Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Dan Wilson

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Dan Wilson · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Podcast. My
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: destiny is Dan Wilson, singer, songwriter, producer, you know and
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: from Semi Sonic. You know, from the songs he's written
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: with a Del Josh Grogan and Dixie Chicks and so
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: many more. Dad, good to have you, Thank you, Bob.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: It's good to be here. Okay. So what are you
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: up to these days in the COVID ever? Dare uh
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: making a lot of music and currently moving house, putting
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: books into boxes and getting ready to move. Okay, so
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: you're moving from where to where? From Sherman Oaks to
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: loose Felis stand in l a. Okay, and what's that about? Uh,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: you know, it's the usual thing. It's uh school kids,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: proximity to school, um, parenthood. You know, it's nice to
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: be up in the hills far from everything, but you're
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: also very far from the kid's friends. That kind of thing. Okay.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: So your kids go to public school or private school?
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: They private school and one is is graduated from high
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: school and lives with us. How many kids you have
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: just to graduate from high school? What's the plans there? Oh?
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Our older daughter is um cognitively disabled and the plan
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: is for her to just hang with us for us
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: as long as we all shall live, and she takes
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: music classes and various things. She's musically quite talented, but
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: essentially nonverbal, which is an interesting combination. So what will
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: happen when you and your wife pass away? Lord have mercy? Yes,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: this is the the very very slow, white knuckles question
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: of of a parent with a disabled child. Yeah, we
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: laugh with our thirteen year old telling her, you know,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: could come a time when the twenty year old lives
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: with her, but we don't want to press the issue
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: too too hard. Well, I know, I've another friend in
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: the identical situation, and he was commenting to me that
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: up to twenty one, they're all these services for these kids,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: but once they reached twenty one, all of a sudden,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: these governmental services fall away. Yeah, it's up in your experience.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Well yeah, and it also um in a way when
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: things are medically stable, which they've been for a while
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: for us. Uh, the you know, we've been able to
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: figure out ways to make make a life that's um
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: interesting and enriching for for the whole family, I guess
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: you'd say, but you know, just on our own. So
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: we haven't really needed specific services, but I do. I
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: see that the same thing. I know what you're talking about. Okay,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: so you're moving. Are you a pack rot? Are you
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: guy who has no problem throwing things away? Um? I
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: am a pack rat and my um. I'm trying to
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: apply uh a metric or whatever, a rule of thumb
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: to this, of which is, if it's a book that
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: I brought to l A from Minneapolis ten years ago
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: and I still haven't read it, then how it goes.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: If it's a guitar pedal that I brought from Minneapolis
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: to l A ten years ago and I have never
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: plugged it into my guitar, it's going on reverb dot com.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to like, I'm trying to use the you know,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: when you look in your closet, if you warn that
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: shirt seriously, even to a wedding, no, I think you've
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: got to get rid of it. So that's my little thing. Okay,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: So how many books do you think you'll move like them?
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: And how many books? Is that? I'm a big reader,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: so it's not a library full of books, but I
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: have a lot of books. I read a lot of books.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I can't really have more books than
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: anybody that I know. The reason I mentioned this is
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: I moved about a year ago and I was confronted
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: with the same problem. And I have a lot of music.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I kept all my vinyl. I never you know, and
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: I'm never going to get rid of my vinyl. And
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: that's thousands of records. Terms of CDs, I cleaned those
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: out a few times, but a few computers with the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: money I've gotten, and uh, they were you know, these
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: promo CDs are worth nothing there. Now they're worth nothing again.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: But for a long time there it was astounding. Um.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: But the books, it was interesting in terms of the
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: physical books. I all, I have the stuff I bought,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: and I also have the stuff that sent to me.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: And there was so much stuff that I didn't really
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: know what to do. And then I have another friend
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: who says, well, you know, once I've read a book,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: what should I do with it? You know, I'm not
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: gonna read it again. I'm not a rereader, but I
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: certainly come from the background where you want to walk
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: into someone's house and see all the books. So I
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: started to throw things out, and then I said, I'm
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: gonna keep all the music books because a lot of
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: those were only innted once, and I may have the
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: only copy extent, but I literally tossed everything else. And
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: I'd like to tell you I miss him, but I don't.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: The other things. I've been reading on a kindle for
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: about ten years, and I'm really into it. You know,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: there's some physical books that are sent to me and
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I see this the future. And I have a friend,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: my close friend from college. He was in the book business.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: And I go to his house and every room is
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: full of books, and he goes, yeah, my house is
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: a monument to dead treat media. I said, you know,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: that's enough for me. But I'm a pack rat too.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: But how much are you saving stuff for legacy reasons? Well,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: I don't you mean, what do you mean by legacy?
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Tell me that? Well, you know, I was talking to
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Pete Wentz, a fallout boy. You know, he literally has
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: kept everything because at some point he's gonna die and
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be his museum. Bill why Bill Wyman did
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: the same thing. He kept one of everything, although he
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: recently sold a lot. Are you keeping it? Thinking? Well,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm Dan Wilson, I've had some six says
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: the other thing you know. The other big thing now,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: which you may or may not be aware of, is
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: you can donate your archive to UH colleges frequently for
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: seven figures. WHOA well, um, Bob. I love all this talk.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I I I my my relationship to all the books
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: is actually pretty selfish. At the moment, I'm not thinking
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: about my legacy. I'm just thinking I might want to
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: I might read that book again. If it's poetry, I'm
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: gonna keep it all. I have a lot of poetry books,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: and I do kind of like I do like to
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: just randomly pick out a book from the shelf and
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: read it, or just be reminded of something and read
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: and read some poems. And but I probably I don't
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: think I will read most of the novels that I
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: that I've read again. I probably won't. I don't know.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: It's it's a funny question. If you lend a novel
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: to somebody, do you insist to come back. No, I'm
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: actually I don't mind when I lend a book to
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: somebody unless we make a pact. At that moment, I
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: really don't expect it's gonna come back. I'm fine, I'm cool, Okay.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: And if you had to pick two books out of
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: your reading experience of fifty odd years. Wow, what would
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: you recommend or what are the most important to you?
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: I can't really recommend, Like probably the books like um,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Labyrinths by or Hey Louis Borges is probably the most
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: important book, just because it was when I read it,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: I had an idea what books were, and then this
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: was one of those books that just completely changes your
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: whole idea of what a work of art could be.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: I just love that book Labyrinths, and then from my childhood,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know what I keep. I was once at
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: this conversation with Matt Hale's a friend of mine who's
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: a great producer, and he, um, he said, what's the
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: most influential book in your life? And I said it's
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: probably Lord of the Rings and he said, no, no, no, no,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: it's Winnie the Pooh. And I was like, Okay, that's
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: a closed call. So I'd probably keep Borges and Winnie
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: the Pooh or a load of the Rings. I can't tell. Okay,
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: let's jump back. So what are you working on career wise,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: work wise, music wise these days? Yeah? Um, Well, the
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: big surprise of the other than everything going to crazy
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: hell in a handbasket. Uh is that? Um, Semisnic put
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: out My band, Semi Sonic put out an EP, and
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: the first single has been sort of floating in the
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: teens on the Triple A chart, which is not what
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: we expected. Is on the radio and people are hearing
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: it and sadly, Um, we had to cancel a whole
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: bunch of shows. We had a very fun um maybe
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: uh a lazy man's touring year planned and Uh, we're
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: gonna go to UK and play a bunch of shows
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: there and we're gonna hit as much of the US
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: as possible. That's gonna go. Maybe maybe they'll have to
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: happen next year. But even the fact that we've been
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: doing these ridiculous and great, um, you know, live from
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: home performances, and the fact that we've been talking to
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: each other aloud and and I'm still writing new songs
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: for Semi Sonic, That's like that's been a big focus
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: and I'd still write songs with folks like let's stop
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: stop with Semi Sonic. Semi Sonic a spense essentially broke
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: up or faded away and you put out albums independently.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: What made you decide to work with semi sonic again.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: I had the guys and I have been in touch,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: like you know, close friends all this time. There's never
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: been like a fight or a falling out or a problem.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: John and Jacob and I are pals. Okay, just one second.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Was it an actual agreement to break up twenty years
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: ago or suddenly you just didn't get back together to
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: make new music. I at that time are older, her
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Coco was kind of emerging into like she was getting
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: She had been very medical as a as a as
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: a you know, we are our family was very medicalized,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: you know, in from nine to two thousand and one,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: and and yet I was also on tour a ton
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: and I found that conflict between having a little baby
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: on a ventilator, um, you know, an undersized PREMI toddler
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: on a ventilator at home while I was in Birmingham
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: or you know, Bristol doing shows. I found it painful,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: and eventually it just seemed insupportable for me to be
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: gone so much so I and the guys and I
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: had been on the road for like eight years at
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: that point. And it's not like we're mad at each other,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: but there weren't a lot of things, and you know,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: you couldn't really put on our plates something that that
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: we hadn't already done a bunch of like there was
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: it didn't really seem like they were going to be
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: like brand new. I'm not, you know, just being bigger,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: like doing the same thing and being bigger. That was
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: the only thing that was sort of like on the menu,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: and that wasn't enough of a draw. And I kind
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: of felt I needed to be a dad more more
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: of a dad in this you know, difficult situation. So
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: we just kind of slowed down, and I know the
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: guys didn't exactly know what was happening. Jacob started writing
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: his book. He wrote this wonderful book called So You
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star? During those
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: those next like four years or so, um, but then
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: as time passed, you know, John bass player from Semi
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: Sonic would say to me, like we'd get together on
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Christmas time in Minneapolis, or we'd have a benefits show
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: that we would do, and he'd go, have you written
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: any new songs? Let's let's come on, let's just do this.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: It could be great. And I had to confess I
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: hadn't written any good Semi Sonic sounding songs during those
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: I tried, but I didn't have any. It was either
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: a bad song that sounded like my band or a
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: really good song that didn't sound like my band. And
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: I hadn't been able to figure out how to do that,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: to to make a to to make a great song
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: that sounded like semi sonic. Again, I needed to have
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: a stroke of luck to get to that point. Okay,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: first point, you've continued making a living from music. The
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: other two members of the band, what have they been
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: doing for the past twenties years? Essentially, Well, John in
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Minneapolis has become kind of uh. First of all, he
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: has he has a jazz band called the New Standards,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: and they they do they play pop songs and then
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: they shred. It's a trio h vibes piano and upright bass,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: and they have become kind of a uh icon of
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: Minneapolis St. Paul Music um. And every year they put
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: on a big Christmas show with with all the artists
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: that they know, all the all the performers that they know,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: and it's kind of become sort of it's like a
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: destination for families and and and fans every year. So
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: John kind of slowly turned into an impresario. He puts
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: on gigs. He you know, he's produced a few records,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: not a lot, and then the new standards, you know,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: go to Beijing and play shows or Alaska. They do
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: fun stuff like that. Jacob has been working on his
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: second book for quite some time. He has a punk
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: rock band in New York that plays loud and very fast,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: so whenever he gets together with us, it's like our
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: tempos are that just the laziest thing, and he's got
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: absolutely no trouble, you know what I mean. It's just
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: like Semisnic is all this medium speed, you know, Lope
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: and Jacobs, you know, much more accustomed to hundred and
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: sixty beats per minute these days. Okay, but Jacob have
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: a slide gig because being in a drummer and a
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: punk band doesn't tend to pay that. You're gonna have
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: to get Sakeavon to ask him how he pays the bills.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: But uh, I think the book helps the first book, okay,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: and it was a great book. I certainly read it.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: So you had problems writing semi sonic songs? What changed? Uh?
