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About That Pod #4 - Chad Stocker on Our The High Strung List · Deprogrammed Music Podcast

0:00
Record now. I mean, it's not like there's
0:02
any kind of professionalism here, you know?
0:05
2 points in. Professionalism.
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It's it's me so like you know, it is what it is, but I'm going
0:13
to I'm going to dial this. What do you think?
0:14
Should I dial it? Should I do it do it do it do it
0:18
do it do it. Let's see what happens here
0:21
Call. I did tell him 930.
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Oh, it's ringing. You guys hear that?
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Yeah. Loud.
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Worst case scenario is he can't get to it right now over.
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Here, jamming out to the sky music.
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Hello. Oh, Chad, Hi.
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Hey, Chad, this is Justin, Jenny and Tommy.
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And we just did a podcast about the High Strung.
0:57
Wow, thanks for doing that. We.
1:00
It was my pleasure. Jenny, do you want a nerd girl
1:03
out for a minute? No, I can't.
1:08
It's it's going to be like that SNL thing.
1:11
Like, hey, you remember, you remember when you guys did that
1:13
song? Yeah, I love that.
1:17
So I want to start here. So the way we do the show is the
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show we pick the top 10 starter kit for anybody who hasn't
1:27
listened to The High Strung before.
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And I, I am one of those people. I had never heard of The High
1:33
Strung before technically two years ago, but I never actually
1:37
listened until about 3 weeks ago.
1:39
So I am one of these people we were trying to reach, and I'm
1:43
going to put this to you. And six million of them would
1:48
like that to happen. Well, you know, we're going to,
1:52
we're going to do our part with, with the episode and we're going
1:54
to do a little bit more today. I hope 'cause I think not to
1:59
wash balls, but I, I think people are missing out on a
2:01
really terrific band. Like I, I don't understand what
2:04
what the deal. Is here.
2:07
Well, yeah, we've been asking ourselves that same question 20.
2:10
Years, But so I'm going to start here, like the the last thing we
2:16
do on every episode is we pick the number one song with a
2:19
bullet. What is the one song that that
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will represent the band in our best of of the year episode?
2:26
And what is the what is the one song?
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If you had one song from the 10 that you would tell somebody to
2:33
listen to to get in the high strung.
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And the one we came up with before I give you the rest of
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the 10 was riots of the mind. And I just kind of wanted to get
2:41
get your thoughts on on riots of the mind and wonder if there's
2:44
like a story behind that. Well, the, the thing I, I can
2:49
think of right off the RIP with Riots of the Mind is that it was
2:53
our, it was off of our last record, the title Riots of the
2:57
Mind. No, it's called Quiet Riots.
3:02
And, and that's the first song on the album.
3:05
And that's the first album we did with one of the original
3:09
members of the band back in the band.
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He, he, he had left the band and late 2004, this is Mark Owen.
3:21
And, and he hadn't been in the band soon.
3:24
And then he came and he moved, he moved back home to Detroit.
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I don't know, maybe four years ago or so, maybe 4-5 years ago.
3:33
And he's like, I want to join the band again.
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And we said OK. And so it was the first time.
3:41
It was the first time and probably, I mean, I don't know,
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I don't think he was in the I think he was out of the band for
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like, I don't know, 15 years or something like that or
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something, I don't know, 10 years.
3:52
I'm not like I wish I knew the the numbers right off the bat
3:56
here. I can't, I can't remember when
3:57
he came back, but we quickly made riots of the mind and that
4:01
came out 2018. I know.
4:04
So, yeah. So that I think is, it's what's
4:07
cool about it is that, you know, he, when he got back into the
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band, it kind of breathed all this new life into the group,
4:14
you know, because we hadn't toured in a long time.
4:18
And touring what it used to was a big part of our, it's a big
4:21
part of our thing. You know, we just, we toured a
4:23
lot and then at some point we stopped and then everybody
4:28
started to have families and jobs and stuff like that.
4:31
And then when Mark moved back home, you know, and we made a
4:34
couple of albums with during that time, but when Mark moved
4:38
back home, he kind of like breathed the whole sorts of new
4:41
life and back into the back 'cause it was so new to him to
4:44
be in a band. So he was always, he was real,
4:48
you know, gung ho, Like, hey, let's play a gig.
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Let's let's rehearse this week and let's do this and let's do
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that. And we'll make a video where,
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you know, he was, he was the gung ho guy where all the rest
5:00
of us were like, oh man, we've been doing this for 17 years.
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I don't know. It's kind of on autopilot, you
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know, And autopilot for us though was like still writing a
5:10
number of songs and playing a ton of gigs, but it just, it was
5:14
something new and fresh and rejuvenating about him coming
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back into the group. So.
