Metal Inside(r) Home Quarantine is Metal Insider’s new column during this time of isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We asked artists five questions on what’s been keeping them busy ranging from their favorite movies, food they’ve been eating, music they’ve been listening to and more. We caught up with Bleach Everything’s Brent Eyestone as he’s been spending this time keeping himself extremely busy by doing tons of charity trivia events and more.
What have you been doing to pass time during Quarantine?
I feel like I put my foot on the gas instead of pulling back, quite honestly. I started an Instagram Live series with 4-5 shows per week. Every Tuesday and Wednesday are interviews where I talk to pro wrestlers, actors, adult performers, mosh legends, DJ’s, a tarot reader, pro skaters, and more. On Thursday, I do a weekly trivia game where we started out giving away free records for every correct answer, but now donate $10-60 per question to that person’s local food bank. This helps spread funding all over the US versus just one municipality. At the time of typing this, we’ve funded 12,232 meals nationwide. Friday’s show is called “Movie Night with Alex Essoe & Brent Eyestone.” Alex is an actress that broke out as the lead in “Starry Eyes” and was most recently in “Doctor Sleep” as Wendy Torrance. Every week, we pair custom double features for people to watch at home throughout the week and we talk movies and answer fan/viewer questions in real time.
On the band front, I made two new Bleach Everything zines. The first is one containing some of my wrestling photography and was issued with a 2-song X-ray flexi over Wrestlemania weekend. It was supposed to be a surprise drop at these indie shows we were going to play in Tampa that weekend, but shit happens. The other zine is issue 3 in our chronological regular zine series. It’s at the printer and I’ll drop it as soon as it’s back.
Over at Dark Operative, I went through the This Will Destroy You vaults here and sequenced a really adventurous program of 6 never-heard songs. Clocks in at 22 minutes and works as a singular dynamic piece. We dropped that on May 1st on all digital platforms. After that, we’ve got a live Power Trip album to drop digitally and then June 9 sees This Will Destroy You “Vespertine” hit, which is their score for the 2-Michelin star restaurant in Culver City. I’ve also got the first 4 Caspian releases/reissues at the pressing plant now for vinyl (digital already up), Power Trip “Opening Fire” LP repress, and some currently-secret projects being made physically.
Other than that, cooking every day, supporting my favorite indie restaurants with takeout as much as possible, exercising the dogs, and trying to keep up with the personal pace I set for myself during this period.
Have you been listening to any music or have any playlists worth checking out?
It’s largely been the stuff I’m working on. The last couple of weeks have been mostly This Will Destroy You, as I was going through about 50 songs in the archive. Caspian and Stars of the Lid are perfect on the ears to stay calm and productive currently. And I never actually stopped listening to The Cure “Disintegration” since it came out…
A lot of people have been spending this time cooking including making their own bread, what food have you been prepping during this time?
I cook a lot anyway, but the recent hits are chicken pozole verde with tomatillos and green chiles, green chile enchiladas, Korean fried chicken with octo vinaigrette, lots of dry-aged ribeyes with seasonal veggies, the best Sloppy Joes I’ve ever tasted, salmon tacos, salmon and quinoa bowls with wilted greens/citrus. To drink, lots of blended acerola packs to keep immunity up. Turmeric wellness shots daily.
In terms of entertainment, what movies, TV shows, books, or games have been keeping you busy?
I finished reading “Digital Minimalism,” which is really helping step up my productivity. I killed “Ozark” season 3 in a couple days just to get it off the plate to focus on my own stuff. I’ll have all the empty arena wrestling shows on while working on other stuff. Most of the AEW empty shows have actually been compelling. A lot of my entertainment has been in creating entertainment for others with the Instagram Live series. I try to craft something of actual quality versus some dumb paint by numbers hangout where everyone just asks the guests “how are you holding up,” etc. My goal with that series is for every show to be a full escape, and fully immersive for whoever tunes in.
What advice do you have for your fans in isolation during this time?
I don’t know if I have advice for fans, as I’ve talked to so many fans, friends, and family to know that everyone’s situation is too drastically different to offer anything general. To those fortunate enough to have the stillness and freedom right now to be able to tap into opportunities, I’ll say this: I’ve framed this period as one where the future, oddly, can be fast-forwarded to you via your long-term projects list. I always meant to start a project with my friend Alex. Now we host a weekly show together. I always meant to go through the This Will Destroy You archive and put together a rarities series. We’re doing it now. I always wanted to see what hosting a game night was like. I’m doing it now with 50-100 players every week. I’m currently trying to squeeze finally drawing a full comic book and self-releasing it into the mix. All of these things and more were always off in the distant future. They are now daily life. If you can figure out a novel way to accomplish your “someday” projects, it may actually be more within reach now than you ever thought.
Outside of that, I recommend that bands and labels keep their release schedules. I know the mentality is “protect the investment,” but fuck that completely right now. Take care of your people right now with entertainment and they will take care of you both immediately and in the future.
More importantly, if you run a business, embrace the old adage PEOPLE OVER PROFIT. Now’s the time to walk that walk. The images of the lines at all the food banks are forever burned in my mind. Don’t be responsible for putting a single person in those lines if you can avoid it. It’s better for us all to share in the hit (and collectively not get hit as hard) than to hoard and “protect” our wealth and resources because of an “uncertain future” or whatever mindless saying you want to spit out in the face of just being a good person when the chips are down for millions of your fellow human beings. If you’re really good at business, then you can always make plenty more money later. If you protect and take care of your workers, you get loyalty. Your company will be better when it’s back. If you go beyond that and also protect, offer kindness, and extend generosity to strangers and customers, well, logic dictates that all of those people will have your back even more than ever when the good times return.
Check out Bleach Everything’s video for the Rocket From the Crypt cover of “Middle” below:
