Sean Martin on Trauma, Music, and Turning Chaos Into Purpose

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Welcome to hecast, the official podcast of he changed it.

As always, I am Mike Chisholm. As always, I am so excited to

have conversations with different people in the world to

talk around the subject of a men's mental Wellness.

My word today our our guest is Sean Martin.

He is not just the lead singer of the band the quarantined.

He's the mastermind behind the whole project and, and my it is

such a cool band. I grew up listening to bands

like Rage Against the Machine, Alice In Chains, you know,

Disturbed and, and different bands.

This, this band here is along those veins, clearly influenced

by some of that and many, many others.

But Sean is the driving force and, and going through his

story, talking about his life, you know, losing his father

early, his life in the military. He tells a story of when he was

involved in the American military that I just was blown

away by. And to my knowledge, the first

time he's ever told this story about something that happened to

him when he was in in Iraq. And just a very, very powerful,

powerful story getting out of the military, you know, 20 years

of therapy. But with him the entire time is

music. And this episode talks a lot

about creativity and how many men have this creative thing

inside of them and, and, and, and, and, and a passion,

whatever the passion might be and how it can really save

lives. They can save their own life.

It really can. And, and, and the band is really

good. We talk a lot about music as

well. I really enjoyed this

conversation a lot. I think you will too.

If you haven't downloaded the he changed app, What the heck are

you waiting for? Go to hechangedit.com and you

can find all the information about how he how he changed.

It is trying to be a force for change in the world, making the

world a better place. If, if every man's mental

Wellness was in a better spot than it is right now, what would

that do to the world? That is exactly what we're we're

trying to do. Please enjoy my conversation

with Sean Martin. All right, Sean, I'm stoked

about this one. I love every every conversation

that I have. It's it's such a blessing to be

able to host he cast. But I'm a huge music fan, like a

massive music fan, and anytime I get somebody in the musical

world on here at any level, it's just it's it's one of those

things that I always take special pleasure in.

There's something about music where we can music is

therapeutic as as I believe that you are, have certainly gone

down that pathway. Music is magic.

It's healing, It's it's it's communal.

It's such a beautiful thing. So I'm so excited to have you

here. Welcome to HE Cash, Shawn

Martin. Thank you so much for having me.

It's great to be here. I wanna get into the, the

quarantine and, and, and all of the everything about what has

LED up to that. And that's what we're gonna do.

We're gonna lead up to this. I, I'm super curious.

Where did you grow up? And you know, the pathway that

led you to starting this project is a very cool 1, and I want to

get into that. But let's go back to your youth.

Was there a part of you before the military, before any of that

stuff? Was there a part of you that

always knew that you were going to move in the direction of

music? Yeah, actually it, it was like,

so my, my dad died when I was four years old and from cancer.

And so that left a huge, big open gap that my mom decided to

fill with community choir. And it ended up being a really

fantastic choice because it put me on the path of loving music

and and also finding that I had a real place in it because I was

a little kid who would do the solos, you know, for like the

end, at the end of the, because we would do contemporary songs.

So we would do like, yeah, you know, Bryan Adams and and

Richard Marx and shit like that, you know, so like the, the real

heart heart, you know, the heartfelt stuff and have a whole

choir singing. It was the, the the director at

the time was, was very avant-garde for the, for the

day, we'll say. OK, so I got to ask, was it a

faith-based thing or just a community based thing?

Where contemporary was it? Or was it a little bit of both?

No, it was, it was a community based thing.

Community based thing, Yeah, it was.

It was very much secular and very much about, you know,

trying to use, you know, children to help heal the world

was definitely one of the like we would have T-shirts with like

AI remember AT shirt with a big world and a Band-Aid over the

top of it. You know, like that's so they

were, they were trying to connect that.

Is the choir still around? I think so.

I think Mendocino Children's Community Choir is still is

still going. If it's not, it should.

It absolutely should. Where?

OK, so where? Where in the world was this?

So this was in Fort Bragg, CA and Mendicino, California over

on the on the West Coast about four hours north of San

Francisco. You know, it, it's right on the

coast. You got miles of beautiful

coastline. You know, that's nothing else is

really like in the world. Oregon is a little bit

different, but further South than that.

It just doesn't look like that anymore.

So it, it's, you know, around the redwoods, I would go run

around and like, you know, play, you know, Cowboys and Indians

out in the, in the redwoods and building forts and like, that's,

that's what I would do as a kid. Think Endor from Return of the

Jedi is is really what you're. Yeah, we, we killed many at Ewok

out there. Many, many.

Yeah, just just to, you know, get on the wrong side of

history. It's funny, you know, like my

wife and I will watch America's Got Talent and, and over the

years watching that show, you have seen more and more choirs

show up both both on the faith-based side, inner city

secular, like Utah community projects.

There is a power in, in, in, yes, children, of course, but

also adults. Like there's a power in the idea

of, of, of, of, of music being distributed through a choir.

And, and when you're a kid and especially going through

something that you went through, I can see how that would have

been like. I, I, I, you know, opened this

by saying how music is therapeutic and it's, it's

healing. It must have been both for you

going through what you went through at that young age.

Yeah. And, you know, frankly, I didn't

even know, you know, like at that time, you have no idea that

the things that are really affecting you, but your parents

do. And I'm very thankful that that

my mom was very keenly aware that, you know, giving a

creative outlet to, to a kid like me who's the youngest of

three and needs to have something that isn't destructive

because it's probably going to get destructive if you don't.

And I, I think that she was aware of, of that not, you know,

and because she's, she was definitely the, a faith-based

woman and was very much, you know, in into the church, but at

the same time understood the, the value of things.

She, she, like, there was some restriction.

Like she didn't want me to listen to like Eminem and stuff.

But there wasn't like, you know, there wasn't a, a section of, of

secular music and with like, you know, classical music or, or

secular, secular art or, or things like that that she didn't

want me to see. Like she wanted me to be aware

of the classics. She wanted me to know about, you

know, Chubby Checker and the Big Bopper and, you know, Fats

Domino and, you know, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis.

She wanted me to know about all of those because she would play

them on the on, on music all the time.

Be like you like this, Sean, This is, this is fun.

This is for my era, you know, so like that, that was something

that would happen all the time. And she would also turn on

Vivaldi and Bach and Beethoven and be like, pay attention,

Sean. These, these are really cool

things. These these last longer than

regular songs. You're never going to believe

this, you know? So like, that was the kind of

introduction and, and environment that she helped

create. That was one of exploring music

and really paying attention to it.

Did so? You said you had siblings.

Yes, all creative. Or were you the only one that

was that was just creative out-of-the-box?

Well, in, in their, in their younger ages, they, they were

all creative, but in the end, you know, they, they ended up

taking different career paths. They, they weren't able to, to

turn into a career, but they're, they're, you know, my, my middle

brother was very much a singer and very much into music and my

oldest one as well. In fact, it's, it's still talked

about to this day, I'm pretty sure by people at least of that

generation. But in, we were all in choir all

the way up until like our our junior senior years in high

school. And yeah.

And so, you know, we would, we would have fun with the, the

choir community. You know, we would do different

performances. Like it turned out that

throughout our our tenure, each one of us had done some kind of

weird, you know, performance that that was, you know, kind of

Tenacious D ish, kind of, you know, Weird Al Yankovic kind of

making fun of things, you know. So for example, my oldest

brother did a a real version of pretty fly for a white guy with

a rock band at a choir concert. Yeah.

And then me and my. And it was, it was great.

And like, he even got a weird like dancing dude to do the,

the, the pretty flag guy. He even got one of those.

And then me and my middle brother, we did a we, we so it

was this, it was this choir. I forget the, the, the exact

word they had for it, but it was very serious, like everybody was

doing really, you know, deep piano music.

And we, we worked that ahead of time.

Like we set this up so perfectly.

It was really great because it's one of those one of those shows

where it was, you know, all red, you know, maroon, long flowing

like curtains and everything was, was very, you know,

intimate and candle lit and, and, you know, very, very cool.

And we come in with weird ass costumes.

Like I, I was in a, a jersey with batting gloves and a felt

vest and leather pants. And we had someone dressed up as

Superman with a snorkel. We had like, we had just weird,

just out of control costumes that were just super weird.

