Jeroen: Hello, sisters and brothers. Welcome to another special episode of The Infected. We are the podcast that brings you all that’s good from Post-Punk to New Wave, from Goth to Alternative from Synth-Pop to Dark Wave. And, of course, we play the classics we love, but we also introduce you to fresh tracks from new stars in the genre.

And speaking of new stars, in this episode, we feature Vision Video. They are an upcoming self-declared Goth-Pop band, and they describe their style as “Dance music for the End Times.” The band hails from Athens, Georgia, USA. You may have heard them before on The Infected. We played their song “Inked In Red” in a previous episode and have followed them ever since.

Today, my co-host host, Goof, and I are talking to Dusty, the charismatic frontman of Vision Video. We’ll hear all about their sources of inspiration, creative process, their upcoming first album, and how the band has dealt with the setbacks this year, which at times really did feel like we had entered the End Times.

But first, let’s kick off the show with some music. This is one of the true classics, inspiring Vision Video, and a firm favorite of us here at The Infected. Please enjoy Joy Division with Disorder.

Jeroen: Ah, the pleasures of the normal man. I love the lyrics.

Goof: That’s a timeless classic. That’s a great one. Is it the first track of the first album, I believe, right?

Dusty: Yeah. Yeah. It’s on their first; it’s just on Unknown Pleasures.  Yeah.  I think that you can really tell where he was coming from.

Joy Division is one of those so well known and well-loved bands. And it’s for a good reason. I think that reason really for me comes through in this song. It was actually funny enough, the first Joy Division song that I ever heard. And I think there’s just such a like combination of a desperate man who’s seeking some better form of life, but also this beautiful aspect and the appreciation of what he has. And there’s just a kind of duality that I get from that song every time I listen to it. It’s dancey, but it’s sad. It’s so multifaceted, and I think that’s really the essence of what made Ian Curtis such a great artist.

He was heavily flawed. And he was a very, conflicted guy and he wasn’t always the best person. Even if you read about him, he was violent in outbursts, with his wife, they married so young, they should never have married, but he was also so smart, he read so much, and he wrote so much, and he had this beautiful, poetic mind.

And I think that a lot of artists get put on a pedestal, especially ones that die in an untimely way as he did. And unfortunately, that takes away from the complexity of the person.

I just think that Disorder is the most characteristic track of Joy Division of all of their songs. It really embodies everything that made them create that baseline, that almost doesn’t work, but it somehow just really ties that song together. And it really identifies Peter hook. And then, Ian Curtis, his lyrics are just phenomenal, and they’re so relatable. And then that really just washed out, reverb filled guitar from Bernard.

And then the drums are simple, but it’s just like that driving dancey beat that really created that soundscape that I think would build what would become like Gothic Rock and Dark Wave and all that sort of stuff.  Just a phenomenal song. And I as I get older in everything I go through, it still stays my favorite track of theirs.

Goof: There’s a lot of passion as well. It’s quite basic, but there’s a lot, there’s a lot of… Yeah, passion if I listen to the song. But how old are you, by the way?

Dusty: I’m 34. Sometimes I feel I’m getting older…

Goof: Okay. That’s not that bad.

Dusty: Yeah. I feel older sometimes, and I feel younger sometimes too. I very rarely consider my age because I spent so much of my twenties in my younger years, like in the military, and those years just disappeared. It was like so fast getting ready to go to Afghanistan and doing all that. And just all of that time just disappeared into a void in a way. So sometimes I forget that I’m in my mid-thirties, but, it’s, I think like we especially in the entertainment world, there’s this fetishization of youth. But I don’t think I could have written any of the stuff that I’ve written that has as much meaning as it does without the experience.

So with age comes experience. And I think that gains some level of authenticity to what I’m saying.

Goof: That definitely makes sense. So how long were you sent out? Was it just Afghanistan?

Dusty: Yeah, no, it was enough. I’ll say that much. It was the one time. Yeah, I was. I went to Afghanistan in 2000, and let’s see here. It was 2000. I can’t even remember anymore, from 2013 to 14. So it was about nine months, and we were located down in the South-eastern portion of the country, and the city got called Kandahar, which is the second-largest city.

Goof: Yeah. We heard a lot about that city in the news in a bad way.

Dusty: Yeah. It’s like the wild West to use an American metaphor. It’s where the Taliban came from. So it’s like an extremely violent area. It’s just really the city is super divided. A lot of suicide bombings, drive-by shootings, IEDs, truck bombs, it’s all like guerrilla-style. There’s really not like a lot of fighting, like outright stand up fighting, but it was more just like waiting around to get blown up. It felt like that all the time. Yeah. And that whole experience for me, just, it really set the stage for what Vision Video has become.

And I  came back. And it’s funny because I like my platoon. I was a rifle platoon leader, so I was responsible for 30 men, and none, not one of them got hurt. Not one of them was killed. Everybody came back, but, so it’s, it would appear that it’s okay, everything’s just good.

But, and I thought so personally, when I came back,  our unit was sub stationed in Germany, so we redeployed to Germany, which is where I lived for four years. And for a while, I was just like, I’m fine. I was just so happy to be back. But the stress of that nine months just really settled into me, and it just so negatively affected me.

And it honestly didn’t even really manifest until I came back to the States in 2016 when I left the army, and then it really started to come out, and I was just so confused because for so long I felt fine. And then, all of a sudden, I was like, just so anxious all the time. Anytime I was in public, I was just like, it felt like I was just gritting my teeth, just like clenched jaw, just tight-fisted.

Cause I was so nervous being around people in large crowds or, and it just started to really negatively affect my ability to have like normal relationships with people. So, what became Vision Video is a couple of years of writing, just music and lyrics and long-form prose or poetry or whatever you want to call it, that would become the lyrics for the actual songs of me, just trying to figure out like what the hell was going on with my life and in my head. And I, and it’s interesting now to look back on it where I feel a lot better about everything that I’ve gone through, it never goes away.

You just learn to deal with it. And I appreciate the band and my bandmates so much because I 100% know that I would not still be alive if it weren’t for that, the band 100%. It was down to that point where I was desperate and, to harken back to Joy Division, that’s when I really started to identify with that band.

Cause I always loved Joy Division, just sonically at least. But I read a book about Ian Curtis that I can’t remember who wrote it,  and then I also read Peter hook’s book, and, and I just started to really comprehend the gravity of what he was going through and I don’t think it was the same situation, obviously, but I’ve really understood the intensity of that music in a different way. And that really helped me cater a lot of the music that I was writing.

