Watch That Space Zebra Show: Starving Artists on the Danny Wimmer Presents Twitch Channel to watch LIVE every Thursday at 0930AM PST!
On the June 10th, 2021 very first episode of Space Zebra’s Starving Artist, which features guitarist Wes Borland, known for being in Limp Bizkit, Black Light Burns, and Eat The Day join Blackcraft Cult’s Bobby Schubenski, former Motionless In White keyboardist/vocalist Josh Balz, and Billboard “Producer Jake” live from a coffee shop in Los Angeles, CA as Wes describes his traffic experience on the I-10 freeway and just got here. 600 people are in the chat for roll call already!
Wes and Bobby show off their matching smiley face slippers as they inform us that they were kicked out of Danny Wimmer’s basement.
Wes is showing off his HOLY FUCK shirt, which is an Electronica-Rock band from Nova Scotia, Canada.
They mention unsigned musicians Marlene Mendoza and Timmy Taylor are performing today!
Producer Jake talks about how they want to give back to Artists. You can tip them during their live performances today. All tips go straight to the Artist!
When the Artists come on, you can donate by typing the !donate command in the chat to find out how.
Bobby talks about how this stream is so special to him, sharing a story about how he wished something like this existed when he played in a band. He’s really excited for this. Wes and Producer Jake agree.
Wes starts with the story of how he made it in Limp Bizkit…It didn’t happen over night. He’d been in several bands, worked in coffee shops, putting together portfolio for Art school as a painter, he really wanted to be involved in Special Effects monster makeup for scifi/horror movies….
Limp Bizkit started before the massive internet craze. He talked about how they’d hand out flyers, hand out demos for free. Then they met the guys in Korn who passed their demo off to Ross Robertson.
He mentions they did a regional tour w/ House of Pain, where they met DJ Lethal, did a supporting tour with Deftones. Wes touches on how he and Fred didn’t get along in the beginning and during several points of their career, but they get along now!
He talks about how he split from the band, who ended up getting two new guitar players and a van…They were driving to LA and they ended up getting in an accident, flipping several times. Fred broke his feet in several different places and everyone went to the hospital…They went to record the record…But the two guitar players left…So the band started talking to Wes again…
Wes continues about how he got back involved again after DJ Lethal joined the band…They played 3 tours after he got back in the band, 2 with Korn. He shares went out to watch Korn after they played and people were coming up to him asking for autographs.
Wes doubted Limp Bizkit at first, thinking they’d bomb, but here he is 25 years later still in the band! He says he feels like they’re about to have another comeback! He says as long as people want to keep seeing the band, they’ll keep playing!
Wes said it took years and years and years of practicing, weaving together different styles of musical influences…it “doesn’t just” happen like that…It was years of hard work leading up to it.
Bobby talks about how he is big into vision boards and manifesting….Mentioned that he started Blackcraft with a $100 bill in 2012.
Wes talks about how his dad was a guitar player, he had an acoustic guitar and taught him a couple of surf songs like Wipeout and Pipeline. He then talks about how he got into skateboarding, growing up in Nashville, and exposed to The Misfits, Minor Threat, Subhumans, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, The Damned. He talked about how he wanted to learn Punk songs, so he grabbed his Dad’s lawn mower and mowed lawns to buy his first guitar for $80 and a Guerilla Amp for $50 at a pawn shop.
He joked about how when he went to play Kill Em All by Metallica, it didn’t sound the same! He talked about how he didn’t have any effect pedals at all. He had to figure out how to make effects and noise. He talked about how his second guitar had a Floyd Rose locking tremolo, which he uses for his tricks now. A lot of what he does now is because of what he learned from what he only had.
He talks about how limitations as an Artist/Entrepreneur make your creativity explode.
Bobby talks about how it’s so easy to get discouraged when your stream views aren’t high or merch sales aren’t high, but you really have to keep going. Wes talks about when you’re in an area that there
When Wes works on projects now, or when he tries to make records, he gives himself limitations to enhance his creativity.
Bobby talks about how when he started Blackcraft, he remembers only having 200-500 followers and how you don’t realize the impact you’re making on somebody’s Life.
Believe In Yourself, Create Your Own Future is what Blackcraft is all about.
He says he’s a big believer in Manifestation and it’s funny to see everything come full circle.
He talks about how the first concert he ever went to was Limp Bizkit. Bobby mentions how the first album he bought, the 3 Dollar Bill, album changed his Life. Watching TRL with Limp Bizkit, seeing the different outfits Wes would wear– that him and Dennis Rodman were some of the biggest influences in his Life, that he felt it’s was ok to be different! And now he is right here sitting chatting with him on Space Zebra!
Wes talks about the 3 Dollar Bill album, saying how they made it up in the mountains of Malibu, they were completely isolated, with some trailer parks around them…It was just them and Ross recording there on all of this weird equipment, and the audio engineer named Chuck was crazy into Mars, he had all of these conspiracy theory books and mentions Monuments of Mars, talking about how there were pyramids on Mars! The experimentation they did on the 3 Dollar Bill album, like recording drums, playing them back through amplifiers, putting the mic at the other end of the room and hallway, is where where he got a lot of his inspiration from for being experimental was from working with Ross Robinson.
