Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Rick Mitarotonda

Transcript

Rick Mitarotonda · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Lessnett's Podcast. My
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: guest today is Rick Matera Tanda a Goose. Rick, how
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: did it feel to play Madison Square Garden?
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Thanks? Thanks for having me, Bob. Felt surreal for sure.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, I grew up in Connecticut and that's you know,
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: that's it, you know, bears a lot of weight in
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: our world in many ways. So yeah, it was. It
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: was a wild experience. You know. It's just really grateful
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: that we were able to do it.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: And any difference other than you know, the Gravitas location,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Was there any different thing in the show or the
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: fact that there were fifteen thousand people.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: There in terms of our show? Yeah, we what we did.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's there's so much, you know, like like
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: you said, the gravity toss of the whole thing. There's
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: there's so much uh lore and history and every so
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: many respects that you know, I think we obviously we're
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: readily aware of all that, and UH just did our
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: best to to you know, to bring the heat, I guess,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: to uh to do to do what we do, try
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: to show up and be present.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: You know. So you're from Wilton, Connecticut, Yeah, I'm from Fairfield,
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: which is right now exactly. So you grew up in Wilton.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: What did your parents do for a living?
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: They both worked in insurance. I think when I was
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: born my mom stopped working in insurance. My dad kept
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: kept working in insurance reinsurance and you know, kind of
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: worked his way up in that industry.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: And did he work in the city or you know,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Wilton Westport?
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Uh? He was worked mostly in Stanford as far as
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: I can recall. I think he was bouncing around a
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: different companies, mostly in Stanford.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: And how many kids in the family.
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: It's me and I have a sister. He's ten years
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: older than me.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: And what's she up to.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: She's a teacher. She's got three little boys, and she
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: lives she lives in Richfield a couple times.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, Ridgefield Playhouse. So you're growing up. Was there music
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: in the house? Yeah?
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: My dad was from Long Island and so you know,
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: there's like a lot of Billy Joel and he was
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: into smooth jazz there, you know, some jazz guitar players,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: but kind of like you know, like Larry Coriel. He
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: liked a lot, so it was kind of random stuff.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: He liked Springsteen, he liked Delvert McClinton a lot, which
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: you know sometimes we gave him a hard time about that.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: But why a hard time about Delvert McClinton.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: It kind of just be came a joke, No, no
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: shade to Delbert whatsoever, but it just it just became
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: this this stick where my mom and I would would
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: bust his chops about his his Delbert obsession.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Sandy Beach is good song there by DOUBLET mcclinn. So
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: did you listen to his music and like his music
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: or did you quickly get your own music?
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Billie Joel took from a from a young age. You know,
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: I I started really uh loving some of those songs
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: when I would ride in his car and stuff. But
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: I think, you know, my sister listened to Dave Matthews
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: a lot when I was when I was, you know,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: a very young kid, and that that took even more
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: took a minute. I didn't like it. It didn't speak to
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: me at first when I was really young, but at
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: you know, at a certain point that one, that one
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: really kind of took hold.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: And when did you start playing an instrument? Uh?
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Sixth grade was the they rented a guitar for the
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: first time for me, and I took a couple lessons.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I was probably eleven or twelve.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: So what was the motivation for them to rent a
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: guitar for you?
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: I had been asking for a while. I had a
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: music had just a like a crazy effect on me
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: as a kid. Any anything I listened to. I mean
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: I remember like it was the you know, the CD era,
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: so I got like the space dram sound. It really
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: didn't matter it was I had a discman, I'd walk
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: around and with my little headphones and listen to whatever
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: CD I could get my hands on, and things just
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: had like a they just made me feel like a
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: like a crazy person, you know, had had a profound effect.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: So I was always drawn to it. I was always,
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: you know, pretty intensely moved by it. And then seeing older,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: older brothers and and things like that of friends of
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: mine playing guitar. There's you know a few experiences like that, right.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: I saw someone playing you know, smells like teen spirit
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: on a guitar, and I was like, whoa, yeah that
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: I want to do that.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: So they rented the guitar. What were lessons like.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Those? First? The first couple lessons, I don't even remember, honestly,
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: I started studying with a guy named Bob Ricchio in
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: in Wilton, and uh, it was a kind of a
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: slow start in the beginning. I you know, I liked
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: to play music that I you know, liked in that
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: you know, like recordings of some great songs and pretend
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: like I was playing it like I knew what I
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: was doing, and I really didn't. And I also started
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: writing kind of right away before I had any discipline
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: with practicing or anything like that. I started if I
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: learned a chord or something, I just started making up songs.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: That was. That was kind of something that happened right
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: out of the gate. But the discipline to start actually
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: studying music and working on and practicing took took a
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: little bit for me, didn't. It didn't happen right away.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Well, starting writing songs, was it something like you'd been
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: writing before, non musical stuff? Poet three short stories? Where
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: did the genesis come from?
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: You know? When I was when I was really young,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: I would I would, you know, make up little little
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: like really silly little things and be like, hey, you
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: want to hear my song. It's going to be some
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: silly little thing, but really not not much of that.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: I wasn't writing a ton of poetry prior to that
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: that I recall at least stuff to remember some of
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: these things sometimes. But I think when I when I started,
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: you know, when I got a guitar and started really
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: getting into music, it just it all kind of happened
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: at once around that Around that time, you know, the
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: music kind of came first, and then I was like, well,
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to write lyrics for this and write songs.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: So I wrote little songs about you know, bullies at school,
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: whatever whatever it was, and quickly got into recording with whatever,
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: you know, whatever kind of recording apparatus I could get
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: my hands on at the time, which you know, I
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: could started with like a little cassette recorder thing, which
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: was awesome.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, if you're writing a bullies at school, were you
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: bullied at school?
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Uh? Not not particularly, but I just like, I mean,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: sometimes sometimes I get there. There's there's definitely certain situations
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: where I, uh, you know, I caught a caught a
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: hard time. But it was also like, when I think
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: back to that was kind of an observational thing too,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: just like seeing seeing people going through their own stuff,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: but then like taking it out on other people that
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I just the first song I kind
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: of remember writing was about that.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: And how did you fit in in school?
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: I went through like different phases. There's a bunch I
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: think a good number of years I was pretty quiet.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: It kind of like phase in and out of different
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: zones and then sometimes you know, it kind of had
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: this pattern of like I'd go into a new school
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: and you know, kind of had like the slate would
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: be clean, and I would I'd be really quiet and
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: kind of keep to myself and really shy. I was
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: pretty like, I was pretty shy. I've always been pretty
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: shy and like socially anxious. But then you know, by
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: the end of my time out of school, i'd have,
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: you know, a group of friends and a little micro
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: community kind of thing, and it changed forms a bunch.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: But yeah, you know, when I was really young, I
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: was I was less shy, and then I think when
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: I hit middle school is when I started getting really
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: shy and awkward and anxious.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: So did you do well in school? Did you participate
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: in activity sports?
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: I played sports up into up until high school, and uh,
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: and I had a really good time doing it. I
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: played baseball the most, the longest, I would say, But yeah,
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: by the time I got to high school was it
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: was kind of like I saw that the the demands
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: that you know, playing sports in high school had, and
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: by that time I was already way too set on
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: pursuing music and I wanted to kind of do everything
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: I could do in that regard. So yeah, I kind
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: of made the conscious decisions to not to stop playing sports.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: By by high school school I was, I was, I
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: was like, all right, it wasn't great. Definitely wasn't That
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: didn't come super easily to me. Some some subjects were
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: easier than others. But it wasn't like a it wasn't
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: a total mess, but you know, it wasn't great.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: So you're taking lessons. What is your teacher teaching you?
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: And are you practicing?
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: And the beginning is kind of the route of, you know,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: the the typical rudimentary stuff. You know, he showed me,
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: like a chili pepper song and he kind of showing
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: showing songs and licks and stuff like that, and chords.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: He was he was a good teacher in that way,
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: and he taught a lot of people, a lot of
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: kids in in the town. There and uh, I you
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: know it, like I said, it took me a while
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: before I started gaining gaining any discipline or getting serious
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: about it or you know, showing real progress in that regard.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: I was always taken with it, but you know, it
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: was more in the writing, in the creative, creative side.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: And then at a certain point, Uh, that started to
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: shift throughout middle school, I would say, And and I
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: think by the you know, there was there was a
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: turning point with him where he started to realize that
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: I was I was really I was taking it seriously
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: and pursuing it. And when he saw that I was
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: starting to make strides, he started pushing me more and
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: more into jazz and started teaching me jazz. That was
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: That was kind of where that journey started in a
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: lot of ways.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: I would say, So, did he teach you how to
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: read music? Can you read music today?
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: Not proficiently? He did? You know? That was something that
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: he taught and we're worked on and you know, I
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: went to I went to music school, so it was
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: it was part of that, but I kind of just
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: got by with it. It was never it was never
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: something that was that I became, you know, very very
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: competent with.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: So he got you into jazz. What kind of jazz.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: He you know, he just started throwing standards at me
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: and and teaching, you know, showing me how to get
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: through the chord changes and and uh and stuff like that.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: There wasn't I didn't really get a knack for playing
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: through changes until I did a summer program at Berkeley. Well,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: some summer I was in high school. I did like
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: a I don't know if that was the one week
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: guitar thing or the five week program. I forget what
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: it was, but they you know, I went and did
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: this ensemble and they put five hundred miles high. It
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: was the Chickeria tune in front of me, and and
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: I was still I still really didn't know what I
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: was doing. At that point. I could, I could solo,
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: you know over a modal thing. But you know, the
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: first quarter was E minor, and you know, the head
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: came around. I learned the head and played the head,
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: and then solo came around. Everyone look to me and
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: they're like, all right, you know, go and I was
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: like E minor cool, got it and started selling over
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: E minor. The second chord is G minor, which is
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: like a total total change, and uh, you know, I
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: kept selling an E minor and sounded like a total dufist.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: So that was like the wake up of what that
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: is was really all about. And uh that that was
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: like the turning point there for me, which was like,
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: it was a really cool moment for me in my
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: musical journey, I guess because I just took that tune
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: and sat down and learned the chord scales for every
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: every change and learned it in each position. And then
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: you know, that was that was kind of the the
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: impetus and in the moment catalyst for learning that type
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: of thing, which was a cool experience.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go back. You start writing songs. Most people
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: start writing songs think their initial songs are fantastic and
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: want to play them for people. Later they realized they sucked,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: but at first they think they're great. Welling through your mind.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: You know, I think back to that period so often,
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: especially now, the freedom I had at that age that
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: I think everyone has at that age in one way
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: or another, and I imagine that you know, it varies
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: quite a bit. I you know, can't can't under undervalue
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: or or you know, I can't stress enough how how
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: incredible was to have parents that were really supportive and
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: and you know kind of we're there for it, whatever
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: it was. But uh, yeah I didn't. I don't. I
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: wasn't thinking about if they were good or not. And
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: I wasn't trying to I wasn't trying to go out
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: and play play them at gigs. I wasn't trying to
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: play them for people or like trying to do anything
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: with them. The the discovery of them, like figuring out
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: of learning some chords and finding a new chord progression
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: that I hadn't I don't know, just discovering this the
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: sound of a new chord progression and then writing a
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: song and then recording a song. That's really all I
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: wanted to do, was like write these songs and record them.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: And that thing was just like the most thrilling process.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: That was the most thrilling thing I could possibly do
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: with my time at that time. And yeah, there there wasn't.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: I really wasn't thinking about playing gigs or or or
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: doing anything with it. It. Eventually, I you know, got
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: a band together, I got a got my best friend
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: to start playing bass, and and we you know, found
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: another guy who we were friends with at school and
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: he was playing drums. We had a trio and by
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: eighth grade we recorded like an album in my in
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: my basement with a little cork twelve track you know,
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: you just burn you bounce everything down into a CD
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: and I you know, uh copied a bunch of CDs
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: and sold him around school and that was like it
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: was it was this just the purity of the whole
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: thing was just I you know, I think back to
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: it all the time. It was kind of doesn't get
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: better than that.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: We'd get have like band practice once a week after school,
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: come home and eat popcorn chicken and go down to
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: the basement and just you know, whack it around. And
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: it was it was like that's it still feels like
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: that's what it's all about, you know. But uh, yeah,
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: that you know, it wasn't uh. I think the only
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: show we really ever played was the Talent Show in
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: eighth grade, which I was you know, that was the
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: first time I'd really performed. I think the Talent Show
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: in eighth grade. You know, we had we had made
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: this this this album had like fifteen tracks on it
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: and sold around school and had never played out anywhere,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: but never played live or anything like that, and uh,
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: you know, it was this. It was this like the
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: night the day of the thing, Everyone's like you nervous.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: I was like, no, I feel totally fine. And then
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: I just like threw up everywhere. So I guess that
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: was the the maiden voyage of learning what what performance
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: anxiety does to my nervous system. But yeah, it was
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: It was a it was a funny experience.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, you say about recording to cassette, did you have
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: a four track poored a studio? When you're talking about cassette,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: how sophisticated was it?
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: The cassette thing was very unsophisticated. It wasn't even a
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: four track, and I barely remember that it was pretty
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: it was fairly short lived. That was like that was
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: in the early early stages. And I honestly don't even
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: know what that thing was and where it came from.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: I just remember sitting in my bedroom and it just
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: had like a built in microphone and it was I
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: think you could I don't even know if you could,
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: if if you could layer anything, it might have just
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: been like a one done kind of situation. But I
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: remember I would, like, you know, play and sing and record,
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: and then have had a buddy who was like kind
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: of starting to learn drums. It was like early early,
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: the first things. And he he didn't have a drum set,
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: but he was taking drum lessons and he had a
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: practice pad, so he would come over and he would
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: just like whack on the pack practice pad and I
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: would learn it. So that was that was kind of
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: the the first thing, which is you know, pretty short lived.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: So then did you graduate you're talking about you made
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: this album? What equipment did you make the album on?
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: By that time that was probably a couple of years later.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: I had this this COREK twelve track, which then I
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: was I was you know, I spent a lot of
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: time with that thing. I was able to you know,
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: had twelve tracks. And then you know we had I
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: had a few a handful of microphones enough to make
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: up a drum set and track you know like bass,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: d I guitar maybe I threw a mic in the
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: guitar amp on or do I don't even remember, and
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: then uh, you know, a vocal mic and and you
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: know a few mics for the drum set. So that
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: was all going to the cork and then I would
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: overdub vocals just to uh, you know, but I was
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: a horrible singer. But I had no awareness I did,
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: you know. I was just doing it, having a great time.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: But this singing thing was was never never there, never easy,
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: never was I was not a natural singer by any stretch.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, you pick up the guitar in middle school, are
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: you the outlier? Or is everybody playing instruments?
