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Russ Rankin of Good Riddance · Caught on the Mike...

• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Caught on the Mike.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Russ Rankin has spent more than three decades turning punk rock into a vehicle for urgency, conviction, and connection.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: But right now he's stepping outside of Goodridden's to explore a different side of himself.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: His new solo EP, A Season in Hell, which I love that title, brings together three originals and three unexpected covers, including a radically energized take on the record's Starry Eyes.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: Today we're talking about where Russ is creatively, what still drives him, and why these songs need to exist.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: Russ, how the heck are you, my friend?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Doing well.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for being here, man.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: So let's jump right into it.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: You've got Goodriddance, your solo work, writing, poetry, and all these different creative outlets happening.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Where do you feel like you are creatively right now?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think that this EP served to sort of re-energize me back back into music.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: The the last Good Riddings album took a lot out of me.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: It was a really long process.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: There was the label turnover somewhere in the middle.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: So like the the record ended up coming out almost a year after it was recorded.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a point where I didn't really feel like I wanted to play music anymore or at least write anything new.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was sort of, I was tapped out, you know.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: But I had these songs kicking around, and I thought about I thought about, well, what if I could just go get a drummer and just knock these out?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I kind of wrestled with that and talked to some people whose opinion I I respect.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And they were like, no, man, you should record those.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like for if for no other reason to like just see if you can have a different recording experience and to just to know that you did it.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what I ended up doing.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul was available, the engineer in his studio, which I've been to before.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just a cool experience.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And what it what it did for me, like big picture, was it put me back into like creative creativity with the music and not like this other stuff.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So like not picked up my guitar again, played a couple solo shows since then.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And and like, man, after the after the Good Rhythms recording, I didn't touch my guitar for like a year.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was rough.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know if I ever would want to do that again.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it was cool.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was a really good experience.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it kind of like reset the reset the bar for me musically.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: So have you experienced that level of creative fatigue or creative burnout before as you did in the transition from the last good riddance album to this?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: I have, but not not to that degree.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Not to where I didn't want to touch my guitar or work on anything new.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um I yeah, I was just spent.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was busy with other things, which was which was cool.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we and we played shows, which were fine.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like the shows are the shows are are a different animal, you know.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, it was weird for me.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: I've done I've never experienced that level of just like being like not wanting to pick up a guitar.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like normally that just kind of happens whether I want to or not.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I'm watching a hockey game, and next thing you know, there's a guitar in my lap, and I'm just drumming it.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, it was it was weird.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was a weird thing.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this this experience of recording this EP uh flipped the script for me.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was cool.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, I love hearing that for no other reason than to find a little bit of commonality with you.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: I remember back early 2010s, I stopped playing in bands and I was like in hardcore and Screamo and punk rock bands at the time.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I spent the entire last year, I was in my last band listening to things like hip-hop and Jason Isbel, and I'm like, I'm not even feeling the shit that I'm doing right now.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: Like I felt totally disconnected from myself.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: So what got me back into it was taking an acoustic guitar and just completely stepping outside of my comfort zone and out of the box to feel inspired to create music again.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because I tell you what, I was kind of in a similar place.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I don't think I ever want to do this again.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's it's funny.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: I like for me, I can get on autopilot, like like you, like you mentioned at the top.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: We've been at this for a little while, and I think sometimes it's just I know back in the 90s when we were really rolling, it was just like write, record, tour, write, record, tour.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: It was like a hamster wheel.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Not so much like that anymore, but still like the shows are fun.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: But at some point we're like we were when we started to play again in 2012, we were like, well, it's fun playing all these old songs, but but like I was like, I got these songs I kind of wrote while we weren't a band, and Luke's like, I got these things I wrote when we weren't a band.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And sooner or later, like there's there's this urge to collaborate and create something new.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's happened for us multiple times throughout the time we've been a band.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And this was the first time I can remember myself that I was like, I don't have anything left, like I'm I'm done.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, as far as like creative, new creativity, like new stuff.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: And like you, I was listening to things that weren't hardcore.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was listening to hardcore, but I was listening to a lot of other stuff as well.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't so much that I was like, oh, I could be in this kind of band or that kind of band, but it but it was like it brought in my horizons like in my head, like what of what sounded cool and what I thought was um yeah, like I just I I think when I was younger, I was so narrow-minded.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's that's not fast.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: It sucks, you know.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's that's how I thought about things.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh, you know, now that I'm I'm older and a little wiser, it's like no, I can I can see the value and coming from a songwriting perspective, or like I'll listen to a song that's completely outside of the the realm of hardcore, and I'm curious about how they got that sound in the studio.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm I'm listening to I'm trying to I'm trying to find all of the tracks, like who did what?
