When Burnout first landed, it sounded like a band pushing itself to the brink. Now, with Burnout (Deluxe) out in the wild and their headlining Highway To Hell Yeah Brother Tour on deck, Good Terms are standing on the other side of the chaos, bruised, wiser, and louder for it. I got to chop it up with frontman Brian McShea on the success of Burnout, what he’s learned on the road, and how the band approaches their high-energy stage shows.
JG: Did you expect Burnout to hit like it did?
Brian McShea: No, I don’t think I had any concept of what it could or would do. Obviously, we wanted it to do well. We’re definitely trying to do the damn thing with Good Terms, and we’re trying to do that with Burnout. But the story of Burnout, when we started working on it, was very much like songs in the bedroom for each other, maybe we’ll put them out or post them on the internet. And now to be doing the deluxe edition and the headline tour, having the last two years of touring under our belt, seeing people responding to the songs we put out, I don’t think I could have conceptualized what all that would be.
JG: It seems like everything’s really happening for you guys right now.
Brian McShea: Man, we’re trying. It’s a lot, but we’re still going for it, man. Doing this headline tour and doing the deluxe, trying to put the finishing pieces on the record. Putting everything we’ve learned over the last couple of years into it. We’re feeling good. We’re feeling tired, but we’re feeling good.
JG: What can listeners expect from the deluxe edition?
Brian McShea: Well, we’ve got two new songs. “Progress,” which we put out over the summer. That was just one of our best single releases we’ve ever done, if not the best one. It was kind of clear that we couldn’t not put that on vinyl. And it really felt like it was part of the story of Burnout, and I do think it complements the songs on the album very well. And then the brand-new song “All In.” That’s also coming out here with the deluxe record. That’s the first song that we wrote on the road while touring on Burnout.
It’s the first song that we wrote reacting to the way that the live shows have made us feel. Thinking about what’s been fun for us to play on stage, what we felt resonated with the live audiences. All that really informed “All In” in a way that none of the other songs had a chance to be influenced.
JG: On “All In,” you worked with an outside producer for the first time in Anton DeLost. What was that like, and what did he bring to the recording?
Brian McShea: I think my bandmate, Ivan, put it best when we were talking to Anton, which was, “This is the first time we’re ever dropping our kid off at daycare.” Yeah, we were very nervous. We know Anton’s work. We like Anton’s work. Anton obviously did the Arm’s Length records, and those records are really great. I first saw Arm’s Length live and then went into the records wondering where they were gonna go with that, and I loved the direction that he took with them.
That’s the only song on Burnout (Deluxe) that isn’t produced by Zach and isn’t mixed by Gio. So it is interesting to have one song that’s not like that. I think he really made it sound big and massive in a way that is nice for our songs. We’re putting it first on the album, too. We’re leading the deluxe with “All In,” as an intentional statement of this is where we are now. This is what we’re doing now.
Anton’s sound that he brought to the table as a producer and mixer is definitely a big part of that. It was very different. You know, I’m used to having a long time to work on a song. Burnout took years to make, and part of that was that Zach was producing it in his home. We’re not paying for studio time or anything. Like, we can come back and finish something later. We can take as long as we want.
Whereas with Anton, we had a week to do the full song. And with guitar, that was amazing. Zach is very detail-oriented as a producer, so guitar sessions would take a long time. And you’d really be trying. Man, I got so much better as a guitar player because I was trying to make sure that Zach wouldn’t edit my guitar parts or something. And then with Anton, we’re taking first takes.
We were really feeling things out and hearing how they sound, and that was really fun. When it comes to vocals, that’s where I really do enjoy the three to four-hour per song process a little more because we really dive into every little part. That’s not how it was with Anton. Anton really is more of the school that the magic is in the first couple of takes, which is just not how I was used to working at all. I was uncomfortable in the session. He’d be like, “Cool, we got it!” And I’d be like, “We, we do? You don’t, you don’t wanna do it, like, 8 to 12 more times?” But the whole band was there with me. The whole band was like, “Nah, man, you’re sounding great. The vocals are gonna come out great.” And when I listened to the final version, I’m like, “Yeah, okay, yeah, everything is, everything is totally fine. Everything’s totally good.”
Yeah, so we dropped our kid off at daycare. I think our kid had a good time at daycare.
JG: Nice. Keeping with that analogy, do you think you’d be dropping your kid off at daycare again, like dipping your toes in the water of future work with Anton or other producers?
Brian McShea: Absolutely. I don’t know how much my managers want me to say. We’re working on what I will call new music. Just a collection of songs. We’re working with another producer. And it’s kicking ass, man. It’s kicking ass. We’re having a great time. You know, there are still some differences. There are still some points where I’m like, “Well, I like the way that we used to do it!”
But overall, I’m trusting the process. It’s gonna be great. I think I know how to drop my kid off at daycare a little more than I used to. And I know that it’s gonna be great for the project. But that’s all for the future.
JG: I know there’s a lot of mythology around grinding as a band and putting in those 10,000 hours. Looking back, what did you learn on the road? Or what parts of road life led to burnout for you guys?
