The Evolution of Bride: Insights from Dale Thompson

Dale: Hey, this is Dale Thompson with Bride and you're watching Rock and Metal Faith.

Arin Hancock: Today on the Rock and Metal Faith podcast, we speak once again with Dale Thompson of Bride. We get to dive into his thoughts on the music scene and some of the ideas behind some of the Bride songs So like I said today we are once again by Thompson, frontman and lead vocalist of Bride, as well as many other projects. How are you doing today, Dale?

Dale: Good, good, battling rain here. have ⁓ crazy rain coming through, so.

Arin Hancock: Yeah, so you announced recently ⁓ that is coming to an end.

Dale: I'm coming to an end with bride.

Arin Hancock: ⁓

Kris plamondon: What led you to that, Dale?

Dale: ⁓ if D Snyder hadn't have said it, I probably would have given you a different reason, but I'm just going to steal his reason for stopping twisted sister or stopping his performances. ⁓ it's just, I don't want people to see a shell of a guy that they used to listen to live. You know, I could still do the, do the studio stuff, but the live stuff is not as easy as it used to be. So, and people expect a certain energy on stage and they expect. you know, for me to remember the lyrics. ⁓ So you just you get to that point to where all the props that you put around you, you realize if you took them away, people would be like, ⁓ you know, that's kind of a bummer. ⁓ Feel a little bad for that guy. So I really don't want to do that. I want to I want to go out on a high note. Huh, cliche high note. But anyway, yeah.

Arin Hancock: Well that sounds good actually, know, think there's a lot of people need to realize when it's time to hang up instead of carry on past what they're able to do. There's a few out there in the scene that try to carry on little too long, I think.

Dale: Yeah, and I'll still do some recording. I'm going to record with a German band, Adorn Graves. I don't know if I'm doing the whole album, but I'm going to record with them coming up. I've got albums coming out with Ordained, Theo Throne, Boondogs, We Are Resolute. So I've got four or five albums coming out just this year. We've got a couple of shows booked, farewell shows. One's a big festival in Germany. We've got a couple of shows booked here in the States. ⁓ actually as of today, I think we we've confirmed a couple, and then we just play out the year and then, I'll just move on to whatever's next. But, ⁓ Troy and I, ⁓ our is to continue to record ⁓ and release a song every once in a while, ⁓ but just put the song out there ⁓ and somebody likes the song, they can buy it off of, you know, ⁓ whatever streaming network or whatever. But as far as putting out albums, we're not gonna sit down and do an album, that's for sure. And the touring is gonna stop as well after this year.

Kris plamondon: So, so Dale you said you do German stuff. Do you sing in German as well?

Dale: No, no. It's just like when we go to Brazil, I don't sing in Portuguese or Mexico. I don't know Spanish. They know our music. The first show that we did ⁓ in Brazil was in Sao Paulo to about 80,000 people. The whole crowd was singing our stuff, but they didn't speak English, but they had learned the songs by watching the buildup and listening to our songs before we got there.

Kris plamondon: Okay

Dale: So that was quite cool. No, I couldn't learn another language. I've actually tried.

Arin Hancock: you

Kris plamondon: I was just gonna say that that had to be a curve, you know, like, you know

Dale: Yeah, we always use translators to speak to the audience and stuff. We just played not long ago in Mexico with Jamie Rowe and ⁓ Mike Drive, ⁓ John Schlitt, Les Carlson. And ⁓ Jamie was the highlight because he sang half his set in Spanish. So when he did that, was like, okay, you know, if this was a beauty contest, we just got crushed.

Arin Hancock: you Yeah, I know there's a few Guardian albums that were actually recorded or re-recorded in ⁓ Spanish, but yeah, that sounds like a stellar lineup. Jamie Roe, Les Carlson, yeah, it have been great show.

Dale: Schlitt there. Yeah. Michael Drive Yeah, that was great.

Kris plamondon: So is the new projects similar to what you were doing with Bride or is it completely different?

Dale: ⁓ Bride has its own unique style. We play what I would consider like groove rock with a bit of progressive music thrown in. some of the other stuff, matter of fact, like the theothrone is heavier than Bride and ⁓ the ordained is more rock, straight ahead rock, like the 80s rock thing. Then of course, ⁓ The German one that I'm doing, I've just slipped my mind. Anyway, they've got a real German sound to them. So it's a lot of different aspects. But it's all rock, but it's just different levels of aggression, I guess.

Arin Hancock: You said to in regards to your retirement, they made a post that it Has its fun. It's not fun anymore. ⁓ Is the it sounds like you still like ⁓ Writing singing so I'm guessing it's the business side that's lost its fun

Dale: No, I don't get a lot of enjoyment traveling at all. I don't want to travel anywhere at any time. I've been there, done that. We've been all over the world throughout these 40 years. And ⁓ I'm tired of going to airports. I'm tired of being on planes. I'm tired of long road trips to shows, because you eventually have to admit your age. And what I've put my body through throughout the years with just not music, because, I was the guy that would stage dive or jump in a mosh pit and all that, you know, I was also boxing and I was doing heavy weights as a power lifter. So, so over the course of time, your body just gets worn down. You're, you know, your, your mind still says you can do it, but you know, like if you drive six hours in one direction, And then you have to do a sound check. You have to do a meet and greet. You have to sit through two bands because the promoter thinks you need to be at the auditorium to watch the two bands play instead of getting some rest. And then you playing, you're not out of the venue until midnight to get up in the morning at six o'clock to go home. ⁓ Yeah. Those days that's for people a lot younger than I am.

Kris plamondon: Yeah.

Arin Hancock: I hear you there. We're all getting older and slowing down I think. Have you noticed your audience change do you attract younger as well or are they just all getting older with you

Kris plamondon: Yeah, we are.

Dale: As a whole, they're just aging with me. It's kind of funny because I'll cause every day I go on and I wish people happy birthday. That's got their birthdays coming up and I'll see like 65, 77, 78 years old. I was like, holy cow, man. We're playing with like a geriatric audience. It's crazy. It's like a whole nursing home full of people. It's like, Hey, come out to the nursing home. have a piano, you know, uh, that's not what I want to do. So, uh, and to pick up new, uh,

Arin Hancock: you

Kris plamondon: Yeah.