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, is that a shaker on there, or is that guy just really good on a hi-hat?
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like just little things like that uh that that can make it enjoyable for me to listen to music that formerly years ago would not have been in my wheelhouse at all.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I'm discovering lots of cool stuff that way.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, again, another commonality because I found myself in a similar place.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's like all the things that I used to kind of be so beholden to and the guardrails that I used to marry myself to.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: Once I let those go and I just enjoyed music for being music again, it was like a totally freeing experience.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Very similar.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's like I I just had just got my mind open and learning to like I think I suffered a lot from contempt prior to investigation.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know anything about that, but I just know that it sucks.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like that kind of attitude.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And and I don't think I I'm practicing not being that way so much anymore, like giving stuff a chance.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: If someone, if someone randomly sends me a song, hey, check this band out.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: I got a buddy who like every once in a while he'd be like, Hey, do you fuck with these guys?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's how he always says it, do you fuck with these guys?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he'll send me a he'll send me some music, and like I've discovered a couple cool bands.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the stuff he sent me, I was like, I texted back, I was like, this isn't my jam, but thanks.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, it's just cool being able to dig into new things.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many bands, there's so much music.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a little overwhelming.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I tep, I typically nowadays am drawn back to Sirius XM's first wave channel, which is ironic because it plays early to mid 80s uh alternative and and uh new wave, which is which is when it was relevant when I was in high school, when that stuff was brand new, I couldn't stand it because it wasn't fast.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like I want to I want to listen to JFA, I don't I don't want to listen to that.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I totally dismissed it and and and and talked down on it and didn't have anything to do with it.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And now I listen to it and I love it.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Bands like The Smiths and The Cure, like I couldn't be bothered with it when they were when they were actually out releasing songs.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um so yeah, it's kind of full circle for me.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know whether that's like open-minded and this music's has value now that I didn't see before, and how much of it is that that like we we as we get older and encounter like life's trials, we tend to gravitate back to music that reminds us of when life was simpler.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and for all of us, that's different times.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, that was I was in high school in the 80s, and that's that's what it that's what it was.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: So but it's been cool.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a mixture of all of those things because I do think there's a little bit of Congress that takes place as you mature and just get more world experience and worldview around you.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things I'm proudest about, I I've got a 19-year-old daughter that's getting into bands now, and I look at her playlist and I'm like, holy shit, you don't have a singular lane, do you?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like, she's all over the place.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: She'll be listening to typo negative one minute, then listening to Smiths, and then listening to somebody like Chapel Roan.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: And she's just like, I just appreciate songwriting for songwriting.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, holy shit, you're gonna go far with that kind of attitude, you know, just appreciating things for what they are.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: Getting to the EP, a season in hell feels less like a departure from your history and more like another part of it.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: You said some of these songs simply didn't feel like good ridden songs.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: What were you trying to give yourself permission to do with this project that you couldn't do within the band?
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: I think the three originals are overall a little bit harder than the the mean average of Goodridden songs.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so I I was it's stuff I came up with uh where I was listening to a lot of I was listening to a lot of hardcore and really feeling it, like really getting back in touch with what first drew me to it, and and then I was also experimenting with with like different chord shapes, you know, because I'm I'm like a pretty I'm a novice guitar player, like I can play guitar well enough to to write the the bones of a song that I can write a vocal melody and lyrics to, and then I show it to Luke and he plays it like a thousand times better.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um so but I was starting to like mess around with the guitar a little bit and and like what if I what if I is this a chord?