Jeroen: I guess there’s a similarity maybe in the fact that Ian had a lot of tension bottled up because of his life choices and the fact that he was with his wife and he actually wanted to be with his girlfriend, and he felt that he had an obligation, and at the same time, it didn’t feel that he could live up to it and all that tension was bottled up.

And it sounds like from a totally different place; you may have gone through something similar in the sense that you also bottled up a lot of anxiety maybe, and weren’t even aware of it for a time. So maybe that gives it a new layer that maybe the 15-year-old Dusty did not recognize, but the Dusty of today definitely does.

Dusty: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. It’s, again, as you get older, you start to see things a little bit clearer for what they are. The emotions don’t get in the way of logic. But it doesn’t make anything less worse when you’re in the middle of it.  You can, it almost makes it worse in a way, because you can see the logic of I need to get help or, I need to talk to somebody, but especially for me coming from a military background like we just didn’t do that. We didn’t talk about it.

Jeroen: It’s just man up and power through, right?

Dusty: Yes.

Goof: How did that work? How did you get into the military? Is your family in the military as well, maybe?

Dusty: Yeah, my dad was in the army as well. I was born in Berlin, actually. My mother’s German. My dad was in the army, and he spent about 13 years after I was born in the military.

I grew up moving around, and it made sense to me. From a young age I had, it was always something that was in the back of my mind to think, Oh, okay, I can just join the army. And when I was 17, I dropped out of high school because I hated it. I was, we were living in rural Georgia, and it was just a terrible high school, a very impoverished area.

The school was just like you didn’t learn anything because there were no resources. The teachers had way too many kids in the class. It was just bad, and I was like, I’m not learning anything here. So I left, and I  basically joined the military like a year later and. Yeah, I think at the time and the hubris of youth, you think things are really good ideas that are really shit ideas.

And that was one of them cause there was like two Wars going on, and I, for me, it was like, I was reading a lot of like French existentialist stuff, and I was like, hmm and maybe a bit too much Hemingway, and I was like, Oh, I need to go to this war. And I never like believed in it, which is even more stupid if you can believe that.

But I just thought I just felt very placeless, and I was trying to find some level of purpose. And that was the purpose for me at the time; I was like, you’re going to be with these guys and girls who are, they are really just there to take care of each other. Cause I never, I always knew that these Wars were just bullshit. But again, being young and stupid, I was like, I’m just going to go do this. So

Goof: Yes, must be a certain appeal to it, and looking back on it, it’s always easier than when you make that choice at that certain moment in time. That’s why we talk to you, to find out more about who’s Dusty. We’re going to talk about music, keep it light, it’s not going to be heavy all the time, but at the same time, I don’t want to lose the opportunity to understand who we’re talking to. So thanks. 

Jeroen: So for all our Spotify listeners, because most people that listen to The Infected are Spotify listeners, there’s a great tip. There’s a new podcast, and it’s just out on Spotify. It was released in November 2020 and it’s called Transmissions, the definitive story of New Order and Joy Division. I don’t know if you’ve heard it, but it’s based on new and exclusive interviews with Bernard Sumner. Peter Hook, Bono, Tony Wilson, and many more.

And the series captures that tale, like never before. It’s really worthwhile. I’ll include a link to this podcast in the show notes on our site to The Infected, or you can look it up for yourself.

It’s called Transmissions, the definitive story of New Order and Joy Division. And it’s really fun. It’s very well produced. And, having the perspective of all these guys, so many years later is really great to hear.

Dusty: Yeah, absolutely. I’ve heard of it. And it’s on my list. I literally just finished another series about Joy Division from a fantastic music podcast. It’s a history podcast called No Dogs In Space, and it’s, they just did a whole punk rock series. And I think they’re segwaying into Post-Punk now, but they just did a four-part series on Joy Division. That was really phenomenal.

But yeah, Transmissions, that’s definitely on my list, and I’m going to for sure check that out, so I will follow your link. Cool.

Goof: Jeroen and maybe we can also suggest the 24-hour party people documentary about Factory records.

Jeroen: Oh, that’s a great, great documentary. Yeah. Have you seen that, Dusty?

Dusty: Yeah

Jeroen: The guy playing Tony Wilson is doing an excellent job. It’s very entertaining. Yeah.

Dusty: Yeah. That’s a funny one too. That is, I think they took a little bit of liberty here and there, but it’s,  the scenes where they’re in the Hacienda are just so funny. It’s just, yeah.

Jeroen: Let’s move on to another great act from England, actually from the same time period, a little later though, The Chameleons. This is the second song that you picked as being inspirational to you and Vision Video and your material. So we’re talking about The Chameleons track The Fan and The Bellows, and actually, you specifically suggested that we should use the Peel sessions version. So I want you to talk us through how you got introduced to this track and what it means to you.

Dusty: So I found The Chameleons through a friend of mine when I was about 18 or 19, and I was going to a lot of Post-Punk Goth rock shows in Atlanta. And two of my friends live there, and one of them was like, “Hey, have you ever heard of this band called The Chameleons?”

And I was, like, that know it all Gothic rock teenage kid, I was like, “Oh, I’ve heard of everything”. I had never heard of this, though. And he put it on, and it just totally blew me away. Like the timing, the sensibilities of the bass player and the guitar player, and just that really bombastic drumming.

It just, it was so sonically different than anything that I’d ever heard to that point. And yeah, I, this song and this whole record, the Peel sessions record that they did was just, it’s so incredible and telling of how impeccable their musicianship is. The lyrics are passionate and intense.

But there’s this violent aggressiveness that is layered underneath, and it’s, and I think it’s just like a seminal, an underrated Post-Punk band because it really has that punk rock vibe, that sneering guitar. But it’s got that beauty and the dance vibe that Post-Punk so often espouses, and I just love it. It’s just such a great track.

Jeroen: I think this may be the most passionate introduction that any track on this show has ever had. Let’s listen to it straight away. The Fan and The Bellows 2014 remastered version, the John Peel session by The Chameleons. Here we go.

Dusty: Found out about this a couple of years ago when I ran into it. And I was just like, wow, their studio records are so good, but I think that they’re a band that just really excels in a live scene. One of the last shows that I went to was Mark Burgess in the Chameleons Vox on tour in Atlanta.

And it was so good. I think I drank like, one tiny hair too much that night. But I was in full force, like just dancing my ass off the whole show, and it was such a good time. And at the end of it Mark, he meets everybody, and he’s just such a nice guy. And it was so cool just to talk to him because it was actually Mark and Tom Ashton of the March Violets, who’s the producer and studio recorder of our record and all the singles to this point, he was there too, and they knew each other from back in the eighties. So they’re like, Oh, it’s good to see you. And they were just, that was such a small scene back then that yeah, they just were like, Oh, it’s cool. It’s so good to see you. And they just started talking, and it was just such a cool moment to see these Titans of Post-Punk and Goth Rock like old friends.

