Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses)

Transcript

Ben Bridwell (Band of Horses) · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. Ben Bridwell is a frontman of Band of Horses,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: a group whose sound he describes as y'all alternative, a
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: genre that tips its hat to Southern rock's deep myriad
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: of musical influences. Next month, the group is celebrating the
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: twentieth anniversary of their debut album Everything All the Time,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: with an expanded reissue featuring previously unreleased demos and live recordings.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: The album was recorded in two thousand and five with
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: producer of Phil Eck, who's known for producing albums by Built,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: The Spill, Modest Mouse, and The Shins. When Band of
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Horses started working on the project with Phil, Ben had
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: only been writing songs for a couple of years. He
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: was also new to Seattle, where he relocated from Tucson,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: a city he'd moved to at sixteen after dropping out
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: of high school in his native Irmo, South Carolina. On
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: today's episode, Lea Rose talks to Ben Bridwell about recording
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Everything All the Time. He opens up about hitting rock
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: bottom in South Carolina before moving to Seattle, including sitting
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: in his mattress on fire, getting hit by a car,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: and getting arrested, all within the span of one week.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: He also talks about recently breaking the generational curse of
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: alcoholism and his family, getting his life together post divorce,
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: and explains why the upcoming Band of Horses album may
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: sound aggressive despite the fact that it's in such a
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: happy place. This is broken record, real musicians, real conversations.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Here's Lea Rose with Ben Bridwell. Head over to YouTube
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: dot com slash Broken Record podcast to see the video
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: version of this interview.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: What were you like in high school?
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: Like?
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: What were you up to in high school?
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: Bad? Pretty bad?
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: No?
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: I I was all right. I only lasted I think
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: my tenth grade year. I think I think I went.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure if I'm still a sophomore or what
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: I am, But yeah, I didn't. I wasn't there very long.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: I was missing too many days, and they're kind of
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: like you don't really want to be here, not at all,
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: you know, So like, off you go. So I moved
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: out west and started the chant, like the whole thing
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: that would kind of cascade into Band of Horses and
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: all that. By searching for a place where there was
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: like a punk rock scene and an engine rock scene
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: and you could go. You didn't have to drive three
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: hundred miles to go see a show.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: So there was no like punk rock scene in South Carolina.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: There was. There was a lot of straight edge kids
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: and a lot of skateboard scene was kind of intertwined,
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: and and there was some There was a couple of
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: good punk bands out of Columbia, South Carolina. But again
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: I had to get like my a mother's note to
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: go to the club, you know what I mean. I
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: was still like sixteen, you know, and I'm like, I
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: want to go for I want to go, you know.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: And we drived like Charlotte or Chapel Hill or Atlanta
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: or something Athens to go see yeah, you know, like
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: you are a loaf or Sebado's playing there and Pavement
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: was coming around, and uh so we or the Ramones,
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: you know, we'd drive, We'd have to drive, and I
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: was like, man, I want to go someplace where that
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: stuff is, like people are like in bands that are
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: playing big places, you know, like there's like a real
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: scene going on. I wanted to be near that. So
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: I went to Tucson, Arizona.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Oh and wich was going on in Tucson at that time.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: A thriving punk and goth and weirdo scene. Oh my god,
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: I'd never lived out west and or been out West,
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: and it was it was different. You know, kids were
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: like doing speed and like they're nails, you know, and
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: going to the club and stuff. So it was it
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: was cool. It was very different. There's like raves and
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: stuff like that. Didn't know nothing about dance music or nothing,
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: and uh, and I became kind of entrenched in that
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: scene by working, uh, delivering pizzas and working in cafes
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: and stuff like that. And yeah, it was pretty freaky, honestly.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: Like these kids, they weren't much older than me, but
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: they were out of high school, you know, they were
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: like pioneering twenty years old. They were like grown ups
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: and they were making a go of it.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: So you were already playing music at that point.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, I didn't.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: Just kind of like a fan, like want to be
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: in the scene and kind of yeah, party type.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I just wanted to be around it and yeah
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: and be friends with people that were in bands and
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: I didn't and I was. I was really always into
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: making like mixtapes. I was always about trying to spread
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: other people's music to others. That was always what I
• 4:47
  Speaker 3: thought would be more my calling. Maybe working in radio
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: or something like that, or with a label even so yeah,
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: like an A totally that would have been amazing. Hey
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: they're still young, I'm available, you know. I ended up
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: starting a label. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's plentny how that
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: worked out. But yeah, I didn't end up playing music
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: until like my mid twenties or something like that.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: That's crazy.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I didn't think that would be something in the
• 5:20
  Speaker 3: cards for sure.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: That's so crazy. So how did that happen? Was it
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: just kind of like messing around with friends, instruments around
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: and you just took a go at it or how
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: did you even make that transition?
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: Well? I was releasing bands on my label, and mostly
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: as a stepping stone kind of label just to get like, hey,
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: y'all can have some CDs to sell the show, you
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: know what I mean, and then maybe like a big
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: label be like yoink and you know, we're going to
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: superstardom or something. But I ended up joining the main
• 5:52
  Speaker 3: group that I was like just entrenched with. I met
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: out in Tucson called Chris is Weird and and it
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: was a male and female songwriter and they picked up
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: some good steam. Once once we all kind of relocate,
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: we met in twosons, and we all ended up living
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: in Seattle, and they started to really get their act
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: together and put out a couple of records with them,
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: and then they're one of their drummer had to leave
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: to go be in modest mouse for a second as
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: like a utility dude, and they needed someone to play
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: kind of like slow core drums, and uh, I hate
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: that term, but still that's what we kind of wore.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: It was. It was very slow and easy to play drums.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: I was like, because I had a car basically, and
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: they trusted my driving skills and they needed to go
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: on tour, I think they're like, then will you do it?
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: Learned to play some drums, and so I started to
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: do that, and a little bit later I picked up
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: a bass a little bit for like a song or two,
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: you know, And then the band broke up and it
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: was like, what are we going to do? I now
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: got kind of used to that lifestyle of like staring
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: out the window all day and meeting new people at night.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: So I just started falling around with the gear that
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: was kind of left in the ashes of that band.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: It was just we still were paying for a rehearsal space.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: I was like, I'm just gonna go down there every
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: day that I can and spend as much time as
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: I can figuring it out. And that's what I did.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: I just put in the honestly, the hours. I think
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: that's what really got me to where I am now
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: is just I just I didn't know what I was doing,
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: but I just tinkered long enough to find some melody
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: and then it it just kind of took its own course.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: That's so cool. Did it feel good to be on stage,
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: like the first time you were up there playing drums? Like,
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: as someone who was such a fan of music, did
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: it feel cool to be in a band?
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: Like?
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: What was that experience like for you?
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: I'm sure the tightrope act of it was was a thrill, right,
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: But I've always i mean, more than imposter syndrome like
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: this just isn't where I'm supposed to be, you know,
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: So that was always I mean, I liked I think
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: I'm more like the camaraderie of being in a band
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: more than I did like trying to grow my craft
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: in a band, you know what I mean. I just
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: liked the whole I liked I liked the whole party
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: of it all, and the whole experience of traveling and
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: that wanderlust that's totally been impossible to really satisfy my
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: whole life. So I think that was more the thing.
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: So the playing was out of necessity, just to earn
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: my keep. I think on the road you still am
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: still trying. Yeah. Yeah.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: I was reading an old article in Rolling Stone. It
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: was in a section called hot bandy. Oh my god,
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: I think it was from two thousand and seven, and
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: it said, one of the reasons you left Charleston was
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: because you lit your mattress on fire with a handle.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: True?
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: What what is that story? What happened?
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: Good lord? It was the first year that I'd ever
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: heard the term el nino. Okay, I was like, what
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: is el Nina? What is y'all? But so one night
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: I was well, my roommate was woken up by the
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: ceiling dripping on him because this crazy el Nino pushed
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: this storm through and uh, and so he woke up
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: to find that my room was on fire. He could
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: like see it under the door, like the flames or whatever,
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: and he came in and kicked me awake. My bed
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: had caught fire thanks to because I was making mixtapes
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: before I was going to bed and drinking and sitting
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: there in bed making mixtape, drinking pass out, and the
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: candle ended up catching this, you know, fifteen dollars mattress
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: from the seventies, probably on fire, which was the opposite
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: of flame retardant. It was only like it just it
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: would not go out. So even like I had to
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: run with this I got once we realized dumping water
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: on it wouldn't work. I had to drag it through
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: the house and throw it outside where it was dumping rain. Right,
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: throw it outside, it lands on like the steps the
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: stairs going up to the house. It lands on this
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: and still wouldn't go out in the rainstorm. The flames
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: just got even more and more.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: Oh my god.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and so so that and I had gotten thrown
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: in jail also for some thing, No, for something different,
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: but I had this. I had this like round round
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: trip ticket to go visit my friends from Chris is Weird,
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: who I met out in Tucson. They were living out
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: in Olympia, Washington. Now, I was gonna go visit Northwest
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: and then come back. But after all this happened within
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: a week, I mean I got hit by a car.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: Also right after that, with all my bandage. My hands
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: were all bandaged up, like fingers were touching this far apart,
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: and I hit by a car delivering a Brita and
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: pizzas to the hospital and all my bandages like blew up.
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: So I'm like, oh my god. So I changed I
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: changed the ticket to one way a sign yeah, and
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: moved out to the Northwest. And that's what also kind
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: of started this whole push for U for the music thing.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: You hit rock bottom, I reckon, I reckon, I did yeah,
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: and I didn't. My prospects were very, very low, and
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: you know, but then I was homeless out there. I
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: was living on the streets of Seattle, living outside before
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: and and got hired by a rock club, the Crocodile,
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: owned by one Peter Buck from r E.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: M uh.
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: They hired me with my sleeping bag on my back
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: and gave me a chance.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: So I was able to start saving up money and
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: getting living inside.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: What do you think, Like, what perspective does that give you,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: having once been sleeping on the street, Like are you
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: grateful for that?
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: I don't like to go camping? And tell you that
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: I don't to go camping, I'm like, no, I've done,
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: why would I do?
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: I don't need that experience?
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah right, yeah, it's yeah, I definitely don't like to
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: go camping. But you know, I'm just I'm eternally also
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: like a bit of a like feeling a bit like
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: I don't belong wherever I'm supposed to be, Like I'm
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: not supposed to be allowed in this place, you know.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: You know, I always feel like someone would be like,
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: who let the freak in?
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: You know, well, it seems like you were a go getter.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: I mean if you're sitting there starting a label, like,
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: how did you how did you even come up with
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: that idea?
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, I was working at this club in Seattle. God,
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: now my dream has come true. I get to work
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: at a rock club and like the bands that I
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: like are playing, you know, every month you get a calendar.
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: It's like, oh, oh I'm getting off that night.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: It's like watching sound and watching how bands interact, and
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: oh my god. It was a dream come true. But
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: I was also not making very much money and I
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: was I'm just always ornery too, and I'm like, man,
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: I want to do what those guys are doing, Like,
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: you know, they're tipping me nothing, you know, my tip
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: out and I'm getting like eleven bucks you know, for
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: like the busiest shift ever, and I'm like, there's got
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: to be a better way. So I just started saving
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: every tip. I was almost like in defiance of my
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: own my own prospects as as a as a growing person,
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: or I'm like, I don't have an education. I don't
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: I don't have a whole lot going for me as
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: skill wise. I'm going to just I'm how good at
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: cooking on the line. I'm just gonna save every dollar
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: and I'm gonna hide it for myself, and I'm gonna
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: put out my friend's record that those friends I met
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: in Tucson. I'm gonna put out their record. They're finally
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: gonna have a CD, and everything will just kind of start,
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: you know, snowballing. And it it did. So you know,
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: it had enough to put out one record, and it
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: had enough to repress it, and all of a sudden,
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: it's like Jesus, we got like a thing going on
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: here now and growing up with like I mean, even
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: in Irmo, South Carolina, I had stenciled Subpop on my backpack,
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: you know, in white out, you know, so there was
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: already like this like indie rock kind of like the
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: branding of indie rock was was working on me, you
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. Yeah, moving up to Seattle and stuff.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: There's so many record labels. This is like peak indie sleeves,
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: whatever era this was. But there were so many great
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: labels and and everyone was cool and intermixing with one another.
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: And my idea to help other people dream their dreams
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: bigger was more than business savvy, because I had always said, like,
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: this is like a stepping stone. I'm not trying to
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: like put you on a contract. I'm not trying to
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: do nothing but get us on k XP, you know,
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: and like and put our shops or our CDs and
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: all these shops. There were so many great record stores
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: in Seattle too, so you could put them on consignment.
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: And if you can sell those, they want to get more.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: And all of a sudden, well, now we got something going,
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: and I was able to at least harness that dream
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: and help some people believe along with me.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: We'll be back with more from Ben Bridwell after the break.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: So, when you started Band of Horses, making the jump
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: from being the guy in the back who's supporting everybody,
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: and you know, helping other people get a foothold in
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: the scene and get you know, the band to grow
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: and stuff like that. When all of a sudden it
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: becomes you and it's your work and you're out there,
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: you're the front person. Was that a big transition for
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: you or did that happen seem to happen more naturally.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: No, it's a transition. I still like I feel I
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: still feel like I'm like reeling from it in a
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: way where it's like I've come now twenty some years later,
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: I do feel like, Okay, I know what I'm doing,
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: but it took a while to get there where I'm
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: like it could all just fall apart in front of
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: everyone right here, you know, Like and even times where
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: I've like lost my voice or something been sick on
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: the road, I'm like, oh, there, it is, there, it
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: is now, you can't do it.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: And then oh, like you're waiting for something, Yeah.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: Like waiting for like to either be exposed as a
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: fraud or like or not meant to be there in
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: that role. In some way, I kind of accepted that
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: I was gonna feel that way and I just had
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: to push through that. But somewhere along the line, I
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: have like accepted that this is like my gig, you know,
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: and I am good at it and I love and
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: I've found a way to grow in that space and
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: really and love it and cherish it and miss it
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: when I'm not doing it.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's yeah. So your two thousand and six
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: album Everything All the Time, turns twenty this year. Man,
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: So how long were you writing songs before that album
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: came out?