Dale: Right now, there's never been a time where music has been more competitive and where new music stinks so bad as it does today with all the AI and the fiddling around with whatever they're doing and then calling it music. Just because it has a beat doesn't mean it's music. And these people are taking credit for writing music when it's an AI writing the music. music has been more competitive and where new music stinks so bad as ⁓ it does today with all the AI the fiddling around with ⁓ whatever they're doing and then calling it Just because it has a beat doesn't mean music. And ⁓ these people are taking credit for writing music it's an AI writing the music. They might throw a few lyrics into the mix and say, what can you give me? ⁓ Next thing you know, you've got an entire song. Sometimes they're blending the AI vocal in with theirs. I do a lot of writing and I sell short stories and I've got some books out and stuff. of the guys that I was writing short stories for his podcast, might throw a few lyrics into the mix and say, what can you give me? ⁓ Next thing you know, you've got an entire song. Sometimes blending the AI vocal in with theirs. I ⁓ do lot of writing and I sell short stories and I've got some books out and stuff. He told me that he had a band and I'm like, wow, you've got a band. didn't know that. yeah, He goes, you know what? I knew you had a band. I saw you online. He didn't really know who I am other than I write short stories. But anyway, he started explaining to me how he hired the ⁓ most ⁓ professional he could out of California. And he worked really hard on these vocals. And he said, I'll send you some tracks. Every single track was AI. He told me that he had a band and I'm like, wow, you've got a band. didn't know that. goes, yeah, yeah. He goes, you know what? I knew you had a band. I saw you online. He didn't really know who I am other than I write short stories. But anyway, he started explaining to me how he hired the ⁓ most professional musicians he could out of California. And he worked really hard on these vocals. And he said, I'll send you some tracks. Every single track was AI. ⁓

Kris plamondon: Yeah

Dale: recorded over 2,000 songs in my life. And I know what organic and raw is compared to, he probably did that album in 20 minutes, just pumped it in and gave it to me. There was no slaving over rehearsals and changing parts and trying to remember and rewriting lyrics. And then you get in the studio and then you're bouncing sounds around and it's not right. You don't know why this isn't grounded and why you're getting feedback. I mean, to me, that's the beauty of recording is getting all of that mess together and making sense.

Kris plamondon: Yeah.

Dale: of it but if I push a button and say give me a Nickelback song that's not cool at all so I mean as long you're not recording it for it you know I don't mind an AI song just you know just don't say it's something you recorded you may have created it based on parameters that you put in but you know you didn't do anything except push a button so ⁓ that's just about two ⁓

Arin Hancock: Right, yeah, no, I hear you.

Kris plamondon: Yeah.

Arin Hancock: Yeah, no, I agree with you. think AI is taking over too much. It can be useful as a tool and get ideas maybe. And I'm talking about creating music. I'll use it little bit in the research and researching with this podcast here. But I try and keep the AIs down to a minimum and do as much as my own research as possible

Dale: Well, it's like with my short stories that I write, ⁓ I've got a whole series called Tales to Terrify. And ⁓ it's a six book series now. was three, but three more books are coming out this year. And it's horror mixed with mystery, mixed with Stranger Things meets Twilight Zone meets Outer Limits. So it's a lot of fun stories and things. And I use Grammarly for my punctuation because I'm terrible with punctuation. ⁓ Most of the time I don't know when to move a paragraph, so it does it for me. But as far as the ideas for the stories, I actually plot them out. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna write a story. So here's scene one, here's scene two, here's scene three. Now I'm gonna just work on one scene at a time. And then when that is done, put it into Grammarly and say, okay, show me my mistakes, what I need to fix. And it'll be like, need a comma here. This is, this is spelled wrong. And you need a capital. And that's what I use the Grammarly for. In other words, it becomes an editor that I get for like $10 a month compared to a professional editor that I'd have to pay, you know, probably $120 a story or something to edit for me. And they probably are using Grammarly anyway.

Arin Hancock: Well let's talk about how the music scene has changed over the years. started, know, Bride was back in early 80s and even before that with Matrix. Back then it was important to have label. Now it's, now label's not so needed anymore and everybody's doing their own thing.

Dale: that's true. ⁓ I'll just take it one step further. When the record companies had us, they were ripping us off and we weren't making any money, but we were selling a boatload of albums. Now we're making no money and we're not selling any albums because we don't have record companies. We got what you call distributors that take your stuff. So nobody's selling any albums. They will tell you they are, but they're not. And they'll tell you they got 2 million streams. They don't have 2 million streams. When you start looking into it, there's a whole system involved to build your streams up without actual having it streamed. So when people were telling me they did 200,000 of this and 200,000 of that or whatever, ⁓ 90 % of the time, it's not factual. It might be truth as it is portrayed, but it's not factual truth. ⁓ I just know that, you know, I went from selling 100,000 albums ⁓ down to 50,000 albums, down to 20,000 albums. And now if we sell 2,000 albums, we're happy. ⁓ The last album, we printed up a thousand and we barely sold them all. So that was a good sign to me right there. What happened to the 199,000 people that bought snakes on the playground? Do they die or they die? Everybody got old age? What happened? ⁓ They kill off, they mellow out, they're chilling now. They're listening to the Randy Stonehill now. They don't want the heavy stuff. It's hard to determine what's... People change and stuff. You get grandkids. So you get ⁓ kids and you got and stuff. ⁓ But yeah, ⁓ the support at the are down and I'm guilty of it. don't go to many rock shows because I don't like to be in the crowds. ⁓ would rather enjoy something on my television and say, let's pull up so-and-so tonight and watch this concert. Then I can pause it and go to the restroom. I don't get bumped in. To me, concerts, unless they got really comfortable seats and everybody's sitting, ⁓ rather not be there because I can't stand for two hours and watch a show.

Kris plamondon: Yeah, exactly.

Arin Hancock: you

Kris plamondon: Yeah, I hear you.

Dale: The last show we saw was, think me and my wife, went and seen The Killers. And I was quite happy. I was up in the nosebleed section and it was great because there was very few people around, didn't have to worry about it. I looked down on the floor where people were standing. It just looked like just like a bunch of ants crushing one another. I don't know how anybody has a good time with that, but that's their thing, but not mine.

Kris plamondon: Yeah, that's right. How do you think it is an artist when you're up there performing? What about the people who everybody's got a cell phone now? Right, they can record you from the.

Dale: Well, we it used to be taboo to record a band, you know, so somebody brought in their video camera or something, you'd say, no, you can't shoot. But now everybody's got a phone and there's no way to no way to stop it. And if you're having a bad performance, they're going to they're going to post that just because they were there. And they'll be like, man, I went and seen Bride And it was like one of those shows where it just wasn't that good. You know, and it's out there for everybody to see. You used to try to make yourself look bigger than you are. Like when we did the Metal Mission video with White Cross and think Novella and Saraya, we went out to Oklahoma. We pretended it was our tour bus. We pretended this. We pretended that. We shot this big video. Like we were on tour together.

Kris plamondon: Mm-hmm.

Dale: But we weren't on tour together, but it looked like it. So people really got into that video. was like, yeah, man, bring that tour into town. We'll come and see it. Well, the bus was rented. It wasn't any of our buses. We got on the bus. did our camera thing. We got off. ⁓ Then they took us by a big swimming pool. think he may have been in a hotel we weren't even staying in. And we're sitting by a pool like, hey, we're living the life. This is great. Yeah, yeah, Jesus rocks.

Kris plamondon: ⁓

Dale: But it was all fake. So now with the camera in your hand, catch every mistake, every ⁓ every bad note, and you can't go back live and fix that. The last show we played, I screwed up a psychedelic super Jesus when we started and I was just like, stop. I said, they didn't come to watch me screw up. Let's start the song and do it right. And I would have never done that in the past. And it wasn't so much for ⁓

Kris plamondon: Right.