Goof: It was really cool that you can go to talk to Mark Burgess as well.  Cause I saw that show The Chameleons Vox in 2012, the venue wasn’t that great. It was in Amsterdam, kind of echoey, the energy was great. The vocals were not awesome, but it’s a very, a, it’s one of my favorite bands of all time. The Chameleons.

Dusty: Yeah, they had a lot of those, like that were so good. Dolly’s picture, it’s like such a fantastic song. And I don’t think that was ever on a studio record, but yeah, I think a lot of those cool, hidden gems of Post-Punk are just like waiting for people to find them because they never made it to these big studio records. But honestly, those are some of my favorite songs of all time; it’s the B sides and all the weird oddities that you find that never made it to studio records.

Goof: Absolutely. And when you talk about The Chameleons, the first three or four albums were so great; there were no fillers, all killers. And then they had these early recordings with singles on top of it; it’s really quite something. Because you also had bands that did some singles and then imploded or stopped, but this was a really productive band with almost only good songs if you asked me.

Dusty: Yeah. Yeah. There’s a couple of the songs that when they got towards the end of their career that were tonally so different, but they weren’t bad. They just didn’t resonate with me anymore. But  I always respect artists who do change and evolve. The stuff that I’m writing right now for Vision Video’s second record already, just in a very basic sense, it’s like a lot different. And I think it’s important to continue to evolve and to change because if you’re just writing the same record over again, it’s I don’t know, it just feels like a cheat. Yeah.

Goof: I get what you’re saying. Great track, the Chameleons. Talking about Tom Ashton, you just mentioned him. He’s recording and mixing you guys’ singles. I saw on Discogs; you were going to release an album Inked in Red. I just saw that single. So can we expect a full-length album then?

Dusty: Yeah. So basically, the plan is for an early April release of Inked in Red, which is the actual name of the full length. And we’ve got three singles that are going to be dropping beforehand. Our next one is on February 3rd, and that will be static drone. And then a couple more that are in line before the full-length release.

And yeah, we’re really excited because I think that if the people that liked the single in my side are really in for something because there’s a lot of similar stuff coming in that regard, but there’s also some very different, but still totally similar songs that are just, yeah.

Goof: Damn. You got me triggered because I love this track; it’s so layered. It’s got a really high replay value. So if you’ve got a lot more stuff like that, along with that coming out, I’m really into that.

Dusty: Yeah. It’s an interesting record because we started out as a three-piece, and it was Jason, Dan, and I, and Emily joined after our very first show that we played live. And we incorporated her immediately, but I had already written most of the songs. So we started to look at a lot of this new material that I was writing and just bringing her way more into it. So you’ll actually hear her singing a lot more on the full length, and she’s got a killer voice and, she is, Emily is a classically trained pianist, so she is a phenomenal keyboard player and some of the work that she does on these newer tracks, especially, it’s just wow like mind-blowing.

So there are a little bit more synths. It’s not as heavily guitar-driven. The guitars are definitely still there, but there’s just, it’s just a richer sound in the newer stuff that we’re adding with it. But it’s still going to sit really well with In My Side, Inked in Red, and Agent Orange, and the whole record really tells a story anyway.

So it’s that the whole record is about mania in a way; it’s about ups and downs, highs and lows. And you’re going to get that; you’re going to get the darker, more heavy guitar-driven, stuff like that. And then you’re going to get the synthy dance party, wild, Deathrock like 80’s sounding stuff, and it’s, it just fluctuates, and I think it’s a really well-balanced record that way.

Goof: So you’ll be playing that that Fender Jaguar I saw you with on YouTube with some nice effects on it. And I believe you’ll be doing some synths, some keys. That’s nice. Extra addition. I can’t wait.

Dusty: I’m hypercritical of everything that I make artistically and musically. And that’s why I know that this record is good because I actually feel like this is a good record. Cause normally I’m like, ah, I’ll write a song. I’m like, this is shit. And I’ll throw it away and start another one, throw that one away. So you know, and a lot of that is, I hope that doesn’t come off as a conceited, but it’s really just the fact that I work with three other unbelievable musicians and Tom Ashton’s guidance, in the recording process, but even in the songwriting process. And he had a lot of kind of guidance for us in crafting the songs and just deciding, Hey, let’s move this here. Let’s get rid of this part. Or, things like that, really. He did an incredible job. And then, in the post-recording process, he really adds a like a body of complexity to the songs that he’s just so good at, and that’s just from years and years of experience that he has. Excellent.

Goof: Can imagine. How did you meet Tom? How did you get in touch with him? You’re 34. He’s been doing, going at it for 40, 50 years. How did you come across?

Dusty: This is actually a really funny story. I bartend part-time well, not right now because the bars closed. I bartended at a music venue. It’s a kind of world-famous place here in Athens called the Georgia theatre. Okay. Yeah. And the Georgia theatre is like where the B52’s and REM and Pylon and all these really great Post-Punk bands got their start. So when I left the army, I was working full time there as a bartender.

When I moved back to Georgia, my friend, who was the bar manager, and I started doing a Goth night because there really wasn’t one. There hadn’t been one for 20 years in Athens. So we were like, “We’ll do it.” And it gained us this really crazy following.

The first night we did it, we were like, “I don’t know if anybody’s even going to come to this”. And then it was tons of people. So it got really popular, and it was a lot of fun because we really espouse the party aspect of it. But one night, I was playing Snake Dance by the March Violets. And out of the blue, somebody comes up to me, and I was like three sheets to the wind pissed, drunk, on…

Goof :…on whatever they had to offer.

Dusty: Yeah. And one of my friends came up to me. She was a regular at the Goth night, and she says “Hey, Dusty, you know that Tom Ashton is here?” And I was like, “Who the fuck is Tom Ashton?” And she says “Tom Ashton, the guitar player on the song that you’re playing.” And I was like, “Okay. Oh shit.” Cause I, I had been aware of the March Violets and a couple of other tracks, but I didn’t know a lot about the backstory. And she says “Yeah, he’s a good friend of mine. Let me introduce you.”

And I was like, “Oh shit.” So she brings him over, and he says, “Oh, it’s a good song you’re playing.” And then I’m embarrassed because I’m like, “Yeah, thanks, man. I love this song.” And we got to talk in a set break. He’s just asking me about music, and we’re just so cool. Cause he’s such an unbelievably friendly guy. And at the time I was working on this solo thing, this is pre Vision Video, and it was called Agonal Gasps.

