,

Chuck Shute:

yeah, put it but doing it live just for to throw it in. We're funded that's kind of

Jake Davies:

we've done we've done word live a few times and

Luke Davies:

now we've been doing acoustic down a whole recently to at our last few performances are actually about to put that out right we've got a video and we are we're about to put that out. We just did a little similar to the Wicked Game. Cover that we did it were in a similar fashion we've done down the hall. Yes. Is

Chuck Shute:

it hard to sing like Layne Staley? I feel like if I ever tried that for karaoke, I'm like, I can't do this.

Jake Davies:

I was singing Layne Staley, before I was singing me, I guess I would say, when people like go, you're, you're taking singing lessons or you ever practice at that we may look both see ourselves as guitars. And then it was just sort of one of us has to sing. And I had sang a lot in the car along two lanes daily and Cornell. And that was sort of my introduction into singing for us, I guess, are my what's the word training for seeing the same for us? Yeah, so

Chuck Shute:

you can train your voice to to get better too? Or is it just over time?

Jake Davies:

Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, the more I sing that I think the better stronger and longer the voice has in a performance for me. If I if we like slack off and we don't practice for six months, it definitely takes me like three days to get it back to like, kind of world.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, no, that's awesome. You're getting me all pumped up. I want to see you guys. When is the potential to or when would this happen?

Jake Davies:

We were told like late September, early October. Yeah. So that's

Chuck Shute:

a good time to come to Arizona.

Luke Davies:

Quick Hey,

Chuck Shute:

and you have a show at The Troubadour.

Jake Davies:

Is that this Wednesday night, Wednesday night. Yeah, we're playing playing unplugged again. opening for them guns, which I believe is Priscilla Presley sons band. Yep. We've not met them before, but we're very honored to open up for them. I plan the unplugged thing again. Get some apps and chains in there. I get some Chris Isaac in there and get some what else is above limbo?

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, yeah. What tell me about the show you did with Kyle gas from Tenacious D. I was like, I saw that. And I was like, holy shit. That's a big name to play with.

Jake Davies:

Yeah, he's got a big connection with Steve at D Piazza is which is just a Long Beach staple of a venue. It's like the place that everybody plays first, and usually people still choose to play. So he had Kyle gas coming in. And usually when there's a good rock act, he'll give us a message and see if we're interested. And we said well, we're not set up for full band right now. We're gonna do unplug if that's okay. He said, Okay, well then you guys just open it and we said hell yeah. I love the idea. Perfect. Yeah. And was Kyle was hilarious. He was in full college

Luke Davies:

showman as you would expect. Yeah.

Chuck Shute:

So you got to like meet him and hang out with them a little bit or briefly got to say hello. Yeah, it

Jake Davies:

wasn't we weren't we weren't smashing beers and smoking doobies together or anything like that. But yeah, we were

Chuck Shute:

that one. Yeah. Because that would be cool. Yeah, wait, so what was this was the 80s band was that because you had this Facebook post about that, you know, venues are paying less and that you guys were offered a tour with a different 80s band. So that was another legacy hack that you were offering you had to actually decline that one because it wasn't gonna pay enough.

Jake Davies:

I was gonna the venues have been getting more and more scant these days I guess what they're being paying opening acts because I guess their model lately has been it's better to get local opening acts and then force them to do the whiskey and Oh, no kind of presale thing where? Oh, yeah, you guys can open up for Candlebox today, but you've got to sell sell 300 tickets. Not that not that Kevin Martin would ever approve. Such presale, scumbag Riyadh, that was just an example. But yeah, when a when a touring act comes through, they get local acts to do a free sale thing, because that's one way to guarantee ticket sales, etc. Rather than having a secondary touring act underneath the primary head, which

Luke Davies:

I mean, in a certain way, in terms of just getting people into the place makes sense. Because there's more chance, you know, for us to were to head to a city that we've never played before, it's unlikely that we'll be bringing in a lot of heads, but for a local band, you know, that has friends, family or whatever. Yeah, they're going to bring people in. The only problem with the whole scenario is that the local band might not be, you know, great, might not be pretty good. And so it kind of it really lessens the quality of the show overall and a lot of circumstances because it means that you're not able to get consistently good acts coming through as opposed to just maybe start off bands that can just pull a few more heads because they're asking their grandma to come to the show.