Like we had a dude who was ready to go to the beach with like a

rubber ducky thing around his, his waist.

Like it was absolutely insane. And we did.

We did It's Going to Be Me by the Backstreet Boys.

It was so perfect. So different characters coming

in that were just outrageous outside the box.

Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic.

So, so there's guys that are listening to this right now who

either they themselves or maybe they, their, their fathers and

they got they, they got kids like, and I, I can't, I

personally can't overemphasize the, the impact of if you're a

creative, if you've got something inside you, whatever

it is, we live in a society right now that that many times,

you know, these types of projects and programs are

underfunded. They're not necessarily, you

know, promoted, depending on where you're from, like, like,

like your mom. I think prolific in, in, in

making sure that that the kids had something where if that

creative part was inside them, at least it was going to come

out somehow. And I'm seeing that more and

more these days that people are not exercising that muscle

nearly as much. And, and I think you could

probably speak to that as the importance of, of, of making

sure kids or even us, you know, old kids.

I certainly am one of those, you know, that my, my inner child,

I, I allow him to, to be, you know, have his grubby hands on

the steering wheel as much as I possibly can.

The importance of creativity, I can already tell.

And I mean, you got into some, you got into some more serious

places in life, but the creative venue, how, how important is it

that men at least face the idea that they might have a creative

inside them that needs to get out of them?

Oh, it's it's absolutely paramount important it it's it's

opening up an entire different section of your brain.

Literally there's a right side and there's a left side and when

you combined the 2 is when you finally come into that, you

know, you start feeling like Bradley Cooper had a limit

limitless is it starts feeling like, wow, I'm using 100% of

this because you just real you were able to put together.

For example, singing and playing guitar doesn't come naturally to

everybody. It didn't come naturally to me.

I had to learn how to do both independently and then mix the

two and what I do instead of constantly wearing myself out by

playing guitar all the time because it takes a toll.

You can do other things with your mind to exercise the exact

same parts of your brain that are used in playing guitar.

It's so it's the same thing as like rubbing your belly and

patting your head at the same time, right?

But what I do is, for example, I'll listen to podcasts while

I'm playing video games and pay and turn down the volume on the

video games so that I'm just doing the rote mechanical thing.

But I'm still I'm listening and I'm still actively engaged.

So that way my mind is still going in multiple places at once

and my hands are doing one thing and my brain is doing another.

So that way it connects the the same, the same, you know,

techniques that you need to do playing guitar and singing at a

high level. OK.

And, and, and you do both, you know, any I've got.

I, I can't wait till we get to the part of the conversation

where we talk about influences and things like that, because I

hear so many influences when I listen to the quarantined.

I, I, I so many different influences that, you know, I'm,

I'm older than you are. I, I'm, I'm just turned 50 not

that long ago. But it like right in the heart

of Gen. XI was there in the heart of

when, you know, grunge and, and like Alice In Chains and some of

these other bands, you know, came up and, and, and listening

to your stuff. It's like, whoa, it's, it's,

it's funny because it's, it's current as all get out, but

nostalgic as all get out, which kind of, you know, fights its

way into my brains at certain parts of different, different

songs. You talk about shredding on a

guitar. At what point did you in life

start playing the guitar? Because you are phenomenal at

it. I'm just curious as to as to

when you started exercising that part.

Oh, thank you. I, I started playing when I was

12. It was, it was right.

It was right after, you know, my, my mom had it set me up to

'cause I told her I wanted to learn an instrument.

She gave me piano and sent me to the, the, the choir piano

teacher. And so she's teaching me.

Jesus loves me and you know, Greensleeves and I'm like, this

is the most boring thing in the world.

What the hell is the matter with you?

And then finally I saved up enough to get a guitar and I

start and the first song that I learned how to play was Green

daytime of your life. And my, my brother came in and

was like, wait, you're actually playing that?

That wasn't on the radio. What the hell?

Like, he was genuinely freaked out.

Like looking at me like I like I had an alien head, you know, and

so there. And so from then I, I just gave

it a, a dedicated motivation to learning everything that I could

and not refusing anything that was there.

And where did the dedication come from?

Because you know, I mean, you, you certainly saw the edge of

it. But now we live in a place, a

time and place where people want things so instantly.

And, and I, you know, that was around you as well at that time.

Was it 1/2 hour a day? And you just knew, you know,

we'll just, we'll just get there eventually.

Was it just the, the, the passion of it that they didn't

say, I just don't want to stop doing this.

Where did the dedication come from to learning?

It, it was a passion once, once I figured out how like that the

expression of it was, you know, not only feeding me, but, but

making me into a more, just a better person.

Like not just for myself, but for other people too.

Once I realized that, that once I was done playing guitar, I was

a much nicer person, that I, I was very much more in tune to

other people's, you know, what they were talking about or what

I wasn't just always locked in my head and thinking about, you

know, the different, you know, different other terrible aspects

of what was going on. I was able to to focus on what

was there and be present. And that that was such a key

thing to learn at a young age because I was also learning how

to be a preacher. So there was definitely an

aspect and a need to make sure that what I was saying was

actually resonating with people, you know, and not just speaking

for the sake of speaking. So, but, but besides that, you

know, it was, it was absolutely a, a passion.

Like I would sit down and play for like 4 hours at a time, you

know, I, I literally would play until my fingers bled and that,

that was a very consistent thing for me just because I couldn't

stop. Eventually, like, the

emotionality of it became kind of, you know, at least for a

young person, something to be addicted to, you know, And I

think if there's anything to be addicted to, it's not too bad of

a choice. Well, and we talked about, you

know, we talked about this before and people who have

addictive personalities, really at the end of the day, if you

don't pick a poison, if you pick something else other than that,

you pick something that's positive.

You pick something that, that, that, that, that, that, that

you're learning a skill or you're, or, or you're making the

world a better place, whatever that is.

And that is, is. But you said the key earlier,

like passion. And I, you know, I'm like you.

I've been very passionate about the things that I get into.

Whenever I get into something, I get into it wholeheartedly.

Have been like that since I was a boy.

And the more and more I age and the more I look around and

especially since hosting the show and, and seeing what he

changed, it is trying to do. And then, then the, the, the,

the, the shortfalls that, that, that the team changed, the team

is trying to help overcome in the world.

There's a lot of guys out there who have never found what

they're passionate about. They've never like gone on a

journey to do it. And the ones who have who

realize they're passionate about something, but I maybe set it

aside because of the norms of what we're supposed to be doing.

And they and they, they focus on that instead.

You know, those, those guys can be lucky too, because when,

when, when the water starts coming over the over the bow,

that's something that they can go back to and they can, it

becomes a superpower. But there's so many guys out

there who don't even know what their passion is.

Sounds like music is the one that that that hit you early on.

You knew what it was early on. Thank goodness for that.

Thank God for that. That's that's an amazing thing.

Do you have other passions as well?

Yeah, I, I mean, not, not as not as deeply as music because like

I can get into the different aspects of, of music and get

into the music business side of it.

And even as boring as scheduling posts and talking about

contracts and all that stuff really is for me.

It like when it when it's your ass, yeah, it matters.

You know, it's so you better pay attention.

And so in the end, there's, there's a lot of things like

that to where, you know, I've kind of integrated my life into

it, but I so in, in that way, I have to maintain discipline to

not let my emotions override my logical brain.

And that, that is something that as a creative can happen.

Because when your hopes and dreams are on the line, you want

to hope that the best case scenario is going to happen, but

your hope is not going to make you plan for the worst case

scenario, which is what you actually need to do.

So there's, there's a very important balance to be had when

you're when you're making a passion become a job is, is to

separate those things and or at least have someone who can check

you. Because if you can't check your

own ego, you better find somebody else who will and you

better be able to listen to them.

And if you can't, you'll fucked man.

You'll fucked and you better. Figure it out.

I'm glad. Yeah, I'm glad you're saying

this here because I mean, at the end of the day, like I believe

in that. I think it's a Chinese proverb

that says if you can monetize your passion, you'll never work

a day in your life. Creatives have such a hard time

with that. Like the idea of merging

creative or art with commerce. That is a very, that's a, that's

a, that's a very, very hard tightrope to walk.