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: It really was a specific event. I had a really fun,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: inspiring meeting with one of my favorite singers, Liam Gallagher.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: We got together um at my place one late morning
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: and sat out on my my deck in the backyard,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: and he just basically was a rock star, uh. And
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: we laughed and I got to ask him some of
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: my Oasis fan questions and not all but not all,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: and we played him a few songs that I'd written, uh,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: and he said, well, I'm going back to you know,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: England tomorrow. Send me anything you have have that you
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: think I could do when we could, when we could
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: discuss that. And I was like, yeah, sure, no problem.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: So over the next week and a half, I had
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: a bunch of ideas and I wrote like five songs,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: thinking these are pretty good Liam Gallagher songs. I like
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: these songs. These are cool. So I sent them to
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: him and his management and they got back to me
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: right away and said, oh my goodness, it's the album's done.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: You know, my mistake or whatever. I don't know if
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: they hated them or if they literally were like, oh geez,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Dan wrote a bunch of songs. So but when I
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: listened to them again, they sounded they bore Liam Gallagher songs.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: They were just me. They were my songs. And a
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: couple of them sounded like Semi Sonic songs, and even
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: though we didn't use them on the EP, they were like, oh,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: wait a minute. I don't know, maybe just meeting I
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: had met Liam before at festivals, at gigs, backstage and stuff,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: but maybe seeing him again reminded me of that time
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: in a way that other things didn't. And I I
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: had told John and Jake, we're not going to update.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: We're not going to upgrade our sound. We're not gonna
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: try to sound like you know, Post Malone does Semi Sonic.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: I don't need that personally because I do pop music,
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: so I don't need to be updated. And I just
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: said to the guys, let's not let's just do what
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: we sound like and have it be fine. So we needed,
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: I needed to get back in that mood. Okay, so
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: you're back in the mood. But needless say, in the
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: twenty years since Semi Sonic was on the boards, the
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: music business has changed completely. Okay. It used to be
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: the big threshold was getting a label deal, and if
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: you had one of the label deals, they would give
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: you a shot in the marketplace, assuming they believed your
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: music was okay. If not they'd either drop you or
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: get your some publicity. So what was it like saying Okay,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna enter back into this sphere twenty years later. Well,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: I mean I think one, um, one thing that you
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: have to do now is piece together the whole thing,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: like piece together, like as though you all the departments
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: that used to be a label and now separate people
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: working out of there, you know, home offices or or
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: offices or whatever, you know, as as subsidiaries of things.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: We ended up getting distribution and some um uh services
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: from the Orchard. We did a bunch of things ourselves.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: We have um, you know, publicists that have worked for
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: you know, worked for me, and they ended up also
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: working for the Semi Sonic record. We you know, it's like,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm fortunate enough to have these relationships, but
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: we we have. You have to sort of almost like
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: it's all all a heart. You just find this and
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: that and this and that and and then you have
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: your own temporary label structure or whatever you wanna call it.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: And you mentioned the record the track is on a
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: triple A radio. How did it get there? Because nothing
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: happens by accident anymore. Well, um, I think there was
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: I think between the Orchard and Jim Grant, my manager,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: I think they and everybody who was involved in like
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: the team, I think, um, you know, Mega Forest the label, uh,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: I think they. I think they all thought that that
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: was a reasonable hope that we could get some airplay
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: on this kind of station. Like I knew. I knew
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: we could get played on if we got lucky, we
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: could get played on x RT in Chicago, and we
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: could get played on k XPN and Philadelphia, and we
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: could get played, um, you know here on k c
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: S n uh, you know in l A. I mean
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: I had this. That's the kind of station I had
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: in my mind. And those are all of what's called
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: triple A station. So that makes sense to me if
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Mega Forrest and Jim and everybody else, we're going to
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: decide where to go. And I honestly though, I thought
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: if Casey MP and St. Paul played it a bunch
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: of times, a non embarrassing number of times in my
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: hometown and then it was over, I was I probably
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: would have been like, yeah, high fives, let's do that again.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: So I didn't really think of it as likely to
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: be played all around the country like it is okay,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: because you know, there's a lot of people making music,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: however good that gets nowhere to play at all. How
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: are you the type of guy who's more of an
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: artist or are you also a student of the game.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: If I were to talk about charts distribution, is that
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: you have expertise in that area? No, No, I'm I'm not.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I'm not that guy I had. Um. There was a
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: period when I tried to start, to some degree, out
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: of a sense of obligation or oldest son duty or something,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: I tried to learn more about the business and try
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: to be very involved in like are very up to
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: speed on how Semi Sonic was doing, for example, or
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: what my what the songs I've co written are you
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: know doing? But I I kind of learned pretty early
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: that if I did that, I would just write songs
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: about money, you know, and like record sales and distribution.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: It becomes it's like whatever you focus on in your
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: life is what you end up writing songs about. And
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: those are very very boring topics. And I really noticed
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: when I was really plugged into the business side how
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: much my songs would suck. So I kind of unplugged. Okay,
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: when before COVID when uh Semi Sonic was going to
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: play live dates. How many live dates was this? Well,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: we would I mean we were going to play. I
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: would say the grandiose plan was something like thirty shows.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: I think that's you know, I know that's not a lot,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: but it's it's okay. But yeah, but that's the balance.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: My question being that you've put out this track and
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: the track is more successful than you anticipated. We all
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: know that the old game doesn't exist. Nothing crosses over
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: from triple A to top forty, etcetera. So they are
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: not inherently lucrative. They're not inherently large in terms of
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: social cultural impact. However, when what it has s sccess,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: it does light a flame or turn the gas up
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: a little inside. So now that you've had this success,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: to what degreed? He say, Wow, I'm turned on, I
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: want to go further down this path. Well, i'm m.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: We put out the EP, we we made the EP,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: and we were done with that at the end of
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: last year. Maybe the last mastering was done in December
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: or January maybe, and the it was always a plan
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: to just do this EP and then get started to
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: make another EP. So I didn't I think we probably
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: would have done it, whether we've gotten any airplay at all.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: I just think it feels like the time, you know
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: for it, and we've done enough shows where you know
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: where we haven't forgotten how to be a band, but
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: we're all pretty excited about like kind of hitting it
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: a little harder and and also spending that time together.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: There is a big part of this is just that
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: we're we cherish each other. It's kind of weird to say,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: but we just because we love each other, we want
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: to do this. Okay, let's flip it over. So you
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: have this personal situation, you put the band on hiatus.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: How do you become a song writer for hire? Oh man? Well,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: I I had the picture in my mind because of
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Carol King, who was my kind of one of my
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: childhood heroes. And she her name was on all these
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: records and she had hits of her own. So I
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: always thought that was one thing that someone who was
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: really cool could do. So I had that picture in
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: my mind, and the on the last Semisnic album, I
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: ended up writing a song by Crazy good Luck with
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: Carol for the Semi Sonic album. So I watched what
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: she did with me that was interesting and uh, well,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: well let's slow down a little bit because Carol does
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: not write the lyrics. So what was interesting about the experience.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: What did you learn about the experience? Well, I was,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: first of all, I was super nervous to be with Carol.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: I was We sort of imagined that we could be
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: writing a a semisonic song and we both were thinking that.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: But but there wasn't It wasn't like this isn't a
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: label's idea of what to do when you're desperate, you know,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: even like at that time, Carol wasn't a h you know,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: the matrix or a Top forty you know, uh, one
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: of the villains of Top forty production. She she was
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: an icon. But we thought we'd write a semi sonic song.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: And yet I had this idea almost like that. I
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: was that I didn't know if I was supposed to
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: be me or be her during this session. This is
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: a very early for me, like co write and she, uh,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: she kind of guided me into a zone where we
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: were both having ideas that reminded each other of the
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: other one somehow, like I would. At one point, I
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: played a piano chord and I was like, uh, oh,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: you know what about this cord. I'll show you what
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: the chord I played. Hold on, I played this chord.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: I played that chord and I was like, how about that?