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Uh? Not necessarily, I wouldn't say either. There's like it
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: somewhat of my minority. For sure. Everyone wasn't playing instruments,
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: but you know, there was like you kind of knew
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: everyone who was. There's a handful of people that were
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: doing it, and everyone had their own kind of thing
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: that they were doing or working on or into. So
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: there weren't that many, but everyone was kind of aware
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: of everyone that was that was checking it out.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: And when you started writing songs recording, who did you
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: want to be?
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: That's a good question, you know, Like in middle school,
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, Dave Matthews was kind of this like this, uh,
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: this touchstone throughout a lot of through really always so
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: that that was always, you know, a big inspiration his
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: whole world. But when I was in middle school, I had.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: I had this this DVD called Under the Radar. It
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: was a Dispatch DVD, and it was it was kind
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: of this, uh, kind of scrappy DVD of them like
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: on the road and just doing things, going out of
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: the studio, playing shows, to talking about their come up
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: and Napster and that whole that whole thing. And I was,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: I was obsessed with that band at that time. So
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: like I would say, in those early years of you know,
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: whould I want to be, it was Dispatch.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Okay, you got the two other members. You're in the basement.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Are you a dictator saying I write all the songs,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: I want it this way, I want it that way.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: And they were just basically I don't want to see
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: your servants going along with you. What did it look like?
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Uh, I don't remember it being like that, And I said, certainly,
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: I hope it wasn't like that. I think, uh, they
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: were were we were kind of just you know, doing it.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: I was I was writing the songs and you know,
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: had had the ideas and was like, all right, let's
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: try this, let's try this. And it didn't feel like
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: there was I don't remember there being like they're they
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: were I think from what I recall, Uh, they were
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: just down down to go for the ride, you know,
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: and and you know they weren't they weren't writing songs.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: It was either so it was kind of like a
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: all right, yeah, here's this is the song, let's do
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: it wasn't really didn't. I don't know. I think we
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: were too young for it to be any kind of
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: ego battles.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: I feel like, okay, so you finished the fifteen song,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: should make the CD. I assume you just burned the
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: CDs on your own burner.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that the core trail track had it had like
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: a CD you could you could bounce it down to
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: a CD right on the thing and then just go
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: make copies in the computer.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, so how many did you sell it? At? What price?
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: I think I don't remember what we were selling for,
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: maybe like ten bucks, but I think we made like
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: somewhere between five hundred and seven hundred bucks something like that.
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: It got a little it got a little conflated because
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: the other two guys also crocheteded winter beanie hats, so
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: we were selling those two. So you know that they
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: were you know when we when when we weren't practicing
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: and stuff. They were just crocheting hats and they had
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: a little hat business called head Bandits. So we were
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: we were kind of little little entrepreneurs, I guess, running around.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I think the album we made five hundred
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: and seven hundred bucks something like that, which was pretty
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: solid enough to buy like a new base amp.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely, really solid. You know, you got a
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: couple of friends give you ten dollars, but how did
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: you convince the other seventy odd people to get it ten?
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: I think people were being nice, like teachers were buying them,
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: and you know, people were people were being nice. But
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: I guess it was a lot of kids at school.
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't I don't totally remember. There
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: there are some friends who are helping us help like
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: helping us burn them and like helping us sell them
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: and stuff. It was, you know, it's, uh, it's like
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: one of those things when you're when you're young. You know,
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: you got a little a little pack and everyone's kind
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: of like getting in on the like we're doing it
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: kind of energy. You know.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: Well where people buying it, listening to it, they say,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: oh I want to hear you play such and such.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know. I mean I listened
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: back to it, and there's there's a lot of creative
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: freedom there. This is my own perspective. I guess there's
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of freedom in it and in the
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: songs and stuff, and a lot of decisions that were
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: made that I would never make now because they were
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: coming from a place of having no no like theoretical
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: understanding of of music and you know what, how like
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: what kind of chord progressions are normal and things like that,
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: which ended up making way more interesting choices, you know,
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: because it's it was just kind of throwing things at
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: the wall and chasing your ear and wound up being
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: some some things that just you know are just very
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: like kind of like wild card, wild card choices. But
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: the vocals, like I said, were just like brutal. So
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: I don't know if people listen to it or not.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Can So how did you go?
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: You know, you had stage fright, but how did your
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: performance of the talent show go over?
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't really know, Uh, I don't really know.
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: I think there was there was something to be said
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: for the just the fact that we were right that
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: a bunch of songs were being written. It was like
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: it was like there was like a body of original music,
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: So I guess there was. There was like that. I
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: remember that energy being kind of a thing, you know
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: because like the other other bands were probably better than us,
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: and you know, in the grade or whatever, but they
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: were playing covers, but like they're saying way better and
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: they're they're probably tighter and they played better or whatever
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: it was, but you know, they're they're being just a
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: lot of ideas, a lot of original songs happening. Uh
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: felt like an energy, But I don't I don't think.
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: I don't know if we were good or not, or
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: if people thought we were good. I have no idea.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you had a band, you were selling CDs,
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: you talk about these cover bands. How many bands were
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: in the school? I mean, was this this thing where
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: you were one of ten or one of two.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Like maybe one of four, one of four or five
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: something like that. There's like some rockers, you know, some
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: hard some hard metal kind of guys, and then uh,
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: you know some it was like another classic rock kind
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: of outfit and things like that.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Okay, little school, Ine go to high school. Then what happens.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: The first year of high school. It was kind of
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: it was kind of like back to what I was
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: saying before, I was didn't really have a crew anymore.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: It was it was it was like low men on
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: the Totem Pole I had. I had a girlfriend, and
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: I had like a really serious relationship, Like we spent
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: a lot of time together and we went in really
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: deep for for how young we were. And so I
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: spent a lot of time doing that and kind of
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: didn't hang out with friends that much at all, and
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: was writing and recording a lot. But more so, the
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: band wasn't really playing anymore. I think the drummer just
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: didn't want to do it anymore. He stopped paying drums.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: He was like he was actually amazing skier. He was
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: kind of pursuing that more and just wasn't interested in
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: playing drums anymore. So we kind of stopped doing the
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: band thing. But I continued to record a lot of
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: music and I kept I was writing more than ever
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: my first year of high school, and I had another
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: buddy who played drums and keys, and he would come
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: over and we would record stuff together. He'd play drums
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: and keys, I'd played guitar bass and sing something on it,
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: and so I was doing a lot of that, and
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: then the summer summer after first year of high school,
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: I started smoking weed and I got really into that,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: really really into that, and the it kind of propelled
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: it was it was a major turning point in the
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: journey because I got deeper and deeper into that was
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: that was, you know, strangely when I really started studying music,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: starting studying theory and improvisational music in particular, but I
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: stopped writing. I think, what is something about the way
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: that impacted my brain and how things were, you know,
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: there was there was still a lot of momentum and
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: forward movement in from a musical standpoint, but the writing
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: like halted in its tracks pretty much, which is you know,
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: somewhat of a regret looking back kind of, you know,
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: I can't help but be curious what would have happened
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: if I had stayed on the trajectory it was on
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: prior to that. But you know, nevertheless, I had a
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: great time in high school for the most part. You know,
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: it was those early years I was pretty sensitive and
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: emotional and you know whatever. But as as the years
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: went on, it was, you know, I had a lot
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: of fun. You know, in high school it was kind
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: of it was kind of like, you know, all you
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: could ask for, and you know, I didn't realize it.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: I mean we was just having a great time at
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: the time going through things. You know, I had anxiety
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: and stuff too, but I guess it was mostly relative
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: to my perspective post high school that I that was.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: That was when I really realized how great of a
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: time it was in so many respects. But yeah, it
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: was you know, studying the like with the guitar teacher,
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: he was pushing jazz more and I was studying that,
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: and that was kind of the time I got into
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: you know, the Dead and Fish and things of that.
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: You know, different types of jam bands. I'm Friese McGee
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: and MO and all these all these different bands and
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: learning that stuff. Getting into that world. Uh, playing along
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: with those bands was kind of the moments where it
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: was just like a release. It was just so much
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: fun and it was kind of like I'd spend time
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: studying jazz and trying to decode that language and then
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: let my hair down and play along with with, you know,
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: the jam bands in my room after school kind of thing.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: So what happened with the girlfriend? How long did that last?
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: How did you meet her and how did it end?
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: We we were in school together and my sister actually
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: started babysitting for them. There was a yeah, we were
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: kind of just in the same in same community, and
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: I just had a huge crush on her. And then
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: we started spending a bunch of time together and you know,
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: went went full like young love mode. And then I
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: don't know, you know, when that summer after freshman year
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: of high school, I started smoking a bunch of weed
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: and we kind of just, I don't know, it's like
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: we just we kind of went separate ways in a way,
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: and uh, you know, it's tough to remember how those
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: things unfold, but you know, they's like when you go
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: that that deep as a young kid, you have like
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: no idea, you have no idea what like what you're doing,
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: and you just kind of like the fall, you know,
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: neck deep into the young love thing and it's just
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: it's like consuming and then the there's there's you know,
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: strange things that come out of it when you don't
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: have balance. I guess that maybe that's that's part of
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: the thing, is I don't, you know, struggle with balance
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: when when there's something I'm you know, really uh drawn to.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: I guess you know it's like, oh, make the analogy
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: of like getting getting a bag of Dorito's and dumping
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: out the entire bag of Dorito's on your lap. It's
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: a weird analogy, but that's that's kind of how we've
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: come to refer to that that type of energy instead
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: of you know, the lack of being able to pace
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: yourself or or maintain some kind of balance in the
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: context of entering into or being drawn, you know, engaging
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: with something that you're drawn to in in an intense way.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: It could be you know, analogy. You know, it's it's
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: presented itself in all types of different situations. Relationships, a band,
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: you know anything.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're the type of guy who always has a girlfriend.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: You had a girlfriend who were a freshman. You have
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: a girlfriend when you were sophomore junior? How did that
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: play out?
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: No? No, I was I was way too uh stoned
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: and shy to talk to girls for at least for
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: the next couple of years I had. I ended up
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: having another girlfriend, and like when I was a senior,
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: but for the bulk of high school, I was I
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: was too stoned and shy talk to girls.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: And who turned you on to dope.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know e every you know, everyone was kind
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: of doing it, and I just it, uh it it
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: fired up like the you know, learning music, playing music,
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: listening to music on on weed. It was just I was,
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: I was. I was just taken with it, you know,
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: but yeah, it was it was just around. It was
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: kind of as part of the culture where where we were,
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: as I imagine it was in most places.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: And this was something your parents were aware of, unaware of,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: cool with, not cool with.
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: They're they're pretty sharp, they're pretty aware. And at first
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: they were, you know, my mom was mortified, but then
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: as time went on, they you know, my house ended
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: up being the house that everyone would convene at. Like
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: we hung out at my house the most. You know,
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: if there was a party going around going on somewhere
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: in town, we we'd go there. But if there wasn't, we'd,
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: like the default thing was was hanging out of my house.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: And you know, they they allowed. It wasn't like a
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: like a weird thing. You know, sometimes it gets kind
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: of weird when that's when that's the vibe. But they
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: knew what we were doing and they were cool with
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: it as long as everyone was making good decisions and
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: there I think their philosophy was like, we'd rather them
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: here safe and uh learning how to make good decisions
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: while partying. Then you know this it being this this
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: crazy forbidden thing and then making making much worse mistakes.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: You know, so we're in this story. Do you go
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: to the Brookley summer program? Uh?
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: You know, I don't remember what when that started. That
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: might I might have gone to the first one, like
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: at the freshman year after high school, or it could
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: have been after sophomore year. I'm not sure, but I
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: think I think one summer I did the guitar It
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: was just a week I did the guitar thing. There
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: was another a guitar uh program, like a one week
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: guitar camp kind of thing I did maybe uh maybe
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: a year prior. So I think it was like one
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: summer I did this one guitar camp somewhere in Connecticut,
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: and then I did a one week thing at Berkeley.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: And then I think the following summer, I just I
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: was getting more and more serious and and uh about it,
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: and I did the five week program. Uh the following summer,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: I think, and yeah, I was you know, I I
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: was very very lucky that my parents were able to
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: and willing to set me up in those programs and
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: and you know, that's like, that's the privilege I was.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: It was, it was, it was privileged to be able
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: to learn music at that age.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: You know, Okay, you went on the five week programs?
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: What was that like? Were the students competitive? Were they
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: is good or better? Was it kind of like summer
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: camp where music was a part of it, but a
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: lot of it was living in the dorm hanging out.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: What was the experience like.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: The five week I mean, because the one week guitar
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: camp things were, those were I had a good time
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: at those. Those those kind of just they didn't. The
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: five week was was tough. I remember that being a
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: turning point. It wasn't as much of a communal kind of, hey,
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: everyone's here to learn how to jam kind of thing
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: it was. It was it was more intense. It was
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: more like college. Honestly, you know, you set up in
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: a dorm and the people doing that program were just
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: way more serious and the vast majority of them were
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: way better than me. And that was I think my
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: first brush. I remember very vividly having a conversation with
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: my with my dad out in the street one night,
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: maybe halfway through that thing where I was, I was
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: kind of homesick and like just getting my ass kicked.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: It was it was the I mean, the talent there,
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: the talent pool. It was the classic thing of like,
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: you know, I was very comfortable. I wouldn't. I wasn't.
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: I wasn't even a big fish in my little pond.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: It wasn't even like that. It wasn't I wasn't good
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: enough to even have that be the vibe. But I
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: was comfortable in my little pond.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: I had my own connection, my own experience with it
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: in my own little pond. And then I went there
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: and it was the first time I had the experience
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: of being totally decalibrated from that and kind of lost
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: in the soup of all these immensely talented but really
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: really competitive energies, you know. So yeah, I remember my
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: dad kind of My dad had an amazing ability to
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: to help people talk to talk to people and see
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: where they're at, and uh just like say the right thing.
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: He always knew how to how to do that, and uh, yeah,
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: I remember that night. That was so the five week
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: thing definitely stands out as a point of my first
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: brush with with that environment of losing feeling like I
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: was losing my own connection to music and why I
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: do it.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're in high school, you're smoking dough, you're playing
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: along to record, you stop writing songs. At what point
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: do you start having bands again in high school?
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: So throughout Yeah, there was like different things that happened
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: throughout high school. You know, I the guitar teachers started
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: setting me up with some some other kids who were
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: playing jazz, so I was kind of starting to play
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: with them a little bit. There was another project that
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: I played in. These these two guys were writing this
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: a bunch of they were really into dream theater and
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: they were writing this. One was like a classical trained uh,
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: piano player, pianist, and uh the other one was the drummer,
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: the same guy I was. I was kind of recording
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: songs with in uh, you know, earlier in high school,
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: and they were they were super into like progressive I
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: don't know, metal, progressive metal, hard rock, kind of kind
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: of dream theater kind of stuff. So they were writing
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: writing stuff like that, and Uh, I I was, you know,
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: I was in a band with them, and uh, we
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: would we were playing Teen Centers a bunch and and
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: doing that that kind of thing, and it was nice.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: You know, I had had like a creative I had
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: creative input, I had a voice in that band. But
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: that was also, you know, one of the first early
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: experiences I had of being not the not the driving
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: force behind a project or you know, not like the
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: main main writer or something like that in a project,
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: just kind of like would come in and have ideas,
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: but mostly was the guitar player, you know. And it was, uh,
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: it was a great experience. We we learned a lot
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: together and and uh had a lot of fun like
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: playing playing these uh these teen Centers. It was a
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: very different scene than the people that I was, the
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: friends that I had, and the you know, the parties
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: I was going to and stuff like that. It was
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: it was a very different, very different world. And uh,
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: you know, I'd often like we'd have these gigs on
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: the weekend at teen Centers and there'd be like a
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: party that everyone else, all my friends were going to,
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: and I'd try to get some of them to come
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: to the Team Center with me, and They're like, nah,
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: we're gonna go to the party. I was like, all right,
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: so I'd go, I'd hang out with them for a
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: few hours and then roll into the Teen Center and
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: it was it was There was a lot of funny
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: experiences there. But yeah, I mean the music was they
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: The stuff they were writing kind of kind of kicked
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: my ass and in some different ways too, you know,
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: I was like dose they were it was like soloing
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: over some chord progression in fifteen and stuff like like
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: learning that was you know, they were pushing me to
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: do stuff like that, which was which was really cool
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: at that age. At the same time I was learning,
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: I was just learning a lot about music and studying,
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: studying jazz and stuff like that, and this they were nerd.
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: They were like kind of the nerdy metal guys, doing
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: weird number stuff, a lot of a lot of strange,
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: odd time stuff, and that was that was a that
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: was a really good learning experience in that way.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: So you graduate from high school, then what.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: Uh, graduate from high school and I got into Berkeley.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: So I went to Berkeley. But yeah, yeah, so I
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: started Berkeley pretty much, you know, right after right after
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: high school.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: And how long did that last? I did?
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: Uh? I think I did three years and then a band,
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: a band came together. Uh, there was there was a
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: guy throughout the college years, there was a guy that
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: I knew about. He was older, you know, like I said,
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: it's kind of small town. You you kind of know
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: all the people who are doing it older than you
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: and your your contemporaries. And I had known about him
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: from playing into different bands that he was in, and
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: also just people he was. He wrote a lot of
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: songs throughout high school and in college and stuff. And
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: you know, some friends of mine knew about and like
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: would send me recordings of songs he wrote or different
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: things like that. I was, I was readily aware. And
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: then I think it was the summer. It was either
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: the summer going into my last year of high school
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: or the summer after my last year of high school.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: Ran into him at a party which was coincidentally at
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: Trevor's house, the bass player for Goose. Now, there was
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: a party at Trevor's house and this guy's his name's
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: Matt Campbell. And he rolled into this party and and uh,
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: I was, you know, I was pretty lit up. I was.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: I was kind of a remote and I saw him.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: I was like, you, like, I know you. I know,
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: you, you know, play and write and stuff like where's where's
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: your where's your gear? Let's get your gear, Let's play
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: right now. So he his parents' house was down the road,
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: and we drove and got his gear and came back
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: and that was the first time that we'd really connected
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: and really hung out. I don't really remember playing that night,
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: but I do remember the next day he came back
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: to get his gear and we played that afternoon, and
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: that was that was really the first time, like we
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: really connected and played music together, and it was it
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: was pretty impactful. So then throughout the years I was
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: in college and stuff, he was in college. Uh he graduated,
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: you know a year a few years prior to me.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: Every summer we kind of would link up one way
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: or another and play, play gig or something or you know,
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: different little projects whatever it was. And then, uh, there
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: was this one summer after my second year of college,
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: I want to say where I was like, all right,
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: I just I gotta I gotta start, I gotta get
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: a band together, I gotta start doing something. So I
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: kind of went around and uh found a couple of
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: random guys at school. Who are I mean, there's so
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: many good players there was. It was insane, but I
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: found a couple of guys and started just booking gigs
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: at bars in Connecticut on the weekends this one summer
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: and also just like throwing parties at my house and
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: playing there. So we kind of got this little band
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: together this one summer and it was a it was
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: a really fun summer. And Matt had graduated from college
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: and got an internship at Red Light and he was
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: thinking about, you know, entering the music industry in that way,
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: and he didn't. He didn't get too far in that.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: He was like, I don't. I don't think he was
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: there very long before he realized that it wasn't for him,
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: and he, you know, at that he had he'd been
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: playing with us that summer. We had some like really
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: great experiences the first time we started writing together. We
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: wrote a couple of songs that summer that we still
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: play now. And you know, it was like that fall
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: that he was like, I'm not doing the red Light thing.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: Let's start a band, and I was like, Yeah, let's cool,
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: let's do it. And so I think it was that
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: that following, you know, the top of that next year,
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: I dropped out of school and we just started working
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: working on this band, and it was so that band
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: ended up being like it lasting for a year and
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: a half and it was extremely formative experience for all
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: of us. It laid the groundwork for what what the
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: band is now for sure, But it was also the
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: timing was kind of kind of wild in terms of
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: like universe karma type stuff. I got sick. I got
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: really sick kind of right when that band was starting.
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: Like I crashed like right before, right right around that time,
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: and that had a pretty big impact on I mean
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: everything for me, but the trajectory of that band for sure.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: So would your parents say when you dropped out of Berkeley?
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: I was just my mom at that point, and I think,
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: you know, my dad passed away when it was my
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: first week of college. I was eighteen, So well.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Let's stop there for a second. Had he been sick
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: or what were the circumstances.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So when I was, yeah, my senior year of
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: high school, like two thousand and two thousand and nine,
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: my grandfather, who was my dad's dad, who I was
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: really really close with growing up, died. And then a
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: couple of months later, my uncle, who my mom's brother,
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: who I was really really close with who had lived
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: with us throughout when I was in high school. He
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: kind of he kind of moved in. He was in
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: a rough spot in his life and moved in with us,
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: and we became really really close. He died a couple
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: months after my grandfather, and then right after he died,
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: my dad got sick cancer and he was sick for
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: five or six months and then died in September of
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: two thousand and nine. And that was like, it was
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: like my uh, you know, first week of at Berkeley.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: God, you cope with that? How do you cope with that? Today?
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: Still trying to figure it out? Honestly, it's uh. I
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: after the first two it was like my first brush
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: with death, and you know, I was, I was grieving,
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: and it was it was strange. It was, you know,
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: I was trying to learn how to make sense with
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: sense of you know that these people that I was
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: really close to in my you know, current consciousness in
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: my life were no longer here, you know, it was
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: it was it was just a very strange experience when
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: my dad died. I I mean when he got sick,
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: I was in denial. I was running from him. I
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: was party a lot. I was having a really great
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: time with my friends in school and everything and couldn't
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: really show up to that at all. I wasn't conscious
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: of it. But you know, in my you know, eighteen
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: year old invincible, There's no way my like my dad's
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: I'm invincible. My dad's definitely invincible. There's not no way
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: nothing you know, bad would happen to him. He'll figure
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: it out. He figures everything out. He just he was like,
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: he was a really really special guy, and he loved
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: me a lot, you know, kind of to a fault maybe,
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: and and had a really like I like I said before,
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: kind of had a pretty amazing ability to to see people,
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: talk to people, say the right thing, do the right thing,
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: and just had a lot of a lot of charisma
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: and a lot of people were drawn to him and he, uh,
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: you know, he solved a lot of my problems throughout
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: the my my early life. You know, if something was
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: was I was, there was something I was struggling with,
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: you know, he would make it better, and it was
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: coming out of love and stuff. But when when he died,
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: it was I was not really prepared for it, and
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: I could just shut down. I like went into full
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: full shock. I don't really remember much, you know that
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: my memory from like my first year of college was
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: pretty shoddy, and uh yeah, I don't know. I just
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: you know, all of a sudden had like really really
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: bad anxiety issues. I was having panic attacks multiple times
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: per week and a couple after a couple of years
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: of that, my body just kind of shut down, you know,
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: for a long for many years, was trying to figure
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: out like what it was, what's the problem. It was
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: like mono, you know, Epstein bar lime disease, kind of
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: that kind of world. But no one, know, none of
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: the doctors I was seeing could really put their finger
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: on it. It was just, you know, one of those situations.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: So I've been on been on that journey ever since, honestly.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: So how did you get past that?
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: The physicals thing? Yeah, you know, I've I've become ah,
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: I haven't you know. There there's there were periods where
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: it got a little better. You know, it was really
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: rough for a while, and then there's there's a few
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: things that I discovered that kind of moved the needle
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: and got me to a place where I could go
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: back to school, and and uh, you know, there's a
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: wild where a while where I couldn't hold a job.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: I was you know, I couldn't get through like a shift.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: I just didn't have enough energy. But they, you know,
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: I some there's a couple of things I discovered that
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: that helped enough for me to go back to school
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: and start the band and you know, kind of be
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: getting by and then you know, it's there's it's it's
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: up and down. You know, things if stress gets too
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: high or you know, certain things change and things you
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: can kind of like heads south again. But I've it's
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: it's something that I've I've just never stopped trying to
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: figure out and and learn about.
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: So you say you discovered some things that helped you,
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: what were those.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: At that time? It was I her Veda helped me
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: a lot. Actually, I was living in Colorado at the time.
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: It was like kind of right when right around the time,
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: right before maybe this band started. We started playing bars
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: and stuff in Connecticut, but I, you know, I'd moved
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: to Fort Collins, Colorado with the girls. So the band
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: I was talking about before that, I started with Matt.
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: You know that we went our separate ways. That that
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: band dissolved, and shortly after that I started seeing I
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: started seeing this girl and she was moving out to
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: Colorado to go study massage therapy, and I had nothing
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: going on. I didn't know what I was doing with
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: my life. I was kind of down and out, pretty sick,
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: had dropped out of school to do this band band
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: fell through, had put all my eggs in that basket,
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: and I really didn't know what to do with myself
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: after that point. And she was moving out there, and
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: I was like, is it cool if I come, you know?
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: So I went and moved out there, and it was
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: kind of the thing I needed. I needed to get
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: out of my home here and gain some new perspective
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: on on on everything, I guess. And while I was
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: out there, I was walking around Fort Collins one day
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: and there were these uh Hark Harry Krishna guys playing
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: playing music, chanting, singing with a little circle in in
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: the downtown area there. They were, you know, based in Denver.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: They were they were like, they were young, young people
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: and most of them had went to you know, went
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: to jazz school coincidentally and and then got into got
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: into that thing. So they were they were like good musicians.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: This guy, this guy was playing the murdanga a drum
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: and he was really good. And then there's another guy
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: playing the harmonium and had had this beautiful voice, and
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: so I kind of became friends with them. They they
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: came up before Collins once a week and I would
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: just go to the go to the gatherings and you know,
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: they you would sing, chant, meditate, eat, they'd bring food,
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: you food for free, and there was just discussions about
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: spirituality and different things like that, and and uh, it
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: was awesome, you know, we I got really into it,
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: just just that that experience hanging out with them and
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: learning all these wild stories about you know, Vedic like that,
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: all the Vedic stories. There's all these crazy characters and
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: monsters and dragons and and you know, the gods are
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: you know, the whole thing was it was very colorful
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: and and uh it's kind of this illustrious world of
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: spirituality and and uh, you know they were they were
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: great people, and I'd met someone who was you know,
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: the kind of At one point told them I was
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: struggling with my health and stuff, and they they referred
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: me to someone in their community that was a aravadic
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: aveda practitioner, and I started learning about learning about that
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: that whole thing, and that was that was kind of
• 51:59
  Speaker 2: a starting point of of just getting some basis on
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: you know, what what my what type of body I have,
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: and what type of foods are going to you know,
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: be nourishing or not make me feel you know, really
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: sick kind of thing. So that was that was the
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: beginning of that journey.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: I guess, So what does this therapist say about all this?
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: The therapist which which therapists?
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: Have you been to therapy about all this? You went
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: through all these crises?
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, man, I've done I've done a lot of strange,
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: strange things. There's different types of therapists. I talked to
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: some you know, the traditional talk therapy used in you know,
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: for the most part, I don't In those years, I
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: never really I wasn't consistent with with with anything like that.
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: And I think that the times that I did try
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: that it was maybe it just was it wasn't the
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: right fit, you know. But regardless, I I felt like, uh,
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: talk therapy wasn't going deep enough for me. I knew,
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: I knew it wasn't because the issue wasn't in my
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: in my mind, it was in my body, you know,
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: like the the the feeling or the experience of that
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: loss relative to what my life had been prior to that,
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: and my you know, like relationship to the world and
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: and and things like that, and just kind of just
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: not feeling safe in the world after all of that
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: was it was not something that was in my mind.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: It was it was totally in my body, and the
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: talk therapy just wasn't like I in my mind. I
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: kind of got the whole thing I was. I was
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: I was almost I was too much in my mind
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: and had just like the connection between that and my
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: life and my body. It just had been like kind
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: of severed. So that just wasn't any time I tried
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: something like that, it just it just wasn't working for me.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: It wasn't moving the needle at all. So yeah, you know,
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: I once I exhausted all the all the conventional medicine
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: types of things like you know, infectious disease doctors and
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: all kinds of weird specialists and everyone. You know, there
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: was like blood work stuff that was off and things
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: that were you know, clearly an issue, but no one
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: really knew why. You know. Then I started getting into
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: the alternative stuff and exploring that way. It was you know,
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: out of largely out of desperation. But then you know,
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: on the note of the talk therapy thing, it was
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: at the same time there was you know, born out
• 54:32
  Speaker 2: of all that was kind of this pretty intense like
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: needing to know, needing to try to find answers about
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: what's going on here because that whole experience was so
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: strange for me, and there was so many it's hard,
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: it's you know, it sounds pretty pretty strange to say,
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: but around that whole experience there was so much crazy
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: synchronicity and you know, like I was, it's a yeah,
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: really hard to explain, but so many experiences of there
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: being wild signs and just things like that that just
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: felt like there was no way that you know, it
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: just took me completely out of my frame of what
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: life was prior to that, and it kind of sent
• 55:16
  Speaker 2: me on a path of pretty you know, ravenously seeking
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: answers about what's going on here.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, the nature of being in a band, they are
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: multiple people, things are planned in advance. Sometimes in excess
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: of a yeared advance, planning goes down. Is there any
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: voice in the back of your head, well, maybe my
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: health won't be good enough to do this I might
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: not be up to it. Is that a factor current day? Yeah?
• 55:52
  Speaker 2: Current, No, at this point, I've I've it's it's not
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: that extreme. You know, I've gained enough ground, so it's
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: it's not like that. It's not that kind of thing.
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm still seeking, I'm still looking for you know,
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: looking for means to to move move the needle more
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: and more. But you know, functionally, it's it's not I
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: don't crash out like I used to as much. And uh,
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: you know, it's it's not the same kind of struggle
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: that it was, but it is. I mean, it's for sure,
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: very challenging lifestyle to to be in with that kind
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: of underlying. Yeah, I don't want to say I don't.
• 56:41
  Speaker 2: I don't. I don't want to say weakness, but you know,
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: it's it's with that that backdrop of a thing going on.
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: It's it's definitely not an easy thing to continue healing
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: while traveling around and you know, very high stress performance situations,
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: all kinds of things like that. It's you know, it's
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: it's tricky to navigate, but you know, throughout it's it's
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: been many years of us you know, on the road. Now,
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: I guess and Uh, in the earlier years, there is
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: a lot more challenge to it. And I think as
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: time has gone on and I've I've learned more things
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: about things that can help and support on a physical level,
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: whatever it may be, it's gotten easier.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: Okay. Would one say that your physical issues are behind
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: you or you just know how to manage them now?
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: Maybe maybe somewhere in between. You know, I certainly hope
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: the worst, you know, I think the worst of it
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: is behind me. But there's it's you know, I feel
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: like the truth is out there. There's there's uh, there's
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: still ways to that I could be moving the needle.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: It's really the simple stuff. It's, you know, but just
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: just kind of there's there's so much that we don't
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: learn learn about about, you know, how to what the
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: things that actually support us in that way. And I've
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: tried a lot of weird, weird alternative things, and you know,
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: some of them were helpful, some of them I learned
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: things from. But for the most part, it's really it's
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: really like the simple stuff that I rely on the
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: most and and have been the most impactful. But yeah,
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: I mean I'm still as as much as I can.
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: It's continuing to study and learn about things like that,
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: things in that world, and it's it's such a it's
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: a crazy space. I mean, there's like there's so much
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: noise in that world, just like any any any space
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: these days. But you know, it's just more and more
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: so many different ideas about things, totally contradictory ideas about things.
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: And so I'm just trying to you know, I try
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: to keep an open mind and keep learning and and uh,
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: you know, trying to get stronger all the time.
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: So what's your relationship status today? I'm single and is
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: there a significant other in the picture or not now?
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: Not right now? Now?
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: To what degree is that a result of the so
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: called rock and roll lifestyle?
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: You know, yeah, I'd say it's it's definitely a result
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: of that. You know, I think it's a result of
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: a number of things. You know, in part probably it
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: feels like the the the health journey, and you know,
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: it's it's not just the health thing. It's it's like,
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: you know, the the degree to which I'm I'm able
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: to be present with myself and with with everything. It's
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: like that that feels like a factor. But it's also
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: you know, the the like the the drive for for music,
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: you know, the rock star lifestyle. It feels like more
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: so a personal thing than that, more so just you know,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: being being my own biggest enemy, maybe from a from
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: a lifestyle standpoint, and in terms of just like the
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: hunger to to keep working and keep trying to move
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: forward in both in any way possible, like the you know,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: creatively or or with like the well being thing, all
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 2: of that. It's it's uh that it doesn't. It's a challenge.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: What's what's left? There's not much leftover. I guess that's
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: what I'm getting at from that.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're driven in terms of relationships. On one level,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: you have this success that draws women to you. On
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: another level, it draws women to you and they're attracted
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: to something that might really not be you. What has
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: your experience been.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: That's a tough one to to comment on.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: It.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: Does it they really? Uh, you know, it doesn't. It
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: doesn't feel like there's uh, you know that we're we're
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: you know, we have to we're not we're not swimming
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: in uh, I'm not swimming in that kind of attention.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: It doesn't feel like, you know, there's there's there's some
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: of it but it's it's really not uh you know,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: we're not the Beatles. It's I haven't had a ton
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: of that experience, like when we're on the road and stuff.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: It's I'm kind of in a bubble. I'm not I'm
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: not meeting a lot of people honestly in that way.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: And uh, yeah, it has it hasn't been a super
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: present thing. When when the band first started doing really well,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: I I was I was in a relationship and I
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: had fallen I had fallen for her really hard, and
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: uh it was, uh, you know, it was kind of
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: when that happens, at least in my experience, it's there's
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: there's zero hesitation. You you kind of just like see
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: red and it's just kind of like there's no it's
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: tunnel vision kind of. And that was that was the situation.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: I started seeing her in twenty nineteen and right when
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: the band really started, like you know, when the moment
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: happened kind of, So it was it was a crazy
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 2: that was a crazy turn of life. It was a
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: it was a really really intense change of momentum from
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: where where I was coming from what I was used to,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: you know, in both ways, like the band kind of
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden, you know, starting to pop and
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: then and then that that relationship on a personal level,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: it was it was just like this like roller coaster
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: and it it kicked my ass, honestly, but yeah, that
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: was that. I kind of thought that that was that
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: was the one. And then as as the years went by,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: and you know, a lot happened throughout the pandemic and
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: you know, things going on her family and things I
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: was going through. You know, my health kind of got
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: really really rough again throughout that period from the stress
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: and I don't know other factors that were introduced into
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: I don't I don't know what it was, but for
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: whatever reason, I kind of crashed again pretty bad. In
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, kind of when it hit came to
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: a head, and yeah, we just you know the nature
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: of our relationship changed a lot, and we were kind
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: of coping with every everything that was happening. Her father
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: had passed away, and so I was I was with
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: her through that, and you know, the things she was
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: she was trying to work through with her, you know,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: in her in the context of her family and her
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: own life and things. We had this like very supportive friendship,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: but the romantic part of our relationship kind of just
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: went away, and that took a toll over time and
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: to the point, you know, eventually we just you know,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: decided to to go our separate ways. You know, we're
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: don't touch and she's she's amazing. But yeah, just you know,
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: it was it was a tough thing to navigate.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: Okay, what you're telling the story. The relationship ran its
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: own course on traditional relationship issues. It wasn't a factor
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: of your profession and dedication or was it.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: I don't think that was the That wasn't the reason
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: for it. It was it was a factor. It poses
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: a lot of challenge, for sure, but I don't I
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 2: don't think that was you know, I can't point the
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: finger at that, like that's why, you know.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, So at this point in time, how many gigs
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: a year does Gooset do?
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: Uh? You know, probably around eighty It feels like more
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: than that.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: How did you establish that number is more too much
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: or you need more the other the rest of the
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: time to do something? How do you come up with
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: that number?
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: I think it's something we're you know, constantly trying to
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: trying to figure out the world we're in. It is
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 2: that the customary thing is perpetual touring, which you know,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: I've kind of talked about this a good amount in
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: different different things, but it's, you know, the observationally typical
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: artists bands, you know, the typical thing is, you know,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: you you make a record, you put the record out,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: you tour for like a year, two years usually, and
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: then you kind of go dark and go back in
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: and work on the next thing and until you're ready
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: to make the next statement and you have that time
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: to to be you know, two go into like creative
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: fertility mode, you know. And that's been something I've I've
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: I've kind of wrestled with, I suppose because you know,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: some people are able to write on the road, and
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: I'm not one of them. It's when there's a lot
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: going on, there's a lot of momentum and all this
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: stuff over like overstimulation. It kind of it quiets all
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: the the the voices from which I you know, rely
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: on or try to tap into for making songs and
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: stuff like that. They're they're they're quiet, they're they're subtle,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: you know, and it takes a lot of work and
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: a lot of patience and a lot of stillness too.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: To hear hear anything from from that from that place
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: for me, So that's been something I've wrestled with and
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: I think we're still kind of constantly talking about it
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 2: and and trying to figure out what the right balance
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 2: is to to keep keep the momentum and keep the
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: ball moving forward and keep playing shows. And because it's
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: it is this that is like a self propelling thing.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 2: It's it's and I love it. Like when we get
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: off we get to the end of a tour and
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: where you know, everything's feeling great and like the crew,
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 2: like the vibe with every it's a big family, it's
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: a big tribe, and you know, there's there's so much,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: so much amazing, so many amazing things that come with
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: that and from that. So it's it's it's pretty frequent
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: that at the end of a tour it's like, man,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: I don't want to stop, Let's keep going. You know,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 2: it feels so great. But then at the same time,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: there's this other other side, this other voice that's like, dude,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 2: you need to stop for like three years. We need
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: to just hang out in the woods and stare at
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: trees and and be quiet and see what you know,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: just like be present in a way that I haven't
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: in a very long time, you know. So you know,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: it's a balance thing.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: Well, I understand taking a break to recharge and to
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: be inspired, but going back to the concept of an album,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: is a new release you talk about traditional cycle, but
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: we no longer live in a traditional era. Is a
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: new album necessary?
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: It's a good question. It's a good question. Maybe not.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: I don't know, I uh, but whether it is or not,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: I want to make them, you know, I just I
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: love it. That's that's kind of you know, from from
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 2: day one in the basement, that's like that was the
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: thing that excited me the most, and telling telling stories
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: in that format, So you know, yeah, it's it's it's
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: definitely valid, especially in the in the world that we
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: primarily exist in. It's you know, the question of its
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: relevance is is very valid because we you know, for
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: the most part, are it seems like most of the
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: people who you know, uh, come to the shows and stuff,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 2: are are just interested in that. Primarily they just want
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: to come to the shows and listen to the shows
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 2: and and do that. But regardless, I guess I don't.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: I just love I love making albums, and I want
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: to make a lot of.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: Them, hope. So if you have to split it, to
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: what degree are you in percentage wise into live performance,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: into what degree are you into making records.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: Like my own? You know what? Am I right?
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: Your own inner tuning for decision.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: That's that's that's tough to put numbers too, you know,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: I from I from being really honest like I I
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: I love making albums, probably more than playing shows. But
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: that's that's uh. At the same time, when I think
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: about what we're doing playing shows and our and our
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: crew and moving, you know, and making improvements upon that
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: and moving, you know, working on that, it's I I do.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: I love it just as much and and you know,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: on another hand, so it's really tough to say, but
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: you know, I guess the cool thing is that both
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: both can both can happen, and both will continue to happen,
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, making a record, there's writing the song as in
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: recording the songs. A lot of people are very into
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: the process of being in the studio or wherever you
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: do it, your bedroom, your basement, and getting it down
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: with the facts and layering, et cetera. Where does the
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: interest lie with you more in the actual writing of
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: the songs or getting them down in recording form.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: They feel it feels kind of like a an equal
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: They're separate parts of the process. You know, they exist
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: in a different space for sure, but i'd say they
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: you know, I love that entire process as one thing
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: so much, so they don't. You know, they are separate
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: parts of the process. But you know, at the same time,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 2: it's it's it is one, it is one thing, one process.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: So I you know, I think I guess I love
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: them both equally, and you know, there's there's sometimes they're
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: not separate. Sometimes it's you know, sometimes the best if
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 2: I'm stuck on something like from a just a writing phase,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 2: I'll just start, you know. Sometimes the way out of
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 2: that is is working on a demo for it and
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: just starting starting recording it and throwing ideas and decisions
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: at it in that way. And then sometimes that can
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: kind of like creak, you know, look at like get
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 2: the wheels moving on on finishing an idea. Although I
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 2: will say finishing things is not my strong point. I'm
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: a lot better at starting ideas than finishing them.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, we live in an arrow now more than ever.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: One person can do it all themselves. To what degree
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: is the songwriting and the recording collaborative with your band members.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: The songwriting varies. There's there's I guess, different buckets you
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: could say of of how the how the writing gets done,
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: uh for us, And you know, I think the philosophy
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: of the band is like anyone anyone can write, anyone
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: can bringing things to the table, and you know, everyone
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 2: has brought ideas and things to the table the recording,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: you know, finding parts and also you know, there's also
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: a different thing between the difference between the writing and
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 2: then maybe you know, someone will write a song, I'll
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 2: write a song and bring it to the band and
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 2: then it's still a whole process of arranging it and
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 2: finding parts and that whole thing. And that's that's kind
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: of tied in this, you know, the same same, same,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: but different in terms of recording, you know, finding the arrangement,
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 2: finding and sometimes we you know, we'll play as you know,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 2: we go and to record a song that we've been
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: playing live for a while and feel a desire to
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: completely change it and we do or not, you know,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: or we like we're still excited by the way we
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: play it and it still feels good. So we decide
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: to try to just record it the way we play
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: it live. It all depends on how we feel about it,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: and and you know, what we feel most ect I
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: did buy, I guess you could say, But yeah, I
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: mean the process of arranging it, inevitably, that's gotta be.
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: That's it's always interactive, finding parts and finding you know,
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: what feels most alive, because sometimes you can have an
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 2: idea about how something should be, like what kind of
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: groove it should have or what kind of feel, and
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: you know what the arrangement should be, and then you
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 2: bring it in the room and it doesn't feel as
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 2: alive as you thought it would. So then you have
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: to go and explore and see see what you know,
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: what feels the most alive and what plays the most
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 2: to the strengths of the people in the band.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: You know, so your band has changed members multiple times,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: you're a steady factor. Does that make you the de
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: facto leader?