And, you know, you know, there's one thing about, you know,

getting it out there by, you know, playing guitar and

learning to play guitars, singing art, whatever it might

be, you know, whether it's a visual art or, or whatever it

might be. For me, it's podcasting.

I mean, I discovered podcasting, you know, later in life.

And it's like, Oh my goodness, this is the thing that I have

been searching for my whole life.

And you get into that flow state.

And like we were talking about before the camera turned on, you

know, like you say, you play 4 hours and you don't even realize

that it's, it's a time warp. You get lost in it and it's such

a beautiful thing, but I got to put food on the table too.

And how do I do that And how can I integrate the two?

If are there ways that I can integrate the two into each

other? Well, there are, you know, and,

and you know, it's through an open mind and, and, and

realizing what those things, how you can combine them now for

you, it's like, OK, I want to look at the music business and

my goodness, you came in at a time when the entire music

business was shifting beyond. I mean, there's never been a

better time for independent artists.

But at the same time, there's also been, never been a harder

time for independent artists. And it's such a, it's such a

crazy, crazy thing. Have you always been in

California and, and did you stay, did you stay in the

northern part as you started building this?

Or like, let's talk about let's talk about the flow of what led

to the quarantines. Now we've done a good job

talking about the base. Let's talk about what you did

next. I want to talk about the

military like what came first, what what happened next?

So yeah, the so after I, after I graduated high school, I joined

the military and I joined in the 18X program, which sounds like

it's, you know, it's something I had X-Men, but it's not, it's

just the fast track into special forces.

You have to go through infantry based training and than airborne

school and then you get a choice on whether you want to go to a

unit to deploy to Iraq or whether you want to go directly

to the special forces training. My dog is is bugging me, I'm

sorry. How old's your daughter?

Oh, dog, dog. I'm sorry, not dog.

Oh. Your dog, I was interested.

Your daughter. OK, What did mom say when you

joined the military? I'm super curious about the

motivation and what Mom said. She, you know, it was a really

rough time at that point. My, I was kind of like on the

outs with my parents there. There was a, a lot of, of what's

the word, there was a lot of, of, of breaks in, in our

understanding of each other. You know, I, I had, I had turned

into an atheist and they were extremely religious and there

was a lot of tension around that.

I wanted to, you know, at the time I was trying to figure out

what I wanted to do with my life.

And I was, you know, figuring out that I was going to work

service jobs as much as I could and then eventually try to move

up to a slightly bigger city and then maybe go to college.

And, and when I went to go rent a place on my own, that's where

I left it. And I didn't really talk to them

about the choice of going into the infantry.

I said I'm going. Wow.

You know. Escapism was rebelling.

Was it both? Yeah, kind of, yeah.

I mean, it was kind of, it was kind of rebelling.

There was definitely an aspect of, you know, I, I was really

starting to be overwhelmed with rage, you know, just a, a low

simmering rage. Just that was a general feeling

about things. Because when you see things that

to you don't make any sense and then you investigate them and

they still don't make any sense. And then you find people in

there who are just wreaking havoc on some institution that

you really, really, you know, respect and once enjoyed you're

it kind of makes you go a little angry.

Like, why? How did this happen?

And then once you figure out how it happened, you just like,

well, I need to go beat the shit out of some people.

Then what? Like, what the Hell's the matter

with this? And there's, there was a whole

lot of things. And for me it was, you know,

mainly I was really super pissed off at, at racism.

Once I figured out exactly how bad America really was with

racism, I was angry at my entire fucking country at every like,

what the hell is the matter with you people?

You know, and what do you mean to you people?

But you know, it's and eventually it's it was also,

there was also rage at, at personal relationships.

And you know, I didn't know how to deal with it.

All of these different things going.

I didn't know how to mitigate these feelings.

I didn't know how to to control these things or use them or turn

them into something that fueled a passion.

And I could use my my logical brain to work out the reasons

why. Yeah.

So the military to me, if I'm hearing you right, provided a

whole bunch of what you needed. I mean, you talk about

structure, you talk about discipline.

Of course. I mean, those are, you know, if

you don't have those, you're not going to last very long.

You need, you need those, but then also outlet and, and I

mean, I, I assume even basic, going through basic and I mean

you're fast track to, you know, you wanted to look at the

special forces, that sort of thing.

I'm curious as to how the, where you went from there.

But even that like going through basic, if you have all of the

stuff inside you that is an outlet to get it out.

I mean, you see so many guys who are addicted to fitness, right?

You know, they're runners or, or they're in the gym lifting or,

or, or whatever the discipline might be, could be MMA,

whatever, whatever that is. You get yourself an outlet where

you have to be disciplined, whether whether it's by choice,

you know, for the runner or this is the program in the military.

You get that discipline, you get that structure and you have an

outlet to let go. Some of these things, even

though at that young age you have no idea those are the

things that are being provided for you that you're kind of

hungering for. Am I hearing that right?

Yeah, pretty much, yeah. Yeah.

I mean, at the at the time, I knew that going into a, an, an

entirely new environment with entirely new people was exactly

the thing that I was looking for.

I wasn't missing anything that was behind me.

I was fully prepared to let it go.

And so there there wasn't anything that was holding me

there. So then when I could show up and

and just be I'm going to be the best interest.

Who was it before? Don't give a fuck.

I don't give a fuck. Nobody really like who really

cares where I was before? I'm here right now and I'm going

to be right in your face the whole time.

So you better remember the name, you know, like in the end,

that's what it was. And so that, you know, propelled

me through a a a lot because, you know, even in the military,

there's still bullies. There is still people who are

like, Oh, you're, you're, you think you're being a Truman.

You can't do this shit. And then you'd have to crush

their nuts and, you know, make sure that they remember your

name. And in the end, you know, that

all grows you into a a kind of person who you want to be.

But you know, there's there's definite tolls to it there.

There's a when there's a real lack of trust that that

eventually became the most important aspect of holding

together the platoon in deployment when we're stressed

beyond a Max and you know, you have outside institutions

telling you things that that may or or may not be true, but

they're trying to get you like it.

It. The deployment got out of

control for like to be really honest about it.

And I know that a lot of people who served me aren't and won't

be ever, but there was a lot of shit that was out of control And

you know, I was I was a part of it.

I was definitely a part of it there.

There was definitely issues with with criminality, war crimes.

There was definitely an issue with detainee operations.

There's issues with kinetic operations.

There was the kinetic operations.

Even when there wasn't issues with them, there's still high

amounts of stress. If you're because in the

infantry, you're, you're not just fucking around, you are

have a directive to go and find and destroy the enemy, whoever

that enemy is deemed is deemed to be.

And most of the time you don't get a choice in that decision.

You're just executing it. And that's a very important

thing to realize that that's the job, because we would like, and

especially nowadays, we would like to imagine that people on

the ground have a have a choice in the, and who they're being

pointed at to, to go and destroy.

And a lot of times they don't, but they do have a choice to

disobey illegal orders because that's part of the job as well.

You are supposed to know and understand if someone gives you

an illegal order, you have the right, the absolute right to

disobey it in the moment. And that's very, very important

for service members and everybody to know that that's

the law. That's not like a, a, a thing.

That's that's what the law says. So it's very important.

Is one of the questions I had for you because again, you look

at you look at the type of music that that that that the

quarantine is and I mean, many people look at that type of

music as like I think about Rage Against the machine.

You know, that's that's what I I certainly got rage vibes when

especially listening to the lyrics because the lyrics are so

deep as well, right. And that's Zach and company

that, that that's what they they, they were the, the, the,

the beats were awesome, the riffs were awesome.

But then you go into the lyrics and it's like, wow.

And, and, and, you know, I think about the idea of following

orders and it's, it's like that type of music and then following

orders. They don't seem to be one of

those things that one of my questions was, was it tough for

you to follow orders there? But but now bringing in this

dimension of it, the dimension that you're bringing into it

too. I mean, that's another one.

There's that moral part and that making sure that, you know, this

huge operation stays the way it's supposed to be and

corruption and, and things like that get thrown out and like

illegal orders that you're talking about.

I don't, I don't know that I've ever heard that in the modern,

the modern verbiage, like the idea of an illegal order.