Bobby talks about how he met Producer Jake when he was doing merch for bands. Jake didn’t have it easy either and mentions how when you have no money, you get creative.
Josh Balz joins in the conversation about how that’s been the basis of his entire Life, Manifesting that huge push that everything was going to happen, not being cocky, but being like “I can’t wait for this to happen!”, always dreaming for it to happen. He says that’s why he thinks Motionless is so creative… He grew up in a trailer park, bought his first car for $50. He worked for Coca Cola stocking shelves to be able to pay off his first keyboard he bought at Guitar Center.
He remembers back when he first wanted to do Music for a living, which was around 11 years old, he asked his Dad if he could get him a guitar. He remembers sitting on his washer learning Black Sabbath and White Stripes on his $50 Fender Squire. He remembers wanting to meet anybody he could in school that could make Music, even if they were terrible and jam together.
He was singing/playing horribly and his Dad told him they sounded like YES. Wes informs everyone they are a progressive band from 70s, a more progressive band than Toto.
Bobby wants to talk about vision boards and Manifestation…He talks about he and Ronnie Radke [Escape The Fate] saw Josh play at Warped Tour in 2006-2007 with in front of 20 people, side-stage at Vans Warped Tour going, “fuck this band’s got it, they’re going to go places.” thinking that they definitely got it.
Josh remembers how when Ronnie walked over, he was feeling like ‘why doesn’t anyone care that we exist? nobody cared about them, managers, booking agents and record labels didn’t want to pick them up. A friend who worked at Warped got them a spot and they played Warped Tour 10 years straight.
They joke about how miserable Warped Tour is. Wes adds, “cooking in the sun!”
Bobby says that he thinks Warped Tour is really what made Motionless In White. Josh mentions that it made them gain a cult following. He talks about when they first started, they’d take a big stage scrim that said “MOTIONLESS IN WHITE PLAYING AT 6:30PM AT THE EAST SIDE STAGE” and walk around the entire Warped Tour crowd with it. ” He said, “We hustled. We hustled so fucking hard.” They would play any show they could. They were in a magazine’s Top 10 list for most shows, playing 316 shows in one year.
Bobby said the one thing that made Motionless stick out from back in the day, something he really respected, was the fact they would do whatever the fuck it took, saying “whatever the fuck it took, Motionless in white were doing it!”, driving their own RVs, not using buses to save for production, it would be 120 degrees outside and every single member would be passing out flyers, hanging out with fans. He respected it from an outsider looking in and would think to himself, “wow, I want to work that hard!”
Bobby says he feels what is so great about “Motionless”, is that they were always the underdogs, people never took them seriously saying they were a rip off and they won’t make it. Bobby and Josh agreed, they’d hear shit talk all the time from people. Bobby continues on to beaming about what Motionless blew up to.
He mentions when Josh left Motionless In White, which was around 2017. Now they’re here we are with Starving Artists, unsigned Musicians today that are all in and fully committed. He says Josh is such an inspiration to people, especially to him because he watched Motionless come from performing in front of 20 people at Warped Tour to opening for one of the biggest bands ever, Slipknot. Josh technically was living that American Rockstar dream.
Bobby says the real respect for Josh comes from where he watched him walk away from all of that, where a lot of people think you’re fucking nuts to.
Wes interrupts saying there’s a whole other side, that a lot of people think when you’re in a touring band is really cool and fun, it’s always a party, but it’s not a party if it happens every night and there are people who face drug and alcohol problems, and you’re alone all the time. He’s had three marriages fail, thinking it stemmed from his parents getting married and starting to have kids at 25 years old, where he had a normal Life, trying to fit all of that in his brain thinking that would work for him too.
Josh says Wes touched on a very important thing about being in a band, “that it’s so fucking lonely,” he continues, “people don’t understand…Because when you’re around people, you’re encompassed by all of this stuff and it ruins your relationships, your emotional capacity on how to Love things because you live like The Groundhog Show every day.”
Wes says that people have this weird thing when they go on tour, their Life basically goes on pause. When they go on tour, when they’re somewhere different every day, their headspace changes. Bobby says they become a different person. Wes agrees and says when you go through the same thing every day, you don’t see your friends for a long period of time. They will get mad at you for not getting back with them. He mentions he’s lost tons of friends and relationships fail. “You enter this state of arrested development…” Even though he’s 46, he says he feels like he’s in his early 30s or late 20s, even though he feels a lot of people his age are more developed adults… “Your Life pauses and you stop dealing with real Life.”
