Hi, from the Pathway Studios in Johnston Proper, you are Live from the Path. You're listening to Live from the Path. My name is Ben Foose. We're in a real pickle here. You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying when I say that we're in a real pickle? I don't think you guys know what I'm talking about. When I say there's a word real pickle, I mean it. You're listening to Live from the Path. Hey, Mike. Everything's done. You're listening to Live from the Path. Mike. What? Okay. I was just checking to see if you were listening. Yeah, I'm paying attention. Okay. Whoops. Bob Ross is sitting behind all the shots. Boy, that's real creepy. What happened there? Hold on. There he is right there. Look at him.

He's like creeping out next to Dan and Sonny. There's Bob Ross right there. That's a bummer. Hey, do you know if Bob Ross was a god man? I can't even. He was the painter on the public television. He always did happy little trees or whatever. I thought maybe I was really showing my non-coolness there. I don't know who it is. I don't think we needed more evidence. I think that's… You walk in the door and your non-coolness shines. All right. So you're listening to Live from the Path. My name is Ben Foost. Thanks for joining us this week. We've got a special show this week. Cinema Fire is back in the studio. After a long day… We worked out our legal problems from the last time they were in, and now they're allowed back into the action. So security let them in. Cinema Fire is back. Mike has made his way into the studio. I didn't know whether he was coming or not.

I'm in. Okay. Awesome. Spankenhauser is not going to be here. He's got the… I think he's got the flu. Well, he didn't elaborate, but when he said I'm not feeling well, I like to think of him as real sweaty and green in the face. I don't like to think of him as sweaty or green in the face. You know, here's the thing. The list of Spankenhauser's excuses on why he didn't make it tonight, I mean, it's starting to get long. He's going to run out of reasonable-sounding excuses sooner or later, and he's going to have to say something like, I fell in a hole and can't get out, or I left my foot at my grandma's. I need to get that back. The reasonable things are good. I mean, they're really going to start taking. Oh, that's scary. Oh, man. What's the matter? I'm trying to dig up that Elisha story. I need it.

I need it for biblical examples. All right, so here's what we've got on tap for the show tonight. I'll text it to you. It's second king, isn't it, man? We're going to be… I don't know. I'm sorry, ladies. Can I step in for a moment? You're listening to Life in the Past. Here's what we've got going on tonight. We're going to be talking to Syndrome of Fire. We're going to hear some sweet in-house tunes going down, and we're also going to get some recorded action that no one has heard before. I'm not overselling that. That's true? Wait. Have you heard it? Oh. I've blasphemed myself. Okay, the band's heard. For the most part. Okay, that works. And if Sony's bought it, they have it, but we have it. Okay. It's not free, is what you're saying.

All right. You don't get it free anywhere else but here. My mom. Sony's mom has it. I'm sure if you ask nicely. Okay. All right, very good. All right, so we're going to check that out. We're going to find out what's going on. You guys got some cool stuff coming up, so we're going to talk through that. But Mike wants to talk about the story of when they – what was it? The Elisha story? Yeah, I'm trying to dig it up. Second Kings. Yeah, see, Second Kings. Chapter 6. Dan will read us the synopsis, and then we'll talk why it's boom, baby, powerful. Oh, really? Is this where the king of Syria was warning against Israel, and he's going to beat everybody up? I should have known better than getting cahoots with you, Dan. I should have read it before you said I was going to summarize. It's been maybe a year or two or six. Let's see. Anyway, the servant of Elisha is like, oh, no, we're going to die.

We're surrounded. This is really bad. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, this is the one. Okay, that's the stuff. That's the teaser. All right. All right, so we've got that going on. We're always going to do a round of good advice or think twice, so we're going to give you the worldly, the secular wisdom, the stuff that if you've got good advice to hand out, something your grandpa might say, and we're going to check that out. Uh-oh. Why are you both looking at me? Because I'm imagining a senile Dan. Is it that hard? I always eat the cashews first. That's my tale of Dan's good advice. So we'll be talking about that, and the question will be, is it really good advice or should you think twice about it? Does it match up with, say, a biblical standard of living? So that's good advice, think twice. Also on the advice path,

we're probably going to give out some dear life in the path. Dan, people still want some advice. They've heard the advice we've given out in previous shows, and they say, dear life in the path, I need more help. And actually, we've been on a tear the last couple of weeks where we've disagreed with secular. There was a good, I don't know, month or two where we've had pretty much the same discussion and secular come rocking in with about the same advice. But, boy, the last two weeks, she has been very upset and kind of mean-spirited. I think we should start charging for this advice. Dan, we're not even getting it for free right now. We're stealing it from somebody else. I told you to attend the board meetings, Dan. Please, we don't just have these meetings for nothing. Bummer. Oh, man. All right. Disaster. We're off to a rough one. All right. So, Cinema Fire, it's great to have you back, or I guess for the first time in the new life in the past studios. Thanks for coming.

Snuggle on up to the microphone. Let's see how close I am. Yeah. There you go. There you go. You've got to be pretty close. When you pay for the low-end mic, it means you've got to get closer. Yeah. It has a very short word. So… Ooh, wah, wah. Ooh, wah, wah. Tell me your falsetto. Have a good ring. Excellent. All right. So, a lot of stuff going on since the last time we met. Yeah. Yeah, a couple things. A couple things. All right. So, wait a minute. Now, this is how it went last time we talked to you. You always come back with a vague response. We set it up like fireworks have exploded, and you guys go, oh, yeah, there's some stuff.

Yeah, we've been a few places. My grandpa said it's none of your business. I need the cashews first. So, some big show coming up, right? Yep, this Friday. All right. This Friday, you are opening for Evanescence. Yep, we're playing with Evanescence. That is awesome. Oh, playing with them. Oh, opening is a… I downgraded it. I shouldn't have. You're sharing the stage. Okay. No, no, no. Well… Well… You tell me how to tell it, and that's how I'll tell it. This is going downhill. So, basically, we're playing the show with them. It's an arena-sized venue, and so… Arena-sized? Yep. Like, it's an arena, or it's not?

It's basically an arena. I wonder who the guy that says, I'm going to build an arena-sized building, but don't you call it an arena, because it ached. So, basically, right before they… Like, we honestly don't know what stage that we're going to be on at this point yet, but right before you go into, like, where all the major national acts play, there's also a good-sized, you know, stage for everybody while they're waiting to actually for the main concert to start and stuff. And so, that's the one that we'll probably be on, but there's always a chance still that we will… You know, frankly, that's always the awesome place to be, right? Because I can remember, and I talk to people all the time who go to concerts, you know, they're like, they love the opening act, and then they're always disappointed by the main act, which I'm sure will not be the case this time, I love that, because you guys are great. But, like, they always say that, like, they're like, I love the opening act, and then the main act took, like, an hour to get on stage, and then they took 50 breaks, and I had to pee during the second set, and I missed my favorite song, and some guy spilled beer on me, and I paid $85 for the Evanescence overalls, and the mistake. Hey, these are going to look fantastic. Shirt, no shirt, who's with me? Boy, that sounds like a pretty sweet gig. Yeah, it is. It's my birthday, too, so it works out well. It's on his birthday.

Are you coming? It's going to be a party. Where is it? It's in Milwaukee. Yeah, of course. We're there. Definitely. Can we broadcast live? Sure. Oh, they'll be awesome. We'll love it. Hey, he said yes, because he thinks we're not coming. Oh, sure. You go ahead and bring your little stuff. You don't know we have a life without that jet. Company jet. You know, if I didn't think we'd get chucked, I think we'd drive, but we've been… And we could always make a phone call. Really? Yeah. That is fantastic. We've always wanted… We've prayed at night, Lord, please let us meet somebody that can make a phone call that can actually do something. Our current phone calls are wasted.

Yeah, every time I make a phone call, the lady's real rude. She's like, Mercy Hospital time is 3.47. Ma, they won't let us in the Coliseum. You know, if you guys wanted to go, you could even ride in your van. Dude, that'd be awesome. It'd be our van. You know, it's your van. Can we be one of your guests? Can we be a guest? What if I wear a smooth hat? You'd have to show me. I like it. Dang. I'm used to just wearing whatever hat I wanted. It's not going to happen this time. I like that. I like the restraint. He says, you're not just getting in and you're not just wearing whatever hat you want. If you're going to show up under the syndrome of fire bill, I'm going to have to see that hat. You should see the guitar strap there. It looks like a belt. You guys have a guitar strap? It kind of looks like a lady's belt, but I didn't say that. Except for just then. So was this like a scheduled deal that you knew was up and coming, or did it just kind

of show up here recently? Well, it was actually something that we had kind of passed up. We get a lot of opportunities at this point to play with a lot of bigger bands, and just some stuff's been going on that just some changes just in our home lives and stuff, and we just thought, hey, this would be kind of a fun thing just to be able to go do, and we had the time to go do it, so we figured, let's go do it. Yeah, that's pretty sweet. Do they give you free food at these deals? Do you guys get free food and stuff for playing? Well, we get free beer. That's how you… That's called fellowship, my friend. That's how you bring people to Jesus. Jesus did it the same way. We need more wine, Jesus says. He said, deal. Give me a 12 ounce of Old Gethsemane, and we'll get to talking. Yeah, that's a… Are you laughing at that, man? Sorry. Yeah, Old Testament humor. Directly from my time. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. I'll tell Elijah that one. He'll chuckle in his sandals.

So what else has been going on? So that's what's coming up. You guys a pretty busy summer, or? Yeah, summer's just been crazy. Well, yeah, just a lot happened, including repairs, too. A big green van. Said rocking vehicle. Under the Lord's blessing. So, but, I mean, God has been really, really good to us. I mean, we're still trucking along, and we're kind of at that stage that, you know, it's… We've made it further than a lot of other bands out there. We're not, like, the biggest band on earth yet, but… I wouldn't… Definitely not expect to see you here after that happens, so… But at the same… This is the last time we see you. At the same time, though, I mean, it's… God's been just really good to us. I mean, he's taught us a lot of things this summer, and we've had some setbacks. We've had some great, huge push forward on different things. One of the bigger things this summer, actually, we played at Heaven Fest. Yeah. It's a huge festival. And a few weeks before that, we got the chance to headline the official pre-Heaven Fest show for Denver, Colorado.

And it was at this awesome church there, and they're all about, like, inner-city ministry. And I actually got kind of, well, I wouldn't say them up, but pickpocketed. No kidding! Not a very safe place. Yeah, it wasn't a very safe place. We pulled in at, like, 2 o'clock in the morning and just thought we'd sleep in the van. And I decided… I saw Burger King about a couple blocks away, so I decided to go walk and try to go to the Burger King. And I was walking along, and all of a sudden, two guys come, and they just go on both sides of me and just hit my pants' pockets, and I realized, my wallet's gone. So were they good pickpockets, though? Well, I caught them, so not great. Oh, well, so they weren't skilled. Well, but I always check. Yeah, I always check, too. I always do that, too. I don't know why. Dan, you do that when six-year-old girls walk by. There's a distinct difference. They're sneaky. You don't expect them. Well, did you say six… If you have a six-year-old girl, you realize that that's wise, you know? Is that? Did you chase them down?

Did you get your money back? Basically, they kept my money. I talked them into just keeping my cash and giving me my wallet back with my debit card and driver's license and all that. Well, that saves a ton of hassle. That's a victory. Yeah, that is a definite victory. You only had $2. Yeah, I only had $6. By the way, I don't have a position, so there's nothing in there anyway. And so the next day, I was talking with a youth pastor of this church. It was a really big church, actually, in Denver. He was like, well, that's like the most dangerous street in town. Why were you walking down there in the middle of the night? No, don't. We were in heaven first. Yeah, I was like, I didn't know. God obviously lives here. I mean, most people don't mess with a six-foot-three ogre walking down the road, you know? Now, you can have the last laugh. You write a great song about this that sells a million copies. You give it six copies. Whatever. Then that guy's going to come back and say, I mean, you owe me some big bucks for the rule. Yeah, he'll sue us for inspiration or something.

