Jay: Welcome, please introduce yourself.

Slosh: Hey I'm Slosh! I've been playing and performing music for about 27 years now. I started in an orchestral band from like 2nd grade till around freshman year in high school. Around that time I received my first guitar and I have been grinding it out on guitar since about 16. My primary focus has been metalcore for most of my life but I recently started branching out incorporating more genres into my wheel house for the past 5 years now and it has been a lot of fun and very rewarding!

Jay: Who have been some major influences for you?

Slosh: My core influences are The Human Abstract, As I Lay Dying, Kesha, Mick Gordon, Revocation, early Atreyu, Blink 182, and After The Burial but secondary influences include Igorrr, Killswitch Engage, MIRE, Sum41, Within the Ruins, In Flames, All That Remains, Clown Core, Turnstile, Bloodhound gang, Tesseract, The Contortionist, Carly Rae Jepsen, Meg Myers, Rise Against, Against me!, and countless others.

Jay: What do you enjoy most about what you do?

Slosh: I really enjoy the creative process and experimentation. Whenever I have writers block I transition to an extreme genre and try to write a song or an album in that genre. I will then take everything I learned to what I want to be doing and make huge strides in my ability and song writing ability.

Jay: Least?

Slosh: Promotion and marketing. I tend to write music I like for me. But I want other people to hear it and be inspired by it as well. And to do so, I have to put as much time into pushing it as I did writing and recording instead of just working on the next work. It's a grind it's annoying but rewarding in it's own right I guess.

Jay: What is your most enjoyed feature of the punk scene?

Slosh:  With punk I think it's best feature is it's inclusivity. I have found more love and support from punk circles than I have from my 15+ years in metal. Punk cares Metal is so self serious when it should be more fun. Metal is so corporate these days and I wish it were more fun like the punk community. I might still be playing it live.

Jay: What do you believe it takes for a solo independent artist to make a living doing music or art?

Slosh: Create and promote nonstop. If you want to make it, it is not enough to create the next mona lisa or write the next beatles album. You have to promote. And I don't mean just going to reddit spamming your song links or posting it to facebook or IG or tik tok. You have to do all of that PLUS networking. All of that is for naught if you aren't connecting to people directly with your music. Play live shows, and not just in your hometown every weekend. Spread out. Start in your region do little weekend warrior runs and play shows meet people connect to new fans directly. In the early 2000s people could just play locally and blow up for no reason. But with the ubiquity of home studios anyone can release an album or make beautiful art. You need to promote yourself. You'll likely spend more time doing that than you ever did writing or recording.

Jay: What is your personal opinion about the state of music today?

Slosh: I think there is no better time to be a musician. Yeah the threshold for making money off your music is much higher, but it has never been more accessible for both fans and artists. If you want to release an album you can do so now for under 300 dollars if you already have a guitar and a PC. Releasing music can be free.Just drop it on bandcamp. Making your own CDs and merch has never been easier. And Getting an order for those things has never been easier as well. Everyone and their mom screen prints now.Yeah times are tough. But were you ever really going to be the next spiritbox or paramore? Were you?