ATX Metal Podcast

ATX Metal Podcast (00:02.093)
What's up, everybody? Ryan, ATX Metal Podcast back again on a Sunday afternoon here with my man, Nick Haas. We've got new music, Terminal Decay. You can hear it playing in the background. I've had some constructive criticisms on how I can improve and people like the old way of doing it, but I'm trying it a little bit differently. So we're just going to let this play in the background for you. Nick, go ahead and introduce yourself, where you're from, what you do, what project you're currently.

advocating for and then we'll just kind of go from there.

Nicholas L Haas (00:35.574)
Sure, what's up everybody? My name is Nick Hawes. I am from Houston, Texas. So previously I was in the project, the Hoss Effect, more kind of Gentie prog stuff. But then I just went to straight deathcore with Terminal Decay. Really enjoying it. Kind of like more on the horror, anime, and you know, heavier music style aspect of things. But...

really have found my place with doing music and things like this. And currently right now I'm working on a four song EP. What was playing just now was my second single, which was Renna's Descent. That was loosely based on Higurashi, a horror anime. yes.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:24.573)
Yeah, we caught up last night a little bit. So Nick and I have known each other for a long time. He's produced and created some really good music that I, in my opinion, I think is great. So Nick, appreciate you for your talents, young man. when I saw this terminal decay and you're like, yeah, it's deathcore horror anime. I was like, yep.

Nicholas L Haas (01:42.657)
Of

Nicholas L Haas (01:51.438)
You

ATX Metal Podcast (01:53.374)
Yep. And, and the anime I got stuck and I've said this on previous episodes. I just, it's not that I don't like it. It's just that I can't really wrap my head around it. I don't know. I don't know. But again, I appreciate it for the art. I know that my daughter, she's 12 and she's super into it. Like I think. Is it, mean, let's just, let me just ask the question. Like, is it generational? Like I feel like the young.

Nicholas L Haas (01:57.868)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (02:21.44)
It may be.

ATX Metal Podcast (02:22.675)
Cause I'm 42. I'm an old, I'm old geezer these days. Nick, you late twenties, early thirties?

Nicholas L Haas (02:27.214)
I just turned 36 in May.

ATX Metal Podcast (02:30.208)
my God, look at you, you strapping young lad. So, okay. So maybe it's not generational and I just suck, but,

Nicholas L Haas (02:37.262)
Yeah. Wait, did I do 36 or 35? I don't remember now. It might be 35. That's fine. Yeah. yeah. Age is, yeah, age is just, it's just, it's a thing now. It just happens. You wake up and you wake up and next day you're 40 and it's like, Oh, that's, that's why my back hurts. That's why my back hurts. Why?

ATX Metal Podcast (02:40.925)
This is, you know, we'll just say mid thirties, you know, there's, there's, there's a plus or minus.

ATX Metal Podcast (02:51.719)
Yeah, it just happens.

yeah.

You just, you just slowly, you just slowly devolve. And it's just, you know, every, I was listening to an episode or not episode, a segment on NPR where they're talking about how scientists think they're on the path to figuring out how to stop cells from self-destructing. Apparently in our DNA, in our cells, there is a line of code that says you will terminate

Nicholas L Haas (03:07.17)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (03:24.908)
Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (03:31.436)
on X, I don't know, right? Like it's, it's, it's beyond my thinking and my brain power. And I just thought that was interesting that if they can figure out how to make cells not do that, that's essentially what they were getting at is they could, they could go in there and trigger cancer cells to die immediately, or they could tell, they could tell the good cells to, Hey, you should hang around a lot longer because

Nicholas L Haas (03:34.254)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (03:46.977)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (03:52.216)
Seen that, yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (03:57.14)
You know, Ryan needs, you know, good cartilage. So don't deteriorate. So he gets a C five fucking whatever. But anyway, anyway, music, we're here about music, not about my decaying body. Uh, but we are here about terminal decay. Oh, I'm terminally full circle. So, um,

Nicholas L Haas (04:04.834)
Yeah, right.

Nicholas L Haas (04:10.028)
Yes. Yes, music. Hang on, yeah, your terminal decaying body.

ATX Metal Podcast (04:24.039)
So why the switch? I mean, the last time that you put out music, to my knowledge, that we spoke about was the Haas effect. Is that correct? Okay.

Nicholas L Haas (04:31.22)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Last song that I did was called Lost to the Flood. Yeah, I really liked it. I actually had Clayton King do a master on it. But yeah, it came out a great song. you know, I wanted to do something more just heavier. I really wanted to do something heavier.

ATX Metal Podcast (04:39.155)
Okay.

Nicholas L Haas (04:58.4)
I started listening to heavier bands, know, Lorna Shore, Whitechapel, Jopper a Cowboy, things like that. I mean, which the first deathcore or heavy deathcore band that I ever heard was definitely Jopper a Cowboy. I was back in high school. That's when I started to scream. I wanted to scream like Johnny and everything. you know, then after that, was Suicide Silence, like when the cleansing came out and everything. yeah, and I remember, you know, I would still

ATX Metal Podcast (05:24.381)
course.

Nicholas L Haas (05:28.056)
to scream like Mitch and everything. yeah, so recently I, you know, I just wanted to write heavier music and I went into my, I went to my bedroom and I was talking to my wife. I was like, I want to write some like heavy deathcore music because I was watching, I started watching really getting into these horror animes and the music, of course it was creepy in the, in the animes and stuff like that.

but I felt like they needed a better storytelling with heavier music to really kind of sell that emotions and things that they're going through. Like with the song that's Rena's Descent, again, is based on Higurashi. basically in that moment, Rena loses her shit essentially, and she like goes on a killing spree.

But it's just, yeah, it's fucked. It's really fucked. She like, yeah. so like the sound effects and everything, and I actually hire voice actors to play out the characters. So with the upcoming EP and everything, yes, I will hire out voice actors to actually voice the characters. So it's not an AI person or anything like that. It's an actual person that is doing the lines that I type out for them. So yeah, it's been a really interesting project for me.

ATX Metal Podcast (06:37.617)
really?

Nicholas L Haas (06:54.606)
I've gotten a lot of feedback from it. A lot of people really like it. I've started also to reach out to Slam Worldwide to kind of get some promotion for it and everything and I'll just let them have it and it gets tons of views that way too. It gets new listeners and people are like, hey, I like this. And yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (07:04.145)
Mm-hmm.

ATX Metal Podcast (07:16.299)
Real quick, shout out to my boy Sean from the band Decayer. He runs the Instagram page Filthy Breakdowns. yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (07:24.71)
yeah, dude, Sean's so dope. I actually want to have him on a track of mine eventually. But yeah, dude, he got me onto Filthy Breakdowns, the playlist. I think both my songs are on there. But yeah, every time I have a song come out, I reach out to him. He's super cool. Love that playlist. Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (07:36.369)
perfect.

ATX Metal Podcast (07:42.869)
He's created such a good following there. And I remember when, I remember, cause there's like Breakdown King, then there's Filthy Breakdowns, and I think there's one more. it's Sean, and forgive me brother for forgetting your name. There's another guy behind it. I think it's Cameron Norris from the Dreamer Agency. I could be wrong. I think that's correct. They're both out of like New Mexico, Arizona.

Nicholas L Haas (07:48.631)
Yes.

Nicholas L Haas (07:52.364)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (08:05.933)
Hmm

Nicholas L Haas (08:12.493)
cool, okay.

ATX Metal Podcast (08:13.17)
So yeah, I've been, again, like I was saying earlier, before we started recording that 2025 for me has been a very, interesting and off year in terms of podcasting and life. like, you know, had not what I think was a dream job working as the shop foreman for a brand new Genesis dealership in Round Rock. I appreciated the opportunity to be able to stand that up and teach.

Nicholas L Haas (08:19.598)
Mm-hmm.

ATX Metal Podcast (08:41.342)
teach people the things that I know about, you know, automotive and you know, the, basically came down to it, that it was a budget decision, that they were paying me way too much money and fucking Wall Street wasn't happy. So they were like, well, brother, you gotta go. mean, you know, it was, it was good. And I spoke about it, on the episode that I recorded previous to this one that, you know, I took about, honestly, about two months off after that and just kinda

Nicholas L Haas (08:57.378)
Wow.

Nicholas L Haas (09:05.346)
Mm-hmm.