I went down the street. Herb took my wallet. I don't know. You can come up with something. My mama didn't name me Herb. My mama didn't name me Herb. Oh, man. Damn, the songwriting giant. This song will not be a hit without the word Herb in it. I know. Why did they put a Burger King on the worst street in town? Did you ask him that? I wonder if it was there. No, but there's Wendy's there and McDonald's. I mean, there's everything. Is that the guy that was Denny's? No. Colbert's. Well, and then the guy that gave us, like, the millionaires. Yeah. I've been to Colfax. Yeah. We all take this chance to publicly say, don't eat at Denny's. Like at any Denny's. Any Denny's.

No, any Denny's. Across the United States, they just suck. They're just. They're just. Yeah. We could tell story after story. Now, hold on a minute. Be able to tell story after story means you repeatedly are going to Denny's. I know. That's just it. But he kept saying it could be a change. We just lost our number one sponsor. A sponsor in waiting. They haven't contacted us yet. There it goes. Go after Perkins now. I was sponsoring you. Exactly. This show now brought to you by Syndrome of Fire. And Herb. Wait, wait. Okay. Tell me one Denny story. Which one's the best one? Cassie has it.

The last one we had was pretty good. Well, the one before that was hilarious, though, too. Okay. Do they understand? What is it? Do you know what over easy eggs mean? Yes. Have you ever heard of over medium? Sure. Okay. I never heard of over medium. You don't hear it very often, but it makes sense. I assume it's in between over easy and over hard, right? Yes. Okay. So all I know is over easy. That's what I grew up with. That's what I requested. Okay. So I guess I got over… You ordered over easy. I ordered over easy. And basically, it was running. Like, the white part was runny. And I was like, ooh, I'm sorry.

I said over easy. And then the waitress argued with me. And basically, she was like, well, you need to ask for over medium. And I was like, goodness, I need to look into this. So while she goes, you Google. You're like, well, let's define what is over medium. And then we discovered that, no, we are right. Over easy is just cooked white part and then the yolk runny. Okay. Over medium is the yolk is sort of cooked. Yeah, it's semi. Or tougher. Opaque, maybe. So we were right. We were right. We checked several sources. But Denny's insists that over easy is the white part is still a little runny. This waitress speaks for the corporation? Yeah. Well, the manager came. I was like, well, can I just get some different eggs? And then she said it would take too long. Well, she said one or two eggs because two eggs would take too long. Because I was. You can't throw an extra line.

She said two eggs would take too long. Literally, we were looking at her and I was like, I don't want to be rude and like laugh. I think the time has come. It was hilarious. Mind you, this was just one of many things that happened that night. Wow. So I could tell a lot more stories besides the fact that Jamin had. Everywhere we go, he gets his drink spilled on him. Yeah. I don't know. And he complains about it. You'll hear. And then you always get the all you can eat pancakes. Yeah. And they never come back up to the first time. So in the end, three pancakes are all you can eat pancakes. That's all you're going to eat? Yeah. It's like they give me three pancakes. And they don't even give you the syrup. Yeah. And I ask them for syrup. And then like an hour later, they come back. And give us the ticket. Politely.

And you're saying, oh, oh, you know, I've been busy. Can you eat that syrup? You know, that puts you in a really tough situation, right? Because like anytime the food is bad and you say so, like you always, there's always a threat that Johnny Jerkface is the one cooking back there. And then you hurt his pride. Yeah. And then he takes the old Hawk 2 in there, you know, just to show you what's what, you know? But I believe it's the manager of that one night. He actually heard about it. Then he went back himself, made me one egg that was correct. But he did say, you should order over medium next time. And I'm like, okay. But he did give me my food for free. But honestly, after so many experiences, the food for free just isn't worth all that we go through. That's still a prideful beast. He's still on the over medium train, which is obviously not correct, but he's selling it super hard. Like he just does not want to look bad in this situation. He'll give away the company's money, but not his personal pride. So there's a lot of education on eggs this summer for me. I had no idea this was going to be such a hassle. Who claims to be the king of breathing?

The kid. That's fantastic. I don't know. I'm pretty good myself. I've never failed. That's what I'm saying. I propose a breathe off. No, someone just claimed to be the king of breathing. Still breathing. Whoever dies first loses. Ha ha. I told you. We should have done this at the Denny's. Wait, so if the Denny's is out, what is the next best late night haunt for Syndrome of Fire while you're out and about? Perkins is good. They're usually good. You can't beat that. Village Inn is pretty decent. I like Village Inn. But just finding places that are open like 24 hours. Yeah. That's not a fast food or a truck stop? Yeah. So, yeah, that's true.

But we have like a lot of fans. There's been, we have a tremendous amount of fans in different states that just would let us come crash at their houses, feed us. You ever get in a weird situation where you don't, your place is like scuzzy or something? Or like, they're like, I got a place for you to sleep and it's like in a cellar in an air mattress? No, not yet. Would you like to come stay at my house? What are you doing later? Yeah, I can see that. I can see that. Yeah, we get the floor. Do you bring your own air mattresses just in case of stuff like that? No. Just the floor for the most part. What's wrong with you guys, you know? I served in the military for a while. I got pickpocketed in. My life's never been the same. Kind of hard to rock out with like a sore back though. Actually, a lot of times the floor is a lot better than like some insulin in its bed that it's all lumpy or. Right, there's some dude sleeping in it for the past 10 years. He's got a big lump there, right, where you don't like to sleep, you know, and you can't help but keep falling in it like an egg.

Boy, that's tough. Yeah, we sleep in the van sometimes too. That's better. I think that's better than sleeping in a man cocoon that's been put into a mattress. I think that wears me out. I think that wears me out. If the guy's been sleeping there for X years and I get in and I kind of like, easy to his spot. I think that's awkward. Have you ever tried a hammock before? Yeah, we have some. Those are actually pretty comfortable. Yeah, they're not bad. Do you sleep in a hammock? Yeah. You could break a hammock up a hammock. Do you sleep in a van? Oh, I'm sure we could. That'd be sweetness. We should try that. Yeah. So my wife stayed in a place when she was in a singing group, you know, in college and stayed at a little old lady's house and she walked in and said, oh, no, this is a great bed. My husband died in that bed just like three weeks ago and shut the door.

And she laid on the floor. She doesn't sleep a wink. I mean, because like that creeps her out anyway. And it's like, you know, my husband just died in that bed. You know, I would so sleep in the dead man's bed. I would do it instantly. In fact, when my grandma died, I took her mattress. I thought, don't throw that away. We need it. My brother took my mom's. And I was like, well, go ahead. Well, it's not like deadness oozed out of them all over the mattress. Sometimes. There's a good time. Things ooze. It depends on how this thing goes down. If it goes down funky, then they. Let's just say the muscles relax and things ooze. That's what happens. That's not fair. My four-year-old daughter does the same thing. And I still go up in her bed and see what? I don't see any reason to give up on it. All right. You're listening to Life in the Path.

It's going downhill. What is it? 25 minutes and that's when we got to Luke's muscles? It's not bad. That's not bad. Look at Cassie started. It's always you. Last time it was rabbit poo in the yard. And not eating sandwiches. That's right. That's right. Did I say that? All right. So tell me about, you guys have done some recording, right? Yep. New EPs out. Tell me about that. Tell me about that experience. Pretty cool? I'm trying to think, like writing the song. Now, do they let you just hang out in the studio and conjure up stuff? Or do you have to like show up? They don't like no fooling around. They're like, we want you to be ready when you get in here. We didn't have the British yet, yo.

Yeah, they want songs at least probably 80% of the way there, if not, you know, all the way there. But then they like to take them down to like ripping the shreds and take them down to 40% and then have a team install. That's the producing, yeah. You guys were thinking piano, guitar, and bass. I was thinking more accordion, banjo. Exactly. You know. But I'm just a producer who sells millions of records. You guys know everything. Yeah. I'll be at the Denny's if you need me. I got six books off a guy last night. Wait, what the? That was North Platinum. Okay, all right. All right. Tell me about that. Millionaire at the Denny's? Who's a drunk millionaire? He was a drunk millionaire. That's how you find them. That's how you went to Denny's. The sober ones are at their place making more money.

Well, yeah, because it's like at 2 o'clock in the morning, too. You know, so. He was just rampant. We were at the checkout, and I don't know, somehow we mentioned and or something. He heard about it, and he's like, well, here. Here's $50. That's a gift of a millionaire. What I think he asked is he said, are you a Christian, man? Yeah, that's what I heard. You were saying, yeah, we're Christians and sort of in the key. Now, that's cool. If he'd have given you Jesus 50, that would have been really disappointing. Excited? You should be. Jesus loves you. But that was actually, you were talking about this summer, that was, we had just kind of gone through the first stint of having some issues with the van, and we had several extensive issues with the van over the summer, but we had missed, yeah, it's really good. The Lord's blessings were in a pile. But we had missed some concerts, and so we actually had to drive really, really far to make our first concert and to just hit back up on tour. And so finances are always, you know, an issue. Now, does it scare you once you fix the van, like you're driving, you're like, what's going to happen now? Is there anything else that's going to break?

Like a door just randomly falls off, or the tires grows legs and runs? Or I'm sleeping the van back on me. Like, I'm like, guys, there's water pouring on me. And they say, Cassie, I told you to stay from that part of the van. You know there's rain back there. We're not fixing it. But like that particular night, we actually had kind of a, just kind of, yeah, it was just kind of a rough night for us. And, um, but God really kind of came through, we were kind of having like a lot of questions about like several different things and just, man, this is really hard financially. And, uh, like for the next several days, God just kind of gave us, gave us a financial vacation. And, uh, like that night, a guy was like, Hey, well, how about you let me like treat you, uh, not, uh, fill up your gas tank and all that type of stuff. And how much is that? Did you see the van ahead of time? Was it $150? It was $115. $115. Do you have to give him a taxable receipt back? Or he was just like, Hey, don't worry about it. Yeah, just don't worry about it. Everything's cool. And he was just the guy we met that night. And then she got the 50 from the drunk guy.

I mean, it just happened one thing after the next. And we were like, you know what? Why do we even worry? You know, that's actually pretty cool when God does that kind of thing. You know, like you get all, every once in a while you get all caught up in what you're doing, you know, and then God will do like 10 things right in a row. You're like, I'm such a fool. I'm such an idiot. I forgot who my dad was. You know? It's like having your dad who could do whatever he wants, you know, and you're like, I don't want to call. Dad's not going to take care of me. Dad, I need help. All right. I'm on it. That's so true. It's as if there's an extra line that says, Seek ye first to the kingdom of God. And they really stress out about it. Yeah. But that one in there. Freak out. It makes me feel important. Yeah, that's cool. There's some really cool stuff happening to you guys.

Well, we were actually kind of talking about that on the way up. All the way here, weren't we? Yeah. It's just a lot of people looked at us like since we started just as a band that has just a ton of favor. It's just like stupid things just kind of keep randomly happening to us. Like Jon Bon Jovi? Yeah. He's like, I'm going. That's a good comparison. Go ahead. I mean, live a lot of prayer, you know. As long as we're still on the same level here. But I mean, just I mean, it kind of started, you know, well, just when we started playing and just everything just started happening so quickly, you know, and we didn't know how we're going to do a lot of stuff. And then you guys, you know, helped us out as far as like the band and stuff like that and just, you know, blessing in those areas. And we're like, wow, we can actually do things that we didn't think we could do. And then so which has enabled us to go like all over the place, you know, and do things that we wouldn't have been able to do otherwise. And it's just every once in a while we have like an off concert day. You know, it's we're not supposed to tell anybody that we have an off concert. Oh, no, we do great all the time. I was at the Sheboygan Lanes.

I saw that show. But it's hilarious because like, well, like, man, this was like so bad. Like we're really upset with ourselves. It's just like, this is terrible. And people are like, that is the most amazing thing that I've ever heard. We're just like, what? People be like, that was the best. Like, OK, one time when I'm sorry, I didn't have my voice and I was so frustrated because I was like, I couldn't get anything out. And then someone comes up and they're like, I've seen you in concerts, you know, I mean, this many times and that was the best I've ever heard you. And I'm like, I looked at them so dumbfounded and I thought, well, thank you, Jesus. That humbles me. I can't complain then. All right. You went completely the opposite way there because I was thinking, this is the one where I didn't sing. Ouch. You know, that would be bad. I couldn't get anything out. That was awesome. Really an improvement. Really an improvement. I would have kicked that guy out directly. You should just have screamo, right?