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: And she laughed. I said yeah, I said four over five.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: You like that cord, Carol, And she laughed and she
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: said yeah, but it's it's not called four over five,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: it's called c over K. And I was like, Okay,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: you are a badass. Like I already loved her for that,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: you know. But then at another point, she she had
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: an idea that was almost like tweaking closing time, like
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: she was sort of it was not satire, but it
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: was just her like taking the piss about closing time.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: And uh, but we ended up using it because it
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: was awesome and I really learned from that. I learned
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: from this kind of like we found a kind of
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: a part of the playground where where both of us
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: were comfortable with the with the ideas we were having
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: and it was truly, uh collaboration. And that was like
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: almost like a masterclass. You know. That was like an
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: early moment when I really thought, oh, I could totally
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: do this. This is great because my hero knows. It
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: just showed me partly how to do it? Okay? So
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: then what happened after that? Then? Um, oh, I wrote,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: I wrote a song that got I wrote a song
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: with Beck Runga, who's a New Zealander and she uh,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: and I wrote a song that was in this movie
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: called American Pie that was pretty great. And then Semi
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Sognic you were you were working with Semi Sonic. How
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: did you even get hooked up with this New Zealand? Uh?
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Beck was signed to the same publishing company that Semi
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Sonic was with, Warner Chapel, and Kenny McPherson, who has
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: been my publisher ever since, said, Hey, you know, I
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: have an artist who's like having a little trouble um
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: getting inspired and kind of stuck, and you wanted to
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: try to do a session with her. So we ended up.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: We ended up. We got together and wrote a song.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: And it's not like I knew how to do that
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: to like to help someone not be stuck, but we
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: wrote a real nice song. Okay, so keep going okay.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: So then then Semi Sonic, Um, then I kind of
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: like somewhat cleared the decks and we stopped touring, and
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: I was putting out the word to lots of people
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: like in the Twin Cities, and you know where I
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: was from and where I lived, and you know locals
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: and other people. I'd like to write songs with people.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: I want to I want to do collaborations. And I
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: just put the word out I want to write with people,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: and um, the Minneapolis people didn't want to do it.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: They were all very uncomfortable. They thought they're weird. Songwriting
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: method was unsuitable to show other people, which was already
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: interesting for me too to hear that, because it almost
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: becomes a universal like people are like, I can't write
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: a song with someone else because then I'd have to
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: show them the stupid way that I write songs. And
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: that that was kind of an insight for me, even
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: even to be refused on those grounds. And then um,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: friend of mine who was an A and R guy
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: for Trip Shakespeare, my previous band, Steve Robowski uh contacted
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: me and said, I have an artist, Rachel Yamagata. I
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: think you would really get along great with her. She's
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: a she's a touring you know, rock musician, and she's
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: going to make a h a contemplative piano record and
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: and you guys need to write a song together. So
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: I wrote a song with Rachel. We had a great
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: We had a great time. She played it for Jason
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Mraz and then a few months later Jason was at
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: my house in Minneapolis and we were writing songs, and
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: two of those songs we worked and ended up on Mr.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: A to Z his the album that he was working
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: on and did did did it just likes it just
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: happened like that, like Pearson first and the person to person. Yeah. Now,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: there are a lot of musicians. I know people musicians
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: who are dicks in real life, but they're unbelievable networkers
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: in music. They know how to relate to musicians. Are
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: you more the isolated type or are you heavily network
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: to begin with? And do you have any anxiety about
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: reaching out to people? Oh? I'm ah man, okay, Like
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: I'm I have a real hard time asking anyone for
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: a favor of any kind. I have a very Norwegian
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: American shyness and like bashfulness. I guess about about getting ahead.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: And I I'm not a great networker in that sense
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: of once I have someone in my network, I don't
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: go all right now I'm gonna call Bob and ask
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: him for this, you know. But I do, but I
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: do keep in touch with people, and I do, and
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: I cold call people, but I cold call people because
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I love what you do. Let's hang out.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Like I like, A couple of my happiest musical relationships
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: are people that I just got in touch with randomly.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Somebody find me this person's email or phone number, I'm
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: just going to contact them. But once they're in my network,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: I just it's not like they're there to be exploited.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: I just I just love musicians. So I don't know,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: I'm do you know what do you stay in touch
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: with people on the regular Banks you say I heard
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: from that person in a month, I say like, oh, okay,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: so I'm not a month. I'm like six months. I've
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: never been a month. But I've always been like, oh
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: I haven't yeah, I haven't heard from them for a while,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: or just like how you're doing, or I heard I
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: heard some news about you or whatever. I've always been
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: that kind of person, and I think there was a
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: time there was a sort of a turning point in
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: my life when I was doing a lot of painting
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: and I was selling a lot of paintings, and I
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: was like, Okay, I know I'm not cool enough to
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: be New York gallery artist, but I could probably figure
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: out how. So I was definitely thinking in those terms,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: like what what do I need to do to be
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: able to just be a a painter and do that
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: as as my life, because I really love art and
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: I loved making art, and I was I was thinking too,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: you know, how do I crack that code and still
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: be myself? And I was sort of thinking maybe a
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: little bit like if if I have to transform myself
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: too much, I'm not going to do it. But I
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: was definitely thinking, like, what is it about my work?
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: This is not cool? I don't know so. And then
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: in music, it was an interesting time because I was
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: also like the only two choices were to like try
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: to adapt and but that's never gonna work, or just
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: be yourself and see what happens. So I couldn't really
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: decide between art of music on on the basis of, well,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: this one is obviously working better than that one. I was.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: I was still puzzled what it meant to be an artist.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: But once I had done music and art at the
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: same time for like two years, it was really obvious
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: that being a painter is like super lonely. It's just
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: really lonely work, and you can't have people come in
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: and bug you. You've gotta be alone. Like they could
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: come in for a little while, but you know, in
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: your studio, if you're if you're in a building, but
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: you bas you mainly have to keep them out. And
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: I realized, I'm just not that guy. I just I'm
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: not built for that. Okay. But when you write for
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Semi Sonic, you write the songs alone. Uh, what's the
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: difference between doing that and inherently starting as a collaboration. Well,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: I wrote Um a d of You're Not Alone from
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: the New Semi Sonic EP. But I wrote UM Basement Tapes,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: which is very autobiographical. I wrote that with Mike Viola
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: and Jenny Owen Young's two friends of mine who we've
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: written a whole bunch of songs together over time, and
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: they they just played the part of the co writer
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: in that session. If we go back to the Trip
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Shakespeare in initial Semi Sonic, Yeah, era, were you mostly
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: writing the songs alone? Yeah? Most like a Trip Shakespeare.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: I was the finisher for for my brother Matt's unfinished songs,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: so he would finish, he would do most like half
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: the songs all alone, and maybe a quarter of them
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: I would finish, and some small proportion we would just
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: write together as a collaboration. But when Semisnic came along,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: I just knew what I wanted and I knew what
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: it needed to sound like, and I knew songwriting wise,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: like what had to happen and also what I had
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: to access. And so I end up writing those songs
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: alone because I just knew what was necessary and I
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: wanted to a lot of times I was writing for
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: our shows, like we don't have anything for them. It's
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: like there's always this dead period in the middle of
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: the set. You know, what is wrong with those three
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: songs that we keep We're switching out all these songs
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: into that middle section of the set, and it's always boring.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Why what can I do? And I would write songs
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: for that purpose, or I'd write a song to close
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: the show, you know, very practical when you were not touring.
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Uh did you miss it? Yeah? I did, I did.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: I missed it when when you know there's something about
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: being on tour is like really really tiring. You gotta
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: get you get to a certain point of like what
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: a friend of mine calls maximum tiredness, and then you
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: just like cruise. You're just that tired all the time,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: but you're also irresponsible and taken care of even your
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: food shows up in front of your face, and you
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: can party until someone comes through with a scowling face
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: and says, you know, hey, come on, we gotta go
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: back to the hotel. You need to get sleep. You
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: you you gotta get up early. Like that level of
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: like care free irresponsibility is amazing as an adult. Okay,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: back in the day, did you take advantage of some
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: of the so called perks of being on the road, Uh, well,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: in some ways, But I was. I got married before
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: any of this happened. Really like I like I I
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: my girlfriend and I who now my wife. You know,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: we got together when we were in nineteen and twenty
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: or something like that, and we've been very uh deeply
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: intertwined ever since. So I didn't have like a phase
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: of like, uh, you know, sexual wildlife, you know, abandoned
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: and I I would have The road didn't offer me
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: any more drugs than my friends at home did, So
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: I don't I don't think I did more drugs than
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: I would have done if I had just been a
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: dude staying in Minneapolis all the time, I would have
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: done it either way. I think this is gonna sound
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: super dorky, but like when I look at pictures of
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: me and John and Jacob on tour, it's like it's
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: us in front of the Eiffel Tower, and it's us
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: on you know, Bondai Beach, and it's us, uh, you know,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: like slowly walking through um Westminster Abbey, you know stuff
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: that's like we really really wanted to see the world
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: and and and uh you know. Um It's almost like
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: tourism was for us. That was the drugs we we
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: could we could have just been on the bar circuit
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: and then all the drugs wanted. So okay, let's go back.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: You work with Mr aid On, Mr a to Z.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: What is your first breakthrough success as a songwriter, collaborator,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: writer for a hire? Wow, okay, let's see. I mean,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: I think it's not ready to make Nice with the
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Dixie Chicks. I think I was working on an album
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: that eventually was called Free Life with Rick Rubin. He
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: signed me to his label American and we were working
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: on that and he played a bunch of the songs
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: that we were working on for the Dixie Chicks when
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: he was producing them, and they they got excited about
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: a couple of the songs, but then also they got
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: excited about the possibility of writing us writing together. So
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: eventually Rick Rick put us together in in a in
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: a room after a lot of false starts. It was
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: like a lot of reasons why things got canceled, but yeah,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: that was the first one. Okay, let's go back to
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: one of my personal favorites. How did you end up
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: working with Gabe Dixon? Oh? Gabe a friend of mine,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Ah who worked at m c A as an international
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: promo guy and had traveled with Semisnic around Europe. Um
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: Uh introduced me to Gabe and basically they were It
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: was before anything like really had happened commercially from my
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: form my co writing. But Gabe and I had a
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: very magical um a couple of weekends in Minneapolis writing
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: songs and we wrote UM five more hours and we
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: wrote all Will Be Well, and we wrote we wrote
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: five or six songs that I think of as like,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: you know, possibly like lifetime type songs for for an artist. Together,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: we really clicked. It was and that was before the
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Chicks before I met Rick. It was early on. Okay, Well,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: I'm a huge fan of that initial work and then
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: the live rendition of that work, and Gabe has never
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: been able to equal that since artistically or commercially, and
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: he's sort of a hired hand piano player. Uh. That
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: demonstrated to me that you had a huge effect. Why
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: have you not worked with him again? Well? We did.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: We wrote another song called My Favorite that came out
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: on a record of his like ten years ago. But
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: I think, like I think sometimes, first of all, when
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Gabe and I wrote All Will Be Well, he never
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: he didn't think it was all that it was, you
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: know he was he didn't think it was special, and
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: everyone else thought it was special, um except for him.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: So it's possible that he and I just didn't make
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: I think I think we made things that were sort
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: of I was supposed to make the difference, and I
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: think we made things that were closer to home for
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: him than, you know, than farther away. And I think
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: sometimes when people are on the co Wright train, they're
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: trying to find someone that's going to take them farther
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: from home so they can be different and then finally
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: get some kind of recognition because that maybe they're not
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: doing the right maybe just being themselves isn't enough, you know.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: I think somehow that's possibly in the back of a
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: lot of people's minds. And labels are that way too,
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: Like if I if you writes, If I write a
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: song with somebody and it's it's the quintessential them song,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: labels are like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, But we
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: need something that's got that spark of difference to you know,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: really like there's a mental block against just being essentially
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: truly yourself. Can you give us any examples where you
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: took someone further away out of their comfort zone and
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: it worked. Well, let's see, I mean it's got to
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: be uncomfortable to work. Uh adult kind of jokes that
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: I would, you know, make her weep. When we wrote together,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: I wasn't mean I was never unkind or impolite, but
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: like it just was we had some very raw conversations
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: about difficult things. That was not easy. That was you know,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: that was outside the comfort zone. But the songs are
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: they feel very very authentically adele, you know, and even
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: those chick songs to right, um not ready to make nice.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: I kind of had to convince them that that they
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: needed a song like that, and that they felt like
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: they just didn't want to beat a dead horse and
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: be talking about the same thing again and again. And
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: I was like, no, you need we need at least
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: one song where you just go head on into it,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: like just walk through the fire in one song so
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: obviously that no one will mistake what you're talking about.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: That's got to happen. How did you get hooked up
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: with a Dell to begin with? Same thing? Rick Rubin?
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: That was like, that was incredible bit of matchmaking. He
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: kept saying, you gotta do this, and like and and yeah,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: I kept getting postponed. I'm canceled. And he would call
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: him and say, I really think, I really think you
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: need to write a song with this with Adele, she's
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: so amazing, and like he just you know, and he
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: did the same to her until we finally like hooked
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: it up. Okay, So tell me about that experience where
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: it was raw? Was that something conscious? What did you
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: inject into that songwriting session that resulted in that. I
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: don't think I injected anything. I think she I think
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: she wanted to talk about this raw emotion she wanted
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: to talk about she wanted to make a breakup song
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: that sort of reflected what she the story she was
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: telling about her feelings. I I don't think I um,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I think I'm a good listener. I
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: don't think I did anything like I like when we
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: were the next day we got together. At the first day,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: we wrote two thirds of someone Like You, and it
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: sounded pretty great. The second verse was terrible. There was
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: a bridge that was kind of tangled up in the
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: second verse. You know, there were problems. The vocal was
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: not as cool as we probably I would have wanted it.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: But the second day, when we got together, I said
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: to her, so, do you want to keep working on
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: that thing we started yesterday or do you want to
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: work on a new song? And she was like, oh
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: my god, of course we have to finish that song
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: from yesterday. Like I was very happy to be like, well,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: I guess, let's work on something else, and and she
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: was like no, no, no no, no, no, no no, we
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: gotta finish that song. So it wasn't like I was
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: a Spengali guiding her to success. I was actually being
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: very loose and goosey about you know what to do? Okay,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: So she reveals herself and you're listening, what was the
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: next step in writing that song? Well, I mean it's
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: almost more like yeah, it's almost like she had a
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: she had a bass riff. She has this very interesting
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: one finger way of playing the bass. She doesn't I
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: don't think she's ever maybe she performs it once in
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: a while. She's just interesting way of playing the bass.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: And she does that on on the low strings of
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: a guitar too. So she had this kind of bass
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: or low string guitar riff and a couple of lines
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: of of someone like you no title, I don't think,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: or no chorus. But she had that beginning and that
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: that low BASSI riff on the guitar, and at one
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: point she was like, I don't know, this is just
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: you wan't Why don't you play it while I sing?
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: So I played that same riff on the guitar while
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: she sang, and she and she was like, I don't know,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe it would be more inspiring if
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: you played it on the piano. So I played it
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: on the piano and we immediately just like, Okay, that's
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: exactly how the song needs. Like it was really clear.
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: Now we're onto it like now we you know, once
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: you feel like you're onto something, it becomes very easy
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: to like get become very dogged and intense about it.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: And so I think that once we heard that similar
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: pattern on the piano that she had been playing on
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: the guitar, it we could imagine the record and then
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: then it gets easier. And did you have any idea
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: that the record would be as successful as it was? No?
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: I mean we played it for my wife when I
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: came home. We were staying in l a in Las VELAs,
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: uh for a month, and I was doing I was
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: writing with people and doing stuff, and I came home
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: and played it for my wife and she said, oh,
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: that's a beautiful song. And then, um, we never listened
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: to that, you know, didn't listen to it again. And uh,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: then like a week later, I got a text from
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: the head of her label, Columbia saying, you know, basically like,
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: oh my god, Dan, this is a copyright. You know,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: It's like okay, great, uh wow, Okay, let's go back
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: really way to the beginning. Okay, so you're from from
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Minneapolis area. Did you literally were born there and grew
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: up there? Yes? I was born. Um, and when when
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: my parents were moving from the East Coast, where my
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: dad was going to medical school. My parents, my mom
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: moved back early to Minnesota. She had grown up in Appleton,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: a very very small town in the western part of Minnesota.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: My dad grew up in South Minneapolis, and his folks
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: were also from the western kind of small town Prairie
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: um area of Minnesota. So she my mom went back early,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: and and I was born before my dad finished medical school.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: We grew up in um you know, medical student housing,
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: my brother and I and then later my sister and
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: UM eventually ended up in a in a near suburb
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: of Minneapolis called Saint Louis Park. Okay, how many? So
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: there are three kids in the field. How does a hierarchy?