ATX Metal Podcast (09:10.216)
tried to figure out, what's my next move? and kind of like how we talked last night, you've been through a little bit of a, a little bit of a whirlwind in the job world. And, and so I think, I think we all have had a lot going on this year because our country, not just our country, but the world is like, it's, it's, it's busy. There's in the information age.

Nicholas L Haas (09:13.016)
Dude.

Nicholas L Haas (09:19.244)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (09:32.396)
Yeah.

Yes.

ATX Metal Podcast (09:37.988)
You can literally find out almost anything about anything. And there's just, there's so much, you know, there's so much consumption and everybody wants your attention for more than six seconds. And, you know, so I've been busy over here trying to build something to where I can bring people over and have honest, wholesome conversations, kind of like we're doing and, kind of. Kind of reconnect with everybody on a ground level. and you know, that's why I'm always a proponent of going to shows and.

Nicholas L Haas (09:42.786)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (10:00.302)
course.

ATX Metal Podcast (10:07.557)
sharing people's music and stuff. anyway, enough of this fucking sad story. Yeah. So, so filthy breakdowns, terminal decay on the playlist. Who was the character that you mentioned? It's you just, damn it. Yeah. And, but before that starts the H here, God damn it.

Nicholas L Haas (10:12.844)
Ha ha ha!

Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (10:29.004)
Rena?

Nicholas L Haas (10:35.276)
you're talking about Higurashi. that's a whole show. So that's actually a whole show, a whole anime that I got into. So it's called Higurashi When They Cry. And so it's basically, it's, I don't want to spoil anything because it's kind of, it's psychological horror for sure because it takes the aspect of, think of it this way, Groundhog Day. Have you ever seen Groundhog Day? Okay.

ATX Metal Podcast (10:36.423)
There you go, yeah, what is that?

ATX Metal Podcast (10:42.077)
Okay.

ATX Metal Podcast (11:01.331)
Of course, I'm 42. Shut up, Bill Murray. You know what saying?

Nicholas L Haas (11:03.65)
So it's kinda, yes. yeah, I fucking love Groundhog Day. And so I started watching this anime and like a couple, so basically one person loses their shit and absolutely demolishes this town. Like they just go crazy and start killing everybody. So, and then it resets. Cause I'm watching the anime and like the second, third, or the second episode,

ATX Metal Podcast (11:07.197)
Hahaha.

Nicholas L Haas (11:33.206)
It's like everything completely resets from what just happened in episode one. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on? Yeah. And so from there, and then later on down the line, you find out that it's like a person that's looping back to that time. I don't want to go into it too much because I don't want to spoil anything if anyone wants to watch the show. but it's, it's fantastic. I actually got to meet the English voice actor for Rena.

ATX Metal Podcast (11:38.419)
Okay.

Nicholas L Haas (12:02.722)
think I have the print here somewhere. Dude, I've met so many voice actors. It's crazy. That's my thing now is going to conventions and meeting these voice actors from these animes that are just really cool people to meet in person and everything. I've even hired a couple that I've met at these cons to do some voices on the songs. So the first two songs, that was just someone I picked up from Fiverr.

But she's super nice. She knows exactly what I wanted for the songs and she nailed every part. So the first song that I did, Shadows of Incansara was actually about a game that's kind of like an anime game, but it's called Doki Doki Literature Club.

ATX Metal Podcast (12:51.571)
Do- I'm sorry? Doki Literature Club. Okay.

Nicholas L Haas (12:52.888)
Doki Doki Literature Club.

It is disturbing on so many levels. My friend recommended me this game. She's like, you're going to love it. Brother. It's dark. It is so dark and it's it's it really pulls at your heartstrings too because you feel for these characters and, man, I really don't want to ruin anything about it, but

ATX Metal Podcast (13:11.408)
Is it?

Alright.

Nicholas L Haas (13:26.83)
if somebody wants to play it, but I think everyone kind of has at this point. But basically it's a psychological horror where this one character in the game becomes sentient and they know they're in the game and they speak to you directly through the game. Yes, and then they use your gamertag when they were speaking to you. They're like, I know it's not this person that I'm speaking to. I'm actually speaking to

ATX Metal Podcast (13:43.101)
Wait, so in the game they're talking to you?

Nicholas L Haas (13:56.288)
Nick and then my gamertag. was like, what is this? This is different. Dude, shout out to, yeah, I mean, the creator of the game is just a madman, he's so, Dan Salvato, he's such a cool guy. I kind of messed up whenever I released Shadows of Ink because I used a portion of the song and I...

ATX Metal Podcast (14:00.244)
You're like, alright, that's enough internet, Skynet!

Nicholas L Haas (14:22.254)
You know I credited him for it and but it actually made him as a featured artist and emailed me like hey terminal decay I appreciate you doing this, but I'm not actually in the song You only use like a couple seconds of it So you don't have to actually do that and it's gonna confuse my listeners like okay my bad, bro So that was a whole thing. I had to take him off of there, but No people are still receptive to the song because it's about one of the characters from the game and

ATX Metal Podcast (14:27.633)
ATX Metal Podcast (14:42.717)
Damn.

Nicholas L Haas (14:52.322)
Yeah, it was pretty cool though, because people were like desperate to reach out to Dan and kind of just talk to him. And I'm getting an email from him like, hey, man, maybe you shouldn't do this. hey, can you take me off of there? I'm like,

ATX Metal Podcast (15:00.029)
Hahaha

ATX Metal Podcast (15:08.985)
It's like, I could just see him like, get in a couple emails or a couple like pings or notifications that he's been listed as a procreator. He's like, I'm fucking, what? He goes and listens to it and he's just like, well damn, okay. Like what if you, what would, I'm just curious, like maybe you reach back out to him later and say, hey, I've got this other thing.

Nicholas L Haas (15:16.056)
Mm-hmm.

Nicholas L Haas (15:21.451)
Yeah, yeah, I think that's what happened.

Yeah

Mm-hmm.

ATX Metal Podcast (15:37.681)
you you want to jump on it or I mean, I don't know how that would work. I'm not a musician, so.

Nicholas L Haas (15:41.462)
I don't, yeah, I mean, that would be cool for sure. He's very, I would say, he kind of stays away from it now. He created the game and it's like, he doesn't really want, it doesn't seem like he really wants much to do with it outside of just, you know, promoting it and things like that. But yeah, he, you know, he says not to reach out to him about the game and stuff like that. I'm sure people still do because they want a second one, but I mean,

It is what it is. But yeah, Fantastic Game, my first song was actually based on that. A lot of people really liked it. They liked the fact that I brought in a voice actor to play the characters and stuff, just to bring some immersiveness to the song and then actually write the lyrics around the character from the song as well. But yeah, again, going back to creating music that...

is about these characters and what they're feeling and everything. just, you know, it's an intense moment whenever these characters are going through these events that is dark and just, you know, yeah, just very dark episodes. And I wanted to kind of capture that in the music and the atmosphere of it and everything.

So that's for those two songs. This next EP coming out is an original character of mine because I want to avoid copyright at all costs. So now I have started to create my own character. This one's going to be Miyoko Akabane, which I actually have a favorite voice actor of mine that got to play her, which is wild to me that I still hear her on the song. I can't say her name just yet.

ATX Metal Podcast (17:12.147)
Yes.

Nicholas L Haas (17:31.246)
But it's from one of my favorite shows. But yeah, I'll announce that later on upon the release and everything. But yeah, I'm super excited about it. She was very cool and the lines that she delivered were just amazing, creepy. She caught the vibe of Miyoko that I was going for. But yeah, it's just, it's difficult. It is so difficult.

having a character idea that you're going to use and then you're like, I don't want to go into copyright though. it's like complete 180 creating a brand new character with a whole new story, back line and everything that has nothing to do with the other character that I was going to reference previously, which was going to be Tomie from Junito. Junito like

ATX Metal Podcast (18:09.747)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (18:25.582)
crazy psychological horror anime and stuff like that. Very dark, but his pinnacle creation and character was definitely Tomie. So yeah, I was looking into it and stuff and I was like, no, I'm not gonna do that. So yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (18:44.915)
I don't, man, I really, it's like when people talk to me about music, they start talking about albums or producers or this. and I'm, I'm, and it's just, it's so much to take in people that, you know, are into a thing. Like if I started talking about water chemistry, it's people will be like, yeah, sure. Great. But the, the, like the anime world to me is, I mean, there's so many, there's so many different

Nicholas L Haas (18:49.388)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (18:58.808)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (19:07.022)
You

ATX Metal Podcast (19:15.279)
animes that are based on literally, I mean, there's so much, again, it's one of those worlds where you kind of got to like not put your blinders on, but like you can be a fan of it all, but you really are like, okay, I like this. And I just find, I just find like horror anime in my mind. sitting here thinking like, what, what are they going through? That's like, I'm going to create a cartoon about some of the most

Nicholas L Haas (19:16.299)
Yes.