Ryan just does screamo all the whole time. There we go. We're changing the band sound. That was my favorite part of the concert, by the way, when the screaming shows up every once in a while. Like, it's like pretty stuff. And all of a sudden, then Ryan will show up and go, wow, wow, wow. I'm like, he meant that. He really meant that. People don't just yell like that for no reason. So true. Give me my six bucks. You missed those six dollars. Man. I did that night. It was everything to me. It was my all. And ice cream. I was so mad. The next day, like, we got paid in cash for the gig. And it was a decent chunk of change. Yeah. And everybody's like, don't go walking down by yourself on the road. We were his bodyguards. Usually he's our bodyguard.

We were watching out for him. I love it. All right. Wait. So we're in the middle. We're talking about the recording stuff. Do you have an EP out? Yeah. Well, people can pick this up. Where can they get it? Right now, just through Breezefire, our label kind of controls that one. And then it'll start popping up on iTunes and all that stuff shortly. If they go to Breezefire.com, they can just search your band name. And there's several other people that's with a conglomerate of labels that are also associated with our label, too. Oh, cool. Now, is that the same label you've been on? Or have you been in the same spot this year? Yeah. We're still the same spot. Still the same spot. Okay. Very cool. So we've got the Evanescence show coming up. We've got an EP coming out.

Or is it out and available for purchase? It's out and available. Awesome. What else? What else is on the horizon? Well, we're going to do some local shows, we think, and try to set some weekend dates up just around Iowa for now and try to still tap into the Iowa market, the places we haven't even gone to yet. Yeah. Very cool. A lot of our fans have been just kind of like, why do you keep playing in other states and not here? Yeah. We kind of felt bad. So we're going to stick around for a while. Actually, so I went to… I'm trying to think of the name of the place. House of Bricks. Well, we were at the House of Bricks show, and I was also at the one… The 504 Club. Yes, the 504 Club. And that was a fun show. I had never been in that place before, but me and Pants came out with me. Did he? Yeah.

And yeah, that was fun. That was right when you had released, or at least we had heard on the show. Yeah, Fast Train. Yeah, it was wild. Yeah. I don't know. It was great. That was the beginning of this year. Except there was a creepy guy in a cowboy hat. You guys know what I'm talking about? Oh, he'll be at a… I know that guy. Yeah, Craig. Yeah, he'll be at a… Do you know that guy? He's coming out of the house. Oh, yeah, that's sweet, Ben. He's coming out of the house. Real sweet. A creepy man in a cowboy hat. Well, he wasn't really creepy, but he was the only guy in a cowboy hat, so he stood out to be. And it's white, too. Yeah. So, yeah, that's what he is.

Creepy wasn't the right description, but he was like… Cool guy. Cool guy. He stood out in the cowboy hat. No, no. Don't abandon it now. Stick with it. He's creepy. I didn't really meet him. It wasn't… Creepy wasn't the right. But I remember him… Because he was standing up front the whole time. No, no. He was out rocking the whole time to the show. I'm going to message him on Facebook right now. I felt totally lame, because I was sitting in the back, kind of having my arms full and drinking my diet soda. Yeah, you guys always do that. My diet soda. That's kind of our deal. We're not near cool enough to go within 10 feet of the stage. Thinking about Denny's, aren't we? We're usually afraid that if we get up front a little closer, they'll be like, you don't belong up here.

Or that somebody will spit water on you. Yeah, that's outrageous. Are you still sticking with that, though? Well… When was the last time you did that, actually? I upgraded to coffee now. So you got a sweet mug? Well, fire. Fire. That's what you upgraded to, really. Oh, yeah. Did you see those pictures? No. I was fire breathing. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I did. I saw those. Now, that's way cooler than the water. Yeah, yeah. But I can't do that in front of people's faces. Keeping tea oil. Yeah. I just find nobody issues. Yeah. Sorry, Craig.

I have to sign a waiver for all our content. Sorry about that. He meant it, but he shouldn't have said it. Yeah, it's my mistake. Bummer. I think Craig's on. All right, so the… Coffee? You switched to coffee? Oh, yeah. Boy, that seems dangerous. Well, you know, it keeps you energetic. It does. Yeah. You know that… So, last time… When was the last time we ran into you guys at the Spirit Midwest Music Festival? Yeah. How did that set go? Pretty sweet? Yeah, it was pretty decent. Yeah. Yeah. You guys were the highlight of the interview for the day. Sweet.

Because you really kicked off the board. You spread it around. When you signed all your names, you kind of spread it around, so the board looked like it had more names on it than it did. We love it. And then Potts, who apparently can't be found, took up half the board with his giant Potts signature. Yeah, that's what I did. You can see. That's true. And so, it was very cool to run into you. Like, we don't get a chance to get out very often, obviously, because, you know, we're not cool enough to be where you're at, but that was very sweet. Now, do you get a chance to play? Like, do you guys like doing the festival shows? Do you like club, like a little more intimate shows, or do you have a preference either way? We like them all, to be honest with you. A lot of it really has to do with the fans that are there. I mean, sometimes we have audiences like you guys, where you just kind of sit there in the back. Oh, stop it. Stop it. We're soaking in here. We're appreciating the music. Everyone's got their own way.

Actually, that's why I mocked for Craig. He shames me. He's up rocking, and I'm sitting in the back like a lame-o. It's exactly. This conversation back there is, Ben, did you see you scream? Yeah, it was pretty sweet. It was pretty sweet. This music's loud! Turn it down! I kind of like the festivals, though, too. I don't know. You're going to meet a lot of different people. Yeah, I think you can connect more with other bands, and I don't know. Heaven Fest was a lot of fun for me. Yeah. I don't know. But we had a lot of interaction with some neat fans, and so. Now, did they have any low-rent internet Christian talk shows broadcasting from Heaven Fest? Or do you think this is an available market? Yes. I think this is an available market, actually, now that you bring it up. Excellent. If we're going to an RV next year, we'll just travel. We're going to need some funding. Denny's!

Denny's your sponsor. I'm going to need you guys to pray for your Lord's blessing on us for this funding of this radio station. We need an RV. Or something. Because we're going to the Evanescence show, and then the Sheboygan Lake. What is it this week? This Friday. Tickets are only $29. Come on. Carpool. You also get to see Evanescence. Someone's got to be hawking them, right? Yeah. That's what you want to do? You want to find somebody scalping them on the street? We have press passes. We don't need to pay. Oh, that's true. Oh, dude. That totally worked at the Spirit Moon West Music Festival. It was awesome. We had them press passes made up. Obviously, we made them. We could go anywhere.

It said, press pass on it, you know. And I tried to get in. I wanted to talk to one of the bands about something or other, and we went over to the band dorms, and I said, I need to talk to so-and-so. She goes, no, no, this is the band dorms. And then I showed her my press pass, and I said, I'm with Live from the Path. Oh, okay. Did you say Live from the Path? I'm like, yes. This is the coolest phony press pass I've ever seen. It gets me in anywhere. That was that. That's also how I got into the executive washroom. It was behind the maintenance shed. But they cleared it out. I was the only guy there. They cleared it out or you cleared it out? There was nobody there anyway. They were waiting for me. I'm pretty sure we could have done without that story. You're listening to Live from the Path. Hey, all right. So do you guys have one that you can play for us? Mm-hmm. All right.

I suppose. Which one are we going to start with? We haven't actually practiced for the rest. I think that's fair. But we're just going off the fly here. Now, wait a minute. Let me ask you this. Do you need to talk to your record label? Because there was a band that we had in here that said they shouldn't play anything acoustically until they check with their label. Oh. Oh. Are you guys all right? We could actually say that and get off a song, right? No. Here's what happens. If you don't play one, I'm going to act like I'm doing a rendition of one of your tunes, and I will do a disservice. Here's basically what will happen. Okay. Like, if we play it badly, they'll just ask you to take it down. I think that's fair. But which is a chance, because I'm playing standard tuning. I don't want to play drop C. So we'll find out.

All right. So here's the, I'll give you this alternative option. If it is not, if it doesn't go well, I will overdub it with my voice singing something completely different. Yeah. Yeah, you could actually add some effects and put lots of reverb on everything. I could scream. This one's lower than that. I've got, give me the words. I'll throw a scream in there. It'll really add. All right. So what are we going to hear? I'm Alive. Everybody left, Ben. You can't ask him questions. This is the title track to our EP. It's called I'm Alive. Okay. What's going on over here? Keep an eye on it, Mike. I wanted a higher sound. Now listen, you can't just do whatever you want around here. You know what I'm saying? This is a professional radio show.

I'm the queen. We have press passes. I was going to give you guys one. I feel like this is a lot. Okay. So you can get this on the new EP. Yeah. All right. All right. And this is an acoustic version of it. Is this a camera working that's facing towards Cassie right now? Yes. So I want to show everybody this. This is why you do not wear glasses to a concert. As you will notice, they're all super glued together. Twisted tie right there. That might be gum. But tons of super glue. And how did that happen? I stepped on them in the middle of a concert. You jumped on them several times repeatedly. I might ask that the floor might not have been the place to store them. We need to go to this show, I'm telling you. Of course, because he has the head bang and he gets, he's getting into the song and he's going crazy and then they fall to the ground.

She's like, I'm getting into the song and I didn't realize they fell to the ground and I'm just like, stop, stop, stop. And then I'm just like, in the middle of the song, oh no. Here you go. And she's like scooping up a pile. It's the one time I don't wear contacts at concerts. Livings is right. That's an upscale break. Most people are breaking guitars. You're doing spectacles. Yes, I broke these at the show. You didn't say it that way. That's my rendition. All right. So this is. Sorry, Mike. I made a pleasure not to embarrass you. I can only do what the Lord wants. All right. So this is, this is I'm Alive. You can get it on, off the new EP at Breezefire.com. This is Syndrome of Fire with I'm Alive. I think Mike will pick this up. Yes, that one should be fun. I love that song.

I can't stand sitting next to people who are rocking and I'm not rocking. You know what I'm saying? I'm left in the awkward position of like over rocking, you know, or just kind of sitting there like, yeah, that's pretty awesome. There's like bongos out there. I was going to do it, but I've been told not to touch them anymore. Now, if you listen to the single, though, you'll hear a ukulele solo. And it's like, that's the highlight of the whole album. This is what I'm talking about. I have a ukulele in my office. We'll have to practice something next week. I do. Why? No, you're serious. I didn't mean why. What happened? Do you play the ukulele, Dan? Well, not yet. Did you take it in trade? I got it for my birthday. Sure. For yourself? So my wife got it because I kept saying, I'd like to have a ukulele. We went to Hawaii. They were all over the place.

I want to have a ukulele. So I got one. Seriously, you said I would like to have a ukulele? I want to learn to play the ukulele. Dan, is there a… It made it to Syndrome of Fire. Are you dissing their song? They brought in a professional to do it. Well, he had to start somewhere or she. Here's the thing. Probably got it for his birthday. If there's some kind of guitar virtuoso playing in a hard rock band that decides to play the ukulele for a spell, that's totally acceptable. But a guy that strives to just play the ukulele, not as cool, Dan. Just think how that sounds with Days of Elijah. I don't know, I think… I think a hardcore ukulele guy is pretty cool. A guy that says, you know what, I don't need all that pomp and circumstance, I'll take this ukulele. I like that guy. That's right. I think you've got it wrong, man. Now, wait a minute. Is it plug-inable? Can you plug it in? Is it an electric ukulele? Oh, yeah, I see.

You're more of a… Well, I've got to learn it first before I get to the big one. You're more of a busker, a street man. I've got to start somewhere. Did you start with this, or did you start with something maybe smaller? I started with an upright. Much cooler than a ukulele. Okay, never mind. You know, actually, that's the way to go. Wait till next time you guys come, I'll have that solo down. I'll tell you what. One of the most irritating things I see when they give kids instruments, you know, like try to teach kids how to play instruments, is when they start a kid out with an electric guitar or a keyboard. What a disaster. You know what I'm saying? You get all your strength from playing acoustic stuff for a while. Yeah, you know, you want to see some kids that know how to play, the kids that started out on the acoustic guitar can actually play their scales, you know what I'm saying? Like, they had to work at it. But they give them the electric guitar, then they turn their pedals up real loud, and they just go… That's where the 90s came from. That's pretty much the entire alternative movement. That's what happened in the 90s.