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I'm get that fresh energy coming in, kind of.
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Yeah, yeah. He was like a little kid, you
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know, coming into this thing. Yeah, coming back.
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To it. I'm glad you said that, though.
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There there is. So first of all, we did we we
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covered, I think it was 11 was the number 11 albums, which is
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normally a lot, but there isn't a misstep in the entire
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discography. 0 none. They're all they're all freaking
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fantastic, which makes this show difficult.
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But there there is something to say about quiet riots.
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There was like a different, like a different energy to it.
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Like I guess it came through in the music.
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Well, cool, I'm glad that you guys could feel that too,
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because it definitely felt like that to us.
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I think you know, you guys even like Dragon.
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Dicks. Yes.
6:12
Yes, I like dragon Dicks. Let me isolate that Who?
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Doesn't like dragon Dicks really.
6:21
No. That's like going to be it, and
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now somebody's going to pull that out as a sound bite and
6:26
take it out of proportion. Here's out of context.
6:28
That was out of context. Here's Hope, yeah.
6:33
No kidding. So I mean, you, you have when
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you have such a you, you mentioned that you guys just you
6:41
like the norm for you guys was just, you know, gigging and and
6:45
writing, but like how to to, to put that much great content out
6:50
in in this time frame? Like how often were you guys
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writing like? Well, we, we were right.
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We rode on the road, you know, like Josh, Josh Mellon was OK.
7:02
Well, so when we started off, we lived in New York and that was
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2000. I moved there in August of 2000.
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So we're celebrating our 20th anniversary right now.
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Congratulations. Thank you.
7:14
Yeah, it's pretty cool. We so we and then around 2000,
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let's see, I think it was 2002, we left New York on a three
7:29
month tour. And then after that three month
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tour, we were like, I think we should just continue to go back
7:35
on tour. We should, we should take a
7:37
break. Let's record our record.
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We're going to record it in Detroit with Jim Diamond because
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we really liked, you know, his garage rack aesthetic.
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Since we're all from Detroit, we could have a probably free
7:52
places to stay while we were rehearsing for it.
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And at one, at 1 by 1, we just sort of started to break our
8:00
ties from New York. We gave up our apartments and
8:03
gave up our jobs and all this and that collected all the stuff
8:07
we had let other people borrow before we went on tour, you
8:10
know, and then, you know, and that was that.
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So then we recorded our our first record.
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These are good times and in Detroit and then we went right
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back out on tour and then TP Records put it out in 2003 and
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we were just on tour non-stop for that, for that album.
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And then around, yeah, like I said, around the end of 2004, we
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and we did, we did a tour with Brian Jonestown Massacre in that
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time. We did a tour with a great
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Philadelphia band called the Capital Years.
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And we did another tour at that time, during that, during that
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time with a band from Washington, DC called the Carl
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Sonics. And they were all, all
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incredible. I loved, loved all of those
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bands. Then Mark left the group.
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Then, you know, we just decided basically.
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Then there was, oh, well, sorry, I'm sorry.
9:08
There was another guy in the band at that time.
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His name was Jason Berkowitz. He left after we recorded These
9:14
are Good Times. He left the group and he moved
9:16
to Los Angeles. So then there were four and then
9:21
Mark left the band at the end of 2004.
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And then there were three. And that's where like, that's
9:27
when we decided then we were, we were three.
9:29
We were lean and lean and we re recorded our second record
9:34
because we wanted to do something fresh as a three piece
9:37
instead of doing some of the stuff we had recorded already
9:40
for it. With Mark.
9:42
We kind of pushed those to the side.
9:43
We re recorded the record and we had luck you got was on that
9:48
record and we just like we rehearsed for like 3 weeks.
9:53
We took three days and we recorded the whole thing in
9:56
three days. Wow.
9:59
Yeah, well, because we were, we were determined to not let Mark
10:04
leaving mess with us. You know, like because it could
10:09
have. And I'm sure it.
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Did You Know? In other ways.
10:12
But when you're young and you're, you know, you're kind of
10:16
cocky and you just want to be like, no, no, we're going to do
10:18
this, we're going to do it, we'll do it.
10:20
And we did it. So we did, you know, you can do
10:22
things back then. Yeah.
10:23
It's like superhuman strength or something.
10:28
And then we proceeded to just be on the road pretty much nonstop
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for about 6 years as a three piece and we literally would be
10:35
on the road 910 eleven months out of each year for about 6
10:41
years. Is that when the the infamous
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bus thing happened at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
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No, Mark was in the group for that, though.
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He was definitely in the group for that.
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But yes, we did that. That would have been 2000.
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That would have probably been 2003 or 4.
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I believe. Yeah, we were.
