[ Music ]
My career in the entertainment industry has enabled me to work with a diverse range of talent.
“Through my years of experience, I've recognized two essential aspects, industry professionals,”
whether famous stars or behind-the-scenes staff have fascinating stories to tell. Secondly, audiences are eager to listen to these stories, which offer a glimpse into their lives and the evolution of their life stores. This podcast aims to share these narratives, providing information on how they evolve into their chosen career. We will delve into their journey to start them, discuss their struggles and successes,
and hear from people who help them achieve their goals. It's ready for intriguing behind-the-scenes stories and insights into the fascinating world of entertainment. [ Music ] Hi, I'm Tony Meantour. Welcome to Almost Live Nashville. Joining us today is the members of the Proto-Man, a band that doesn't just write songs. They build worlds. Straight out of Nashville,
these guys have carved out a sound that blends rock opera, sci-fi storytelling, and pure raw energy into something completely their own. Their albums feel cinematic. Their lives shows our full-on experiences and their music, hits like a rebellion, you can feel. Their bold, unapologetic and unlike anything else out there, I'm beyond excited to welcome them on today. So before we dive into our episode, we'll be back with an uninterrupted show
right after a word from our sponsors. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having us, yeah.
Oh, it's my pleasure. So tell me, anyone that's discovering the Proto-Man for the very first time,
what do you tell them about yourselves and what you do? Interesting. Interestingly, we have no idea.
“So I think honestly, you use a lot of favorite things that I've seen recently”
is what metal sucks magazine, just described as as, and it was basically like if if a queen and rush got drunk listening to Devo and what was the rest of it. But basically, it was like a big, long thing about combining all these bands, and I don't know, it was good. So yeah, a bunch of different musical references and film references and things like that, all jumbled together to make whatever it is we are. We've long called ourselves rock opera,
but I'd say that it's more, I mean, it's dory rock somehow, or I mean, it's guess concept rock is. It's sort of like listening to a film. Now, what I've read about you, you have this kind of rock opera concept. It mentions video games, music, and how you tie it all together. I remember maybe an orwellian type style. Yep. Yep. We don't. If you kind of tie all those three things together, how does the audience relate to the features and the different things that you're
doing? Well, one of the features in there, we don't really do like we don't play music from the games or anything. There's no, it's just all original concept, all original music, you know,
“that sort of thing. So I think a lot of our bands don't know that all of those pieces of the”
puzzle exists. I think we have bands that come and they say, hey, I really like Mega Man, which is the video game that we reference, and they show up dressed as characters, and then we have bands that are just pure rock and roll people. Yeah. And they don't really, they walk in and they say, "Why is everybody dressed as Mega Man?" But I think somehow in the midst of the, you know, floored their standing and they find a way to coexist. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Now, you have
what you described as multiple acts like an act one and act two and an act three. Can you give us a little information on what these acts are and how you put everything together as a show? So we started more than 20 years ago with a song and it sort of, we recorded it, we recorded another
one, we played a show and it's just sort of grown exponentially from there. After the first song,
we did, it was about Mega Man just by chance. And after the first one was done, they were like, "Well, that was really fun. We should build a story around this and just expand on the whole situation
Just make it as ridiculous as humanly possible.
building it up and we ended up with an album. And so we're like, "Okay, we've got an album. We released that album in 2005. It was act one." And so that was when it, it wasn't even called act one at that point because we didn't have a full plan for part two yet other than a general story that it could do.
“And honestly, I knew more of what was going to happen in act three. At that point,”
then I did what was going to happen in act two. And so act two turned into the prequel. So act two is the prequel to act one and it came out in 2009 and it was a different kind of album. Whereas act one was very post-apocalyptic, very dirty, grungy, just distorted sound. Act two being a prequel in storyline. It was a much nicer place so the sound is a lot cleaner, a lot more pristine sounding polished. And so then time passed and time passed and now we're on act three.
And it's kind of a middle ground. We'd have it really. You know, it's definitely not as distorted and you know, means sounding as act one for sure though. It's almost like you created this theater with a storyline where it's like this dystopian world. You get fascists and other entities in there as well. So you see yourselves putting a statement out there of what you think and what you're putting across of what you think in the music. Do you think your audience is getting
in grasping the show that you're trying to put across to them? I think they're getting in there statements in there like, you know, I think they're getting it. But yeah, it's, I guess as we're saying earlier today, it's very depressing when the storyline you've been building for 20 years has become so seemingly real that it's just you can barely handle it. Now you mentioned the story. Can you elaborate on what the story is within your music? Well, you're talking about like just
basically that our storyline that we've been writing all these years is happening all around us now.