You learn how to play the bottom two strings, and you rock. Or like Guitar Hero, and they think they can play guitar. Dude, some of them kids are creepy in a trance. You ever see them at the Walmart or something? There'll be a kid playing the demo version of it, and he just won't even be looking at anything. He's like in some kind of weird, I don't know, weird voodoo action. It's the creepiest thing I've ever seen. Yeah. It's focused. That's not happened to me at the Walmart. I don't know that I've ever came across some kind of voodoo man. Happens at Best Buy. Playing the… Yeah, at the Best Buy. Okay, here's what I'm going to say. I realized this week, it's going to be the downfall of the gas station. The gas station is going to find its way, it's going to go the way of the dinosaur if two behaviors don't stop happening. One, when you give them the card to pay for stuff, they say, debit or credit. And then you say, debit. And then they say, enter your PIN. Everyone has got that process down. You know what I'm saying? Like when they take your card, you know the PIN thing's coming.

That's why you said debit. And then they hold your card until the receipt is done. So you could have been putting your card away while you were waiting for it to process. Unless someone stole your card, and then they want to keep it. Wait, what do you… What do you think? A big sign comes up that says, somebody stole this? Well, it'll be a little thing that says, uh… No, no. Oh, yeah. No, that's not why they do it. That's exactly why. They wait until the receipt comes out, and then they hand you the whole thing. And then you're left trying to put the whole mess of it away while the other guy has seen the transaction is finished and wants to pay for his stuff. Yeah. I'm sorry, that's the downfall of the gas station? Yeah, it'll go away. I can't take it. I think I've been in 8, 10… Pay at the pump. No, I'm buying stuff, though. I want soda. Yeah. I go to buy soda and Cheetos.

Eh, sometimes. Sometimes the Fritos. But, uh… Like, when you pay… It just… There's nothing that irritates me more than the guy that takes it and holds onto it until the receipt comes out. Like, I just don't have the patience for it. Because then they hand it to you, and then they want you to immediately pick up your stuff and leave. And then you're left holding your card and receipt, and you got your wallet still out from before when you tried to put it away, and they never gave it back to you. If somebody steals my card, and then they're buying gas, I don't want them to give it back to them. As big of an issue as you're making it out to me. Oh, it's a big issue. I mean, what's even worse, though, is when they're like, debit or credit, and you say debit, and they're like, well, would you like cash back? Oh. And then you say yes, and then you ask for like $10 back, and then they swipe it, and then they're like, oh, I'm sorry. I ran it as credit. I was ready for that $10. You know, I think that cash back thing's annoying, too. Like, if I want cash, I'll just bring it up.

I don't think you have to ask every single person that goes through the line. Debit, cash back. Beep. Into your pen. Hold on. Wait for it to go. Okay, here's everything that you got. Try to put it away real quick and get out of here. I can't take it. There's just no reason for it. I don't know. It really irritates me. What I don't like is when they immediately, wherever you go, put the receipt in the bag, and you're like, no, I really need that in my billfold, because I need to put that on my computer so that I don't bounce a check. Do you even put all your transactions into something? What's that? Do you track all your transactions? Oh, absolutely. Seriously? Yeah. I find it easier to not be accountable for what I've spent if I don't keep the receipts. Exactly. They say, what happened? I'm not sure.

We had more money yesterday. I checked online. They said it was there. It could have been anything. My memory wiped clean while I was waiting for my debit to get returned back to me. So what was behind the I'm Alive, I'm Alive tune? Where did that come from? What's the source of that? Did I ask that? The inspiration? Oh, no. Where did you get it? Which answer were we given? Yeah, you made it sound like they had to have been sitting in some kind of bog surrounded by a mist when they, like, where was your heart and soul and inspiration from this? Or you're inferring that they stole it. That's what your question sounded like. Tell me the better way to ask the question. It's all on YouTube. So I'm Alive, what's that about? Okay, that sounds worse. Yeah, so what's that about? Come on. I'm Alive. Who isn't, you know?

Move on. What's the underlying message, or what are you talking about? The inspiration? What brought it? Go ahead, Dan. Dan, you ask. I mean, I know that we each take a song, and we each take it to mean something different, too, so that's like, we each have to answer that. But I think we all did want a song that was, like, powerful and, like, that good feeling. I mean, I'm Alive and Will Rise Forever. Who doesn't want to say that? Yeah, no doubt. I should say that when I get up in the morning. That would really change my day, you know? Instead of, dang, I wish I was still sleeping. I'm alive. What were you going to say? Well, I was just going to say, if you're asking for the initial inspiration on it, it was basically our label saying that we needed a hit. And, actually, yeah, the CEO of the label just kind of sitting down with us and helping us write the song and just giving us pointers. I mean, because as you get out there and you're competing against more people, like, one of the things he was talking about was just trying to broaden our message a little bit. I mean, because a lot of our songs, it's very specific maybe towards drugs or, you know, whatever, is like, do something that can, like, respond to everybody.

If they're going through drugs, if they're going through cancer, if they're going through whatever, they can take it and then they can jump and hold on to it. And so that was kind of the challenge, you know, that was kind of given to us. And he worked on it with us. And we spent a good day working on it. And, yeah, kind of out came a hit. So that's pretty cool. I think I would take that roughly. Maybe the Lord's got to prepare you for that kind of stuff. But, like, you know, you show up with your tunes and they're like, look, you're bringing me cheese whiz and I want the cheddar. I go, the cheese whiz is what I like. Don't roast me. But, like I said, maybe the Lord's got to, you know, he's got to take your heart and say, look, I got stuff for you if you can move out of your own way a little bit. You know, but, yeah, that's fairly cool to walk in it with an attitude like, you know, we want to do what's best here. And obviously, I mean, you're still 100% involved with it, you know, but. And you put out something pretty sweet. And that's a cool tune. Yeah, I'd say so. Like, we get to retain all our creativity and stuff. I mean, we still get, like, a lot of the final say, like, actually in the recording studio and stuff. However, it's, I mean, yeah, if you hold on to your music so tight that you can't listen

to what anybody else says about it, I mean, it's just like, if you're the only four people on earth that like it, that doesn't really help. Dude, we are the best. Let's get in the van. That's a good thought, too, because, I mean, if you're writing stuff that you like, the whole point of being able to create music like that is to share it with people. And if you're not willing to, you know, share that process with anybody, you're never, like, responding to people that you're sharing with. And that's not really sharing. That's just kind of like. You're hoarding it. Yeah. You're just beating people up with it. Take that. String them a fire. You dig it, don't you? We've really, I think, personally, I think that the band is definitely on a roll, though, in terms of songwriting, just from spending time with our producers and just getting kind of to know, like, what does make that hit, you know? What can separate you from every other band out there, you know? And so I think, like, in the future, definitely expect some great songs from us. Stuff that you might think, like, oh, cool. That's Syndrome of Fire. Or, like, I didn't expect them to sound quite like that, you know? Yeah.

That's really cool what they're doing, you know? Because we're just, we're kind of, you know, experimenting and stuff. You know, and actually, that tends to make, for me, some, like, the albums that I really love are the ones that they just, I mean, they just cover the gamut. You know, like, it's not like, you know, like you're purposely putting out some kind of Cajun tune just to appease, you know, or get off your beaten path. But whatever, like, you can tell when songs come from a different, you know, from a different attitude. Like, if you can tell the attitude that they had when they wrote it, or the feeling there and try to encapsulate, that's the whole point of the song anyway, right? And so, you know, not everybody is happy all the time. And you're like, like, I was mad 20 minutes ago. I'm done being mad. I'm going to have to leave you and find someone else that's not so mad. You know, like, I don't know, it's weird. Well, one of the things, too, is just with the digital age now, I mean, that's one of the things that the producers have really been hammered in our heads, too. It's just every song has to be able to stand on its own. It has to. It's no longer like, oh, we really like this song, so we're just going to throw it on the album. You know, it's like everything has to be geared towards radio play, towards, you know, things that people actually like and be able to hold on to. And if you want to buy your whole album, because you can just go on iTunes and just buy a single song off of an album.

I think that has so ruined the music industry. Like, seriously, there's probably. It's ruining it? Yeah. Like, I think it is. Like, I mean, it's handy for me, right? But like, someone will say, hey, you should go listen to the song. And I listen to one song, and I'm like, oh, I'll buy that song. And then there's probably three other good songs on that album. I mean, out of ten songs, I think four of them are usually pretty decent. Yeah. So, which may be why it's gone the way it has. But you know what I'm saying? Like, there's probably some great songs by that same artist that I've just skipped, you know, because I could get away for a buck just getting what I wanted, you know? It's like the cheap, I don't know, it's like a cheap thrill where I could have just did it. I could have been, and frankly, part of that is like, you used to be investing in a band, you know? Like, I'm not just giving you money because I like your CD. I'm giving you guys money because I think you're a good band, you know? And I think you deserve money for what you've done, you know? And so, now people are like shelling it out a buck at a time, like, yeah, you're pretty decent. Yeah. I could split with a buck for that.

I'm glad they let me pay my debit. Actually. Well, you actually bring up a really good point. I mean, just music business now, bands don't really make a lot of money off their music anymore. We make our money off shows. And so, like a lot of people, they're just like, oh, we've seen Cinema Fire, we saw them. And because we're always doing stuff new, trying to improve our show, trying to improve our songs, coming up with new songs. And part of it's just so we can keep giving people to come watch the show. So, it's like, oh, we don't know what they're going to do, you know? Right. Yeah. And, but with that, it's, you know, for just all the bands, I know you guys have a lot of bands coming through here and stuff. I mean, if you really like the band and if you really want them to have at least some success, you've got to support them as much as possible. And that means going to their shows, bringing other people to their shows. And just because music, the way it's distributed and everything now, it's just completely changed. And it's a totally different ballgame than what it used to be. Right. Like the music itself, the published music itself is almost like an advertisement for the show, right? Like you have to put it out to get people into the show and you don't, it's not like the two pots that you used to be able to take from, you know?

It's like this pot, you know, this is more of just an advertisement. So, here's what you're missing live. Because frankly, I mean, no one can deny that a live show has got, it's got some power to it, you know? Like there's convenience to having some stuff with you, but I mean, there's nothing that beats going to a live show and seeing, you know, seeing the actual people play the actual song and it's definitely a different vibe. Speaking of fresh stuff, do you guys have some merchandise that people, let's say people make the trek to this Evanescence show? We got some new stuff, actually. Yeah, we got pink shirts for Dan. Yes! And we've been challenging all the guys to buy them and to be proud. Especially in October here. Yeah, breast cancer awareness, exactly. Hot pink. You guys are shrewd. And we actually have a, we should have them here in the next couple of days, but we have a limited run, kind of a double EP thing going on that has both our I'm Alive, you know, EP that we've done with the label and our previous EP that we did on our own, kind of combined just for eight bucks, versus they cost five bucks each normally, so that saves a couple of dollars and then we also give a little bit of the profit to Susan G. Komen Foundation. That's very cool. That's very cool. So if anybody wants one, contact us.

Do you have a Syndrome of Fire lunchbox? Oh, that's the next one. We can order you one. Yeah, we'll get some of those. You can go next to my Kiss one. Do you want the metal box? Next to the Kiss one. Do you have a Kiss lunchbox, Dan? That's awesome. If he said yes, that'd be nice. He's going to go buy one after they leave at the Center of Fire. They haven't been in the studio yet. Dan is going to ask them when they come in. So, Gene, what has led to your lifestyle? We need to talk. All right, so I know you guys got to get going. Thank you so much for coming in. We really appreciate you guys taking the time out of your schedule and out of your days to come and visit us. Are you guys leaving? Are you kicking us out already? I thought you said you had to go. Well. You had to distribute stuff. Well, we got other things to do, yeah.

Yeah, but we can stay a little bit longer. All right, we'll stay a little longer. We'll have to do this out right away. All right. Or we can go. Or we can go. Whatever. Yeah, that ruined it. Don't make me big, but I will. Stay. It says shirt, Ben. I'm telling you. I wore it to work. Oh, we also have dog tags out now, too. Those are. Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah. We were looking for merch ideas that nobody else did. That would be a little unique. Eyebrows. Eyebrows. Eyebrows. Ooh. With our logo on it.

