Latest / Basic Folk / The Barr Brothers Rally Around Mysticism, ep. 330

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The Barr Brothers Rally Around Mysticism, ep. 330 · Basic Folk

0:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi and welcome to Basic Folkware.
0:13
[SPEAKER_01]: We have honest conversations with folk musicians on the Bluegrass situation.
0:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's me Cindy and I host this podcast.
0:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for finding us today.
0:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I am so excited to have Brad Barr on the pod.
0:26
[SPEAKER_01]: The bar brothers are one of my favorite bands.
0:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I have been waiting a long time for a new record and here we freaking are.
0:34
[SPEAKER_01]: okay we'll get to that momentarily but first i would like to encourage you to sign up for basic folks newsletter you can do that at the link in the show notes or sign up at basic folk dot com it's a once a month email that lets you know what's going on with the podcast like who's been on who's coming up recently.
0:51
[SPEAKER_01]: and like pictures of our dogs and everything like that.
0:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can sign up at the link in the show notes or basic folk.com.
0:58
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1:00
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1:07
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1:09
[SPEAKER_01]: You can make a contribution right now at basic folk.com slash donate.
1:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's also a link in the show notes to make your donation.
1:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks.
1:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, let's get to it.
1:18
[SPEAKER_01]: In the eight years since the bar brothers last released an album, Andrew has been drumming with people like Ficed, Mumford and Suns and Broken Social Scene, well Brad released a solo record and underwent incredible personal change.
1:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Brad made the huge decision to get sober, which he talks about candidly on our interview.
1:37
[SPEAKER_01]: anything that you read about their new record, let it hiss, might allude to his new found sobriety, but not mention it directly.
1:45
[SPEAKER_01]: The band made a conscious decision not to include it in any press release specifically so that their audience could have their own relationship with the new music.
1:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And it seems like getting sober has impacted every aspect of the album, but one could listen and project us about any personal pivotal shift onto these songs.
2:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Regardless, I am so appreciative that Brad opened up about his sobriety and we could better understand the music and the incredible relationship that he and Andrew share.
2:11
[SPEAKER_01]: In our conversation, we talk about Brad's deep connection to the number 216, it's origin and why he's kept that number close to him for most of his life.
2:21
[SPEAKER_01]: He shares his reflection on the music lessons given to him and Andrew from visiting the lay-in musicians who exchanged their services for free dental work from their father.
2:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Those lessons completely changed the musical trajectory of the brothers and still impact them today.
2:36
[SPEAKER_01]: We also talk about their former band who actually are still active every now and again.
2:41
[SPEAKER_01]: The slip, a much love Boston group that was fully embraced in the jam band world.
2:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I find the music of Andrew and Brad Barred to be completely transformative and not of this world, and I'm so grateful for the new record.
2:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Please go see them live, especially if you are into celestial experiences.
2:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's take a listen to a song from the new album, let it hiss.
3:02
[SPEAKER_01]: This is run right into it, and then we'll get to our conversation with Brad Barr of the bar brothers on Basic Folk.
3:41
[SPEAKER_02]: You hit me to the light I had so many times that I'd hold for the moon But you didn't hear me as I'm a drag-and-raw-lash
4:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a four-word proof and I'm dreaming gently I'm running, running, running, running, running I'm running, running, running, running, running I'm running, running, running, running, running, running I'm running, running, running, running I'm running, running, running, running, running I'm running, running, running, running, running I'm running, running, running, running, running
4:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Brad, welcome to Basic Boke.
4:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So great to talk to you again.
4:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, great to see you.
4:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for having me.
4:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So the last time we spoke was in 2017, and we had a wonderful time at a WIP in Pittsburgh, guys, just put on an incredible show.
5:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so thrilled that the bar brothers are back with new music.
5:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Just to let you know what you're dealing with here.
5:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Big fan.
5:14
[SPEAKER_00]: That means a lot.
5:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Cindy.
5:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm glad.
5:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Glad to be back.
5:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Where was that chill in Pittsburgh?
5:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Were you remind me?
5:21
[SPEAKER_01]: The Rex Theater on the south side.
5:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh yeah, awesome place.
5:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Good popcorn.
5:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, they have pop.
5:28
[SPEAKER_01]: They had popcorn at the Rex Theater.
5:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that they always, they had like a really strange backstage area.
5:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
5:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I wonder, although I wonder if that's just like the norm for those types of venues where like everything is like black foam everywhere.
5:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Kind of classic Vodville, right?
5:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Like yeah, I love those too.
5:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, they're kind of endangered these days.
5:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like if you have one protected in your city.
5:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Totally.
5:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're big into numbers that I can tell particularly with the number 216 which has shown up for you over and over again.
6:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
6:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I know this isn't like a top of mind thing right now with 216 but like what's your current status with that number like where does it show up and what are your feelings?
6:18
[SPEAKER_01]: What are your 216 feelings like today?
6:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thanks for asking that question.
6:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I almost never get asked that.
6:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, first of all, the number shows up for me.
6:29
[SPEAKER_00]: It started with a group of friends when we were about 15 or 16.
6:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's when we first, I think it was my first experience with psychedelics, actually, and that, that number just arrived.
6:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And we all kind of rallied around it and it started showing up in our life.
6:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And
6:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't do psychedelics anymore, but I appreciate them what they did at the time.
6:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So these days, it seems to show up when I am in motion when I'm out there, the number for me represents that friendship, first and foremost, and those group of friends.
7:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Is this the same group of friends that are the queens of the breakers?
7:10
[SPEAKER_00]: They are the very same friends.
7:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
7:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was a really formative time and I look at it now.
7:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm realize how lucky I was to have this core group of friends at that period of my life when I was 14, 15, 16, I still talk with all of them.
7:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So that number, yeah, firstly is a symbol of that friendship, but it seems to spill into other people's lives when I communicate.
7:36
[SPEAKER_00]: It's significance to me, at least those that sort of listen.
7:40
[SPEAKER_00]: and right now it's it's it's actually kind of a family bond that number because Brigitte who will we'll talk about later my wife made up a bunch of t-shirts and baseballs with my name and that number on it as merch items to bring around and but really also as tokens of
8:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, whatever symbols we can find in our lives, it's just sort of a beautification and add some kind of mystery to our lives, some interest that sometimes that's all it takes to feel some kind of growing budding community or just rallying around mysticism.
8:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's not enough of that in our culture.
8:27
[SPEAKER_00]: because that number does have a lot of mystic qualities to it that other cultures also recognized.
8:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's on the baseball because the baseball has 216 stitches right on.
8:39
[SPEAKER_00]: So I wish I had one sitting by that I could show you.
8:42
[SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, for me today, 216, it's well, it connects us.
8:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's a good start.
8:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, great start.
8:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the idea of rallying around mysticism.
8:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
8:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
8:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, music concerts are maybe one of the, you know, one of the last sort of places where that happens on Earth.
9:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like when I saw your band last, like...
9:13
[SPEAKER_01]: your band completely omits mysticism from start to be getting like I felt like my friend and I were just where text I was like I'm going to talk to the bar brothers tomorrow.
9:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you remember that concert?
9:25
[SPEAKER_01]: He was like one of the best concerts I've been to.
9:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It just feels like
9:29
[SPEAKER_01]: you guys are radiating that type of connectivity.
9:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It's great.
9:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So happy to hear that.
9:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Run don't walk to the bar brother show.
9:39
[SPEAKER_00]: That is what I see as part of my role here to help create nurture, sustain that kind of awe, because I think in that kind of awe state and not the kind of awe that you get from, you know, watching a virtuoso or anything, it's not about,
9:58
[SPEAKER_00]: virtuosity or impressing people.
9:59
[SPEAKER_00]: It's about like opening, opening people up and with sound and so you feel that sense of wonder and I think we become really more compassionate and compassionate and empathetic and joyful and not happens.
10:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You and your brother grew up in Providence, Rhode Island, and you had a pretty special experience growing up where your dad, who is a dentist, did some dental work on some musicians from Molly in exchange for music lessons for his son, so you and Andrew and Andrew even went back to Molly to continue the lessons.
10:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So it seems like that chance meeting seems to have like completely shaped your outlook on rhythm.
10:44
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you relate to those lessons now nearly 35 years on?
10:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a great question.
10:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So at the time, at the time, you know, Andrew, I don't know what if it hadn't
10:57
[SPEAKER_00]: for that those encounters and through our dad being a very kind person and wanting to help people help these guys that just walked into his office one day when I see these guys, I mean, it started with Isa who was a Jim Bay master and when Isa told
11:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Mamadoo and Abdul about the dentist to fix his teeth for music lessons.
11:25
[SPEAKER_00]: He soon there was five or six guys and we got invited to their house to hang out and Andrew was really Andrew had always had that
11:41
[SPEAKER_00]: rhythmic urge in him.
11:43
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd always had that just drawn to it.
11:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know whether the circumstance, how much the circumstances led to that.
11:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I know they did.
11:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I know he also had always gravitated towards rhythmic music.
11:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it's really, it's really cool to think about it because, yeah, if he hadn't opened his door to these guys, I don't know how different our music
12:10
[SPEAKER_00]: It gave us an insight.
12:12
[SPEAKER_01]: You'd be like Jason Mirazzing all over the place and that is got pretty good rhythm.
12:19
[SPEAKER_00]: But not that syncopated thing or maybe he does and he just doesn't record those songs.
12:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we suddenly were exposed to a lot of polyrhythmic music and the kind of plasticity of it.
12:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was really important at the time to see people taking a simple
12:40
[SPEAKER_00]: rhythm, you know, whatever, whatever, whatever the bass rhythm was and then passing it around and other people taking it and running with it, doing their own thing and the laughter that happened when someone did something really cool or just, you know, like that seeing music be shaped and misshapened and, and, and,
13:00
[SPEAKER_00]: improvised on the spot was really important I mean that's it kind of set us up for like if yeah this is how it's done you you play it and you spin it and you twist it until until there's laughter really until you just so I'm used by it that you know and that I think that's one of the things it's kept us going for so long is that
13:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I have like a technical question about this.
13:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not a musician and I don't know very much about music theory, but I read about your learning from these Malayan musicians.
13:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You said something like, they taught you different ways to hear a six-eight bell line.
13:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And I read it at least two different places, so it seems important, but a completely went over my head.
13:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you explain what that means like a six-eight bell line?
13:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And we might hear that in the bar brothers?
13:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, to the best of that I can, yeah.
13:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So they have an instrument there called a gonco-gree, and it's like a cowbell with a small one and a big, small bell on a big bell, and he'll, the rhythm that we're referring to there, it played on the gonco-gree, sounds like this.
14:11
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
14:19
[SPEAKER_00]: When you take that just that part alone, there's so much inside of that, depending on depending on where you put the base, depending on how if you put a subdivision of four, four beat or a six-eight beat or three beats over that, there's a lot of ways to bend that rhythm, for example, the clave, what we know as a clave, which is, you know, in a,
14:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Cuban music is a derivation of that rhythm, so it can be, it is kind of the key to unlocking a certain way of grooving where things become really malleable and really flexible.