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: Ooh. I would say it took me a while to
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: get those up to snuff, probably about two years. I
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: think we started in two thousand and four. Yeah, okay, yeah,
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: so I didn't know how to play guitar or anything,
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: you know, I had like I was like dtuning the
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: pegs to you know, my hand is comfortable here, I'll
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: just work the strings around that. You know. I still
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: got them tattooed on me, just in case I forget.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: What songs are those?
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: Uh, No, One's gonna Love You in the Funeral. Okay,
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: it's two different tunings, and I swear it makes no sense.
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: Every guitar check we've ever had is like it's kind
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: of a nightmare trying to line check those guitars. In
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: front of like a crowd, like, I don't know how
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: to what do you do with this? These strings? They
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: make no sense to another guitar player, But they're also
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: part of the sauce that I discovered down there writing
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: those first songs, not having any idea what to do.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: So it took a while to get them to the
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: point of even I think playing live or sharing them
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: with any demos with like Phil k or somebody who
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: produced the record.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, do you remember the first time you played on stage,
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: like you sang your own songs on stage?
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I do. I do. There's this place called the
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: Sit and Spin in Seattle, and I still had the
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: poster actually a little flyer. We were first of four
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: on like a Wednesday night or something like that, and uh, yeah,
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: I had like a I was such I mean, I
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: was such a Freddy cat about it too. I would
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: sing with like a vocal processor thing that would just
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: like delay it and echo it so deeply that I
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: would it didn't really did not. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, I
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: wish they made him for the best Man speeches, you know. Oh,
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: but any public speaking we need those delays. But but yeah,
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: I was I was nervous, but I do remember feeling like,
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: of course, like exhilarated, but relieved relieved that uh no
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: one through tomatoes or whatever.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: You know, did you get any reaction, like real time
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: reaction from the crowd, Like did people seem into it?
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah? I think there was a sense already that this
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: was going to be a thing, and and I knew,
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: I mean it was you could see it quickly up there.
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: We also had like dueling weekly magazines. You know, there's
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: like who's got the better music coverage of the scene.
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: You know, it was there's at least two, there's at
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: least two and uh, you know someone's writing about it.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: In the first week you played a show, all of
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: a sudden you're Seattle famous in the in the Gnarly
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: Times or whatever. Uh for uh for starting a new
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: band and generating buzz?
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Was your Was the sound of the band different than
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: what else was going on locally? Like, did you guys
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: stand out as as a new sound?
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah? I guess we kind of did. Now thinking about it,
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: because whether I like it or not, my my southernness,
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: you know, my accent, my vibe, I mean, I'm very
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: like just like I identify as y'all. You know what
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, I am y'all. Y'all. It's just everything. I
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: say it constantly, So I do. I do think I
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: put some y'all in that alternative you know that y'a
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: alternative was? Was?
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Is that a thing? Alternative?
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: It was? We talked about it back in the day.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: I don't know if anyone's really uh stuck with it,
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: but uh yeah, but it was because you had like
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: people like let's say, the Supersuckers from Tucson. They ended
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: up coming up to Seattle and living and they had
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: like a kind of country punk thing going on. And
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: you know, I grew up on the Stones, but like
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: and Neil Young and and like the Almond Brothers and stuff.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: So I was I think I was bringing something that
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: was that was a little bit different. Yeah, I don't know.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: I think it was mostly the fact that I was
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: just like it was so echoey and a bit more
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: psychedelic before it got kind of cleaned up in the
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: process that I was probably leaning more towards Jan's addiction
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: than maybe even say like the My Morning Jacket stuff
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: or something. I think a lot of that stuff snuck
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: in there and built a spill and flaming lips I
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: was listening to a lot of that stuff, so I
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: was singing a bit more of a higher register where
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: a lot of the Seattle bands there was still a
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: lot of like math rock going on, a lot of
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: post punk vibes, a lot of still like K Records
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: pop stuff still was like, uh was popping off, and
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: then you had like this new kind of macho rock
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: scene that subpop was having a go a little era with.
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: There's like a lot of like everyone's wearing black and
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: getting sleeve tattoos today and they're all dancing, you know.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: It was We definitely were a different kind of vibe
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: where it was swinging wild in all directions, which is nice.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: But yeah, for some I think we were melodic enough
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: to uh to catch people's eye.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what was the build up to releasing the first album? Like,
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: were you a band that played out all the time?
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Did you tour? Did you play outside of Seattle? Was
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: your set covers? Was it original songs?
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: Like?
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: Tell me about the lead up to putting out the
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: first album?
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: Cool? Yeah, Well I was lucky that well I had
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: become friends with Sam Beam from Iron and Wine. He's
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: also from the same town that I'm from. In the
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: middle of South Carolina and he's a my brother age.
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: They were buddies, and I had met him one time
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: coming home for like a Christmas and I heard his
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: songs in his truck and I was like, what though,
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: this is crazy, Like, dude, you've got like something going here.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: And I was lucky enough to dub some of those
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: songs down to another cassette tape and bring them with
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: me up to Seattle and and kind of introduce his
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: music to the subpop folks. And and my friend Howard
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: in Chicago, who worked with Thrill Jockey and Overcoat Records,
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: I was like, y'all gotta check out Sam Beamstaf. So
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: he ends up getting signed and kind of popping off
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: right around that a little bit, A little bit that day,
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: for sure, that day for sure. Oh man, I know. Actually,
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: you get one of those and you think all those
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: labels are going to listen to you the next time, right, No, No,
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: this was one. This is once in a lifetime here.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: So so luckily Sam starts popping off right around the
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: time that horses was starting, and he took us out
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: on tour of the United States. Yeah, we were like
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: went around mostly in the South, open up for Iron
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: and Wine, which was a huge learning experience for us.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: I mean for me as a as a singing person,
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: but also for just like the level of operation compared
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: to even the band that I was in before. It
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: was just like, Okay, this is a this is how
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: you tour, you know, and uh, it's funny. I ended
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: up getting in some way helping Sam get sign the subpop.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: We end up open up for him two nights in Seattle,
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: and in turn, he gets me kind of signed a
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: subpop from all the way across the country. You know,
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: these two dudes in Irmo, South Carolina somehow end up
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: connected to Seattle via each other. Yeah, yeah, so that
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: was amazing he and yeah, that that process of of
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: seeing how Sam crafts his songs and then translates them
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: onto the stage and becomes also from maybe a bedroom
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: type of recording vibe all of a sudden in front
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: of you know, hundreds and hundreds of people. I kind
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: of followed his lead. He was very much like a
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: mentor in that way.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Nice. So what specifically did you pick up from him?