You know what? They should be red like they're on fire. You can call me anytime. I have ideas for you guys. Okay, well, we'll do that. I love that. You can buy our glasses, and you can break one each show. And then people want to buy them. Everyone takes them off and jumps up. That'd be hilarious. It works. Actually, a monocle would be pretty cool. Dude, no one ever sells a monocle. That's what I'm saying. What? Oh, the. Yeah, the one. Eyeclinger. Or no, the eyeclinger. Oh, that's funny. Oh, that's funny. Did you call it the eyeclinger? No, no, no. Hogan's Heroes. Who was the guy that had the.

That's the point of time. Actually, this guitar over here is Cassie's guitar, and we've been joking about it because she just bought it recently, and she bought like a two-year no-fault warranty with it, which is for touring musicians is very dangerous. I got it because I want to play with it in the van, but it might get messed up, or we might run over it with the van. Sure. Or the van might run over it on its own. It can't be trusted. So we've got the insurance. You should do a syndrome of fire van. Well, they're saying for the first 60 days, you just take it in, and they just give you a brand new one. And I was just like, we should just light it on fire in concerts and smash it and just everything. And just see how many times they do it. We did ask, and we're like, well, really, how many times will you replace it? You know, like, how many guitars could I get? I'm sure that doesn't raise any suspicious questions at all. But I asked, is there a limit? And she's like, I'm really not aware that anyone's ever gotten to so many… That's like when you rent a car and say, so what do you cover? And then you, like, start to sharpen a knife on a belt or something. I just want to know. That's Colonel Clink, Dan.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, the chat's all over it. Well, actually, just, I mean, we do need to get going a little bit earlier tonight. But if you guys, I think you guys downloaded Not Letting Go. Yeah. That's, it's available for purchase, but it's not available to listen anywhere online. And this will be kind of a first time for anybody to actually hear the whole thing. It's four minutes and one second long. It's not the MP3. It's the AIFF file. Oh, hold on. Hold on. We're going to fire this up. So while I'm doing that movie, tell us a little bit about… Oh, wait, you've done Not Letting Go. Yeah, we played that before. We haven't heard Not Letting Go. But you haven't heard the new updated note. Okay, I'm kidding. After the producer's got a hold of it. Okay. Hold on. Let's see if this… Do you have video of that still? Compare them.

I think I probably do. Oh, wait, was it… No, that one's still up. Yeah. Okay. All right, let's see if we got it. Can I see that you again? We danced. Very nice. That's not a new thing lately. When would we go? I'm working on it. It's like a three-dimensional cassette. That's cool. That's a mash-up. Broke my jack. I kind of feel bad. Just as the song was going, we were talking about the other things that Cassie's broken and belonging to the other fellas. That's why that guitar treble seems so prescient of a problem. That was Not Letting Go. That's on the new EP? Yep. Awesome. And Street 99, I mean, that's a bargain.

That's a bargain for that. It's breezefire.com. You can go pick it up. It's a download, right? Yep. Awesome. I broke my phone. I can't. Or they can come to a concert and buy it at concert, too. That's probably the way to do it. I rock it. I tell you. I sound cool through the expensive speaker. We only have one. We only have two expensive speakers, and I took one of them back in case we broke one. That way, we'd have a backup. So it's really worked out pretty well. You know, here's what I like. Don't take this the wrong way. That's the way to start. Don't take this the wrong way. Your live performance, or your recorded performance doesn't betray your live performance. And when I say that, you see a lot of people live, and it's just not the same as the album. You know, they go through a lot of time to polish it up and add things, but the quality in your live performance is the exact same as that's on the CD.

You've just had a chance to stereo and affect it and overdub some vocals or whatever. But like, the song itself is still, it's the exact same quality whether you're singing it with an acoustic guitar and just you, or with the full band. There's not very many people that can pull that off. Well, and it's actually the hardest part is coming back the other way is taking what is the energy you would feel in a live show and having that come out in a record or in something that you've recorded. And I feel like both of those songs that we've heard tonight do that. They capture an energy that's tough to put together in a recorded thing. So, yeah, congratulations. It's good. Thank you very much for that. Well, one of the things, too, is just a lot of that has to do with Cassie. And it's just because like… Oh, well. You know, I've never agreed with Ryan Moore. I'm pretty excellent. She actually, I mean, you know, she has a great voice. And a lot of people, you know, they go to a studio and they have like pitch correction done by hordes, you know, on their song. And it's like you hear them live and she's like, this person can't sing. This person really can't sing. And we're really blessed to have Cassie. I mean, she can sing wonderfully. And she does it, you know, in the studio wonderfully.

And she does it live wonderfully. And just the same thing with Sonny. I mean, well, he's just a beast on keys. But it's just… We're just really blessed in several different ways, you know, to have the group that we've had, the three of us here, you know, we've been the core group. We've had some changes over the years and stuff. But there's been a lot of things that God's promised to us. And we've just been continually just trying to step into those promises and just kind of stick with it. And so we're just going to keep putting out good music for everybody. And everybody, just keep looking out for new stuff coming out your way, I guess. It sounds like a win-win. Yeah. All right. Yeah. I think that's awesome, too, especially when you run into something even as big as like as changing out, you know, personnel. Those are times where people are tempted to say, I feel like God's telling me something different as opposed to he's paying off his promises in a different way. Like he's just pursuing, he's pursuing his will in however much he wants to do it, you know, and not taking, not missing that as opposed to freaking out because the wind went a different direction. And now it's like, well, maybe God's completely changed how he works. Yeah.

You know, that kind of ties into that second Kings things, Dan. You got that? Yes. You're electric, Dan. Electric. What would you like to know about second Kings? Can you read that part where you kind of where you stopped last time? Let's see. The servant of the man, this is second Kings chapter six, um, verse, we'll start at 15. I think, uh, well, let's go to 14. They sent the horses, chariots, a great army. They came by night, surrounded the city and the servant of the man of God rose early in the morning, went out, behold, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. The servant said, alas, my master, what shall we do? He said, don't be afraid. Those who are with us are more than those who are with them. Um, then Elisha prayed and said, Lord, please open his eyes that he may see. So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. And when the Syrians came down against them, Elisha prayed to the Lord and said, please strike people with blindness. So he struck them with blindness in accordance with the prayer of Elisha. It goes on. You, but that's the part you want to write the whole, yeah. You know, I was, I was thinking about this this week, um, because I've been on a kick

here the last couple of three weeks, just about God answering my prayer with a perspective change, never with a, never with a, like a, a physical change, but more just a perspective change. And, uh, uh, that story came to my head and I thought, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm ruined. I'm a fool because that it seems to me that, that I ignore God more than I pay attention to him. And I say that because that story reminds me of, I just kept thinking of a guy wearing like sunglasses, you know, and then he puts the sunglasses on and he sees what God sees. You know, like here's me living in my blindness, doing whatever I want, you know, and, and, and, you know, asking for the Lord's blessing and then ignoring it when it shows up completely, you know, and then, then there's a guy who starts to, you know, slowly put it on and look, look at the world, uh, that, that God created and what is actually in it. And I, I was driving and I was thinking about this and I kept looking over thinking, there's one of them sitting next to me. I know it. There's an angel sitting next to me. Hey. And I tried to half talk to him. I didn't want to go too far with it because it was kind of silly, but I kept thinking, I kept thinking, Hey man, if you're there, what's up? You know, like, I mean, if God's going to send, uh, you know, a huge army of angels to hang out with Elisha, who's to say he can't borrow me one while I'm driving around in case there's trouble. I don't know, you know, and how many times has he done that? And I've completely not, uh, recognized it, you know, like, like it's just, I just, I

kept thinking of this just has to be such an amazing site to be the other guy, not to be Elisha, but to be the other dude, you know, you're like, okay, crazy man, you know? Uh, and he's like, there's more with us than there's with them. It's like, Oh yeah. Right. And then, and then like, you know, you put the God glasses on and there's like angels with fire and spears and horses everywhere, you know, and they're just, they're just waiting for the, for God to say, go. I think we, we live most of our lives unaware of the activity of God all around us or, you know, even you can flip that around and say the activity of Satan, you know, all around us, but, but, you know, focus on the God part. He's all around me and he's for us and he's, and he's, I mean, he's just there and we act like he's not there. We forget he's there. Like, like say he, you know, maybe that was actually Jesus sitting in the seat next to you. I ain't no kidding. Going under the handle, Bernard. Cause he's Jesus and he does what he wants. You know, like, just like that, the lonely person who, who's sitting there thinking the whole world's against me. It's like, and if they would open their eyes, who, who loves them more than Jesus who died for them? You know, it's like, Oh, well, you know, but that's different. It's like, no, he's right there.

Well, see that, that's the thing. And this, and this, and this gets me because I've been guilty of this a lot. But I mean, especially people who claim to know Christ. People who claim to know Jesus, you know, they're like, you know, if you, if you really press them hard, they'll say, I really don't feel the effect of God on my life. You know what I'm saying? They'll say, I'm trying to do, you know, I go to church, I listen, I try to pay attention to what they are going, you know. But, but do you ever get to that, that, that truly, I don't know, emotional connection part? You know, like, like, I mean, and, and, and what is it, we, we talked about this in John who says, you know, to, to love me is to obey my commands, right? You know, soon you get past that. Like he says that because you have to obey him to see him. You know, he's, he's more than willing to show himself to you. And because I think people put God in a, in a certain arena, like he is, he is way up there and he can't, and they'll, and they'll say emphatically, he can do whatever he wants because he's God and he reigns, you know, and he's on the throne and I totally believe it, but I just haven't seen it yet. And the thing is, if you haven't seen it, you're just not looking. You're just absolutely not looking. You didn't put, you didn't put the Elisha glasses on to see the army that's standing behind you, with you and for you. And because what's the, what's the, uh, uh, what's the song that you really like? The, the, he is for Ben.

What is it? Oh yeah. Uh, 56. Oh, 56. God is for me. He is for me. You know what I'm saying? Like he made, he made this entire earth for everybody that's hard, that's here. You know, like there's been more thought put into me before I was made than, you know, than I've had my whole life. You know what I'm saying? Just to make me exactly who I was now. And so, I don't know, it just, it just kind of hit me that, you know, cause I used to feel that same way, you know, I'm like, I, I, I believe with my whole heart that Christ died for me. I believe that God exists and that he made this, this world that we live in. And I'm like, but I don't, I just, I don't see it. Like, I just, I don't see the, the interaction. And the thing is like, I don't see the interaction cause I have my back turned. You know, I wasn't looking him in the eye and saying, okay, I'm looking for what you're doing. Cause he probably tried to show me a million times up to now. Sure. Sure. Maybe part of that's also the, the whole scriptural idea of walking in the spirit, you know,

and, and, and truly engaged in your relationship with Christ that, and, and, and the Holy Spirit in you and, and focused, you know, from the morning when you wake up until, I mean, you know, you're not going to walk around like floating, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Hey Ryan, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. But the whole awareness, it's a discipline. I think that you develop the, the, the, the, the awareness of him around you, whether it's walking down the street and hearing a bird and going, well, yeah, God did that. You know, not like he gave me a bird, but I mean, you know, he created, created this. I like a blue bird that looks down and is like, Hey Dan, hey, hey, don't mind this worm. Your shirt's untucked. Hey Dan. Creepy. But you know, the fact that he did it all. He was sort of a creepy God. Daniel. Oh, come on. Well, I think part of it too is, I mean, you guys are talking about just not always seeing him in different things. And I know a lot of time in my own life, you know, it's sometimes I don't see him because I forget to ask him for things too. It's just, um, there's a preacher, his name is Bill Johnson, but he, he did a sermon once and it was over a, um, he was talking about God moving, uh, just because of a person's persistence. And, uh, he used the example of Mary when Jesus turned water into wine. Which we're talking about earlier, but it was just, uh, uh, and the example was like,

she's like, Hey, we're, we're out of wine. Can you make it? He's like, can you just do a miracle? And he's like, no, it's not my time yet. And she persisted. And God basically just said, Hey, it's not my time. I'm not going to do this. You know? And she persisted. And he's like, okay, I'll do this for you. Yeah. You know? And, and it was just it. Right. And, but he changed his mind because of the persistence and because of the heart, you know, uh, that was behind it. And a lot of times like when we don't see God, it's just like, you know, you're like, God, are you there? Give me a sign or something, you know? Right. And then it's, then it's just like, I don't see a sign. Uh, I don't believe in God anymore. Or I'm just going to, you know, go do this other thing where it's just like, God, are you, are you really there? Are you really in this?