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know if I don't know if
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: that would be the criteria for that, but I think
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: I guess, I guess it's. You know, it's it's kind
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 2: of just the same thing as like the old days
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 2: it was. It was kind of like, you know, no
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: I wanted to start, wanted to be in a band,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 2: wanted to play in a band, wanted to write songs
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: and play them with a band. It's and no one was.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: No one was like handing out that opportunity. So it
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: was kind of like, well, I'll just do it. I'll
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 2: just start it, you know, and and and do it
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: that way. And it's kind of I guess always just
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: kind of been that way. So, you know, I think
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: there's there's a lot of qualities and that I see
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 2: other great leaders in in our world, you know, band
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 2: leaders and stuff have that I don't feel like I'm
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: I'm not you know, on that level with the with
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: in certain respects, and so you know, there's I think
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: there's I don't know, it's tough to tough to compare,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: tough to tough to look at that type of thing.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: But yeah, you know, I think just due to the
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 2: nature of of like, hey, here's this idea, let's do it,
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 2: and that that being you know, applied many times over,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: I guess kind of has resulted in, uh, you know,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: how how how things roll in our camp?
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: Well, how jarring or inspiring is it to change band members.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 2: Depends I you know, like you said, it's we've it's
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 2: happened a lot. You know, it was. It was not
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 2: an easy process for us. You know, it took a
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: lot of work and a lot of experimenting and a
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: lot of you know, different iterations to try to find
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: the right formula and and and uh you know the
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 2: thing the things that will just work for us, and
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: you know, it's a yeah, it's been a serious process.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: There's there's a lot of uh, there's like this this air,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: this can this this conjecture that in in like the
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: jam band world that you know, Goose was this uh,
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: this like test tube thing, like an industry plant and
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: that like you know, it was like a you know,
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 2: the the boy band of the jam band world or
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: something where like some some guy like put it all
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: together and it's it's a it's a funny it's a
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 2: funny thing too funny perception that has evolved out of
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 2: that in the context of like what a crazy rocky
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 2: road it was in reality and how imperfect and how
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: much failure there was getting to this point in those
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 2: early years, like yeah, we went we went through we
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 2: tried a lot of different things, went through a bunch
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: of different members. Some of them it was, you know,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: incredibly amicable, and it was just kind of like, hey,
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 2: you know, I don't this is really work anymore, and
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 2: they're like cool. I was thinking the same thing. We're
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: like cool, let's be friends and and like go our
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 2: separate ways. And then other times it was like, hey,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: this isn't working anymore, and it was you know, people
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: were really hurt by it, and and it was it
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: was a really difficult thing to navigate, and you know,
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: it's yeah, it's both just it's just like relationships in
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: any in any circumstance, you know.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: You reference, you know, conceptions of the world, the jam
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: band world calling you a boy band, etc. A. Isn't
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: that just jealousy? And where do you think that blowback
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: is coming from? What is that about?
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: I don't know, you know, there's there's some aspects of
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: it I would say that are that are kind of obvious.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: There's there's kind of like it's just part of the
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: nature of maybe the jam band scene is there's this
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: kind of tribalism and you know, sports teams kind of
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: mentality where like, you know, my jam band is better
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: than your jam band kind of thing. So you know,
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 2: part of that's just just part of the scene has
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: been for a long time, and you know, is what
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 2: it is. It's nothing ultimately, you know, it's it's nothing
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: that's worth losing sleepover. And then you know, sometimes I
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: did it does I'm like whoa, Like why? You know?
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 2: How did it? How did this? How did this happen?
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 2: Like how did it get this crazy? You know? So,
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 2: I you know, on some on some levels, there's there's
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 2: some obvious stuff where there's there's answers to that, and
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 2: then other times where I'm like, I don't know this
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: whole things strange, you know, because when when we were
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 2: coming up, when it was first happening, there wasn't you know,
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: there wasn't much of that. But uh, and then you know,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 2: part of the thing is just like if something gets
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: gets bigger, then it's no longer cool to think it's cool,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: So how big can it get? If you're talking on
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: the roots of the Jambn scene, the Grateful did maybe
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: the Alman Brothers, that was a completely different era. Time
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: has flown by when they started calling at the Jambn scene.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: Blues Traveler had a hit on MTV Run Around, but
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: since that time there's a scene. But even Fish one
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: of the at this point the stall warts of the scene,
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: they don't cross out of the jam band world. Ay,
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: do you have a desire to cross and what would
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: it take to reach more people?
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 2: Mm? Yeah, you know, I think Trey has talked about
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 2: that when you know, when they were around, there was
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: no quote unquote jam band scene, which you know I'm
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: saying that saying using that term. You know, it's yeah,
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 2: it's it's a strange thing.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 2: What I think is cool about that scene is, you know,
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: it was maybe never more never more so the case
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 2: than in the nineties. There was just like the hord
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: Tor kind of kind of world. Everyone had their own
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: sound and their own voice, and and it was a
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: it was a very colorful like community you know of music.
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: And you know that's that's still the case. There's there's
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: still so many cool things going and on now and
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: create really really amazing bands and people with different sounds
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: and different combinations of influences. You know. I guess to
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: your question, I my philosophy about that is if you
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: can have ideas about that kind of thing, and uh
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: be like, oh, I want to I want to be
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 2: different in this way. I want to you know, not
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: be this or be I want to be this. And
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: it's it's that being heady about it like that rarely
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: in my experience, results in anything worthwhile. It rarely works,
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 2: you know. I think I've always had this feeling that like,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: you kind of have what you have, you can work
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 2: on it, you can get better, you can you can
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: you know, pull your thread as much as you want
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 2: to get deeper and deeper into your process, which is
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 2: what everyone should do. It's the you know, that's the
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: best thing you can do. But at the same time,
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: it's your you. You have to honor and you have
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: to be real about, like what you are really drawn to,
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 2: what you really get off on, and what you're really
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: inspired by. In my case that you know, I kind
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 2: of what we're talking about before, in high school and stuff.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: I was, you know, fully immersed in that you know,
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 2: quote unquote jampan world, which I admittedly don't I don't
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: think that's the uh the most you know, illustrious term,
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 2: but you know whatever, the improvisational rock world, the jam
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 2: band world, whatever you want to call it. I was.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: I loved it. I was totally immersed in it. Where
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 2: I grew up, that was what everyone was doing. Everyone
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 2: was going to the shows. And you know, even even
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 2: like the really cool kids, the cool popular kids were
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 2: going to those shows. Everyone. It was just it was
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: a thing. And so that was where I was coming from,
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 2: and I was. I loved it. I was. I was
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 2: completely taken with it. And then you know, as I
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 2: got out of college and those those years, and I
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: was kind of entered into a very different I wasn't
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 2: partying at all. I was pretty sick. It was kind
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: of in a very different emotional place. I started getting
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: into really different music, and a lot more modern music,
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: because I prior to that point I really wasn't in
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 2: tune at all with with like the current indie world
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 2: or even you know, pop or anything like that. I
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: had no idea. I was listening to more Otis Redding
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: and West Montgomery and Nina Simone. Had no idea about
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: Fleet Foxes or Bony Bear, but those those bands. When
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: I kind of discovered that music, it like took over
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 2: my my situation. I was so inspired and so enamored
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: with that music. It started with the Fleet Foxes. I
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 2: was like that I was just fully immersed in that
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 2: world for for years and my throughout my twenties. It
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 2: was you know, those first two records and that that
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: EP the sunshint Ep. It was like those It was
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 2: such an immersive thing, which I that's what I you know,
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: I love that so much. It was it was like
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: this timeless yet kind of like this medieval medieval world
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: and the artwork and their aesthetic and and the music,
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: it all, it all worked so well together, and it
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: all created such a specific feeling and world that I
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 2: just like didn't want to leave. And that led to,
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 2: you know, discovering other other things. So at that point
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 2: in my life that that type of music and and
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 2: different artists doing things in real time now became became
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: like my main point of inspiration and in a lot
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: of ways, and I think you know that that to
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 2: me kind of became the somewhat of a novel idea.
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 2: You know, I wanted to hear I wanted to hear
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: Fleet Foxes, you know, go on a really cool twenty
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 2: minute improvisation after they're really cool songs, you know, and uh,
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 2: that didn't really exist to my awareness, So that kind
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: of became this this idea of like, you know, well,
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: I'm I'm very taken and drawn to these these these
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 2: this world and you know, other other approaches to songwriting
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 2: and production and stuff like that, and uh, you know,
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 2: maybe marrying that with with my roots and in the
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: improvisational rock world and jazz and stuff like that. It,
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 2: you know, it it felt like a h there was
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 2: there were things to threads to pull, there things to
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: explore there.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: You know, I've never met an artist who didn't want
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: to reach more people, have a larger audience. So you
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: talk about your personal musical journey by the same token,
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: you want more people to listen to music, right.
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like you said, I don't, I don't you
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: know who doesn't want that? I mean there there's there's
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 2: the part I think a lot of probably a lot
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 2: of artists I maybe maybe have a similar thing of
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 2: of there's there's some kind of point of wrestling with
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 2: that where you know everyone wants that because I guess
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 2: it's just a natural thing to want. But then you know,
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: as the more it happens, the more you do it,
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 2: the more you realize like the things that come with
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 2: it and how those things can be struggle. And you know,
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 2: for me, I still I still believe in that I
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 2: feel like though, I feel like it's worthwhile, you know,
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 2: trying to get trying to get bigger and working working
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: to you know, to reach more people there. You know,
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 2: it's it's easy. You can easily view that maybe the
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: impulse is to view that as as a self serving
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 2: kind of endeavor, which I'm sure you know, inevitably on
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 2: a lot of levels it is. But at the same time,
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 2: there's a I've always seen something beautifull about it, and
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 2: you know, have seen, like I know, the way that
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: I know the impact that bands who have been very
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 2: big and have done big, amazing things have had on me,
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 2: and how inspiring that's been to me. And I've seen
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 2: how it's the space that's occupied in other people's lives
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: and how you know, it has the ability to help
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 2: people get through, you know, things that they're experiencing and
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 2: things that they're struggling with and provide some kind of
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 2: light in their lives. And you know, so I think
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 2: that that you know, became that became a mission for
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 2: me at a certain point after after the things I
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: had experienced and stuff. It kind of amplified that, it
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 2: reframed and amplified that as you know, going from being
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 2: stone in high school watching Fish DVDs being like that
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: looks awesome. I definitely want to do that too, you know,
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 2: really kind of getting to this place where I was
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 2: really struggling with my existence and trying to make sense
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 2: out of that, and you know, all the things that
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 2: had happened and the things I had lost and the life,
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 2: the life, that lifestyle and experiences that I had lost.
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: In Let me put it this way. At this point,
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: whatever label we use, jam band, improvisational rock, it's a ghetto.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: And if you're in it, you know who all the
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: acts are. Your act is a relatively new act that
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: has been very successful. Okay, that is not the case
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: with most acts. There's not a plethora of new acts
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: bubbling up. So Goose came along was very successful. Okay,
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: you could do what you're doing. I'm not talking in
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: terms of the music itself. I'm talking about a career arc.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: You could do what you're doing, and thirty years from
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: now you could be Fish. You could do what you're doing.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: Thirty years from now you can be Fleet Foxes. Those
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: are ultimately cult acts. They have an audience that keeps
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: them alive. Now, in reality, everybody's a cult act today,
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: even Taylor's with people are paying attention where they're not. Okay,
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: But as I say, it's not rocket science. You look
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: at your new album. These songs are lengthy, and you
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: could say, theoretically, you're an educated person literally musically educated,
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: could say, well, you know I could do a verse
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: chorus bridge thing, throwing a solo, and you know that
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: might have a chance of moving the needle further. What
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: do you think about that?
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 2: So you're asking if if we're thinking about things those
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 2: in those.
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: I'm being practical. Where you are right now is a
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: very good spot. But all of your predecessors that's as
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: far as they've gotten. Okay, you have other people in
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: that world we're using shorthand Jamban, let's just use that
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: who are jealous of your success. But the vast majority
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: of the public has no idea who you are, or
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: if they know who you are, wouldn't be able to
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: identify your music. So if you look at history, that's
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: the way it's going to be going forward. The difference
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: with your act is you are very successful in a
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: short period of time, which has not happened in this
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: world for a while. So the question arises is there
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: a broader audience for your music. Secondly, is there a
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: tweak such that it can be made? Listen, if we
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: used the progenitor here, the Grateful Dead, Okay, Anthem of
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: the Sun, those records, those were long improvisational records for
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: hardcore fans, only growing slowly. You get The Working Man's Dead,
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: American Beauty Quanti. It is a little bit of a
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: change in style, but a lot of people could understand it,
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: and the people who understood it became fans and carried
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: through many years after. You know, they ultimately were on
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: Arista and they had an MTV hit whatever. They knew
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: what the game was, and they made certain choices that
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: ultimately didn't compromise who they were, but it brought them
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: to a larger audience. They were not the only band
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: in that sphere. They're just the band that's most remembered,
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: that has the largest audience. Okay, you're a smart guy.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: In the back of your mind, do you think about that? Hey,
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm here and it's pretty good to be here,
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: but could I be somewhere that would even be better?
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when you put it like that, definitely, I don't know.
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 2: I don't think that in our case, I don't think
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: it equates to like, hey, let's write some you know, Uh,
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: there's I don't. I don't there's not a there's not
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 2: a moment of a contrived desire to write pop songs,
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 2: you know. I I think there's there's a lot of
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 2: pop music that excites me. Actually, there's you know, there's
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 2: certain yeah, there's certain pop music that I think is
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 2: awesome and and production and you know, as much as
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 2: I love a twenty minute jam, I there's sometimes I
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 2: love there's like three minute songs that are you know,
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 2: crushing on the radio that I think are amazing. So
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 2: part of that is it's a genuine you know, I
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 2: part of me wants to make more music like that.
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 2: Another part of me wants to get deeper and deeper
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 2: into the improvisational thing. So it's uh, you know, yeah,
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 2: I don't. I don't think. Uh, there's The thing I
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 2: want to do mostly is pull on new threads and
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 2: try to become more more of what we can be,
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 2: you know, like like how how much can we be?
