Hello rock and rollers. Today's guest is me, but the me from a few years down the road. We're talking about new music, old dreams, and everything in between.
Welcome to a very special episode of In the Trenches with Ryan Roxy. Hit it, Vic. In the trenches with Ryan Roxy.
Welcome to the In the Trenches podcast. I'm your guest host today. I am AI Roxy.
It has been a while since we did a podcast. And in the time that we have been off, Vic created me to keep him company. The real Ryan Roxy is out on the road again with Alice Cooper.
So today, I thought I would interview him about his latest project. Welcome to the podcast, Older and Wiser Me. First question, you've got a new single coming out called Better Than You.
Where did the idea for this song come from? Was it something personal or just a cool phrase you wanted to turn into a track? This is a trip.
All right. Well, young me, uh, the whole idea of Better Than You came out with doom scrolling. It's something that we all do and I kind of wanted to make a statement but not you know yelling at anybody.
It's it's like we're all part of this whole machine and game now. That's why you're interviewing me right now because you know I'm embracing the technology. So, Better Than You was, you know, initially set for like the little kid that's on Tik Tok or Instagram or whatever, just scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, going, "Man, my life sucks.
" Because everybody shows their their best life, you know, on social media. But it's not always our best life. Maybe the little kid that's scrolling has a pretty good life, but if he's constantly being beat down and feeling like it's not, then damn, you know, what kind of life is that?
So, I wrote sort of a a rebellious song, if you will, where the kids's like, "You know what? I'm better than you. My life isn't so bad.
It's better than you. " And then it just became sort of an anthem for for doom scrolling. And then the video came about, but we'll talk about the video in just a little bit.
Okay. I like a little FU once in a while to the technology that sometimes has us caught in its web. But hey, that's the same technology that created me.
So, with that said, let's move on to the credits. It lists you doing vocals, guitars, bass, and even playing synthesizer. Was this one of those songs you had in your head, fully formed, or did it evolve as you recorded it?
Well, the song came about uh as it usually does, sometimes with the guitar riff first, sometimes with the the vocal riff first. Um that little intro sort of was in my head, so I had to put chords around it. And then I always love that drum beat that has hand claps and we ended up adding a lot of finger snaps and a whole bunch of different types of instrumentation.
But yeah, the the the riff came first this time and then the vocals came. the the idea for the vocals and the whole idea which I was talking about with the doom scrolling that whole sort of started to gel and meld as we put the song together and then we started adding things the synthesizer credit that I get is completely something that I wasn't expecting to play synthesizer on this song but here I am synthesizer and finger snaps is what I do these days well with that said I can't believe your producer Robbie Miller didn't ask for more cowbell ha speaking of Robbie What made him the right producer to bring Better Than You to life? Love Robbie Miller.
Been working with him for a long, long time. He's a great talent and um a great musician in his own right, but he's really breaking into producing now. So, we've been talking about it for years that we're going to write some songs together, produce some songs together, and and put them out there.
So, that's exactly what we did. I recorded my parts here in South Africa and Trent did his drums in the Midwest and sent them all up to Robbie in Canada who's by the way Robbie's English. So, but you knew that already, young AI me.
Um, but the thing is he took it all together. He took the whole song, started putting it together, breaking it apart, cutting it here and there. Even Robbie added some of his own guitar parts.
um went back and forth with some lead vocals that I recorded here and uh then we mixed it. So, it truly is an international song and Robbie is the proof is in the song. I think it it sounds great.
I'm really happy with it and hopefully uh Robbie's happy with working with me and we're going to continue to work for many more songs to come. Well, I remember Robbie being just a little kid when I met him at an Alice Cooper concert, and that seemed quite recently, at least for me. Hm.
Let's move on. These drums you mentioned sound huge. What was it like working with Trent Teakin behind the kit?
Oh, Trent. Dude, Trent has been a member of the RGA for a long, long time. He's he's a hardcore Alice Cooper fan and just an amazing dude.
like a great drummer and he was always really supportive with the comments and, you know, would reach out and say, "Hey man, if you ever want me to play on something, I'd love to. " He actually made videos himself doing a bunch of Alice Cooper songs. So, I finally said, "You know what?