You know? And I'm going to, I'm going to wait until I have an answer one way or the other. Yeah. You know, and actually I had this conversation with my wife earlier this week, um, because I was talking about, uh, looking at God a little bit differently, um, like as the relationship part, you know? And I thought, because my father-in-law came over and helped me cut some trees down this weekend because I need to cut some trees down. And I thought he came over cause I called him and asked him, you know what I'm saying? Like, Hey, I need to cut some trees. Can you come over and help me? And I thought, I don't give God that same, that same relationship. You know, like, I'm like, I'll just wait to see what you're doing, Lord, or I'll wait to see what you're moving, you know? And, uh, and I thought if I never would have called my father-in-law, he never would have came over. You know what I'm saying? Cause that's the relationship that we have. And I have the exact same opportunity to use it with my heavenly father. And I generally don't. And then I started thinking, you know what? Why don't I ask for a thing? I mean, I'm so afraid, you know, you kind of get in a mode where you're afraid. It's like, I just don't want to make God mad at me. You know, I just don't want to do anything.

So he'll be upset at me. And then you think, you know, if, if you, if you have a, if you've seen a good father, daughter or father son relationship, like just like a good father that, that loves and disciplines, um, if, if you can take that same attitude towards God and realize that, that, you know, just before you wave at your daughter, before she goes to bed at night and smile and say, I love you, I'll see you in the morning, you know, that's the same, that's the same dad I have. I have that exact same dad and I don't, I don't use him. I don't ask him for things. There's nothing wrong with asking him to bless things. He'll bless them if they're blessable. You know what I'm saying? If they're, if they're, if they're in his, uh, good and perfect plan, he'll bless them if, you know, and, and the persistence, it is the truth was there's another example in second Kings. It's the same deal where a guy was going to die and, uh, and they, they went to the, the priest, uh, the prophet and said, find out what's going to happen to me. He said, you're going to die. You know, God says you're, you're not going to make it. And then he prayed and said, I got some things to do, you know, and God says, okay, you get 15 more years, you know, you asked. Yeah. Yeah. So, and I, I, I think I was, but he messes up. Well, you know, we, we finally found, we finally found a decent, uh, a decent King.

Me and my, and my oldest time, my five-year-old were going through and, and all of them goofy every single one of them. They're going to be all right. Josiah, he was going to be awesome. And then he stunk. He stinks at the end. Hezekiah is the only guy so far of my group of like 50 guys who's done anything worth a hoot. He's the only guy where we got to shut the kid. We, we did a high five. Good King. Finally, we got one. Everybody else stinks. They're so human. What about, uh, Jotham? Oh, let's see. So Jotham was, so Hezekiah was good. Jotham was, well, Jotham was good. I thought he was. He was good. He, cause there was a reign of, of like right in the Hezekiah area, there were some guys that, that held it together. I, no, I think Jotham was, he, he was better than previous, but he, he didn't take, he didn't take down like the Ashworth pole or something like, you know, why is that pole so percent? I don't understand how hard is this thing to get to that they refuse to take it down.

I mean, just take it down. How many of them are there? Cause I, I think that's why they take it down, but then there's always another one. I always think, is there just one pole? Like someone just go get us. It doesn't even have to be the king. Just send a guy. You know, pull the thing out. It's big trouble. You'd think they'd hire like the custodians or something to take it out. It's part of the job description. You know, and it seems like that tabernacle changed, changed, uh, sundries like three or four times. Like someone would just give it away to get somebody to stop invading and then someone would loot it. And then someone would be like, we're rebuilding the tabernacle. And then like 10 years later, someone's like, strip the gold from the tabernacle. It's like, there's constantly like restocking the tabernacle. This is why we don't have nice things. Uh, what's second Kings is a, oh yeah, it's a rollercoaster. I enjoyed it. Sonny, can you give some sort of like longing, leering look at the camera so that people will be satisfied? Yeah. There you go.

There you go. Love up on it. The problem is I'm at this weird angle cause I'm using his microphone. I feel like I'm just. Somebody brought a piano in here and it really, it really spread us out, Sonny. I don't want to tell you. I didn't bring it. Don't you play the ukulele? You know, I got to work on that pickpocket song. That's going on the album. Pickpocket. You know, you know what you're thinking about the, when you're talking about them writing a song that applies to everybody? I just kept thinking of you showing up the next morning and be like, I got cancer and I'm sick. I do a little drugs here and there. You know, like, like that goes on for like eight minutes, like every ailment that could go on. I'm like, well, that'd be a real smart thing to do. My leg twitches when it rains. This is why I can't get a recording contract anyway. Mike, we really need you to change your tunes. Screw you, man. These are solid gold. Someone with a leg twitching is going to hear my message.

I feel it, Martha. I feel what he's saying. You know, that's, I don't know, that story reminds me to think about where you're focusing your priorities and ultimately what you're looking at. Because like part of, part of not seeing is because you're not, you're not searching. It's not that you're not looking. You're not even pursuing anything. You're, you're standing still saying, you know, hey, Lord, do you want to cut these trees down or don't you? And then when they don't go down, they don't cut themselves. You think, well, the Lord just didn't want to cut down the trees. As opposed to, he wanted you to get off your butt and, and say, let's cut the trees down. Lord, I need it. I need the help. You know, and, and I don't know, just, just, just making sure that you're out there. The persistence was the, was the word. I think that's, I think that's the thing is just, is just rolling forward and saying today I'm going to live for Christ and whatever that looks like, I don't care what it is, but that's what I'm doing right now today. And then, you know, we'll deal with whatever comes because if I'm living for Christ, whatever comes will be dealt with in one way or another and in a way that glorifies God. And, and if you can get the end of the day and say, God was glorified and I live for Christ today, whatever happened does not need an excuse, does not need any other explanation. What do you look, what was that? Do they want him to look in the thing again?

No, no. Okay. One of the things that too, I mean, you're just talking about just persistence and stuff. And, um, sometimes as Christians, we, we mistake persistence for striving, you know, I mean, and cause we're striving so hard to do our Christian duty or whatever, cause God is always moving. And a lot of times, instead of just being in what God is doing, we, we, we're like, we know what needs to be done, but we're going about it our own way. Cause we're like, Oh, we got to do this for God, but he's already doing it. And his way is a lot easier because his, you know, his yoke is easy because you'll do the heavy lifting, you know? And then a lot of times we're like, we're taking it all on our shoulders cause we're same outcome that we're trying to go for, but we're just going about it a different way instead of just looking at what is he already doing? Like, let's be a part of really what he's doing and ask him, you know, to open our eyes to like, what is he doing around me? Like walking through Walmart. I mean, you could just be like, God, um, like show me somebody here that needs some prayer, you know, or just needs some love that I can just stop and just say hi and, you know, just show me your love or something like that. Or you could go to Walmart and just be like, I'm going to go through and I'm going to talk to 10 people about Christ, no matter what, whether they want to hear me or not, I'm going to talk to them and maybe they might be mad at me and walk off and never ever want to hear about God again. They're rolling back prices.

You should roll back sin. Right on. But, but, but there's, you know, I mean, there, there's just a lot of that too. Um, just with things. And I think that's a lot of times why Christians also get discouraged and they don't see God because God is doing the exact same thing, but he's doing it his way versus our way. Well, I think, I think if you, uh, if you can really bring yourself to a place of, uh, of, of understanding, like of, of praying and just getting to know your father and you say, I, you know, show me what you want me to do. He will do that. He will do. I, I, in fact, I talked to a guy this week who was, uh, he's like, I, I just don't understand. I don't, I don't see that a God even exists. And I said, I want you to pray and ask him, ask him to show himself to you. I say, he'll do it. I guarantee it. He'll do it because he's not a God of deception. He's not a God of trickery or sorcery or, you know, whatever that's going to like hide from you and make a big deal. Like if you're truly seeking him, he'll show up. And, and sometimes that's the hardest step because, you know, a lot of people are afraid of what he's going to say, you know, what he's going to ask you to do or what you're going to have to give up. You know, and the thing is like, if you truly believe he is who he says he is, uh, you know, obviously he's got this thing figured out way better than you.

So you better just drop it. What? I didn't say anything. He were going to look, I'm doing this new thing. That's what I was thinking. I was thinking to God saying, look, I'm doing this new thing is because he's got to grab your attention because you're, because we're, we're just like Ryan said, you're, you're doing your own stuff without what? Nothing. I, I, are you going to answer the chat or what? I never says, so are you dating anybody? Are you an attached man or an unattached man? Me? Yes. Is this a guy or girl asking? I, I, they're not saying. Is it you? It's not me. I promised my wife I wouldn't ask. You made me cry. Don't you dare ask any of that stuff. No, I'm single. He's unattached. Go forth. Go forth.

Ask, ask God what he wants to do. I'm not saying if he has a love interest. That's weird. That's just, you're going to have to find him on your own there. Do you have a love interest? Will you be my Jonathan? I'll be David. We'll be besties. Biblical besties, me and Sonny. Biblical besties. Biblical besties. Come on, is that new? Yeah, we had that David Jonathan slash conversation last week. You got to be, you got to be creepy. If anybody ever comes up to you and either has to be the Jonathan to your David or the Titus to your, to your Paul, you got problems. I mean, that's, that's a guy you got to be, be watching out for. One's trying to like creep up on you. What's that? Dan, what is going on here? I have no idea. I have no idea. Okay. Fair enough. So, so what do you got?

You want to, you want to hit the, you want to hit the spiritual advice or what is it? Good advice, think twice or I got a life from the path. Yeah, let's, let's do some, let's do some advice given. You got, can you guys hang out for advice given or you guys split? All right. All right. Okay. Hang on just a second. All right. It's ready. Don't yell at me. Dear. Oh boy. This one's rough already. All right. Dear life from the path. What's long? I'm going to try to cut it down. My son, Bo, I assume to be a dude, married Patsy. I assume to be a lady four years ago. She left him after two years and moved out of state. There are no legal separation papers, no child support. And my grandson lives with his daddy. Bo has a mistress, a mistress now and tells people that they're engaged. More parentheses people.

Lucy's family refers to my son as her fiance and she's considered mommy to my grandson. I tried to correct these titles and it caused friction. Please understand that Lucy and I have become close. She's thoughtful, intelligent, well-spoken and a wonderful mother. I just feel Bo should finish his first marriage. This is not the type of man I meant to raise. That's her son. And this is the person he has become. Shames me to my soul. Am I out of step with society? Am I the only one who finds this set up unfair to Lucy and insulting to me, the mother who tried to raise him to be a better man than this? I have talked to a counselor. Dear life from the path. And it is indeed killing me. So can you break that down a little bit? I kind of got lost a little bit in all the names flipping around. Okay, so here's what it sounds like. So marriage, divorce. It's like the opening of First Chronicles. You can't keep track of that. It is the story of Chronicles, isn't it? The first eight chapters are devastating. Get your act together. So anyway, okay, so there's a married couple.

They have a little boy. They divorce. Well, not really. They just left. Oh, yeah, they didn't divorce. No, legal. They just left. Yeah, lady moves out of state. Boy lives with daddy. Daddy meets another lady who are a fiancé. Yeah. The boy refers to the lady as mom. Okay, so the little boy refers to… Yes. And how old is the boy? It doesn't say. Okay, that's okay. No, it doesn't say. Somewhere there, I kind of like… So the main problem, I'll call him, in the middle of this situation, the dude, his mom… Grandma is concerned. She's very upset that the boy is referring to the new lady as mom. And it's her son whose wife left. So it's not like her daughter. It's not…

Right, right. She's not grandma via daughter. It's via… Yes. Yep. Yes. Huh. So now she's upset. She's upset over this new situation. It sounds like because she feels that she's being disrespectful. In this situation, because she raised her son to be different, and he's acting like a… You don't throw around the word mom with a light. Yeah. I think that's where she's coming from. Oh, you think so? I think so. You think she's upset because the title? Because she's calling… If I read that, if I understood that correctly. Yeah, she tried to correct the titles. The mistress to mom. I think that's what she's concerned about. Oh, okay. I get it. She's looking at it as, you're still married.

