This is definitely the most frequently asked question we get. I personally take it as a huge compliment to know someone wants to watch a Psychostick concert. So thanks for the interest, you weirdo!
TLDR: We don't know where we're going until it's booked.
Details: The music business is a strange one. We hire a booking agent to take care of the show schedules and tours so that we (Psychostick, the BAND) can focus on writing, putting on a show, producing stupid videos, and creating merch designs for you to cover your stinky torso with.
When a tour route is put together we examine it and make sure that it's good (which is tougher than it sounds - no ridiculous drives, have we overplayed a city, etc) and give the approval to book the tour. Yelling at us online actually plays zero factor in where and when we play.
HOWEVER, if you really want Psychostick to play your city/venue, find a location for us to play (a 300+ cap room with fantastic sound and proactive music scene always helps) and send some contact info to a promoter/venue owner so that we can suggest it to our booking agent. Or, better yet, have them contact our booking agent.
Also, if you want to make sure you never miss a show, sign up for our show alerts. We'll hit you up when we're close to your zip code.
First, check our events page. We often have tickets for our shows for sale right by the show date.
If you don't see a link to buy a ticket OR you don't like buying stuff online, please contact the venueof the show you're interested in seeing on our calendar.
I'm gonna go ahead and break your heart. No, we can't. We don't do private events for a variety of reasons, some of which involve a ton of planning, security, sound permits, payment, merchandise, etc etc.
As an alternative, booking Psychostick at a public venue and holding your own event at this show could be something that is doable. Reach out to our booking agent if you're interested in something like that.
Most promoters and venues do need opening acts for our shows. Try contacting the venue in order to get on the bill. You'll probably have to sell tickets though!
It all depends on your content, but your will likely get flagged on Youtube/Twitch/whatever if you use our copyrighted music. If you want to use a Psychostick song in any of your projects, please e-mail info@psychostick.com with more details.
We get this question often. Thing is, we have to keep our music copyrighted so that we're protected. These giant media platforms do take it too far, we agree, but there's not much we can do in terms of them flagging/muting your video.
How can I explain this without coming across as a pretentious asshat?
I'll do my best.
In the highly competitive world of podcasting, youtube channels, etc, we often get asked to do interviews. We used to say "YES" to everything, but nowadays we're so focused on creating our own things that getting all of us together for some kind of interview, or even just one or two of us, is no small feat.
Additionally, taking the time to do interviews and such has to have benefits for both parties, not just one. It needs to be a win/win scenario for Psychostick and for the interviewer. For instance, if we agree to do an interview for a podcast, the size of the following of the podcast has to be considerable so that Psychostick will get a nice amount of promotion and exposure. On the other side of the coin, Psychostick can promote the interview so that the podcaster can receive additional potential new followers and fans. Everybody wins.
An example of a scenario that isn't a win/win is an interview with a podcast with a very small following that won't provide equal promotional benefit for Psychostick.
I hope that makes sense. If you're not sure, you can reach out to us and ask.
You should get comedic and write comedy music, asshole!
Have you ever walked up to a comedian and said, "Hey! You should stop doing comedy and do drama." It's the same thing. We take our comedy very seriously.
By the way, a few of the members of Psychostick have a side project called, Evacuate Chicago. It's basically Psychostick without the comedy.
Hell, just listen to it.
We're almost ALWAYS writing something new. After we finish recording a new record we tend to have at least half of the next one conceptualized or written already. Wow!
Rawrb thought of it in a half-asleep daze at 2:00 AM sometime in the year 2000.
Once upon a time, a horrendous demo was released by Psychostick called, "Don't Bitch it's Free!" On that demo, somewhere in a skit or something, we pronounced our band name, "Psy-caw-stick." It was a total fluke and became a very small topic of debate in the Phoenix local scene. However, we retract it's prior pronunciation and now officially announce that it's pronounced EXACTLY as it reads. "Psycho" and "stick". Wow!
Hey
There mere fact you made it to this website speaks volumes to your ability to spell the word. We even have a song about it:
Look, don't sweat it. Go to your favorite search engine and fuck the spelling up all you want. It'll fix it for you.
Our influences range from Primus to Crowbar to doughnuts. It's complicated!
We used to be signed to Rock Ridge Music, but now we're branching off on our own. Turns out we can do this thing pretty well on our own and we tend to keep it that way.
Coffee, video games, and comics. That's why.
You know, we tried that. We released "We Couldn't Think of a Title" and "The Flesh Eating Rollerskate Holiday Joyride" on vinyl, and they sold very poorly. Oh no!
"But RHAWRHRHHBHBHBHBBHB, I want it on VINYL and I'm ME! Haven't you met ME? I'm the greatest!"
Look, vinyl just isn't cost-effective or practical for us. We were happy to try it, and let me tell you, we were rooting for it. I would have loved for vinyl to have taken off, but it didn't. If the demand was there, we'd be happy to meet it, but it wasn't.
On the bright side, you might be able to find a copy of "We Couldn't Think of a Title" on eBay or something. Maybe? I dunno.
This track is simply not a Psychostick song. Yes, it was written by one of the same masterminds that brought you all your other alcoholic anthems (The J), but this partiular one is a little different. Josh wrote and recorded all the music for it (including midi drums) and he and our good friend Murph did all the vocals for it. Pretty dumb huh?
Sorry, I (Rawrb) ain't no Murph.
Sure. Send us $5,000 USD and e-mail us your transaction info with details on the song you want us to write.
$10,000 if you want to have creative input.
Why so much?
Folks tend to think that writing comedy music is easy. They also tend to think what we do is super easy and we're just "messing around." This shit is NOT easy. Don't believe me?
Try it sometime.
G'head. Try it.
Punk.
Right now we have guitar tabs for "We Couldn't Think of a Title!"
