PopHorror Let's Get Scared
If you’re an avid scroller on TikTok, there’s a good chance you’ve come across 2 Shadows – two goth-looking dudes who seem less than thrilled to be at traditionally cheery places. With their all-black garb and deadpan stares, they participate in beach games, golf, and more, looking hilariously out of place as “What’s This?” from The Nightmare Before Christmas plays in the background.
This is the Goths in Ungothly Places series, featuring Glen Bridden and Tryst Germaine, who have amassed over 7.7 million likes on TikTok over the past year thanks to their antics. However, Bridden and Germaine never set out to be social media stars. In fact, Goths in Ungothly Places was a spur-of-the-moment thing, not an intentional initiative to gain followers.
For this duo, the priority is, and has always been, music. Bridden (vocals) and Germaine (guitar) comprise the metal band 2 Shadows, which is based in Vancouver, Canada, and draws influence from Alice Cooper, KISS, Motionless in White, and more. Thanks to Goths in Ungothly Places, more people than ever are discovering 2 Shadows‘ discography, including the 2022 album Bring the Cold Inside and the brand new single “Mad God.”
PopHorror recently chatted via Zoom with Bridden and Germaine about the band’s early days, their unprecedented popularity on TikTok (and how they get through filming the videos without cracking up), the horror movie that they couldn’t stop thinking about during a performance and more.
@2shadowsofficial Goths In Ungothly Places: The beach is back!! Hopefully for good! #2shadows #goth #foryou #gothsinungothlyplaces
PopHorror: How are you both doing today?
Glen Bridden: Doing well, doing super well. We’re just getting started, having a nice, classy beginning to the day.
PopHorror: Well, I love a good origin story. To start, how did you guys come together and how did the band form?
Glen Bridden: Nice, alright, you’re up, Tryst. He hired me into the band, this is perfect.
Tryst Germaine: The band started in 2015, maybe late 2014 technically. It was a totally different lineup of guys and musicians. It’s like a job, you get along with some people, some people you don’t, different things happen, people get significant others and can’t handle the touring, or they can’t handle the financial strain when you’re starting a band in the beginning, and it had just been members leaving.
And then we met Glen through literally a friend of a friend of a friend. We needed a bass player for a 2018 tour that we were doing, and we had a friend recommend him. He lived in a town about 13 hours away, 12 hours away that a friend of a friend of ours grew up in, and they knew him. They were like, “I know this guy that plays bass, he might be interested,” and we did a video call with him and it really kicked off. And then he was on the road with us just as a touring member for the first tour, and then we got talking a little bit more, and we just vibed with him so well that he agreed to move to Vancouver where we’re from.
And one thing led to another, we ended up losing the singer and then he [Glen] had this secret gorgeous voice that he was hiding away. He’s just like, “I might be able to try it out.” We were working on a song at the time and he knew the lyrics, and [we] threw him in the vocal booth and we’re just kind of sitting there speechless, the voice he brought with him, and we had no idea for probably, I don’t know, six months that he even sang. So it’s been like that ever since.
Glen Bridden: They should have seen their faces when I started practicing. And then three years later I actually sounded good. When I first met Tryst and the 2 Shadows operation, I was trying to do bands in Calgary at the time and yeah, they just had it so going on. Tryst had the same vision as I wanted to do in a band, and as soon as the tour was done, I threw all my junk in my car and just drove straight down to Vancouver.
Tryst Germaine: I have to stop this for a sec, I’m seeing all your Chucky dolls in the back. *shows PopHorror his own Chucky doll*
PopHorror: Yeah!
Glen Bridden: No way! Wow I would have totally missed that, that’s great.
PopHorror: When I heard your name is Glen, I was like, “Oh my God, Seed of Chucky.”
Glen Bridden: I haven’t even seen Seed of Chucky actually! I feel like I’m always behind on my horror movies. No matter how many I watch, there’s always this really important one that I’ve just completely missed.
PopHorror: Your current sound, current aesthetic, which people really seem to be enjoying, did you have that from the beginning? Or has it evolved over the years to what it is now?