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: I'm the oldest, my brother's second, and my sister three.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: Okay not traditionally all the hopes and dreams and pressure
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: around the oldest kid. Did you feel that? Yeah? Probably,
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Uh. I was like when I was little, Um,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: I I can't I. I I tested as very very
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: very bright, Like I tested off the charts. And my
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: mom used to joke that every year they would, you know,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: we'd get some somebody would come in with the school
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: and they'd assess me or whatever, and every year I
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: was slightly closer to normal and and uh, but there
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: was still a sense like I I was really bored
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: in school like many bright kids, I was bored in school,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: and I distracted people, and I made remarks and I
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: talked while the teacher was trying to talk, and I
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: was very I was not only entitled, but I would
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: make the t your laugh while they were trying to teach.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: And and eventually, like there was certain kind of compensatory
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: things that the school's tried with me, like an elementary school,
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: I had this. I had this. I went for part
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: of the afternoon to another teacher that taught me higher
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: level stuff and it's like having a tutor for being smart.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: And also during that time, I developed a lot of
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: nervous ticks, like I just so maybe maybe I was
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: feeling the pressure to be sort of a bright kid
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: or like to be a successful, you know, fourth grader
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: or whatever. And my parents got very alarmed that I
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: started developed developing all these physical ticks, and um, they
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: they phased out some of that special treatment. So I
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: just got more and more normal as time went on.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: But I think there was always a sense that my
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: parents had were like of that age where they were
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: both kind of artsy, but they're The step their generation
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: had to take was to was to do something like
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: measurably successful. So they you know, my dad became a
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: doctor because that was a logical next step for the
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: family to have a kid who was a doctor. And
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: then I came along, and my siblings and I came
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: along basically in the whatever makes you happy, you can
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: do whatever you're like, we still love you no matter
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: if you have a professional or not. That was our
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: next step. Okay, prior to the billionaire tech e's in
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: Wall Street. You know, doctors made a good living. Was
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: your father did he support your desires and whims or
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: it was like, go if you want that app go
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: out and make the money yourself. He Uh. My parents
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: were um, like they didn't have any toys. They they
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: they we had we built my my my my grandfather
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: other on one side was a carpenter and my grandfather
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: on the other side, um had done plumbing for a
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: while when he was younger. My mom's brother was an electrician,
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: and my dad was willing to carry heavy things. And
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: between the four of those dudes. They built this small
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: house in northern Minnesota, and that was the family's toy
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: that was like the one like what we had on
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: that on the lake that that we that the that
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: the house was next to. We had a canoe and
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: a you know, a fourteen ft h rowboat with an
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: upboard motor, and that was our toys. And and my
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: parents had this kind of very prairie Norwegian, anti um flash,
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, anti toy kind of attitude. And so
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: I kind of grew up with that too. But they
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: they they supported us in the sense like when when
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: I was in like eighth grade and I was doing
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: a paper out in the morning early mornings and I
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: was slinging ice cream at an ice cream shop and
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: the in the evenings. My dad offered to half pay
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: for a guitar and an amplifier for me if I
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: saved up. So I saved up, and I bought a
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: guitar in an amp in eighth grade. And okay, so
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: you were going to public school. Yeah, and what kind
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: of kid were you? Remember? The group and outsider, a
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: nerd someone? What what were you? I was? Um? I
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: was smart kid. Most of my close friends were really
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: smart nerdy kids. I also made really really wicked caricatures
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: of people. Uh. I had a I could get a
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: likeness with pen and ink, and so I would make
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: caricatures of the teachers and they would confiscate them, but
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: they secretly liked them. And I I would make caricatures
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: of of mean kids and kind of court disaster, but
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: you know, like making caricatures of bullies and and uh
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: So I was thought of as a smart kid. But
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: I had this sort of weird superpower of being artistic.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: So I was I was given a pass to some degree. Okay,
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: what inspired you to buy that guitar? In the amph
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: My brother and I when I was summer before eighth grade,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: I think my no, maybe before seventh My parents gave
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: my brother Matt and I one super cheap acoustic guitar
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: to own together. And we we co owned this acoustic
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: guitar for years, and we loved the Beatles. And the
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: summer we got that guitar, we got some books mel
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: Bay or whatever those books are that show you the
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: chord shapes, and we learned a bunch of chords, and
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: then we started to try to write songs of our own,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: and I all my songs from that time. It's really interesting.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: My songs were really I was really trying to sound
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: like George Harrison, like I was trying like I wasn't
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: trying to sound like McCartney, maybe because I didn't know
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: enough chords. It's possible. But my brother Um had a
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: little more unique musical style from the get go. Uh.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: But we were both like trading back up. But we'd
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: have the guitar for an afternoon and we'd each try
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: to write a song the next day. Okay, but you
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: got the guitar, the electric guitar in the app then
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: was the goal to go out and play in bands?
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: And did you do that? The goal was to go
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: out and playing bands. I wasn't um. I wasn't good
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: at the guitar, but I was taking lessons and I
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: kind of um. I quickly abandoned. I sold that guitar
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: and I got um a bass because I had noted
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: that UM bands always needed bass players, so I got weirdly.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: I also at the time was listening to weather Report,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: so this is probably seventies seven. I was probably sixteen
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: or seventeen now when I switched from guitar to bass
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: and I got a fretless bass, so I could be
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: like Jacko Pastoria. So I learned how to play fretless bass,
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: and then I played this odd choice of instrument in
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: in whatever rock bands my brother was in. Essentially he
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: was a drummer. Okay, now you end up going to Harvard.
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: How does that happen? My grades were great. I was UM.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: I used to go around to the magazine offices in
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: Minneapolis and show them my cartoons, and I would try
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: to see if they would buy my cartoons. And there
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: were a couple of magazines that were kind of youth
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: oriented magazines around Minneapolis that ended up starting to use
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: the drawings that I made. And so so when I
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: applied to Harvard, I had good grades and and not
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: insanely good grades, but really really good grades. And and
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: then also I just killed the s A T S.
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: I killed him. Okay, so what was your experience at Harvard?
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: I I loved it, I really did. I loved UM.
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: I studied stuff because I was interested, Like I took
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: a history of science classes because I I wanted to
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: know what This is going to sound so lofty, but
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: I wanted to know what knowledge is and how humanity
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: has gathered it and organized it and revered it or
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: or despised it, whatever the response. I wanted to know
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: about the meta of scientific knowledge. So I took sciences
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: history of science classes. I took some. I took a
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: couple of music classes, but I didn't like them. I
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: played in bands. I had a couple of bands that
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: played that basically took me out in Massachusetts on the weekends.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: So I didn't party at Harvard in the on the weekends.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: I drove out with the band too, two clubs in
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: various places, Peabody and hang Him and I know all
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: those places. My mother's from Peabody. Okay, But you know
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: you end up as a fine arts major. How does
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: that happen? I just think that was the most interesting
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: thing to me. And there was a big brief period,
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: or maybe a two year period, where I started thinking, well,
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: maybe I ought to become an architect. Maybe that's what
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: an artistic young person ends up doing when they want
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: to have a proper job. And so I got some jobs.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: I got some jobs with architects offices. I studied for
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: a year or so at Harvard the History of Architecture,
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: and I took I took one applied architecture class, and
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I could do this, and my parents. Um.
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: The summer between my junior and senior year, my parents
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: kind of gathered me up and do you know what
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: we really want to know? Are you trying to become
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: an architect because it's a profession that would make us happier?
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: Are you trying to be a professional when you really
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: just want to be an artist? And I was like,
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: maybe maybe architecture feels like a professionalized way to be
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: an artist. And they said, well, don't do that for us,
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: because we don't need you to be a professional. You
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: don't have to have it, you don't need to go
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: get a graduate degree or do anything for us. If
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: you want to be an artist, you need to start
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: now and just do it. I wish I had your parents.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: What wait, right, at what point does the music thing
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: become serious? I got UM. I went out to I
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: went out to San Francisco with my girlfriend and we
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: we went UM. Jacob Slicktor whom uh drummer and Semi
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: Sonic was our friend in college and he went out
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: there with us and lived with me and and so
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: the three of us were out there like trying to
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: make our way. Um, Jake and I wrote songs together.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: We were thinking about being in being in bands. I
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: gotta I got a job at a graphic design company.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: I made signage for for a law lawsuits. Okay, you're
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: now graduated from Yeah, we're out of college. We're out
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: in San Francisco, and my brother in Minneapolis is putting
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: together this band took Shakespeare and they made a record
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: there a trio and they made a record with bass, drums,
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: guitar and the left speaker and guitar and the right speaker,
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: and but they're only a trio. And my brother and
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: in this band had stopped playing the drums and he
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: was singing and playing guitar, so he he played both
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: guitars on the record. But they needed a guitar player.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: And he asked me, when I was San Francisco, would
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: I consider moving back to Minneapolis and playing the right
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: speaker guitar uh for this band Shakespeare and I thought
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: about it. Um my girlfriend was heading to New York.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: We said we decided to live separately, and I went
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: to Minneapolis to be in this band with my brother Matt.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: And what were you doing for money? What are we
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: doing for money? Like in in San Francisco, I was,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: I was doing graphic design. In coming back to Minneapolis,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: I lived in a big house with lots of other
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: people in a dangerous neighborhood, and my aunt had my
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: great aunt had died and left left me a couple
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: of thousand dollars around. Then it goes a long way
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: when you're nothing to spend it on. It wasn't like
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: I was getting any and see dinners or yeah, so
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: I just basically had rent and food. So how do
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: you end up getting a deal with A and M
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: with crypt Shakespeare. My brother was really really smart about
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: the the hustle of music. He did a lot of things,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: like he he made a zine that was devoted to
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: the band, but basically had a whole bunch of different
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: articles about different things related to trips Shakespeare in this zne.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: And for a while he just um stapled the zine
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: to uh telephone poles around the city. And then eventually
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: it got to the point where he would as they
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: would also like fans would take them at shows and stuff.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: But at first it was literally just a zne that
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: appeared on telephone poles, and my brother was I don't
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: know sort of in charge of like having a being
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: driven and having the idea of having a band that
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: did well. When I joined the band, I had a
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: very anctional role. I was playing the second guitar and
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: singing harmonies, and I got a digital piano and I
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: played piano and some songs. But my brother was in
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: charge of us being successful. Okay, you get a deal
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: with A and M Records and it doesn't ultimately work out,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: why does the band break up or what happens there?