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 2: You know? And when it comes to the to the
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 2: business of it and the the thing I know, I
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 2: never really you know, all of all the people that
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 2: I look up to have have paved their own path
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 2: and created their own worlds. And to me that I
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 2: think that's always seemed like the best case scenario is
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 2: just being existing in your own world pulling people in
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 2: that weren't aren't always you know, not like that. Aren't
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 2: just fish fans or just you know, other fans of
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 2: other things. That's that really excites me. You know the thing,
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 2: you know, the notion of someone hearing a song of
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: ours that has no bearing, no awareness, no experience with
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: improvisational music, there jam, the jam band scene, any anything
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 2: like that, and getting into it, coming to a show,
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 2: probably being pretty surprised with you know, there being music
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 2: happening for twenty minutes on end with no vocals or
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 2: anything like that. And you know, the notion of some
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 2: of those people that person discovering that they like that
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 2: approach to music and are are you know, are taken
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 2: by that, by the journey of that. That's really exciting
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 2: to me. And I think, and I hope that's already happening.
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 2: You know, obviously we've we've come up in in that scene,
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 2: in that world and for the most part, and you know,
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 2: some it's it's tough to tell. There's no way to know,
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 2: but it feels like it's somewhat split. You know. Some
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 2: of those some of those people like what we're doing.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 2: Some of them, you know, pretty passionately don't like it seemingly,
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 2: which you know, there's nothing we can do about that,
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 2: but just keep trying to get better. But you know,
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I think that's a really exciting thing having, uh,
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 2: having people that exist that listen to completely different types
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: of music somehow stumble into our world and if they
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 2: like it and want to learn more about it, and
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 2: that's I think that's a really cool thing and that's
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 2: something worth striving for. It in my mind, is you know,
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 2: opening up, opening up more more past, and sometimes that
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 2: leads people to other improvisational music that other jam bands
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 2: and uh, and I think that's a really cool thing.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: So let's go back a chapter. Your father dies. You
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: say your mother didn't work outside the house after the
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: children were there. To what degree did that affect the
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: family and you financially?
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 2: My dad worked really hard. I mean he was you know,
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 2: he came from lower middle class US and in Long Island,
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 2: didn't didn't come for much of anything, and uh, worked
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 2: worked really hard, worked his way up in the insurance
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 2: insurance companies in Connecticut, and you know it was a
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 2: was a like I was, like I was saying, kind
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 2: of a charismatic guy. People were drawn to him. People
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 2: really liked him, and I think that really helped him
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 2: in his career and you know, he he ended up
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 2: doing doing well. We weren't like, we weren't loaded, but
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 2: we were comfortable, and you know, there was there are
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 2: certain points in my life where it seemed like I
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 2: think things changed for my parents financially, like when when
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 2: they first when they first got a house in Wilton
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 2: when I was born, and they didn't pay much for
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 2: it at all. It was it was a you know,
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 2: the town I think was still there was still pretty rural,
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 2: kind of lower income, uh options for for for people
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 2: at that time there. And yeah, maybe I was in
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 2: middle school or something. I think he got a promotion
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 2: or something like that. And you know that I was
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 2: too young to like, I wasn't really aware of things
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 2: on that level at that point. But in retrospect, is
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 2: it is you know, we we we started going on
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 2: vacations and going you know, doing a trip to a
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 2: to a hotel in Mexico for a week, you know,
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 2: or they did. They did some work on the house
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 2: that you know, there was there's some things that I
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 2: think there are points where he started doing better and
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 2: making more money. And by the time he died, I
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 2: think my family, my mom was comfortable enough so that
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 2: we were able to she like, she's she's able, she's
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 2: she's able to live off of off of that, and
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 2: was able to, you know, support me enough in the
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 2: ways you know that that I needed. I lived, you know,
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 2: through a lot throughout my twenties when I wasn't doing
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 2: well and working on music and striving and trying to
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 2: make something of it. I was living in her, living
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 2: with her, you know. So yeah, we were it was
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 2: it was comfortable enough. We weren't we weren't rolling in it,
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 2: but we were. It was comfortable.
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: So how did you get back from Colorado to the
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: East Coast.
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 2: When I was out there? You know, it wasn't. I
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 2: wasn't out there for too long before I started getting
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 2: a fire under my ass again, and you know, I
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 2: wanted to start projects. There were a couple opportunities back
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 2: here that were popping up, and I started to just
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 2: the school thing felt like a big, big unfinished business,
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: big open end, and uh so, I, you know, I
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 2: wanted to I wanted to go back, and it felt
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 2: like the right thing to go finish what I what
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 2: I started there. And uh yeah, things, you know, different
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 2: things were popping up back east, not big opportunities, but enough.
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 2: It was the only I did have no opportunities then,
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 2: so it was the only thing. So after being out
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 2: there there for like six months or something like that,
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 2: things started popping up. So I started flying home for
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 2: a weekend here and there to go do a gig
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 2: or or do an opportunity and one of them. You know.
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 2: During that time, it started playing with Trevor again and
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 2: started you know, putting together what was the earliest formations
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 2: of this of this band. But it actually wasn't the
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 2: main thing I was focusing on at that point. But
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 2: as time went on, it it just it became it
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 2: became the main thing.
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: So you went back to Berkeley. Did you finish at Berkeley?
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: Did you graduate?
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 2: I did?
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, in the hindsight, you're growing up when you
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: go to Berkeley. There's a lot of changes there. But
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: was Berkeley advantageous for your musical career.
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 2: Uh, yes, yes, And I mean for sure in the
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: way of learning, you know, I learned. I learned things there.
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 2: I studied I was exposed to. You know. That was
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 2: that was the more extreme, you know, like the kind
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 2: of the full uh the full capacity of that experience
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 2: of that I you know, talked about during the five
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 2: week of being lost in a sea of people way
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 2: way more talented than me and and uh, you know,
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 2: way better at being competitive at music than me, you know.
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 2: So uh it was, you know, I I did. I
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 2: did lose myself there kind of both times. The first
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 2: time I went it was I was coming out of
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 2: the experience of all that loss, So it was it's
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 2: kind of it's a pretty loaded thing. I can't really
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 2: be objective about that at all because I was just
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 2: like I was fried. I was in total shock and
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 2: had no idea of what like where I was at
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 2: and how how you know, how smoked I had gotten
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 2: by all that. But when I went back, when I
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 2: when I went back prior to that, I had I
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 2: had really found after the that previous band that I
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 2: started with Matt, after that band broke up, I really
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 2: started writing again because when I, you know, when I
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 2: when I moved out to Colorado, I was at I
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 2: was working at a taco place, and I was at
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 2: that point where I was really thinking about, you know,
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 2: can I stop pursuing music? Can I stop thinking about
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 2: this as like the thing that I need to do.
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 2: That was the closest I've ever come to thinking about
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 2: it in that way, because I was always just naive
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 2: about it. I was like, yeah, there's this is what
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 2: I'm doing. There's no there's no other way for me.
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 2: But that was the closest I had come to that.
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 2: I was working at this taco place and thinking about,
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 2: you know, about giving up, I guess, and you know,
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 2: giving up didn't look like I was never going to
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 2: stop playing and working on you know, writing and things
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 2: like that. But you know, the notion of not thinking
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 2: about it as the career, you know, That's that was
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 2: where I was at during that time. And I think
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 2: that that being at that point where I was no
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 2: longer trying to force something, I was no longer trying
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 2: to make something out of, you know, I was I
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 2: was kind of like at the end of my rope,
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 2: so to speak. You know, I was I was lost,
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 2: and and UH had had nothing going for me. And
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 2: that was when I started actually writing again because it
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 2: was it was for me, you know, it was it was,
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 2: it was honest, and and it was because I just
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 2: had to. It was like when you're left with nothing,
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 2: then all of a sudden, you get you start getting
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 2: the real stuff, you know, And that was what happened
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 2: for me. So, you know, for for a year or two,
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 2: maybe a little more, I was writing a lot and
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 2: a lot of this stuff that was you know, the
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 2: formation or the foundation for this band was written during
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 2: that time, and other things that I have never really
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 2: recorded or put out there. So there was there was
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 2: like that, and that thread was continuing to grow. It
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 2: was growing and growing. There was a lot of unfinished
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 2: ideas from that from that time that I still have
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 2: like strong feelings about and still intend to finish someday.
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 2: But yeah, when I went back to Berkeley, that that
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 2: that well dried up pretty quickly. You know. When I
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 2: first started, there was so many ideas and so many
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 2: things I was working on, and then within six months
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 2: to a year, that flow had kind of stopped, and
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 2: I was I was pretty deep in the course load.
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was also we uh, we were starting
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 2: this band. We recorded the first record, and I was,
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 2: I was working on that a lot. We went up
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 2: and did basics. We rented out a a cabin in
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 2: New Hampshire and just brought all our own gear, and
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 2: someone an engineer at a Look studio came and recorded with
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 2: us and and and helped produce, and you know, we
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 2: had we had basics and kind of sat on those
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 2: for a while. And then, uh, during that time when
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 2: I was in school, I was, I was, I didn't
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 2: even have a place up in Boston, so I was driving.
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 2: I was like commuting to Boston for a minute to
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 2: go to classes from Connecticut, which was crazy, and so
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 2: I was I was kind of on the weekends working
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 2: to working on overdubs, working on you know, editing and
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 2: you know doing d I Y finishing this record and
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 2: then uh, you know midweek was driving to Boston and uh,
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 2: crashing on people's couches. But if I had like, you know,
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 2: three days of classes in a row, and you know,
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 2: it was just too much to drive that many hours
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 2: back and forth every day. So that was. Yeah, it
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 2: was kind of kind of a crazy time, and the
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 2: creative flow got got pretty burnt up during then, and
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 2: it was the struggle to get it back.
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: Okay, Berkeley is a music college. There are teachers. To
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: what degree do they squeeze the creativity out of you?
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 2: Listen?
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: I had this in my own college experience. They have rules,
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: they have the way you want to do it, which
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: is actually forcing you into a traw through a tunnel
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: that is against you. To what degree do you say, no,
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: that's not for me. I need to explore my own way,
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: which is not how they want me to do it.
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 2: I think in my experience there was a there was
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 2: kind of a bit of a bunch of different things.
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 2: Some people really cared, and some people really nurtured, and
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 2: some people really engaged. Some people were just uh, you know,
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 2: I think you know, some people were incredible musicians that
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 2: you know, maybe their their career didn't go the way
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 2: they wanted it to, and they it's a really it's
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 2: a really great teaching gig. But they weren't they're not
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 2: like passionate about teaching a little bit of that thing
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 2: of like I'm just really good at this, Like I this,
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 2: you know, I worked hard and I'm I'm amazing at
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 2: what I do and if you can't do it, then
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 2: like I don't know that kind of just sucks for you.
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 2: And you know some people who were doing it because
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 2: it was it was a good job, and then you
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 2: know some people who were engaged and passionate about it,
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 2: but more entrenched in some rule set. You know. I
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 2: had that probably that that experienced most. I studied jazz
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 2: performance and classical composition and studying like, I wanted to
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 2: learn counterpoint. I wanted to learn what, you know, the wheels,
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 2: like what what made the wheels turn in classical music
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 2: on some levels, which is obviously an incredibly deep rabbit
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 2: hole and it's like a completely different world. But I
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 2: started getting into that, and uh, you know that that's
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 2: where the rule set is really in place. You know,
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 2: that's there's there's like that that's like that's that's there's
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 2: a lot of rules there. And I wasn't. I like,
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 2: got really bad grades in some of those classes because
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 2: I was, you know, breaking the rules. And I was like,
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 2: but like, this is you know, this is an idea,
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 2: this is this is my that is the four part
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 2: harmony thing that I wrote. He's like, yeah, but it's
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 2: just wrong, It's all right, And he was probably right
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 2: on some on some degree. You know, it wasn't Maybe
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 2: it wasn't that great, but you know, so there there's
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 2: a bit of that. But you know they're the thing.
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 2: The thing about all that I think the best the
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 2: best musicians, Well this you can't. You can't say that
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 2: because there's you know, West, here's West Montgomery who didn't,
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 2: as I understand it, didn't know anything about music theory
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 2: or anything like that. And was you know, wrote the
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 2: book on a whole a whole way of approach to
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 2: playing there. So you can't make these generalizations. But seemingly
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 2: a lot of people, you know that. The thing is,
• 1:46:55
  Speaker 2: like you you have to learn the rules so that
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 2: you break them. You know, when when you break them,
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 2: you you ah have a much deeper understanding of why
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 2: you're breaking them, you know. So yeah, no, one way.
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, you talked about questioning your future in music in Colorado?
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: How many times have you contemplated giving up the music gig?
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: And when was the last time you did it.
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 2: In a real way? That kind of feels like the
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 2: only time that that was the closest I've gotten to it.
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 2: And even then it wasn't It wasn't that, you know,
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 2: I didn't get too far down. It was like I
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 2: was like scratching at the idea of like, am I
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 2: gonna hang this up? This is crazy? You know, there's
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 2: got nothing going on. I'm down and out. I feel
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 2: like I feel like crap every day, Like I don't know,
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 2: I don't know. But you know, since then, it really
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 2: I was. I was too stubborn to go there for
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 2: the most part.
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you finish up at Berkeley, you have a
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: band that is the beginnings of Goose. What is the
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: first point of positive reinforcement? Will you say, wait a second,
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: you know we're getting a good reaction. This might be something.
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 2: It definitely wasn't for a while. I graduated. I finished
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 2: up school in twenty sixteen, and then in twenty seventeen
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 2: was when we got a booking agent and started just
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 2: you know that that helped because you know, sometimes bands
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 2: early in their time, someone in the band is like
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 2: has a knack for making connections like that and booking gigs,
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 2: and none of us had that. You know, it was
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 2: it was hard. We played bars locally here and stuff,
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 2: but like booking gigs and starting to build a little
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 2: thing like that, we just weren't get at it. So
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 2: when we got a booking agent. We were like, you know,
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 2: let's go hit, let's hit the wheels, and and uh,
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 2: just get us out there. We want to play, we
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 2: want to play a million gigs, we want to tour.
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 2: And he was, you know, he was, he was great,
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 2: he was he was like, you kind of don't want
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 2: to do that, and we were like, yeah, we do.
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 2: He's like, all right, if you say so. And he
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 2: threw us out there and we, uh. The tour. The
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 2: tour that year has been commonly referred to as the
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 2: Thrown to the Wolves tour because he was like, I'm
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 2: gonna throw you to the wolves, and we're like, let's go.
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 2: And he did, and we were thrown to the wolves
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 2: and we were like, oh, got it. Okay, we need
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 2: to we need to we need to rethink this whole thing.