Tryst Germaine: Yeah, there was this band before 2 Shadows that went under the name Sick Addiction, a super terrible name. But the first lineup of 2 Shadows was essentially that band with a bit of a rebrand. But we started toying around with the makeup looks and stuff back then, which would have been like 2013 maybe. I’ve always grown up on people like Alice Cooper and KISS and stuff, so I was always pretty drawn to having a makeup look, but we kind of felt a little bit darker than that.
Sick Addiction, we started not really the full blackout arm paint or neck paint or anything, but started wiping a little bit of black stuff on. And honestly, in the beginning, it was just, I felt kind of naked without tattoos and stuff. The goal was to eventually be covered in tattoos and to not wear the black neck paint. It was just kind of a temporary placeholder that became a big part of the band and everything. But the rebrand, it was like that from day one. It’s been almost 10 years of this style. I’ve been a band for almost 10 years and the last couple of years have been pretty crazy for us for sure as far as trajectory and all that stuff.
Glen Bridden: My first 2 Shadows show is the first time I ever put on eyeliner in my life. So it’s memorable and still doing it to this day.
Tryst Germaine: That was like six years ago now almost.
Glen Bridden: That number just keeps going up, I can’t explain it.
PopHorror: In my head, 2015 is still like three years ago. You mentioned the black arm paint, which is very Motionless in White, and I know that you guys draw a lot of influence from them. They’re actually my favorite band, I have their lyrics on my arm and everything. Can you speak to what about that band influences you?
Tryst Germaine: It’s actually weird because when we started doing that back in 2015, none of us had heard of Motionless in White at all. I didn’t discover them until later. Believe it or not, my biggest influence to that look and everything was actually In This Moment. I was really into In This Moment and obviously pulling from KISS and Alice Cooper and Nine Inch Nails and all that stuff. I think the body paint honestly probably came from the Woodstock performance where they covered themselves in mud, and that was more of the influence to me. I grew up in a really rural small town, so I was literally 10 years behind with all of that stuff initially.
Glen Bridden: Tryst introduced me to Motionless in White, I hadn’t actually really checked them out before, and I was pretty surprised. I was like, “Damn, this is really good.” And a lot of these bands that do the super theatric, darker kind of music or the goth stuff or what be it, Motionless, they reign king in this territory, all those looks, they coined it kind of best and first. We all live under the grand Motionless umbrella in a way, which is cool, and there’s so many bands that do it and it’s kind of fun, a little bit of a community to it. But I’ve got to salute the OGs.
Tryst Germaine: But at the same time, we’re always striving and have a pursuit to keep building ourselves and to find some more originality in there because we don’t want to be any type of copycat to no means, and we’re constantly trying to find new looks. I would say, obviously Glen and I at our core, we really like that dark, gothic kind of imagery and everything, and that’s who we are, but we’re a big fan also of just theatrics in general. We don’t look at other bands and we’re like, “Oh, that’s cool, let’s do that.” It’s completely gone to, “How can we best represent ourselves in the looks and everything in our stage show and what we have going on?,” to the point where I don’t even really listen to a whole lot of new music when it comes out sometimes. I just try to kind of go back to those roots and try to get inspired from that. It’s easy to get lost in a sea of current sound if you pay too much attention sometimes as an artist.
Glen Bridden: It’s a spontaneous adventure.
PopHorror: Well speaking of adventures, I love the TikTok series Goths in Ungothly Places. I know that’s how a lot of people discovered you guys. How did that start?
Glen Bridden: That one was the strangest story, how big that’s become now because it all went back to a really specific moment when we were building our tour bus, or tour van. It was more van and now it’s more bus after the renovations. But we bought the vehicle, got the thing down to a tin can essentially. And then Tryst had access to a woodshop at the time and he designed all this furniture and the bunks, and me and him were in there working pretty ridiculous hours. We had day jobs, we were doing eight hours of the day job and eight hours at the woodshop because we needed to get this thing ready for going on tour, and this was just over a year ago.
We were also always filming, so at one point, we’re in costumes but in the woodshop, cutting boards and there was sawdust flying, and it was such a funny visual. We were like, “Yo, this is totally a video right here.” So we filmed the first Goths in Ungothly Places, it was goths in a woodshop. Nobody watched it. It was totally funny, but nobody really saw it. And then we did another one where we were walking around downtown, and then the third one, we went to the beach and we just thought this idea was so funny. That one was really silly and that just blew up. I remember the day we posted it, I went out, I was at a bar with some friends and I was refreshing TikTok and it was over a million, and then refresh and it was 1.5 million, and then 2 and then it got to 3 million.