Dale: For me, it wasn't so much an ego thing at that point, or maybe somebody was going to post it. It was me saying, let's give these guys what they paid for. I need to pay attention what I'm doing and remember my lyrics. And then we started the song and finished it for them and everybody was into it. And we did it. It was the encore. mean, how embarrassing is to screw up the ⁓

Arin Hancock: It happens, you know, I've seen actually ⁓ even mainstream secular bands do that on a recorded performance. Screw up the song, stop it and then restart. So you're not the first and you're not the only ⁓

Dale: Yeah. Yeah.

Arin Hancock: But yeah, we're talking about the music scene today and we're talking about you had the labels giving you money, you owe them that money back and trying to sell records and stuff. I think today without the labels though and everybody getting music online, it's kind of fragmented the audience. Back when we had labels, it was the labels saying this is what's in, this is what's popular and everybody gravitated to that. they gravitated the heavy metal scene when it was in, they gravitated the grunge when it was in. ⁓ And everybody's fragmented that everybody's listening to everything, but they can't pull the resources towards one trend anymore.

Dale: Yeah. Well, I see happening too is that anybody can record now and you're getting so much really honestly bad music. I I'm not a fan of thrash or the growling thing or the ⁓ screaming vocal, especially when the are doing the gravelly thing. And I just, can't ⁓ deal with it. It just, no sense to me. It's like, you know, you're doing music that cave people probably enjoy, but

Kris plamondon: ⁓ yeah.

Arin Hancock: You

Dale: You know, I want to hear a good song. And some of these people can actually sing, but they're doing that vocal anyway. I mean, they can hate me if they want to for that state of it. I have a lot of haters, so it doesn't matter. But I just think it was so much cooler when we had labels because it meant something that you had to be extraordinarily good or something to get the attention of the masses. And now what's happened is the masses, like you said, are fragmented ⁓ and picking up albums and they're caught. It's like the emperor's new

Arin Hancock: you

Dale: close it's like there's people who saying that's fantastic and i'm listening to it i'm like horrendous man i think everything about that certain there's no hooks the vocals can't sing they get tar players out of key the drum is losing time it's like ⁓ but anyway i mean i god bless everybody wants to play music but not everybody has been called but there's more bands now and here's the problem is that

Kris plamondon: And what? Yeah. Yeah. Not everybody is called, yeah.

Dale: bands today or even of yesterday Very seldom supported other bands, like I don't rush out and buy less carlson's music though I love less carlson and love his music and less probably does not own a Bride cd and we don't hold it against one another but whenever Whenever everybody is a musician ⁓ nobody's gonna nobody's any albums. I mean, it's it's it's insane It's absolutely nuts that, I mean, in the old days before I was really a professional musician, I had loads of albums. I was buying everything. I had, Messiah Prophet, Leviticus, and Jerusalem, and Resurrection Band, and ⁓ and I mean, you name it, I had every album known to man. And then I haven't bought an album in 10 years at least. And I think the last one I bought may have been a Leonard Cohen album. ⁓

Kris plamondon: ⁓ wow. ⁓

Dale: Yeah, so it's definitely wasn't heavy metal,

Arin Hancock: Right.

Kris plamondon: So Bride started, what was your influence

Dale: my influence has always been Ronnie James Dio Steven Tyler, Robert Plant, Ian Gillen, Bruce Dickinson. Later on, Rob ⁓ for whatever reason, I just missed Judas Priest in the beginning and didn't give them time of day. And that was a mistake because, you know, later on I realized that guy can really sing. ⁓ I think of course, you you listen to a lot of radio. So back then you had AM and FM radio. So you were influenced by a lot of stuff, but with Troy and I, because, you know, we're brothers in the band, we were listening to the same stuff. I tended to take things a bit heavier than he did. You know, of course we all, love Queen and REO Speedwagon and Styx and Kansas and those bands. I to take things a bit heavier ⁓ and think he was looking for the hook. So we compromised. Because I mean, he's got Hall and Oates in his collection and I don't. ⁓ Troy likes yacht rock. I don't. So we meet in the middle, you know, ⁓ of we think we can do. And you try to write within your skill set, you know. I mean, I can't sit down and write it. I couldn't sing a Journey song if a gun was put to my head. You know, so it's and some people can just nail it. So it's you just do things that sing your wheelhouse. And but yeah, I just think that ⁓ we were influenced by what was happening in the late 70s and 80s. And we grew up on country music, so we could have been country artists instead. And funny is there's no such thing, I don't think, as Christian country music like Christian rock music is. I think you've got country music guys that play some Christian songs. So I don't know how we didn't get the country music Christian thing going. anyway, I guess I guess they can kill two birds with one stone by just pretending to be wholesome. I don't know.

Kris plamondon: And well now that's starting, The Christian country, yeah, there's a big movement on all of the platforms to try to get artists out there. Some of them is pretty good from a vocal standpoint. Some, can really sing and...

Dale: Is it? Well, I actually do country better than rock. Maybe I need to shift gears and look into that.

Arin Hancock: There you go. I know some other groups have done that. Shipped it from Iraq to the country. I don't mind it, but this is not the country metal or country faith podcast. This is rock and metal faith.

Kris plamondon: I know, Arin doesn't like Country so we could just move on. We can make it the rock Christian rock metal country blues, you know.

Dale: There is a style of country. I do like dark country. It's a type of stuff that can be played in a very heavy Western. And I do blues music. I've got the Boondogs as a blues band. We've got four albums out. I do like the blues, but yeah. We got a new album coming out too, so it should be out this year, Boondogs.

Arin Hancock: Yeah, I've listened to some of that stuff. Actually, the boondocks are

Dale: too, vinyl too, so if somebody wants to buy a vinyl, it's only on vinyl, so.

Arin Hancock: right. Yeah, our problem with new music or buying music from American artists is we live in Canada, so we've got to pay exchange and the shipping rate, making it double the price.

Dale: Yeah. Yeah. I ship stuff to Canada and I just hate when I have to tell them this is what it's going to cost you. You know, mean, if album, you could use it like a frisbee if you could find the crossing and try to give it a toss over. If you start doing some drone stuff and hope we didn't get shot down, you know, but yeah, we need to need to get some stuff up there.

Arin Hancock: There you go.

Kris plamondon: That'd be awesome.

Arin Hancock: ⁓ I mean, I understand things cost, know, it just makes things little cost inefficient for us ⁓ trying buy this stuff. ⁓ know, and I want... Yeah. And the comment about Christian music or Christian rock versus country actually sounds like a post...

Dale: Everything right now is outrageous.

Arin Hancock: George Okoha had made there, said, why do we have to call it Christian metal? Why can't we just call it good music or, know, whole-some inspiring music or something like that?

Dale: Yep. Well, whoever come up with that whole thing of Christian rock, the term ⁓ was a moron because what you do is you say, I'm doing songs for Christians. So the rest of the people is excluded from it. And those are the people you're supposed to be trying to reach with the music. So whoever coined that term Christian rock, should have been stopped like Hitler should have been stopped because he's done a lot of damage.

Kris plamondon: Yeah. reach. That's right. Yeah.

Arin Hancock: Yeah, I think Stryper probably had the right idea. They got signed to a mainstream label, tried to avoid the Christian metal term, but continued to write faith-based lyrics. And everybody knows that. If you're a fan of Stryper, you know what you're going to get on the next record.

Kris plamondon: Yeah, that's right.