Is that something that you saw a lot of?

Is that something that you personally had to deal with or

was it just always in the back of your mind as sort of a a

safety net that was there in case it was necessary?

No, I was given illegal orders and I was proud to disobey them.

Wow, yes, wow. And I was proud to stand in

front of my platoon and tell them exactly why I disobeyed it.

And I did. This is what I mean by this is

what I mean by avergence normalcy.

Like, just because everyone's telling you exactly what you're

supposed to do doesn't mean that it's the right thing to do.

You know, 40 million people can't be wrong.

Yes, they fucking can. Yes, they fucking can.

You know why Nazi Germany? That's why 40 million people can

be fucking wrong. They can be absolutely,

completely wrong. So it's very, very important to

remember that when you have a understanding of the moral code

and when you can align it with the ethical code and the

judicial code that is surrounding you, you, you're

going to be in the right. And if the other people are not

abiding by it, you need to be able to recognize it so that you

can not do that. Wow, I, I, I, I understand when

it comes to like confidentiality and things like that.

And, and, and having to, I don't know how much you're allowed to

talk about how much you're not, but I'm going to ask the

question, was it, was it during active?

Like was it during a firefight? Was it during an active mission

like was it was, was, was their lives on?

Were their lives on the line at that point?

And, and with the moment where you made the call to go that

direction? Was it one of those things where

things kind of started going in slow motion a little bit like

where you become hyper present? Or was it an instantaneous thing

because you were turned into this, you know, instinctual

machine? Actually, no, it wasn't.

It wasn't any of that. OK, and so I'll, I'll tell you a

story and this is a story I haven't actually told before

because this one is is kind of controversial.

I'll try to leave out the best. I named the the the names and

stuff. But so we were coming up on this

house. We had gotten Intel that this

particular house was part of the bomb making, you know, team that

was around in the AO. So we went out and showed their

and showed up there with two squads thinking, you know, you

know, it'll be a night mission. We'll go and grab this one, you

know, maybe other two people and it'll be no big deal.

So we get there and this dude is standing out in front of his

house with an AK waiting for us. And so we go up and are ready to

fire and, you know, there's this huge tension about it.

Was it because the Roe is he has to raise it at you?

What's the RO, the RO, the rules of engagement, The.

Rules of engagement. Yeah, I know.

The rules of engagement state that you cannot fire on someone

if they are holding a weapon. They have to be pointing it at

you with lethal intent. Means they can't be pointing it

at your legs and then you fire at their head.

They have to be pointing with legal intent and then you react.

That means you got 1.22 seconds or so to react and we train for

that. We train for it and we're all

really fucking good at it. So we get there weapons,

failures, you know, he doesn't raise it, he's kind of fucking

with us. At the same time, you could tell

this dude was a little bit of a troll.

So it was this really fucked up situation and we eventually

found that this guy was part of the the bomb making thing.

And his his thing was he would get kids to build hit the bombs

and if they blew up while they were building the bombs, he just

dug a small grave and put them over in a corner in his basement

and just let him rot. It was horrifying.

It was one of the worst situations I had ever seen in

the war in my entire life. It, that was a high number, top

three, top five South. We stood out.

We stood with this guy for a real long time because we were

trying to, we decided to take the interrogation upon

ourselves, but the interrogation got a little bit out of hand

because some of our NCOS started having emotional reactions to

what they were finding. And I mean, rightfully so.

Like I, I don't, I don't, I've never heard of, you know, that

kind of that, that kind of absolute disregard for any kind

of humanity, especially for the most vulnerable.

I've, I've never seen it that bad.

And we, you know, some, some people started, started to

aggressively handle him, we'll say, and they were trying to get

information out of him. But the aerial surveillance that

was above us recognized that there was an incoming somehow he

had tripped some kind of, you know, communication to the other

to signal to the other members of his team.

And they were bearing down on us.

And there was about 30 of them. And there's about 15 of us.

So we're sitting there about 2:00 to 1:00 and we're thinking,

all right, now you we've got to dig in positions around this

thing. So we're frantically trying to

dig these these things. And we were waiting for them to

come in. And they came to me and said,

hey Martin, do you want to turn on the guy right to beat the

shit out of them? And I said no.

They said, well, if you don't do it, then how do we know that?

And I said, don't even give me that shit.

That's a fucking illegal order and you God damn know it and you

better take that shit and go take it back and fuck inside and

get the fuck away from me before I kill you.

Like that's, that's the reaction that I had to an illegal order.

And they didn't do fucking shit about it because they knew that

it was legal order and they just moved on.

So that answers the question. It was hair trigger.

You didn't even, didn't even hesitate even in, even in those

heightened circumstances. I, I, I mean, we all need to

know the end of the story. I'd be, I'd be.

So you know, how did it, how did it turn out in that situation?

You got these guys bearing down on you, so your Ariel knows

about it. Good Lord.

Oh my God. What, what, what what happened

here? So this was the night of, of a

major amount of stress with the biggest relief that we've ever

had. So the the how it resolved the

cell was absurdly simple because we had the aerial, the aerial

drone up in the air. They were already in contact

with the Air Force. So they already had an A10 on

the way. So they just sent an A10 and

annihilated them and we didn't even see them.

We didn't, we didn't, we didn't even meet him.

We didn't even go check their weapons.

They were just like, no, let's hear another.

Team like. Like, Oh yeah, we heard him.

Yeah. Oh yeah.

Like, yeah, OK. It was, they were maybe half a

click away. Like they, they.

Oh my. God, they were.

Really close, yeah. It's, it's not like we, it was

dark and they were low crawling so we couldn't see them.

And they knew that specifically, like we, it would have been a

hell of a fight, you know, like 'cause they were, if they were

trained enough to not go running up into this, into this

situation, that means that they knew what they were doing.

So it was about to be on. And you know, we were expecting

to, everyone was expecting to die.

You know, when we were digging those, those positions, we were

like, this is probably going to be our grave.

But when those a 10s lit up and we, we, you know, saw him and

heard him, we were just like fucking cheering out in the

back. And they're like, all right,

guys, we're done. Knock home.

We walked home with no incident. It was fucking insane.

It was insane. That is, that is a crazy story

and and not your and not your only one clearly.

Like I mean, I in the top, you said it's in the top five.

Oh God, what are the other four like?

OK. So, so how long, how long a time

from when you joined to when you left?

How many years we talking here? So I joined in December 28th

2004 and I got out in September 7th of 2007.

Was 911 a motivating factor for you?

Yeah, yeah, it was. But at the same time I was very

conscious of the fact that we were not attacking Saudi Arabia.

Right, OK. I was very, very aware of that.

And I very much did not like President Bush.

I thought he was a fucking retard idiot.

I thought he was absolutely stupid.

And I thought that that the only reason why this this war was

going anywhere is because of Rumsfeld and Cheney.

And I think history's kind of played that out to be right.

And you know the motivating factors, you know, and, and

Colin Powell, you know the famous name Colin Powell holding

up the vial. Yeah, I, I knew that that those

things were probably bullshit and even going in, I knew that

most likely the reasons that they were telling the civilians

is not what was really going on. I, I could tell that they were

lying, but regardless, I knew that there was an, there was a

lot there was, there was selfish motivations to go into the

military, but there was also, you know, I knew that I knew

that I could handle it. I knew that I could spot when

someone was bullshitting me. And I knew when I, that I knew

how to deal with it, that I didn't give a shit about

bullies, that in the end, I knew that I can handle bullies.

So if that's who I'm going to fight is theocratic fascist

bullies, well, yeah, I'm your guy then, you know.

Yeah, I mean, like you're saying, you know, the, the the

stuff that's way above my pay grade, these things where where

where, you know, agendas and okay, well, we can use this so

we can achieve that. All of these things here.

I mean, it's so, it's, so it's, it's, it's, it's almost too big

for a normal person to, to even fathom when you think about what

goes on under the surface. But, but at the end of the day,

you're also seeing a dude who's trolling you and using children

to make bombs. And, and, and, and like you

said, you put it so, so, so, so well.