Nicholas L Haas (19:38.766)
Hahaha.

ATX Metal Podcast (19:44.849)
you know, wild is horrific shit. Like you said, psychological. and, and, and so, you know, whenever my kids started watching it, obviously she started with the lower level stuff, obviously Dragon Ball and everything up from there, but now she's yeah. Now, now she's, I couldn't even tell you what she's into now. And, but, you know, as a parent, you gotta be careful because just because it's anime, you know, it's animated.

Nicholas L Haas (19:48.704)
Yes, yes.

Nicholas L Haas (19:56.621)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (19:59.959)
yeah, grew up with that, yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (20:09.396)
yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (20:12.188)
But it's, it, you know, it comes off as cartoonish, but some of these things are seriously, like you said, they're, they're pretty fucking disturbing. So, so I'm just, so I don't want to be one of those like helicopter parents where, you know, kiddos on, on the iPad, just kind of watching some stuff. And then I peek over her shoulder and it's just like this anime where I have no fucking clue what's going on. But I know that, that she may or may not be, you know, watching something that could.

Nicholas L Haas (20:17.603)
they're dark, dude. they're... Yes. Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (20:33.655)
Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (20:41.722)
you know, just imagine a 12 year old watching, watching the anime that you're talking about. You know what I mean?

Nicholas L Haas (20:43.906)
Yeah.

Oh yeah, Higurashi or Kame ga Kill. Dude, there's one anime that I mean, and some of these animes like they will get to you emotionally because of the character you get attached to a character and all of a sudden their heads being stuck on a pike. And you're like, you're like, oh, dude, there was this one anime called a Kame ga Kill. It's called a Kame ga Kill.

ATX Metal Podcast (20:49.606)
Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (21:08.818)
Shit.

Okay.

Okay. Yeah. Teach me. Teach me young one.

Nicholas L Haas (21:15.592)
And it is... Man, dude, okay, so Akame got killed. So it's basically about, you know, these characters in this kind of assassins guild called Night Raid. And so the leader, Akame, or whatever, you know, they go out and they assassinate these people, but sometimes the members of Night Raid don't make it through an episode. And it...

ATX Metal Podcast (21:41.522)
hole.

Nicholas L Haas (21:42.44)
And it's a character that, you know, you can't get attached to any of the characters because, man, I hope I'm not spoiling this or anything, but man, like you can't, I will just say you can't get attached to any of the characters. And one of them, Chelsea, that I really liked, she was, you know, she could shape shift and change herself into, you know, one of the other people or something like that from the other, they were called the Yeagers.

ATX Metal Podcast (21:50.576)
Hahaha

Nicholas L Haas (22:10.914)
so they were more so the bad guys. they were trying to fight night raid. so anyways, Chelsea kind of disguises herself as one of them and then they find out and they find her. And then the last thing you see is like her getting chopped up by one of the fucking dudes. And, the main character, he goes into town to try to find Chelsea. And then everyone's like staring up at this, this, pike.

Like way up in the air and you just see Chelsea's head just stuck up there. I was like Brother I was like Dude It made me so mad I felt man. I was so mad at that episode I every time every time I watch a comedy got killed now. I just I skip past it. I just Yeah, I I don't want to see that I don't want to see that again, it's it's so funny like I tell people I write like

ATX Metal Podcast (22:44.646)
Man, some like crusader type shit, some Viking man.

ATX Metal Podcast (22:54.78)
Hahaha!

ATX Metal Podcast (22:59.993)
I'm good.

Nicholas L Haas (23:09.094)
heavy dark shit like horror anime music and stuff but I'm not a heavy person like I'm not I'm not like a dark scary person or anything like that I just like to write about it but some some things I just can't handle watching it makes me feel uncomfortable and that was one of the things like seeing her I was like it made me feel a certain way same go ahead

ATX Metal Podcast (23:14.641)
Right.

ATX Metal Podcast (23:31.89)
So, no, I was just going to say, so I'm just curious, like, where did, where did, where did your, where did your animate? I don't want to call it obsession, but yeah, take me, take me through that journey.

Nicholas L Haas (23:36.824)
Mm-hmm.

Nicholas L Haas (23:42.882)
Journey begin? dude, I mean, it started with Dragon Ball Z, whenever I was way younger. I was nerdy, ran around like Goku and stuff like that, you know, the normal, yeah, whatever. But yeah, and then I started getting into the real stuff, like the darker animes and stuff, whenever I got a little older.

and it just kind of spanned from years. Cause I remember the first one that I watched that was kind of in the darker realm was Dead Man Wonderland. Yeah, that was a lot of like killing and they would use their blood as weapons. That was the craziest shit. Like they would use their blood would be their weapons to fight with.

ATX Metal Podcast (24:29.574)
Wait, would they? Wait.

Nicholas L Haas (24:32.386)
they would like cut themselves and then their blood would come out. Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (24:33.956)
Okay, thank you. was, I'm thinking, I'm thinking like, okay, do they have like some kind of special power where they can just like secrete their own blood or do they have to like open themselves up?

Nicholas L Haas (24:44.21)
No, yeah, it was like they would cut themselves and then the blood would come out and it would be like a knife or something like that or they could turn it into a sword. It was, yeah, dude, it's, yeah, yeah, it was crazy. So yeah, Dead Man Wonderland, I remember was definitely the first one that I watched where I was like, okay, this is kind of dark.

ATX Metal Podcast (25:03.57)
Like just imagine the the writers of this show like okay listen guys listen. I've got it. I've got it their blood is their weapons and then just everybody everybody around the tables just

Nicholas L Haas (25:07.01)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (25:14.018)
Dude, like...

Hahaha!

ATX Metal Podcast (25:19.388)
Give that man a raise, know, like, Kali, okay, sorry. just, I just had like a board. I just had like a board room meeting somewhere in like Osaka just, you know, they're like the 33rd tower overlooking, you know, downtown. And they're just having this conversation about blood weapons.

Nicholas L Haas (25:20.982)
Yeah, right. Yeah. No, no, no, it's... Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (25:36.142)
Yeah, it's just crazy to have an original idea. I saw, it's kind of crazy, I was watching another one on Hulu called Summertime Rendering and it felt exactly similar to Higurashi where the character would loop back. And what's funny is one of the characters in there also is the voice actor for Rena from Higurashi. I was like,

Like so yeah, but it was still a really good anime. There were some parts that weren't like Higurashi So it was it was interesting, but dude. Yeah, there's there's so many Different stories and stuff and it's not all dark there's definitely like good outcomes in the horror animes where there's like a resolution that You know, it kind of makes everything better like everything goes back to normal and the killings don't even happen

wow. I probably just spoiled a bunch of shits. Wow. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Redacted. Redacted. Yeah. But, yeah. Speaking of producers and stuff like that, but talking more so on the musical side of where I'm going with the mixing, the mastering and all that.

ATX Metal Podcast (26:34.899)
I'll just, I'll just do some like sampling over this or like technical difficulty.

Just black screen.

Nicholas L Haas (26:59.742)
so, been listening to quite a bit of, who is it? well, Distant for one. So Distant, I have actually, I got their, yeah, their band Distant. Yeah, the band Distant. I actually recently got their amplifier, their amp sim. It's crazy. Cause I just needed, I needed an amp that was dirty and just sounded fucking monstrous.

ATX Metal Podcast (27:11.291)
the band distant.

ATX Metal Podcast (27:26.483)
Okay.

Nicholas L Haas (27:26.806)
There's a pedal on there called Destructor and it's like a buzz synth like I don't even I don't even know like an octave buzz synth thing that just makes the guitar sound gnarly Especially the chugs and the harmonics like if you do a pinch harmonic, it just sounds nasty But yeah, sorry using that I got the Oto Home kits from the Buster Oto Home stuff I started like kind of watching him

ATX Metal Podcast (27:44.615)
Okay.