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Like as far as performing.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: Well, I still pick up from him his freedom. He
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: expresses himself so freely on stage and in front of
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: people with whether it's you know, playing different different ways
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: of playing songs that he's written a long time ago,
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: and challenging the audience in a way not and just
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: being unafraid to still make artful expression out of something
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: that doesn't have to be it doesn't you know, you
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: could serve it on a clean platter, you know. And
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: I like that he's messy with it and he's brave.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: I'm not as brave. I'm a bit more loyal to
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: the recorded versions, but but he he's showed me so much.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: I mean, how long you got It might be a
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: whole different other podcast, but yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm still
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: learning so much from Sam. And we just got off
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: a tour last year together again, which is crazy. That's now,
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: you know, twenty five years ago that we started touring together.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: I'm still learning things and and I hope, I hope
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: I have a bit more steady footing to maybe where
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: he maybe he learns a couple of things from me
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: too along the way.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure.
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny. I was listening to the album that
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: you put out the live at the Ryman, Yeah, and
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: I was thinking about the way that you play the
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: songs live. And it's funny that you said that about Sam,
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: how he has the courage to kind of like mix
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: stuff up or try new, try a new approach to
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: a song. Do you find that you play the songs
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: that maybe are like the bigger, like hit songs, more straight,
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: and then you feel more freedom to kind of bug
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: out on the other ones that maybe are the deeper cuts.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: Well. An easy way of explaining this would be, I
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: don't I'm still not as like musician I'm still not
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: that much of a musician about it. Like I'm like,
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: I just want to, like I want the song to
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: get off, like I want it to just go. I
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: want the impact to be how people are feeling about
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: finally finally getting to experience it. I'm trying to hit
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: them and their feels as hard as I can. And
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: for me, that's like not messing up, you know, because
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: I think I might come on glued completely. It gets
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: a little bit squirrely, like even trying to jam. We've
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: been on like the show the Jules Holland Show out
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: of England, and even on like these shows where you
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: have to like we're gonna start the show and all
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: the bands are like jamming in the round. We had
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: to do it, like they had to start over twice,
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: just because I don't know how to jam bro I
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: don't know where to put my fingers on threat board
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: because these tunings are so weird it's crazy. Yeah.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: I like that, all right. So I want to ask
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: you specifically a little bit about this album, Like now,
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: twenty years later, what's the personality of this album for you? Like,
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: how do you describe this album?
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: Wow? Well, I had to like go back and listen
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: to it, and I haven't. I never listened to our records.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: Once it's done, I'm like good, you know, And it
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: was it was out of here, yeah, And it was
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: nerve wracking too for to have like this kind of
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: immediate success where all of a sudden, you know, we'd
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: walk into a bar and it was like playing on
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: the bar speakers, you know, and you're like, I gotta
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: get out of here. I can't. This is weird, you know.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: So I've kind of I've hidden from it and all
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: of it's amateurism, I don't know. Just like the way
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: I sang even, I was like, oh my god, this
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: is so weird. It's so weird. It's like dysmorphia or
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: something like that. I'm like, that's so weird. I can't
• 29:14
  Speaker 3: you know.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: And how's it different than you sing?
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Now?
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: Would you say, oh, man.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: Well, it sounds very that voice sounds very like closed
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: and restrained and and just not there's not enough breath
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: in there, and it's just it freaks me out. But
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: also I would still criticize the voice I have now,
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: I'm sure, but yeah, I had to kind of give
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: in to the overall vibe and just listen to what
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: everyone else was doing, the other musicians. Listening to them
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: was more like it kind of allowed me to accept
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: it a bit easier and get the whole vibe that
• 29:57
  Speaker 3: Phil the producer was making. And just the soundscapes of
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: everything is pretty. It was pretty revealing to me there
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: to day, I'm like, this is actually kind of this
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: kind of its kind of hits all right, got you.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: I'm grateful for the for all the rough stuff back then. Yeah,
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: and im and I'm really proud of the other musicians
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: that we all punched above our weight to a great
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: degree to to also meet Phil's expectations, which was this
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: is a this is a moment in time that deserves
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: to be captured and preserved and uh, and you must
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: give it every bit of of your effort, you know,
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: to to really make it something bigger than yourself. And
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: so I see it as yeah, an an awkward, scrappy,
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: scrappy new dad that's uh, it's gonna take some licks
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: before he figures out, you know, remembers to bring diapers
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: with him when he goes to the store just in
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: case anything goes down. Yep, I listened to it last night.
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: I had Oh you listened to it last night.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I listened to the first side of it two
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: days ago, and I was like, oh man, it's like
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: I don't want, I don't want to listen to the
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: other but I did it. I was like, I got to.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: I have to do my research to make sure I
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: know what I'm talking about. So yeah, I'm pretty familiar
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: with it.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm sorry you had that experience.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: That sounds cute. This is not good for promo, but yeah, no,
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: it's just it's just hard to look at old pictures
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: of yourself.
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my gosh, yes, yes, Okay, So are there
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: any memorable sessions you remember, like any of the songs
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: that you know, maybe something memorable happened in the studio
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: or all of a sudden the song started to work,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: it makes sense, or maybe a funny story around recording
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: one of the songs.
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it was I'm sure for fulfill the producer.
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: I'm sure it was just a you know, NonStop follies
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: with us. But you know, I didn't know what to
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: do with my hands while singing. I've only been singing
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: at to this point with the guitar in my hands.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: So I said, you're in a studio. I didn't know
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: where to put my hands without making noise, like you know,
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: putting in my pockets and you got keys in your pockets.
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: Stop doing that, you know. So I took to the
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: only thing that was available was this like serrated bread
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: knife that I would like just holding my hands kind
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: of waving around, just to make sure I didn't make
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: any noise while singing. Stuff like that, I mean serious
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: greenhorn stuff where you just don't have any prior knowledge
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: of what to do much less I tell you what,
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: like trying to play guitar. It's one thing to like
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: write the songs and find the melody and then get
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: over yourself to write lyrics that you're not afraid to display.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: But now it's like you gotta be able to play
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: those guitars like adequately for Phil who has a very
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: high standard set. So I was like, I mean, I've
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: never played guitar like that before, and where you're playing
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: something over and over trying to make someone feel good
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: about it, even though you know they're just like accepting
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: it's as good as it's going to get. You know.