You know, the people who are the most vulnerable using them and

then and casting them aside, you know, so, so, so, so the horror

and war as hell. And we know this and, and what's

out there. I mean, you know, you're also

seeing that. And I mean, it's, it's, it's

almost one of those impossible. It's, it's paradoxical.

There's so much paradox when it comes to this because and, and

there you with a bunch of guys in the mess and in the middle

and, and, and trying to figure out and make sense of it.

Well, God, it's really tough to make sense of, of, of stuff like

that. But yet here we are.

What year did you say you left? You saw O 4 you got in.

What year did you say you left? 2007.

OK. And it sounds like in that time,

a lifetime of things like, you know, it sounded like you needed

to get out. Was it on your own accord?

Was it that was it theirs? Was it both?

How did you, how did, how did you end up out?

It was, it was my own accord and I, it was a really interesting

story. So essentially once I got back

from from leave, they had forced me to talk to an army

psychologist because I I asked to if there was anyone that I

could talk to off the record because a lot of shit had

happened like this. This happened before I went on

leave. Does that happen?

OK, I've sorted, Sean, I'm sorry to interrupt.

That alone seems extremely the forethought there and the, you

know, knowing yourself there, that the presence of mind, the

president, the awareness that you had there, that sounds like

the right move. It sounds like the right move.

It doesn't sound like the stereotypical move of somebody

in that situation. Were you rare asking for that

request? And because I think of that

mentality is why I got tricked. So that Army psychologist was

not a part of the unit and he was required to report

everything that I said to my unit.

And he didn't tell me that. He said that it was confidential

off the record and it was it was not.

So he then relayed that information back to my unit and

said and also added on the part that we don't know whether or

not he's going to come back. And so by the time I got back to

my unit, all of my bags were packed, everything was ready to

be sent off and everybody had written me off as, oh, he was

probably going to leave anyway. Is he even at liberty anymore?

And I'm standing right next to my team leader and they're like,

he's not there, is he? And he's like, no, he's standing

right here. The Hell's he had to tell him

four times on the radio. It was like they just didn't

want to believe it. And in the end, I, and, you

know, I ended up having getting in lots of fights with, with

people in my, in my unit. I end up standing up to some of

my NC OS because they were bullying other members of my

team. There was, you know, just

really, really stupid shit that they didn't understand and they

were trying to pick a fight just fucking because.

And in the end, I was at a point to where I had already killed

people in, in, in the, in combat situations.

I had zero problem just fucking somebody up just because.

And mind you, this is before I'm even 21 years old.

That's wow. So, so in the end I was put

into, I was put in the talk and when I was in the talk, the

Sergeant major for the battalion came in and was like, the hell

are you doing in here? You, you don't belong in here to

sit around doing nothing talking on the radio.

No, you're meant for greater things.

Because I had already talked with him.

I already had a relationship with the Sergeant major and, and

joining his, his security force before deployment.

So he already knew of me and he had also heard of the stuff that

I'd done because I was in his battalion.

And so he's like, you don't belong here.

So I started working for him directly and I started helping

him with investigations and missions around inside the FoB

that needed a level of operational security and a

attention to detail that an infantryman could give and

someone that he could trust. And because I didn't have

anything else, he swooped me up and picked me up into the, you

know, into the crow's nest and was like, you're one of the,

you're one of these guys now. And the rest of my platoon

didn't fucking like that because I had to up my security

clearance. And so then I couldn't tell

them. And so then when I came around

and they asked, dude, why aren't you in the company talk anymore?

What, where are you? I'm like, I can't tell you.

And they're like, dude, what the Hell's the matter with you?

I'm like, no, really, your security clearance is not high

enough to know what? And they're like, dude, you're

such an asshole. What the Hell's the matter?

I'm like, no, I'm, I'm, I'm not being a Dick.

I'm trying to tell you that this is above your fucking pay grade.

And scares the shit out of me knowing high school.

Stuff like that. What it was, that's exactly what

it was. It was stupid high school

bullshit with men who were 24 to 28 years old and not realizing

that someone around them could try to do something better than

what they thought they could do. And that's what it was.

It was little, it was little boys trying to act like big ass

men and it was stupid. It was just stupid.

Some of them realized what was going on and they were and they

were cool with it. And they're like, I won't ask

any ask any questions. And other other of them were

just reacting like that. So in the end, the Sergeant

major sent me on a mission to go guard this this guy at the

Northgate and the Northgate, this guy turned out to be

essentially a triple agent. He was playing the local

nationals and he was playing the Insurgency and he was playing us

at the same time. And he was trying to get us all

to destroy each other and he was giving bad Intel and good Intel

to all sides to try and make them coalesce on one point,

which was going to be a Northgate vehicle born IED,

which he was going to blow himself up, including me.

And I then I found out that the Sergeant major sent me there

because he knew what what what the guy was doing and he wanted

to tie up a loose end. I am not fucking kidding you.

Oh my God, Sean. That's, that's the hardcore

reality of it and when so luckily I was able to

interrogate the guy, figure out what was actually going on in

the two hours that I that I was pulling this guard duty and

convinced him to give me 5 seconds before he set off the

the vehicle borne ID at the Northgate and he gave me 5

seconds and I felt the blast blow me forward.

I missed it that much. Oh my.

God. And so when I showed back up at

the Sergeant major to report back from my guard duty, he was

like, what the fuck are you doing here, you know?

So then I called him on his bullshit.

Most unsettling things I've ever heard.

Trust me. Yeah, I know.

It took me about 20 years, 20 years of therapy to to deal with

all of this shit. Yeah.

Yeah. So then I show up back at and I

at Sergeant major and I am pissed.

And I, I tell him, get the Colonel, we're going to go meet

in a skiff and we're going to talk about this shit right now.

Because from everything that I can see, you guys just knowingly

sent me to my death hoping that I would die.

And you didn't create an operation order for it.

So there was no record that I would even be there.

So they were expecting me to just, you know, to just be

another casualty. And it just happened to be like

that. And it would have totally gotten

swept under the rug is there would have been no questions

whatsoever. They were fucking smart about

it. And because I called them on it

and I had the Intel and I had the data and I had everything.

I kept vigorous notes about everything and everything that

Sergeant major was having me do. And I, and I gave it to the

Colonel and he was like, what the fuck is this?

And it had a long conversation with the Sergeant major because

he didn't know what the Sergeant major was doing.

So because I was able to then turn them against each other to

divide and conquer using their own fucking war principles

against each other, against them.

They, they finally came to it and they're like, all right,

we're going to give you 2 options.

It's obvious that you are capable of being in Special

Forces. It is obvious that you have the

skills that's necessary. We think that you would be a

fantastic Special Forces soldier regardless of how we, how we

feel about, you know, all of these different things.

And we're hoping you just, you know, let the other things under

the bridge like they were trying to, you know, a little bit.

It's a bribe. Not a bribe.

It's a. It's an incentive.

It's. A Right, so they said we'll give

you 2 options. We'll give you the golden ticket

or the golden parachute. Golden ticket is we'll we'll get

you into Special Forces. The first duty station that

you'll have as soon as you get back to the five of a 9th is in

Fort Bragg. And we will and we will send you

there with a recommendation from the Sergeant major.

No, no. They'll send me to Fort Bragg,

NC OK, Just they'll send me to Special Forces training with a

recommendation from the Colonel and from the Sergeant major,

both of whom were TAB Special Forces.

Yeah. So it would, it would have a

huge amount of weight like I, I would essentially be showing up

there as like the golden child, you know, or they said, or we'll

give you the golden parachute out, which is 50% disability and

discharge right away. I said, fuck you guys, I don't

trust you at all. And if you, if this is what I'm

looking forward to with my higher UPS sending me to my

death knowingly, then fuck all of you.

Give me the golden parachute. I.

So was it Instacall? You knew immediately you were

out. I didn't.

Yeah, I didn't even. I didn't even wait barely 10

minutes to think about it. Yeah, because I know.

Wow, like how long till you're back home?

Like like what's the turn around time on that?

Is it weeks because of all the you know or or or are they able

to expedite things if necessary? They were able to expedite it

really fast. They were able to pull it like I

had been. They had been talking about

sending me back home, you know, since I came back from leave,

you know, and which was like in in April or May of earlier that

year. Because in their mind, OK, trust

in the unit is essential. Trust in the unit is essential.