Nicholas L Haas (27:56.142)
Also, what is it? Simon Petroforte, a star I watched him to. Just like all these producers, I'm like, how do I get my stuff to sound the way that on the records that I'm listening to? you know, sometimes you got to step back and do your own thing because you're not trying to copy exactly what they're doing. But you kind of want to see the blueprint. You want to see, like, what are they doing to, you know, get this sound and get it to this quality and

ATX Metal Podcast (28:16.519)
Right.

Nicholas L Haas (28:25.696)
It's just a lot of listening, a lot of listening. So a lot of listening went into, you know, doing these mixes and stuff like that for the songs that I've done, which the EP is definitely way more, way more involved than I have done mixing and mastering wise before. So this has been definitely more involved, really.

ATX Metal Podcast (28:45.981)
Okay.

Nicholas L Haas (28:53.356)
you know, doing the gain staging, the whole thing, kind of just doing all of that to make sure everything sounds good. But it's been quite a process, quite a process. People are like, when is it coming out? Be patient, be patient. It's coming. I still got to check vocals and all that. So yeah, I have a guy from Japan, actually, his name is Takuya. He is going to do a...

ATX Metal Podcast (29:05.715)
Yeah

Nicholas L Haas (29:19.862)
He's doing a guitar solo on one of the songs. And man, that dude is just, he's nuts. He's nuts. I just found him randomly on Instagram and I was like, I choose you. I messaged him. I messaged him and I was like, Hey man, I really like your style of solo and lead playing. You know, how much would you charge to, to, you know, do a solo and

Yeah, we agreed on him out and everything. And so he's currently writing the solo for one of the songs. But yeah, man, I'm really excited about this. I'm really excited about the whole project. It's definitely been different from the Haas effect because the Haas effect was all... It was different because the Haas effect felt like it was not a cohesive thought, if that makes any sense.

The lyrics and everything were kind of on the go. There was no main story or anything like that, like with Terminal Decay, where it's already kind of like, have a story for the lyrics to go to. Whereas the Haas effect, was like, I was writing more so in the moment and how I was feeling. Yes.

ATX Metal Podcast (30:32.679)
Yeah, just, yeah, like I need, not in a sense that, God, I need lyrics, but you've got the, would assume you've basically got the song done and then you're just trying to fill it in with lyrics or you're just trying to, okay.

Nicholas L Haas (30:48.558)
Essentially, yes, and whatever I'm feeling. Like it was more so those songs were definitely more about personal things, like personal things, what I was going through, maybe somebody else's something that they're going through. But yeah, more so that kind of realm of lyrics and stuff like that. Where terminal decay is just, it's about fucking

ATX Metal Podcast (30:57.96)
Okay.

Nicholas L Haas (31:13.326)
anime character and what they're going through and it's just yeah and I can write that story and create that person and go from there so it's definitely it's made it easier for the songwriting I want to say because and especially with the lyrics and everything because again it's easier to write to when you already have an idea thought out whereas the host effect I'm like oh fuck what do I write about my shit

ATX Metal Podcast (31:14.003)
Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (31:39.58)
Hahaha

You're like, you're like, hey, you're like, hey, hey, Siri, I need lyrics to this song. Listen. But, no, I think, I think that you're, just listening to terminal decay. I haven't given it to in-car tests, but I definitely, you know, headphones and, through the, through the speakers, downstairs on the surround sound sounds. Sounds thick, man. Sounds really good. I know I remember, I can't remember what song it was, but you had told me specifically like, Hey,

Nicholas L Haas (31:43.436)
I already sang about that. Hey Siri.

Nicholas L Haas (32:02.984)
sweet.

Appreciate that, thank you.

ATX Metal Podcast (32:12.817)
you need to listen to this song in with headphones, like like in ear or some, you know, a very good set ahead because there was this like spatial three, four D kind of sound. It just like, it was wild. Okay. I hope I'm a find this song. Let's do it again. If you know the one I'm talking about, but for those listening and watching find this song or I'll maybe I'll leave it in the comments or something, but, it sounds like

Nicholas L Haas (32:18.84)
Mm-hmm.

Nicholas L Haas (32:24.046)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sure.

ATX Metal Podcast (32:42.107)
it's going behind you, but also panning left and right. So it's this really immersive type sound. And, you know, the fact that you're mixing and master that I could only imagine, you know, the, process to go to do something like from that to, you know, the death core style where, you know, you're trying to tell this story and death core, you know, it's more, I don't know in terms of, you know, producing

You know, what was the Haas effect to terminal decay? Is there any, like, I feel like for producers, there's a lot of muscle memory, you know, especially if you're producing the same style of music, like metal core, death core, hardcore, you got like your, your EQs and this, that, and the other. So from the production side, going from Haas effect, and then your, your downtime, and then picking up with terminal, like, was there any, was there any like bad habits you had to get rid of or any like new tricks you needed to learn to kind of

Nicholas L Haas (33:19.907)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (33:26.243)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (33:34.84)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (33:40.654)
There some, yeah, were definitely some new tricks. really, honestly, it was more so just kind of just making it dirty, honestly. Because my whole thing with the Haas effect was clean. I wanted it to sound clean and polished and all this production quality and stuff. Whereas with Terminal Decay, I just wanted it sound dirty and gritty and just have that dark ambience to it and everything.

But yeah, was kind of like just being more aggressive with how I listen, like how I attack, like EQing and stuff like that. Just making it more aggressive, using more saturation and stuff like that. Saturation really can help with creating some cool harmonic distortion and things like that. But yeah, like some adding that and then compressors on top of that.

But yeah, not really more, not really much so of the bad habits on the Haas effect, but more so like learning some newer tricks with Terminal and just kind of doing what sounds good. Like it doesn't matter, doesn't matter if you know, if it's clipping, I mean, you got to fix the clipping issues and stuff like that, but more so just getting it to a level that sounds good and you know, it's always...

ATX Metal Podcast (34:52.978)
Okay.

Nicholas L Haas (35:08.046)
I've never worked on an actual console, so I can't say how it would sound if I were to do it on a console versus doing it in the box, because I've always done it on the computer. I've never been in an actual studio or anything like that to do anything. Or mix on an SSL console or something. can only imagine how it would sound, but I mean, I've never been in a studio. Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (35:29.477)
You're like all these knobs, all these, my god, what can, oh I can...

Nicholas L Haas (35:34.19)
You can play with, yeah, this? this is a real SSL bus compressor? that's what it sounds like.

ATX Metal Podcast (35:39.781)
I've been, you know, I've watched countless, you know, song, cause I like, you know, kind of like your biscuits this morning. like to know what's in, I like to know what's in the mix, right? So I'm a huge, huge consumer of the music. I'm not,

Nicholas L Haas (35:47.288)
Mm-hmm.

Nicholas L Haas (35:57.048)
Yeah, right.

Nicholas L Haas (36:04.11)
Mm-hmm.

ATX Metal Podcast (36:06.162)
some songs I'm in, I'm in for the lyrics. Um, but for the most part, and I think maybe, maybe most people, you know, when you hear the music first, it, you know, like the intro to terminal is like this creepy kind of like, Oh, okay. What's getting ready to happen. And then, you know, here comes the crescendo and, and, and then it just catches you because half the time we're, we're not going to understand what you're, what you're going to say, especially in the death core realm. Um, I was watching some video on Instagram where there's like,

Nicholas L Haas (36:22.894)
Mm-hmm.

Nicholas L Haas (36:31.458)
Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (36:35.07)
I don't know the page, but the dude is like, and there's multiple other videos that have been out there like this, where you take like a death course song or a song where the screaming is just through the roof, but you just say it plainly. It's like, I will kill you. And you just say it in the most flat monotone. And he's in his wife is like riding shotgun, his kids in the back and like the, you know, the music comes back in and he's like, he's like, get the China.

Nicholas L Haas (36:52.622)
Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (37:04.22)
hit the China and she pulls out this little, this little China. So he's like driving and he's like, just it's, it's so, it's so good. But, but yeah, when it comes to like working on, when it comes to working on music, like at a studio setting, like you said on an SSL console, like

Nicholas L Haas (37:04.888)
Did you the trailer?

Nicholas L Haas (37:13.71)
that's great. That's great.

Nicholas L Haas (37:25.004)
Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (37:28.314)
If you sat down in front of a console like that, just, we'll just call it a modern day console at a mid level studio, because there's even, I mean, I wouldn't even know where to, where to begin with walking into a studio, but do you think that like, what would you change or what would you tweak if you did have the opportunity to sit down like in an actual studio in front of this console? Would you even know how to run it?

Nicholas L Haas (37:34.829)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (37:44.238)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (37:56.288)
Well, yeah, mean, honestly, it's more so down to the, you know, the console. then, you know, I've seen like, I've been in studios like that, where, you know, they had their compressors and racks and stuff like that. And, you know, so with the console, I mean, it's basically like, you have your faders and everything where you have all the tracks. So it would be more so like you have everything running into it. So guitars and

ATX Metal Podcast (37:56.484)
I guess we should start there.

Nicholas L Haas (38:25.208)
then they have like the patch bays where you can patch in certain effects and compressors and things like that because everything is patched out to compressors, reverbs and stuff like that that you can add in. So I mean, I've actually been in a studio where, you know, a couple of times where I could see all of that and then also just learning from other producers, some producer friends and stuff like that that work in studios like that and kind of explain it to me because I'm like, you know,

I'm working on Studio One where I have the faders and everything. How does that translate to an actual console? But yeah, plugins is more so just taking the patch cable and patching it into a certain compressor that you're wanting to run into. So say you have a snare, you would just patch that snare into a 76 compressor or something like that.

Yeah, so that's kind of what I think how that would go. But that's okay. That's okay.

ATX Metal Podcast (39:26.716)
For the record, I have no fucking idea what you just said, but it sounded very knowledgeable. I would hire you off Fiverr to mix my shit just based off that, right?

Nicholas L Haas (39:39.694)
I appreciate that. appreciate that. yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (39:42.461)
Like, yeah, he said, like, I'm just, I'm just sitting there with a notepad and I have like little check marks where you mentioned like keywords, like compressor patch latency gain. And it's like, he said all of those he's hired, you know, I have no fucking clue. I've got, I've got an AI agent that does all of my work for me now. So I'm, I'm, I'm Skynet central. Yeah, I'm good. But I do, I do miss, I will admit that I do miss the, the

Nicholas L Haas (39:50.678)
Compressive.

Nicholas L Haas (39:54.83)
that's beautiful.

Nicholas L Haas (40:02.559)
yeah, yeah. You're good.

ATX Metal Podcast (40:12.626)
How do I phrase this? Like I do miss doing the work, if that makes sense. So, whereas I used to record, you know, all the inputs and throw it into Adobe, Adobe Audition and, you know, lay my, cause you know, on my side, I'm pretty set up. I'm already pre-EQ'd and everything. And I just kind of do a little soft touches here and there. you know, my challenge is always, what is my guest? What is the equipment that my guest is working with?

Nicholas L Haas (40:18.038)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (40:35.757)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (40:41.943)
Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (40:42.046)
And, and I've had to overcome a lot of challenges with people's setups. And, know, thankfully, through riverside.fm, they now have this thing called magic audio where I just click a button and within seconds it, it eliminates. I don't know how much time that I've saved with this, with, with this software. It's, it's amazing. Yeah. Like, but, but, but still I miss.

Nicholas L Haas (41:07.086)
That's so cool! That's awesome!

ATX Metal Podcast (41:10.918)
I miss going in and you'll hear like, like it has the, it has the ability to take out, you know, Oz and they call it fluff. There's like delete the fluff and you're like click and it's like gone and like, fuck man. It would take, yeah. Like somebody told me a long time ago, like for every, for every minute that you record audio, you have like two or three minutes worth of editing and for like every minute of video.

Nicholas L Haas (41:21.452)
Yeah, fuck. Yeah.

Whoa, that's... that's nuts.

ATX Metal Podcast (41:40.494)
It's like four or five X that. So, so I definitely, I definitely do missing going in there and, know, space bar highlight, delete, continue splice. Okay, cool. Yeah. I, I mean, I think there.

Nicholas L Haas (41:43.767)
I believe that. Sure. Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (41:51.914)
do you? Do you miss it? No, it's fun for me. I, I, I manually edit my guitars and stuff like that and other things. So if I have to go in and there's a part that, you know, there's, there's just noise. I have to go in, cut it out. And it's just, yeah, I trust me. I know all about the editing part. Yes. The editing is yes. Yes.

ATX Metal Podcast (42:19.484)
But I think that's for me, it's like, I'm doing that. Like I'm creating this. I'm not just one clicking my way through life these days. Like a lot of us are like, here, sign up for this click or, you know, one touch pay click, you know, just, but yeah, like I said earlier in the beginning, you know, I used to do the show one way and then because, you know, life happened and job change and just, you know,

Nicholas L Haas (42:25.964)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (42:36.023)
Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (42:48.462)
studio renovation. haven't really been, haven't really been hitting it hard on the, on the episodes. And, and I do, and I feel bad, right? Like I, like, I feel like there are people out there that are genuinely interested in, in not only what I do here supporting the scene, but also when the people that I interview. And so with this software that definitely helps speed things up, but you know, like, you know, I miss doing some of the cool stuff, like, like the audio intro, like the, like the intro is like,

Nicholas L Haas (43:09.731)
Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (43:15.536)
you know, thanks to shout out to come and take a productions, go to come and take a.com or, know, while the music's playing in the background and I have to make sure that I have that level just right to where my voice punches through, but you still hear it. But then you're like, okay, can they hear it in headphones? How does it sound in the car? How does it sound through a TV? How does it sound through a phone on fucking speaker? Yeah. And, and I've learned through talking to people like you, through our buddy, Josh, shout out Josh, we love you.

Nicholas L Haas (43:19.224)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (43:25.356)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (43:33.774)
All very important. Yes. Yes.

Nicholas L Haas (43:39.703)
Mm-hmm.

Nicholas L Haas (43:43.19)
Yes, Josh, we love you.

ATX Metal Podcast (43:44.612)
Yeah, my boy, you know, my boy Taylor, Taylor Anderson from Titan audio productions, but he's the front of house guy at a come and take it now. And I mean, that dude wizard, wizard.

Nicholas L Haas (43:52.674)
Taylor yeah dude Taylor help me dude yeah I love Taylor that he's so cool he actually reached out to me because he wanted to kind of help me with my production journey and he helped me get some fab filter plugins and my god dude they they're my Swiss army knife like I couldn't do a mix without fab filter plugins

ATX Metal Podcast (44:16.593)
Wado.

Fab filter, what is that?

Nicholas L Haas (44:21.388)
FabFilter, dude, it's like, that's the name of the plugin. So it's like EQs, compressors, and things like that. yeah, it was basically like a package of these FabFilter plugins. like Saturn, all pretty damn expensive plugins that, you know, they're just fantastic though. They make it so much easier. Like with the EQ, okay, so think about it this way. So like with the EQ, you can do like,

ATX Metal Podcast (44:29.778)
So it's like a package.

Nicholas L Haas (44:50.766)
mid side, you can actually do some mid side processing. So let's say you want to take the low end kick out of your sides. You would set it up as a mono, like as a mono or yeah, it would set it to mono and then if you drag it, you will notice that the kick

ATX Metal Podcast (45:06.321)
Okay.

Nicholas L Haas (45:12.362)
you can hear it more in the middle than you can in the sides and your side will kind of free it. Yeah. So you keep that low end rumble out of the sides of the mix. And then let's say your guitars, let's say your guitars, you need to bring them up more in the sides, make a, you know, make like a bell or, you know, make like a cut with a, it like maybe five, five K like seven K where the, where the guitar attack is and just kind of bring that up a little and put it in side mode.

and you'll notice you'll hear your guitars start coming out more in the sides. So it's a fantastic plugin. And then it also has dynamic processing too, where it ducks down on certain parts, almost like compressing the signal or whatever. But yeah, that's just one. That's just one plugin. then the saturation, and then the Saturn 2 is like, everyone fucking uses that.

ATX Metal Podcast (46:03.794)
That's right.

Nicholas L Haas (46:10.606)
Buster Otohome, I was watching and that was like one of his go-to plugins was Saturn. But yeah, just fantastic plugins. I can't thank Taylor enough for those because they have been a lifesaver honestly. They saved my mixes a lot of times.

ATX Metal Podcast (46:24.561)
Yeah.

Yeah, if.

again for anybody listening or watching, you want, I'm over here like pimping Taylor out, like he works for me or like he's even asked for this, but I always tell people, you know, I'm here to help. I may not know how to do the thing, but I've, know plenty of people that do know how to do the thing, whatever that thing is. And you know, I know when it comes to mixes, sometimes you become so close to it that you just need, you need that other set of ears, that other.

you know, someone from a different perspective to go, well, Nick, you know, all of this sounds great, but, know, here, try this plugin or, you know, try this compressor or try this trick. And you're like, damn, you're right, dude. And I think that's what's really, that's really cool about, you know, the, day, the day and age in which we live through the ability to share music and share ideas. Like the guy that you saw on Instagram that,

Nicholas L Haas (47:06.467)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (47:24.974)
Mm-hmm.