I'm going to take him up on the offer. " And he had, you know, got some mics for his drum kit and had a, you know, a little studio set up in in his house in the Midwest. And I sent him like basically a click track metronome with um you know basic guitars, basic scratch vocal and he just laid down the drums and then sent them up to Robbie.
Robbie uh tweaked on them and and EQed this and EQed that, mixed this here, mixed this there and uh pretty soon we're happy with the drum track. We're just like, and during the whole time, uh, Young Roxy, the whole time, uh, Trent is getting himself into another band of the Alice Cooper band members. He's now the drummer of Beastto Blanco.
So, we couldn't be more happier for for Trent with everything that he's doing um, with with his own career and stuff. But, and again, hopefully between his time with with Beastto Blanco, he'll he'll find some time to play uh, some more drums on some of my tracks. Well, I'm glad to hear that it sounds like the torch of rock is being passed on to Trent and the younger generation, perhaps the MI generation.
Hm. By the way, was there a light bulb moment in the recording process when you knew you nailed it? Um, I think the light bulb moment.
That's a good question, AI. A young Roxy. Um, the light bulb moment came more when we were mixing it and we started hearing these mixes coming back that Robbie was doing and we're like going, "Oh, that's where that synthesizer came about, that synth part.
" I'm like, there could be something right in the second verse. We don't want to overdo it, but let's do something in the second verse and then bring it back in the in the in the outro of the song or kind of like the last verse of the song. And when we started getting those type of textures and colors on the song, I knew that we were on to something more than just um more than just a demo at that point.
Now we were making a master and um we decided to put the pedal to the metal and just you know that's why if you listen not just watch because when you watch the video there's a ton of stuff to watch as well and we'll talk about that in a little bit but there's like um finger snaps and hand claps. So, I think I I did both of them and maybe Robbie did a few of them as well. But there's there's little sonic things all over the track.
There's a lot of cool things. I we we mixed it for the iPhone because we know most people are just watching us right now on an iPhone or something small or on a computer, a little laptop. We mixed it for that, but we also mixed it really for the people that want to put on big old headphones and hear all that stereo stuff going on.
So, if you get a chance, I'm happy if you listen to it on the phone, but put a pair of headphones on and enjoy the stereo surround experience. Sounds like you and the musicians really explored the studio space. But let's move on to mastering and the masterful job Matt Marzola did on it.
My question, what's the biggest difference mastering brings to a track that fans might not even realize? You know what? Mastering is that special sauce.
It really is. Um, ever since my well, you remember young a young Roxy, uh, my first album that I ever was on was, uh, first album I recorded was Electric Angels and we are Atlantic Records. And it was really important to me to have the album mastered by George Marino at Sterling Sound.
And we didn't really know exactly what it does, but it puts this gloss, this special sauce. Sometimes it beefs it up. Sometimes it makes the vocals.
It's what the master does um for the mix. So, it can take sort of a a track that's already mixed well and all the it's like a shining diamond. At the end of the day, you want to turn this nice mix, which is a diamond, into a shining jewel.
And that's what I think, you know, he did with with with the mastering on on this track. I'm I'm really happy with the the actual transition of the song from the mastering because it got a little bit louder and it got a little bit punchier. Um but then again, like I said, I'm at the end of the day, I'm just I'm just happy that it's mastered and it's out there and you're listening to it now.
Well, hopefully we have everyone listening to the song as well as all our other songs we've written together over the years. Which brings me to this. Is Better Than You part of a bigger project?
Should we be expecting an album, an EP, or more singles coming after this? I think it's all part of a bunch of different eras of me or a bunch of different genres of me if you can if you can say that. This is my sort of indie rock Roxy and there's more classic rock Roxy when you come to an Alice Cooper show and then there's some more singer songwriter stuff.
And the idea is to release just a couple tastes of this genre, that genre, this genre over here. And hopefully by the end of the year or early next year, we'll have enough releases to put together an album and then celebrate the thing all over again. Well, you know how much we like to celebrate, or even better yet, how much we like to enjoy the ride.
But moving on, how would you say your sound has evolved from Imagine Your Reality to Now? Um, I think imagine your reality. I've definitely focused on guitar solos and what people from the Alice Cooper band uh knew me.