And then it got taken down. I stabbed a beach ball with a stick and they [TikTok] said it was too violent, so they took the video down and it was completely heartbreaking. We were like, “That was our 10 seconds in the spotlight.” And then we re-uploaded it the next day with a sensor over me stabbing a beach ball. Come on… It went right back to 3 million views and that was kind of when it all started. And yeah, it turns out there’s a lot of ungothly places that are pretty hilarious to go to, and we’re still doing them. I can’t remember the last one that we did, but it’s just been such a good series for us.
Tryst Germaine: Bass Pro Shops.
Glen Bridden: Yeah, it’s just a lot of ungothly places, I never realized they’re out there.
Tryst Germaine: It’s funny in the comments because when we check them out, everybody finds goth features any place that we go.
Glen Bridden: Yeah, you can kind of find the goth if you look for it pretty much anywhere, even the beach really. So there’s always somebody that’s pointing out the flaws, if you will. But like, come on, we’re making the world a gothlier place day by day. That’s our mission.
@2shadowsofficial Where black meets camouflage, and fishnets meet fishing nets. #GothsGoneWildlife #2shadows #gothsinungothlyplaces #bassproshops #gothmen #foryou #fyp #foryoupage #viral #comedy #gothic
PopHorror: I love the beach one. It reminds me of that scene in Sweeney Todd when Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter are sitting on the beach and he has that dead serious face.
Tryst Germaine: I think that was the inspo for that.
Glen Bridden: 100 percent.
Tryst Germaine: Where it comes up and we’re sitting on the beach towels, that was 100 percent inspired by that.
Glen Bridden: We tried to get the poses kind of similar because it was just so perfect in the movie when they did it.
PopHorror: What is it like creating the videos? I’m sure you guys crack up at some point.
Tryst Germaine: Yeah, we put the bloopers on our Patreon and we have a pretty hard time keeping a straight face.
Glen Bridden: Oh, my God. Every cut is because someone laughs. Every time. Whether it’s the camera person, usually me. Usually I laugh first, sometimes Tryst. But that’s how the video is cut. It’s just because it’s so silly, trying to keep a straight face when these goofy things are happening.
Tryst Germaine: The first maybe five of them were really difficult because it was fresh, it was new. We were still kind of discovering the formula for everything and how we were gonna shoot them, and then it got kind of easier. It got more corporate in our filming style. It was so planned out and so written, and they were executed so fast, and we were able to just do it. And it kind of, I feel like, lost a little bit of the magic.
Glen Bridden: Different flavor, less silly I think.
Tryst Germaine: And then we had a couple videos after that, we didn’t plan to do. We went to a location to shoot a totally different video and it was just kind of like, “Hey, we could probably do an ungothly place here.” It was more off the cuff, and that laughter came back a little bit, it was a little bit spontaneous. Those videos did way better than all the rest, so we really try to not be too scripted and corporate, so to speak, about them and just like, “That’s a cool location. Let’s just go with the camera guy and see what happens.” Those always end up being the funniest and most spontaneous and uncomfortable and awkward. You can feel it.
Glen Bridden: There’s real magic in the spontaneity, I think. It’s hard to reliably always have that spontaneous kind of magic and that gold to just appear. But if you can get it, that’s totally the secret, I think.
@2shadowsofficial Where it all began! Flashback to the very first Goths In Ungothly Places! Which one is your favourite so far? #2shadows #foryou #gothsinungothlyplaces #goth #gothtok
PopHorror: Are there any ungothly places you hope to visit someday?
Glen Bridden: There’s a lot of gothly places.
Tryst Germaine: I’d say one that has been on our mind for a while, which hopefully will happen depending on our tour schedule, but there’s Bats Day in the Fun Park at Disneyland. The people have been asking us to go to that for a couple of years now. We have some other stuff in the LA area around that time and we’re hoping that we can stop by and make that happen this year.
Glen Bridden: I think that day, that’s the ultimate ungothly place. It’s known already, so we gotta cross over and make it there. That’ll complete the mission.