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: That kind of that kind of pressure was like was
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: kind of scary, you know, or or seeing you know,
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: friends deal with like trying to keep a steady tempo
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: or to do these things that were he was really
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: lifting us up into a into a weight class that
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: we weren't ready to be in. So it was it
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: was terrifying and and also just being a bit clueless
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: that it would that it would catch on or anything
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: I was trying. I tried to not finish what would
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: become like our flagship or bell Cow song the funeral.
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: I was like, Oh, we'll just save it for the
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: next one. It's too hard to pull off. We'll just
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: put this other song on there instead. And I think
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: Phil and the label were like, bro, finish that song
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: that is like the song you know, the I was
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: just clueless, you know, I didn't even want and when
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: we were done, I didn't even choose that one to
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: be a single. I'm like, I've always been clueless about
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: like what are gonna like about it? I guess. So
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: I'm just like, I guess it's if I remember anything.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: Is that I didn't know nothing, you know, and I
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: still kind of don't.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, what were you writing the funeral about? Do you
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: remember what was happening in your life at that time,
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: like what you were even thinking about.
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I think it's a mixture of living out
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: west and having to go home for like Christmas to
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: like see my family and stuff like that, and like
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: having to like deal with I don't know, like uh,
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: just awkward conversations and just social anxiety. I think social
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: anxiety was a big part of it, where I'm just like, oh,
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: this is all just this is all brutal. I don't
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: want to have to like talk in front of people
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: and like answer questions about myself. And then the growing
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: anxiety I think of just growing older and the fear
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: of the fear of losing like my parents and and
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: that like I'm just yeah, death, losing people like to death,
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: or or even sometimes hearing you know, other people's stories,
• 35:26
  Speaker 3: you know, some when people lose unrequired love or whatever.
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: You know, it's like, uh, it just it really messes
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: me up, I guess, and yeah, still does to this day.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: I'm still terrified of of dealing with when people got
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: to go move on. So uh yeah, I think there was.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: It was a mixture of those things, my own crippling
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: social anxiety and then the fear of mortality.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: Had you lost anyone who was close to you at that.
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: Point friends, Yeah, but no real close family members to
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: that point. Yeaheah, nothing, It.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: Was just more of a fear of it rather than
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: an experience.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, which is which is maybe just a human
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: condition thing that I just happened to have elevated or something.
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: And sometimes yeah, it's other people's stories make me cry
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: like that, just people like people go through that pain.
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, do you remember what it was about that song?
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: Like at what point were you were you stuck? Like
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: what made it hard for you to finish the guitar?
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: The guitar? I remember, I was just getting kind of
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: exhausted by Phil's expectations of where it needed to get to,
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: you know, and I physically didn't feel like I could
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: pull it off, so I just had to. I think
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: I probably gave up at least one time. I was like,
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: I don't know, I can do it. It's just if
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: it's not good enough for you, we'll just put it
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: on the next album. I'll get better Phil, you know.
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: But no, I think it was just a growing moment
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: where I had to get up and play big boy ball.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, Well that's good that you didn't have
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: someone else step in and just do the guitar part.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: You could have.
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: Just sure I still had help. Don't worry. I'm sure.
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: I okay, I'm sure I still had the village lifting
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: me up. Don't worry.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: Who else had Phil work? What other bands had Phil
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: worked with at the time, Like were you thinking of
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: those people? And be like damn when he worked with
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: the Black Crows, like they were probably killing it? Or
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: whoever he worked with?
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, he was working with a lot of bands
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: that I admired, like and do you still like Built
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: the Spill and Modest Mouse and the Shins and God
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: Countless bands, Lesavi FIV was a band that I really love.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: And the guitars and stuff his his his vivid sound
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: textures and things were or what drew me to him
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: wanting to work with him. But then it's like immediately
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: like Buyer's remorse were like, I'm gonna have to I'm
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: really going to have to get my level up to
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: what he needs to be able to pull that off.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: You know, that's a nice challenge though.
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: It's helped. I mean it it helped, you know, move
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: us up another step into being to being whatever we
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: are now, whatever that is.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Well, nas break and we're back with Ben Bridwell.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: So you said that the album kind of started to
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: pick up. How did you know, Like, how did you
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: know that it was? You said you would hear it
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: when you walked into bars. Was it being played on
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: the radio? Like how did you get a sense that?
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: It was? Kind of like catching on your time back then?
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: For sure? And we were so lucky to have to
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: be in Seattle where k XB was lifting up so many,
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: so many local bands. I mean, they've really helped grow
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: a scene. And I knew it from work and the
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: label side of it and getting some of my bands
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: over to k XP, you know. So it was amazing
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: to be on that receiving end of their affection at
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: the time, and it starts to pick up I think
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: the real like because very early in the process, we
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: went to Europe to play a couple of shows, and
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: we played in Norway at this festival, and people, these
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: Norwegian people were singing back to us. Whether it was
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: correct or not, it was just like mind blowing. These
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: people even heard of us and decided to come watch
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: and listen. But the fact that they knew the words
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: to our songs is like, this is something that I mean,
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: that was like huge expectation blown right there. You know,
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: we actually might we actually might be here for a bit.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: That's cool. What was your first time in Europe?
• 40:02
  Speaker 3: Like, oh, Greenhorns? Just you know, we already you know,
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: we I've I had no problem living that that cliche
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: of like let's let's go get it, you know, let's
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: drink all the drinks and and be silly, you know,
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: and be and kind of ride the wave of it
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: because it's probably fleeting, you know, it's it's more than
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: likely fleeting. So we enjoyed ourselves and shortly thereafter real
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: life luckily intervened and and I had my first child,
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: like along before the second record came out, So we
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: didn't get all that. It wasn't all that long of
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: getting to live like this, you know, kind of imaginary
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: rock star thing. It was real life came to help
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: ground me pretty soon.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that'll do. The kid'll do that. Did you
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: ever get to like tear up a hotel room or
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: anything like that, like throw TV's out the.
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: Window, y'all? I am way too respectful to do that.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: I would Oh my god, my parents, they would, they
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: would be so disappointed in me. There's no way, no,
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: there's no way. I'm not trashing any I clean up
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: for the housekeeping, you know, I do. I still to
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: this day, will clean up for housekeeping.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: That's so nice? Was it so once you once you
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: were experiencing that, like fame and riding high and partying
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: and all that, Like, was that different than you expected
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: it to be? Or was it exactly what you hoped
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: it was?
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: All the expectations were being exceeded, There's no doubt. So
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: it's hard to be prepared for what you what your
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: personality might be like in those situations. But I already knew.
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: I already knew that was kind of not much of
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: a joiner for one. I'm not like a Jam. I
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: don't want to get together in Jam like I'm not
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: and I'm also not like trying to rung up on
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: the ladder, and I'm a bit nervous with meeting here
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: or or even like like industry people and stuff like.