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Is that a chord?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like kind of like no rules, like jazz almost.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like what happens if I just do this and make this sound?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, so I I started doing that a little bit, and and I had them all, I had them all demoed out, and and then I just sat on them.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I was pretty sure that they wouldn't be, they weren't gonna be good ridden songs.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so they just sort of sat in limbo.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then I came up with the idea of of recording them, and I was like, well, it's it's kind of a wasteful to just record three songs, I should record something else.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then I had these other three songs that I just were stuck in my head.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: The record song, like, had it not been for first wave on Sirius XM, I would have never probably heard that song.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: And and so I thought, well, I could do six songs, I could do three originals, three covers, that'd be kind of fun.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: And uh since I demoed them, like I knew how to play them all on guitar and bass, and I just needed a drummer.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: And and uh Adam was a pretty, pretty sweet drummer, so and he was down to do it, so that was cool.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, talking about the record song, Starry Eyes in particular, what happens in your brain when you hear a song like that and start thinking, I need to play this?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: I love learning songs on guitar that I hear and trying to and just playing them and singing them.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I do it mostly with like Irish Rebel songs.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but I do it with like with extemporary songs too.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: When I first heard the records, that song Starry Eyes, I was like kind of the same way, because like I slept on Squeeze, like I didn't know anything about him until I started saying the first wave.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was like, holy fuck, this is like top shelf songwriting.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is like it doesn't the craft of songwriting does not get any better than this.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And whether you're a fan of Squeeze's music or not, or like think the songs sound cool or not, like coming strictly from a songwriting perspective, I'm like, this is like I gotta tip the tip my cap.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is this is something that I've labored to do in my life, and I know it's not easy, and so I can appreciate when someone does it really well.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how I felt about Starry Eyes.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, this is top shelf songwriting.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like these hooks are, you know, it's days later and I'm still singing it.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's that's someone's done a good job.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was I looked him up online, I was like curious why, like, why I'd never heard of them.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: They never really had any other hits.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the the band didn't really stay together very long, like they kind of split and did different things, but they did that song, and I felt that when I heard it, I thought two things.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: I thought this song has a lot of good hooks, it's good songwriting.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little overproduced and shimmery sounding, which was of a time.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, like, this sounds like something that Generation X could play and make it sound even cooler.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's kind of how I went about it.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, how would I how would I attack this song if I was Generation X?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: So how conscious were you of finding balance between honoring the original and completely making it your own?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was right down the middle.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul, the engineer, helped a lot to his credit.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, he, like on first listen, I never literally listened to the bass.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: The bass is crazy on that song.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's the busiest part of the thing.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so we we had to like deconstruct the bass, all the bass playing, and I had to learn it, and it was not easy.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was what it was way harder than I thought it was going to be.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot going on that like on first couple listens, I didn't I didn't hear it.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was listening to the vocals, the vocal melody.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so like that's all faithful.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like the structure is 100% faithful where like where each part is.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and even the little guitar licks that I do are the same ones on the record.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: We just sped it up a little bit.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: We did kind of like a, I don't know if you remember Generation X, but we did the kind of ready steady go intro.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: But with it with the records, um arpeggios uh on it, and and then sped the tempo up, and then it was just it was it sounds like they played the original with with pretty clean guitars, and I did I did this whole project with with two Les Pauls, two different Les Pauls and a JCM 900 and a JCM 800.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: Love it.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: One of the interesting things about your music is that even when the musical approach changes, there's still a sense of urgency and a need to say something.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: Has that need changed for you over the years, or are you essentially responding to the world in the same way that you always have?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think I've always looked at music, my my participation in music as a means to like find community and to relay some sort of meaningful message.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that that's what that's what first touched me about hardcore and bands like the Dead Kennedys.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was always drawn to the more social political part of it, like using using music as a vehicle to express an idea and and then hoping that that idea hits hits people's ears and gets them to pause and maybe look at the world a different way or think about like all the things that happened to me when I listened to music.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: When I when I was radicalized by hardcore music in the early 80s, and I was like, wow, like I need to think it rethink about what's going on in the world.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: I need to question more, I need to like look things up, which back then meant encyclopedia time.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: And um yeah, just just like music was able to touch me and cause me to to question things and to find my place in making the world better.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: And political music is too general, I think, but that's kind of what I was always drawn to.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I've always looked at my my involvement in music as how can I how can I write these these more or less protest songs?
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that push myself to write them in in ways that hasn't been done a million times before by people much better than me at it.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of times there's there's so many, there's so many punk bands, there's so many hardcore bands, we're all kind of saying the same thing.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually sometimes it can get redundant.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm like, well, how can I push myself as a lyricist to come up with a with a different approach to this or a different tack or like get out the thesaurus and find some different words to use?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then another thing that I'm really into is using words, using words like lyric song lyrics rhythmically in the context of the greater song, so that the way that the way that they lay over the riff or the way that they punk the way that they punctuate the percussion, uh a lot a lot more stuff goes into it for me now than back in the in the beginning, obviously, just from being around great musicians, being around great producers like Bill Stevenson, and and being able to share stages and clubs, and clubs and festivals with with great with great bands, um, and kind of just stealing their their best practices, stealing their secrets, or or being inspired by them to to do things a little bit differently.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a lot that's a long way to answer your question, but but yeah, that that's still that's what I'm in it for.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm not in it just to write a song to write a song, I'm in it to like to transmit some some sort of feeling or idea.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: Do you think being socially aware with your art is a little bit more laborious now in the age of social media dividing everybody's attention the way that it does because sometimes shit gets lost in the sauce, unfortunately.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing I can do about that.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I I'm I'm just gonna swing hard in case I hit it, you know what I mean?