ATX Metal Podcast (47:25.948)
that, man, what is happening to this? I'm all glitchy. Whoa. Hold on. Is my camera about to die? Hold on. Hold on.

Nicholas L Haas (47:28.886)
yeah, something is. no, what's going on? What's going on?

Nicholas L Haas (47:38.175)
no!

ATX Metal Podcast (47:45.606)
Okay, so let me swap out my battery on my camera. Just stay here, this will all come back.

Nicholas L Haas (47:48.618)
Sure, go ahead. Okay.

Nicholas L Haas (47:54.998)
Are you having trouble sleeping at night?

Nicholas L Haas (48:01.122)
Boy do I have the product for you.

Nicholas L Haas (48:07.724)
Now a word from our sponsor.

Nicholas L Haas (48:16.844)
Boy, I was always nasally and everything all the time until I switched to nose strips for sleeping. Now I can breathe just fine.

Nicholas L Haas (48:29.302)
I don't snore and wake up my wife in the middle of the night.

ATX Metal Podcast (48:38.214)
Woo! I just got a warning! This is new.

Nicholas L Haas (48:42.528)
A warning? What?

ATX Metal Podcast (48:43.812)
Yeah. man. Okay. I'm out of frame. This is okay. We're going to edit all this out, but we're going to keep rolling. So it says devices struggling.

Nicholas L Haas (48:49.986)
Did we go over time? Okay, okay.

ATX Metal Podcast (49:00.988)
I fixed it. See? I'm back. The fuck?

Nicholas L Haas (49:02.998)
What happened?

Nicholas L Haas (49:09.976)
Just throw it out the window, whatever it was.

ATX Metal Podcast (49:12.644)
Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, here at the ATX Metal Podcast Studio, we are known for technical difficulties and delays.

Nicholas L Haas (49:25.976)
you

There you are! Yay!

ATX Metal Podcast (49:29.99)
There we are. We're back. We are known here at the studio for technical difficulties and you just got to live through one. That was my bad. It wasn't the battery camera, even though I did need to swap it out. And yeah, fuck, we've been going for 50 minutes. I didn't even realize we've gotten, they gone that long, but no, just for some reason, my power cable was not plugged in my computer all the way. And I'm

Nicholas L Haas (49:46.229)
Yeah.

Cool.

Nicholas L Haas (49:58.318)
no!

ATX Metal Podcast (49:59.781)
And it and the warning was that, you know, the device that I'm using is struggling to process literally everything. And that's why it was like, we're just running out of juice. That's all. We're just running out of juice.

Nicholas L Haas (50:06.912)
Yeah.

No worries. And we're back.

ATX Metal Podcast (50:15.548)
And we're back. Thank you for the word from our sponsors. No strips. That's yes. Those.

Nicholas L Haas (50:18.816)
Yes, no strips. man, life savers. Relationship savers.

ATX Metal Podcast (50:24.626)
Man, yeah, we'll switch gears here and go for a little, a little personal, but yeah, I, um, I was in the Marine Corps 2001, 2006, and then spent another five years as a civilian contractor. And long story short, they passed the packed act, the, where there was like airborne, they call it like the, Oh my God, burn is literally called the burn pit registry where veterans can.

sign up and enroll in literal in, healthcare for airborne toxins. So like, can't really breathe super good out of them. not like deviated septum bad, but they said that based off of where I was at and how long I was exposed to it, that I have something called a rhinitis, rhinitis anyway, just inflamed nasal passages. So I can't really breathe that well. So they were like, maybe you should try these nasal strips. And I was like, okay.

Nicholas L Haas (51:06.029)
Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (51:23.266)
And man, I was standing there looking at them at ATV. There's like, there's like almost like salsa flavors. There's mild, medium and high, but it's like, it's like strong, stronger, strongest. And it's like, well, you know, let me just go, let me go mid. And these are like, these are like tape. So you were talking about earlier, the ones they're like magnetic. Yeah. That it's, it's so, it's so crazy how it just like clicks it.

Nicholas L Haas (51:32.238)
Yeah, yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (51:43.756)
The magnetic ones? Yeah, dude. Wow.

ATX Metal Podcast (51:51.31)
and it just opens you up and man, I sleep so much better. So much better.

Nicholas L Haas (51:52.086)
Yep. Yes.

Nicholas L Haas (51:57.944)
Sam bro, I'll wake up because before, you know, I had fears that I had because, you know, my wife, she was saying how loud that I snore. had feared. I had feared that I had like sleep apnea, but apparently it was definitely nose prone because whenever I got the nasal strips, I did notice that I could breathe easier. And then she said the first night.

that I had it on, there was no storm at all. I was like...

ATX Metal Podcast (52:30.898)
There it is, problem solved, relationship saved. But man, sorry for that little interruption. I kind of fucked our flow up, but fuck. What were we talking about? God, we're such ADHD kids these days. Was it processing music?

Nicholas L Haas (52:34.606)
yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (52:42.028)
No worries, no worries at all. What were we talking about there? What were we talking about there?

Nicholas L Haas (52:50.678)
We are bro, we are.

Yeah, processing the music and everything, the plugins, we were talking about the trap filter stuff. Yes, all that, Yes, sound, yes.

ATX Metal Podcast (52:57.49)
Plugins, console, tailor, music, yes. Sound, sound, music, noise. Well, speaking of noise, terminal decays obviously out now. What was the other one that's out currently?

Nicholas L Haas (53:13.044)
so it's Shadows of Ink and Sorrow and then Rena's Descent, the Hanami-Tawa Syndrome.

ATX Metal Podcast (53:20.348)
And then we have, how many more tracks are, God, I thought I turned that off. I'm sorry, guys.

Nicholas L Haas (53:28.014)
so four tracks are in the works for the EP. yeah, that's going to be about, Miyoko Akabane. So the, EP is like a working title. I'm still working on that. yeah. And this is the first time I actually, I, because the first two album covers are actually AI made. I just like did my own shit with them and put my logo and stuff. but this time I actually reached out to an artist to create the art.

and it was so much better. It's hand drawn and everything. I showed it to you. But yeah, was, yeah, it just, and it feels better to promote that because it was something that was actually hand drawn as opposed to something that was just computer generated, which sometimes I would be embarrassed to share it and be like, well, I didn't actually make this, but yeah, like just like having merch and stuff like that for it.

ATX Metal Podcast (53:58.749)
Yeah, looks great.

Nicholas L Haas (54:23.958)
or wanting to make something to promote it. But yeah, no, this is going to be all mine. Like it's all hand drawn and everything. lighting looks cool. It was like a cloud came over. A cloud came over and the lighting in the room just got really soft and it looks nice right now on the camera. But yeah, no, it definitely...

ATX Metal Podcast (54:42.386)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (54:48.374)
It's definitely different this time around with having an actual artist for the EP, because I'm just going all out with this shit. Like, I definitely am. I put a lot of time into it. A lot of money. Just to... Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (55:01.138)
Yeah, real quick. let's how long is this project of yours been? I guess in the works like how from you know what mean?

Nicholas L Haas (55:07.544)
Dude. Okay, so I started, so let me see. So my first song came out back in November. So Terminal Decay has only been around almost for about a year now. So this started after I started writing the EP probably after like a month after Renner's descent. I was like, I gotta do EP now. Like I have to like I have the fans for it that actually want to hear this.

I'm going to go in and I'm going to do an actual four song EP and because before with like the Haas effect when I would do the EP, was just a bunch of singles that were jumbled together that were not, you know, they would all come out one at a time. Yeah, they would all come out at one at a time. And then I just made it into a compilation basically. But with this, these, all of these four songs are going to be brand new to everybody whenever they come out. So I'm excited about that because

ATX Metal Podcast (55:49.49)
linear.

Nicholas L Haas (56:04.576)
It's just, it's been a work in progress for sure. And I really hope people enjoy it because I've had a lot of fun making it honestly. And it's so funny because nobody really knows, I don't have a lot of pictures or anything of myself or any of this on my Terminal Decay page. So I mean, I did a live video once of kind of introducing myself to people.

but haven't done any kind of interviews or anything about it because it's just been kind like in the shadows like it's terminal decay. Who is this guy? What is it an entire band? No, it's just me. It's just me. I appreciate that. But yeah, it's it's it's been a lot of fun and it was funny because whenever I first came out people were like, this is an entire band. Where they going on tour? Like, sorry.