Dale: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's like Skillet mean, and Red they had some good mainstream success. MXPX had some good mainstream success. But yeah, people kept telling us you should go secular and I'm like, how do you do that? Where's the crossroads? What's the devil look like? I never could find him to do that, so ⁓ I just stayed as a Christian, so. ⁓ Yeah, yeah, I just didn't, you

Arin Hancock: Right.

Kris plamondon: Right, that's good, Darrell. ⁓

Dale: I looked for him but he wasn't there so...

Arin Hancock: in one post there when you were, I think, doing live answering questions, but you talked about ⁓ when the Drop first came out that it got a lot of flack, And then now people look back on it and give it more respect than when it first came out. Do you think that was just the change in musical direction between Scarecrow ⁓ and Drop?

Kris plamondon: Yeah, right.

Dale: Yeah, because it shocked people. That's not what they wanted to hear when they paid good money for a Bride album. They didn't want to hear John Cougar Melloncamp. They wanted to hear Metallica. ⁓ go from this ⁓ ⁓ sound and next thing you know, we got Jim Baes and Bongo's and Tambourines galore ⁓ and the whole mood of the music changed and

Kris plamondon: Yeah.

Dale: We put a couple of rock songs on that particular album and we thought that would tie people over, because ⁓ harder songs didn't sound as good as acoustic sounding songs did. Like, Personal Savior is a great song, I think. But ⁓ the mix of that song, it...

Kris plamondon: Mm-hmm.

Dale: it took something out of It's much heavier live and we didn't capture where we wanted to be heavier on that album. The engineer, he was trying to keep things kind of everybody on the tone it down a bit on everything. And we probably should have said, hey, this song is supposed to be heavier. And then we could have beefed the guitars up and thicken the drums a bit. But ⁓ as far as drop goes, I thought it was a superb album. once listen it more than once, they started catching it. They started getting it. ⁓ then people started to me apologizing. Even ⁓ reviewers, some reviewer I gave you six stars when you did this ⁓ album, ⁓ and give a nine on it now that I've had time to listen to it. It's like, well, that would have been handy at the time. ⁓ record company wouldn't have went bankrupt if you would have, you know.

Arin Hancock: Yeah. Well the review is sometimes it's tough. actually for a couple months or did online music reviews, had to drop it because they were asking too much of us and I didn't have time to absorb the album and give it a fair review. I only had time to listen to it once or twice and go okay what are my quick thoughts on this. But sometimes yeah you need time to really absorb and listen to it. Drop was one I liked. the following ones, the Jesus Experience and Oddities those ones that threw me for me basically because I wasn't into the grunge scene

Dale: Yeah. Well, people call those grunge, but if you listen to some of the songs on there, they're heavy as anything on snakes. know, I found God is a song that just rips Love Hate is another one of those songs. It's just screaming hard rock. ⁓ But happened was the record company decided let's push the song The Worm and let's push on the other album that is still Under the Blood. Well, that was two more grungy sounding songs. But

Kris plamondon: Mmm. Yeah.

Dale: We also wanted to make sure that if this grunge thing took off, we weren't left in the dust. When we first started, we were doing almost thrash music. It was borderline thrash at times, you know? And that's not a direction that we would have had any success in past the three albums that we'd done. That's why we changed gears on Kinetic Faith is because... Nobody was booking us. We play Cornerstone and we might play another festival and occasional show out in the cornfield somewhere. But nobody was booking us like crazy, even though the metal dudes love those albums, the double bass and the crazy guitar solos and stuff. But when we come out with Kinetic Faith, well, actually, Everybody Knows My Name changed everything for us. The song went 18 weeks at number one on the rock and metal charts. Then we released Same Old Sinner and it did like 15 weeks in a row at number one. next thing you know, we've got a record company seriously interested in They were two that was placed on a Best Of album. Star Song thought they would buy ⁓ Bride stuff. We'll have them do two new songs and we'll do a best of and we'll call it a day. But they couldn't deny the fan support that we had in those days. So they went ahead and signed us to a contract, a record deal. And that launched us big time. We had Clout because we were with a record company. We had voting power within the industry. because they had a big delegation of people that belonged to GMA. So we were playing shows with Four Him, Sandy Patty. ⁓

Kris plamondon: ⁓ wow, you know you're big, Sadie Patty, right?

Arin Hancock: You

Dale: Yeah, Sammy Patty told me that I sounded like somebody that had just stuck his hands in some scalding hot water.

Arin Hancock: Sandy, Patty and bride, could you imagine that?

Kris plamondon: Wow.

Dale: And she had no idea who we were. I only knew who she was because I saw her albums when I worked for Zonderman Family Bookstore.

Kris plamondon: Yeah, that's wow, that's quite the contract to go from slow to you

Dale: It is quite the contrast and the little story about Margaret Becker. We opened for her in Norway and on the way back to the hotel, she told me she'd never have us open for her again because the people were chanting Bride throughout her whole entire set. She hated it. up there doing her thing and she's great, but the crowd wanted to mosh. ⁓

Kris plamondon: Hahaha! ⁓ That's aw- that's awesom-

Dale: Yes, it was all good for us and bad for her.

Kris plamondon: I always wonder, like a late listener to Bride, And it didn't really me compared to now when I, like early this morning, I listened to Personal Savior, I was like, why didn't I hear this then? ⁓

Dale: Hmm.

Kris plamondon: You know what I mean? thought, wow, like you guys are.

Arin Hancock: It was out. I know it got air play. ⁓ I'm sure you your play around here anyways.

Dale: Well, I think that our last four albums are some of the best work that we've done. think Vipers and Shadows, ⁓ it's just brutal from front to finish. We made sure that we didn't have any throwaway songs on that album. And Here Is Your God, ⁓ I listened to part of that just the other day just to see if I had been lying to myself. But that's an awesome album, you know?

Kris plamondon: Yeah. Yes, that's a one.

Dale: Sometimes you look back, I mean, there's only a couple of albums that I question why we didn't do them different, like Incorruptible for one. didn't, I didn't, nothing about that album. The whole vibe is wrong. Skin for skin, even though it's got some good songs on it, ⁓ just the nightmare it took to do that album. was. That was an uphill climb. I mean, when you fire your drummer on the first day after you do weeks of rehearsal for the studio and you're sitting in a studio by the hour and you have no drummer now because you fired him. So we had to find a drummer to finish the album. So luckily our bassist knew a couple of drummers and they split up the album so they could learn one half and one learn the other half. So something to that degree.

Kris plamondon: I guess from a listener standpoint, that happens, is there a long period of like rehearsal? You have to go three, four, five months rehearsing the tracks or were they ready to come in and ⁓ just do right away?