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like I c I can't I can't uh I can't control a lot of that stuff or any of it really.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I can't control is is the work ethic and the songwriting and ultimately what the what the song says.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: And if it if if it touches anybody, then I've done my job.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh as far as like my job being like me as a person creating creating this music, if someone listens to it and it puts a smile on their face, or or it makes them uh go join a protest, either any and anything in between, uh, I feel like that's a win as a song.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna follow that up a little later on because there's a question that I ask every single one of my guests, and I'll ask you at the end of the interview, and I'd love to hear your input on it.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: But getting back to the topic at hand, you've described songs like what brand of hell through the lens of anxiety and frustration and the feeling that we're all navigating some version of the same chaos, and I agree we are.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: After everything you've experienced personally and creatively, what still makes you want to pick up the guitar and respond?
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's it's just become part of it's become part of of my makeup.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I back in the early days when I first started playing music with with friends, I was the guy that did not apply anything when the band started, hence I was the singer.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: But over the years, I think that I've warmed up to it, and I think that I've been able to pay attention when I've been in the presence of people who knew more than I did, and took it all in.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I've become a pretty serviceable singer, uh 30 odd years into it.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's it's the way that I express myself.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like I've been a columnist as well.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've got a book of poetry, so I've I've got these other creative outlets, but I think that there's there's still nothing as visceral for me as as hardcore and being able to to dig into a song and share it with a room full of people on that level.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think There's something still so potent about that and immediate and something communal about it that inspires me.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Being the constant student and the evolving student through playing with other people, you know, we talked a little bit ago about dropping those guardrails as far as sh genre and appreciating songwriting for songwriting.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel that age has opened you up more to a sense of collaboration as you've gained experience through the years?
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not quite sure what what that what context that would be.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think I can tell you that at this age I'm much more open-minded than I was before as far as hearing people out and being open to new ideas.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: And like if I've got a song written and I think it's kick ass, and I show it to my band, and someone in the band says, Well, what if we do this here?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like there was a time where I would I would um push back on that.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, no, do you don't understand?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: This song's perfect as it is.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: And now it's like, no, no, not so fast.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what do they got to say?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's kick it around.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why not?
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: Why die curious?
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's see.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Let's see.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: And to like, I think that the moment I think I'm the smartest guy in the room, I'm in trouble.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I can learn, I can learn from everybody.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: And particularly like in my case, like my band, like guys that have been that have been through the same war as I have, and have learned at the same pace and scale that I have from from the same kinds of people.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that if that's collaboration, then then yeah, like I'm more open-minded now.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm much more willing.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I I've started writing screenplays a couple years ago, and and I got a manager and I were shopping a screenplay, and I'm I'm writing them.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: And but I got people guys who really know that stuff who read my screenplays and give me the gift of feedback.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times it's not really that.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like, hey man, you're such a good screenwriter.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is awesome.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, it's like, dude, what are you doing?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and and uh whereas before I would be like, well, F you, like I don't even I don't even want to do this anymore.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you guys don't know what you're missing.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm like, I'm listening, I'm taking it in, and I'm like, it doesn't hurt my feelings and it makes me better.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that pain and and disappointment are are touchstones to to spiritual growth of some of some sort.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And and if it was easy, that everybody would be writing screenplays.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like I get it, I understand, and so I'm willing to learn and to to rethink and to listen to someone else's point of view and to be redirected or shown a better way to go about things.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_01: Dude, you understood the context of that question and answered that perfectly, my friend.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I was totally, totally on the same page, man.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: Younger me was just a total asshole.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think about the early days when I first started playing in bands, and I'm like, I cringe at myself when I think about how beholden I would be to an idea as opposed to later on down the line.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of along that same lane, you handled all the instruments and vocals on the EP, aside from Adam Gomez on drums, as you had mentioned.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: What did being that hands-on with the recording process reveal to you about yourself as a musician that you might not have discovered working alongside Goodridden's?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if it feels it feels good to like be able to pull that off.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like part of the weight reason I wanted to do it was like I felt that those three originals, especially, the three originals were I felt really strong songs.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I didn't want to, I didn't want to just let them go.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: The three covers I was just curious about doing.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was so curious to see how they'd come out.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that for me, it's just it's it's satisfying to be in there and to be able to pull it off and have it done and to know that I could do it and to because I've done this once before.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like when Good Rhythms wasn't a band, I recorded several songs with a drummer where I did all the guitar and bass and singing and everything.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Just demos.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: And if a couple of those songs ended up being on Peace in Our Time, like we recorded with the band.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um but yeah, I think for me it was it was more like can can I get excited about music again?