Jake Davies:

And it's also it's also choosing not to advance Just in your future with with for instance, when we played Wichita maybe three times now and every single time we go back there, there's way more people for us than there was the time before. Whereas if razor knife was opening up for whatever the band is, you know, like they're probably not getting their same friends and family back to theater size show every couple months or every year even though once they've seen razor knife, they got the gist, but as far as going to see a limbo that oh wow, this is a surprise. I've never heard of this band, but they're awesome. And we're gonna

Luke Davies:

come the next day. Keep going every time they come through town. Exactly. Yeah, it seems

Chuck Shute:

like it's just so competitive now. And then you got the Byom thing happening which has pluses and minuses because I know like here we have the black moods and they have like a management company or something that I think it's just like a like a rich couple that kind of took them under their wing and they're like really helping them out which is great because they deserve it. But then you have other bands who maybe they have a rich uncle or something and they're just maybe they're buying all those seats that you know for the Bionz or whatever and

Jake Davies:

they're buying seats in the venue's as much as they are Yeah, the beyond being just paying the band above them to take them on tour. Usually what a buy on as far as my understanding is yeah, we we wanted to do this this last tour the one you're talking about, but the it wasn't obviously wasn't a biome we would never even consider that but it was a situation consider it is a situation where the venue's are offering us 100 bucks or show and like we could sell merch pretty well but if the venue pay doesn't even cover gasps from venue to venue that's going to be pretty tough you know, we got to we got to eat nor like some kind of food and we've got really good sleep in the van every here and there. But we're down to slum it but 100 bucks when it doesn't even cover the gas and you're having to dip into merch sales just to cover gas that's pretty fucking tough.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, that's rough is how the merch sells sales go pretty well because you guys have some cool stuff and I would think would be a big piece of it.

Luke Davies:

Absolutely do it's a lot easier when we're playing with say Buckcherry or candle blocks or bands where we are automatically have got an inbuilt crowd that we're playing to if you know theater 1000 1000 people because it's a lot easier to sell to a lot more people than to go to if we're playing under smaller brands or whatever, to go to a bar where there's 100 People just playing the numbers game you know, you're gonna get more sales, the more people that you're playing to, then you are the less people now that's a that's a huge determining factor.

Jake Davies:

That's also another fun fun little dance that we've had to do before is like, being good, but not being that good. Because one time opening for a band that I shall not name I guess. I mean, they played well, I thought and everything but women were over at the merch thing we had damn line going out the door for people waiting to take photos and buy merch and stuff. And their merch guy at the end of the night basically pulled us aside and said that we shouldn't hang out at the merch booth anymore, because it has really pissed off this band as far as how much we outsold them that night. So

Chuck Shute:

it's hilarious. That's a good problem to have, I guess.

Jake Davies:

I guess but I mean yeah, you're it's your You boys have chosen to go back to the tour bus and like sit there on your iPads instead of conversing with the people. So we're going to take every opportunity we can to meet new people and convert them into friends slash fans and hopefully come back and see us again, you know, customers Yeah, well, customer Yeah, at that exact

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, exactly. It's such a huge piece of it is the is the sales part. I mean, it's all not just the mean greets, but also the social media in responding to comments on YouTube and all that as much as you can. Until you get too big where you can't respond and you're then I guess that's a good problem to have. But yeah, if the opening band is outselling you, you're probably should be out there trying to sell.

Jake Davies:

Yeah, yeah, I think they they're one of the bands that was spoiled in the 2000s with a lot of bought rock fame, and they've been able to coast along pretty well since then, but I guess Yeah, it was was a little upsetting for them that we had sold them but live and learn. I'm not actually I didn't learn anything from that. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna play any any less good. I'm not gonna fucking make our Merchant shittier and I'm certainly gonna still stand by the booth and meet everyone if I can. But well,

Chuck Shute:

the only thing that way that that hurts you is that maybe that band won't have you back on exactly

Jake Davies:

right? Yes. Even even when it was one when they when we were trying to make a connecting dates. I believe they were playing like Tulsa or something like that. And we're trying to make a connecting date and got our booking agent to try and iron it all out. And we were just told that if Flat out No. And I remember why it would actually be. But the reason we were, I think bullshit Lee given was because our Spotify numbers weren't high enough, which was complete bullshit because then I looked up the act that they actually had and their Spotify numbers were like 200 monthly listeners or something like that.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, is that is that a big thing to you now for bands? We're like you're booking they always ask for the social media numbers and the YouTube and Spotify and all that.

Jake Davies:

We've definitely found that that's the case with the festival world. Apparently, we haven't been able to crack into that world yet. But we're hoping that that's part of next year's agenda. But we've definitely definitely heard that. It's very much a numbers game on that, that front and what's what's your monthly listeners? What's your blah, blah, blah.

Chuck Shute:

Okay, yeah, cuz they have a couple of festivals down here in Arizona. And like Roger Klein does the one that's in little south and Rocky Point, Mexico, I feel like you can easily get on those like, those are three independent bands.

Jake Davies:

You want to call up Roger Klein and whoever else and tell him of Lambos coming through town,

Chuck Shute:

and you will return my phone calls. But I feel like looking at the lake. Look at some of those. There's another festival besides the river Cline, that I'm supposed to interview the head of the Festival in September. So I'll put in a word for y'all now. I mean, I'll throw your name out there and a couple other bands that I love. But yeah.