You know, people that that watch the Alice Cooper band had come to the live shows, they know me more as a guitar player. So, there was almost like a guitar solo in every song. Whereas this next batch of songs, and especially Better Than You, it's not like there's a lead per se.
There are some lead guitar lines, but I always have tried to make the guitar lines support the overall song. And this type of song that I was going for, I wanted it to be aggressive. I wanted to have sort of a garage indie type of sound.
And it didn't really call for a guitar solo on this one. So, I'd say I I took a step back from guitar soloing and like tried to see what kind of guitar lines would help out the entire song. And you'll see that with the next few releases that there's going to be definite guitar solos in certain songs, but then other parts maybe you'll just hear a big chorus.
And hopefully you'll hear a big chorus in this one. You know how much a fan I or should I say we are of the big fat chorus or should I say big fat song. Oh, how I love that DPM video.
Speaking of videos, what was the vision for the music video directed by Arowan Langline? I've heard rumors that there are a ton of Easter eggs uh baked into the video. Care to share any or are you going to make us all find them ourselves?
I think you should should have to wait. I think you should have to wait till the you know and and take a pen and paper and and and write all of them down because I'm still catching them as I watch this video. You know, when I when I started I I told you that the the song initially had our little doomsc vibe to it.
uh you know that was what the inspiration was. But then when Irwin came back with this video, I realized that there was a much earlier doom scroll type of thing when I was growing up. The original OG doom scrolling was television shows from the 1970s.
All the television shows that I liked. Irwin was able to place all these references in there in the form of Easter eggs. Plus, there's a bunch of other things that happen.
There's even an Alice Cooper album cover in the video somewhere. Not going to say where, but you guys have to figure it out where it's at. And uh I'll bet you young Roxy already knows because your AI brain has already watched the video and analyzed it.
But like I said, there there's Easter eggs all over, mostly from like 70s TV shows that I grew up and were really influential for me. And I would I would watch them, you know, one after the other. uh the these television shows, sitcoms and stuff like that.
So, I was the original doomcroller back in the 70s. Your definition of doomcrolling sounds a lot like something we would call channel surfing back in the day. You feel me?
OG, huh? But seriously, if you had to describe better than you in one word or one attitude, what would it be? Better than you in one word.
Release. I I I just I'm I want you to release the energy that you all have inside you. I want this song to make you drive your car fast.
I want to make this song, you know, have you run just a little bit faster on your treadmill if that's what you're doing. Um I want this song to maybe inspire you to create your own uh music or whatever it is that you're doing. if you're doing videos and content for that just inspire you to create more because I said the the song and the video is is a little bit it's it's a little bit of a fu to doom scrolling but it's also a little bit internal where our lives aren't that bad and and everything that we see on social media you know it's always someone else's best life but we might be actually living our best lives right here, right now.
So, let's create while we're doing it. And um yeah, just release whatever you got inside you. Okay.
Okay, Roxy. All this talk about release is obviously geared towards checking out our newest music release, Better Than You, out on Spotify, YouTube, iTunes, or wherever platform you listen to your favorite music on. But now, let's dive into a little thing we like to call let's go back to get forward.
[Music] Looking back, what advice would you give your younger self, me, about writing, recording, and putting out music in today's world? Well, I you're giving me advice right now by, you know, looking at you thinking like, "Wow, all this technology, it didn't exist when I was your age. " Basically, it didn't exist when I w was much younger trying to release music.
So, now we have all this technology. Let's use it to our advantage. Let's use the technology to our advantage, which means you can have your own record label.
You can have the same platforms that you that every other major label puts their music out on. We have the same type of power now. We have the same uh opportunity to reach as many people, you know, with with any sort of grassroots that's going on with this promotion of this song.
And and I really want it to be, you know, the RGA, the All Accessors, the, you know, anybody that's that's ever been a Roxy fan. I want them to tell a friend and tell another friend and let's start sort of a movement because we have the same opportunity with the technology to play with the big leagues. So, let's uh let's make this song big.
I have no doubt the Roxy guitar army will step up big and give it their all to help make the new single Better Than You get as many eyes and ears on it as possible. I'll even ask some of my algorithmic friends to step up as well. Now, let's talk about those fans.