And it was just like this really synthy, almost borderline industrial, but a little bit of guitar and Post-Punk in there. And he was like, “Hey, if you ever want to record this, just let me know because I would love to work with you.”

Goof: Violent band names, Dusty.

Dusty: Yeah.

Goof: Agonal Gasps and you got Inked in Red, and then we had

Dusty: Yeah.

Goof: Agent Orange and… it’s heavy on the titles.

Dusty: Yeah. I like striking titles that, even just in name, evoke a response. Cause I think it’s a really good way to give people insight into what you’re bringing to them. But yeah, I ended up shortly thereafter forming Vision Video. And then I just kept in touch with Tom.

He invited me to a Christmas party that year. That was 2017 and from there I got in touch with him, and he wanted to record us and, cause I’d send him some demos and he was like, “Yeah, I want to do this.” So he says “Come to the studio, we’ll get this done.”

Goof: Yeah, it’s a great compliment and great contact. And also, those club nights that you initiate, it sounds quite cool, especially that gained a certain following, you were on to something. It’ll probably pick up when we get back to normal.

Dusty: Yeah. Yeah. I think people, this is my hot take on Post-Punk pandemic times, but I think that what, as much as this year sucks when this is over, there’s going to be a Renaissance of culture and art and music.

People are going to be so ready because, in my mind, you’ve got to two kinds of people, you’ve got the people that miss it like us, who’ve known nothing but live music and partying and dance nights and all this fun stuff that makes life worth living really that we can’t have. And we want it back. But then you’ve also got the younger kids that are like now. 18-19 years old, and they’ve never done it.

Goof: They’re missing out.

Dusty: Yeah, exactly. So now they’re going to get their first shot at it, and it’s just going to be such a cool time. And actually, if you look historically back at the flu of 1918, that’s right before the twenties, and the twenties was like one of the most incredible times, right?

Goof: Yeah. The roaring twenties.

Dusty: It really was an explosion of art and culture and music and just wild and raucous partying. And so I’m finally optimistic. Like, I actually just got vaccinated the other day, and I’m finally optimistic for the first time in nine months.

Goof: Yeah. Yeah. It’s unimaginable after a year like this, but we’re are going to go back to normal.

Dusty: There’s no, no other way about it, but we’re going to, yeah, it’s going to be fun. We’re going to catch up on some things that we missed.

Jeroen: It is high time we played the first Vision Video track of this episode. Now, this was your first seven-inch single released in March 2020?

Dusty: March of 2020. We put it out, and we pressed it on a seven inch. So it’s two tracks it’s In my Side and Inked in Red on the B side. And it was our first public release of any kind of finished product. And it was very interesting because we had no idea what the reception would be.

Jeroen: Well, the reception obviously was great. Seeing that In my Side has gathered 25,000 views on YouTube, even though there’s not even an official video for the track.

So here it is the song that first put Vision Video on the map and in the spotlights: In my Side!

You don’t even have a video clip for it to, to this date. And yet you have 25,000 views on YouTube, even without an official video, just with the album cover there, you must have struck a chord.

Dusty: Somehow I decided really early on into the pandemic that I was just going to really work, insanely hard at getting this music out there.

And the only way to do that was online. So I’ve really just taken an extremely active role in social media, which is not always so fun, but the tools are out there for any band to be successful. But the problem is that you have to spend a lot of time doing it because it’s all about getting it out there and just shouting into the void, and eventually, people start listening. And if you’re authentic and kind and funny every now and then, or whatever, whatever you’re good at, you focus on that, and you just promote it. And it just stuck. And I think it’s a lot easier for me because I’m not married. I don’t have kids. In my job at the fire department, I work 24 hours on 48 hours off. So I have a lot of time to do this stuff, whereas a lot of people don’t. So I guess it’s, I’m really lucky and fortunate in that way to have had the ability to spend so much time on promotions.

Goof: You got a big following, and you got 20,000 people on Instagram; I saw, or 19K or something.

Dusty: It’s a lot. Yeah. And it’s, and a lot of it is just it’s just sharing it and just trying to like this; basically, it’s just saying “Hey yeah, I see you like this band, you probably like us,” but it’s a lot. It’s that thousands of times, and it’s, and you have to be authentic with people you’re at, you can’t just like copy paste comments. You have to go out there and engage with people. And that’s why it takes so much time on the internet. But I was talking to Dan, our bass player, the other day, and it’s cool because like in one way you could look at as anybody can do that, but I think inherently, like, the music has to be good, it can’t just be a bad song, but you just promote it. And then people will say, “Oh, this is cool, and I’m going to follow these guys and listen to this.” It’s almost like eating an apple, like it may look really good on the outside, but if you bite into it and it’s rotten, you’re done with that apple; you’re not going to continue to eat the apple.

So the core product, the music itself, has to be good and that’s the most important aspect of it. But yeah, it’s just been really weird for me. Cause I inherently am not good at, like, self-promotion and as a front person of a band, if you want to be successful, you just have to. So I’ve had to do a lot of suppressing my conscious thought of being like, wow, this is really stupid. You’re a 34-year-old man on Tik Tok. It’s a great tool because it’s, there are tons of people that have similar tastes in music and, you find them, and you communicate with them, and it’s all about that shared experience because if we were under normal times, We’d be out on the road right now, we’d be playing shows, and I’d be meeting new fans and making a connection with them, talking to them, getting out in the audience after a show and just getting to know people, going down to have a beer before we go to the next town. Those things matter because you’re, these are people that are paying their own money to go see you. But we don’t have that right now. So you have to use the tools you have right now, which is the internet. And I think some of its luck and some of its just hard work.

Jeroen: You only have a public body of work of three songs, and yet you’ve been able to build up a fan base of 20,000 plus people online. And it’s amazing considering the fact that you’ve only shown the tip of the iceberg to the audience so far. So all that work working the social media has definitely paid off.

Another aspect of the way that the band is projecting itself outward is obviously the artwork. So I’m wearing one of your really cool t-shirts, which is highly recommended. I think it’s still for sale, with a cat on a hearse, a Vision Video t-shirt, really cool. Go check it out.

And the artwork for this t-shirt, as well as for your album, has been done by a guy called Ryan Dunn, who is also a guitarist for the band Hyper Tensions. Is that right? Is he a friend of the band?