Now this guy's coming back and we don't have full trust in him.

That's their, that's their logic in their mind or their, their,

their, their way of thinking, right?

Yeah. And then I go and and execute on

a high level and come back and do do the, you know, this thing

where if I go back into a regular unit and tell them that

story. Yeah.

Untenable, completely fucking untenable.

So they knew that they couldn't like keep me there.

They knew that I couldn't just go back to the five O 9th and

and just, you know, hop back in with Charlie company and act

like everything's fine. No, they already there was

already people who wanted me dead and like we're way happy to

see me die on a mission. They were they'd be super

ecstatic about it. So like the difference between

what the reality was of that camaraderie and brotherhood and

trust is a real thing. But when it's yanked back for

dumb ass reasons, you feel it. You really feel it.

And you start to realize the conditionality of all of it.

So you come home and I mean, my gosh, your reasons for going

there, seeing what you saw, you come home.

You've alluded to the idea of 20 years of therapy.

We're a couple years before the quarantine is formed, right?

But did you know at this point that you wanted to go down this

direction? Was music always there with you?

And was it always kind of nudging you, saying, hey, you

need some of this, you know, when did it come back to that?

When you got home, How long? You know, you know, I actually

took a guitar with me to Iraq and I still have it actually as

it's this this red guitar that, that's a Fender show Master

guitar. I I bought it in Alaska and the,

the case on it still has mud from Iraq when it was thrown

around on the shipping processes.

Yeah, it's still, it's still busted up from that trip too.

But I had that guitar with me in Iraq and I would sit outside my

can a lot, a lot of times when you know nothing else was going

on, 12 hours on and 12 hours off and.

A lot of downtime, a lot of downtime, right?

A lot of people don't realize that, yeah.

Yeah, and there was many times in which a captain would come

walking by and, and be like, oh, dude, you play.

Oh, dude, that is so great. I should come back and bring,

bring my axe. We'll go and play together.

I'd be like, yeah, sure, Sir, you know, let's let's do that.

And they would and they would. So it was real fucking like, I'm

sitting there, you know, jamming out with, with sergeants and,

and captains and stuff. And I'm just an E4, you know,

and everybody's sitting there like, kiss this guy, you know,

like, what the hell? That's what music does.

It's communal art that we talked about, yeah.

Right. So, yeah, I like, I, I still,

you know, I still, you know, kept through music even through

all of that. You know, it was I would be

singing to myself all the time. There's many times in which I'd

be filling up water cans and just be sitting out, you know,

doing that and be singing to myself.

And somebody comes by and be like, dude, what are you

singing? What, why are you like, are you

a singer? Like, what are you doing?

And I thought that they would be like, you know, stop doing that.

Operational security, noise and light discipline.

I thought they were going to do that.

And they come up to me and be like, dude, I'm a singer too.

And I've been trying to like, not let people know that I'm a

singer. And like, it's like they would

have, they want to have a secret conversation about music.

And I'd be like, oh, thank God. So it was, and I say that to

people. I say that to people all around.

I'm a karaoke king. You can't get me off the stage.

I, I love it so much and it's, it's, it's and I'm good.

I got chops. But I, I'll say it to people

because I love drawing that out of them because there's that

little secret part of them that are like, it's like people who

are pro wrestling fans. They don't want people to let

people know they're pro wrestling fans.

You know, it's a, it's like a dirty little secret.

Oh, I, I, I would always love to sing to.

No, no, dude, don't just say you'd love to go do it.

Go do it. And oh, I'll be terrible, OK.

You might be terrible the first time or whatever, unless you

practice a lot beforehand, but be terrible until you're good

because you'll get good and, and, and let it out of you.

And I love that you're a light for that.

Even in a situation like that, you're a light for that.

Because people do keep these parts of them a secret.

And it's it and it's killing them or, or maybe it's not even

killing them. It's it's, it's a, it's a

superpower to help deal with life.

And there are so many people that do.

I'm so glad that you said that because, yeah, I mean, and, and

you don't have to do it. Like, I look at you and I'm

like, Oh my God, I wish I could do it at Sean's level.

Like, I look at that. It's like, oh, my goodness.

But at the same time, it still scratches the same itch when you

do it. You know, it doesn't matter how

many people you're performing in front of or what it looks like

or what the application is or how many songs you got streaming

right now. If you get it out, it helps with

life. It takes the edge off or might

even do much, much more as it's done for you.

So I'm sorry to kind of rant on that, but I'm so glad that you

brought that up because that's the exact same.

So many guys who have this creative part of them need to

let it out. You know, wherever they're at,

there's guys on a job site that are listening to this that are,

you know, going through the same stuff that you did.

It's just a different job site. They're on an oil rig or they're

on a, you know, wherever they are.

And it's like dude, let that part out of you.

So sorry I didn't mean to rant on that, but I just I just so

I'm elated by what you just said there.

No, you are, you are 100% right, actually.

And there's even science to back up what you're saying.

Yeah, it's it's really like you're you are so right on it

truly. And, and you know, the, the

resonance that you make in, in your face, when you properly

resonate in in for singing, it creates a vibration in your, in

your face. And when you do it properly, not

only are you opening up your sign, it's to speak clearer, But

when you combine it with using your, your, your vocal, your,

the, the vocal flaps and you realize that everybody has the

exact same tools to sing. So technically and anybody can

sound like anybody. It's experience and learning and

everything that has come before and our biology that determines

whether we're going to be a high voice or a low voice.

And it's all just chemicals. It's just chemicals, man.

So we all have the same the exact same tools to sing and

make it happen. It's it's so good.

Like, OK, so I want to, you know, go into the quarantined

because it's, it's, it's it's powerful stuff.

And I'm I and powerful can be used in all sorts of different

ways. Talk about, of course, you know,

the, the guitars and the, and the, the, the vocal stylings are

powerful. The lyrics are powerful.

I started by listening to, I wanted to hear your cover.

I, I for one of the first things I saw is that you did a cover of

A change is going to come. I'm like, OK, there's a good

place to start right here to see where this guy is coming from.

And, and, and I, I love that a band that actually I do hear

resemblance to, and I'm wondering if they are an, an

influence to you is Disturbed. I, you know, I, you know, OK,

not there. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I, I, I hear that. And one of my favorite things

about Disturbed is the covers. They do.

And I mean, I can list a bunch of them that I love.

Not just in Sounds of Silence went went the Sound of Silence

went really huge and all that. But my favorite band of all

time, tied with a couple other ones is Faith No More.

They did a version of Midlife Crisis.

They, they did a Genesis song, Land of confusion.

They did a tears for fear song. I've just loved their styling in

a cover. The first thing I thought of is,

oh man, I want Sean to release a cover album of, of his

interpretations of songs because you have such a cool voice.

And, and, and again, the, the, the, the, the, the arrangement

that you had was fantastic. Did you start with covers?

Did you start writing your own stuff?

Was it more lyrical type stuff before you realized these are

songs like how did the writing? How did you know that you could

write powerful lyrics and move it into that?

Oh, it's a great question. I, I, I actually started writing

first, So I, I learned originally guitar through

covers. You know, like every I the

first, like I said before, I the first thing that I learned was

time of your life. The second song that I learned

was Crossroads by Cream. Oh cool.

Focusing just on that riff for literally months.

I literally made that actually as well my senior project.

I played that song for my senior project in the style of Jimi

Hendrix. Oh, that's cool.

And and I ended up getting. An end I guess so if you nail

it. What a great.

Of of of of concept. That's great.

Yeah, so, so I started, you know, finding my voice in in

lyrics and, you know, I, I found the old books that I that had

written all of those songs in not too long ago.

I thought they were destroyed, but they were, they weren't my

my parents had actually kept them.

And so I went back and looked and they're so emo.

There is so just this girl doesn't like being back, you

know. But it doesn't, it doesn't

matter because it's still relaying.

The same. Kind of the same kind of of

feelings that I'm talking about in, you know, the, the later

music just an entirely different way.

And, and it sounds completely, you know, much more well

educated and well put together. And so I can see the, the

transfer that there was a, a line, a, a, a thread of there's

still me coming through all of these.