Jake Davies:

Where to send a check. Well, and well mail mail. For your booking agency. We're no I

Chuck Shute:

mean, it's not like I'm selling. I actually love I really liked the band. Like I'm not like, you guys aren't paying me to say that, like I'm being nice. Yeah, but I know there's a lot because there's a lot of that shit that goes on. But no, most of the bands I have on here. I mean, I am a fan of so yeah, especially you guys like I reached out to you the first time because I think with a joyous Wolf. I think Nick Reese was the guy that mentioned your band, which is interesting. What's happened with him? I know you did. You've done shows with them before, but they've kind of gone their separate ways. So I'm curious to see what his new project I've heard some of the word that it's kind of interesting.

Jake Davies:

It's different direction for him. The props is his new band. We have for some unfortunate set of reasons not been able to make it to the live show yet. I think they've had a couple that were local, but for one reason or a loop working. I can't remember why anyway, we weren't able to get into either one of those two shows. But looking forward, big time to checking next new project the props out also looking forward to Joyce will finding their new singer and continuing down their trajectory. Yeah,

Chuck Shute:

yeah, it must be tough because they've been singer lists for a while. I mean, Nick is hard to replace. He was pretty amazing frontman. Yeah, yeah.

Jake Davies:

Yeah. Different. You know, it's, it's about finding the right pieces of the puzzle, we're certainly no stranger to personnel changes, having a difficulty of keeping the right personnel at the right time, but it's almost like I heard Trivium, say at one time about their drummer, it's like, we kind of see drummers as like, girlfriends, you know, like, we don't regret any one of them that we had, they were just like the right person for the right time. And I totally think that that's the case like it's not we've never we've never kicked anybody out of the band. They've just decided that different things are happening in their lives, and they needed to do different stuff. And we wish them all the best in their their newfound pursuit pursuits.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, what happened with your, your last bass player he was he was a kind of a fan favorite. I liked him. But he

Jake Davies:

is a fun fun guy. But Rob is off concentrating on his own music. So follow graveley gravy, lightning. And yeah, he's playing his his stuff that he felt he sort of he came to the band that went after his other band bear Wolf, that he was the main writer for a head ended and it was a kind of perfect fit, because we needed a bass player at that time. But I think ultimately, he didn't want to

Luke Davies:

he wants to get his own music out there. It is. Limbo wasn't the, the kind of vehicle to do that. And so he's gone on to pursue his own his own stuff. So he can, you know, have his voice heard and his own songs heard and it's, you know, wishing him the absolute best in it. Yeah. And he came to our show the other night we had a great old time. Just sinking beers. It felt like you're on tour again on a yeah, we're at DPS is the place you mentioned before and we had an acoustic show and he came and we were all hanging out on the patio. Got pretty sloshed by the end of it. And it genuinely felt to me like it was a tour night when we're in the middle of the country or something. It was awesome. Yeah.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, you guys party a lot. I mean, is that like you party on stage? A lot of it or is it more after?

Luke Davies:

I mean, it there's been times where I feel like I've made that mistake. Um, we try

Jake Davies:

to we try not to drink too much before like, like maybe accomplish shots and just get the the juices flowing. But then onstage is usually some beers if we're playing Let's get fucked up. You got to have it as a prop you know, it's

Luke Davies:

quite a show is really where you let the hair down. Yeah, I mean, especially

Jake Davies:

especially in on tour when like I said, we're hanging at the booth and we're selling merch and stuff and

Luke Davies:

he visits often. left right and center shot with me. Let's get booked up. So I'm gonna get booked out I feel like yeah, I feel like if someone offers me a shot you know, that's like an olive branch. What am I supposed to do? You know declined credit more than rude that like they feel offended so it's happened before certainly where they've offered me a shot and I said I don't know if I'm mistake to do it and they get kind of offended. I'm like, oh shit. But after like, I don't want to lose that connection with a fan potentially there was there was there you know on the table right there. So

Chuck Shute:

when you made me drink when I was What were you drinking? What you got? You had some good drink that you were pitching at the bar last night.

Jake Davies:

What are you wearing right now? The shirt drinker shirt. Maybe from breakfast bar.

Luke Davies:

breakfast bar long. I think I was making you breakfast margaritas from memory.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, that was that's a cool place. Good food. I need to come back. Let's have breakfast

Jake Davies:

Margarita Margarita with some scrambled eggs in it.

Luke Davies:

Not exactly. It's a margarita with our proprietary orange orange marmalade infused Oh shit.

Jake Davies:

It's full under wraps, tops.

Luke Davies:

Oh, yeah. Nany Nany. Just remember,

Chuck Shute:

it was really smooth. And I was feeling very good. So yeah,

Luke Davies:

that was the intention was achieved.