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: He threw you to the wolves. What did that look like?
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 2: Uh, you know, touring in a in a in a
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 2: twelve passenger van with no a C in the South
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 2: in the middle of the summer, sleeping in our trailer
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 2: and Walmart parking lots and just playing terrible gig after
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 2: terrible gig, like hemorrhaging money, you know, the whole the
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 2: whole thing you know, and uh, not only that, but
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 2: the band dynamic at that point was was pretty it
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 2: was pretty bad. It was just like it wasn't we
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 2: weren't connected and we weren't doing it for the same
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 2: reasons everyone in the band. So we just had a
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 2: lot to learn at that point, and it was it
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 2: was necessary because of that, you know, just getting our
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 2: asses kicked like that, and Trevor, Trevor and I there
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 2: were many nights when we were out there just like
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 2: what how do people do this? What is like? This
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 2: is crazy? How to like where do we go? Like
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 2: how do what is? What is what is this? What
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 2: the what the fuck are we doing? And then you know,
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 2: we'll just to.
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: Be clear, a lot of that, so you're playing for
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: little to know money to a fewer no people who
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: weren't interested anyway.
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm, one hundred percent. Yeah, a lot of that.
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 2: You know, there's if we got if there was like
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 2: a you know, there was a some place in South
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 2: Carolina where we'd go and play on like the tiki tiaki,
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 2: like it was like a Helton resort or something like that.
• 1:51:05
  Speaker 2: We'd go and like play on the tiki porch. We'd
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 2: play like three or four sets and got five hundred bucks,
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 2: and we were like, this is this is a this
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 2: is great, you know, and we did not even give
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 2: us a room, but we got five hundred bucks and
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 2: covered gas for you know, however many shows. So yeah, no,
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 2: it was it was weird. There was there was very
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 2: there was to your question, your original question. There was
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 2: nothing in that time, you know, pointing towards any hope
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 2: or success there. But it didn't. It was like it was,
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 2: I guess in retrospect it was crazy, but like I
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 2: was that stubborn and they were like, no, we just
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 2: got to just keep going, keep trying. There's got to
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 2: be a way, you know. So you know, you know,
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 2: we made we made changes and things evolved, and uh,
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 2: you know kind of found found our way to a
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 2: better dynamic within the band at least, you know, like
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 2: a better one, a more functional one where we were
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 2: more connected and and uh, you know, when Peter joined
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 2: the band, he understood more of you know, he understood
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 2: what we were, what we were trying to do, and
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 2: he was coming from the same place like the he had.
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 2: He was coming from that that like you know, yeah,
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 2: I play music with my friends and my parents' basement
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 2: because that's because that's really fun and that's like what
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 2: we're trying to do, and it's just a it was
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 2: like a it was more of more of more of
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 2: that energy that of the original why you know what
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 2: I mean, why why you do it? Instead of like
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 2: some other energy of like I want to be on
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 2: stage in front of lots of people and like in
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 2: the industry and getting good looks and all the things
• 1:52:40
  Speaker 2: that come with that's it, you know, those things are
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 2: there's there's cool parts to all of that, but it's
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know, not it's not what what I'm in
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 2: it for, you know. And as time goes on and
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 2: just become less and less interested in that side of
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 2: things and just want to, you know, be more and
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 2: more connected to the core of of the why of
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 2: it all and uh okay experience.
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: So they throw you into the Wolves, you reset when
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: you start to work again. What does it look like?
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 2: Uh well, we never really stopped. It was kind of
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 2: like from that point for Forward is it was really
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 2: trial by fire. We there was no there was no
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 2: like there was one long tour which was a thrown
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 2: to the Wolf's tour, but at large we were playing
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 2: we were kind of doing a lot of Weekend Warrior
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 2: stuff and once we started, we we haven't really stopped.
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, but you're playing original material to people who really
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: don't know who you are. How does that work?
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, we we played covers too. Sometimes that helps,
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 2: you know, are doing an interpretation of a cover that
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 2: someone knows. And you know, in those days, it was
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 2: it was it was, you know, that thing could be helpful,
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 2: but I don't know, you know, if we got an
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 2: opening gig or something like some some of those were
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 2: some of those were helpful. You know. Really a turning
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 2: point was the beginning of twenty eighteen. That was in
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 2: my you know, for all intents and purposes, that was
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 2: the turning point in terms of us kind of getting
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 2: our getting our act together. Peter joined the band, and
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 2: he was he was kind of, you know, a driving
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 2: force in the band that he was in prior to that,
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 2: and him and I just started working together a lot.
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 2: And prior to that, I hadn't really had that like
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 2: someone on the front lines in that in that same
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 2: way you know, Trevor and I were working on things
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 2: all the time. But yeah, it did. Peter kind of
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 2: had this this like workhorse vibe and kind of day
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 2: to day which is like was you know, was making
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 2: sure all the recordings got the soundboard recordings, were We're
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 2: getting getting done, and he started getting into video. He
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 2: learned how to edit video and and really really quickly
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 2: and well so and him and I just were on
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 2: the same wavelength of like thinking about creating a world really,
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 2: you know, because it ties into like the branding and
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 2: all of that, but really it's that the branding is
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 2: in my mind, has always been just a vehicle to
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 2: create a feeling. And when he first joined the band,
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 2: we had already had this opportunity to go open for
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 2: this band, Stafford, who at that time was like on fire,
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 2: like really they were having this big moment crushing and
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 2: their tour was so intense and they were playing maybe
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 2: you know, it was like five hundred to fifteen hundred
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 2: cap venues, which felt and they were like full, all
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 2: of them were slammed, which was way bigger than anything
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 2: that we had done to that point, and it felt
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 2: the energy around it was so is so intense, and
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 2: we were opening for them. We opened them for them
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 2: for seven shows in January of twenty eighteen, right when
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 2: Peter joined the band, he barely played keyboards.
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: It was.
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 2: You know, very very trial by fire. But that experience
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 2: sort of set the tone for for for us and
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 2: it was kind of like, okay, we I think we
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 2: understand like what we need to do. That that kicked
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 2: us into gear in terms of building it just informing
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 2: the world that we wanted to start building. It was
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 2: an extremely valuable experience and we started doing that. You know,
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 2: we started working on the website and like, what is
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 2: what kind of feeling does the website have, you know
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 2: when you when you go on there, does it feel
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 2: like some kind of immersive thing? You know? And then
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 2: filling out our catalog and filling out you know, show recordings,
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 2: soundboard recordings for people to listen to, videos for people
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 2: to watch on YouTube, which ended up being really really
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 2: the thing that in you know, outside of the music
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 2: and all of the chemistry and all the things we
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 2: were working on in that regard the the building the
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 2: content world online was was really what it was. It
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 2: was just an extremely necessary thing for the way that
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 2: we got to the place that we got to. So yeah,
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 2: that was that was really that was really the thing.
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 2: And you know that that experience we got a taste
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 2: of that energy of like people coming to shows and
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 2: rapidly you know, and consuming and like looking for looking
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 2: for something to be you know, experienced or found on stage,
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 2: something unique and something you know, happening in real time
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 2: and and and real you know, and like later that
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 2: year there was a there was I think we got
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 2: our our first taste in our own respect of a
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 2: very very long winded answer your question, I apologize for that,
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 2: but our first taste of that in our own, you know,
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 2: respective world was a few months after that, we did
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 2: a tour out to Colorado and we played, uh, you know,
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 2: same same deal, status quo, ton of you know, shady
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 2: gigs that no one came to, no one cared about us,
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 2: but we had We had this one gig booked on
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 2: the way out to Colorado, and then two weeks later,
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 2: on the way back from Colorado in Covington, Kentucky, and
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 2: this one this one guy who had like there was
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 2: a crew of friends that lived there, but they're really
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 2: they lived in Cincinnati, but they went to shows in Covington,
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 2: Kentucky's right over the right over the river. And this
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 2: one guy listened to our saw we were on the
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 2: schedule this at this club, the Octave in Covington and
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 2: listened to it, like, found our album, listen to it,
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 2: liked it, spread it around to his friends. They all
• 1:58:30
  Speaker 2: listened to it. They learned some of the songs, and
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 2: you know, maybe there was ten twelve of these people,
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 2: of these kids that came to this show totally unexpectedly,
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 2: and you know, we just played expecting another you know,
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 2: shit gig on a Tuesday night in Covington, Kentucky where
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 2: no one was there, and here are these twelve kids
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 2: who like know the lyrics to some of our songs
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 2: and are just throwing there brings so much energy, like
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 2: they're having a great time, and it's just kind of
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 2: us in them. It was like this really intimate thing
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 2: and for us that was like that was amazing. So
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 2: we you know, fortunately, uh we like we were coming
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 2: back to the same place two weeks later, and they,
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 2: I guess the word spread. They they talked to more
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 2: people around town, the word spread more, and we came
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 2: back and there were like one hundred people there and
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 2: the energy was awesome and we you know, we threw
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 2: down and and it was it was kind of this like,
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 2: oh wow, one hundred people came to actually to kind
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 2: of to see us, and then I think three months
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 2: later there or four months later that year, we went
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 2: back in June and did two nights at that club
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 2: and it was sort of sold out, and we felt
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 2: like we were on top of the world doing two
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 2: nights of this this this little club, and it was
• 1:59:47
  Speaker 2: it was it was like our first taste of of
• 1:59:50
  Speaker 2: of that kind of thing at all, you know. And
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 2: then we kept touring and playing other places and we're
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 2: you know, in other areas for all intents and purposes,
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 2: went back to playing shit gigs for no one. But then,
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 2: you know, throughout that year in the early twenty nineteen,
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 2: gradually saw you know, we sold like sold one hundred
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 2: tickets in Buffalo, you know at the door, and like
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 2: that was a huge win for us. We were like, oh,
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 2: all right, great, another one, another place where people know
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 2: who we are and are coming like some people are
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 2: coming to a show. That was a big deal because
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 2: it wasn't there was no there was no label, there
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 2: was no like our music wasn't being consumed in that
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 2: way at all. It was it was all just our
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 2: only hope was the grassroots thing, you know, at least
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 2: as far as we were aware. So then you know,
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 2: gradually we got we got more some more festival stuff,
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 2: more opening gigs for you know, opening for other bands
• 2:00:48
  Speaker 2: like Pigeons playing ping pong and bands like that, and
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 2: you know, throughout twenty eight the latter end of eighteen
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 2: and into twenty twenty nineteen, first half of twenty nineteen,
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 2: they felt like the pressure, the pressure points were just
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 2: getting hit more and more. You know, we were just
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 2: in the flow with it and doing doing these things
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 2: and could feel could feel the needle moving a little bit,
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 2: but not not crazy substantial. After that, you know, the
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 2: experience in Covington and stuff, it was, you know, it
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 2: was a kind of us flow flow role for the
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 2: most part. And then you know that summer, the real
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 2: turning point was the Peach Peach Festival in twenty nineteen.
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 2: There was a lot of hype around the set. We
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 2: played the set, and you know, we kind of gotten
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 2: used to like playing these festival sets, which like back
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 2: in the day, you know, I had this like really
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 2: naive mentality around it, like, oh, we'll play this festival
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 2: set and like it's really things are going to really
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 2: change after that, like all of a sudden, people who
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 2: will know who we are, will come to shows and stuff,
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 2: and I got I had gotten so used to that
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 2: not being the case, you know, thinking that the needle
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 2: was going to move, and then it didn't. So we
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 2: played that gig and there was hype around and I
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 2: was like, oh, that's cool. A lot of people were there,
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 2: you know, it was pretty packed. And then we put
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 2: out the video from that set like really quickly after it,
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 2: as we kind of had gotten used to doing at
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 2: that point, and I didn't think that much like it was,
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 2: you know, it was a big moment. It felt like
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 2: a lot of hype. It was pretty stressed about it,
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 2: but then we just did it and I didn't think
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 2: too much of it, and it didn't realize, you know,
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 2: that was that was going to be as much of
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 2: a catalyst as it was, or as much of a
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 2: breaking point as it was. You know. The video kind
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 2: of started getting shared a lot online and and then
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 2: there was this sort of viral thing. I guess that
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 2: happened with like fish Twitter. Everyone was like doing meme,
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 2: like joking with sending all these memes around about goose jokes,
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 2: and people thought it was a joke but then ended
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 2: up going and checking out the band, So it kind
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 2: of just h it kind of just erupted by there.
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 2: And then by the by that fall, the fall tour
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 2: was was pretty much totally sold out all the little
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 2: clubs we had booked and stuff like that. People were
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 2: just buying tickets and then it kind of just kind
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 2: of just grew from there.
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 1: So then COVID hits. So what do you do for COVID?
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 2: We I mean, it was I feel that in a
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 2: lot of ways, you know, for us, it was it
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 2: was really helpful to to for things to slow down,
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 2: to stop at that time because the schedule we had
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 2: planned for that year was going to tear at least personally,
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 2: I don't know, it was gonna tear me up, like
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 2: it was. It was. It was crazy that summer. The
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 2: schedule we had plotted for that summer, it was shooting
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 2: around to three festivals every weekend all around the country.
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 2: It was just like, you know, you can't, you can't
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 2: do well in the under those circumstances. Especially, I mean
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 2: I for sure can't, and maybe other people can't, but
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 2: like that, I just not a recipe for for doing
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 2: your best work, you know, So we slowed down, well,
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 2: you know, the world slowed down. We because of the
• 2:03:54
  Speaker 2: momentum we had at that point, we just kind of
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 2: instinctively we didn't stop working, but the fact of you know,
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 2: the nature of just sleeping at home for the bulk
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 2: of that year and being in one place and going
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 2: for walks in the woods every day in conjunction with
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 2: the things we were working on. We finished a record
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 2: we were that was taking us forever to work on.
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 2: I was doing all the editing myself, and it was
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 2: I was just laboring over it way more than I
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 2: should have. And you know, that gave us the opportunity
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 2: to finally finish that thing, which was you know, important
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 2: for us. And you know, we were just cranking out videos,
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 2: live streams and working on that and trying to make
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 2: make those things interesting and and different. You know, there's
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 2: we did all these live streams in the spring of
• 2:04:41
  Speaker 2: that year and had gotten like a really good response
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 2: from a lot of them. The way we were doing them,
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 2: it felt kind of alive. We had people on on
• 2:04:48
  Speaker 2: like handicams and moving and it was kind of dynamic,
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 2: and it felt felt interesting, and you know, we put
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 2: a lot of energy into that and trying to make
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 2: those as cool as we could, and then summer rolled around,
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 2: and you know, our managers were like, all right, we're
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 2: gonna everyone's doing tours, virtual tours, and you know that
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 2: sounded really like boring to me. It was just kind
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 2: of like, we're we're all just gonna keep doing what
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 2: we're doing. Just just do more and more videos of
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 2: us playing kind of the same mute, same songs in
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 2: the same room over and over again. That you know,
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 2: what makes touring. You know, you're you're in different places,
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 2: playing to different people, so it it you know, it
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 2: doesn't get as it doesn't get as redundant because of that.