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: It was just really frustrating that the the label signed
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: us out of enthusiasm. They came to the shows and
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: they saw how much people love the band and how
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: hilarious my brother's raps were and how um improvisational and
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: crazy we were on the musical side. And then you know,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: it's the very familiar thing of how do you capture
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: that on a recording? And we never did crack that code.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: You know, who knows why, but we never did figure
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: out how to make records that sounded the way are
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: spontaneous sometimes you know, overblown shows felt and I we
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: got were very Eventually, I got really frustrating, and I
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: think that that's why the band stopped and I kept
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: I kept writing these songs that my brother Matt would
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: teasingly say that I was listening to the radio too much,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: But in my mind, I was like, I want to.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: I want to write things to get played on the radio.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: I want to. I want to write short, concise things
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: that that catch your ear and our you know, unforgettable,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: and I want to. I want that to be what
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: I do. So how do you form semi sonic? Jacob
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: had been in um Minneapolis for a while. He moved
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: several years after I left San Francisco. He moved, and
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: you know, we continued our friendship and we wrote songs
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: on the side together and made recordings. Then when when
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: Trip Shakespeare kind of slowed down and like that, uh,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: my brother wanted time away from the band and wanted
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: to do something else. We asked John from Trip Shakespeare
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: to play bass and start a trio and we called
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: it Pleasure and we were like, we were not going
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: to work too hard. We're we're I made a manifesto
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: which was if a song isn't sounding good after an
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: afternoon's effort, then I'm going to throw it away and
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: write a new song. That was one, Uh, if we're
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: having a bad time in rehearsal, we have to go
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: down to the lowering bar and have a drink. And
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: that was too And I think the third I think
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: there were three, and the third one was life is
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: more important than music. Okay. Having said aled that, how
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: do you end up with a deal with m c A. Uh?
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: You know, we we had a bunch of true believers
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: in the music business by that point. I Karen Glauber
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: had been kind of indie rock or alternative rock um
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: expert at a m for a little while while we
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: were there, and we got to know her there and
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: then she went off to I think she was working
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: at Hits magazine or something like that at that point.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: And I called her up and I said, I have
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: some I have some new songs with John and Jacob.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: I want to send them to you. And she was like, yes, yes,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: please send them. And she goes out they good and
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: I said, I said, oh, yeah, I think they're really
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: really good, and she goes, do you want to start
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: a bidding war? So I guess that was how it
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: was done. Wow, And who is the manager at that point?
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: Were we without manager? I think we were without a
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: manager at that point okay, so you make a deal
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: with m c A. Well, we made a deal with Elektra.
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: We made half of a record. They dropped us when
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: Sylvia Rhne came, Sylvia Rown said, we said, can we
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: have these recordings? Will go somewhere else? She said no, no,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: you can't have them, and uh, basically we've completed and
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: then um when and her reason for not needing us
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: anymore was that they are they the label already had
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: Third Eye Blind, so they didn't need Semi Sonic as well.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: So so eventually though, when we organized for m c
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: A to buy the record, the half record from Elektra,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: Sylvia Rohne relented and took the money, and then we
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: finished the rest of the record on on m c A.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: So they got a free look at what it was
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: going to be. And you end up having a couple
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: of big success is Closing Time and Secret Smile. Did
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: you know those were going to be successful? Was there
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: something else you thought would be successful before that? I
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: m hm, similar similar to the story I told you
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: about someone like you. I I thought that Closing Time
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: was a really great song to to wrap up our shows,
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: and we had already put out Great Divide the album before,
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: the one that was made for two different labels, and uh,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: I had I had this. I sort of had some
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: gaps in the set list that I wanted to fill
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: and Closing Time was one of them. And and secret
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: Smile arrived in a dream I had a dream of
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: I would say three quarters of the song. And I
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: quickly wrote it down and went back to sleep. And
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: then the next morning I got up and played it.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: I had written it down, I played it. I was like,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: this is this is great? Wow, I wonder what this is.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: So I asked a lot of my friends what is
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: this and they were like, I've never heard this before.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: So that song was like not part of a master
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: plan of any kind. And when we did when we
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: finished the record, I asked Nick Lawnay, our producer, what
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: do you think the single is. I think it's Closing Time?
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: I said, but what I'm curious what you would say?
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: And he goes, oh, no, no, no, not closing Time.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: That's that's for the punters. You don't want that, never
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: you mind as a as a better song you you
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: Closing Time is? I don't. He didn't say it was
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: too dumb, but essentially he thought it was too low brow,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: which I didn't under dand I didn't get that. I
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: thought it was great and then ore and then are
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: um like. I played the record to my wife and
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: said what do you think? Like, what do you think
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: the single is? And she said, well, it's time to
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: go big And I said, okay, but you have to
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: tell me what that means. She goes, well, if you're
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: going to go big, that means you have it has
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: to be secret smile or a closing time. Then we
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: sent it to m c A and they were like,
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: we're sorry, we don't hear anything. There's no singles. If
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: you want more money to record, we'll give you more
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: money to record. But now we don't hear it. It's
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: not gonna happen. So what happened? So I was like,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: I called up my manager Jim. We talked about this.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: That was it was. You know, they didn't hear it.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: They didn't hear it hit, they didn't hear a single.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: We weren't, but they'd give us more money to record.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: And Jim's like, well, what do you think? And I said, well,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: I love the idea of I could write some more songs.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: That sounds cool, and he goes Okay, wait, wait, let's
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: just think about this for a minute. And I'm like okay,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: and he says, all right, they send you fifty dollars
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: to go record like four more songs or whatever it's
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: going to be, so you have to write them. So
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: you're writing that, you know, four new songs, three new songs,
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: four new songs. Can you guarantee me that those are
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: going to be better than singing in my sleep closing
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: time and secret smile? And I'm like, well, no, of
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: course not. The three songs you just named are really great.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: How can I guarantee that these new songs are gonna
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: be better? And Jim's like, well, well, so you imagine
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: you're the person at the label who commissioned the new songs.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: Which ones are you going to choose to be the
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: next semi sonic single? One of the songs that you commissioned,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: or one of the songs that you rejected earlier? And
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I guess if I'm the label, I'm
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: gonna select one of the songs that I commissioned and
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: not one of the ones that I refused earlier. And
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: Jim's like, okay, right, so, but what if you don't
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: beat the songs, what do you think they'll do? And
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: I said, they're still going to pick one of the
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: new ones even if I didn't beat the old songs.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: Jim's like, right, do you want that? And I'm like no,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: and he goes, okay, then just don't answer your phone
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: for a couple of weeks. So they called and called
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: to get me to relent, and we ignored them and
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: ignored them, and then eventually they got a new head
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: of radio promo, woman named Nancy Levin, and she's like,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: what are you doing with this? This closing time is
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: a smash? What's what's up with this? Like? And they're like,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: oh no, we you know, we we we we rejected
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: that already. She's like, wait, give that to me. I'll
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: make it huge. So it all worked out. You have, oh,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: just back the secret smile. Tell me about the dream
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: and how much of the song came from the dream. Dream.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: The dream was the first verse. Nobody knows it, but
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: you've got a secret smile. And the dream was so
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: use it, improve it. It was that that was in
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: the dream. Uh, there's no no, And then it looped
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: back and I it was no second verse, and there
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: was no bridge. Okay, so the dream was the actual
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: songs or the dream was a woman who had a
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: secret smile. No, the dream was the total the song.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: I you should know by now, I'm not dreaming about girls.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: I'm dreaming about songs. Okay, speaking of songs, you had
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: a Vine series six seconds of basically information on songwriting.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: How did that come to be? That was? That was?