Dale: Well, on that particular album, the band had rehearsed those tracks endlessly. We had a lot of pre-production. ⁓ So we all knew them. So when the drummers in, they could chart it out. They ⁓ read ⁓ a tab. So they would just tab their and they would just play along to the parts. We'd rehearse the song once or twice. And they say, let's take it. And almost every time they got it on the first take, were brilliant, brilliant drummers, these guys. we used to do albums, we would slave away for weeks at a time, two or three rehearsals a week, writing songs. Troy and I would bring an idea in like a riff, parts, vocals, melody. And then we would say, okay, guys, this is what we're hearing. So the bassist and drummer at the time ⁓ would their... ⁓ style or whatever into the songs. Troy and I were very careful about who wrote what and because we were the main songwriters. So you had to have a really good ideal that Troy and I both voted yes on for the, your ideal to make it into a song. And that was just not, that wasn't a control thing. was like, Bride was our baby and you see where we're at today, Troy and our bride. ⁓ now have, ⁓ America anyway, we have Frank Portapillo playing bass again, and he was our early bass player. ⁓ And then we have Mike Loy, who played in the middle of Bride's career on This Is It and Fistful of Bees. He's back with us ⁓ drums. ⁓ we just to make that Bride was Troy and I and always was Troy and I and... And where any confusing came in with maybe one or two of the other band members is I guess they thought they were more than more than what they were in the band. Even though they were just playing drums and bass and a couple of guys, they took offense to that. you know, you know, it Troy and I was taking all the risk and it was they never put no money into the band. We were the ones going and having shirts screen printed, picking up CDs.

Kris plamondon: Hmm.

Dale: We were the ones organizing all the mailings. We're the ones organizing the tours. So it was always Troy and I.

Arin Hancock: Sounds good. you talked earlier about best of there that brought on was it Same Old Sinner and everybody knows my name there. Those are actually great songs. I got into Bride with Snakes and kind of went back. I think that was one of the first ones I picked up going backwards type of thing. What were the thoughts behind writing those songs?

Dale: Yeah. Well, Snakes in the Playground, we knew that it was going to be a big album. We had a lot of momentum going into it. We already had lots of dates booked that we were going to, because we were doing about a hundred dates a year at that time. ⁓ we just, the songs just were sounding so incredible in the studio that it's like, people cannot overlook this album. This is, is a monumental album. This is a big album. even in the Christian or secular mindset. So for like 1991 or 1992, whenever it came out, it really launched our career. And we had some momentum because we went on tour with Stryper. That was the first tour that we did with Stryper. So we did that tour and at the end of the tour, Michael Sweet decided that he was going to leave Stryper. I guess he had already been talking about it. ⁓ Robert asked me if I would like to be the singer in Stryper. And I'm like, wow. goes, well, we got a show to do out in California. ⁓ We'll give you the songs. You learn them at home. And then you come out and ⁓ we'll rehearse them. And then play the show at Knott's Berry Farm and ⁓ see what you think. So I did ⁓ Loved it. It was fantastic. ⁓ I mean, we just, we ripped. mean, I was, I was blown away. I'm looking over and there's Oz and then, you know, there's, ⁓ Tim and, and got Robert behind me with his hair and all that stuff going on. I was like, yeah, this is way cool. But unfortunately they were sort of on their way down. They were, they were, were kind of in a bad spot at that point, which right after against the ⁓

Kris plamondon: Ha ha ha.

Dale: And Robert didn't really sell it to me like he should have because he was going through some things at the time. And I really, I started really feeling bad because they'd worked so hard and it looked like it might all be gone. And Bride was on the way up. So I was like, man, you know, what do I do? So, you know, after, after consideration prayer, you know, and just seeing what, the best fit was, just told him I couldn't do it. So that's when Snakes was birthed out of that. And the star song, the record label, they decided to print out these flyers, actually the newspaper. It says, is Dale leaving bride for Stryper? Is Dale the new singer of Stryper? And they were handing out these newspapers free at Cornerstone. Well, the funny thing was it was done on pretty cheap ink. And you know, a newspaper rubs off on you to begin with, you know, if you hold it too long. Well, we knew everybody at Cornerstone that year had seen that paper because everybody had ink smeared all over them. They'd come up for it, the sign stuff, had marks on their faces. So this newspaper was like coming off on their hands, it was on their clothes. I was like, wow.

Arin Hancock: Yeah.

Kris plamondon: ⁓ no!

Dale: But it generated a buzz that we needed. And that buzz put us back out playing again for a very long time. ⁓ Yeah, was a great album. was our time to shine and we did.

Kris plamondon: How many, ⁓ do you know how many units you sold of that album?

Dale: I've heard anywhere between 150 and 200,000 records is what I. Yeah, that's that's worldwide and that's not everything that was bootlegged in Brazil because I was told that there was another 200,000 that sold in Brazil alone. Yeah.

Kris plamondon: And was that worldwide or just in the US? Wow.

Dale: And I know that there was a lot of bootlegging going on because we would go down and see the booths that people were selling our merchandise and all the different covers for the Stakes in the Playground album. So they were just generating these Xerox companies and popping them in and selling them. So it was like, you know, and we had a good momentum coming out of Brazil because we kept making trips to Brazil over and over again.

Arin Hancock: you

Kris plamondon: What do you think it was about the Brazilian people there? They just liked something different?

Dale: One of the things was there was a pastor down there, they call him apostle. So the apostle, he had a mega church and he had dozens of churches beneath him. So these churches pretty much did what he told them to do and he had a radio station and a TV station. And if he said, come to the show, they're coming to the show. But I think the expectations We're not as high as what actually happened, you know, because we filled, we're filling up soccer stadiums and you know, we, played in Rio along the stretch at the very end where, where the, the carnival stops and man, there's thousands and thousands of people at that. And we did that for a long time, for, for many years. But I think it was the fact that we were always on TV in Brazil and we were always on the radio. So, ⁓ it's just, you know, you're getting to Brazil, you got a show to do and you're driving down the road and the guys, into the radio and your song comes on. It's like, that's cool, we're on the radio, you know? So I think it was a lot to do with that and just the people in Brazil has good taste in music too, so I think that's another reason.

Arin Hancock: Thank Yeah, a lot of bands do well over there and you know, must be the whole scene is different in Brazil, just like it's different over in Europe than here.

Dale: Yeah.

Kris plamondon: What is it like for a songwriter to go out there with that many people out there?

Dale: ⁓ no different than, than if there was 40 probably it's, never, I never got nervous to play. ⁓ you know, I told them in an interview the other day, I never get nervous and ever get embarrassed and I'm, I'm fearless. I have no fear of anything. And that's probably a bad thing. Yeah. It's like there's, there's fight, but there's no flight and the flight is what saves your life.

Kris plamondon: That's probably a bad thing.

Arin Hancock: you

Kris plamondon: Yeah, that's right. I've seen your videos of it out there and I'm like, that is crazy. Like, wow.

Dale: I used to do some nutty stuff back in the day, that's for sure.

Arin Hancock: you You said one time there people were asking how you write lyrics and you've got like just a mass of lyrics that you try and fit to whatever Troy's written. Has it always been that way or in the early days were you trying to write the whole song at once?

Dale: No, I would have bits and pieces on different pieces of paper and I would have like a line like, ⁓ I don't know, something that, know, psychedelic super Jesus. Like I wanted to use that. So I just start thinking if I've written anything like that, ⁓ yeah, yeah, I've written something here about, you know, know, lyrics out of this other song. So I put these lyrics here and now I need a rhyme for this to make sure it rhymes at the end. ⁓ But I didn't sit down like Bob Dylan and write a story from scratch. then suddenly he's got poetry. I never really considered my songs poetry. Maybe some of the solo stuff I did. I acoustic album as a solo artist called Acoustic Daylight. And it's more the Bob Dylan type stuff where it's... ⁓ It's more like singing poems than it is just doing a bunch of one-liners and waiting for the big chorus hook.