“And it's been happening all around us and that's why we were kind of talking about it in the”
beginning, but it's just gotten far more intense. So I think this is a great time for you to introduce yourselves. I know you have names that you go by in your music. So tell everybody who you are. Uh, my is Murphy. My name is Commander B. Hawkins. I'm Panther. Okay. That's great. Now tell us, how did you come up with these names? Let it rest. The name finds you. Yeah. Yeah. Every every, every character in the band has something
has happened with them. Yeah. It's, it's all very personal. I'll tell you that in our storyline, Sufi B Hawkins is my great, great, great, great, great, great, great-grandmother. Oh. How the, the lore. In the lore. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Your albums, your music, they come across more like epic films than just your typical musical CDs. Thank you. When you start a new project, what comes first? The storyline, the music, or just the raw emotion. It's, it's interesting,
musically, we always have, you know, storyline. We know we're the outline of the skeleton is.
“And then you say, well, this character needs to speak. What, who is that character? How do they speak?”
They speak with this type of rock and roll. This type of, this one, this person is kind of spaghetti western. This person is kind of whatever. And so you build from that starting point of, well, we know we need a song that's like this. Let's build that song. And then occasionally you'll get into, we'll have just a random riff or something that we've come up with. And then it's like, well, that fits this character. So let's build around that and build that piece of the story.
So it's, I'd say it honestly, it is very, very much. It's like somebody gave us a film and said, all right, write the music for it. Figure it out. And then we go, okay. We'll figure it out.
Yeah. I think definitely the story, you know, drives everything. I think we always have that vision
in the back of our heads. Even if we're just toying with a riff that sounds cool or, you know, a certain lyric that that seems to fit, we, you know, we're always cognizant that the story will come into play at some point. Yeah. It has to fit. Yeah. And if it doesn't fit, it doesn't fit. Okay, that's great. Now, you've been doing this Mega Man concept for a few years now. Did you have a concept where you kind of knew where it might end? Or has the story grown alongside
you as you have developed as a band? I knew where it would go. There are things where, you know, it's developed a long way for sure. It's well, it's refined a lot along the way. But in terms of just
Knowing exactly where it's gone, no, it was, we had to figure it out.
plot hole. Plugging. Oh, yeah. Sure. That's really what it is. It's like what if, what if we
“done? Our holes everywhere. Like we have to fix these holes. But it's like, all right, but we've made”
the pieces. It's us understanding our own story. It's like us understanding, oh, we've created this hole. But we also created the plug for the whole years ago. We just have to put the piece in place. And it's that sort of thing. Yeah. Now, your music dies deep into rebellion, sacrifice, and legacy. Looking back from your act one to now. How have your own perspective on these themes changed? If at all. That's pretty deep. I might be deeper than my brain. Like, as in, like, do we feel
differently now or just? Yeah. Yeah. How do you feel about it? I don't know. I think I'm, I'd say, oh, yeah. I say it's humans are. As a human being in the year 2026, I didn't know that I could get more jaded with society in 2005. That's really my thing is that I didn't realize that I could hate people more. And so now in 20 years later, it's like, oh, no, no, there's a whole whole ocean of hate ready for me to jump in. So no, no, it's, it's society has proven
“itself to be embarrassing. And that's really my, that's what I've taken from it. There's still”
good in people, not saying that I'm just completely jaded. Right. People are still inherently individually, good people. But as a group, people are monsters. But we also started out in 2005
from that perspective. Yeah. Like we had a game. Right. We started out our first record is very much
about the failure of mankind as a whole to, you know, to rise to heroism or the, to rise to the within the face that they need to be the lowest level of making an effort. Yeah. So we, you know, yeah, we started out from that place. And I think as we go on through the act, we do try to keep hope alive, even if it perhaps gets more and more difficult to do it. It's still there. You have to search for the hope. That's really what it comes down to. Yeah, I get it. I get it. Is there a lyric or a moment
in your catalog that still hits you emotionally even after playing it a hundred times? Man, that's a good question too. So we are right now working on the a couple of weeks ago. We played in DC. We played all three acts. We started with Act 2. We went to Act 1 and then we went to Act 3. Crossking as the chronological order. Yeah, across three nights at this festival in DC called Macfest. So we basically played for the first time ever our entire catalog. And I'll say
that there were songs. There's a lot of stuff that when you're able to play the album in its entirety, a lot of stuff you haven't played in a long time. There was a lot of stuff from Act 2 that we just don't get to when we're playing just an hour and a half set in a club or a bar. So there was a lot of rediscovering lyrics. Yeah, there's a in the second Act, sort of the protagonists partner dies. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of really emotional grief that sits in the middle of that record
that we don't really play because it's a little too heavy for just like a, you know, a bar show. So yeah, there's a couple in the state versus Thomas Light. Yeah, there's some intense lyrics on that one. Yeah, and there's like lyrics on the flip of that is like, we'll make stuff like this is pretty good. And then we'll play us on. We haven't played in five or eight years and the kids, the fans lose it on the, like, the stand.