ATX Metal Podcast (56:41.746)
No, it's just the lovely Nick Haas just doing what he does. Nah, man.

ATX Metal Podcast (56:58.77)
I'm just going to hang out in my room and you can enjoy this wherever you want to. think, and that's another thing, the, the, ability, I mean, obviously, so you're a multi instrumentalist, correct? So I think that that's rad and kind of going back to what you're saying about being able to create something and have something that's yours versus just, you know, computer generated stuff. I do think that.

Nicholas L Haas (57:02.798)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (57:12.408)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (57:27.046)
that AI does have its place to, like, again, it assists me and makes my, you know, this passion project that I've got going just makes life, doesn't make life, it makes the process of, you know, creating this content way easier. And, you know, like I shared that flyer with you that is coming up. yeah, holy shit, let me break some, wait.

Nicholas L Haas (57:30.018)
Yes, yes.

Nicholas L Haas (57:38.584)
Sure.

Nicholas L Haas (57:51.917)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (57:56.185)
yeah, dude.

ATX Metal Podcast (57:56.754)
I gotta hit the button. I gotta hit the button.

Ladies and just cut this fucking microphone. OK, I'm just come here. Come here. We're we're we're just we're going to end. We're going to end it like this. I'm going to break some news. Let's see what's like what's today. Today is October 12th. Maybe by the time you hear this, you will. I will have already announced it, but December 6th, everybody knows that the.

Nicholas L Haas (58:07.694)
Just hold,

Alright.

ATX Metal Podcast (58:30.618)
ATX Metal Podcast Showcase is going down at Come and Take It Live. And I am super excited. I'm starting to get all the band logos. I haven't released. Obviously, I'm trying to like think ahead, like when I'm going to release this episode, but also have talked about the showcase. But if I haven't already said it, I'm saying it now, December 6th, ATX Metal Podcast Showcase, we've got...

Nicholas L Haas (58:34.296)
Woo!

Nicholas L Haas (58:47.95)
About the show, yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (58:55.82)
Seven bands potentially eight. There's one little outlier that I think is if I can get that band will be a really fucking spicy mix But but I'm really looking forward to this there's gonna be Inter all the interviews with all the bands that are gonna be coming down the pipeline So I'm pretty excited about that and you know, just being able to share, know information like that and music like yours, it's

Nicholas L Haas (59:05.569)
Nice.

Nicholas L Haas (59:17.368)
Sick.

ATX Metal Podcast (59:22.834)
Kind of why I still do this, man. I really do think that the, keep coming back to mid teens, 2000s, when we first started this podcast, how the music scene here in Austin was just, I don't know, it was just vibrating. was on this other frequency. And then obviously COVID happened and then all the fallout from that. And there's like this resurgence and I'm starting to see more and more people do more and more things.

Nicholas L Haas (59:45.774)
Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (59:52.051)
you know, new bands, new projects, uh, being able to go back and, know, just kind of retool some things or put some stuff, you know, that was on paper now put it into practice. And, um, I just think it's great. So if you want to come out, come out, I think the tickets are going to be like 20 bucks, 25 bucks. But, uh, you know, people are like, man, that's a lot of money. Like now dog, like now 2020 is the new 10, right? Like 20 is the new 10.

Nicholas L Haas (01:00:13.878)
No, not for eight bands. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I'm about to go put $20 in my car for gas. Like, you just got it sometimes. Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:00:24.326)
Yeah, right. mean, I you gotta, sometimes you gotta spend 20 to get places, but, so, so there's that. When can we expect the release of, of the new EP?

Nicholas L Haas (01:00:30.582)
Yeah. Exactly.

Nicholas L Haas (01:00:39.54)
man, I'm aiming for November because the instrumentals and everything are already written. So it's really just down to, I got to get the solo from Takia. And then after that, it is really just getting the lyrics and everything down and getting the vocals down, which once it flows, like dude, just go with it. And that was another thing too, vocal wise.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:00:41.916)
Okay.

Nicholas L Haas (01:01:04.654)
coming from just singing and from singing and doing screaming with the Haas effect. So moving to just screams and learning how to do different screams like lower screams like stuff that I didn't even think that I could attempt. would, yeah, it's just been, it's been different and kind of crazy. And, you know, learning like new different breathing techniques and stuff like that. Actually taking lessons.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:01:11.068)
Mm-hmm.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:01:16.395)
yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (01:01:31.446)
to kind of find my voice and what I can do and what I can't do. So yeah, it's been a lot. And I really think that was my biggest problem with the Haas effect was I would just wing it with vocals. So it wasn't like I wasn't doing any kind of like warm up or anything like that before I started doing the singing and all of that. you know, definitely taking time to do warm ups and

ATX Metal Podcast (01:01:36.24)
wow.

Nicholas L Haas (01:01:59.97)
do technique training and stuff like that. Who is it? Extreme Metal Vocal Institute has been a huge, huge help to helping me find my voice and getting the growls and things like that. Getting to where I like them to be and how it sounds good in the music. Which that was a whole other thing was when I was writing this music, I was like, I gotta put vocals to it now.

Like I have the instruments. Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:02:28.802)
Wait wait wait a minute guys. think we need to there's something. yeah, the vocals we need some vocals over here

Nicholas L Haas (01:02:34.798)
Yeah, the vocals. think, yeah, that might, yeah, but just, you know, and it was, it was difficult at first trying to find my voice because I hadn't done like high screams and deep guttural vocals like I do now, which it's just taken time to learn. And now I can even, I've taught myself to go lower and doing different mouth shapes and like, you know, it's, it's, it's crazy what you can do.

with your mouth and you can manipulate things with your tongue and stuff like that. It's crazy. It's crazy what you can do with your mouth!

ATX Metal Podcast (01:03:04.914)
Brother, am clipping that. I'm putting that on the sample pad.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:03:14.546)
Woo! Perfect. Perfect.

Nicholas L Haas (01:03:16.652)
Yeah, but just like, yeah, just like it's crazy what you can do to create different sounds that just sometimes can sound otherworldly too. Where it's like, what in the fuck is that dude saying?

ATX Metal Podcast (01:03:32.52)
yeah, I mean it's, it's especially cause you know, like you said, you, really have to learn different techniques for the different, for the different sounds that you want to make. And, and all of that has to mesh with, with the, know, with the music that you created. Because I mean, I mean, sometimes, sometimes a mix can just sound blown the fuck out and you're just like, you're like, where I don't, I, yeah, where are the vocals and they're buried underneath the, the, fucking Wheatley's that are going on and the

Nicholas L Haas (01:03:40.034)
Mm-hmm. Pretty different genre. Yeah, exactly.

Nicholas L Haas (01:03:48.333)
Yep.

Nicholas L Haas (01:03:53.122)
Yes.

Where are the vocals? Dude, my god.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:04:02.652)
quad bass just ripping your face off. mean, it's, there's, there's so much, going on that, yeah, like I think, I think deathcore is one of those genres where you've got to be, you gotta be a little more dialed in. I mean, to, to kind of, kind of draw everything out and, know, put it in its proper place so that you can appreciate everything that's baked in. You know what I mean?

Nicholas L Haas (01:04:05.358)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (01:04:16.748)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (01:04:21.933)
Yes.

Nicholas L Haas (01:04:26.006)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because there's I'll be listening to my car and there'll be some mixes where I'm like, where the fuck did the vocals go? Because I like shit loud in my car. Like I have when I'm driving places, it's Houston. So I have to fucking have this shit up loud. But yeah, sometimes I'm like, where the foot this is all kick drum. Where where's the instruments? Where's the vocals and stuff? So I have definitely kind of, you know, whenever I listen

ATX Metal Podcast (01:04:33.318)
Yeah. yeah. I've... oops. Loud approved.

Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (01:04:54.146)
I'll listen in my car and everything and I want to make sure that you can hear everything guitars on the sides, know, kick in the middle and snare and everything and everything is coherent. Like you can hear it and it's not masked by anything else. Like I just switched to a different bass plugin because the other plugin that I was using, it just sounded too flubby and because I was going too low with the guitar. Switch that up, bass is tighter. It's...

definitely sounds better. It cuts more in the mix. So that was something that I changed up recently on it and it sounds much better. It reinforces the guitar more. So there's that too. But yeah, there's just different things that you can do to definitely just take time and listen to the mix and like, why doesn't this sound good in my car? Yeah.