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: I'm not much of a joiner. So I shouldn't have
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: I shouldn't be surprised by how lonely the job would be.
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: I shouldn't. I shouldn't be surprised by it because I'm
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: already a bit of an isolated kind of personality anyways.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: But maybe the fact that I didn't expect it to
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: kind of become the safe place. And you know, when
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: your ego is people can you know, pump up your
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: ego at every every turn. I'm surprised that I was
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: able to want to avoid it, you know, like I
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: don't want that. I don't want to see us on
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: the late night TV thing. I'm not gonna watch it.
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: I'm not gonna watch the performance. I'm not gonna listen
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: to this. So I'm I'm glad that I've been able
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: to avoid a lot of that ego pump and stuff.
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: But I'm sure it finds its way in other ways.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: You know how is a transition for you becoming a dad,
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: like transitioning from Okay, we got we have the albums out,
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: it's doing well, we're touring internationally, and then you come
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: home and have such a different life, the domestic life.
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: How is that for you?
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm still evolving and learning. You know, I'm forty seven,
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: I have four children. They're all daughters in between the
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: ages of ten and seventeen. So we're like, we're in
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: a wild spot right now. But it's amazing and I'm
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: so I just I love this. I love this time
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: that we have right now in their development and their
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: brain growth and our bonding time is just so amazing.
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: And it's only got room to still grow bigger. And
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: I'm so enthused by them. They are my masterpiece. And
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: this music thing is kind of a byproduct, honestly. Oh
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: and so it's it's it's there's been a learning curve too,
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: of just I think with anybody, you're you're learning to
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: be less selfish and more patient and things like that.
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: So I'm still I'm still growing in that. But I
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: feel like I'm in a really great spot where I
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: don't know, I'm just I feel like the sky is
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: the limit for us and our love for one another. So, uh,
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: it's only getting better, and it's it's only getting bigger.
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: And I feel like I'm I have more patients to
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: ride with them through all this you know, development they're
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: going through and whatever they need from me. So I'm
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: I'm here for and more.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: How's the co parenting situation going? How's the post divorce?
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you don't want to answer that, that's
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: totally fine. We don't even know.
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: I'm an open book with respect.
• 45:08
  Speaker 4: Uh yeah, it's it's you know, it's it's it's strange
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: because you have to let go of how someone else
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: is parenting your children and you have to be able
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: to allow them to also live their life and how
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: they see things, you know.
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: So that's that's really the the balance you're trying to seek.
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: And and I'm lucky to co parent with with the
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: woman that you know, we have at least like the
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: same core values and and that helps that that helps
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: answer a lot of questions. You know. Yeah, but it's
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: you know, not being married to some anymore. I'm like,
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: I've really been able to discover who I truly am
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: when I'm by myself and and what I expect in
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: any sort of partnership really, And god, I'm just so happy.
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: I'm just like so happy, and I'm good. I'm just
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: I'm just in such a good, happy place with being
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: in my own piece, you know, and just and and
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: creating a beautiful piece with my children that uh, no
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: one's allowed to mess it up, including me, you know.
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: Good good. I feel like the most recent interviews I
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: saw with you, you weren't. It didn't seem like you were.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: Maybe it was more fresh and so I think maybe
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: you weren't as in such a settled place. So that's
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: good to hear.
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, well, well I'll tell you what. For me,
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: and this job helped a lot to fuel even the
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: genetic curse of alcoholism. Uh and uh, you know, riding
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: with that through this crazy job was an interesting, interesting,
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: interesting road to fallow. But uh, I finally got that
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: nipped in the bud a couple of years ago, and
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: that has just been amazing. From my own piece, and
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: and just being able to deal with the world in general. Honestly,
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: it's it's night and day. How easier things are. I
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: quit you're at home.
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: Just like cold turkey.
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I just kind of weaned myself off and
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: set a goal and never looked back.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: Good for you.
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's awesome. I'm really I'm having a great time
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: and everything's easier. Honestly, Yeah, everything's just easier. I Mean
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: there's times where I'm like, God, it'd be easier at
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: the social function to get you know, to get some
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: drinks up in here or do with this anxiety. But
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: I found with uh, it was it was kind of
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: fueling more anxiety for me trying trying to kind of
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: kill that imposter syndrome and stuff like that. That just
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: the natural it's there backstage. You kind of get used
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: to trying to bury those feelings of you know, awkwardness
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: on the road and missing people at home, all those
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: feelings you're trying to bury them with that. But it
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: was only creating more anxiety for me to where I
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: was like, oh, what if we eliminated that one and see,
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: let's try to see if that helps in Uh. Yeah,
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: it just opened my world to a whole lot more,
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: a whole just big, brighter space to feel at peace
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: and to navigate, to navigate any kind of troubles.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: How has it been with songwriting, Like has that changed
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: your processes at all writing new songs, like not being
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: able to drink or I imagine drinking was maybe somehow
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: part of that process. Did you have any fear that, like, oh,
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: maybe I can't write as well now?
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: Well, I think it still kind of persists in that.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: I'm like, I used to go escape to write and drink,
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean. So it's like now that
• 48:49
  Speaker 3: you're only escaping to go I need to go escape
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: to the writing aspect, It's like, oh, there was this
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: whole other thing. I was a destination I was reaching too,
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: which was to finally be able to like to booze,
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: and so to get the motivation is different, right, Like
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: because it used to be like, Okay, I'm escaping like
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: this marriage for a second to go right you know.
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: Now it's like, damn, I'm so easy with everything. In
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: a way, it's like, Okay, I have to like force
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: myself to go deal with this stuff, you know, to
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: like or to like tap into things, you know, themes
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: that are uncomfortable to kind of to tread in. It's
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: it's it's harder to get the motivation to go into
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: the lab, you know what I mean. But I've found
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: that the clarity with which the job is performed is
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: a bit more keen, you know, I feel like, uh
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: and I feel totally different in the studio now, like
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: and singing on a mic, and and because I would
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: also even in the studio just like drinking to you know,
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: kill the kill the feelings, yeah, and kill the scaries.
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: But uh now I'm I feel like I sing better,
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: I perform better. Everything I do is just easier. So
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: like even with the new record, yet it's been hard
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: to find the damn the gut to go and really spill.
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: I do feel like the product isn't isn't diluted in
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: any way. The despair is the despair is still there,
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: you know, and the imagination is still there. I haven't
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: lost a minute of that. If anything, I feel like
• 50:32
  Speaker 3: my my mental capacity is just is a bit more focused.
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: It's so cool, I.
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: Hope, so amazing. Like still at this age, we're the
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: same age, but still at this age you can kind
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: of repair yourself.
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: Like that, really can, you really can. And it's never
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: too late. It's never too late to reverse the curse
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: whatever it may be. You know, I'm so just as
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: much as like you know, falling into this this band
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: thing and writing the songs. It's it's like, oh my god,
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: it's like it feels like a manifestation, you know, And
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: it kind of it happened, you know, out of nowhere.