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: That's kind of fun because that's that has continued in
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: in the most lovely way. My manager Jim had seen
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: um a vine series by a screenwriter named Um Coppelman. Uh,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: Brian Complan. Yes, I was basically on his first name,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: Brian Coppleman, and he had this things to be in
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: the music business, right, So he had this thing where
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: he was going to do a hundred days of six
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: second screenwriting tips and I think he called it like
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: writing a screenplay in six seconds or something like that.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: And my manager, Um, Jim, linked me to this on Vine.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: So you got to look at these. So I looked
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: at them and I was like, this is amazing, and
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: Jim goes, you could do this in music and I
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: was like, yeah, you think so, and he said, just
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: give it a try. So I was very resistant, and
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: then I did like six or seven and I was like, oh,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: this is really fun. I really like this, so I
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: I started doing that now. Actually, right now, I'm in
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: the midst of like, okaying, I've made a deck of
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: cards based on this, and it's it's like each one
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: has one of these six seconds comments on it and
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: it's called words of Music in six seconds. But it's
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: a deck of cards. Then what is the plan with
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: the cards? Um? To have people give it to their
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: niece who's a songwriter as a gift. Okay, how come
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: until your manager told me about this, I didn't know
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: about it. Not the cards but the six seconds. Um.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: That will have to be a question for people who
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: understand the marketing and getting the word out. Well, the
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: reason I mentioned this his most sheet is crap and
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: I was unaware of this and I checked on it
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: and it was brilliant. You know, it's funny you mentioned
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: Rick Rubin. Rick Rubin is a Twitter feed You used
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: to be very intermittent, now much more active, which is
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: essentially this. But he ran out of things. It's you know,
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: they don't always say yours is better than his. Uh,
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: it's funny because yeah, I've noticed him kind of starting
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: to do this, and I'm I'm curious if he's seen mine.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: I'm curious, but his the vibe of his are very different.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: Obviously it's it's very rick, but but I'm what I'm
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: trying to do with with mine. I'm thank you for
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: saying that you think it's cool, because I love it
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: and I think I have a community um on you
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: know social media that like I'm often here from people
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: that are that will say, you know, when I have
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: when I have a session, we we look online to
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: see what your latest words of music in six seconds is,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: just to see if it inspires us. And to me,
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: that feels like a role that's amazing that I can
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: play in my songwriting community. So I hope, I hope
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: we can make more of it. But why why didn't
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: you know about it until my manager told you? I
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: don't know. Let me ask you a different question and
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: I'll get back to that. Okay, give us some of
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: your greatest hits, you mean, in the in the six seconds? Okay,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: if you like it, then it's good. If it sounds
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: good to you, then it sounds good. Okay, how do
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: you come up with the since you're doing them on
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: a regular basis. It's it's it's like it's like writing
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: a song or being a writer. I'm like, oh, it's
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: been a while since I've didn't I've done some. I
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: could spend an afternoon and write a whole bunch. So
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: I'll write like thirty or forty, and then they'll always
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: be like three that are good, Okay, so you'll discard Yeah, yeah,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: a lot a lot of them are because because it
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: has to be pithy. It has to be a little
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: it can't be just what you expect to hear. It
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: can't be preachy. It's got to be um. There's gotta
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: be a ray of hope and it. You know, it
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: can't just be like never do this, you know, because
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: that's just a drag. It's gotta it's gotta be. There's
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: a lot of things that there's a needle to thread
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: in my mind of how to make how to give
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: first of all, how to give good advice. It's not easy.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: You don't want to bump people out. What's a secret
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: to good advice? Well, I mean, it has to be actionable.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: It's got to be open ended. It's gotta it's gotta
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: leave the person room to solve the problem. You know,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: it can't be the solution to the problems. It can't
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: be like an algorithm to a Rubik's cube. It has
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: to be it has to be like, you know, a
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: guide for finding algorithms to Rubik's cube. You know, it can't.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: You can't just solve the problem for the person it's
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: It has to be um. It has to leave open
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: ended the possibility that the advisor is wrong. There's a
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: lot of things that that you know, people try to
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: give advice. It usually sucks, it's usually terrible. Well, I find,
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: generally speaking, when people don't listen to the advice anyway,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: so it's great and they do what they want. They
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: just wanted you to say that you're that their thing
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: was great. I can also spot that if someone's like,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: listen to my song and tell me what you think,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: and I listened and I talked to them for ten seconds,
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: I can tell if they really want me to say anything.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: Usually they don't. They just want me to say, you
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: are fucking amazing. I love what you've done. I got
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: in a couple of bad experiences because I feel bad
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: for people. I've literally sat there with a and our
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: people say you know, listen, I told this guy's version,
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: but I'm never signing his act and I've talked to
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: the actual Oh I'm gonna make a deal. Okay. So
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: I used to be honest. Okay, and not only do
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: people not want to hear it, they go on Vendetta's.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've had some really bad experience on a
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: macrobe up okay, you know, and therefore I don't pretty
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: much never respond to anybody in the quality of their
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: music because the way you know you said it exactly
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: nails it. But going back, we talked about Rick. His
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: tweets are basically Graham Puba like he produces record. Let
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: me get you in the head space so that you
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: can be creative. Most of the people who are giving advice,
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: especially in the music business, which is a dumb business,
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: they're doing it because they want to write a book,
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: to make money or to improve their image. Okay, anybody
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: who does it out of a genuine care. Okay, they
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: don't even see this appen. So as soon as I
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: saw them, I really had no idea. It's talking like
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: IM blown, smoke up your ass, But I was really stunned.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: I just figured it being you know, some craft but
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: not only was it correct, you could get a vibe
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: for the person who was doing it. It was quite
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: definitely you. That's that's it's like a it's writing. It's
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: a piece of writing. It's not just words, and it's
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: not just a functional it's a piece of writing because
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: that helps. Like if it was poorly written, how could
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: the advice have any teeth? It's got to be like
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: beautiful because otherwise people would would would understand subconsciously that
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: this sucks. I can't listen to this guy. Well, you
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: open up a real can of worms there, because most
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: stuff does suck, and and most people are playing to
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: the audience. So to do it your way and to
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: show some identity. This is one of the things you
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: know in music forget you know, people say, don't make
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: it too general. People relate most when it's specific, when
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: you talk about a specific example in your life. So
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: there's a whole business of people giving advice, and your
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: advice and your six seconds was better than any of
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: the advice that uh that I've come across. Now, one
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: thing I've learned is people, as I say, end up
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: doing what they want to do. But if you know,
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: if this songwriting thing didn't work out for you. You
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: could create a business with this advice. You can have
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: a weekend seminar with this advice. Do it Rick style.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: Give the advice and then don't be too involved until
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: the end. Don't be hands on in the middle. Whatever
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: you know, try try to get the people inspired. I
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: think the fact that you're doing the cards is really good,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: but it's a little still, a little too inside baseball
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: and the But the other thing is there needs to
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: be stories, like there should be a blurb on this
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: in the off duty section of the Wall Street Journal.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: It's on Saturdays, because people with money, they're frequently frustrated artists,
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: and they buy this for their kids. Okay, you put it.
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: You put it in a music magazine that people are
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: too cheap to buy it. Wait, I'm gonna write this down, Okay,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: And you know you should also certainly get it and
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: if you can with a story and best bets in
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: New York magazine, how do you reach a thinking audience,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: because since music gets no risk back from the other
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: art forms movies and books, it's certainly books. They think
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: they're high falutin when you bring something somewhat intellectual where
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: they have to come to you. That's advantageous, but I
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: don't want to go too much more down that because
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: that's our that's between you and me. How does how
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: does someone end up being able to write a song
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: with you? Well? People, Um, the way it works is, uh,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: my publisher or Jim or the world will um put
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: an idea in front of me, like I might see
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: somebody online, or I might I might think I'd love
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: to meet that person or whatever, and or um, my
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: publisher will say that we've got this you know young artists,
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: that's so good and would you have coffee with them? Um,
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: or you know, my manager Jim will say, there's a
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: there's a in our and our person is going crazy
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: about this artist. They really really want you to listen,
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: and I'll listen. So I listened to a bunch of music.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: Usually if I have coffee with someone, it's already decided
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: because I usually like everybody. So I'll be like, oh,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: that were they were great, that was amazing, Like, for sure,
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: I'll write a song with them, But but there's a
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: lot of effort that goes into just not like during
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: COVID you can write a song on zoom, you know,
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: but it's twice as exhausting as it was in person.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: You know, you're you're depleted instead of inflated at the end.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: And it's it's it's a it's got its limits, I
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: would say. So I'm doing like two sessions with people
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: a week, maybe three, but probably two. I like to
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: have two days with a person. I like to sleep
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: on it and come back to the same song. That's
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: harder to do during COVID, but it's been doable, and
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: it's harder for me to do because that means I
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: really only would be writing one song a week, but
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: I'd rather I'd rather have that second day with a person.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: And uh, the main thing I listened for is like,
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: is you know raw songwriting? Like are the words cool?
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: Is there something unique being said in the words and
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: the and is the melody getting me? It's more like
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: the words and the resonance of the person's voice, just
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: the shape of the sound of their voice, Like is
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: it when they go for a note, is it bigger
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: because of their resonance? You know when they say a word,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: does it shine a little extra because of their literally
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: just the tone of their head, you know, the way
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: they sound. And that's kind of what I'm looking for
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: is like that resonance and a person who has something
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: to say, okay, is it a slog or you're just
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: building to that moment of inspiration and it writes itself
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: half half and half like I never find it to
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: be well. I find it to be a slog if
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: the person is too uncertain, if my collaborator is too unsure,
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: if they're so unsure that they're also secondhand smoke unsure
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: of my ideas as well. I find that to be
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: a slog. And sometimes a person's insecurities or uncertainties or
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: wish to be great makes it hard for them to
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: recognize a great idea in front of their nose. And
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: and that is to me difficult. If I feel like
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: I'm like, if I'm like channeling something really good right now,
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: and you're like, I don't know, maybe should be working
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: on something else, I immediately start thinking, Okay, this is
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: a slog because I just saying something really great. And
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: I'm not a total egomaniac, so I I know when
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: i'm like really on, and I know when I'm okay, okay.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: Desmond Child, who's written a lot of very successful records
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: the Internet era. He's saying, you know, the economics have changed.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: If it's not gonna be the emphasis track, shall we
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: say the single? He doesn't even want to start because
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: you know, in terms of you got the fourth song
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: on the album is to be carried by the CD.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: Now there's nothing right, So do you make any choices
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: based on that? Well, um, I mean yes and no.