So Ryan is a guy that we met through a mutual friend. And we have a friend here named Jennifer Niswonger, she’s an artist here locally, a fantastic artist. And she actually did our first shirt with the girl with the sort of Vision Video burst. And we were looking for some more artists just to get a different style. And she was like, “Hey, I have this friend of mine from art school, his name’s Ryan.” And she recommended him to us. And because he was great, he did all the cover art for all of the record and all of the singles. And he’s actually doing all of the three more singles. I’m sure you’ve seen the static drone cover. And then two more singles that are coming out and then the full-length record he’s doing, but yeah, Ryan’s just a really cool guy. He plays in a band called Hyper Tensions, and I think he’s in Indianapolis. He’s just a phenomenal artist and graphic designer and just a really great guy to work with.

He has been on the money with almost every single thing that we’ve asked him to do, just like the first time. He’s like, “Here’s the product.” And we’re like, “Wow, that’s it!” So it’s always cool to work with somebody in art, a graphic artist or whatever, that’s so immediately connected to you and your concept. So that was really cool to work with him.

Goof: To break the show up. It’s not the right wording, but we select a few songs ourselves alongside what we experience when listening to Vision Video. And I have a March Violets one coming up, but Jeroen has also selected a great one. Maybe you can tell us?

Jeroen: Yeah, sure. So this is Dark by a Secret Shame. The band has been active since 2016. It’s three guys, two girls with no less than three of the band members playing synthesizers. Lead singer Lena is one of them and also the band’s main songwriter. They’re from Asheville, North Carolina. So they are Midwestern coastal neighbours of Vision Video, and we’ll be playing Secret Shame right now because this is one of the acts that is most popular with Vision Video fans.

Jeroen: I don’t know if you’ve heard of Secret Shame before?

Dusty: Yeah!

Jeroen: Of course, you did, because you were the kid that has heard everything, you just told us 😉

So what did you think of Secret Shame, and what did you think of the song?

Dusty: I love Secret Shame. I found out about them about a year ago. And it was right around the time that we were really starting to play live shows. I was just looking for Southeastern. Post-punk and Goth rock bands to hopefully play shows with. So I connected with them a little bit on Instagram to hopefully set up something, as far as the live show. And they’re just super cool, really nice to talk to. And their music is just phenomenal. There are so many different influences that I hear, which is great. There’s Skeletal Family, Siouxsie, and the Banshees, all sorts of different, like even The Cure and Joy Division and some of the bigger names, but ultimately what I find great about Secret Shame is that they sound like themselves. They have their own sort of sound, and Lena’s vocals are absolutely exquisite.

Goof: I was just about to emphasize that one. I really love that, that energetic singing, totally agree.

Dusty: Her lyrics are really well-written too. Because I really believe in this concept of, I think it’s Flannery O’Connor who said, “Show me, don’t tell me.” So it’s show me what you mean without having to spell it out for me. And I think that a lot of lyrics suffer from just being cheesy because it’s like, people are just like handing it to you and stuffing it in your face. But I would rather infer what you mean and take my own meaning from it too. And she does such a good job with that. Like it’s so authentic and relatable, but it’s not like this exact message, and that’s my favorite kind of music. Lyrically and poetically is music, that is. Relatable in a way, but also you can gain your own value. You can gain your own message from it. And I think that Secret Shame does a really fantastic job at that. And like their last single, Dissolve, it’s an absolutely incredible track. . It is up there in my playlist now as almost a daily listen. And yeah, I just cannot recommend them enough. Yeah.

Goof: I think it’s a really good pick, Jeroen, to add this one to our special this week. I’d never heard of them. And even if you don’t listen to the lyrics, you still get the energy of her singing. So you win both ways,

VOX: The big picture.

I got another question for you. If you, if that’s okay. Dusty, I saw you like movies as well. And your Instagram. I saw some references to Pet Sematary, The Lost Boys, Friday the 13th…

Dusty: Yeah!

Goof: You also use your 48 hours off of work to watch movies, right?

Dusty: Oh yeah. That’s like most of what I do in my free time.  Even when I’m playing music, I’ll usually have a movie on just muted or something like that.

Just to have some sort of visual stimulus. It helps push my creativity a little bit, and it, and oftentimes I gain ideas. Like there’s a guitar riff that I modelled after some of the scores in the Pet Sematary original movie. It’s just, yeah, it’s just a couple of notes, but I was like, “Oh, that’s a cool sound”. So I just messed with it a little bit, and you wouldn’t know, ever hearing it. It’s not like it’s just literally took a couple of notes, but you know, I really loved it because that’s one of my favorite horror books by Stephen King, and that movie is fantastic too.

I grew up watching horror movies at a very young age, probably too young. And I guess it explains a lot about me probably, looking back when I was eight years old, my sister and my dad, my sister’s six years older than me, and her and my dad were watching Pet Sematary on VHS in the living room.

And I had army crawled into the living room behind the couch and was watching it from behind the couch. And I don’t think they knew that I was there, and that’s like not a movie for an eight-year-old. And I remember being so horrified by that movie and the story, but I loved it immediately, and that’s, it just started this lifelong obsession.

And those of you listening to the podcast can’t see our video chat here, but my house is horror movie-themed. It’s completely ridiculous. It’s all horror posters. Like you can see my Lucio zombie poster, and there’s a Return to the Living Dead, I see one in the back, and it’s just, I Iove the controlled chaos of a horror film. It’s like you get to expose yourself to this exciting danger, but there’s no threat, really. And there are no consequences in real life.

Goof: Yeah. Got it. And I think so that also Jeroen and I, we liked movies, especially with a certain atmosphere, the movies and the music we like, they’re interlinked in a certain way. And the word interlinked is like a Blade Runner 2049 reference, obviously. So it’s like sci-fi, but anything with a bit of a dark edge if it’s imagery or if it’s music—it kind of appeals.

Dusty: Yeah, I think music and cinema are so intertwined and interlinked. That’s good. I actually just watched Blade Runner 2049 the other night for the 50th time, I think.

Goof: Nice man.

Jeroen: It’s awesome.

Dusty: Yeah. It’s so good.

Jeroen: And it’s one of these things, which is weird and very interesting at the same time that people that listen to a certain type of music also usually share the same type of taste. We’ve talked about the blade runner movies. I’m looking at your Facebook profile, and I see a picture from Blade Runner right up there, right?

Dusty: Yeah. Oh yeah.

Jeroen: We’ve been talking about Lost Boys being the, probably the best vampire movie ever.

Dusty: Yeah, definitely!

Jeroen: And I go on your social feed, and I see a complete discussion on exactly that movie. And it’s weird how people can come from across the world and have that sensitivity. That feel that really appeals to them.

And there’s Pet Sematary, obviously. So Goof is now holding up his Pet Sematary video disk. It’s funny how people all across the world can share a love for both cinema and music with a certain sort of atmosphere.