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's bigger picture.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um micro, it was more like can I can I pull this off?
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because these this is not like one, two, three, four, beat on the brat.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is like some complicated uh guitar and bass playing going on.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um particularly, particularly the record song, because I because it was like I really wanted to do it justice.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Of the three covers, the Vin the Avenger song was the easiest to play.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and and the the Leon Rosselson song, but the I did Billy Bragg's arrangement of it, was was one of the hardest because it was so spare.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Just just a telecaster and nothing else.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: And nothing to hide, like the if you pull a note or you don't hit it clean or whatever.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so they all presented different challenges.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um fortunately, the three originals I had demoed so so um so many times and you know, wrote them, demoed them, read, redemoed them, that I was there wasn't a lot of like gray area, like what do I do here?
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was, it was, it was a known quantity.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul would Paul would uh chime in here and there if he thought there was a better way to go about it or had a had a little idea, and he's really good about that.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like he's got such a great ear, and so that was super valuable as well.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, as you'd mentioned, you're also a poet, columnist, screenwriter, and then of course songwriter.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel like all of those things are ultimately different versions of the same impulse, like trying to understand something about yourself or the world and then communicate those things to somebody else?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I would ever have the wherewithal to sit down and come up with that as like a as a mission statement, but that but after hearing you say that, I that's absolutely what it is.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think everybody's got a part to play.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's everybody ends up being good at something.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the lucky ones figure it out while on the way.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like sometimes it's like I know people who like started doing something like in their 30s or 40s, and they love it.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, why didn't I start doing this when I was, you know, it's just, it's just it's happenstance, I think.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: My, you know, I've I'm a movie person, like like a lot of us.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: I love movies, so does so does everyone else.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: But like, how many times did I sit and watch a movie and go, like, man, they they couldn't write a better script than this?
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is garbage.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like, uh, and then and then watching movies where I thought the script was insanely good and being super inspired by it, and being like, I want to write something like that.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so, but knowing nothing about screenwriting, like nothing, zero.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so, what did I do?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: I downloaded Final Draft 13 and watched a couple YouTube videos on how to get started with it, and off I went.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'm in a much different, it's only been a couple years, but I'm in a much different place now than I was at the beginning.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Got my ass handed to me a few, a few dozen times.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: And and even if none of these movies ever get made, like it's still such a fun exercise for me.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and it's creative, just like poetry, just like songwriting, uh, just like writing columns when I used to do that.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: I get that.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: Again, another commonality.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, I've been doing this show, this podcast for six years now, and I haven't played music in forever.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'll pick up a guitar every once in a while.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's just recently, and it's through having conversations with people like you and learning about myself through these experiences that I'm sharing with everybody that's a guest, where I've almost been borderline inspired again, and I found myself like sitting in my podcast studio, have a have a Epiphone casino sitting in my lap and like learning clash songs again, and like, okay, now let me try writing something myself.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I I do think it is all the same current, it is all the same vein because we all have something to say and just different means of which we express those things, right?
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I think I used to songwriting is so cool, like, because I I got an acoustic guitar like right there, and and I could just like before I pick it up, there's nothing, and after I put it back down, there's a song, like sometimes, not every time, but like that if I if I really think about that, distill it down to that little bit of action, how cool is that to create something out of nothing?
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh something that's that could possibly touch somebody else.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if I ever get to meet Paul McCartney, I want to ask him what it feels like.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what does it feel like to sit down at a piano and then when you get up, you've written Let It Be?
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what does that feel like?
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's gotta be the coolest thing.