Arin Hancock: I'll throw out a few songs here with Psychedelic Super Jesus, since we've been talking about that, whose idea was it bringing that talking bit at the end there where you're going, I don't know what a eucalyptus tree is and, man, it's a tie-dye all over again. Whose idea was it bringing that talking bit in?

Dale: that was just something I was doing in the studio. I didn't even have it written down. So to do it live, I do it different every time because I don't know what I actually say there, except I don't know what a eucalyptus tree is. I might mention a minivan from the day, the Beatle minivan with the sunflowers on it. And, you know, I'll mention something from the sixties during the thing that I'm talking about, but I don't, I just wait for the beat. when I know it's four.

Arin Hancock: you

Kris plamondon: Yeah. ⁓

Dale: I got to start doing the vocal build for the big crescendo, the big scream. yeah, I mean, I just faked that.

Arin Hancock: I'll throw out a few songs here if you've got stories behind them, where they came from, meaning behind them whatever. Heroes, that was obviously a metaphor, it's from what I took from it. And that scream at the end of the song, that's very eerie and kind of throws me off.

Dale: Oh, the thing that ends the album, that wasn't me. That was the producer. had nothing to do with it. There was an upright piano. There was a full-size baby grand, a full-size baby grand. It was a baby grand piano. It could have been full-size. Anyway, was sitting in a corner turned up on its side.

Arin Hancock: Yeah, that, ⁓ ⁓ okay.

Dale: And he kept messing around with that thing, making creepy sounds with the strings. So after we mixed the album, we were mixing the album, but I had to leave before the mix was done. So when I got the album, I was as shocked as everybody else to hear that. It was ⁓ Armin John Petrie, famed ⁓ Sixpence, none the richer, Goo Goo Dolls guy, producer that ⁓ he decided to do that. He called it the goats bleating.

Kris plamondon: Hahaha! What was that?

Arin Hancock: Yeah, I was wondering was that supposed to be a demon thrown into the abyss or something?

Dale: who knows, but it was too late. It was pressed albums.

Kris plamondon: Yeah, you can't, I guess you can't bring it back, reverse it and no, it's done.

Arin Hancock: But. But yeah, so the song itself obviously was a metaphor, that a metaphor of a spiritual battle then?

Dale: Yeah, it's just kind of like good and evil. It's like the short stories I write, a lot of it is good versus evil or just mental anguish because somebody's having a psychological breakdown and trying to find their way back. And a lot of times I bring in

Kris plamondon: Yeah.

Dale: Bible references and stories and stuff to this person's trying to identify with the good rather than the bad. So, but yeah, it's in plus I was playing listen to a lot of Iron Maiden at the time. So I have a feeling that, you know, I was trying to do something like number of the beast or, you know, something like that. I don't know what I can't remember exactly, but I do know we were listening to a lot of Maiden and, you know, Bruce Dickinson is a history lesson every album. So.

Arin Hancock: Right, yeah. I like stuff as well, too. ⁓ Where was that from? Too tired off the Fist Full of bees. ⁓

Dale: ⁓ For me that that was just like I'm tired of being duped. I'm tired of being I'm tired of being lied to I'm tired of you just because All the sheep are going this direction And I know we're supposed to be going the other direction and I'm going to join these guys I'm tired of you calling me a heretic and that Just because I have a different ⁓ theology than you do. So I was like, I'm not falling for what is kind of like a fool me once, know, fool me once, shame on you fool me twice, shame on me. So yeah, it's, you know, won't be duped again.

Kris plamondon: What are your favorite songs to ⁓ perform when you're out on stage?

Dale: I really like ⁓ Hired Gun.

Kris plamondon: Yes, that's a good song.

Dale: Picture Perfect is a great song to do. It's a fun one. ⁓ I think if Mama is hitting on all eight cylinders, really is a powerful song at the end of the night.

Kris plamondon: Can you tell us about mama a little bit? How did that come about?

Dale: ⁓ I could just envision because I was in LA at this point. I was seeing all the homeless people and, and, know, birds have their nests, foxes have their holes, have no place to lay my head. And I just saw the, and Los Angeles at the time, it was, it was like pitiful. It was, you know, you got people driving bentleys past people that have a piece of cardboard, you know, that they're laying on, you know, and it also serves as, Hey, give me money, you know, so It was just trying to bring to the homeless, the people of the world. I the song Help. It's the same concept. Hide a way hell city of cardboard boxes? Lost her hope. ⁓ So always had this ⁓ conviction that ⁓ basically said, the... poor and the widows and the orphans. you know, I mean, that's real ministry, not going to church. Going to church isn't ministry. It's occupying a pew and giving 10 % of your money to somebody you don't even know where your money's going. But you know where your money's going, you've asked somebody a hamburger and you're like, and that means more to them than if you say, here, let me tell you about Jesus. You gotta work in. You're not gonna save all the homeless people by preaching a word to them, because some of them know the word better than you do.

Kris plamondon: Yeah, I think that's part of what Jesus wanted us to have, empathy for others.

Dale: Yep. Yep, absolutely.

Arin Hancock: Yeah, definitely actually and those two great songs actually I loved. Like I I actually enjoyed Drop when it came out. It was a different sound, times are changing, but that was the way I could actually get into. Let's jump into ⁓ Fuel and Fire off of Skin for Skin.

Dale: ⁓ wow. I did the song I'm the Devil from Drop and I wanted a part two of that. So I kind of have a fuel and fire because it's about the devil singing I'm coming through town in my hot rod. and picking up as many souls as possible along the way. So the whole song is like, when I sang the song, I'm the Devil, was from the devil's point of view. And I did fuel and fire. And I actually say, this is part two of I'm the Devil. I do actually say that in the song. You have to listen for it, but it's in there.

Kris plamondon: Yeah.

Arin Hancock: Right. I think you said to you on Skin for Skin there was a follow-up or sequel to All Hallows Eve. What song was that one? Or was that Skin for Skin song?

Dale: ⁓ I don't know. How was Eve? Let's see. Well, we did, of course, Silence is Madness. ⁓ I wanted to have, actually, if it had been left up to me alone, I wanted more songs like Heroes and All Hallows Eve. I wanted these epic songs with these giant musical pieces, a lot of twinning guitars and stuff. I don't know which song that is though that you're talking about from that.

Arin Hancock: Yeah, I can't remember now if it was the song, Skin for Skin, or if it was another one. And I know you said one time, when you listen to music, and I feel the same way about this, this is why I bring it up when you listen to music, you get more into the music than you into the words. ⁓ The chorus may be catchy and you may pick up on the chorus, the verse is not so much. ⁓ That's why thought I'd ⁓ by where some of these songs came from, because I'm listening to them going, I love the music, the music sounds great, here's the chorus.

Dale: Yeah.

Arin Hancock: And then I'm going, now I'm not sure what the song's about. And sometimes in the production, the music overpowers the vocals. That's just the way it's produced. going, and unless I got a lyric string from you, I'm not sure what's going on here, type of thing.