Dusty: Yeah. Yeah. And I think it’s all about the kind of person you are in a way. It’s not that people that don’t like Post-Punk and Goth rock and horror films are any lesser. They’re just into something else.

But I think that the people that are into this kind of stuff that we are into are people that are not afraid of the like darker and macabre and tragic things in life. I think it’s people who can understand that not everything has to be this like, beautiful, happy day in order to gain value.

And in fact, we find our own beauty in there, and it’s almost, I feel like it’s almost like a cliche, but it’s very true because especially nowadays when there’s so much tragedy. There is here in America. We just hit, I think, 400,000 deaths this year from COVID-19.

Goof: Yeah. It’s one in every thousand. I believe I saw that

Dusty: Our bass player said it really well. He said we’re living in the most boring sci-fi post-apocalypse movie of all time. And he nailed it because it’s like, there’s not like zombies busting through your window trying to kill you, or the virus isn’t making you like hemorrhage from your eyes and scream and run around. But it is still insane and tragic. And the dystopia is not even the virus itself. The dystopia is the government. It’s the government that says. Fuck it, we don’t care, and that’s like my ultimate disappointment. I’m not shocked, but in America right now, we have 26% of all of the cases worldwide. And it’s just one country! It’s literally because our president and this completely inept government said, “It’s not real.” Yeah. And I was on the front lines of it from the beginning cause I’m a paramedic and a firefighter. So every third shift, I am on the ambulance, and I see it every day.

It’s horrible, so I think this sort of thing, especially right now, is really resonating with people because we’re living in this weird, fucked up version of reality. But the people that like this sort of thing are connected to it in the way that we accept it. We’re not afraid of it. You might be afraid of it, but you don’t let that fear rule you. And you’re willing to look at the fear instead of recoil from it.

Jeroen: Was this also the reason for you to record a protest song, like Agent Orange again? Was that part of the reason you chose that song?

Dusty: So I found the original Ski Patrol a couple of years ago when I was starting to write everything for Vision Video, and Trump had been elected, and I was vehemently against him from the beginning. Initially, I thought, okay, maybe he’ll fix a couple of things, but he was so absolutely corrupt and inept in every single way that I was just immediately “Wow, this guy is a total joke.” And we brought this on ourselves. So I was listening to the song, Agent Orange, from Ski Patrol. And I was like, this is about Vietnam. And the original guys wrote it about that. Actually, I met Nick, the guitarist when we put it out there, the single. He’s a really cool guy. And he was telling me about how they had watched Apocalypse Now. And they had written the song after watching the movie because they were just so struck by it. So I guess for me initially, it was maybe about war still, and it resonated with me because of my experience in wartime, but it really quickly, it became a very clearly anti-Trump song to me. With the obvious connotation that the man is literally orange. Like that. Yeah.  And when we started playing live with it, I would just, I tell people, “This one goes out to our president,” whatever.

And it just became a protest song for me personally, because it really, I think in a lot of ways what’s going on with COVID and civil rights in America and worldwide, but especially in America, it’s, there is an extreme frustration that I have not felt since I was in the war.

It’s a futility, it’s almost “Hey like these people are just fucking this up so badly,” and I’m just on the receiving end of this, and we just have to deal with it. And so the parallel between the war theme of the original song and our current day conundrum was just so clear to me, and that’s kind of how we spun it.

And performing that song live is like one of my favorite things because I just really get into that mindset of just total… No, I wouldn’t call it hatred because I try not to espouse that emotion, but just so much disdain for the incompetency of these people.

This track is called agent orange. It’s a ski patrol cover from the 1980 Post-Punk band in England. And I really hope you enjoy it. So here we go.

Jeroen: Do you look at a future with hope, now that the Trump period is coming to an end and he doesn’t seem to be able to rally up enough supporters to be able to continue his stint?

Dusty: Yeah, I think that, at face value, yes, I’m very much more optimistic than I was, say like six months ago when we had no clue. And it was palpably terrifying six months ago to be here. It was between the protests for black lives matter and the COVID really picking up steam and just all these sorts of things. It was really scary. So for the first time, yeah, I do feel some level of optimism, but I think that while optimism is important to have just generally, it’s also important to recognize that Trump is a symptom and not the cause. These people that voted him in and that believe in the things that they do haven’t gone anywhere. They just lost. So we’re pushing the pendulum back to normalcy and away from this insanity, but you have to remember that those people are still out there, and they’re still causing societal influence through their everyday actions.

And I think it’s just important to Americans and people all over the world have just to remain more politically involved now because that’s what happened with Trump. It’s like we just fell asleep at the wheel, and he came in and took control, and it’s, we’re paying for our lack of involvement in the political process that actually does work. And I think that’s one thing that I am actually optimistic about with America is this has proven that the system works because they tried so hard to subvert it, and it still is functioning. Yeah.

Goof: Yeah, thank God for that. It’s difficult to pick between two. It’s one out of two you can pick, and the one may be a little bit better than the other, but still may not be a favorite pick. And let’s hope that it takes maybe four, four to eight years. And then a new sense comes. I don’t know what proper English is.

Dusty: Yeah, I’m pretty dispassionate about Joe Biden. I think he’s going to be like a very average president because he’s conservative. And really, if you look at his policies and things that he’s voted on, he’s actually pretty conservative. So I don’t think we’re going to see a lot of change, but it’s at least like a return to sanity. Yeah.

Goof: Boring already sounds quite good after these years.

Jeroen: Yeah, the bar has been lowered all the way to the floor, so it won’t be hard for him to get over it, right?.

Dusty: Right. Yeah. He can barely leap over it. And you’re already the best president in the world.

Goof: Yeah. At least dependable.

Jeroen: Yeah, exactly. That’s one thing you can say about Trump. He’s a really great act to follow

Dusty: God. Yeah. Yeah. It’s Oh, it’s like being the middle act in a show, and the first band’s just fucking  terrible. You think, “Oh, we don’t have to…, we could just phone it in”.

Jeroen: So let us talk a bit more about the way that you guys work at Vision Video. I hear you talk about ideas for songs a lot. So how does your songwriting process look?

Dusty: So more or less, up until now, basically, I will put down some really simple basslines and a beat. I’ll think like, ah, do I want this slower? Do I want this faster? And I’ll put down some very essential basslines, and then I’ll just get to work at creating guitar riffs. And that’s the hardest part for me is just coming up with something that just is a little new and different but still is accessible. Cause I like for music that I write to be accessible. I’m trying to tell you a story or give you a message. And I wanna, I want you to pull you into that. And I think that the best way of doing that is to create something that’s sonically pleasing first.