Even though each song may be a different lens, you still get a

version of me through that lens. So yeah, like I and also I, I

released a an album called Bedroom Ink that was an album of

covers and but I will I. Didn't hit my radar God.

That's, that's because it was super low key.

I, I only released it on band camp, but I did some big press

for it. I, I, I ended up getting it in

Rolling Stone UK and USA TODAY and it's so it, it was very,

very cool to see that. But I recently, I started after

I went to, to Blackburn and recorded aversion to normalcy, I

realized that I was doing a shit ton of things wrong with the

mixing. I realized that those, that what

I was, what I, what, how I was mixing those songs was entirely

incorrect. And so I'm just now starting to

go back and redo and remix them and they're already 10,000 times

better because it's got distorted guitars, acoustic

guitars, 12 string violin, multiple vocals, bass and drums.

And it's a whole lot to deal with.

But I just started to, to learn the techniques to finally make

that happen. So it that's also an important

thing to realize. And in music, you might step off

and take off bigger, bigger bite than you can chew.

But if you attack it with the same mentality of how to eat an

elephant one bite at a time, then eventually you'll you'll

get to where where you want to be and you'll discover that

you'll have that the journey created more skills in you than

what you originally started out for.

That makes a lot of sense. You know, the current, the

current EP, what's the new? OK, what's the new?

I just want to make sure I'm What's the newest thing you have

out right now? Aversion to normalcy.

Aversion to normalcy is the newest OK, good.

I want to make sure that is, that is because I mean, I listen

to that and to me that doesn't sound like you're on a journey.

Like the way that the production quality is, is, is insane.

I'm a huge fan of, of, of a band called 9 inch Nails. 9 Inch

Nails is, you know, Trent Reznor is, is, is, you know, the first

album that was released it it, there's even a note in the liner

that says 9 Inch Nails is Trent Reznor.

It's, it's one person. And, and, and what I get from

this is yes, there's lots of different parts.

There's different vocals, there's different.

This all feels like it's you though.

How many when I listen to say, you know, shadow or or or my

favorite was actually Nemesis. I fucking love nemesis.

Oh my God, you want to talk about?

Oh, that what a powerful song with depth to it.

Thank you. But like you're, you're playing

shadow and, and, and so how many instruments are you playing on

that versus the rest of the, the, the band?

Like I feel like a lot of the quarantined is, is, is you and

then there are company pieces that that show up to help you

achieve what you want to achieve.

Is that, do I have that right? I don't want to diminish anybody

else who's been part of the project, of course, because

collaboration is, is huge. But this really does feel like

you are the driving force of this.

Oh yeah, no, you're right. I, I am.

And so the the all the rhythm guitars, acoustic and distorted

guitars are all me in vocals. This time.

I outsource the leads, the lead guitars to a guy named Zach Rapp

who played with Dream Theater. And dude is fucking

unbelievable. It is so like those this if you

listen to skeleton chair and I've had so many people be like,

did you play the the solo in skeleton chair?

Did you? Did you?

Because they want to meet the guy who did that shit.

And I'm like, you know, I trust me, you'll meet him eventually.

But the dude is, is off the hook like he is.

He is a musical force that is, you know, I am so happy and

proud to have him on the record. And I'm very happy to, to

continue to work with him. And hopefully we can do this

shit live because I have a vision of him having his, you

know, the violin on one thing just held on there playing an

electric guitar and going back and forth.

I have a vision of that. And I think that's going to be

fucking sick if we can do it live.

So I'm, I'm hoping that that that happens.

But the, the other guys who played on the record were

Nashville studio players that have been playing in, in studio,

you know, in Nashville for, you know, 10-15 years already.

Lewis Espaglia is, is a, I, I think he's actually in the

country music rock'n'roll or the Country Music Hall of Fame for

doing, for playing on so many records in country music that

like all of them have blown up. You know, like he's played on

like everybody's fucking record as bass because he's like the

dude and I, I got him on it and he was like, man, I'm so happy

to be playing this, this, you know, heavy grunge type music.

It's it's not something that I do everyday, but it's something

that I absolutely love. And, and Jerry Rowe, who is out

touring with his band Friendship Commanders, and they they're

doing fantastic. They're crushing it, crushing

it. They're just a duo.

So it's just a, a guitar like, you know, kind of like The White

Stripes kind of thing. They're way heavier, way

heavier, and it's awesome. Easy to book, you know acts like

that. You know, the, the, the easy to

book, easy to tour in this time and place when it comes to, you

know, how music is, is, is is executed and how people can

actually make a living doing it and whatnot.

That's a cool thing. But but at the end of the day,

like I listen to that EP and it's just OK.

So First off, I hope you're working on more.

I hope there's more, You know, as Johnny Carson used to say, I

have more to come. I hope there's a lot more to

come from you. It's, it's so good.

I, I want to talk. I wanted to, if there was one

song I wanted to focus on, it's Nemesis, because if there's an

antagonist in the song, if, if, if, if who you're singing about

or what you're singing about, there's all sorts of things that

that could be, especially now listening after the conversation

here, knowing about the background with the military and

things like that. You know, it could be

substances. It could be a person itself.

It could be, it could be love. It could be, yeah, an

organization, it could be culture itself.

There are so many ways that you can go with that song.

And, and, and again, I go back to someone you know, well, Trent

Reznor actually said this about 9 HL songs.

Don't try and interpret the lyrics and, and ask me what it

was about. Because my job is to put

something out there and then you take it and you make it about

what you want to make it about. Are you that guy?

Or are you like, no, you know, we're kind of like rage here.

We're raging against a certain, a, a certain thing.

And I want you to know it. Well, actually, you know, I

think I, I, I use both, both approaches, but in different

songs. In Nemesis specifically, I, I'm

creating the archetype. I'm creating the, the archetype

of the person who is, you know, is the conglomeration of all of

the worst qualities that I've ever known in any bully that

I've ever had. Like no bully has has

personified every, you know, qualification of a narcissist or

a bully. They, they usually pick one or

two, you know, that they, they try to excel at we'll say, but

but there is a profile in a span of the yeah, there's a span of

action that they have. And that's what I, what I drew

from I, I had specific examples, you know, of, of friends who,

you know, wanted to work more operating from a position of

wanting to have control and let's be your friend.

I also had, you know, you know, like you said, institutions,

when you're standing up to an institution and it's just

straight up bullying you. What, what are you supposed to

do then? Like we've seen that now with

with the bully pulpit being used for what it is and it's, you

know, just absolutely ridiculous and it makes you want to go up

and just slap the dude because what else are you supposed to

do? You know, like, how else are you

supposed to really react to that?

Like, you know, so there it's he's he's there's a real

challenge to the regular person to how are you supposed to

mitigate that? And my response is you can only

control the things that you are. And in the end choosing non

violence and understanding that their life is 10,000 times worse

than yours. And the true revenge is them

living out the rest of their bullshit existence with all the

hatred and vitriol that they have and will only be left for

themselves when that's the final call.

When they get the final call, that's what they get is they get

a whole bunch of hatred and vitriol and it's just going to

be for themselves. And when you realize that that's

the final end, that that's their true destiny, man, you don't

need to do shit to them because they already do it to

themselves. Yeah, well, and I mean, that's

to, it's interesting, you know, the arc of your life and and

what because that concept is also biblical, you know, be

kind, be kind to your enemies. It's like throwing coals on

their head. I think it says is the is is how

it goes. And that is that is true.

But when you're in the moment, you know, trying to figure out a

way to be that bigger person and then you go and write a killer

song about let them be them and they're going to do them.

I'm going to take this feeling, I'm going to take this emotions

and I'm going to go write a killer song about it instead.

I'm going to get it out that way.

Instead of throwing the punch, instead of doing the thing that

needed to, you know, that that that instinctually, primally

needs to be done, you're going and you're turning it into

something much more powerful, much more powerful.

Because I mean, imagine, I mean, whoever it was that you're

fighting, instead of writing, you know, instead of doing what

you did, you know, if you would have whatever reacted, whatever

reaction looks like. And I mean, there are guys out

there that have a reaction when their spouse antagonizes them or

when there's something going on at work, you know, to somebody

where, where, where, where, where there's a gang mentality

or bully mentality, whatever you want to call it, like, you know,

and, and, and instead having that awareness, whether it is

hair trigger, whether it is, you know, slow motion, you, you can

kind of go, OK, wait a second. I'm going to be the bigger

person. I'm going to remove myself in

the situation. I'm going to take this emotion

now and I'm going to do something really powerful or

positive with it, whatever that might be.