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: Like often enough, a song that I work on gets
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: the emphasis, so I'm not discouraged about that. I also
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: don't necessarily at this moment um want to just I mean,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: it sounds like Desmond would be willing to just stop
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: making music. If he doesn't isn't getting any emphasis track
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: on somebody's record. But for me, that's no. He's you know,
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: like many people, he's evolving Broadway shows. It's not like
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: he's not busy, but he's not always going to song
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: writing sessions with a person. That makes sense to me. Yeah,
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: So you know, I can sometimes tell when you know,
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: if an artist and a label, uh want to work
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: with me? Oh. This is sort of weird to say,
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: but I feel like sometimes a label will think, oh,
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: this artist needs to hang out with Dan because then
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: they'll get their mojo back. And I'm fine, with that.
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: But but I don't want that to be my job
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: getting people's mojo back. I want to make I want
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: to make great songs. Okay, you talked about secret smile
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: coming to you in a dream? Are the best song
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: songs like that the come to you in a flash?
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: Or can it be a song equally good if it
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: had been a slog? Well, it's more like you can.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: You can duke it out with a song. You can
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: be like in a session with somebody or alone, and
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: you can be trying and trying and trying, and that's
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: usually not if you just if you're only doing that
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: all the way to the end, it's not going to
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: be great. But sometimes you know, during the slog, you
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: accidentally take a wrong turn or you you leave the
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: path you know, and you're suddenly you're in a wait
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: a minute, something is is good? Now, something just happened
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: that was good. Then if you have the balls to
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: to cut out the previous three hours of work and
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: just work on the one line that is it obviously happening,
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: that can be the flash of inspiration that comes out
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: of a slog. I'm definitely a believer and like I
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: had a painting and printmaking instructor who said, um, you know,
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: go to the studio every day even if you're not inspired,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, why why should I go to the
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: studio if I'm not inspired, I'd rather go to the bar,
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: and she goes, yeah, But if you go to the
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: bar and the muse visits your studio, you're not gonna
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: be there. So I'd rather have the slog because sometimes
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the slog, like lightning strikes and
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: you're like, oh shit, this is amazing, you know. So
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: I find usually the best this is solo work. In
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: my case, the best inspiration usually comes in the shower
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: or when you know, I'm completely distracted by watching a
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: movie or television show, when my head is sold so
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: out of it. In terms of the work in the office,
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: I find I have to slow down enough well you
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: just kind of drift him and then all of a
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: sudden something for the muse to me to reach. Yeah,
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: I get that. That makes sense to me. And that's
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: like that sense of aimlessness is hard. It's hard to
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: kind of even the word achieve is the right word.
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: It's hard to achieve that kind of aimlessness. It's hard.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: It's hard to fake you cannot get yourself. Okay, how
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: did you end up working with Chris Stapleton? Stapleton, I
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: can't remember who saw him first. There was this clip
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: that I saw online of Stapleton playing, Um, it wasn't
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: whiskey and you it was another song of his playing
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: a song at like a state fair and he was
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: it was with the steel drivers, Oh it was. It
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: was if it Hadn't Been for Love? And uh, he
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: was singing this song and there's people talking and someone
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: holding their phone, and there's people talking, and there's noise
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: and he's playing in one of those kind of like
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: the the tractor part of a semi trailer with the
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: side flipped up that does a temporary stage, you know,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: and uh, he singing this song. It's all this background
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: noise and he's singing if it Hadn't Been for Love,
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, this is unbelievable. This guy is amazing,
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: Like I can hear it through the noise. And so then, um,
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: my manager Jim and I, Uh, every once in a
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: while he would he would send me, like we'd send
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: each other the same clip like you having a bad day,
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: you got to hear this, and and we'd send each
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: other the same clip, and uh, eventually there was this.
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: I was asked to write with the Preservational Jazz Band.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: I was like, something, we gotta someone has to come along,
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: who can like bridge the gap between like me and
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: the Preservational Jazz band who's good at lyrics? And Stapleton
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: was like, maybe maybe he'll come. So basically, oh, and
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: I had done and in the round with him where
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: I sang after him at an ASCAP show, it was
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: like four writers. It was like Ingram Michaelson and Johnny
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: Resnick and Chris Stapleton and me. So every time we
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: went around, I had to sing after one of Chris's
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: crazy amazing like soul full, you know, like what do
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: you call this? Like blockbuster, you know, hit songs. So
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: I and we had a fun time on that show,
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: and we we talked all of that after, right, So
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: I called him up. I said, can you come down
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: to New Orleans with me and write with the Preservational
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: Jazz Band? This is before Traveler And he was like yeah,
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: but Dan, you know, I don't know anything about jazz.
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, I know, but I think it's gonna
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: be cool. So we had we in the band, the
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: you know, the Press Hall band, and and Chris and
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: I had an amazing long weekend, like four days of
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: songwriting and laughing and fun. And then when Chris would
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: come to l A for one thing or another, he'd
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: come by my house and we'd write. We'd write a song,
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: not really first particularly a purpose. And then that one
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: of those songs was when the Stars Come Out and
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: he and he put it on Traveler and one of
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: the best songs on that album. Okay, in the twenty
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: odd years you have left, what do you want to do?
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: What do you want to achieve? Oh? Man, I'd like
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: to go to Paris again. I want to keep and
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: I want to keep making music. I want to um see,
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: you know my middle schooler grow up and graduate and
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: have a life. I want to keep meeting amazing brilliant
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: artists and see if we can't make something incredible together.
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: And where does a painting fit in. I don't really
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: paint anymore because it takes a lot of like infrastructure,
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: you have to have a house that's with an extra
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: room where you can be very messy, and I haven't
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: had that for a while. And I guess maybe I
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: haven't like prioritized it. I always try to do visual things,
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: like you know, I'm I did. I did the design
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: on this book of cards. It's you know, it was
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: a fun exercise for me. I do. I make um
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: drawings in my journals and I keep that part of
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: myself alive. But it's it isn't really part of my
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: vision for the future to like retire from music and
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: be a painter. Nothing of the sort. Not like Joni Mitchell.
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: Why Paris. I just the couple of times I've been there,
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: I've just enjoyed it so much. I just I just
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: love that place. I want to go back to. Speaking
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: of art, I want to go back to the Louver,
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: and I want to see the tweeries and I want
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: to see um l Entrelie, you know, I want to
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: see those places again. Well, you know, it's twenty I
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: hadn't been for a long time, and I went five
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: years ago, and the one thing I noticed was the light.
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: The light really is different in Paris. I mean, you know,
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: it's like it's hard to fathom until you're there. You go, okay,
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: I can tell why the artwork, etcetera. And certainly you know,
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: going to see all the museums. You know, I pretty exhaustively.
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: It's pretty astounding. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely that's I mean,
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: it's not really a do you know, I've had a lot.
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: I've had a lot of good fortune, So it's not
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: like I it's not like my my list has more
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: success on it. And what do you think you moved
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: from Minneapolis l A. You're cool with l A or
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: I love it? Because I love it. I have It's
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: with me about a year and a half to realize
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: that when I moved here that I didn't need to
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: change who I am. I could just stay being me.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: I already had a circle of friends, I knew the
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: people that I wanted to play on the records. I
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: didn't have to become some sort of pop version of myself. Um.
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: And once I realized that, like, it was almost like
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: l A just opened up to me, like, oh no,
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: now you can meet some really smart people. Okay, here's
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: here's some neuroscientists for you to talk to. Here's you know,
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: someone to have lunch and talk about that. Like, I
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: just like the It's like l A has so many
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: brilliant people and there's a level of even though it's
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: got a bad rap on this score, there's a level
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: of idealism that I really really resonate with. Okay, and
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: going back to the muse, do you create every day? Yeah?
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: Pretty much Like even if I have like a crazy
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: chocolate block day and there's no room, I've probably played
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: piano for like forty minutes that day, or guitar something.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: Try to think of a riff or think of a
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: phrase ease. And prior to going this covid era, if
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: you went on vacation, would you take a hiatus or
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: create then too. I kind of have an agreement with
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: my wife that I'm not going to bring a guitar
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: and play guitar all day long in a vacation. That's
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: not fair, So I actually do take breaks on vacations. Yeah, Okay,
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: this has been wonderful, Dan. I think we've gotten a
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: lot of insight into your life in your process, and
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: I could and I could tell why you're successful. And
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: thanks so much for doing this. A total pleasure, really
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: it It is a really nice conversation and it's good
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: to giving him until next time. This is Bob left
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: six