15:17
[SPEAKER_00]: D-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d
15:37
[SPEAKER_00]: six eight bell line some people call the clave I've I have learned it is as the as the as the bell line is really just the bell line and sort of that ubiquitous and it's
15:52
[SPEAKER_00]: It is what gave birth to the way the blues was played early on that shuffle feel swing in jazz.
16:01
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, swinging was wouldn't exist without that fundamental.
16:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's like bending the rigid, rigid beat.
16:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
16:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Sounds like the cure for anxiety.
16:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's the DNA to our it's the DNA to basically all the group that we we love the what did you say the what the to cure for anxiety I certainly see it that way and and that's a good description of it
16:29
[SPEAKER_01]: One more question about this experience, so the story of your dad exchanging dental work for lessons, I think it's like really amazing, especially in thinking how generous everyone was in that situation.
16:41
[SPEAKER_01]: When you think back about that experience, what did it teach you about being generous with your talents?
16:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, my dad, you know, my dad, he's always shown me two things, one is do what you love and two is be kind, help people out whenever possible.
16:59
[SPEAKER_00]: He sees someone, his car is on the side of the road, he'll be the first to pull over and see if they need help.
17:06
[SPEAKER_00]: He's really, you know, he becomes very gregarious when there's someone in need of something and that
17:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And I, you know, this was all really subconscious stuff because my dad didn't, he didn't read a ton of books.
17:22
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't like exercise or build a house.
17:26
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there wasn't this like stereotypical dad information coming to me in that way.
17:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And like the usual, we think of a father.
17:36
[SPEAKER_00]: offering their son, you know, advice or stuff, you know, didn't have a lot of advice, but through watching him do what he did, which is help people with their teeth, which when you have a toothache, the dentist is like a saint, you know, the joy that comes from being
18:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the over the years just have subconsciously I think it affected me was watching a person do what they love and see how it brings joy to other people and now those other people then want to want to give back and you know he did it with with art work is a lot of painters friends of mine that were going to the Rhode Island School of Design because his office was located pretty much right on that campus.
18:32
[SPEAKER_00]: you had offered a trade dental work for pieces of art, the thing that they couldn't pay for the work that they couldn't afford what the work cost to trade artwork and they were just so happy to give paintings to him and they'd even give paintings to us as well.
18:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, just learning that what comes around goes around really like, that sounds cliche, but it's still really true.
19:30
[SPEAKER_01]: You are known for also being in the much loved band, the slip back when you were famously my neighbor in Mission Hill in Boston.
19:40
[SPEAKER_01]: When you began, the slip was firmly entrenched in the jam-band scene and I myself have doubled in the jam-band world.
19:50
[SPEAKER_01]: The jam-band world is a very special place, lots of music festivals, lots of flip-lops
19:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Lots of very devoted and unusually friendly fans.
20:04
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you think your work in the slip and the jam band world has impacted your musical approach to the bar brothers or the way that you engage with your audience?
20:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So, that's another great question.
20:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I guess my first thought is to kind of compare it to maybe the way other bands engage with their audience.
20:25
[SPEAKER_00]: not sure like i want to think about that because it's it's really about an audience band dynamic because the jamban rocket comment on that and any number of ways and how it in how it
20:37
[SPEAKER_00]: influence us at the time and and how that influence is carried into the bar brothers.
20:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I would on that note I would sort of signal back to even just that the experiences with the West African guys and the idea of improvisation because that was a big big part of the jam world.
20:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Separate from the jazz world which also has a lot of improvisation I think it was also the spirit of like people being able to move because that was one of the things about going to
21:08
[SPEAKER_00]: at the time, didn't necessarily love us, and I had to sit in a chair.
21:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And I liked, I liked the freedom that people felt that at these sort of jam band concerts, and I didn't, you know, I saw a fish a bunch, and I saw Madeski Martin and Wood a bunch, and the slip played a lot of jam band festivals.
21:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I think I just liked seeing people be liberated to move, you know,
21:38
[SPEAKER_00]: 60s music that really resonated with me was just a sense of freedom and, you know, in some kind of commute, commuting with the audience, those shows always feel better to me when I, when I,
21:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And as they do to anybody, I guess there's not really a musician out there, it doesn't feel better when they commute with the audience and whatever commuting means.
22:02
[SPEAKER_00]: But I like playing in venues where people are on their feet, people are moving.
22:07
[SPEAKER_00]: There's like, it's closeness, which is interesting because a lot of the bar brothers have a show has happened and seeded venues, which I think was just by virtue of the fact that the music was, was chiller, the music was more, less dancing in the,
22:25
[SPEAKER_00]: But not maybe so much with the last record, the last record, though the one, the last record, the one that hasn't come out yet.
22:32
[SPEAKER_00]: The current record is, I actually feel like it's probably way closer to what the slip was shooting for than anything the barber has done before.
22:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And just because we really, just, we weren't trying to curate anything.
22:50
[SPEAKER_00]: We didn't have any,
22:52
[SPEAKER_00]: It was part of the length of how much time went by.
22:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we did a lot of just letting go of this need to curate a Barbara's experience, which I think maybe it's hard to speak to where my head was at at the time.
23:06
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think we were trying to differentiate the Barbara as from the slip, like that was important to us.
23:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And so now I think we're just letting, even with the slip, the slip just played in California.
23:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I think our true, our true musical leanings are really coming out in both projects in a really nice way and a really refreshing and satisfying way.
23:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Such a long answer, I'm sorry, I beg you.
23:34
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's cool though, here you figured out in real time.
23:37
[SPEAKER_00]: or not, figure it out.
23:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So the last record queens of the breakers came out in 2017.
23:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So eight years in between albums.
23:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's what Andrew was up to during that time, playing drums with ficed, mumford and sons, Gracie Abrams, broken social scene.
23:54
[SPEAKER_01]: You released a solo instrumental album and other creative endeavors, and I know there's been like a lot of emotional growth and change between you too, which if you're game, I'd want to get to that as well.
24:06
[SPEAKER_01]: But when you and Andrew came back together, musically speaking, for let it hiss, what was it like to witness each other's evolution and growth musically speaking again in that period.
24:20
[SPEAKER_00]: From our perspective, I think it never really felt like it didn't feel like we were ever a part for one we lived together.
24:30
[SPEAKER_00]: We own a house together and we were showing up at the studio together a lot during that time.
24:36
[SPEAKER_00]: There was the pandemic hit.
24:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Are our queens of the breakers was released?
24:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you
24:44
[SPEAKER_00]: We spent about two years touring that, and then in 2020, the pandemic hit, and everything kind of shut down.
24:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I think for the first time, since we were 18, we didn't feel the pressure, it was suddenly there was nobody saying, well, we weren't saying to ourselves, we got to get out there and tour, got to make a record, got to get in the cycle again, suddenly we just took a step back, and it was a real relief.
25:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we'd grown tired of music, we just kind of just kind of a relief to not have the pressure on ourselves.
25:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I was writing songs, but they hadn't been really amounted to much in my esteem, they were just these fragments.
25:25
[SPEAKER_00]: We both had young children.
25:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And we were also taking projects that were more studio-centric.
25:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we worked for a Montreal company called the moment factory, doing the immersive light experiences where we weren't even necessarily credited.
25:42
[SPEAKER_00]: We were just like honing these studio skills, building these soundscapes, sound design stuff.
25:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Back up, we got pretty immersed in that.
25:55
[SPEAKER_00]: The songwriting, my songwriting process slowed down a lot.
26:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I'd do right with the stage in mind.
26:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And there was, that just wasn't there.
26:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So the songwriting process slowed.
26:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Andrew was taking the gigs with, at the time, feist.
26:11
[SPEAKER_00]: He was also working on a bunch of other stuff with Aaron Desner.
26:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just kind of like,
26:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess at the time, I felt like I was fumbling around with these songs that I couldn't bring to the finish line.
26:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And one thing for me that that happened was I decided to get sober, which I didn't even necessarily realize how much of a
26:38
[SPEAKER_00]: What's a weight that was for me?
26:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I didn't realize what was on the other side of that for me creatively.
26:46
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just as hard to see when alcohol and drugs are part of one's life.
26:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So, isn't that crazy?
26:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I didn't know.
26:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, no, you are.
26:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you get off the stuff and you're like, I can feel everything.
27:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it was wild.
27:04
[SPEAKER_00]: It still is wild.
27:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I just made that decision to do that because I knew something needed to change.
27:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I knew if I was going to get, I knew that if we were going to have a really fruitful next phase of our musical lives together, something dramatic had to change and that was the one thing I could focus on.
27:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
27:26
[SPEAKER_00]: So, remove that from my life that was, you know, harder than I thought and more rewarding
27:36
[SPEAKER_00]: started finding my footing in sobriety is when this record suddenly just poured out okay it was like it was like this and my relationship with Andrew went from like just being locked in this thing from the past locked in these patterns of relating to each other and working together it all just became dislodged all the
28:01
[SPEAKER_00]: all of the patterns of regarding myself, what I identified, how I regarded Andrew.
28:09
[SPEAKER_00]: my family, music, my role as a musician, it all just shook loose from this, like, locked, you know, bud.
28:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
28:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So it seems like in reading like the press release about this record, it seems like there was a something that happened that completely changed everything was your getting sober
28:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say yes.
28:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
28:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I have like five questions about like what is this document of transformation?
28:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
28:42
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the it's the it's the sobriety.
28:45
[SPEAKER_00]: You know why we didn't put it in the press releases because I don't want I didn't want it to color or shape the way people heard this
28:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I like people to be able to relate their own experiences, the sobriety journey is one kind of journey to have a transformation of letting go of surrender.
29:11
[SPEAKER_00]: There are so many other, you know, there are most people don't identify as, you know, addicts or alcoholics, so most people, but most people can identify with some kind of a, either a need for transforming or transformative experience, something they need to let go, something they need to move through, so I really wanted people to be able to hear this record and relate their own experience.
29:36
[SPEAKER_00]: to the songs, to the message, to the message and the songs.
29:39
[SPEAKER_00]: So we talked about whether to put that into the press release, but we ended up kept coming back to like, I really want people to have their own experience with these songs and not to feel like they can't relate to it because it's about addiction.
29:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, right on.
30:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I, I totally respect what you're saying, but I was like, I wish I knew what the thing was so that I could formulate all these really invasive questions about it, but it's cool.
30:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I was, I was just saving it to tell you yourself.
30:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
30:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
30:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Barry the headline.
30:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Brad Barr.
30:37
[SPEAKER_01]: My wife and I just watched the Indigo Girls documentary last night, which you should watch it if you haven't seen it.
30:42
[SPEAKER_01]: It's on Netflix now.
30:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's not too hard to, oh, I don't know if it's in Canada or not, but I'd love to watch that.
30:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, worth it.
30:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And there is a part where Emily is like very candidly talking about her struggle with alcohol and how like listening to her talk about being in alcoholic and basically like how Amy was trying to handle it.
31:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And she said Amy came to me three times.