11:00
Had a gig in New York. We had already bought our second
11:03
van. We knew we were getting rid of
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the first van. So we actually wrote like a
11:10
whole, you know, like plaque for it, you know, and we made our
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own, you know, sort of stand and plaque thing for it.
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And we drove it up the front steps of the Rock and Roll Hall
11:21
of Fame. And we left it there.
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And then we got we all got back into the new van and we went to
11:26
New York and played a gig. Rocky fucking roll.
11:29
Love it. How long did that sit there
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before somebody finally said, does this belong?
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I don't think it sat there for longer than, I don't know, five
11:37
hours, I don't know. So I think.
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We ended up getting like a notification of it because we
11:46
left our phone number on that play.
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Like we, we left the keys, you know, like, well, we wanted to
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leave the keys because we didn't want to stick them with like a
11:53
whole thing, you know, like, oh, we got to tow it now and it's
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going to cost us this move. You know, we were like, here's
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the keys, here's our phone number.
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We love you. Here's the name of the band.
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Here's everybody in the band, you know, because we didn't, you
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know, we just, and they, I don't know what they ended up.
12:10
I'm sure they towed it and threw it into a junkyard.
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Supposedly, Josh got an e-mail from a police officer that said,
12:21
you know, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame wasn't very, they
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weren't really happy with you doing that.
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But I just want to let you know that I thought it was really
12:30
cool that you did. Yes, yes, yeah.
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Yeah. So that was that.
12:40
We, so we mentioned that there's 11 albums, but the runtime is
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like, I think it topped out at like 6 1/2 hours.
12:48
Is it safe to say that that has a lot to do with you had
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mentioned writing on the road, just kind of getting straight to
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the point. Yeah, I think, you know,
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especially the three guys, especially Derek and Derek the
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drummer and Mark and Josh who are the 2 like main songwriters.
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I think their true passion, you know, like their the music that
13:17
gets them was like pop rock music, you know, the Kinks and
13:22
The Beatles and Stones and The Who and you know, like a lot of
13:29
that, you know. And so it's not that they don't
13:32
love other things too, but I think that that was like their
13:35
bread and butter, you know, and that was what they were drawing
13:39
there. Not so necessarily inspiration,
13:42
but just like they're they're like learning from those bands,
13:45
you know, and those bands have shortened to the point songs.
13:49
They're like songsters, you know, they, they know the craft
13:53
of writing song, you know, sort of like Brill building or
13:57
something too. You know, that's another big
13:59
important thing. As you can tell on Quiet Riots,
14:02
they have that song Gotham and King, which is just like their
14:06
homage to the Brill building writers.
14:10
And I think that's where they're like, I think that's where they
14:13
learned the craft of song. And so when that, you know,
14:19
that's how we would write songs. Now live, on the other hand, is
14:23
a different story because we used to jam out particular, you
14:26
know, certain songs. We used to have moments of
14:29
improvisation here and there. And I think that was probably
14:33
more of my influence because I came from the Grateful Dead.
14:38
It was a huge. And again, we all love the
14:42
Grateful Dead, but I was a, I was more of like a, an
14:46
improvisational kind of person. I was coming from some like
14:50
improv jazz, some free jazz, avant-garde things and stuff.
14:55
Right before I got to New York, I was just into some other
14:59
things besides rock'n'roll. And a lot of those things sort
15:03
of were improvisation. And so I was kind of trying to
15:06
bring that into the band a little, and I never quite made
15:10
it onto any songs. Like Model Boats is a song on
15:15
Posi Blay Oh, and Posi Blay, and there's like a kind of an
15:18
extended solo section in that song.
15:21
So sometimes they made it to record, but not very often.
15:24
More of a live thing. That interests me because I I
15:28
never would have guessed like again 6 1/2 hour runtime like I
15:32
would. I would guess that you guys get
15:33
on stage, punch you in the mouth and get off.
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But now that interests me because I'd love to hear hear
15:39
what that is like. Like just fully extended and
15:42
really kind of experimenting into some of these these great
15:45
tunes that quite frankly sometimes are done too soon.
15:50
Well, like Giant, you know, Giant Giant was another one, is
15:53
another one that we usually do sort of an extended thing.
15:58
And Anything goes was a song we used to do in a jam.
16:04
Rah, rah, Rah off the first record was sort of a thing we
16:07
would kind of extend. But yeah, so I guess we would
16:11
punch you in the, we would punch you in the nose for a while, and
16:14
then we would just sort of bat you around a little bit for one
16:17
or two, you know, just kind of, yeah, just kind of like a cat,
16:20
Yeah. Drag one home and leave it with
16:23
somebody for a present. Cute little Kitty.