Chuck Shute:

All right. Well, I'll definitely have to pay it back. If you guys come through Arizona. We'll buy a

Jake Davies:

drink of love Scottsdale.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah, it's great. Especially you know once like you said it become late September early October. It'll be perfect. Especially at night. It'll be an awful venue. We'll be outside or inside but it'll be nice.

Jake Davies:

Because they don't have the Salt River float all year did We did Salt River last time we were out there we're opening from Blue Oyster Cult and that was great. Was that Tucson? No, no, that was that was near Scottsdale. And I did

Chuck Shute:

oh that's still river float is dangerous. I've done that a couple of times and it's like last time we did it. Oh man I just it was just drinking too much and then the sun just rough I'm getting too old for that.

Luke Davies:

I was I was kind of trashed by the end and I literally the current was so strong and I was I wasn't tall enough at a certain point was versus top I couldn't stop I just

Jake Davies:

like Hispanic man at the side had a full last

Luke Davies:

year and it was I wish we had that the few friends that were there watching it were pissy Roselle overlap because I just couldn't stop myself and I had to get saved by this guy bully less suing me like a like a horse hysterical

Chuck Shute:

that is great though. The times that you don't have a video camera or video phone. That's awesome. Well cool, guys. Well hope to see you on tour and people look for the new song California demon coming out this Thursday. And then I guess a bunch of more new music which I'm excited about because I love your stuff. So it's great. Yeah, and then if there's I always end promoting a charity I can't remember what we talked about we promoted last time is there something that people could donate to

Jake Davies:

your suggestion is as good as mine show. Mountain Valley fires but make sure it's one that's actually going to the people of Maui not some scumbag?

Chuck Shute:

Actually yeah, I did some research and I asked some people that live down there and everyone promoted the same one so I'll put that in the show notes. I think it's called Maori strong. I'll put the website in there along with your website and people can pre save that song if it's not out if they're listening to this you know before it comes out and they can print they can always pre save all your other stuff for you guys on social media follow Jake social media it's really

Luke Davies:

excel in private so if you want to see the real Jesus Oh, it is it's yeah, it has to be

Chuck Shute:

mad at your pay your

Jake Davies:

rage. Yeah. But basically, I It's funny that you even mentioned it shock because we try it for a long time to like disassociate. Me or the that that me with the band. And so I got a separate Instagram that's like just the Jake the singer, Jake and

Luke Davies:

I'll tell you even funnier elements of all this, Jake is sometimes not the most kind of like switched on unit in terms of details. And so there'll be plenty of times when we're suddenly all logged on to Facebook or Instagram. And he's posted something that he meant to post on his personal account to the band account. That's completely inappropriate and you know, irrelevant to our music. Yeah, it's some strong opinion. And I'll just have to screenshot it and send it to him like Jake you Janet again. Reel it back in you gotta keep it you gotta keep a hold on these things.

Jake Davies:

Why is Why is a limbo posting Alex yawns telling me that the frogs are gay? Yeah, exactly.

Luke Davies:

Like that happens more often than you would. Thankfully, we had people myself, girlfriend.

Chuck Shute:

That's what I'm saying. You need to incorporate this into your music. I want to see the song about the World Economic Forum, a song about eating bugs and climate lock. I want to see

Jake Davies:

a side project entirely shot with called gay frogs or reptilian agenda or something fucking hilarious.

Chuck Shute:

I'm telling you, it would go viral. People love this stuff. Like, it's very interesting. And the scary thing is a lot of the stuff you're posting that I go, Oh, that's crazy. It's not true. Or, and even if I if I Okay, it's not true that that'll never happen, like a prediction or something. And then like a year later, I'm like, the thing Jake posted was real.

Luke Davies:

Please, don't encourage

Chuck Shute:

every noise but yeah, I mean, He probably misses some of the time. Yes,

Luke Davies:

of course. We never hear about Mrs. Only the mace.

Chuck Shute:

Yeah. Well, I mean, it's not just in there's a lot of people posting, but it's fun. Either way, even if you don't agree. It's fun. It's entertaining. Yeah. Exactly. Think of it like that. Okay. Well, thanks, guys. I'll see you soon.

Jake Davies:

Thank you, brother.

Chuck Shute:

Bye bye. Thank you for taking the time to listen to the full podcast episode. Please help support our guests by following them on social media and purchasing their products, whether it be a book, album, film, or other thing. And if you have a few extra dollars, please consider donating it to their favorite charity. If you want to support the show, you can like share and comment on this episode on social media and YouTube. And if you want to go the extra mile, you can give us a rating and review on Spotify, Apple podcasts or Google podcasts. Finally, make sure you're subscribed to the Show on YouTube for the video versions and other exclusive content. We appreciate your support. Have a great rest of your day. Shoot for the moon.

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Chuck Shute

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