Brian McShea: Yeah. Well, we definitely learned a lot just about how to exist on the road. We’re not at a point in our lives as physical people where we can sleep on floors and whatnot. The singing is hard in Good Terms. And if I don’t get the proper amount of sleep, it really will affect the Good Terms show. So there has been a lot of trial and error on the road in terms of figuring out, like, what can we handle? What do we really need to focus on? What can we get away with? How do we make things happen?
We are still a punk rock band, grinding, still somewhat paying our dues. We’re not in hotel rooms with TVs to throw out the window and stuff. It’s not like that. But, we gotta sleep well. We gotta eat somewhat right, and we gotta make it to the next show, which probably could be eight hours away.
There definitely have been some tough points. We all love playing music. We all love doing the show. I’m here to perform on stage. So anytime something is making performing on stage less possible, that’s where the burnout starts to really creep in. When we haven’t slept, and we can’t sing and there isn’t enough time to get to the venue.
We really care about the art and the show and what we’re giving to the people in the audience. Both because we want them to have a great time and because we want to say what we want to say. We want to express ourselves accurately. While at the same time, you know, still being a punk rock band. I think anytime that it’s really rubbed up against making the show impossible, the combination of not enough sleep or the difficult drives and whatnot, those are the difficult things.
But we’re very old friends. A lot of us are lifelong friends, so being close together is fine. We’re big fans of Taco Bell. Eating a lot of Taco Bell is totally okay with us, you know. And the shows are amazing. I love playing shows.
JG: Speaking of shows, The Highway to Hell Yeah Brother Tour. I love that name.
Brian McShea: I can’t believe we really did it, man. I can’t believe we really named it that.
JG: I mean, that name, it’s just so kickass and high energy, but a lot of your songs are also pretty anxious and vulnerable, too. Which version of yourselves shows up louder on stage when you’re playing?
Brian McShea: A big theme that I find keeps popping up is a happy-to-be-here energy. I think the idea of us being exhausted, but we still wanna keep going, keeps coming up. Especially in our songs that are more anxious in the lyrics. The anxiety doesn’t come from, “This is too much. It’s over.” It comes from, like, “I wanna carry on. How am I supposed to carry on?” Because we’re always forward-facing. I wanna make progress and the shows are definitely a point or a place for the fireworks to go off, right?
Obviously, when we’re on tour, we’re in the band, we’re showing up exhausted. Everybody in the audience has their own things in their life that are wearing them down, and they’re coming to a concert to let loose. And I think even now, where you really can sit in your bed with your phone and be entertained, we’re all very tired.
Just the act of going out to a show is already proving that you’re still trying to make the most of your time here. I think when we get together, and we have shows and we have people all in a room with us together, I think we wanna address the hardships that everyone’s going through, whatever they are. And I think we wanna celebrate the idea that we’re all still here, and we’re all still trying.
What was obviously started as a joke has somehow become this actual mantra for us. But it just keeps working.
JG: I guess lastly, for anyone who hasn’t seen your live show, how would you describe the Good Terms live experience?
Brian McShea: Explosive. In the band, there’s a part of us that just turns on. Like, I know what I want to do. I know what I’m about to do when it happens. But I’ve heard Zach say this. He’s one of the guitar players in my band. He’s talked about this animal that he becomes on stage.
It’s like surfing. That’s an analogy that I always come back to. You only get a chance to surf when you’re on a wave, which you can’t control. That’s a crazy place to be. You’re balancing on a board, there’s all this energy, and you’re just trying to stay balanced. You’re trying to control it all. And you couldn’t do that sitting at home. You have to be out there on the wave to even make that happen. That’s what I think being on stage is for us. This is the place where I get to do spin jumps.
I’m not doing spin jumps in my day-to-day life. But when we’re playing our songs and we get to that part of every song where, for some reason, I wanna jump and spin in a circle, I just can’t stop myself. As the tour goes on, I get shin splints. I get really tired, I get worse and worse sleep, and I go on stage being like, “Am I really gonna be able to do this?” And then I’m in the middle of the show and I’m like, “Yeah, okay. I mean, I’m out of breath, but, like, there’s no way I’m not gonna do the spin jump, so…”
I think I’m just so excited to play the show. I’m so excited to get to be that part of myself. We have a lot of stage hours. Good Terms has played a little over 100 shows in the last couple of years. We’ve been in other bands. I’ve done the cover band thing. I feel very comfortable on stage. When I look out in the audience, and I see it connecting with the guy who just wanted an excuse to go in the pit or someone’s kid who’s wearing the big headphones to protect their ears, who’s maybe at their first concert, then you see them clapping or having a good time. Or just someone who is clearly more interested than they thought they would be, it just feeds me.
And then I take that energy, and I give more and more. And then they get more and more. We really care about the musicianship. We write difficult parts for ourselves to pull off, and we try to be able to do that while doing the spin jumps and all that. We get a lot of comments on how tight we are, and I’m glad that’s registering with people.
You know, it’s a balance. It’s a balance between trying to do the spin jumps and be able to nail the solos and the high notes. So explosive and tight, which I feel like are two kinda competing forces.
Burnout (Deluxe) is out now. You can order a physical copy here.