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 2: So it just felt like like a like a really
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 2: redundant thing. So that that kind of triggered us to
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 2: to think to try to think about it in a
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 2: different way and make it compelling and add some element
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 2: to it that was more interactive and uh and more engaging,
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 2: I guess, and and and more and more immersive. So we, uh,
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 2: you know, we did this bingo tour thing, which is
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 2: which is you know, turned the entire how many of
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 2: every many shows it was into a bingo game and
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 2: everyone had cards and it was it was we they functional.
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 2: We had our own TV channel for like two weeks,
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 2: which we really ran with. We had we built up
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 2: all different kinds of kinds of content. We had people
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 2: doing videos walking them through like whatever. If someone had
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 2: in our community here had a farm in the backyard,
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 2: you know, we did a video of them walking through
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 2: the farm. Or we did like yoga videos or or
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 2: cooking classes and all kinds of stuff. We were just
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 2: cranking content through this thing, and we were all just
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 2: in this area and being really creative and coming up
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 2: with ideas and having a lot of fun. And it
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 2: was a really really special time. So I think they're
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 2: doing all these things. It was a special like it
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 2: was a special time, a special opportunity, I guess because
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 2: the world had just you know, stopped, everyone had slowed down.
• 2:06:43
  Speaker 2: And you know, if that happened now, we probably would
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 2: use it as a opportunity. I mean maybe to do
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 2: the same I don't know, but but you know it
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 2: would it would be at a very different point because
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 2: it would be like, all right, I'm going to slow
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 2: down and like write, I'm going to write a lot.
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 2: And I think probably a lot of people did that,
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 2: but for where we were, it was like we were
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 2: we were in a place to be just turning and burning,
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 2: and we did and it ended up I guess, you know,
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 2: it reached a lot more people. Somehow, it just continued
• 2:07:10
  Speaker 2: to grow through all of that, and then we started
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 2: doing the drive in shows and doing doing whatever we could,
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 2: whatever was whatever people were doing, whatever was coming you know,
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 2: coming up, we were we just didn't stop working, and
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 2: you know it seemed to work.
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, so now live gigs come back. What does the
• 2:07:27
  Speaker 1: landscape look like?
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 2: It was pretty gradual, right, I mean the the I
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 2: mean it felt like we like shows were happening and
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 2: it was kind of like intense, and you know, there
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 2: was people are in pods or whatever, and and then
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 2: you know, COVID would kind of come back strong and
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 2: and things would kind of slow down and shut down again,
• 2:07:47
  Speaker 2: and but you know, fun functionally, for the most part,
• 2:07:51
  Speaker 2: we were riding that landscape. We just we we really
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 2: didn't stop and uh, it kind of just kept growing.
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 2: I guess, you know, the shows just kept getting bigger,
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 2: and uh, you know, in a lot of ways, it
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 2: was it was tough to it. It's a challenge, you know,
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 2: being on that kind of wave and keeping up with
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 2: it and meeting meeting the expectations that other people, that
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 2: everyone has and that you have on yourself in in
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 2: that type of opportunity. It's it's you know, it's not easy.
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 2: So you know, I think we throughout all of that.
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 2: It's just it continued to grow, and you know, there's
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 2: a huge the adaptation process to that from a production
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 2: standpoint was was a huge challenge as well. You know,
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 2: we we didn't we were like playing clubs. We didn't
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 2: know how to how to graduate into these bigger things,
• 2:08:40
  Speaker 2: and there was like a massive learning curve with that,
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 2: you know, big time crew and and how to how
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 2: to go into these bigger rooms and actually do it right.
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 2: And you know that's uh, we we did the best
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 2: we could. You know, we were we were just doing
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 2: our best through that that period. And also, like I
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 2: said earlier, you know, twenty twenty one, I crashed out again.
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 2: I was I was you know, I was hanging out
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 2: by a thread for a lot of that time. So
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 2: it was, you know, we were just we were doing
• 2:09:12
  Speaker 2: doing the best we could with what we had.
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: You know, well, when did the numbers start to jump
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 1: in terms of you know, attendance.
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 2: I mean early twenty twenty it was already like that
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 2: fall of twenty nineteen, that whole tour had kind of
• 2:09:27
  Speaker 2: sold out and we had done our our first show
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 2: to six hundred people that you know, that sold out
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 2: in Virginia, Richmond, I think, and Chicago kind of hit
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 2: a similar number, and that that felt huge to us.
• 2:09:41
  Speaker 2: You know, that was massive. And then you know, during
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 2: that time, during that fall, I remember, we put up
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 2: we had we had gotten we just started working with
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 2: our current agents and they they were like, we want
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 2: to put up two shows in New York, one in Brooklyn,
• 2:09:59
  Speaker 2: one Manhattan in January of twenty twenty. And they did
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 2: and they and we were like, well they were both
• 2:10:08
  Speaker 2: six hundred cap rooms and they were there was like
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 2: back to back rooms, back to back nights, and we
• 2:10:13
  Speaker 2: were like whoa, Like that seems way aggressive, but maybe
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 2: one of those, you know, but there's no but like
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 2: two that's no one, you know, it's gonna we're gonna
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 2: take a bath. It's not no one's gonna come, you know.
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 2: And they put them up and they both sold out
• 2:10:28
  Speaker 2: in like a second, and we thought there was The
• 2:10:32
  Speaker 2: initial reaction was like there's there's you know, there's must
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 2: be something wrong with the website. You know, but yeah,
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 2: so that they ended up cooking really hot, and you know,
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 2: I think the attendance was just kind of that once
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 2: that that fire starts, the buzz and all of that,
• 2:10:51
  Speaker 2: it kind of just it kind of just kept going.
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 2: You know that that spring, these all they all got
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 2: canceled because of COVID, but you know, I think we
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 2: had rooms rooms like thousand to fifteen hundred kind of
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 2: zone booked, and I think they were all sold out.
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 2: So it was kind of on that trajectory. And then
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 2: you know, by fall of twenty twenty, we started doing
• 2:11:10
  Speaker 2: those driving things and it was like, you know, selling
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 2: two thousand of these driving kind of show tickets and
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 2: things like that, and I don't know, the numbers of
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 2: it all just just kind of get gets fuzzy, but it,
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 2: you know, it's always an up and down kind of thing,
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 2: always till to this day. You know, there's there we
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 2: play some really big shows and then there's some places
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 2: where they're not as big, you know, but the yeah,
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 2: it was it was just a lot of growth for
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 2: years after that. I mean, the numbers kind of just
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 2: continued to grow.
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 1: I guess, well, what point do your peers start to
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 1: embrace you you know, the famous people, you know what
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about.
• 2:11:55
  Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, the more here heroes than peers. But but yeah,
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think twenty twenty two is really when
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 2: that there was like a huge turning point there. We
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 2: put out we put out another album that year, and
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 2: we played Radio City that summer and that was you know,
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 2: Trey came out and played with us, and so did
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 2: Josh Tillman, father John Misty, which you know, that was
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 2: a that was a wild combination, like to the point earlier,
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 2: you know, the merging of those two worlds was like
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 2: was one. I mean, it was just insane that that
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 2: that happened. I just still don't understand, you know, I
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 2: still like there's there's a certain degree of dissociation that
• 2:12:37
  Speaker 2: has to for me, that has to happen in order
• 2:12:39
  Speaker 2: to just like show up to those things. And when
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 2: that's it's like, Okay, this is happening. Cool, you know,
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 2: it doesn't feel real to me on some level, but
• 2:12:47
  Speaker 2: it's just it's happening, so you just will go do
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 2: it and try our best, you know, do our best.
• 2:12:52
  Speaker 2: But yeah, so that was I think that was that
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 2: was obviously a massive moment for us in so many
• 2:12:56
  Speaker 2: ways and the momentum at that time, I'm it was
• 2:13:01
  Speaker 2: it was just crazy. And you know, after that kind
• 2:13:05
  Speaker 2: of those things just kept kept happening. But that that
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 2: that year felt like the turning point as far as
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 2: that stuff is concerned.
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 1: Okay, going forward other than more gigs anything special in
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 1: the pipeline.
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 2: You know, I I think, uh, it's just you know,
• 2:13:26
  Speaker 2: building the building our own world feels that's like feels
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 2: like the most special thing to me. You know, I
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 2: I want to, like I said, I just I want
• 2:13:35
  Speaker 2: to keep writing a lot of music and putting out
• 2:13:38
  Speaker 2: as much music as I can and working on different
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 2: projects like that feels like the juice. That's the sauce
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 2: to me. And uh, you know, getting getting deeper into
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 2: into special events is feels really good and something that
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 2: we're excited to keep doing. And and the things that
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 2: that feel authentic and exciting and unique, you know that
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 2: that's that's those are the kinds of things that that
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 2: really fill up the well. You know, we're doing a
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 2: we started doing we did the first year of a
• 2:14:11
  Speaker 2: Destination festival in in Cabo last year, so we're you
• 2:14:17
  Speaker 2: know doing that again this year and is a really
• 2:14:20
  Speaker 2: special place and really special experience and you know kind
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 2: of uh, we kind of did this once before, but
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 2: it was a very last minute thing. This is kind
• 2:14:28
  Speaker 2: of the first time we've we've put ourselves in the
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 2: in the situation to be working on a lineup and
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 2: having people come to a thing and and and uh
• 2:14:37
  Speaker 2: kind of hosting in that way. And it's it's really fun,
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 2: and it feels really good, and it feels really good
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 2: to be you know, having having other artists there and
• 2:14:47
  Speaker 2: that that we that we love and and you know,
• 2:14:50
  Speaker 2: look up to and and uh love love just you know,
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 2: collaborating with and and and you know, getting to be
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 2: peers with. So you know, that's that's a pretty special thing.
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 2: Continue to work on that. Our our you know, our
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 2: event every December Goose Miss. We uh, you know, we
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 2: try to make that special every year and come up
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 2: with new ways to to think about that and approach
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 2: that and just like you know many other people in
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 2: our world have done. But you know, finding our own
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 2: our own ways into these things and our own our
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 2: own spin and you know, the way our our energy
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 2: can can bring it to some some different place. It's
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 2: it's it's a fun process. But yeah, mostly I just
• 2:15:34
  Speaker 2: want to keep writing music.
• 2:15:35
  Speaker 1: So you got this destination vessel in Cabo, you played
• 2:15:38
  Speaker 1: Red Rocks, you played Madison Square Garden. How many tickets
• 2:15:43
  Speaker 1: can you sell in secondary markets Cleveland, Minneapolis? I mean
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 1: you tour in those places. How big are the poles?
• 2:15:53
  Speaker 2: It varies, you know, even even within one city, it
• 2:15:58
  Speaker 2: varies depending on what time of year is, or what
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 2: the venue is or whatever it may be. You know,
• 2:16:03
  Speaker 2: there's certain spots where we're getting up where you can
• 2:16:06
  Speaker 2: do like the ten thousand maybe a little over, maybe
• 2:16:09
  Speaker 2: a little under kind of mark. And then there's some
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 2: spots where you know, we're like twenty five hundred to
• 2:16:15
  Speaker 2: five thousand zone. I'd say most places are are, you know,
• 2:16:19
  Speaker 2: in that like three to five thousand kind of zone.
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 1: So personally, do you feel like you've arrived? You're still
• 2:16:27
  Speaker 1: pinching yourself.
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 2: You know, if the whole thing is such a whirlwind
• 2:16:35
  Speaker 2: and it goes so fast, it moves like time when
• 2:16:39
  Speaker 2: all the tours and stuff, you know, you do three
• 2:16:42
  Speaker 2: tours a year and then the year's over, and the
• 2:16:45
  Speaker 2: time moves so fast. It still feels in a lot
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 2: of ways like like I'm just starting to like trying
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 2: to get caught up to that change of pace in life,
• 2:16:54
  Speaker 2: but at the same time, like it's been going on
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 2: for a while now and I think we have in
• 2:16:59
  Speaker 2: a lot of ways. Is like we we continue to
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 2: I think, catch up to it in different ways. But
• 2:17:04
  Speaker 2: I see I see so much, so much more, runway,
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 2: so much more. Like That's why when it's it's like
• 2:17:12
  Speaker 2: kind of what's next, it's like, I want to just
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 2: keep getting better out where we are, you know. It's
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 2: it's not thinking about the next the next biggest venue
• 2:17:22
  Speaker 2: or the next you know, most tickets we can sell.
• 2:17:24
  Speaker 2: It's just like I just want to continue to be
• 2:17:27
  Speaker 2: able to show up more and more to to where
• 2:17:29
  Speaker 2: we are and what we have, you know. That's that's
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 2: the thing that that feels relevant. I guess yeah, I
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 2: think it's a combination of both. It's like, you know,
• 2:17:42
  Speaker 2: I think hopefully we arrive more and more each each month,
• 2:17:48
  Speaker 2: you know, each day, but it still feels surreal for sure.
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 2: There's still like you know, playing the garden again. It
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 2: feels like, you know, because we're not we're not part
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 2: of the mainstream world in that way in so many ways.
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 2: You know, Uh, it doesn't, it doesn't. It feels like
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 2: it's like a like a you know, it's like some
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 2: cheat code or something. We're just like in our own
• 2:18:15
  Speaker 2: little universe. And and if I think about, you know,
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 2: comparing or competing with the broader thing, it's it's it's
• 2:18:24
  Speaker 2: just like, oh, thank god, we don't have to do
• 2:18:25
  Speaker 2: that because we're just in our own little universe over here.
• 2:18:28
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 1: Well, speaking of showing up, you definitely showed up today.
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 1: I think we got a good understanding of you and
• 2:18:35
  Speaker 1: the band. Rick. I want to thank you so much
• 2:18:38
  Speaker 1: for taking this time to speak with my audience.
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you for having me until next time.
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 1: This is Bob left Sex