Dale: Well, when you take distortion and a kick drum and you throw it into like a cement mixer, it's like putting your head into the cement mixer and trying to sing and people hear you. To me, that's what heavy metal does. So I think all heavy metal albums need to come with a lyric sheet because ⁓ I can't understand anything that anybody says. And I'm one of those guys to pick up these lyrics in my head. I've sang them my whole life only to realize they're not even close to being what I thought they were.

Arin Hancock: Right.

Kris plamondon: Yeah, that's true.

Dale: With my songs, I don't want to tell anybody what the song is really about. To me, it takes away from why I wrote it. But I wrote the song for everybody, not for me. So it might have meant something to me at the time. But now I've handed it off. It's like handing off an adopted child. You hand this out to the masses. And it's up to them to decide if the song speaks to them or not. And everybody will have a different take on a song, which I think is very cool. It's like a kaleidoscope. You've got one eye to see in, and it's all the same pieces, but all the pieces, every time somebody else looks into it, changes. But it's all the same pieces. It just looks different. And that's what I like about... not giving away why I wrote it because why I wrote it might not be as significant. ⁓

Arin Hancock: Right. Or everybody can get what they want out of it.

Kris plamondon: Well said, Dale.

Arin Hancock: can get what they want out of it.

Dale: if the song touches somebody then that's that was my intent so Yeah ⁓

Arin Hancock: Right. Okay, well at least maybe couple more songs just to pick your brain on here. Because one song that always kind of threw me, especially from the title I'm going, not sure where you're going with this, was... Think I'll Build a Bomb.

Kris plamondon: ⁓ yeah.

Dale: ⁓ Basically, the whole song is just about, I've given up. I don't want anything else. I might as well just build a bomb because that's what we're headed to anyway. Let's just get it over with. What are we waiting on? Yeah. That's why I wrote it. So I don't know what other people think.

Arin Hancock: I see. Right. You

Kris plamondon: When I heard it, was like, I used to be a crisis line counselor. I was like, Dale, do we need to have a chat?

Dale: Yeah, well, I've been pretty controversial, so that's pretty light on the controversial ⁓ measurement.

Arin Hancock: Right? Yeah, I know, let's say you were talking about you've got different theological views than the average Christian out there And I think some people have walked away from being a Bride fan because of that. I'm not one to worry about that. know, to me, it's got to be the music that grabs me. I still listen to secular music that a lot of probably say would criticize me for listening to. But to me, good music is good music.

Kris plamondon: Hey, Dale, When ⁓ you go and in churches, do the pastors come to you and say, we don't want you to sing this song, this song, or this song, or no? They just.

Dale: No, because they would know if they knew anything about me, they would know that I would sing those songs. If they asked me not to sing them, I would sing them. If I didn't remember, we would learn them backstage and sing them. So it's like, you know, what you see is what you get. You know, that's that type of thing. So. ⁓

Kris plamondon: You would sing them, okay. That's awesome, that's awesome.

Arin Hancock: Hahaha! you

Kris plamondon: Okay, okay.

Arin Hancock: So yeah, it's been many years and New Zealand came back to States and started performing live. And what was it like getting back into the live? And I noticed with some of your setlists, it was more the older songs, mainly because I'm expecting that's what people wanted to hear. But what was it getting back and actually singing some of those old songs live again?

Dale: It was something because I'd spent all those years only as a recording artist and not a stage artist. but ⁓ stepping out on stage ⁓ at Immortal Fest the first year, it ⁓ was like we hadn't missed a beat. just went out and We did our thing this past year. It was unfortunate. There was so much technical difficulty before we even started out. To be honest with you, I was deflated before I got out on stage and that's, you know, I was coming out, me and Les Carlson were backstage. We're praying. I'm getting ready to go out. He's going to join me on stage and 30 minutes standing there until they got whatever was messed up, hooked back. The band lost, we lost our momentum that night and then our set was cut short. So that was, yeah, because we went over, we had, we were going to do 30 more minutes of music, you know, for the people that paid to see us. because of. I think, I think the monitor guy didn't know what he was doing and and he chained when he was changing over, he pushed something, bumped something, unplugged something. But anyway, Troy's on stage trying to.

Kris plamondon: ⁓ no. Do you know what happened like monitors blue what? ⁓ no.

Dale: I could tell Troy was getting frustrated and I'm back behind the curtain trying to make a grand entrance. it was just kind of like everybody gathered around for the big hot air balloon to take off. And it takes off, but it drags the basket 600 yards before it lifts off. the time it gets in the air, the most exciting part was them being dragged across the field, you know? It wasn't about the balloon in the air. And that's the way I felt. was like, man, this is like... And I could tell less less was worried too. Let's keep looking at me like what's going on. I'm like I don't.

Kris plamondon: Are you guys doing a mortal fest this summer?

Dale: No, no, no, we're not doing it. No, and it's fine because there's a lot of bands playing that I'm glad they're playing. So yeah. But yeah, that's, mean, that's back was great. ⁓ ⁓ of the reasons that came back, my actually mentioned it to me first.

Kris plamondon: Yeah.

Dale: She mentioned that, you like to go back and live in the States? And I was like, well, you know, it's, up to you. You know, I moved here to be with you. If you want to move to America to be with me, that's what we'll do. So, she was all for it. And we, had this master plan, which completely got railroaded and, and, ⁓ messed up, ⁓ not go into a lot of detail, but ⁓ nothing happened like We thought it was going to happen and it did not happen in a timely manner. And we got strung along so long, ⁓ literally losing thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars over time. ⁓ We made the move, we come back and... Thank God Troy had a place. We stayed with Troy for six months, eight months, whatever it was, before we got into this house here. But I was hoping to come back and tour. That was one of reasons coming back. I thought we'd come back. Not like tour 100 dates, but do 10 dates at a time. I knew I was drawing my social security so that I had income coming in. And I thought, well, we'll just do these shows. It'd be a good supplemental for the family, 10, 20 shows or whatever. But the shows just didn't manifest. did play Oversea. I act like it's not a, I act like it's a. Like things didn't happen great, but they did happen great. mean, we, we toured with Petra when I got back. We toured with Stryper when we got back. we played a few shows, but, like right now it's, there's nothing really to talk about. ⁓ And, when put post out and you're like, Hey, Bride's booking, ⁓ for a tour and one, ⁓ one promoter you. It's like Dale take a hint. So that's sort of what I'm doing. I'm not just taking a hint. I'm bowing out at the end of this year. But ⁓ and I would go back and play Brazil again. I go back and play Costa Rica again. guys were fantastic. I played Mexico again before we're done. But if they want us, they'll have to get us because after all said and done, it's going to take a lot of money to get me up out of this chair and out of this house. So, ⁓ and I know it's not about money, but I've served my time. It's like being a president. ⁓ It's 20 years to life, right? For a prisoner, right? And then he gets out after 20 years in some states. That's considered a life sentence.

Kris plamondon: You need to live, yeah.

Dale: I've done two life sentences with Bride. So, hey, you know, I don't owe anybody anything anymore. I've done my time.

Kris plamondon: Mmm.