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: I had no business being getting signed to subpoth and
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: going to Europe and stuff. I had no business doing that.
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: But here we are. I had no business also bucking
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: the trend of my ancestors and getting that thing turned
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: in the other direction. So yeah, it's anyone can do it.
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: You just gotta just kind of gotta buck up and
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: you know, hit it head on.
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: It takes a lot of guts, and it takes a
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: lot of perseverance too, because it's not easy.
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: Oh but it's easy once you start feeling good, once
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: you start.
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: Feeling till you start feeling better.
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: I would say I started to really notice that my
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: mood was so much lighter. I wouldn't say, like a
• 51:54
  Speaker 3: month and a half, two months, and I'm like, I
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: just felt a weight less weight on me, you know,
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: and my my good moods were lasting longer. Yeah, you know,
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: I was just yeah, just oh my god. Everything immediately
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: started to feel like it was easier to deal with
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: on a phone call, face to face and da Dennis office,
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean, or going to the school
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: functions and stuff. I'm not hiding a secret.
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, oh yeah, yeah that was brutal.
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: It's like you kind of always feel like you are
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: kind of like living this like dark other life kind
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: of thing that these the the rest of society. They
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: know that you're different because of your job in a way, right,
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: But when you're mixing and mingling with all these kids,
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: parents and teachers and stuff like that, it's like, oh,
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: you have no idea the darkness I'm caring around. Oh yeah,
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: not anymore.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: I bet a lot of people have stuff though, you
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: know for sure it's a lot of people have stuff.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: So tell me about the new album. What point in
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: the process are you at right now?
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: Supposed to be sending it to mixing was supposed to
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: about a couple of weeks ago. I'm I'm really trying
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: to strike a balance of being at home and working too.
• 53:06
  Speaker 3: But there's still some growing pains going on here where
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: I'm like it's hard to have my foot and and
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: and that creative space like that where because I really
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: dig in and I'm I'm all in when i'm and
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: I'm usually out of town when I do it when
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: it's time to like finish a project, especially to get
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: over that finish line. But right now I'm like, oh,
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: I'm not I'm not ready to send it all in yet.
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: So I'm I'm still himming in the hauling on a
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: couple of lyrical things. And I'm just like, come on,
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: You're better than this, bro, You're better than this. Don't
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: be don't be so basic. I just I kick my
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: own butt throughout the entire process. I'm sure I've done
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: it for every other project. It's just that I'm like,
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: I'm finding a new excuse. I'm like, well, if if
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: I was in a dang hotel room at night, you know,
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: and just like only thinking of that instead of like, oh, dang,
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: I gotta get kid to an orthodontist appointment tomorrow. You know,
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: I'm looking for excuses of why I'm not finishing it.
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: But but the answer would be it's just not good
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: enough yet.
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: So and you know that, like, yeah, do you know
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: that from just from within yourself or is it stuff
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: you're playing for other people in their reaction, or do
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: you just know like to me, it's not up to
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: snuff to.
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: Me, the stories aren't adding up completely. Okay, Like I'm
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: trying to describe something and I'm not doing as good
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: a job as I could if I could just lock
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: in once I've tapped into it and really describe it correctly.
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: Just some things are just clumsy. Somethings are just clumsy,
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: and that's not that's not good enough. If anything Phil
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: taught me also from that first record too, is like
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: this project deserves your full attention and all of your
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: ability to get it to that next that that higher
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: place where it can live forever. So he I think
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: he instilled that in me. Uh, and I carry it.
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: I carry it with you. I'm like, which is tough
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: because you're always gonna you could you could nitpick you know,
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: everything in your life, but no, at some point you
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: do have to let the thing go. And I will
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: because we got to start working this this reissue next month,
• 55:21
  Speaker 3: so I'll I'll finish it in the next couple of weeks.
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: I reckon, I will. Actually I'm not. I don't reckon.
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: I know I'm going to.
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: You're going to. Yeah, is there anything you can tell
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: us about it? The sound, any of the songs, like
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: anything that I'm sure a lot of people want to
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: know every little thing about it. What do you what
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: do you want to say about it?
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: Well, the record is a bit more organic in that
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: it's like there's not a lot of keyboards, if any
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: so far. I don't think there's not a lot of
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: like extra touches. It's it's a bit more. The songs
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: are a bit aggressive for one, and and yeah, and
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: that's always been kind of a thing, even if they
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: didn't make the cut. Sometimes I've always been into like
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: always wanting to be in a punk band anyways, and
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: always loving the rough and tumble nature of you know, uh,
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: punk rock and hindie rock and just sloppy art rock
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: and whatever. So this is a bit abrasive, i think
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: in a way, which is strange to not be mellowing
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: with age. But but and it's yeah, I'm still pissed off,
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm still I've always been ornery and cantankerous
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: and just mad, you know, but I'm so happy. I'm
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: so happy. It's weird too, because I'm like, I'm in
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: such a good place, and I'm like, oh.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, that's a funny thing that like you're not
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden you made the switch, like the
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: new album's all happy songs. I figured it out.
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: It is not, which is so weird because I think
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: a lot of people meet me like you seem like
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: such a happy dude, like why are your songs so sad?
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: And I'm and this is weird because a lot of
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: these songs I'm trying to get over the finish line
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: are written from the perspective of, you know, from a
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: couple of years now of accumulated experiences since the last one,
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: And I'm like, God, this guy was buzzkill, you know
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: what I mean. I'm like, how do I relate to
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: this guy too? But I'm always gonna be a bit
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: uh probably always a bitsive, pisson vinegar to some degree.
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: But I'm really having a great time. Please don't be alarmed.
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: I'm I don't need a wellness check. I'm doing great. Promise.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: Have you ever just like messed around and made music
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: that sounds completely different than Band of Horses?
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: Yes? Yes, I mess around with lots of weird stuff
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: and I get I get obsessed on samples and stuff
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: like that, and I will I'll make I'll make like
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: cutting up audio and stuff like that from from you know,
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: like TV stuff or from other records and stuff like that. Yeah,
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: I'll get really obsessive with that kind of stuff. Sometimes
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: I'll get into like making beats. Sometimes I'll get into
• 58:04
  Speaker 3: making instrumental kind of ambient thing. Sometimes too, I'm really
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: into toys because I've never really again never been much
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: of a real musician, and that I'm gonna learn my craft.
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm always looking at new toys, new things,
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: new sources of inspiration all over the place. You know,
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: whether it's like we have songs where it's like a
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: song will be born out of a window being cracked
• 58:32
  Speaker 3: in my hotel room and it's paying a playing a pitch.
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: I'm like, Okay, I'm just gonna hone in on that
• 58:37
  Speaker 3: sound and try to write around that kind of stuff.