This is actually your mistress. How dare you call the mistress your mother? Well, even… And it could be a stepmom, but it's never going to be mom. You have a mom. Yeah, but do you ever call your stepmom, hey, stepmom? Well, I know. I've never heard anyone do that. In our family, both of our parents were divorced and remarried. And so there are eight, well, seven potential grandmas and grandpas. And so when they're young, we only refer to grandma and grandpa as blood relatives, and the rest we refer to by name. That wasn't to disrespect anyone, but it was to make sure our children understood, you know, your blood flows from that person. From Pappy. Pappy Japheth. Yeah. Whatever you might call them. We use the term grandmother and grandfather. And, you know, and it wasn't like that the other step-grandparents didn't love them with all their hearts or we had any disrespect toward them. That's just what we chose. Now, when the kids got old enough, we let them say whatever they want. Because I remember each one was, hey, can we call blah, blah, blah, grandpa? Okay, I'm going to change this question a little bit, right? Because there's some obvious sin going on here. There's trouble. Here's one question.

Let's say you're the dad in this situation. You're the dad of this man who has a little boy, a wife that he's still married to, and a mister. What do you say to your son? There's a lot of information we don't know. How did they separate? Did she just take off? Or was it a, we're getting out of here? I mean, I just don't know what. See, I come from a standpoint there's no excuse in the world for divorce. Even unfaithfulness. You just forgive and you go on. You get over it. I'm pretty radical on that, though. So I don't know. I don't know what I would, I have no idea what I would tell. Well, she's, this woman has seen counseling to deal with her reaction to this situation. Yeah. She's pretty dead. Yeah. Yeah. She's, now, the only thing I would say, and I'm trying to be careful how I say this, but like, she is being very selfish here, for me, in her reaction to seek counseling for herself for a situation that her son has put himself into. To, it's, well, maybe not selfish is the right word, but her attention is diverted incorrectly. Her love and, I don't know, guidance or whatever is needed in that situation.

She appears to be, I mean, really holding on to that stuff and taking it on her. My, I didn't raise my son that way. That's not the problem. That you have a kid who's living in a weird family setup because of some behavior that is not acceptable that's put him there, I think to spend the time focusing on how that impacts you. Yeah. Like, that's a weird spot. Does the son ever see his mom from another state? She is out of the picture totally. I mean, he needs a motherly influence in his life. And if this woman, who is now the fiance, is just as loving to this child as a mother would be, there's nothing wrong with that relationship. You know, and it's healthy. I mean, yeah, she's getting caught up over titles. You also have, I mean, he did say that she moved away and that she doesn't pay child support. I mean, is there even any contact? I mean, because this also can be rather difficult just due to state laws to get divorced if, like, if basically your spouse just walked out on you. Yeah. I'm not saying it's right to shack up with somebody else in the meantime or whatever. But, like, if your spouse just walks out on you, you have no clue where they're at. How are you supposed to serve the papers to say, I'm divorcing you, you walked out on me and our kid, and you haven't called, you just don't care, you know? And, I mean, so there's that aspect of, you know, things, too.

However, I mean, kind of what you guys were talking about, just being kind of selfish and stuff. I mean, really the only thing that she can do is just, like, love her son and love her grandkid and just pray for him. I mean, because obviously when she spoke up about it, it didn't lead to a very good scenario. Right. And, I mean, just kind of ask God. I mean, she needs to be the best grandmother in the world. Right. Because she's missing a mom. Right. And she just needs to also ask God for her own heart, you know, I mean, to take that away. Because, I mean, to have that much stress where you have to see a counselor and stuff, I mean, that's, like, biblically unhealthy, you know, I mean, out of that situation. I mean, if you raised your kid to love Christ, I mean, you should stand, like, pretty well blameless in that. I mean, so what? Your kid made a stupid decision. It's their decision at that point. She needs a song that she can hold on to. Get out of bed every morning and say, I'm alive. That's right. I'm just saying. Mike, what are your thoughts? I blame the man entirely. That's usually my deal, but I blame the man in the middle of this whole thing. He seems like a real coward loser to me.

I don't know what else to say. The woman left. Why? My husband left. I think the woman left because he was not a good husband. That's what I think. I don't know what else to say. What about her kid, though? Why'd she leave the kid? Yeah. And no child support. I think she's got issues. He's a heartless toady. Well, that's another thing. He should have picked his future wife a little bit better. You know what I'm saying? I agree. Like, this is hard because, you know, if they don't know the difference, if they don't know a godly marriage, if they don't know the way that God has it sent out for a man to act towards a woman, you know, this stuff has already happened. That part really stinks. Obviously, if it was a Christian man, he's a disaster, and he should know better. People that don't know better, this is a tough situation, right? Because you can't take God's—I don't know, I have a hard time taking God's principles and applying them to a sinful action you've already done. You know what I'm saying? If you can't say marriage is marriage and it should be marriage for life, you didn't have a godly marriage to begin with. This is not a marriage based on God anyway.

First issue is introduce him to Jesus, become a Christ follower. Then, who cares what title you're giving people? Right. I don't know. Because, I mean, obviously, I would say that I would find it hard-pressed. I mean, there's—go ahead. I think the chat has you nailed, Mike. Mike says, you're a feminist sometimes. Ladies do bad things for no reason sometimes. Sometimes they do. Because you do—you always hold the dude accountable as if he's the only guy doing bad things for no reason. Here's the thing. The man is the head of the covenant of marriage between him and God. If he can't—if he's not doing his—here's the thing. If you take that out of his hands, you're taking the covenant out of God's hands like it doesn't matter. God doesn't make random covenants for no reason. He set this up for a reason. Why he did it, I don't know. He created man. He created woman. The man's in charge of taking care of this thing. And if he fails to do his duty, he's to blame. That's the deal. And so I'm not saying that women, you know, can't just haul off and leave and, you know, experience sin, even with a great, faithful, loving Christian husband.

But the thing is, if they got married outside of that guy's, it's his fault for having the marriage set up. Like, I just don't see any way that it doesn't come down to the man not leading correctly. Fair enough. What's your—what's the worldly advice? Secular says, dear mom, you're not out of step, and you are correct that the current arrangement is unfair to the mistress. If your son should die tomorrow, heaven forbid, the previous wife would be a merry widow with all his assets, and the new lady would be left with fond memories and a baby to raise by herself. Period. It's true. The man might be acting— She just reinforced that he's hoes, though. That didn't really help with the situation on the grandma. Oh, you're right. I wasn't much advice there is all I'm saying. Help me. Yeah, you're screwed. Okay, so if you take Jesus out of this thing, she's kind of actually dead nuts on this. He is being a bit selfish, right? Like, he's basically folding his arms saying, I'm not going to initiate this divorce. She left me. Well, that doesn't do any good for the current lady that you're pledging love to and your son. She's looking at it from a legal contract, and yeah, the ex-wife will get everything. Well, if you take God out of it, that's pretty much all that matters, right? I mean, seriously, if you take God out of this situation and you want to look at it from a blank point of view, where's the money going to go?

You know, who's going to take care of my boy? You know, he's bummed. So the chat question is, do people leave marriages because they lose faith in God or in each other? I don't think faith in each other matters a whole lot. I mean, I do. I shouldn't say that. I do and I don't. Only in our culture. I do and I don't. Because I think if you have faith in each other is almost – it depends. If that's taking place of your faith in God, then you've lost a marriage. You don't have a fighting chance. Because people will fail you continually. Even your spouse. Like you can have a – like that love that you had in junior high when you looked across the classroom and saw, you know, that significant other – you know, the other section. You just go, oh, I just love it. You know, that's a very warm, tingly feeling love, but it's not substance. There's no substance to it. It's not a give and take. It's not an action. It's not a tested, a tried love. It's just not. You know, it does feel great for about five minutes until you're like a depressed disaster when it goes away. You know what I'm saying? But that's not a true functioning marriage type of love.

It's more of a gushy, you know, whatever. And so you can lose – like I don't put my stock in my marriage – this might sound bad – in my wine. I put it in God because if we're both doing what God has laid us out to do, his plan is always way better than mine. Like I can think of things that I think are a great idea. This will really help our marriage, and I'm so stupid. Like a new TV is not going to help our marriage, you know? Mistake. You know what helps our marriage? We pray together. That helps our marriage. You know what I'm saying? Like I don't know. Maybe that seems hard like I'm denigrating today's version of marriage, but like I've tried today's version of marriage, and I really stink at it. Well, marriage is a God thing, and so culture can do whatever they want to do to it. It doesn't take it away from being a God thing. They can try to redefine it. They can try to put different parameters around it and have different ways in and out of it and that type of thing. It doesn't change it. It's a God thing, and unless you get God, you don't get marriage. You know, I mean that's just kind of how it is. So, you know, people can have multiple husbands or wives or whatever, and they don't think anything about it because I fell in love or out of love or don't tingle anymore, that type of thing. They don't get the covenant thing. Right. If it's just a contract, well, contracts can be broken and started again and amended. We can both agree that we split ways, and that's totally cool because in a contract, that's fine.

But if it's a covenant, it's a lasting promise that is held, officiated by the creator of the universe, that's a whole different deal. And it's challenging because people will come to a pastor, you know, they'll come to me, and they'll want help. And I always go back to, well, let's go to the number one issue is where are you with God because that's how this marriage hinges on. And other than that, I'm still going to love them and everything, no matter what they do with their marriage or not do, that type of thing. I'm not going to judge people on that kind of stuff because what do you expect out of people who don't follow God? Right. You know, it's a God thing. So, you know, the culture can vote whatever they want on how to define marriage. It doesn't change what marriage really is because it's a God-defined thing. But when I, because I'm a Christ follower, when my wife and I got married, we made vows to God. I mean, sure, we did to each other, too, and I promised to blah, blah, blah, and stuff. But that was to God. That's kind of what you were saying. It is a higher thing. And that's why I go even more radical in most of society. You know, if my wife was unfaithful to me, I would not say, well, there's that loophole Jesus said. You know, guess what? God said, I hate divorce in Malachi. And Jesus said, okay, well, for hardness of hearts, God allowed divorce. As a Christ follower, I'm called to not have a hard heart and to not displease God. So I will hope she will repent and forgive her. I mean, you know, that's different if she just keeps doing it, that kind of thing. But I just made that commitment. As a 21-year-old, I will never, for any reason whatsoever, ever divorce my wife. I might live miserably for however many years.

You know, if it gets to that point where I've fallen out of love, that's my fault. That's on me. That's my fault for letting myself get lazy in our relationship. I am an eval to God until death do His part. We're together, period. Well, and I think a lot of that is almost a moot point, though, right? Because if there's one thing that the Bible is very clear on is God blesses marriage. He really, a biblical, God-fearing marriage, He blesses it. And He's not kidding. Like, I've seen people who got married, had faith in Christ, and then they're 90 years old holding hands on a porch swing because God has blessed that marriage. You know what I'm saying? And He does that because He says He'll do that. And He set it up. It's almost true with anything. If God says that He's going to do something and you do it, He blesses that. That's the way that our Father works. I want you to do this. Okay, I did it. I'll bless it. Well, I mean, and you're just, I've been married now for 10 years. I just celebrated my 10-year anniversary, like, this last month. Congratulations. Which is, for somebody my age, a long time, you know? But, like, part of the thing, too, is just, like, a loyalty and commitment. Like, people used to arrange marriage, you know?

I mean, you'd be like, where now people are like, oh, I just don't love the person anymore, and so we're not going to stay together. And it's just like, well, shoot. I mean, you would have been together, like, after, like, I mean, it had nothing to, like, even in the Bible and stuff. I mean, that's, I mean, that's the way the marriage was arranged back then. It wasn't just, it didn't say, this person's daughter and this person's son fell in love together, and then they got together. You know, it just basically said, you know, these two people were, you know, married, that this was, this and this was that. And, I mean, you look into a lot of that type of thing, but it's, that's really what it is. It's just like a, I mean, just kind of like what Dan was saying. It's just like, I don't care what happens. It's just, it might suck, but I'm going to, I'm going to do this. And that's, that's the difference in, you know, kind of perspective with, like, a lot of different people, I guess, and how so many people just give up so quickly and easily on things. And the thing is, when you come at it with that attitude, then it won't suck, because you're going to do whatever you, we want to, we like to be happy. You know, God doesn't call us the happiness, he calls us the holiness, but we want to be happy. So if I know there's no way out, I'll figure out why I'm unhappy and fix it, rather than, well, I'm just out, I'll find someone else who makes me happy. And that's, I think that's a key thing in it. You'll, you'll work harder because you have to, or just be miserable, which is no fun. Well, and Malachi actually brought that up. That's kind of what, you know, the elders were doing. They were, you know, they'd go divorce their wives, not because they were, you know, so much unhappy, but they just wanted to, wanted to, you know, their wives are getting older. I want to, I want to date some babes. They found the loophole and said, well, the good Moses can write a surfer ticket to get a divorce, you know, I'm unhappy and, yeah. What? I don't know where I was going with that. You, you want to say babes in here.