Tryst Germaine: We have so many ideas for being on that location and videos and stuff. I wanna see if we can cast some fans that are in the area to meet up for a bigger group because we have some cool ideas that might happen.
Glen Bridden: We’ll see, I might even stay for an extra day.
PopHorror: I know a lot of people have discovered your music through these videos. Can you talk about the impact of TikTok on the band?
Glen Bridden: It was pretty massive. All this stuff, the music and the TikToks, we just genuinely love doing it, so we will not be stopped. But it wasn’t what it was two years ago, or specifically before TikTok and all this stuff blew up. I don’t think we thought the music would be so affected by it. It was kind of like, “Oh, if TikTok blows up, we’ll have a big TikTok account and that’s cool.” Our hearts are in the music. But to our surprise, so many people were interested enough and they thought it was so rad that they actually checked out the music, and then lo and behold.
I remember after we blew up on TikTok, we went out and played a couple of shows and then all of a sudden, the people in the crowd knew the words and they’re singing the words back, and that was literally the difference. It went from not a lot of people coming out to see us, but it was really nice and it was chill, and then all of a sudden we’re playing these shows and it was packed and everyone knew the words, and that’s the actual difference that TikTok made, which we never thought. But it was a beautiful thing.
Now, it’s almost celebrated between us. We love the TikTok community because they love the music. People love the videos. I’m stoked on how much of a community it’s created. And we’ve got all these things that we didn’t have before. There’s a Patreon and all this stuff, and we have all these awesome fans that we know too, and it’s just like, what a crazy journey that kind of started on just some funny videos in a way.
Tryst Germaine: I remember those first shows too after we had a couple of videos. They were kind of like more tester shows. I think we played Vegas and San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Long Beach was the last one. And then also while we were out there and learning about how many more people are coming to shows, we had our first video just all of a sudden take off on Facebook, and it ended up being a weird thing. Our Facebook community is stronger and more interactive than TikTok now. It’s kind of shifted in a weird way, which works really good because Facebook, I feel like the algorithm is a little bit better, especially on the music end and it shows it to a lot more people. It shows people more when we announce shows. TikTok is a little bit harder, the music algorithm does not favor us there. So that’s a bit of a struggle to push music on that platform. But I feel like lots of the music fans are coming from Facebook and Instagram.
Glen Bridden: It’s the algorithm war out here for musicians. It truly is.
PopHorror: Can you guys talk about touring over the years? I know you’ve done some stuff in America. What has that reception been like? And you also mentioned that you’re trying to find unique theatrics for the band. What’s a typical 2 Shadows performance like?
Glen Bridden: Oh, wow. That’s a grand question in my mind. I think we spend a lot of time thinking about that. The reception in the states has been amazing, that’s an easy one. We’ve been to a lot of cities for the first time recently, which has been super cool for so many reasons. The reception has been pretty jaw-dropping. Almost every place we’ve gone, people are like, “Oh, we’re so excited to have you at the venue.” The hospitality has been great. It’s been so much fun. We love traveling around. We really like touring, touring is our all-time favorite thing. We haven’t gone out for an eight-month-long tour by any means, but that sounds great to me at this point.
And in terms of the show, it’s ever-changing and ever raising the bar. We did a bunch of cool stuff on the last tour with all these awesome props. And it’s actually funny, we were talking about the arm paint, we switched to jackets because the arm paint, it’s a real process getting all that stuff on. Plus, it was a little bit colder when we went out. We were touring in November, so we did the jacket version, which was fun, but kind of changing it up. And now that we’ve done that, we’ve got to find a new way to up the ante, and it’s just always trying to beat what we’ve done previous.
Tryst Germaine: It always changes too because the last tour we did was about two months long with a little bit of breaks in between, three months I guess stretched out total. With this, it was a headliner for us. So you were able to bring a little bit more stage props and add more to your shows. And it was the first tour that we’ve ever had a crew member.
Glen Bridden: Headlining is sweet.
Tryst Germaine: We had a crew member, which really helps with striking all of the props and stuff off stage and packing everything up. But then eventually when we get on a bigger tour with a bigger band, you don’t get your full show, you just can’t. It’s the headliner’s show. It’s their show and we’re there to support, and so it’s a lot more stripped down. You kind of have to make sacrifices.