We don't have any plans to release more tabs due to the demand not being there. Sorry.
Right here.
Nope. Try searching for Psychostick, you'll get nothing!
ABSOLUTELY. Streaming services are amazing. We love them. We do get paid for that. We highly, highly, HIGHLY encourage the use of them!
That being said, you could do both! It never hurts to buy our albums on our store, but don't feel that you're obligated to pick one or the other. Do what makes sense for YOU.
We try to have up to 5XL for most shirts. If we don't, we're working on restocking. If you have any questions, e-mail us at info@psychostick.com.
Heh, trust me - you don't want them. Some of you might think, "I want them to just have them because blah blah blah OMG!" If you get crafty enough, you might be able to find "Die... a Lot!" You'll most likely never find "Don't Bitch it's Free" though. We "pressed" only about 200 of those. Heh.
Argh. This is a difficult thing to troubleshoot because those cases are finicky at best. We do inspect them before we send them off, I promise you.
What we normally like to suggest when folks get cracked jewel cases is to simply replace the jewel cases, as the CD and artwork are likely undamaged.
You can find blank, standard jewel cases at places like Officemax, Office Depot, etc. You could even find some used cases from CDs you don't like or don't want anymore and use those. They're all the same size.
The only pain is having to unhinge and pull out some of the art, but it does work. I've done it before to some of my old cases.
If this sounds like something you absolutely don't wanna deal with, you can contact us.
We've got tons of goodies.
Our new merch vendor takes orders from everywhere. So order something!
No.
Trust me, I know. The post office/Fedex/UPS set those rates, which is completely out of our control.
We're trying our best to find a way to get our merchandise fulfillment to extend outside the USA, but for the most part, we can only fulfill it from here. Sorry!
You can get it now in the merch section. You might be able to find it in just about every retail outlet that carries CDs with bad words, like Best Buy or FYE. NOT Wal-Mart. YAY!
Yep. Josh, Alex, and some buddies went out to random drive thru places and demanded a Death Burger.
Because you're not supposed to eat it, Captain Moldy Brain Mass.
The name's meaning must be discovered on your own. It's just a happy fun instrumental song!
Joshy. He played Trumpet in High School. Fun!
MOST OF THE ALBUM:
Line 6 POD (1.0), 6 layered tracks total
Jagermeister Love Song, 4 layered tracks
ABCDEath, 4 layered tracks.
Randall Warhead into Ampeg guitar cab miced with mics I don't remember. I (Josh) was experimenting at the time.
That would be Alex's 2001 high school band, Alhambra High.
It's out NOW. In OUR store.
4 layers of guitars
Mike was playing through a custom Traben bass with Aguilar pickups into an Aguilar head going through an Eden 4x10 cab. 3 mics on the cab, a Sennheiser 421 for the his, an SM57 for the mids, and an AKG D112 for the lows.
We filled up the CD. Completely so we RAN OUT OF CD SPACE! Get it?
NO!
It's already released! Check your stores or our merch section!
HJAR HAR AHRARHAR
6 layers of guitars.
These tones:
... in this configuration:
Whelp, Jimmy and Jake both left Psychostick at the time and we wanted to just get some songs out there.
This'n is mostly about how that whole, "There's an app for that," thing. Where's my app that'll chop onions for me, or massage my armpit?! Come on. Hurry it up.
I dunno. It's a weird song about dumb romance and whatever.
Yep. Based on a real experience or two.
It's about the concert experience, DERP!
It's basically about people who do nothing but complain online about how everything sucks in their lives (when in actuality, they're probably doing just fine and not appreciating their first-world problems). Most social media sites now allow you to block, mute, or unfollow said whiners.
We highly recommend doing this.
I dunno. YOU TELL ME.
We don't have a links section anymore. :(
We'll take all the help we can get! If you want to help promote us online, word of mouth and sharing our tunes with your friends is HUGE.
If you want to help promote our shows, please check our touring page and hit up the venues/promoters of those shows. If you don't get a response, let us know.
Yes. Yes it is lame. That's why we love it.
"Rawrb" was an invention of his good buddy Murph. Josh just comes up with his 34 different names. Shmalex, I believe, came from a band he was in called "The S-Stuttering Cowboys." Matty J, well he is just the Matty J!
Evil Jay from Otep. We finally found that out. Jeebuz we love that guy - we're probably gonna have his babies, even though we lack the proper reproductive format.
Guitar: ESP LTD EC1000.
Preamp: ENGL 530.
Poweramp: VHT 50/2/50, now known as "Fryette" amps.
Cab: Avatar custom cab with 2 vintage 30s, and 2 greenbacks in a "criss cross" configuration.
PEDALS: Boss tuner pedal, ISP Noise Decimator, Morley Wah pedal.
We're gradually working in some live Psychostick weirdness, but for right now we've got "The Psychostick Show," which is us playing Psychostick stuff (and maybe other weird thingies), LIVE, on our Twitch channel!
Good question, nerd! We'll be posting our streaming schedule on our tour page and our Twitch channel until we get a consistent schedule ironed out. Make sure you follow us on Twitch to get those fun notifications when we go live!
As soon as time permits, I'll get a nice list of musical gear that we perform with, etc. For now though, here's my gaming setup!
I'm going to do my best to keep this updated. I'm constantly trying to improve everything so this list will change little by little.
Tell you what. Today is January 14th, 2019. If that date is WAY in the past, please pester me to update this list if you're curious about what I'm using now.
Also, if you decide to purchase any of these items, please use these links below! It helps out so much when you do that. Thanks!
PC:
Audio:
Streaming Gear:
Gaming and Console Gear:
Word of mouth! If you have friends who watch streams, please let 'em know, especially if they enjoy Psychostick in any fashion.