You might have, you might go shoot the best golf game you've

ever shot. You might lift more weights than

you know, you might do your record bench.

You might write a song like that, but it's it's, you seem to

me, Sean, to be the poster child, the guy, the advocate for

taking stuff and doing it, exercising it, releasing it in a

positive way. And it certainly seems like

you're doing that with the music.

Yes, absolutely. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm glad.

I I I take that as a very high compliment.

Well, if anybody listens to it, like let's seriously, your

streaming service go to the quarantine right now, especially

for those who especially love harder stuff.

But I'll tell you this, there's hard stuff out there for the

sake of being hard and there's hard stuff that people could

just appreciate the, the, the, the musical value, even if it's

not your style, right? You can see the musical talent

in there and you can feel the depth of it.

Again, I, I bring up Rage Against the machine.

I know raging into the machine isn't everybody's cup of tea,

but when you listen to the lyrics and you and you, you feel

how passion where, where, where that came from.

We go back to passion again. You can feel the passion in that

music. It's not just loud for the sake

of being loud, but for those who do like stuff with an edge on

it. Get the quarantined go and, and,

and, and listen to the to the CP and follow it.

So when new stuff comes out, you can see what that new stuff is

because as you've just talked about, it's only going up from

here. And I like the idea of you

revisiting some of these old things that you've done and

maybe, you know, come up with new presentation of it and new.

I can't wait. I can't wait to hear it.

So I didn't mean to interrupt you there, but I just, I just

had to put that exclamation point on.

We are getting, you know, we're longer than we usually take for

these things. But again, there's, I just

appreciate the conversation so much.

So kind of as we start moving to the end.

Yeah. Like, like, please, if there's

reaction to that or anything else that you want to get out

for people about your music, please, please release it now.

Because again, I just, I, I really, really dug it, Sean,

really, really dig it. Thank you so much.

That's that's amazing, dude. Thank you.

That's fantastic. I.

Can't be the only person that's ever said that to you.

There's no way. Like, I mean, you're being

humble. You're being humble.

Like you're making some good shit here man.

No, I, I, I, I really, really appreciate it.

It's I'm so glad that it reaches people in the way that it did,

because I really took the time to, you know, try to utilize all

of the different aspects that I knew to make something that

would affect people. And I'm really, really happy

that it that it does. You know, like a lot of times I

see marketing is kind of like a SIOP and it kind of is, it is.

And yeah. And so can so connecting all,

all of those things has been, has been really interesting to

put, you know, this, that this heavy thing that I spent all the

time, you know, forging it myself and just with my own mind

and then giving it to AI and say make me a marketing plan is

fucking weird, man. But it, it works.

But you know, yeah, the so the new, we, we've got 2 new singles

that we haven't released that we're, that we're going to be

attached to this album, but the production of them came a little

bit later. So we've got a second version of

unspoken that is super dope, super dope.

And we have another single called Instagram Hell that we've

that we've released before that's a little bit more like

Tenacious D kind of punk rock. You know, funny sort of it it

the the line in it is, you know, it's talking about, you know,

essentially social media and it's, you know, kind of bullshit

existence talking about, you know, like coffee enemas.

They'll kill you, but they still fucking push them all over the

place and dudes are running around with, you know, tubes

with their ass and coffee and being like, yeah, it totally

works. And they'll die the next day and

they don't even know it, you know, like that kind of shit.

That's what the song is really about.

So. And it's also about the pressure

because the the main line in it is get with the programmer, get

forgot. And that's that's a one line of

social media. It's like, man, that's a thing.

So I so that's coming out soon. And we're hoping to put music

videos with them. We're hoping to do a a a brewery

tour later on in the Western United States.

We've, you know, we're starting to we've got some really great

planes with origin stories. This this group called

Cumberland Creative that does like a really high def film

version of. So the origin story will will be

out there for people. We've got some really, really

great things coming down the Pike and I'm really, really

excited. Not to mention the new versions

of Bedroom Inc, which are just going to be freaking off the

hook, man. They're going to be.

I can't wait. I can't wait to hear it.

Yeah, I I can't wait to hear it. You know, obviously, you know,

when this episode comes out, Joel and the team will make sure

we put our your socials and things like that on there.

But please, please, please, if you have a mailing list or you

have something where, where, where you can alert everybody to

this stuff. Because again, I know it's,

it's, it's swimming. You're swimming with the sharks,

man, You're swimming in an ocean as but, but at the end of the

day, if, if a school of fish hear what's going on, it can, it

can carry it really, really quickly.

And I and I, and I hope that happens for you.

But at the same time, you know, we have a, we, we talk about

this on the show, you know, quite a bit, the idea of the

process being the outcome. And, and I mean, I wonder, I

don't know, maybe it's a good place to finish.

You talk about 20 years of therapy.

You know, the 20 years of therapy important, obviously,

with what you've seen and what you've been through.

And we advocate for that all the time.

You know, talk to somebody, get it out there.

What it starts feeling better for the guys who are who got

stuff inside. It gets better really quickly

when you start talking about it sometimes.

I'm not saying it's not hard. I'm not saying, you know, so, so

I appreciate you saying that. Again, you are an alpha male.

You are that guy. You're the guy who does the

things that many of us would never do.

Thank you for your service. Number one, you know, as fucked

up as part of it was, thank you so much for your service.

Like, like I cannot say that enough, but also thank you for

being vulnerable enough to talk about 20 years of therapy.

So here goes the question. Here's how we finished the show

today. You know, the 20 years of

therapy. But then I look at the

quarantined, which has helped you more, and I don't know what

the answer is, but I bet you, I bet you it's pretty obviously

we're not negating therapy. It needs to happen.

I get it. Medication, all that kind of

stuff that needs to happen if guys need it.

But I'm just from a zoomed out perspective.

I mean my God, it seems like both are helping you almost

equally. Well, you know, that's I, that's

interesting. But I would have to say that in

this case, it's kind of more like a chicken and egg kind of

thing. And in this case, the therapy

fueled a lot of the content for the quarantine.

You know, if I didn't go through the therapy, I might have made

an entirely different album because the energies would have

been completely off. Instead of actually finding the

solutions and then writing about the solutions, maybe I would

have just written about the problems.

Maybe I just would have been on and off, you know, completely

off and just be like, maybe Nemesis is about, you know, just

fucking, he's going to kill those people.

Fuck it. You know, maybe that, who knows,

You know, like in the end, the the messaging could have been

entirely off if I didn't find the balance that I needed to

make myself into the best version of myself.

And if I didn't do that, the quarantine probably wouldn't.

It would still exist, but in a totally different mode.

What a what a phenomenal, phenomenal insight.

And, and, and that's exactly right, you know, talking about

these these things, getting them out, they create awareness and

that awareness, it can be life changing and it can be album

changing as, as you just so eloquently put.

Sean Martin, thank you so much for taking time out of your day

to be part of of of he cast today.

I cannot thank you enough for it.

Thank you so much for using your creative spirits to put some

stuff out in the world that just rock hard because it's also

reciprocal. There are going to be people who

listen to your stuff and it helps them get stuff out.

That's what music certainly does for me.

We talked about how how therapeutic music is on the

listener. It's a reciprocal thing.

You're sharing your energy so other people can receive the

energy and use it and even give it back to you.

I hope I gave some back to you today.

Thank you so much for being on he cast today.

This has been another episode. OK, well you know I'll do my

little blurb If you haven't downloaded the He Changed It

app. What the heck are you waiting

for? All sorts of cool stuff are

happening. Be an alpha consumer.

Be the person that has this thing before it blows up into

the thing it's going to blow up into.

He Changed It is the hell bent on changing the world and making

the world a better place, helping guys you know get to a

place where their mental Wellness.

Not just becomes a focus, but can become a strength for them.

This has been another episode of He cast the official podcast of

He Changed it. My name is Mike Chisholm.

Go change something.