31:13
[SPEAKER_01]: to talk about it and it sounds like there was like a huge intervention with Amy and Emily's wife and maybe some other people and she finally did get sober but you might find it of interest to see like
31:29
[SPEAKER_01]: from her perspective of like a working relationship that sounds, I mean, I don't think Amy and Emily own a house together, but they are pretty tight, but yeah, I was thinking about that while you're talking about how that impacted how your choice to become sober, impacted Andrew.
31:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have any
31:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, I couldn't, I wouldn't want to speak for him, but I could say that I know how brutal it got towards the end.
32:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I know how frustrating it was, probably similar to Amy or anybody that has to live with or work with someone in active addiction.
32:25
[SPEAKER_00]: not knowing if he can rely on me for basic things or creating, you know, helping keep our career and music going or spiritual life together going.
32:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's that for me, it was the big one.
32:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know, I could see that, okay, maybe I'm not as productive, I didn't realize what a sort of spiritual, succubus.
32:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, good word.
32:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Alcoholism in addiction was, that's the thing that's very much come back, is for lack of a better world, a spiritual way of regarding the world of my experience here.
33:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And by say that, I mean, music creation and its, and what it's fundamental purposes are for various communities.
33:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And Andrews, I would say he's thrilled about it.
33:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
33:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, while I was thinking about you and Andrew being brothers in this band, another sibling band that came to mind are fellow Canadians, Tegan and Sarah, and they have said in the past that they are sisters first
33:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you feel that way about the bar brothers?
33:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I do.
33:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, when it comes down to it.
33:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
33:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Andrew, like for example, he can't he can't be here right now because he has a 10-month-old that is out pushing around in a stroller.
34:07
[SPEAKER_00]: and but like tomorrow he has to fly or tonight he has to fly to New York I think he's going to fly to New York to play with face and I know I know my role then is I take over for his for his daughter you know he he knows that he can go work because I can be here as an uncle for the baby
34:35
[SPEAKER_00]: All the say like that family, that sense of family is we get all those discussions out of the way first, how is mom doing, what does she need, what are dads, we basically get all the family stuff done first and then we can tackle the music or let the music tackle us.
35:02
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's it is we are yeah, we are we are brothers or I couldn't necessarily say that before I didn't know what not to bring it back to the addiction thing, but sure as an addict and alcoholic that comes first That's the that's the ultimate right shittiness of that of that stuff and yeah and so yeah, I'm really happy to say that we
35:25
[SPEAKER_00]: That is also in the press in the thing we wrote up.
35:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that was really the thing.
35:29
[SPEAKER_00]: We like, I feel like we definitely came back together as brothers and that gave way to all this, you know, what I would say, the coolest music we've made.
35:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
35:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so I want to just, it just thought of something by not including the fact that you got sober,
35:53
[SPEAKER_01]: is are you deep and the fact that you're not putting it in the press release?
35:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you feel like you're like, what are your thoughts about not being able to talk about it like publicly and like process it publicly?
36:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Like is that going to be a problem for you?
36:09
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, I'm actually like, this is actually Cindy, this is the first podcast I've done for the new record, this is the first interview right on, and I remember at the time when we were talking about, well,
36:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think we have to put it in there because we don't need to like, we don't want every single article written about this record to be about that.
36:40
[SPEAKER_01]: But when you read bar no longer going to the bar.
36:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
36:44
[SPEAKER_00]: There's too many, too many little plays on words and journalism.
36:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yep, that's stuff.
36:52
[SPEAKER_00]: But no, I don't feel actually any like shame or hesitation or reluctance, I love talking
37:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And if it gets a conversation going with anyone, someone who has a relative or a friend who's struggling or someone directly, you know, like, it's one of my favorite topics, so I, it was all kind of agreed, like, okay, we won't mention it in the press, but anytime the conversation goes, they're like, I feel particularly comfortable.
37:25
[SPEAKER_00]: here, and it's easy to talk about this stuff with.
37:30
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just was just, I'll just open up when it feels right.
37:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And packed this the very first podcast and first interview.
37:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a feeling I'll probably talk about it a lot.
37:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, it's because we're old neighbors.
37:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess that's it.
37:44
[SPEAKER_00]: What was it?
37:45
[SPEAKER_00]: We were on Allegheny.
37:46
[SPEAKER_00]: What were you?
37:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Allegheny Street on Mission Hill.
37:49
[SPEAKER_00]: What was your street?
37:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Parker, he'll have a new.
37:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Parker, he'll.
37:55
[SPEAKER_01]: tip top.
37:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was the perpendicular to Allegheny, right?
37:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you would have got, if you kept going on yours, you would have ended up in, yeah, it loops around for by the orange line.
38:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, rocks very cross and stop.
38:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Wait, to be hanging in the cool part of Mission Hill?
38:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we did live next to Eric Crasino and the lettuce house.
38:16
[SPEAKER_00]: They were on neighbors.
38:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And, uh,
38:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Did we ever hang out?
38:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you go to like to go to the... No, I was like a little kid when you... I mean, I was in college still.
38:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
38:30
[SPEAKER_01]: You know?
38:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I guess college ended for me in 96.
38:34
[SPEAKER_01]: But I... Yeah, yeah, I'm a few years younger than you.
38:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was definitely like, whoa.
38:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Who are these?
38:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Who are these Gohemian?
38:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Two cool.
38:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
38:45
[SPEAKER_00]: If only you knew, actually.
38:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
38:51
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a very fun, cool productive time and also sort of the end of the slip, too.
38:57
[SPEAKER_00]: That was not very there, but not the end of the slip.
39:01
[SPEAKER_00]: The slip still happens, but the end of that phase.
39:05
[SPEAKER_01]: The end of the Boston residents.
39:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
39:07
[SPEAKER_00]: The slip.
39:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess.
39:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to ask you about the female voice in your music.
39:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's like pretty unique.
39:30
[SPEAKER_01]: The way you use female vocals, in particular, I'm thinking about Lucius opening up Queens of the Breakers in your last record.
39:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Josie Adams of Arc Iris.
39:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Her voice is on let it his land of talk, on let it his, it's just, there's like a cool effect that they're bringing to the table that seems to be like, um, the same kind of aesthetic.
39:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know if you have ever thought about this, but like, what kind of intentionality and function do you see the female voice playing in your songs?
40:12
[SPEAKER_00]: If there was a concept, I really just thought this song would be much better if it had Elizabeth Powell on it.
40:20
[SPEAKER_00]: It would sound much better if Jossie Adams or Ariel Angle was in there helping it out.
40:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It is like, it just seems like, like, mist to bring it back to, like, mystical or heavenly, like,
40:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Not to confuse this with like the female mystique and the male gaze and all that bullshit or something like that, but like something like spiritual is happening when you hear a female voice on the bar brother songs.
40:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I really think that is just, I don't even think I know that that is just the virtue of those women who sang there.
40:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I gave
40:59
[SPEAKER_00]: very little direction.
41:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I gave Jossie, for example, on English Harvard, it was a center of the song.
41:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I was hoping to get back a single vocal line, something just a little harmony lines.
41:16
[SPEAKER_00]: She sent back 20 tracks of like, I believe it.
41:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I concept like,
41:25
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, still whimsical, still like there was there's nothing stiff, stiff, whimsical, but totally imaginative and mystifying vocals that I think we just have a good, a good instinct on who to ask, like Elizabeth Powell on run right into it.
41:54
[SPEAKER_00]: She and I lock really well together when we're singing these sort of duets, um, the way our voices resonate, but, uh, Elizabeth, they bring this incredible, uh, focus that I should be just, we just wanted them on that record, um, and Lucius actually very much the same thing as Jossie.
42:18
[SPEAKER_00]: We sent them a sent in the song said we're looking for some back of vocals and they came back with this extremely generous.
42:27
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just think we ask the right people and maybe there is something about the way we approach music, the intention that's, you know, to kind of openness that they feel like, okay, well then I'm gonna send it.
42:48
[SPEAKER_00]: some sort of phoned in vocal harmony, I'm going to like send in something that has takes that further.
42:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I also wanted to know like historically what's been your relationship to female singers and how they've impacted you.
43:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I definitely come from a pretty
43:14
[SPEAKER_00]: world, whether it's the jazz world, the jam world, rock and roll, these are all like really, I mean, you know, at least historically is very sort of male dominated areas of music.
43:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, you could actually talk for whole podcasts about why that is, but so it's been incredibly refreshing any time of women.
43:43
[SPEAKER_00]: brings that energy into what it is we're doing.
43:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Just as a relief, you know, I can personally get very, like, dude, but dude minded about music, controlling, trying to control this thing, using it, using this very cerebral approach to it.
44:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that what women
44:09
[SPEAKER_00]: that, like, melting side.
44:11
[SPEAKER_00]: That's part of us that just, for me, where I stop trying to like manipulate and control because there's nothing, there's great.
44:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so limited with my, like, need to control things that when I, when all the women that we've worked with, it's just unlocked the emotion.
44:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, just gone deeper, deeper down towards the sort of root center, I'm so grateful for the women
44:39
[SPEAKER_00]: shared that with me like going back to even our friend Leslie Helpert in Boston who lived at the Allegheny house with us was one of them.
44:47
[SPEAKER_01]: That's when I first met Andrew when Leslie came into WES.
44:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh really?
44:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
44:53
[SPEAKER_00]: You remember Leslie?
44:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad to hear that.
44:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
44:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
44:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Leslie was one of the first women too.
44:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, she literally like put her hands on on my belly and there's like, I need to shake something out of you.
45:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, yeah, she's she was very like, Kumbaya,
45:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, she could just flow, you know, she would write every year, she'd fill up this book, a huge like thick writing book with drawings, poems, full, like one of these most amazing, I was like, this could be an ancient tone, this it has, all this, and then she would burn it at the end of the year, she would just burn these, I was like,
45:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Listeners, Brad is holding his hands to his face.
45:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
45:39
[SPEAKER_00]: If I wrote 10 pages of what she put on these things, I would, it would be like, it'd be in the news.
45:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Or it'd be like, on my wall or something, it's you.
45:47
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just this letting this release, I don't know.
45:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I think, maybe, yeah, I've just had to...
45:53
[SPEAKER_00]: great luck, great, you know, very fortunate to meet and interact and create with women that, you know, not not often enough, really be asking me, but just often enough that I feel like extremely, uh, like I've walked away from every experience with with a deeper understanding of really why we do this.
46:14
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, next Brad Barr solo record.
46:19
[SPEAKER_01]: collaborations with all women.
46:21
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I'm thinking.
46:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And one guy.
46:25
[SPEAKER_01]: One guy named Brad.
46:26
[SPEAKER_00]: One guy named... Yeah, my friend Isaac Taylor also has that thinking of men in my life who also have that thing.
46:33
[SPEAKER_00]: My friend Isaac.
46:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Will allow it.
46:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, this is one exception.
46:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Isaac is an approved man.
46:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
46:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Lizzy who po hosts this podcast with me.
46:43
[SPEAKER_01]: We always talk about basic folks approved men.
46:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
46:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's like two men on the list.
46:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It's Mark early and Lizzy's dog Berlin.
46:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
46:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It's pretty.
46:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe Brad Barr.
46:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I, you know, give me a little time.
46:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
46:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
46:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to make my application just just go ahead.
47:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's make that solo record with all women.
47:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You produce it.
47:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
47:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I've always wanted to.
47:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
47:07
[SPEAKER_01]: This sounds good.
47:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So the last time that you and I spoke, we did an interview at WIP in 2017.
47:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And I searched high and low to try to find this interview online or in my archives and I don't have it.
47:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So it just lives in my heart at this point.
47:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But.
47:22
[SPEAKER_01]: We talked about how you not struggled, but you were just kind of like not super into the quote unquote pretty songs.
47:32
[SPEAKER_01]: You were you were writing not to bash the pretty songs because we love them, but it seems to me that the pretty songs are on let it hiss, but they have evolved.
47:47
[SPEAKER_01]: and they have morphed with this like psych improv experimental sound that you're also very good at.
47:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if you know what I'm talking about.
47:58
[SPEAKER_01]: If you agree with me and then what do you attribute that coalescence?
48:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Sounds like I was typically full of shit back then.
48:11
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like I didn't know what, who would say a thing like I'm not into the pretty songs.
48:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
48:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
48:19
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a direct quote, but something, something along those lines, I mean, something along those lines.
48:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, like it seemed to me that you were like, I want to make fuzzy guitar noise rock songs,
48:34
[SPEAKER_01]: beautiful, delicate melodies that were coming out of you and you were like, I got to get these out of here, but then what I really want to do is play these dirty, you know, big, psych rock songs, which which is kind of what let it hiss as, as, become moots as this like, these beautiful songs, these kind of songs that were written in a, uh, without aesthetic, but blown up.
48:59
[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
49:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, I think at the time,
49:04
[SPEAKER_00]: This is, I don't have to say this without my reaction to playing with the harp in the band, which probably we were talking in, you said, like 2017.
49:17
[SPEAKER_00]: By that point, it had been playing with Sarah Pajay, Bruce, about eight years.
49:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Sarah Pajay was our harp player in the bar brothers for a while.
49:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I loved it every time, I loved playing with Sarah, it was like, it opened my musical world in ways I can't even express, but I'm guessing that by 2017, it's playing in a band with a heart player, there's so much restraint that we had to exhibit every show and recording.
49:53
[SPEAKER_00]: it it it kept us and was one of the things that actually that it was one of the things that was a virtue it is a virtue for us who will just you volume and self-indulgent guitar solos and just not kind of having a ceiling was really good for us to have a ceiling and the heart played a role in that ceiling and I think probably by 2017 I was like
50:22
[SPEAKER_00]: banging on the ceiling a little bit like wanting to, you know, maybe, maybe feeling like writing for the harp, I'd become, you know, always writing music where I was like, and I have to consider the harp how the harp's going to do this.
50:43
[SPEAKER_00]: started to feel a little constricting.
50:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't mean this in any way.
50:47
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's nothing against Sarah or any harpist.
50:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I just my relationship to writing for the harp and maybe started to hit a wall.
50:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And I, and
51:00
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we've since had Sarah left the band in 2017 and has been pursuing studies in Japanese music really effectively and successfully with a degree.
51:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Evelyn Gregor, who was so came on as a heart player and we really shouldn't believe we had
51:20
[SPEAKER_00]: A second hard player who was willing to get on the road with a rock and roll band and plug or hard band into fuzz pedals.
51:27
[SPEAKER_00]: So creative and such a good spirit and such a great player.
51:31
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think I was still feeling like I need to, andro and I needed to get back to some basics.
51:41
[SPEAKER_00]: It felt like kind of going out without a net when this past year we've done a bunch of duo shows.
51:47
[SPEAKER_00]: found ways to get the low end of the base in there.
51:50
[SPEAKER_00]: But we came to rely so much on the harp for its optics as this instrument that nobody's ever seen before.
52:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we really relied on everything that the harp brought the antis.
52:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Sonically, in terms of optics, in terms of having a female presence on the stage,
52:17
[SPEAKER_00]: a little bit heavily and needed to know what it was like to do it without the heart for a minute.
52:25
[SPEAKER_03]: Mm-hmm.
52:26
[SPEAKER_00]: What the barber there's was without a heart.
52:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
52:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Was it?
52:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Was the barber there's a band without a heart?
52:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, I'm guessing by my answer at that time, I was probably thinking about some of this stuff.
52:39
[SPEAKER_01]: right on.
52:40
[SPEAKER_01]: The cover art was done by your wife, Brigitte Henry, who does a lot of the bar brothers and also your solo work, the visuals for your music.
52:51
[SPEAKER_01]: How does her aesthetic match that of the bar brothers and how do you and she communicate about what the visuals should be?
52:59
[SPEAKER_00]: She just tells me what it should be and I just say, I just agree, no, it's actually, this one was quite a process, you know, and usually, usually Andrew, Andrew and I agree on a lot, but like how the ban should be visually represented, we don't always agree.
53:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And, um,
53:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this record, he really wanted it to have his whole thing was I wanted to be a really fun cover.
53:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Almost, almost like a comic, you know, like a, I can't think he was picturing like Terry Gilliam, like cut at Monty Python, cut out like, oh cool.
53:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, something like that.
53:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Bridget brings this depth.
53:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you talk about the mystery she can find it in anything.
53:58
[SPEAKER_00]: She just, just if there's light and if there's a light and shadow, she can bring all the illuminated and articulate it and bring it all out.
54:20
[SPEAKER_00]: But I want it to be really different.
54:23
[SPEAKER_00]: All our other records have had this kind of mysterious quality.
54:27
[SPEAKER_00]: That bridge it brings really just through.
54:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's just through the way she sees light in shadows.