16:26
Yeah. And then we would, then we would
16:28
leave its remains at the front door for you, for the humans.
16:31
Nice. Gift as a gift.
16:33
Yes. So as I mentioned, the the, the
16:36
point of our show is, is to get people into the band.
16:40
And to do that we we listen to everything.
16:42
Each of us gets to pluck out 20 songs, then we mash it together
16:45
to create a top 10 starter kit. So I've only got to do this one
16:48
other time. Tom Pappas of Super Drag agreed
16:52
to talk to me about it. And that was that was a lot of
16:54
fun. Cool.
16:55
Yeah, I think we might have played with him one time in
16:59
Wisconsin or something like that, like a solo gig.
17:02
Yeah, Yeah, he, is he like a Christian kind of rocker or
17:05
something, or am I thinking of somebody?
17:07
Else he might be like he told me he was doing the the name of the
17:11
current project is the Tom Pappas Collection and I I think
17:16
it is kind of more like a Christian rock thing.
17:18
So. Then yeah, we might have.
17:21
Yeah. Yeah, we may have shared a gig
17:24
with him at some point. I remember somebody saying he's
17:26
Christian and I don't, I don't. It was good.
17:29
Yeah, good music is what matters, right?
17:31
Weird at all or anything like that and I.
17:35
So I. Maybe, hey, if if we want to get
17:37
people to like our band, then maybe we should omit that whole
17:41
Grateful Dead section. Yeah, I get it, but they they
17:47
wrong. All right, so I'm going to
17:50
bounce these 10s up to these 10 songs off you.
17:52
And if if you want to like throw any thoughts on on the song or,
17:56
you know, a little story behind it.
17:58
What whatever you want to do with this information.
18:01
But we already told you riots of the mind was our number one with
18:03
a bullet. We also have the world's
18:06
smallest violin. Nice.
18:11
Should I just go right after you say them or you want to read the
18:14
whole list or Or should I just start talking about world's
18:17
smallest violin? If you got something about
18:19
world's smallest violin, go, my friend.
18:22
Well, it's it really is one of my dearest like one of my
18:26
favorite songs too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
18:29
I love, I love that. Well, when Ryan's in the mind is
18:31
also I think Ryan's in the mind. To me, the production on that
18:34
song is great. And we we got like, you know,
18:37
there's lots of cool harmony in it and there's some different
18:40
parts and I like even tuned my E string down to AD so I could do
18:44
that like Beatles RIP off, you know?
18:50
So yeah, I mean, riots is a really cool like I just love it.
18:54
And the reverb on the bass in the front, you know, in that
18:56
very beginning part anyway. So in the smallest violin I love
19:01
because Jason Berkowitz, he he, you know, when he was in the
19:09
band and we would start, we started playing that song, you
19:13
know, well, generally it would be like me and him would switch
19:17
on guitar and bass and occasional keyboard.
19:21
But for that song, he wouldn't play any stringed instrument.
19:24
And he would just go over to Derek's drum kit and just play
19:28
one of the Toms. He would play like a Tom while
19:31
Derek was playing the the rest of the kit because it has like
19:35
sort of dislike sort of barreling, driving drum beat.
19:40
So I thought that that's like an interesting thing that never
19:43
happened on any other song, you know, and really never.
19:46
Oh, Josh would do it. Then also, we would start
19:49
jamming a little bit. We would just, I think when
19:52
Palmer got in the band, we would do that song occasionally.
19:56
It's a Mark song, but we would still sing it even though he
19:58
wasn't in the band, no. And I think, and there was,
20:02
yeah, because Mark and Josh were still, they continued to be, we
20:05
everybody continued to be friendly with each other, you
20:08
know, while he wasn't in the group.
20:11
So it wasn't weird, wasn't too weird for us to just do one of
20:14
his tunes. Gotcha.
20:16
And then Josh would do the thing on the floor Tom, while me and
20:21
Derek and Steven Palmer would like kind of do the end section.
20:27
And I like it too. They're like the bass kind of
20:30
plays chords on it. So it's got a sort of a
20:34
different like, to me, it has like sort of an indie, sort of
20:37
more indie rock kind of like drab feel to it that I like.
20:44
So, yeah, there's world's most violin great, you know, and I I
20:48
imagine he must have gotten that catch line from Reservoir Dogs.
20:53
Maybe the you know what? This is the world's smallest
20:55
violin playing for these girls. I don't know.
21:00
I never asked it where I got it from.
21:01
I just assumed it was from Reservoir Dogs.
21:04
All right, so then we've got the luck you got.
21:08
You know luck you got. It's our.
21:10
Biggest, It's our hit song. It's our hit song that nobody
21:14
knows. Yeah, right, right.
21:19
Let's change that. Let's we'll try to change that
21:21
here. Then we got what a difference a
21:24
day makes. Wow, you guys went deep.
21:28
I love that tune. What a Difference a Day Makes
21:30
was one of the first songs we worked on when I moved to New
21:36
York. Like I remember so.
21:39
And it had worked it out. They had worked it out.
21:41
We're like Mark was playing the bass on it even though on the
21:46
recording I play that baseline, but that's the line he was he
21:49
played. So I just I just mimicked
21:52
everything he did and Burka. Well, Jason Berkowitz, we call
21:57
him Burkow. Burkow is playing a keyboard for
22:00
that. So I was like, I guess I'm
22:02
playing guitar on this one. So I wanted to like make these
22:06
like sort of lady parts to it. And it's a really cool song.
22:11
I think on the recording too, there was a lot of like
22:13
production stuff where we like pulled stuff out and it would
22:17
just be like the keyboard for a section.
22:20
But that's not necessarily how we played it live.
22:24
So we ended up sort of arranging it while we mixed it and that
22:30
became the arrangement of the song afterwards.
22:33
Nice. And great song.
22:34
I love what a difference a day makes.
22:36
I always wanted to do a remix version of that song and call it
22:40
What a Difference Delay makes. That never happened.
22:45
I don't know anybody. I mean, it's like, Nah, I'm not
22:47
going to remix it. I don't know how to do that.
22:51
Such a good title. I like the.
22:53
I like the word play. I like it.
22:55
I think, I think Josh had a whole thing about the title of
22:58
that song, though. What a difference a day makes.
23:00
Like it's kind of like a saying like sort of a old time, like
23:05
kind of throwaway, like cliche or something.
23:07
And I think he wanted to like sort of write around that, that
23:11
that notion. I like it, and me too.
23:15
We got human. Wow, Human.
23:19
OK. Oh, hold on a second.
23:25
I got to write down all the songs because the guys are will
23:28
ask me which ones do you guys picked?
23:30
So Human. Yeah, Human.
23:33
So Human is off of possible. And that was our first record we
23:38
did with Steven Palmer. Palmer.
23:40
Steven Palmer joined our band when we were working out how to
23:44
play Dragon Dicks live because we were going to do a whole
23:49
record release party for Dragon Dicks.
23:52
And we rented out a big theater and we covered it in vines and
23:57
we made this paper mache dragon head and we had like a belly
24:02
dancer and we had like 5 other people playing in the band with
24:06
us, Palmer included. And then he was the only one
24:10
that we kept in the band after the Dragon Dicks show was over.
24:15
And and then Josh ended up moving into a house with Palmer.
24:20
Palmer had a house already had extra room.
24:22
And Josh moved into that house and they kind of started writing
24:26
this material for this for possible.
24:31
And Human was one of those tracks that came out of that.
24:36
And I don't know, I think it was like, I think we just wanted to
24:41
make, I don't know, it just turned into this more like, I
24:46
don't know, like a almost like a dance song or something, you
24:49
know, I feel like it has like interesting rhythm to it and it
24:53
doesn't necessarily sound like anything else we've ever done.
24:58
Yeah, I I loved how it didn't sound like any other high strung
25:04
song, but it still felt like a high strung song.
25:07
Like that's that is a very, very difficult thing for a band to
25:11
do, to be able to, to dance away from, you know, I use the word
25:16
dance, Thanks. Dance away from their sound, but
25:19
still make it sound like they're band, like it's, you know, I dig
25:23
it. We got really very careful.
25:29
Beautiful song. Really very careful.
25:33
They we were ended up we recorded I anybody the album
25:37
that that's on. We recorded that at Stephen
25:40
Palmer's house. So he tracked and you know, like
25:44
recorded that that album, we would do it on Saturday
25:51
afternoons for like 3 hours a piece.
25:54
So that's how we would get this work done.
25:56
And I would always show up late because I was a brunch cook.
26:00
So I, I always have to be at work at 7:00 AM on Saturdays and
26:05
I would get off at 2:00 and drive over to his house and
26:08
they'd already be recording. And it was kind of pissed me off
26:12
and it was kind of, I was like, this is like not the funnest
26:18
recording to me, you know, like I'm covered in eggs, you know,
26:24
like syrup and I'm walking into the house and you guys are
26:28
already started. And that's happened every week.
26:31
But it did yield a really nice sounding album with some really
26:34
cool songs and really very careful is beautiful tune that
26:41
Josh's fiance sang on too. She's like the high voice in
26:45
that on the recording and then sometimes live she'll she'll
26:48
jump on stage and sing that as well with us.
26:51
Very cool. Guilt is how I'm built.
26:56
Yeah, cool. Guilt is how I'm built.