• 31:43
  unknown: Yeah.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe he had no idea when he when he was like, Hey, I got this song, and I think I think it's okay, but who knows?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, or or or you know, when when when they wrote London Calling, when the class wrote London Calling, um, did they have any idea?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's it's pretty cool.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's like the the most basic um tenet of like human creativity.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, like before there was nothing, and now there's a song, and or now there's a column, or now there's a poem, or now there's a whatever.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that creative people, it just kind of seeps out of them.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like they can't help themselves.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like I told you, like I used to have my guitar and I would not be planning to play it, but I'm watching a hockey game, and next thing you know, I'm playing the guitar.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: I just couldn't go any amount of time without picking it up until just until recently.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so yeah, I think it just creative people, it finds a way, it finds an outlet.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: You've been doing this long enough that you could probably operate entirely on experience and muscle memory at this point.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: What are you still curious about?
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: What is the thing that at this point in your life still makes you think that I haven't figured all this out yet?
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think I I don't know.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think so.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm I'm I'm a I'm a serviceable singer, like I said, but I'm not I wasn't like there's people who are born just great singers.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's people who just like they roll out of the rack, they got perfect pitch.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: I hate those people.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and they can go in a studio, and I know this because when we did the last album and Bill was engineering my vocals for it.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: I because I like to I like to uh put myself through pain and torment, I asked him who are some singers that can get a vocal done really, really quick, and he told me.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he told me one guy could do a vocal, we call a vocal, like you know, all the vocal tracks for one song, you know, all the playlists that he's got to get, all the doubles, and he, you know, all that stuff.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: One guy could do it in like half an hour.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, man, no way.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: And but but I but I believed him.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so I and then, but another guy took an hour, and I and I never take an hour, I take longer.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I'm gonna make, I'm gonna do one, I'm gonna shoot for one hour vocals on this album.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna have my mind right so that I'm making Bill do less work so that it takes less time to get better takes for him to work with, and then we can move on.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so I had a little timer, a little timer set, and I got most of them done in an hour.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, that's kind of like one of the like the last hills to climb is like I'm I'm not a great singer, I wasn't born a perfect pitch, but through the years I've been beaten into a serviceable singer by being in the studio with good people, good engineers, good producers.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: I've learned little tricks from other singers who are way better than me about how to how to adjust.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm just that's a that's a thing I can keep getting better at.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's a thing that I haven't conquered yet.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so I guess I'm I'm not sure if that's what your question was, but that's as far as like what I do in my band as a as a singer guy, like that's that's something that still eludes me, is like being not eludes me, but I I can be better.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: I have opportunities, many opportunities to be better at that, at the one thing that I'm supposed to be doing.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: See, I love that.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's being a consummate student for sure.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: Sir, it has been nothing short of an honor getting to chat with you.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: I've really enjoyed this conversation.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: As I told you, there was going to be a question at the end that we were going to revisit.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: I ask every single one of my guests this, and it's just because I like everybody's unique answer.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: But through your eyes and your personal experience, what's your advice for making the world a better place tomorrow than what it is today through your eyes?
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_00: Civic engagement.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm speaking as an American, uh, we need better voters.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: We need to bring civics back to school.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: We need to all be, we need to all start with the same toolkit of basic civics and how government works.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um so that we're not so that we can go into the world, we're not these like empty cups ready to be filled up by random dogma from who knows where.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like I feel like we I feel like we're paying the price for for that.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: So my my big pitch is for civic engagement, learn how government works, get involved, and everybody's got to vote.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we need better voters.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: We need people that are voting with like all the facts and all the information.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this is kind of a loaded question, but you know, along those lines, do you feel that people re-honing their focus locally will have a bigger impact the more we focus locally than so much on the national stage?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's one A and one B for me.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think, I think locally is where you can make a big difference.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: The people who say, like, well, I don't it doesn't matter, so I'm not even gonna vote.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, if you don't even go to the polls, like let's say you don't care about national stuff, but like if you don't go, you don't have you don't you're out of the game.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like stuff that's going on right in your town or your community or your state.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, for sure, I think getting people to the polls is important for that reason.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then I also think getting people to the polls who are civically engaged and have all who have all been taught from school about civics and about what governments, how government's supposed to work.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think it puts us, it sets us up for more success once we're at the polls.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, sir, I have thoroughly enjoyed this conversation.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: Russ's new EP, A Season in Hell.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: Is it's available everywhere, isn't it?
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: 25th.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: Two singles, two singles are out.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: So 25th that comes out.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, sir, I would love to have you back on once one of those screenplays gets picked up.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_01: That'd be awesome.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you so much, Rust.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: It has been an honor talking to you.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, the world is a much better place with you and it, my friend.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: You're too kind.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.