Glen Bridden: We got to find a way to have as epic of a show, but with less stuff, which is a fun challenge honestly, especially now that we just did the headline version with everything we could think of and had access to. And now it’s hard mode, where it’s gotta be at least as good, but without all that stuff. So it’s a fun challenge, and that’s our passion. We enjoy that kind of stuff.
Tryst Germaine: You really gotta put a little more time into your stage look because that’s all you have sometimes.
PopHorror: I know you guys just released a new song “Mad God.”
Glen Bridden: That’s it, yeah. It’s out!
PopHorror: Great! Can you talk about the song and what it means to you?
Glen Bridden: Yeah, this is a fun song for all kinds of reasons. We watched a movie called Mad God. Tryst actually watched most of it, and then he was like, “This is so good, I gotta show Glen.” So he didn’t watch the whole thing, and we watched it over at my house. The vibe was so good and we were just inspired by it, and it had all these cool themes going on. It’s a very dark movie and no dialogue either. So it’s a super art film. We were pretty inspired and fired up and wanted to do a song. We were writing at the time, and we were like, “We’ve got to find a way to get this atmosphere and put it into a song.”
So literally, the writing process for this was so cool because Tryst straight up sent me a two-track of just the instrumental, pretty much I think as you hear it in the final song. And then I, in the same night, did vocals for it and that’s pretty much what you hear on the song now. We went into the studio, did a couple touch ups, you know, change this note, change that note, a little quick once over on the chorus and stuff like that. And then it was done. It was the easiest, most natural, fluid song probably we’ve ever done. And it was just so cathartic to not have to, a lot of the time the songs, you’ve really got to work for them and it’s a big process and it takes a lot of energy. And that song was just like, done, easy. We both knew exactly what it needed to sound like, and it was that simple. So I think that song stands out to us in that way, big time.
Tryst Germaine: You use elements inspired by the movie lyrically, but I think you really took your own direction with it as well.
Glen Bridden: The film is very dystopian, kind of apocalyptic, sort of nihilistic existential, a really crazy thing that either leaves you shocked or it makes you think. I think that in the lyrics, I took that same perspective, but I talked about stuff that’s more relatable to me, things that I can actually talk about a little bit more. The guys in the film had their thing, and I tried to take that same vibe but do the 2 Shadows version of it, if you will. And it’s the same kind of stuff, but for the song, I talk more about the addiction side of things, or sort of the opposite of addition. It’s a really crazy adventure in the lyrics.
But it’s just about the escape from reality that so many people end up in, be it in prescription medication or in the addiction side of things or even video games to a certain point. Everybody’s trying to escape reality, and it’s the kind of wild dystopian phenomenon that’s going on that I don’t think is talked about enough in that kind of grandiose way, just how the people that have everything want to escape. It’s very strange. But there’s a lot more to go into too. I don’t know if I’m even finished talking about that subject.
It’s so, so crazy. It’s a really weird thing going on. But I love it. It’s an exploration and it isn’t really like a statement. It’s not like, “Oh, this is like that, pay attention people.” It’s just lifting the veil on stuff that goes on in society and being like, “Hey, what’s with that? Is anyone else seeing this?” It’s kind of a new thing too because I don’t usually approach lyrics that way, so it was kind of fresh as well.
PopHorror: Do you see yourself continuing that? And will this song be part of a larger project?
Glen Bridden: Likely no, but I haven’t written the songs yet, so it’s not out of the cards. I wouldn’t intuitively do that. But it could happen, it’s possible. Keep on the lookout for “Madder God” or “Angry God” coming soon!
PopHorror: I have to ask since we’re PopHorror.com, are you fans of horror? And if so, what are some of your favorites?
Glen Bridden: No, we don’t watch horror *laughs*. My favorite movie is The Thing. I really love all the Lovecraftian and stuff and those types of movies. Randomly Nick Cage was in a Lovecraftian movie, Color Out of Space, or that’s the book I think, I don’t know. Book’s good, movie’s really good too. Nick Cage bringing it for the Lovecraftian horror, did not see that coming, but knocked it out of the park. I love those types of movies and you know, the classic, the Freddy Krueger. I watched Freddy vs. Jason recently. That was just a fantastic experience watching that movie.