27:00
Really. One of the like the cooler like
27:02
rock numbers off of Ode to the Inverse of the Dude and Ode to
27:07
the Inverse of the Dude. We did in Canada, like in the
27:10
winter time in Canada and you're like a really small rural town a
27:18
few hours away from Toronto in Ontario.
27:21
And we would drive into there and the the producer is David
27:26
Neufeld, who had recorded a bunch of what are they called
27:32
Canada Band. They're like a big group.
27:35
Broken Social Scene. Oh, did a few broken Social
27:38
scene records. OK.
27:40
Amongst other records, but those were probably the big claim to
27:44
fame there and and guilt is haven't built was kind of was
27:48
like the IT came out the most to me, the most like rock and tune
27:54
on there. You know, it's got like those
27:55
nasty, gnarly horns and I love the bridge in that song too.
28:03
I just love the, I love the chord structure and the melody
28:06
to it. And recording that record was
28:10
definitely like, that was the reason why we recorded Dragon
28:13
Decks on our own, because we were, we had never worked with
28:17
like a real producer who had their hands all over our songs.
28:21
And it was really weird for everybody to do that, especially
28:25
the drummer, Derek. You know, the guy just whooped
28:29
his ass, you know, just made him do things that we're just not
28:34
accustomed to doing when we recorded music, you know, like
28:38
playing the clicks and he would cut things up and then we will
28:41
record on top of those things. And we were doing all sorts of
28:44
like take after take, you know, before him, we didn't, we never
28:48
recorded like on computers. So we never did these like
28:53
editing and clicks and things like that.
28:56
We just recorded to 2 inch 24 track tape at Ghetto Recorders
29:00
in Detroit, MI with Jim Davis. So it was our first foray into
29:04
recording like, you know, computer on a computer and
29:08
stuff. And it was very odd to to have
29:11
this fourth guy making decisions about our music.
29:16
That's why Dragon Dicks exists, because then we went back into
29:19
my basement and said we're just going to do whatever we want to
29:21
do. Now man, that's the way to do
29:23
it. Like that is absolutely the way
29:25
to do it. We have n / C.
29:30
OK, yeah, N / C awesome, love that tune.
29:34
We just still gets played live all like pretty much every set.
29:39
N / C apparently is like it's, it's a nautical, it's a nautical
29:48
code. I think there's like an N and AC
29:51
flag or something, you know, I think it's a, it's a distress
29:55
code or a distress signal that you would put up your N
29:58
overseas, you know, those flags. And it was like distress, like,
30:04
you know, you know, if I love should ever, you know, broken
30:12
via sound. So that's where that's and
30:17
overseeing. You just added a whole extra
30:19
level to that song for me. Thank you.
30:22
Nice. Yeah, cool all.
30:24
Right, that's. Josh's Denmark, you know, you
30:28
know Josh, he, he's a writer, you know, and he's written, he
30:31
wrote, I think he wrote like some like 15 books while we were
30:36
on the road. Jesus, you know, he wrote Bird
30:39
Box. He wrote Bird Box and so he has
30:44
that kind of, you know, and Mark as well.
30:47
Mark is a like he's a, he's got PhD in English and literature.
30:52
So like those guys like to, they like to, you know, it's not just
30:59
oh, baby, baby for them. Yeah, there's been a few times
31:02
I'd like researched into the songs in, you know, it's, it's
31:06
tough to find lyrics online. So that 'cause I need to like
31:09
read the lyrics to songs, sometimes it's tough to find
31:13
them online. But when I do like, I start
31:15
looking into it and I'm like, some of these songs are way too
31:17
smart for me. Most songs are way too smart for
31:25
me. All right #9 we have Wrecking
31:30
Ball, baby. Wrecking Ball, yeah.
31:36
Wow, you guys went deep. You guys had two off of SOAP?
31:40
Yep. Interesting.
31:43
Wrecking Ball also. I mean, I play guitar on that
31:45
one. And I remember recording the
31:47
guitar solo and Jason Berkowitz saying to me, like, like when
31:52
you, when you play it, think of it like kids, you know, are
31:57
going to hear this song in 20 years and they're going to want
31:59
to like learn note, note for note how you played the solo,
32:03
you know? And yeah, it was kind of like
32:09
before Wrecking Ball, we were sort of like really kind of into
32:15
a garage thing. And Wrecking Ball felt a little
32:19
bit more aggressive than the other songs riding up to that
32:24
point. There was just like some
32:27
different sections in there. And there's like that sort of
32:31
that like instrumental section where there's like sounds and
32:38
seemed like maybe a little bit like we were trying to like, you
32:45
know, it's been just a little in the last rock.
32:52
And we round rounded out with Maybe you're coming down with
32:55
it. Coming down with it.