So I can’t tell you the story if you hear it and go, “oh, it doesn’t really sound good.” So I spend a lot of time writing the guitar parts, and then basically, I bring these small ideas to the band and say, okay, what do you guys think about this? And we just play, like, pre-pandemic we would just play all together and build it up. But these newer songs that we’ve added to the record, I built a lot of it myself and then added individual pieces, be it Emily on keys, Dan on bass, or Jason on drums. They’ve all manipulated the basic foundation of what I’ve built and made it their own and brought their character into it.

And then, like a lot of it honestly was really formed in the studio with Tom where we took some calculated risks and said, okay, we’re all going to get together at the studio. We’re just going to have to take precautions as best as we can. And so we wrote these songs really quickly, but there was a foundation already built.

So moving forward, though, I think, once everything gets back to normal, we’ll be back to that concept of just having a very basic idea and just really just sitting there and playing it for quite a long time until it organically forms into something that we all like. And we’re all very good at.

I think the band does really well because we’re very good at communicating with each other. We’re all really good friends. And so if something doesn’t sound great, there are no really hard feelings of saying, “Hey, try this, maybe,” or “maybe let’s cut this out.” And that’s a really valuable thing because there’s a lot of artists and musicians that are not like that. Or you tell them, “Hey, this isn’t great,” and they’re like, “I’m offended.”

Jeroen: Yeah. that kills bands, man. There’s definitely bands that got ended that way.

Goof: Yeah. We’ve discussed plenty of those Jeroen, over the last seasons. Bands that split up because of arguments and everything. So I like the marketing way of approaching these songs that you got to lure people in. Make it attractive and then tell the story. It’s an interesting approach.

Jeroen: How is the Goth scene in the American Midwest? Are there any other contemporary or new bands that you like and that maybe our listeners should check out?

Dusty: So it’s really different depending on what city you’re in. I’d say it’s like it is in most major cities in the United States. Here we’ve built our own small scene that’s actually grown quite a bit. Athens, Georgia, is a city of 130,000 people, so it’s not a huge city, but for that size, we’ve actually got quite a good little scene here.

And it’s a lot of fun because everybody knows each other and there’s not really drama. It’s just people who love the music and like to dance and,  and my friend Steven and I, and Dan, the bass player as well, we all DJ together and we just have these great nights here, but like in Atlanta, there are varying qualities and different vibes of nights that they do. Some of them are way more serious. Some of them are more along the lines of what we do, where it’s just to have fun and not to take yourself too seriously. There’s places like you can go in LA where they have strict dress codes. The one that we do, we’ve never had that because I don’t believe in it. I think it repels people away from something that they might actually like if they go up and say, Oh, this is really cool. I didn’t even know this existed, but if you’re not letting somebody in because they’re wearing what I’m wearing now, jeans and a t-shirt, that’s just elitist.

And I think that stifles any scene. Be it Punk or Goth or whatever subculture. It’s going to stifle a scene because you’re not letting people look in and, I get why they do that because they want to keep it safe, and they want to keep the vibe right. Or whatever. But that’s what security is for in a venue; you say, “Hey, this guy’s a dick, kick them out.” Yeah, it’s that easy to me…

Jeroen: Yeah, a t-shirt is a really bad indicator of whether a person’s going to be a dick or not.

Dusty: Yeah. I’ve met people that were like in immaculate, full traditional Goth, rock, makeup, and Deathrock, or a Death Hawk hairdo, that’s all teased, and they’re like total dickheads, and I’m like, man, I don’t want to talk to you at all. It’s just that typical saying of you can’t judge a book by its cover. You never know what someone’s going to be like.

Jeroen: The last time I was in Georgia, I was in Atlanta, 2012, I think, a while ago. I noticed that the club life was it was very segregated both in terms of color of people visiting certain clubs, as well as the types of music. You’d go into a club, and you’d hear exactly one type of music all the time with almost no variety in there. Is that still the case?  And how does that work? Do you have your own sort of Goth hangout where it’s all Goth all the time, or do you organize club nights with more variety, or how does that work?

Dusty: So here, locally in Athens, it’s very diverse. There’s all different kinds of people from different races, religions, countries. People, it’s a very uniquely diverse group here.  And we don’t usually stick to one place. We’ve gone to different venues, and there’s not really like a Goth place that’s like full time.

We have a couple of bars and music venues that are like, more alternative I’ll say, but there’s not like THE Goth place.  And as far as for our DJ nights,  yeah. We play Joy Division, The Cure, Sisters of Mercy, all of the staples. And we play a lot of the new stuff, like Secret Shame and Panic Priest and Twin Tribes,

Goof: Drab Majesty…

Dusty: Drab Majesty, we play that, but we also, like I kind of mentioned earlier, we don’t really take ourselves seriously at all. So we’ll play, I play like B52s, Rock Lobster.

Goof: Ah, that’s nice

Dusty: …because we’re from Athens, and it’s a great song, and it’s so much fun to dance to. And it still works, we play like a lot of eighties, new wave but just party music. And then every now and then, like we’ll throw in something just weird, and nobody cares because it’s supposed to be fun. And if you can’t make fun of yourself and do that, then you’re just a little ridiculous, the way that I’ve always seen it. I’m an adult dressing up like a horror movie monster listening to eighties bands. I can not take myself that seriously.

Goof: It’s so boring. Being an adult is actually quite overrated.   I like that lightheartedness and some fun.

And if I may, Dusty, can I take it to a fun record? We talked about Tom Ashton and him being in your life, in the band’s life, and recording and mixing. I took a song by the March Violets; they’re an English Post-Punk Goth rock band from 1981, they formed in Leeds, and I’m saying they are because they’re still active. After imploding in the eighties, they reformed in 2010. And they also knew Andrew Eldridge, by the way, from the shirt that you’re wearing, from the same university. They met in Leeds.

And the song I’m about to start in for our listeners, it’s not really a Goth one, but a fun one. So I’m talking about the song Turn to the Sky. And it’s from 1986. It was also in a movie from 1987, and that movie was by Howard Hughes. Actually, he wrote that movie. He didn’t direct it. It’s Some Kind of Wonderful, but let me stop talking and let’s enjoy some fun from the Goth genre that we love so much. Turn to the Sky!

Jeroen: The fun thing is, you have to look up the song on YouTube, it’s not on Spotify, probably a rights issue with their back catalog. Jeroen: If you look at the YouTube comments, this movie, Some Kind of Wonderful, it’s still pulling people in. And it’s a great way for the March Violets to be discovered by new viewers all the time. So I was wondering, probably you’ve already thought about this, being a cinema lover… Are you planning on getting your music into a movie?