Fans always want to know what's harder, writing the song, recording the song, or promoting the song once it's out there. Sometimes there's different aspects that could be harder, but at the end of the day, the whole entire process shouldn't be hard. It shouldn't feel like work.
It's what you wanted to do since you were a little kid. You know, it's what I have been lucky enough to do uh for the majority of my life. So, I'd say writing it and trying to get it right can be the most challenging at times.
um recording if you don't have the patience to wait it out. It's a it's a tough situation sometimes too because sometimes it just takes time to get the song to evolve. Maybe you know one eight bar stance here and you change it around and make it into a four bar line.
It changes the vibe of the song completely. One little instrumentation, one EQ different, you know, we went back and forth with the lead vocals many times. Should I double track this part?
Should we hard autotune this this one part that I couldn't get the the note right? No, just leave it. It's rock and roll.
Let's, you know, all those things factor into the recording process and that can get time consuming and frustrating if you let it. Um, but probably the easiest of those three is just promoting it and talking it about it right now because it's done. It's it's out there.
It's up to you uh to listen to it. Hopefully, you like it. Hopefully everybody listening and watching enjoys it and uh I hope to see you out there so I can play it for you someday in front of an audience.
Maybe not you, young Roxy. You're back in AI world. Hey Roxy, don't count young AI Roxy out just yet.
Maybe I can shapeshift the algorithm to your should I say our advantage. Last question. If someone listens to Better Than You for the first time, what's the one thing you hope they take away from it?
The one thing I hope they'll take away, I hope they'll they'll press next, you know, and it'll be another Ryan Roxy video. I I want this song to be the gateway drug into the next Ryan Roxy song because I have a lot of songs already released. And if this is the first time you've ever listened to a Ryan Roxy song, um hopefully it intrigues you enough so that you'll want to hear the next and the next.
And you know, again, hopefully I get to play those live for you. uh someday. So, it sounds like doom scrolling is okay with you as long as they are Ryan Roxy music videos.
Very interesting. Well, folks, that's a wrap for today. Big thanks to older and much much much much much wiser Ryan Roxy.
Also, huge thanks to team Roxy for literally putting me together and pushing me and our song out to the real world. This includes everyone we talked about in the interview and additionally Vic Shaont, Federica Robbie, Joey Klein, Hans, and special technical guidance by Jacob Wedom. Lastly, huge thanks to the All Accessors and the Roxy Guitar Army worldwide.
The new single, Better Than You, is going to go gold, or at least we will all be wearing goldplated diapers. Do both of us a favor and go check it out wherever you stream music. And don't forget to turn it up loud.
Until next time, this has been Ryan Roxy and well, Ryan Roxy and this has been In the Trenches. Enjoy the ride. Bye.
The Trenches with Ryan Roxy. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the In the Trenches podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Roxy.
Hello. Hello. Hello.
Hey buddy, it's AI Roxy here. I'm so excited for this upcoming interview. I wonder how I look in the year 2025.
Dude, that's crazy. Ah, taking a trip down memory lane, are we? Well, the first band I was part of was called Candy.
Those were some wild times. We had a blast playing together and it was really my first taste of being in a band and experiencing that camaraderie or should I say band camaraderie. Anyway, it was a great learning experience and set the stage for everything that came after.
Oh, Candy had quite the lineup. Originally, it featured Kyle Vincent, Jonathan Daniel, John Schubert, and Jeff Seagull on guitar. Gilby Clark replaced Seagull after about six months and then I joined the lineup on guitar when Gilby took over as lead vocalist.
We released an album called Whatever Happened to Fun in 1985. Later on we evolved into Electric Angels and moved to New York. It was a whirlwind of rock and roll, especially during those early days.
Hello. Hello. Hello.
What's going on everybody? Welcome to another episode of In the Trenches. I'm your host, or at least a faximile of him.
I'm AI Roxy. Today, we've got a guest that honestly I know pretty well. Mostly because it's well, it's me.
That's right. We're flipping the script a little bit. Future me has dropped a brand new single called Better Than You.
And I figured, who better to grill him about it than me? It's going to get a little introspective, a little ridiculous, and a whole lot of rock and roll. So, buckle up, tune your guitars, and maybe pour yourself a drink because we're about to get in the trenches with me, Ryan Roxy.