33:03
One of our one of our. Yeah, one of our favorites.
33:10
Yeah, maybe you're coming down with it.
33:12
What a great song. Let's see, what can I tell you
33:16
about that song? Oh yeah, there's a cool, there's
33:22
a cool percussion thing we did in that where I think Jim
33:26
Diamond, he slowed the, no, we speed the tape up and then we
33:32
did, we like used a wood block, I think, or something.
33:36
And then when we slowed the tape back down, it sounds like a
33:39
racquetball hitting. If you listen to it, you can
33:43
hear that this one percussion sound in there.
33:46
And that was done just by manipulating the tape.
33:52
It's also the baseline in the chorus.
33:53
I never played live because I couldn't sing it and play it at
33:58
the same time. So I dumped it down to the root
34:00
notes. And I still to this day, and you
34:03
know, I don't even know if I could figure out how to play it
34:05
again. Well, hopefully I love that
34:11
song. I.
34:11
Really love it. Hopefully we did the band
34:13
justice here with with with this 10.
34:16
Oh I like this. I like this list a lot,
34:20
interestingly. OK, so maybe you're coming down
34:23
with it is I'll forget the guest.
34:24
You had two from SOAP, you got one from ODE.
34:28
So nothing off of Dragon Dicks. Nope.
34:33
You got some possible in there and then nothing off for sure as
34:37
hell. Cool.
34:39
And then these are good times. You're going out the world's
34:41
smallest. But yeah, I love it.
34:42
This is a great This is a great list.
34:45
Well, let me ask you. Let me ask you one one last
34:48
thing before we let you go. You mentioned like you guys have
34:52
just kind of always been on the go between writing, between
34:55
touring and stuff. I I can't imagine right now is a
34:57
very happy time in high strung world.
35:01
Well, I mean, we really haven't been touring probably since 2011
35:11
or so. So we, we just some reason we, I
35:16
think we may have burned ourself out before, before we, you know,
35:21
had a chance to even tour as the band that played the song for
35:26
Shameless, you know, and, and I think that may have been a deter
35:32
that I think that may have. I think that wasn't a great
35:35
move, is all I'm saying. Like looking back in retrospect,
35:38
we probably should have capitalized on having that song
35:41
out there once a year, you know, gaining popularity through that
35:45
television show. And we just never got it
35:48
together to go and tour. I think people's lives just kind
35:52
of got in the way of it. And it's is is what it is.
35:56
And that's just what happened for us.
35:58
So, but during this time, but we always played live in Michigan,
36:03
you know, we would go up north or we would go to Ann Arbor or
36:07
you know, wherever or just in Detroit and play gigs once a
36:10
month. And, and we would rehearse a lot
36:13
and then we would record a lot, you know, even though we were,
36:18
even though we weren't touring. But we're not even rehearsing or
36:23
recording much right now either, because nobody wants to go into
36:26
other place, other people's houses, you know.
36:29
So it is a problem. I can imagine, you know, I
36:36
imagine. I don't know.
36:38
I don't know. We have a 20 song record that
36:41
we've been working on. Yeah, I'm recording, I've been
36:47
recording it and we've been working on it for like 2 years.
36:50
And we were just about to start doing vocals and then the
36:54
pandemic hit. And since March, we've gotten
36:57
together twice and we've we've maybe laid down two or three
37:02
vocals. So it's very slow going at this
37:05
point now. And now that the winter is
37:09
coming, too, I think it's going to slow down even more.
37:12
I don't know. So yeah, it's been rough.
37:15
I mean, Josh has been typing busy.
37:17
You know, he's wrote a bunch of stuff since being in lockdown.
37:24
But yeah, I haven't felt very creative, you know, being shut
37:30
in like this. I I'm a guy.
37:32
Like, I'm a side guy at heart, you know, like, I don't
37:36
necessarily, I'm not like an avid songwriter, but I'm the guy
37:42
you want to have play on yourself, you know?
37:44
But I need, so I need other people, you know, when I'm doing
37:49
things like I'm a, I'm a natural collaborator, I'm a natural side
37:53
guy. I play bass, you know, I, you
37:55
know, so I, I really feel it like not being able to just be
38:00
jamming in the room with people is, is tough for me.
38:04
Me and my girlfriend do have a band together too, called the
38:07
Mythics, and our drummer isn't afraid to come over.
38:11
And so we have been in the last month, we've met every Thursday
38:15
and we've been trying to hash out some old material and maybe
38:19
try to work on some new stuff. So that's been pretty cool.