Wes advises that it’s really important if you’re going to do this all the time, to find a balance and learn to accept that you’re not going to live a normal Life. He commends Josh from walking away from it. Sometimes he wonders why is he even doing it when he does side projects like Black Light Burns or Big Dumb Face. He says he sometimes wonders why the fuck is he even doing this, he’s breaking his ass, ruining his Life, losing money doing this side project. He thinks a lot of people think that when you do different side projects, you’re trying to do it for all the money you can, when Limp Bizkit luckily allows him to fund his other Art things that he bleeds money doing them because he Loves Music and is passionate for.
Josh says there is an emptiness he feels about leaving the band and he misses playing so much. He says how everyone asks if he’d ever go back. “Of course I would, on my own terms possibly. Maybe not with Motionless, but definitely would Love to play again.”
He said the closest he came to playing again was when he was with Bobby and Wes in L.A., saying that this helped him fit that weird gap in his Life he’s been missing. He goes on to mention that there is nothing like the feeling of being on stage.
Now it is time for the show where the unsigned Artists play. First is Marlene Mendoza, who is also a music teacher from New York City. Again, while she’s playing users have the option to donate/tip the Artist, where all of the proceeds go to directly to the Artist! Wes begins drawing on the wall behind them in the coffee shop.
Marlene starts playing soft piano notes with a deep and powerful soulful voice in a stripped down, raw performance of her song called, “Karma.”
Check out the original version below!
Marlene continues captivating everyone with her voice by singing a cover of Linkin’ Park’s Numb. Producer Jake lip syncs to all of the words.
Next is a very soft rendition with her powerhouse voice of her heavy song, which in the original version which features John Price with Metalcore-style vocals, called “A Battle Between Two Lesser Evils”.
Marlene sings one more song called Lost Control and decides to do it a cappella. She stuns everyone with how incredible her voice is. The original version of this song is fucking HEAVY as she opens it with extremely dark and harsh vocals reminiscent of Nergal’s from Behemoth.
Support and Follow Marlene Mendoza:
YouTube
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
Spotify
The next Artist to perform is Timmy Taylor. He plays a song called Monster, which is the first song he ever wrote four years ago. Timmy delivers everyone watching with an emotional, hard-hitting performance of this Acoustic Rock ballad.
Next Timmy preforms a chilling, stripped down, hair raising rendition of his song Alone, which he submitted for the Battle For The Big Stage competition.
Wes tells Bobby to guess what’s not going to happen on next week’s episode. He’s not going to drink 6 cups of coffee! He gets up and Bobby welcomes CEO Danny Hayes to the show! Bobby and Danny talk about Twitch History! They talk about Marlene and Timmy on the show today. Danny tells Bobby that he knows about his relationship to Linkin Park and hearing Marlene play the cover of Numb, she killed it, especially doing the aparts acoustically. Bobby said it tugged on the heart strings. He goes on to talk about how Timmy Taylor is killing it. Danny says he’s blown away, he’s followed them both on Spotify already!
Bobby jokes to Danny about leaking something. The chat goes wild for a leak. Danny says that nobody Loves the fans more than him, but they’re not leaking shit about 2022!
They go back to talking about Marlene and Timmy. They discuss throwing a $1000 demo deal on the table for Marlene and Timmy today. Wes walks back in and Bobby tells Wes about the $1000 demo deal idea. Bobby asks Jake why we need to do this…because it’s TWITCH HISTORY today! Danny says, “ok, let me think about this. I hope Danny Wimmer’s not watching.” …They find out Danny is in fact watching.
Danny then says since it’s TWITCH HISTORY and Bobby put him on the spot, they’re going to do the $1000 demo deal for Starving Artists!
Screen goes back to Timmy Taylor where he asks if he can play an unrecorded song. He jokes, if he doesn’t like it, he might retract the demo deal!
Timmy then goes to perform a gut wrenching performance of an unnamed song that he informs us all he’s still making edits to.
The screen shoots over to Marlene. Danny says his instinct with her Artist Rep is that she’s got some big things going on. Marlene is beaming with a smile as he’s saying he doesn’t want to jinx it either for her, but they’re here for her!
Timmy plays one more hard hitting, raw ballad, which Bobby says is his favorite Timmy Taylor song, called Don’t Forget About Me.
You can support and follow Timmy Taylor at the links to his social media here!
The show is back with Wes, Bobby, Josh, and Jake. They talk about how they’ll be back Sunday, that the chat needs to raid their moderator “dustyg36”. They mention that tomorrow’s show is The Lab with Caity Babs and Jeris Johnson!
Here is the rest of their Twitch.tv/dwpresents schedule!
•Sunday: That Space Zebra Show: Battle For The Big Stage at 3:30pm pst
•Monday: That Space Zebra Show: Battle For The Big Stage at 3:30pm pst
•Tuesday: That Space Zebra Show: Riff Wars with Wes Borland at 3:30pm pst
•Wednesday: Writers Circle with Jason Butler at 3:30pm pst
•Thursday: That Space Zebra Show: Starving Artists at 9:30am pst
•Friday: The Lab with Caity Babs and Jeris Johnson at 3:30pm pst
You can catch Limp Bizkit performing LIVE at Aftershock Festival this year!