Yeah, that just stands as like people's favorite song, but we like never play it.
Yeah, just for whatever reason, because the way it fits in the set, we pull out of what's the wall, and they lose it because the lyrics in that one are extra. And we wrote that 20 years ago, and it has a very, very strong message now. You just mentioned playing in clubs. How do you fit in clubs? On top of each other? Well, why I ask that a lot of these clubs have a certain expectation when a band comes in, they expect certain songs. And here you come in with your own style that you have,
“which is completely different than anything they will have come in. So how does that work for you?”
That's fine. I've never been a fan show on. Then you, we don't, we don't have
Random people show up to our show this.
history that a person, an individual, that didn't know we were walked in the door and watched us.
“Not once. You get, you get people that are being dragged to the show by friends that are talking”
us up. The whole idea of street, what was it called when a people like, it's okay, like the locals, the locals are the, the bar. They're going to have walk up. And it's going to be,
it's like, no, no, we've never once had a single person walk up to the door. They didn't know
we were in walk, not once. If they walked through, they would never leave and they would come back every time. That's, except for maybe warp tour. That's true. We played warp tour. And there was, there was a, a mass, exodus when we started playing of, of people who were there today. They didn't leave or cause of us. They left because they, they had already left by the time we started playing. That's true. But you would get those random people who were walking through looking
and just stare at this one with that. And we would catch their eye in the hot summer sun melting
“makeup off of our faces. Yeah. And you know, it was only like six of them. Yeah, six, over seven weeks.”
But no, but generally club shows for us are fantastic. Like that's where that's where we
thrive the most because they're intimate. They're intense. They're wave, they're more intense.
And so like we just played for a crowd of fourth, you know, 4,000 for three nights in a row, the other night or, you know, a couple of weekends ago. And that's a rare instance of 4,000 people being completely into it. Usually when you play a big show like that, it's kind of, I don't know, very odd. But even then, there's a, there's a disconnect between a large crowd like that and a, the tweem that and being in a club that has just few hundred people that are really
packed in and really feeding off of each other's energy. Generally we end up playing like for those smaller club shows, we'll just play like a mix of our of whatever we're feeling like playing. Whatever works for the set, not really like leaning into the story line as much.
“If someone hears a proto-man for the very first time, what is the song that you wish they hear first?”
And why? It's hard. It's a hard one. It's a different reasons. Like if you want some money to go like the rock and jam, then everybody likes a lot, light the night's the one. Everybody seems
to love that song, which is super grateful for it. Yeah, that's the one I, that's the one I always
said people too. Like there's all kinds of stuff on the new album though, like literally the whole new album is like we go to that one, go to that one, go to that one. Like he quads red from act to act one will of one would be the way to go or the stand is fun. Hope rides on explains the story. What's in your bucket list? What are you hoping that you can do for the future? Money. Yeah, I get it. Let's money in the bucket. We, we've, I've never played my game.
I we've loved to play Japan. Yeah. We have to have people buy our things from Japan though. So if anybody knows anything about Japan and or out of get us into Japan or get people to listen to us in Japan, so then we can tour there. Yeah, we go to other and we've ended Europe. Yeah, you can get around everywhere else things, but that's one. So there's all kinds of things. I mean, I mean, I want to make a Broadway play of this. Yes, that's it. There's all the things.