We're working the word babe. That's the word of the day, by the way. You get a free bottle of water. Sorry, I drank it. I tell you, at least we know where we're staying. The one thing you can count on life in the past from, strong marriage. Strong marriage. That's what we're about. Okay. One more. Dear life in the past. I walk daily with a friend who constantly complains about her job. I have seven meetings. A person to train and emails to write. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's in there. I occasionally have an opening to mention my own problems, but it's very rare. I love this friend, but her constant complaining is wearing on me. How can I get her to just enjoy the break and not spend 20 minutes moaning and groaning? Go ahead. Go ahead, Dan. What do you do? I'm a self-talker. I like to talk about me all the time. Yeah.

It goes to the contentment, being content in all circumstances. Again, everything goes through my filter of, well, if you're a Christ father, you're going to be content in all circumstances. You're going to work as if you're working for Christ, so get off your butt and get to work, because you're doing it for the king. You're not doing it for John, the boss. I'm not sure Dan heard the question. What? Did you hear the question? Well, I just started reading the chat, so I drifted slightly. He's answering a question nobody asked. Ben, go ahead. What do you do with the person that's always talking about themselves? That's the question, yes? Yes. Okay. That's what I said. Get off your butt and work for the boss. That'll teach him. Dan, we only ask two hours a week. You know what I'm saying? Two hours a week, we ask that you could pay any attention to what's happening in here. There was a very legitimate question on the chat about the bear thing. All right. This is more of a personality problem, because I'm afraid I would be rude here. I agree. I'm afraid.

I'm not saying that's the right answer, but I'm afraid I would say, shut up. Yeah. Quit babbling on about yourself. I get it. Well, you shut up, Ben. I've heard that before, as a matter of fact. Here. On the talk radio program. I mean, because there's no, if someone is that, well, the thing to do is probably to, there's a reason they're doing that, right? Like, there's a reason someone is sharing that much about themselves. They're either, they're not feeling self-confident, so they're trying to overshare because they want you to reply back with, oh, that's great, or oh, fantastic, whatever. Or they have something that's on their heart that they're just, they're not able to express well, and they touch on, and a bunch of little stuff. So, or the person could just be flat out annoying and self-centered. I'm going to vote for it. It's possible that they're either the first two things I said, so you need to wait it out, probe around, and try to love that person. And then if it goes on for more than a year, I think you've got to change the job. Change the job? Drop them a church card and head out. I mean, you can't hang around. I mean, they're tying you up for Christ. Yeah, there's other people you can talk to.

That's true. What if they get in the way of your witness? It could be the devil. He's always talking about himself. He's self-centered. He likes what he's done. He's pretty happy with himself. I'm just saying. It has the characteristics of a Beelzebub. Well, it kind of sounds like the person was kind of in a position of authority, like within their workplace, too, because they're training people and different things like that. Like a lot of times, that comes with extra stress, like in some of the past jobs I've done. I mean, I've kind of been in that similar type of thing. So, but part of the thing that is, too, is just most of the time when my jobs would get to me, it wasn't my job that was getting to me. There was something else that was going on in my life that was causing me to like really be annoyed with my job because my job is my job. I get paid for my job. And the reason why I'm at my job is because I at least must like it somewhat. You know, so if somebody's there and just complaining the whole entire time, unless that they absolutely just have to have a paycheck and can't find anything else in life, it's normally because there's something else going on. So you're a hand on the shoulder guy and say, what's really going on, friend? So, well, not necessarily.

Because Ben kind of went the other way with it. Well, I mean, I would say, yeah, kind of. I mean, it's just like, you know, is that I mean, just try to figure out what else is going on in their life. I mean, because if all they're talking to you about is just work all the time, then you obviously don't have an established friendship if they're not talking about you about what's going on with their home life, what's going on with, you know, with whatever else is going on in life, because then it's just that's small talk to me. You know, I mean, if I'm talking to you about my job, to me, that's kind of small talk. If I'm talking to you about my family, the things that God's doing in my life, that's that's personal stuff. That's means that I trust you. I know that you care about me and stuff like that. And I guess just getting beyond that point to where a person actually feels that way. And so they can say, you know, man, my marriage is falling apart or man, you know, my my kid's been in the hospital and they don't know what's wrong with my kid, you know, because all that stuff can cause somebody just to be flipping out. Yeah. And it's just because they're relieving stress someplace and they can't do it at home right then. And, you know, I mean, they can't just talk about different things because the work is the last thing they can talk about. So there could be a bajillion different reasons for it. Well, you always got to make me feel like a schmuck, Ryan. Sorry.

I was going to yell at the guy. I had my answer already. Like, shut up, dude. Man, Ryan took the you did the right thing. Dang it. I'm sticking with give it a year and then hand him the Jesus card and head out or give Ryan's one of her. I know a guy you could talk to. I'm not the guy, but he super loves to talk to people like you. And listen to this song. He doesn't even have a real job, really. He just kind of traveled around. He wants to talk to you. So what, Mike, what were you going to say before Ryan shamed you? Nothing. I was going to hug him. Probably. I was going to stop being his friend. I can't take that. It drives me absolutely nuts. Blah, blah, blah. Work, blah, blah, blah. Especially if I work at the same place he works. Like, whatever. I don't care.

I know that man. Will you shut up? I can't take it. I would probably go sit in my car. You're very impatient with people, though. I kind of. Let me ask you this. Is it wrong to a guy that's obviously being superficial to say something like, take that to Jesus in prayer? So, like, if someone's like. I can't say that. Yeah, but what I'm saying is, like, what if he says, man, every day I go to the soda machine and I get a Diet Coke. And it doesn't ever come with a Diet Coke. It's a Sprite. And I hate Sprite. And I just want a Diet Coke. And you say, you need to take that to Jesus in prayer. Is that effective? Is that wrong? Is that the wrong thing to say? It would be more effective if you just leaned down next to him and said, let's take care of this right now. Dear Jesus, there's obviously something wrong with the pop machine. Timmy's having a rough time.

I just pray you can take it on his heart that he either loves Sprite or you change the Diet Coke. Amen. Is that wrong to do? I don't know. Because I feel like the Lord would be on board with that. It's a joke when I'm real. He's like, oh, sweetie, come here, come here. And he lays hands over my hand. He's like, dear Lord, strong nails in Jesus' name. And I'm like, oh, my. I'm like, no, it's okay. You don't have to do that. But honestly. But I'll take the strong nails, Lord. Thank you. Don't cancel the strong nails, Lord. There's a superficial man who loves Diet Coke on the third floor of the downtown. So what was the worldly advice? All right. We'll finish out with the secular here. Secular says, try this. The next time she does it, say, let's not take the office with us. Let's enjoy our break and use the time to talk about other things. Say it with a smile and change the subject.

Oh, that's going to fail. Oh, yeah. That's going to totally fail. Let's not take the office with us. That's cheesy. I would totally shut down if someone said that to me. Like, if I was trying to vet my problems, they're like, let's not talk about that right now. What do you want to talk about? What's so important in your life? Seriously, we got a whole lunch break here, you know? I didn't have stuff ready. What do you want? I didn't realize I was trivializing your time. You know what? I'm going to go eat in my car. I don't eat in my car. It's creepy in there. It's in a parking ramp, and it's in a dark part of the parking ramp at the very bottom. It's the no ladies spot. Like, women would not park in this spot because it's always dark down there. So they were looking for a guy with a compact car that would park there because I drive a Kia Opta. 2002. It's top of the line.

Better since she was new. People buy it if they're dentists. Anyway, so I drove the green van to work one time. Boy, trying to get in the compact spot in the no ladies section of that thing, that's trouble. Anyway, that's why I don't eat in the car. Mike, tell me about yourself. You're listening to Live from the Path on livefromthepath.org. Go check out the YouTube clips. Let's not take work with us. Let's share other things. What do you want to talk about? I don't know. I really broke the conversation. Well, you shut up, man. See, that works. All right, you are listening to Live from the Path. That's what I did. Why did it fail when I did it? I do it way better. I'm way more jazzy. That's true. You're listening to Live from the Path. We've been in studio with Syndrome of Fire. You can check them out.

Their website is syndromeoffire.com. Go out to Facebook, like them up, and then go see them. They're going to be playing some shows here in the Iowa area. And they're going to be at Evanescence. They're playing with Evanescence. Mike, go ahead. Go ahead, Mike. A band, a famous one. Famous band. Big band. In Milwaukee. The Little River Band. And here's the thing. You can do Kill Two Birds One Stone here. Obviously, you've never been out of the state. So it's time to put on your cool boy pants and get out of the state and go see some of the world. So go to Milwaukee on the beginning of your new life. That's true. It's time to start. What's the drive to Milwaukee? About six hours. And what time does the show start? About seven. You're going to have to take half a day.

Yeah. You can't just. Don't be trying to sneak out of there at four o'clock. If they call you ahead of time, can they follow you up there in case they don't want to get lost? They'll be following us up really early. It's like probably the day before. You know, you are certainly willing to live on this office, man. But people want to come see you play. You can't stick around. Your love seems very conditional, right? Hey, most people have GPS. And if they don't, we have fans that are driving there that do have GPS. So they can like caravan with a bunch of other fans. Is it open floor seating? Yeah. Like the tickets that we have are. And then they're also upgradable, too. So like if you want, if you bought tickets from us, we can also upgrade them to like balcony VIP tickets. Can you chew tobacco in there? No. You can smoke. You can smoke when I chew tobacco? I'm just joking.

Looks like Craig's leaving at noon so we can follow Craig. Yeah. Okay. Craig's going up. That's cool. He'll be easy to spot. Is Craig on right now? Yeah. Tom will be there after a little bit. Yeah, Tom will be there after a little bit. He's coming over. My phone isn't working. Oh. They're on the way. Craig, how late do you stay up? He's up late. All right. All right. He says, yeah. I am up late. Awesome. It's what I do. That's the guy with the cowboy hat, by the way. Two or three in the morning. Yeah, yeah.

We straightened that out. He totally caught me. Okay. We've come to terms with each other. Two or three in the morning. Craig, you're a wild man. All right. Oh, don't call before nine. Good call. Wait a minute. He laughs out loud at 9 a.m. Don't go over his place. He's just in there laughing. You pull in at 830. Okay. But just one last thing just about the band. I don't want to keep talking about the band, but we've had a lot of great fans. That's why we have you. No kidding. Go to town. We have a lot of great fans. I mean, and a lot of people that have helped us. You guys have been some of those people. Craig, since he's watching, he's been a tremendous asset to us. He had a venue at the time.

We did a CD release party there. He's, when we had the band breakdown this summer, he helped us out a little bit with that. But, I mean, yeah, the photo shoot, one of our photo shoots, he helped us out. We have a fan in Colorado. His name's Troy. Every single time, he just put on Facebook, hey, I'd like to meet you guys. And we're like, okay, well, we're going to be in your area in two hours. Next thing we know, we're staying at his place. He's feeding us food and all this type of stuff. But that's what we see, like, straight across the board. And God's put a lot of people in our lives. And we couldn't do it without you guys and a lot of people that are listening tonight. And it's just because a lot of people have been a part of what we've been doing, whether or not they're out there playing at night or not. But it's just that they've been a part of it. So just definitely appreciate them. Very cool. All right. Well, thank you so much, Syndrome of Fire, for coming by. We held you the full two hours. I know. You didn't realize it. You're in here all the time. As we suckered in with the advice column, no one can leave. I'm surprised you didn't bring in the half jack.

Yeah, it was a big one. Oh, my goodness, yeah. We have so much stupid stuff that we're supposed to be doing. We've made too long of a list. All right. You've been listening live from Bath. Thanks so much for checking us out this week. We will see you next week. Have a good one. Have a good one.