Oh dude, I've had those moments where I'll mix it, it sounds great on my monitors, I take it out to my car and I'm like, fuck. Why is it kick, yeah. Yep. And a lot of it had to do with going back and doing gain staging and make sure that proper levels. So leveling everything at the beginning, like bringing everything down and then just kind of, you know, going by, you know, I use a chart now to...

ATX Metal Podcast (01:05:53.938)
Yeah, you're like, well, back to the drawing board.

Nicholas L Haas (01:06:15.916)
Determine like how the level should be before You know it hits or anything like that So I use a chart now to kind of gain stage everything to where everything is sitting at a certain level so that it's not louder than anything else and then it's also just listening to it to and make sure that everything is balanced so as long as you have a balanced mix then that's when you start throwing in compressors limiters and stuff like that but yeah, yeah, it's it's it's been quite a bit of a

Learning experience to like you were asking me about with doing the Haas effect and everything and that music and then switching over But yeah, just really listening and finding out what plugins actually do and listening for compression and And you know limit it limiting and stuff like that. There's a lot of things that you can learn Or you know just have the plug-in and you're like, what the fuck does this even do and then you go and you use it you're like,

Okay, I hear what that's doing. Yeah, I hear what that's doing. Let me use that. I'm gonna utilize that in my mixing phase now. But yeah, I have a question for you, Ryan. You have heard terminal decay. Does it stank? Does it stank?

ATX Metal Podcast (01:07:14.707)
You're like, we like that.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:07:26.013)
Go for it.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:07:32.77)
brother hit me in the feels with that one. I would, I would definitely, I would definitely put that on, on the stank of meter for sure. Um, and for the, thank you for bringing, for those, for those that don't know, you know, if you know, you know, uh, we used to do this, we used to do this segment called does it stank and, uh, definitely 1000 % bringing that back. Uh, I wanted to make sure that.

Nicholas L Haas (01:07:35.116)
Hahaha!

Nicholas L Haas (01:07:43.534)
Appreciate it. Appreciate it.

Nicholas L Haas (01:07:54.318)
Mm-mm.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:08:00.98)
kind of like, you know, doing a mix and doing a master. I wanted to make sure that the idea was sound. I even bounced it off, Mr. Chuck Loesch from 93.7 HD2 no control radio. I asked him, you know, cause he used to run the Metal Sucks podcast with, you know, Chuck and Godless. That's kind of how all this started. And he's still jamming on here in Austin, it's 93.7.

HD to most cars today have the power to do high definition radio. So you just have to, you know, go to 93 seven, click the dial over, but you can also find it on. I think there's various apps, Apple CarPlay. I think he showed me how to get there, but you can access it. Even, even if you don't have HD, you can go through. Plus he, he releases midnight metal. He goes, he goes five, five nights a week now and releases it on sound cloud.

So just look up no control radio on SoundCloud. But the does it stank was basically we would get music sent to us and we would just, you know, does it stank? And there's two sides to that, right? Like, is it like, does it stank? Like, it could be better. And then we would give feedback to whoever, you know, wrote the music just like constructive criticism. Cause like we said earlier, like sometimes you get too close to it. You need different ears.

Nicholas L Haas (01:09:13.848)
Mm-hmm.

Nicholas L Haas (01:09:19.053)
Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:09:27.027)
And everybody that was on what we call the council was, you know, they had audio experience and played music. So I was like target demographic, you know, does it make your head bob or give you, you know, stank face? whereas they were the people that would be like, okay, right here. Yeah. I would probably do this or, you know, maybe use this plugin or something. So it was like a reaction video, but,

Nicholas L Haas (01:09:48.248)
Mm-hmm.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:09:56.404)
But no, I don't know. didn't want, because at the time when this was going on, reaction videos were like the thing. Everybody was doing reaction videos. People asked me like, why the, why is ATX mode podcast not doing reaction videos to local music? And I'm like, well, I don't know. I, maybe I just didn't have the bandwidth at the time, but in 2026, 100 % there will be, um, I think we're going to call like stanky Saturday or something. I don't know. But, but basically we're going to start.

Nicholas L Haas (01:10:02.316)
Yeah, yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (01:10:22.094)
Nice.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:10:25.221)
you know, opening up the, inbox for any music that you want to just get out and, and whether you're happy with it or not, you know, we'll, we'll give it a spin and, know, we'll tell you like, you know, does it stank? Cause I think that's, yeah, it's fun. mean, I'll be like, seriously when I actually did have a stanky moment when I was jamming it in the car, I was just like, okay, Nick, congrats. Thank you. My Lanza. That was, can't wait to rip this one. You know,

in some other audio format, but yeah, it's thanks. It hits the meter five smells. I remember we had this one where we were going around and like, what's your, cause it's kind of like the show, who whose line is it anyway, where the points don't matter. And that was kind of, we would just go around the room, like on your, everybody had like their personal stank level and people would just throw out like,

Nicholas L Haas (01:11:10.435)
Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:11:19.441)
Yeah, that's like a week's worth of dirty diapers in a hot garbage bin in Mesa, Arizona in July. And you're just like, you can almost smell that, right? You can smell that. that was the catch, the cool thing about going around the room and asking people like...

Nicholas L Haas (01:11:27.854)
Nicholas L Haas (01:11:36.268)
Yeah, yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (01:11:46.102)
The stink meter.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:11:46.804)
The stank meter, like how bad did it stink with? man. Good times. Good times. Well, Nick, man, thank you very much for, for joining me on, on such short notice. mean, we literally were chatting last night and I was like, like, Hey, let's jump on. Let's jump on. Let's rip pod man. And, um, I, I appreciate you as a, as artists, as a musician, uh, keep doing what you're doing. I'm pretty sure that once this gets out there, you're going to gain a few more followers. I'll contribute somehow.

Nicholas L Haas (01:11:58.668)
Yes, yeah, yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (01:12:10.616)
course.

Nicholas L Haas (01:12:14.774)
I appreciate that so much, dude. Dude, thank you. Thank you so much for that, honestly. I appreciate you bringing me on today. It really means a lot. I love just catching up with you two. yeah, it's been great. mean, life, life happens. Life happens. I know you had a job changeover. did I. Much better quality of life. It's crazy how much like, dude, I even live in a new place now that where I have my own studio area, which

ATX Metal Podcast (01:12:15.463)
You know what I

ATX Metal Podcast (01:12:25.864)
Yeah, man.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:12:30.674)
does.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:12:38.163)
Yeah.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:12:44.275)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (01:12:44.698)
I didn't have before I think if you remember I was living like in a one-bedroom like loft style apartment where you know my bed was right behind me now it's a bunch of anime shit but anyways yeah no dude it's it's so nice I have like an e-kit now I have everything that I could want to create the music that I want and I have my own space to do that

ATX Metal Podcast (01:12:56.563)
Yeah.

Nicholas L Haas (01:13:09.006)
So yeah, man, thank you so much again. It's been fantastic speaking with you, Ryan. Yeah, again, Terminal Decay. Thank you guys so much for tuning into the podcast. greatly appreciate it.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:13:23.687)
Yeah, brother, we're going to try this real quick.

We're going to leave that hanging out in the background. But like he said, this is Nick Haas. Terminal Decay is the project. God, I cannot say this. I've got muck mouth today. Renna's descent. Thank you. Renna's descent is what you're listening to right now. It hits all the meters on the stank level. Definitely dirty diapers and hot garbage bins and.

Nicholas L Haas (01:13:45.388)
Yes, Renda's descent.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:14:00.455)
There it is. Come on, let's get it.

Nicholas L Haas (01:14:13.048)
world of slicing off your...

ATX Metal Podcast (01:14:16.509)
Ladies and gentlemen.

ATX Metal Podcast (01:14:23.707)
I really gotcha! I took the whole boom out! I took the whole boom out!

Nicholas L Haas (01:14:27.235)
Ha ha ha!

Nicholas L Haas (01:14:30.99)
Sing along Ryan, sing along!

ATX Metal Podcast (01:14:33.587)
I can't do it. don't have the...

I don't have the classic training that you do, again, Terminal Decay, Deathcore Horror Anime, Nick Haas, Ryan Rale, we love you guys. See you next time.

Nicholas L Haas (01:14:51.842)
Later guys.