Tryst Germaine: I’m a slasher guy for sure. Saw is probably my favorite series or franchise. The first one is just a classic, but I actually really, it’s an unpopular opinion, but I really like Jigsaw for sure. I thought that was really cool, but I know it makes a lot of people really angry. I always liked Chucky because I like the comedy mixed with the darkness, it’s kind of like what we do, and there’s some pretty funny scenes in there, pretty good scenes. But yeah, old slashers, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, all those ones I really liked when I was younger.
Glen Bridden: I think it’s possible that we only watch horror movies. Do you watch movies that aren’t horror?
Tryst Germaine: Yeah, sometimes.
Glen Bridden: I know unless it’s maybe like an Oscar nominee or some movie that I’m checking out, it’s pretty much just horror movies, even if they’re bad. I’m here for it.
Tryst Germaine: I like all genres of everything, movies, music, everything. I’m a fan of a good movie and a good song, I don’t care what the genre is.
PopHorror: I have to ask since you’re a Chucky fan, are you watching the TV show?
Tryst Germaine: No, I didn’t even know there was a TV show! Is it good?
PopHorror: It’s crazy campy, not scary in the slightest, but it’s funny as hell.
Tryst Germaine: We work too much!
Glen Bridden: Yeah, we’re not big TV, movie people. It’s like a special occasion I think if we watch a show. But I still love it. Sometimes you find a gem like “Mad God,” literally going full circle on that. It was just a random finding. I’d heard of the movie and then you just ended up watching it. You’re like, “Dude, this is so good.” We love that about movies too, you don’t really know what you’re getting into and you find something and you’re just like, “Wow, this is dope.”
Tryst Germaine: I remember we watched, when we were starting to do our makeup for a show once, I don’t remember what the town was, I remember the venue was called Rose Music Hall, it was somewhere kind of in the Midwest area, and we threw on the newest Texas Chainsaw and we got halfway through and then we had to go on stage. We’ve got a TV in the van. I think we were both literally thinking about what happened next the whole show and we couldn’t wait to finish. And then we got back and finished the movie.
Glen Bridden: It was the new one and we were kind of just wanting some gritty chainsaw kills in the background while we were getting ready. He finds the chainsaw halfway through the movie, and then we had to do the show. What a tragedy! But yeah, it was definitely on my mind. I was like, “Oh, my God, what’s gonna happen?” So we finished the show and then when the night was done, we got right back to the bus, resume. So, you know, good tour moments like that.
PopHorror: We have a couple of minutes left. Can you talk about what’s next for you guys? Any goals? Anything coming up?
Glen Bridden: 2024 has just begun and we’re working on all kinds of stuff. We want to do a lot this year. We did a lot of shows last year and the year before, which is cool. But we’re hoping to do a lot of shows this year. We’ve been in 25 states, so we’re halfway there. We wanna work on those numbers and play a lot of shows, put up more music and yeah, more everything, essentially. We’re hoping this is gonna be one of the busiest years for 2 Shadows. That’s how we’ve started it off, and it’s been just a lot of laying the groundwork for what’s coming up, and what is coming up, if I knew I’d tell you. But that’s the goal and we’re working on it.
Tryst Germaine: It’s a very strong start to the year, and it’s stuff we can’t talk about yet, but it’s been really crazy so far already.
Glen Bridden: That’s the funniest part about the musician thing is, it’s like, “Oh, wow, the best thing ever happened and now I can’t tell anyone for four months, six months sometimes.” So stay tuned folks.
PopHorror: Was there anything that I missed that you wanted people to know?
Glen Bridden: Our favorite plug lately, we’ve got a Patreon going on now. If you like the TikTok stuff and a little behind-the-scenes, check out our Patreon, which is just 2 Shadows on Patreon.com, I think that’s the easiest way to find it. But that’s kind of a new thing that we’re doing and it’s really fun. It’s kind of the stuff that’s maybe too long or too silly or not good enough. Not that it’s not good enough, but it’s just not the right content for TikTok. It all goes on Patreon. If you want to see us laughing when we try to film Goths in Ungothly Places, that’s where you will see it.
Tryst Germaine: It’s been a huge support system for us as well.
Thanks for speaking with us, Glen and Tryst! Keep up with 2 Shadows on all social media platforms.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. View the full conversation on PopHorror’s YouTube channel!
Featured photo by Yvonne Hanson.