Anything you can think of. We want to do it. It's just that we have the money to do it or the backing, the funding, any kind of like that. We need to do a make a video game. We need to make a series of anime to movies or live action movies. And the expertise, you don't have the expertise. We're pretty good audio. Yeah. Yeah. We're not greeted everything else. Yeah. Yeah. We're all audio engineers from here. So yeah. Yeah. I get that. Join the crowd. That's me too. Yeah. Yeah. If anybody out there does
animation, I'm getting touched on this. We've got all kinds of things we want. Animation would be great. A lot of great things come from that. Yeah. So what's coming up next? You just mentioned several different things without giving too much away. What can your fans and the listeners expect from you in the future? We've got the June and June 18th through 20th we're doing the Nashville release show like the big celebrated release show for the new record. All day, you know, three albums,
over three days like we didn't two weeks ago. Yeah. This won't be a bit more more of a production more. Yeah. Yeah. Because we'll be in our home turf and have more time. But that's already sold out. So yeah. But it's sold out in the week. It's sold out so fast. So it's all through. It's marathon music works. Yeah. I'm a marathon. It's about 17, 1800s. So that'll be that'll be the biggest shows we've ever done in Nashville literally. And then three days of it. Let's look in the future
right now. 15, 20 years from now. Someone's looking back on the pro domain. What are you hoping that they say? Your music gave to them? Huh? Yeah. I also really I really love people that come up to us
Give us something that they've done art or music or, you know, inspiration.
your band caused me to want to produce something of my own. That's always really cool. Yeah.
“I hope we're spawning a lot of, you know, people making their art. Other really weird bands?”
Other really weird bands. Yes. Yeah. Now speaking of fans, what is the most meaningful thing a fan has said to you? Oh, there's so many. And they're all very, like, a lot of very personal. Yeah, a lot of them. It's, I think that one is that I want to check it out. But when someone talks about, oh, you know, listen to you with my family member who's now not with me anymore. And I listen to this and think of that and that, you know, if that, that, I don't always call that, that there's a
term for that. It's a student members. I can't think, I'm losing the words, but those are always appreciated. You know, what those are happening. How do people find you? Do you mean how should they look for us? Yeah. I'd put them in.com is a good way to get to us. That kind of leads everywhere. We're on all the streaming things. Just put them in the act for the city made us to the new album. And then we're on YouTube. You can find it all in that. It's pretty much anywhere you can find us.
There's we're out there. Here's a part I call between the beats. We do quick questions. No right or wrong answers. Just something for the fun of it. Or I can say, I can make it wrong. Challenge. Challenge. What is the first album you ever owned? Like, owned or bought with your own money. Oh, but with your own money, you owned it. Oh, bought with your own money. I think I know mine. Howlopoulosa. Okay. That's not the city. Nope.
Use your illusion. One. One. No good. All the cassette. That's one. Yes, that's one. To anyone. Yeah. I might have been. It might have been thriller. That's very good. Well, it was new. No, no. Let's say like a cassette, you know, bought it from, you know, Camelot or, yeah, it's pretty cool. Like the, I don't know. Maybe, uh, I know the first album that I ever possessed was the Alan Jackson record with Che, who she on it. That'll do it. That was like,
“that was like an uncle. An uncle was like, here, kid. This is what you need to be listening to.”
And I got a boom box for Christmas. One of those like seeding boxes. Yeah, speakers pop off and you could just sell it three feet away. You should still hurry up. Man, I'll still have it. The first one I bought was I had a birthday and I was given a cassette player in like $20. But that was the birthday and it went down the road and bought BC boys license that it'll set. That's also about to say is the, the first thing that I probably ever had was a copy version of that album on cassette.
They're my cousin from Memphis, gave me or my brother hanging that up with it. What's your favorite protoman to play it live? I don't like any of them. They're all tortured. Yeah, so we've just started like literally at the Magfest thing that we played a couple of weeks ago. It was the first time
“we had played most of that three live. So I think my new favorite is lights last stand. They'd”
started at the end of back three. It was horrifying to try and pull off live. It's a lot of moving parts. There's saxophone solo. I broke my knee during it. You broke your knee in my ankle. But it is now my favorite. What's your favorite to a city? To a city? That's impossible. Like
New York's always incredible. She's incredible. That LA is incredible. London is incredible.
A major ones. But you know, the ones that are memorable on the social holiday is like, you know, like Richmond or like North Carolina, British Columbia, Spring, Springfield, North Carolina. What was the, what's, what's, or Springfield, Missouri? No, North Carolina, Greenville. Greenville, North Carolina. That was a long time ago. Those were not. Now just places on existing one of the we used to go play. Like the whole towns don't like this. Yeah. Yeah. But they're like so surprising like
small weird towns that you think they're pretty. Vancouver is always the wildest for some reason. Yeah. Vancouver's. Yeah. Right. Now yeah, I can't. There's no, there's no favorite. There's just so many good. Yeah. What's the strangest thing that's ever happened to you on, too?