54:35
[SPEAKER_00]: It's inherently mystifying.
54:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So for this one, she knew what Andrew wanted it to be brighter or spontaneous or something.
54:52
[SPEAKER_00]: The process she took to get to the record cover was so unique and so crazy.
54:59
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to make a making of the album cover just because what you see on the cover there was this
55:08
[SPEAKER_00]: such a strange journey, and so cool.
55:11
[SPEAKER_00]: She's in the next room right now, and I hope she's hearing it, because I could never, none of us could have ever predicted what we came out.
55:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if I need to go into the process, because that really wasn't the question, but how she influences, how she influences, I just trust her implicitly.
55:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I know, I know that what she's going to come up with,
55:35
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to see something that I couldn't see.
55:39
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to have her own take.
55:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And her name is Bridget Henry for those of you listening.
55:45
[SPEAKER_00]: BRI, G-I-T-T-E, Henry.
55:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And she's made a lot of album covers, including album comes from Patrick Watson.
55:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah, a bunch of Montreal artists as marine, Gecki Foon, and she works in animation also, it's an art director, so she creates these miniature sets.
56:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So her whole, she just has a way of looking at that I could never dream up.
56:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I could never say, like, I want this to happen, and it would have.
56:17
[SPEAKER_00]: She just,
56:19
[SPEAKER_00]: She just tries things.
56:20
[SPEAKER_03]: It's so cool.
56:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm very lucky to have someone as creative as sort of, you know, in the next room and seeing things the way she sees them.
56:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Beautiful.
56:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
56:33
[SPEAKER_01]: When you're talking about how Andrew wanted a more cartoon album cover, the thing that came to mind.
56:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is not going to translate for the podcast listeners.
56:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Is the Brandy Carlisle, Elton John, album cover?
56:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
56:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, yeah, that's probably how, that's probably what let it hiss would look like if Angie was the art director.
56:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So I want you to show Bridgete, who believes in angels by Brandy Carlyle and Elton John, for your next bread bar, solo album.
57:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I think she would probably have a heart attack.
57:16
[SPEAKER_00]: That record cover, I don't think we're doing it for me.
57:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Love Candy Carlisle and Elton John would do them.
57:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Listen, if you haven't seen it, it looks like a game show promo for like a midday game show promo.
57:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I love it.
57:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, there she is.
57:35
[SPEAKER_00]: If she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if she is, if
57:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, okay, um, just kind of, I mean, it was, you know, that or like, or like early skateboard art, I think was one of these sort of influences we were both skaters when we were young and, and I still do skate, but I, I just think you want something kind of irreverent and bridges artwork, uh, always carries this kind of like, there's something
58:24
[SPEAKER_00]: something deeper going on and like Edward Gory.
58:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
58:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
58:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, like kind of whimsical, but also what is going on here?
58:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
58:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish I had a maybe less murder for Brigitte.
58:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
58:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's murder.
58:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Go go have a look at her website with like her, her other artwork on there.
58:46
[SPEAKER_00]: She also, I mean, she started
58:54
[SPEAKER_00]: book of photography where she took huge picture, huge prints of scenery, scenic, back like a tornado hitting a building.
59:07
[SPEAKER_00]: submerge them in water and then drop to human being in front of that so then so the person was like in mid, you know, water, like, you know, submerge in water floating, suspended in front of a huge poor way, uh, background scene of something in Congress, like a cathedral with this floating human.
59:30
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah.
59:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
59:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So creative.
59:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, before I let you go, will you do the lightning round?
59:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's do it.
59:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's do it.
59:38
[SPEAKER_01]: What is your favorite town in Rhode Island?
59:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Providence.
59:42
[SPEAKER_01]: What is your net, not even like a... Western life?
59:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I tuck it or... It's got to be Providence.
59:48
[SPEAKER_01]: What is your next dream life?
59:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Like what is your dream next life?
59:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Human, animal bird, etc.
59:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, my next life?
59:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I say, uh...
1:00:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So first a tree, and then a hollow-bodied Gibson.
1:00:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, awesome.
1:00:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Who is your celebrity crush?
1:00:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Vince Vaughn.
1:00:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Which musician, living or dead, would you want to ride a tandem bike with?
1:00:17
[SPEAKER_00]: John Cage.
1:00:18
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the last one.
1:00:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Where is the most beautiful place in the world?
1:00:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Martha's Vineyard.
1:00:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
1:00:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Red bar.
1:00:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you so much.
1:00:25
[SPEAKER_01]: This was awesome.
1:00:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So great to catch up.
1:00:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, Cindy.
1:00:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's do it again.
1:00:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe not in eight years.
1:00:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's do it again in like a degree.
1:00:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:00:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
1:00:34
[SPEAKER_01]: That sounds good.
1:00:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Great to talk with you.
1:00:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
1:00:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
1:00:41
[SPEAKER_01]: This episode of Basic Folk was produced by Anthony Cabrera, Dietrich Strauss composes our music.
1:00:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Basic Folk is a production of BGS.
1:00:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You can find all of our episodes there.
1:00:50
[SPEAKER_01]: You can check us out wherever you get podcasts.
1:00:53
[SPEAKER_01]: You can look us up on folkalli.com or folkalli's mobile app search for basic folk on the
1:01:05
[SPEAKER_01]: If you enjoyed this episode, perhaps you should share it with your friend Steve, who saw the bar brothers with in 2017 or was it 2018.
1:01:11
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyways, you had a great time and you can't stop talking about it and you text each other about it every now and again, send this episode to Steve.
1:01:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, thanks for listening all the way to the end.
1:01:22
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll talk to you next time.
1:01:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Bye!