Dusty: That’s definitely ideal, and that would be just such a dream of mine to come true, to have it in a really fun horror movie or something like that. Our manager lives up in Chicago. His name is also Dan. So we have two Dans. We’ve got bassist Dan and manager Dan, as I refer to them, but manager Dan lives up in Chicago, and he’s a really good friend of ours, and he’s really working that angle to get the music and publishing rights because as an artist and a musician now that’s one of the best ways to make money.

Cause you don’t really make money off of streaming. You don’t really sell a lot of records anymore unless you’re a huge band. So you really make money off of touring, merch sales, and publishing. Yeah. But yeah, I think for me it would be such a cool thing too, to have it in any film.

I especially liked talking to Tom about Some Kind of Wonderful, cause it was funny. He was telling me just the other day in the studio about the experience they’re actually in the movie. There’s a club scene, and they’re there, the band in the nightclub.

Goof: They’re doing a live performance in the movie. Yeah.

But it’s funny because he said that they had no sound because it’s a sound set. And they’re recording the actors and the dialogue. They’re like playing, but there are no strings on the guitars or something. And they had to wear these special things on their shoes that like muted the sound of them moving. And he said it was just the weirdest experience. I was like, Oh, that’s really cool to see something like that.

Jeroen: So they had to play it back without hearing the track themselves?

Dusty: Yeah. So they’re just pantomiming.

Goof: Do you know this movie? *Holds up DVD*

Dusty: Drive! Oh yeah, that’s a great one. Yeah.

Goof: That’s also like a; there are some really… Kavinsky, Jeroen’s suggestion, that we played a couple of episodes back. Also, some French acts that made it into a really big Hollywood movie, and I can see definitely see your music-making into it, but let’s hope those connections work out.

Jeroen: If you could pick one director that you could have include one of your songs in their movies, which director would you who would you most love to have integrate Vision Video into a movie?

Dusty: Oh, man, I feel like most of the directors that I am really acquainted with are, like older, many of them dead, it’s going to be a hard thing…

Jeroen: So they have to be alive 🙂

Dusty: Okay. Alive directors today…

Goof: David Lynch?

Dusty: Yeah. Honestly, yeah, probably something like that or like, John Carpenter. He’s still alive.

Goof: Oooh. Nice pick. I didn’t even think of him.

Dusty: Yeah. He’s one of my favorites,  but there’s a lot of … Oh, what’s the guy’s name? Ti West. He did  House of the Devil, and he’s done some really great modern horror. Ti West did VHS… The innkeepers. ABCs of death. Yeah. If you’ve never seen his films, I highly recommend them, especially.

Goof: I’m going to look them up right now.

Dusty: Yeah. The innkeepers and Your Next, those are great.

Goof: I heard about that. Yeah. I believe it’s on Netflix over here.

Dusty: Yeah. Yeah. Check it out. Ty West is, I would love to have this video in one of those but, yeah, there’s so many things, so many different directors. I guess I’m just less savvy about directors nowadays than I am about older ones, too.

Jeroen: Oh, but those are some great suggestions.

Goof: Yes, sir. Cool. So thanks for that!

Dusty: Yeah, absolutely.

Jeroen: You were mentioning Deathrock. This is also a term that your friends from Secret Shame are using to describe their music. Is that a thing these days in Georgia or in the Midwest? The Deathrock scene?

Dusty: Yeah. I’d say it’s Included in the general umbrella of Post-Punk or Goth rock or the Goth scene as it were. One of my really good friends, Adria, she plays in a band called Tears for the Dying here in Athens also. And they are true straightforward Deathrock. And it’s awesome. It’s like a female-fronted  Christian Death, essentially. And honestly, this is super controversial, and Adria, if you hear this, hi, first of all, but I actually like Tears for the Dying more than Christian Death. Like a lot more. They’re really good.

Jeroen: That’s high praise.

Dusty: I think that her music is just a little bit more… it’s a little more accessible. It’s a little more melodic. It’s less abrasive, while I appreciate those things about Christian death, and I think that they were so ground breaking, but yeah. Adria and Debbie, they’re like incredible musicians, and yeah, I highly recommend checking them out. But yeah, Deathrock is definitely a thing that’s still around in the States.

Jeroen: So here it is! Tears for the Dying with Deadweight.

Dusty: Cool! Tom Ashton also produced and recorded that.

Jeroen: Is there anything that you would like to get off your chest on Vision Video or your future, or…?

Dusty: I guess I’m just excited to get out there because we’ve gained this cool following of really awesome people that I’ve really genuinely enjoyed meeting, you guys included.

And it’s so funny because when we started this year, we had a couple of hundred followers online, and we had no concept. I had no idea how much of a thing this was going to become. And, everybody in the band feels the same way that we’re just like grateful, first of all, for everybody streaming our stuff and sharing it and all that. It really does mean a lot to us because we worked so hard on it. Just like any other artist does and then to pick us to, to share and listen to… T hat means a lot because it really makes it worthwhile, all the hard work.

But yeah, we’re just really excited to meet everybody in person and to play in person because what we’re going to do is we’re going to play a show! And then usually Dan and I DJ at a dance party afterward, cause we want it to be fun. We want to enjoy this weird cookie music that we listen to together. And the best way to do that is communal. And live.

Jeroen: 2021 is going to be a year of hope, a year of returning to the congregation, to our communal sessions of therapy, which we also call concerts. We’re looking forward to enjoying all of that in the next year, and really looking forward also to the release of your album, which is going to be called inked in red. And that’s actually another thing to look forward to. Maybe you also can get an international tour in the books. If you continue to grow and skyrocket the way that you have in 2020, you might be a stadium act before long man, looking forward to that!

Dusty: Yeah, heh.

Goof: Dear creatures of the night, this brings us to the end of our podcast. We’d like to thank Dusty for joining us in his really busy working schedule and all the heavy things that he’s encountering each day. So thanks for making this special with us. And also, to you, listeners, do let us know how you liked this episode or which favorite song you would like to hear on the show?

Just use the contact form on our website. That is theinfected.nl to get in touch.  While you’re on there, also check out our merchandise session and use the discount code INFECTME for free shipping. This site also features unique interviews with more and more interesting artists, and you can find it all, transcripts of previous episodes and loads of music there. So check it out!

And that’s all for now. So thank you guys for doing the show. And also, thanks for listening. We will probably retreat back into our crypt and call it a night. We will be back for the third season of this podcast in January. So, goodbye children of the night, we will meet again soon.

Dusty: All right. See you later. Stay strange!