Ooh, if I'll also impossible. One that just stands out in your mind that you probably will never
forget. Hmm. That's, those things. That's a good hour long time ago. We did, we did. We did push our RV up the top. No divide. Yeah. A few years ago. And that, that was, that was the day. And then then the tow truck driver showed up and had to drag us up it illegally. That was a fun day. He didn't
Know his illegal.
Oh, he knew that was the one where you didn't know. That's is a good story. Every time a tow truck
shows up and they're like, well, you're not supposed to have people in the back. So we just have to get out on the side of the road or you just hide. And then as we're riding down the interstate in the tow truck and everybody's sticking their heads up over the dashboard. It's fantastic. We have
“lots of those stories. Oh, okay. If you were not musicians, what would you be doing today?”
Oh, that's, I don't even know. It's been so long. I could be a mechanic. Yeah. I definitely would be somebody's accountant. I make hot sauce. I mean, I already am in a accountant, but I would be even more in a accountant. You'd be being paid for it. Yeah. So would you pay to be? Yeah. I almost went to school to be a marine biologist. Wow. Oh, yeah. I went to school for a history, Kevin, no computer science in history, hang initially. And then we were at MTSU. And I was like, oh, I should do music stuff.
Because I'm here and there's all this million dollars of equipment. Oh, and then I met these fellows there.
I would probably be working on a dive boat in the Caribbean somewhere. That's pretty much that. I would fix the boat. I think I would, I'd like to be a boat mechanic. Here you go. I'd like to change the answer. When we go to Japan. Japan? No, we're going to go to the Caribbean. I'm going to work on a dive boat. Okay. And you're going to be the mechanic for the boat. Let's start a
“bed while we're down there. Oh, you got to get him every time I think I'm out. Yeah. Dream collaboration”
alive or dead. Who would you like to work with? Oh, that's, that's intense. We tried to work with Jim Steinman one. Yeah. He was not all about. I'm going to tell you, yeah. I'll tell you who we did
try to work with on this album. And he kind of goes to this. But we still love him is Dennis DeYoung
from sticks. We tried to get him to seeing our wily part for this album. And we were talking to him for a bit and chit chat and he ended up, I guess, just passing on it or something. So, but that would have been wonderful. Yeah. We said, "Liver dead." It's like, "Yeah." You know, you say obvious stuff like, I don't know, bowie and things like that. But no. Also, who's the underdog that would help us even more? What's his name? I can't get to his name. To charades. Do charades.
“Uh, he has, he has a camera. He has a camera. What color?”
Say, our door phone. Our door phone was got it. No, I hate myself for not giving you to his name, right now. No. He's spot the rod. This is still alive. No, it was very dead. Very dead. That, unfortunately, in like 1986. Oh. And something like that. And Randy Rhodes? No, no, Irishman. That's all you're going to eat. Oh, fill line it. Yeah, fill line it. Fill line it would be unbelievable. You said Irishman together. You're an Irishman. Yeah. You almost charaded it out.
Let's wrap this up with a nice message to your fans. What would you like to say to them? Thank you. That's really it. So, thank you. We woke up a couple of days ago to the news that our newest record is charting on billboard. Nice. And the bizarrely enough in a couple of categories. But one of them is the is emerging artists, which is fantastic because we've been emerging for a long time, but I think I would say that. So, thank you. Thank you for being a friend. The,
thank you for being a friend. Thank you for continuing to support and ramping up your support. Yeah, with each new thing that we've put out. And this, especially this album's support has been unbelievable from our fans. Yeah. Just they've all gotten so into it and it's been so wonderful. And we've, we dragged them along on this journey of release in a song per week. And they were all about it. Most of all about it. There were several that were just very crying the whole
time. It was hilarious and sad for them. But it was something. So, yeah, like the fact that they've stuck with it's just long and really, that I was too sick here. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, this has been fun. Great information, great conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time to join us today. Oh, yeah. Thank you very much. Yeah. Thank you for being a friend. Awesome. Perfect. Good. Great to meet you. Yeah. It's awesome. Yeah. It's been great. Thanks again.
Thanks for joining us today. We hope you enjoyed the show. This has been a Tony Mantua production for more information, contact [email protected].