Dale: But our ideal was to come back and find a nice quiet place out in the country, which we are out in the country. It's not as quiet as it needs to be. got a kid, he obviously got a motorbike for his birthday. But anyway, but other than that, and we're just, you know, we're in this house and we're going to stay here until we see what God wants to do with us. I've got a garden started in my kitchen. I got a table in my Onions have come up, my tomatoes have come up, I got all these ghost peppers coming up. So it's gonna be a fun summer for me doing some gardening. That's gonna be my main focus, I think.

Kris plamondon: That's gonna keep you busy. Yeah.

Arin Hancock: So that's what's next for ⁓ Dale, guess. Wrap a bride, a few shows, wrap up a few recordings, and then carry on with your writing, guess.

Dale: Yeah, yeah. ⁓

Kris plamondon: Yeah, wish you all the best in your gardening and your other endeavors that you're doing.

Dale: Well, yeah, I I've got my book deal. I've ⁓ released six books. I've got three more coming out this year. They'll be out by July. I've been taking pre-orders for those. Anybody interested in reading? They're not Christian books, but they do have a lot of ⁓ biblical references and scriptures, and I always introduce a religious figure in there. And ⁓ I've got one book that is a Christian fiction book. It's called A Testament of Rust. It's a novel. And it's quite good. It's very interesting about a dystopian world and what they're trying to do to bring revival to a city that is kind of like 1984, you ⁓ know, Orwell type stuff. Because I was always a fan of Sci-fi and then for whatever reason I started writing like horror stuff, which isn't like blood and gore but it's spooky stuff, you know, this dark and stormy night suddenly a shot rang out the door slam the maid screamed you know, they just take it from there. ⁓ was a reference to peanuts. Anyway, most miss that. ⁓ But yeah, I just want to I mean, my ideal life would be to be a writer full time

Arin Hancock: you

Dale: and stop for pee breaks and to eat dinner and spend time with my wife and my dogs.

Kris plamondon: So you think after this you're done being a rock star?

Dale: Yeah, I want to do some more recording with some guys that I've already obligated myself to. not saying that I wouldn't come back and do a show if it made sense, but I don't think anybody's going to be able to afford me because once I stop, my price goes way up. So ⁓ it's because I'm of traveling and, know, I'm literally tired of It's ⁓ like you mentioned earlier the fun. I mentioned to my wife the other day, said, I don't really have fun anymore. words, not really enjoying what I'm doing. I get up at five o'clock in the morning, sometimes earlier than that, and I go right to the computer and I've already got an idea for a story or finishing up a story. So I start typing on it. And then I type till my wife gets up, she goes to work, I type all day. ⁓ deal with my dogs, got a couple of fox terriers, which needs ⁓ a lot of babying. And ⁓ yeah, and then I started submitting them to podcasts, short stories to be read by podcasters. And ⁓ I was very successful in that until that guy with the fake band, didn't want to work with him no more. The guy, the AI band swears, swearing up and down, was really him singing. I'm like, yeah, right. ⁓ So that was a bit of money there that I'm not going to be making, but.

Arin Hancock: You

Dale: I'm sending it out to other pod stories out to the podcast and I think I'm going to do some more Christian books and just finance them myself so that can get them out there. written about 20 novels, about of those are Christian novels, ⁓ and it's to get into the ⁓ book ⁓ The company that I'm with now, Velox Books, They only do horror. They don't want my Christian stuff. They don't even want my sci-fi stuff. They want my short stories and the horror because it's working. And there's enough interest in that, I guess, keep going. And that's why, I mean, I'm online. You probably see me every day promoting my books because all I need for people to do, you know, I got 7,000 supposed followers on my Facebook. Just buy one book. You don't have to buy them all. Buy one book and that'll send a message to the publisher that I'm relevant and he'll keep producing my stuff. But it's like asking 7,000 people for a dollar. Can you spare a dollar? And at the end of the day, make $7. So.

Kris plamondon: Yeah, that's seven thousand bucks.

Arin Hancock: All right.

Kris plamondon: Wow. ⁓

Arin Hancock: Well, I think that about wraps it up. for talking with us once again, Dale.

Kris plamondon: Yeah, thanks Dale, we appreciate it.

Dale: Well, I've always been about Jesus and him crucified, buried, resurrected, his return. And that's what I'll always be about. And that's what I want to leave with people. I don't want anybody to remember Dale Thompson. I don't want anybody to remember Bride All I want them to remember is, you know, there was a guy in a band. I can't remember who they were, but he talked about Jesus and it changed my life.

Kris plamondon: Amen.

Dale: All I want to remember is Jesus, because that's all that matters at the end of the day. It doesn't matter about our theologies. It doesn't matter about what kind of music we listen to or anything. Do you know Christ as your Lord and personal savior? Because I would not want to go through the world without him. It would be the most miserable existence ever.

Kris plamondon: mentioned earlier in your conversation about trying to make your song sound like Metallica. Was there ever a time where you wanted to get that kind of writing into Bride?

Dale: Yeah. ⁓ sure, I think anybody that plays heavy metal, they pretty much owe it to two bands, Black Sabbath and Metallica. All the other bands that came after were mimicking them in some way that's playing heavy. ⁓

Kris plamondon: Mm-hmm.

Dale: think the Black Sabbath with Ozzy, and even though I'm a Dio fan, and I did really like Ozzy, especially at the end. yeah, that's the two bands right there. Anybody who's an aspiring heavy metal guy, go get your Black Sabbath album. Go get your Metallica album. That's all you need to know. That's how you get started.

Kris plamondon: Yeah.

Arin Hancock: I've been in both of those, so yeah, this sounds like a good recommendation.

Dale: I'm

Kris plamondon: How do you deal with the lyrics that Metallica writes? Is that the only issue like from our songwriting?

Dale: I'm not, I don't know that many of their lyrics, but the lyrics that I have listened to are, I don't see anything vile in their lyrics. know, I see like if I listen to Poison or Motley Crue, it's all about chicks. And these dudes are 60 years old singing about underage girls, there should be a law against that. Metallica's I think got more

Kris plamondon: ⁓ yeah. Yeah.

Dale: on the plate than what those bands do. They actually sing about important things, whether you agree with them or not. And I even look back at the early Black Sabbath and Geezer Butler wrote lot of those lyrics. ⁓ he was very moved by faith in those days. Matter of fact, that first Black Sabbath album is probably closer to a Christian rock album than people would imagine it is.

Arin Hancock: Yeah, and then even on, the third one with the song After Forever. It's probably one of the best written songs ever, I think.

Dale: ⁓ yeah, it's hard to imagine that somebody can write that, you know, to get perfect songs like a Stairway to Heaven. mean, and that was the only song Zeppelin ever did it sounded like that. You know, they had to stop doing what they were doing and write something completely different for it to be that song that every guitar player wanted to learn and every music store had to sign up and said, no Stairway to Heaven.

Arin Hancock: All right.

Kris plamondon: Yeah, that song classic. Yeah

Arin Hancock: With that, think that kind of comes to the end of our time, but thanks for joining us once again.

Dale: Yeah. ⁓ thanks, guys. Thank you so much. fun. Yeah.

Kris plamondon: Thanks Dale, God bless, have a good one.