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm forever curious and messy with it. But yes,
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: i do love that stuff. But there's nothing like the
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: satisfaction for me of of also making music that my
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: brother and my dad and I can be like, you know,
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: at Christmas time, be like that slaps you know what
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: I'm saying. So that's kind of like that's where it
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: usually returns to home base, you know, and it's a
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: bit full circle here, but yeah, yeah, that kind of
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: southern end rock stuff is it's kind of our jam,
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: you know, it's really it's the cornerstone I think of
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: of of where we end usually back when we're listening
• 59:20
  Speaker 3: to other stuff around the stereo when we get together.
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: And I'm still making mixtapes for people, honestly, really absolutely,
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: I'm still. I mean, now it's what is a playlist now?
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: But my dad asked me. My dad had his birthday
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: two weeks ago and we had another snowstorms, so I
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: couldn't make it down to go see him. But he's like, hey,
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: when you do come back, will you burn me a CD?
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: You know I still got a CD burner. Yes, I'm
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: gonna burn you a new CD. So, uh, we're still
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: doing it.
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: What'd you put on it?
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm waiting to go see him, but I know
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: he wants the new Horses stuff that I'm making. I
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: think he wants to be able to listen to it
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: in his car. That's what I am going to make
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: him A proper, a proper mix. For sure. He's he's due.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: I was looking at your the Georgia Volume one mixtape
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: or the playlist sorry that you put up and Spotify,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: And I was wondering, like, do blood, Sweat and Tears
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: go into that playlist? Like are you overthinking it? Like
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 2: or do you just throw stuff together and you're like,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: all right, that's good.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: The answer is I definitely overthink it and I always
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 3: feel like it's not enough. But and a lot of
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: that like mixing with messing with like cutting up audio
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: and stuff. Stem tell me that's from mixtapes. From mixtapes, Yeah,
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: I would have like you know, like the dual cassette
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: decks and then like the CD player and the CD burner,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: you know, and I would I would kind of make
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: just like interludes in between songs and stuff like that
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 3: to two smooth transitions into different styles or whatever it know.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: So yeah, very.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: Much so in movie clips and stuff like that just
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: to make you know, somebody laugh. So a lot of
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 3: that stuff stems from it all comes back to making
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: mixtapes really, you know, and I'm just trying to make
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: and I'm trying to make one for my dad and
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: my brother and me within the band in a way.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: That's so cool. Okay, I want to ask you about
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: some of the specific songs here on this Georgia volume.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: One playlist. What about RIM's imitation? Is it imitation? Man?
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 3: I just love Rim so much. And you know, Rim
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 3: really uh, Rim emboldened the art and indie and rock
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 3: community of the South, you know, to say like, oh
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: my god, we can do this, like you can actually
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: break through and and there's there's legit talent that needs
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: to be expressed here in the South that's not just
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: you know, uh, you know, country frat boy stuff. So
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: I love that song so much and it means a
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: lot to me. I used to listen to that song
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: with my two oldest kids when they were first going
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: to like pre k and stuff like that. We that's
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: we always gravitated toward that song. They just they love
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: that And I would start to play that I'm really superstitious,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: and I'd play it like after a if Georgia won
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: a football game, you know, I'd have to like listen
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: to that song for fear that if I don't, we'll
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: lose the next game. Yeah, that kind of stuff. But yeah,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: I love Rim so much. I saw something recently of
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: you know, like in office, all these people going around
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: like what's the best Rim song? And everyone's got a
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: different song, you know, And I saw I. This was
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 3: like four thirty in the morning when I saw this,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: So I was like, dude, I don't know if I
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: could name mine. So I like started my own like
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: RIM playlist. This is just like two days ago, and
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: I'm like, it's like twenty five songs deep. I'm still
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: not satisfied with uh, with making sure that I've got
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: all my favorites in it.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: You know, I like night Swimming.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: Night Swimming is fantastic, so good, so good, and I
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: mean beautiful. There's still a lot of gold to go
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: mine in for in the RIM catalog that maybe got
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: kind of overlooked in those later years.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: I feel the same way.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for me, Perfect Circle, the perfect Circle gives me
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: chills from the top of my head to the tip
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: of my toes. Perfect Circle.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: Okay, I need to listen to that as soon as
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: we're off. Since you spent time sort of like the band,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: some of the band's formative years in Seattle, and this
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: was post grunge, of course, who looking back at like
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: the you know, grunge at its height, Like, who were
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: your favorite grunge bands?
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: Well, I was lucky that, you know, to have Me
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: and my friend group were like really lucky to have
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: older siblings. We were all like the babies of our
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: of our families, and our older siblings got us into
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: like my brother got me into mud Hunting before I
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: heard Nirvana, so it was like, but Nirvana to me
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: is like they're just so raw and real and good
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: to me, the songwriting is so good, like like Beatles
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: level good. Yeah, so it lives forever. But I I love,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: I love mud Honey and I and I, I mean
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: I liked, I liked even like the stuff that wasn't
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: considered grunged but was like like pop like the Fastbacks
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: and stuff like that, or like there was like some
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: kind of garage type bands that were on like Espress Records,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: and I mean, what was Tree people. They were like
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: Neil Young influenced. Yeah, they just didn't fit into like
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: whatever the grunge sound was, which is just a label, right,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: But yeah, of the time frame, there's so many there's
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: such a well of inspiration up there that is undeniable.
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: But for me and Pearl Jam, I love Pearl Jam.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: I grew to love Pearl Jam getting to know them
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: and torn with them.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they seemed like super cool guys.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: Absolutely and have great songs, but for me, like Nirvana
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: is really like top tier. Like I'm I feel like
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 3: lucky to have been alive and seen that happen me too.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: I say that all the time. I feel like you're
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: so special and I love that there's only three of them.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I know what in the world, there's a lot
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: of racket for just a few dudes.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: How's he doing that that guitar, Mike? How many guitars
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: are playings like one? Dude?
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: Wow?
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, So thank you so much, Ben, I'm sorry I
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: took so much of your time. You're fun to talk to.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: I didn't even notice if it was over and us
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: and no, you're amazing. Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: And I'm a fan of what y'all do, and I'm
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: just such a fan of music. I love that y'all
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: get underneath the surface of these stories and I really
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: appreciate what you do so respect and thank you for
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: having me. I really, I really am grateful and it's
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: nice to meet you.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 2: Nice to meet you too. I can't wait to hear
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: the new album. When you hear you rock out.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: Hey, it'll be fun, I swear. Just don't just don't
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: think I'm depressed, so I'm doing fine, cool all right.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: An episode description, you'll find a link to a playlist
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: feature in our favorites from Brand of Courses. Be sure
• 1:06:10
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• 1:06:13
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• 1:06:16
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• 1:06:18
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• 1:06:21
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• 1:06:23
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• 1:06:26
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• 1:06:30
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• 1:06:45
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• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: Our theme music's by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.