38:24
So we're trying trying. I do have to tell you how like
38:27
as, as a, as a creative myself, a collaborative, more
38:30
specifically creator myself, I, I can relate on so many levels
38:36
to what you're saying. It's, it's, it's not an easy
38:38
time. Like just recently, Jenny and I,
38:41
well, you know, we, we write a podcast called Bell and Dubs and
38:44
it's a, it's a very creative endeavor.
38:46
And we hit a wall because the pandemic hit right as we started
38:51
work basically on our, the second season.
38:55
And so we are just coming through the other side of that.
38:58
So it's like it's, it's been a whole thing, friend.
39:01
Yeah, yeah. OK.
39:03
So you feel that too? Absolutely.
39:05
What's that podcast about? I'd like to listen.
39:07
Is it like stories or what's that?
39:09
All right. Do you want to do the pitch,
39:11
Jenny? No, you run a roll.
39:15
You got it. So so the podcast is called Bell
39:18
and Dubs in the Morning and it's 2 radio season. 2 specifically
39:22
is 2 radio hosts have been brought back into the 1890s and
39:28
they're doing their radio show in the Old West so.
39:33
And it just kind of builds from there.
39:35
But let's, yeah. Shenanigans and shoe.
39:38
Shenanigans. Absolutely.
39:40
And there's one word I would use to describe Bell and Dubs, and
39:43
it's stupid. It sounds creative though.
39:47
Man, it really does sound like. It's a lot of fun.
39:50
Yeah. An interesting, you mean just a
39:53
really interesting like concept And is that Bell like Bell and
39:56
Sebastian with an E at the end or just BELL?
39:59
Yeah, BELLE. Yep.
40:02
And prepare to have your mind blown by stupidity.
40:08
Yeah, I think the way that Jenny described the podcast to me
40:11
originally was like, have you ever played Grand Theft Auto and
40:14
you were flipping through the radio stations?
40:16
It's like if you dive right into one of those radio stations.
40:21
And like you. Know you listen to the whole
40:23
thing. That's kind of where it's at.
40:25
Yep. OK.
40:26
We've man, we mentioned recently that it, it's basically this is
40:31
what the NPCS in those games do. They do radio shows so well.
40:37
Chad, I, I appreciate your time and thank you so much for the
40:39
for the candor and, and the conversation.
40:41
I appreciate it. Well, I really appreciate you
40:45
guys for taking a whole podcast to talk about my band, my little
40:48
band, man, it's really cool. I I'm, I'm you know, I'm
40:52
thrilled that like, people are still interested a little bit,
40:56
you know, in the band and and, you know, because we are a
40:59
working group that continuously records and rehearses and plays
41:03
shows, you know, like it. Our life didn't stop at luck.
41:08
You got, you know, and but we're just like a working band that
41:12
just does it because we do it, you know?
41:14
And so I appreciate when anybody like outside of Michigan hears
41:18
about us for the first time. Still, you know, it's pretty
41:21
cool. Well, as soon as I'm allowed to
41:23
travel, I'm taking a road trip up to Michigan to find you guys
41:26
playing live. It's like this needs to happen.
41:28
Yeah. I was just going to say, yeah,
41:31
I'm in the midrash. I'm just over in Minnesota here,
41:33
but I was going to say Minneapolis, Saint Paul music
41:35
scene would welcome, you know, you guys, I'm sure of it.
41:39
Oh yeah, we used to play all the time the the the Turf Club and
41:44
we used to do the 400 bar. Remember that place?
41:49
Do you know the 400? Yeah.
41:51
No, the 400, I've, I mean there's dozens of venues in the
41:56
area, which is great. I mean.
41:58
I love it. I was just on tour last year
42:02
with another band. I, you know, I had to, I had to,
42:06
I had to, you know, what do you call it when you, when you're
42:11
like cheating on your wife? You had to, I had to step out on
42:14
the high strung and go play bass with somebody else.
42:18
This local gal named Steph Chura, she's on, she's on Saddle
42:25
Creek Records. And so she had a nice tour lined
42:27
up and I was like, yeah, I'll play bass for that.
42:29
So we played at the 7th 7th St. entrance last last.
42:33
One of my favorite venues. It was great.
42:37
Yeah, it's. Incredible.
42:39
Well, I think that about wraps wraps it up.
42:42
Chad. Again, thank you so much for
42:43
your time. Have a have a great evening.
42:46
Thanks man you guys too, I was really nice meeting you all.
42:50
Thanks. Good night.
42:52
All right, night. Night.
42:55
I don't know how to end these things.
42:57
Ever so I I'm going to just end it and e-mail him yes, I'm going
43:03
to e-mail him immediately and and tell him thank you a million
43:06
times over. But in case you guys didn't
43:09
figure out that was Chad stalker of the high strung.
43:12
I never know how to end these things.
43:14
Here's the space bar.