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Chris DeMakes- Less Than Jake / Chris DeMakes A Podcast · Caught on the Mike...

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Disclaimer, the views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: Listener discretion is advised.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: We talked about the fence of the fate, we can upcoming weight, fate still, waiting, discussing going after all of these gears.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: We get a few moments to discuss this to make the podcast and my personal connection with the band.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_02: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Caught on the Mike.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of Caught on the Mic.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: Today, joining me is a Scott Punk Lifer who's spent multiple decades turning sweat-soaked clubs into full-blown celebrations.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: I've been to many of them.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: As guitarist and vocalist of Less Than Jake, he's helped define a genre, build a global fan base, and somehow never take a summer off.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: With Wake and Bake 2026 bringing the party back to Gainesville, Florida, and major anniversaries for losing streak and borders and boundaries.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: My friend Chris DeMakes joins me on the podcast, and he's a fellow podcaster.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: How the heck are you, man?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: I am fantastic.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: That was a great intro.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: I have to pre-can all my intros.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't, I can't do it off the cup.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: I do, I do too many ums.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a Midwestern guy.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: I know my band's from Florida, but I was born in Michigan, and I realized if I started traveling and all my relatives that are still there, it's um, um, um.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a thing.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's really difficult.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And all the great, as you know, all the great radio announcers and sportscasters and newsmen, weathermen, they don't say um somehow.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: Dude, I'm I'm a Midwesterner as well.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm in Nebraska, so I can sympathize.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um it's ums and you knows.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Ums and you knows.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And those are great placeholders when you don't really know how to speak.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: So Wake and Bake 2026, that's gonna be massive.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: There's anniversary sets, hometown crowds, stacked lineup.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: What makes bringing this show back home to Gainesville different than a normal tour stop?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's just the fact that, you know, we've we've celebrated where we're from, and it it's kind of been a little tongue-in-cheek.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're very proud of where we're from.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: We have a song called Gainesville Rock City, but you know, when when we started gaining popularity overseas, uh, and and fans from the UK and Europe would would come to Gainesville to see these Wake and Bake shows, and we first started doing them years ago, and we'd throw these hometown party celebrations, and they would come and be like, you know, they they thought they were landing in Chicago or New York City, and here they were in this small little college town in North Florida where the tallest building downtown is like four stories tall.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so they they're they're thinking they're coming into this huge, huge spot, and um, but then they get there and they realize it's all about community and camaraderie, and uh this is a place that gave our band our start.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: I can't think of a better place to start a band than Gainesville at that time that we started the band.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's a celebration of all things Gainesville, and we're we're proud of that.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm about to like depress the both of us because I'm gonna reveal some age here.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: Thirty years of losing streak, 25 years of borders and boundaries.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: Where the hell did time go first?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's that's really it.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't know.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: I it's if I get stuck on that, uh uh I'll get into a delirium, you know, or start just like all my because you don't you don't know where the the time goes.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, we we made losing streak when we were kids.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: And uh to me, borders and boundaries, I was half I was half my age ago.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: I was you know, I look at people that age now, and I'm you know, 20, 26 years old, that's a kid to me.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we didn't know we didn't know what we were doing.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: We were just we were having fun.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's really what it was.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: We were living our dream, and that dream had nothing to do with monetary success or getting signed to labels or anything like that.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: We were just going town to town.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, not everyone's cut out to to live on the road, shower in gas stations, and eat Twinkies for dinner, and and but the people that are, uh, and I found them, they're the the guys in my band, I call them lifers, man.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it takes a certain person to want to do this.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_02: And what's funny is I have two separate anecdotes from both albums.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: One of them was actually recent.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: I was at my brother-in-law's house and we're doing what Midwesterners do, sit in the driveway around around a fire pit, you know, enjoying some food.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: And one of his neighbors came over and I found out he, because I was in a ska band in the 90s, I found out he was in a ska band in the 90s, and we bonded over Losing Streak, and we listened to that album front to back, and we made everybody that was sitting there with us listen to it as well.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: And it was just, it was awesome, man.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: It was like smiling ear to ear.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so I very rarely get the opportunity to thank somebody for their art and their contribution to our culture.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know really what to say to that besides a profound thank you so much.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Again, we there was no there was no master plan, man.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: We wrote some songs that I hear stories like this and it trips me out.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've gotten stories of you know, soldiers during the Iraq war, Gulf War, Iraq War, excuse me.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: That they had Losing Streak and a Disc Man.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's the only CD they had with them.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, or Hello Rockview.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, people that that lost relatives and lost marriages or gained marriages, got married to our songs.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is these are things you never you could never dream of.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Or you could only you could only only dream of.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: Dude, so and my second anecdote actually revolves around borders and boundaries.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_02: 2001, you guys played a show at the Ranch Bowl in Omaha, Nebraska, and I think it was I think it was with two skinny J's, if I remember correctly.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Now, for people that are unfamiliar, legally, the Ranch Bowl was only a 400 capacity venue, but would typically double the capacity, sometimes even triple.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean it triple.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like they would cram 1,200 people in their 400 cap venue, and I think that was one of those shows.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: And the thing that sticks out with me is about after the show was over, there's about 15 of us that hung out after they closed the doors, locked everything up.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: I got to hang out and bowl with you guys and two skinny J's after the show was over.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember buying the number of the beast less than Jake t-shirt, and I wore that as a damn uniform for a good four years after orders.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: That's awesome.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the la I think the ranch bowl's a Walmart now, isn't it?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, unfortunately.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, sir.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I because I I drove I drove by at the last time.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I think that's where the ranch bowl was at.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I looked over and and uh but yeah, man, um, you know, those those were the days, you know.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: We were we were showing up to places that, you know, Omaha, Nebraska.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just I never ever thought I would ever step foot in maybe even the state of Nebraska.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, the older I've gotten and realized, and there's a I don't want to say most people, but a lot of people don't leave where they're from, you know, they don't get to experience these kinds of things.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, it's a it's a real thrill, especially at that time, to to go to places and just have kids show up.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just it was so cool.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we didn't have tech the technology we have now.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't know what was going on in Omaha, you know, you didn't know what, and and you'd you'd hear phrases and sayings and be like, you know, those kinds of firsts and those kinds of experiences were uh it was awesome.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they're making a documentary.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: Some a couple of local filmmakers are making a documentary about the ranch bowl.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I had the guys on the pod when I first started it five years ago.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's not dropping for another year yet.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like they've really played the long game with it.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: And when I had them on the pod, I said, the ranch bowl is like the forest gump of music venues because of how many cross-sections with music history it had.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_02: And you would never expect it here in middle of the country, you know, landlocked land.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone I know is played the ranch bowl.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like the metal bands, like Warrant, like I know those dudes, they played the ranch bowl, like like Trickster played the ranch bowl, like the 80s metal guys, some of the pop uh uh you know bands uh from that era, the 80s and 90s would play there, but just it was it was a stopover, and kids were showing up.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Omaha at some point became one of those, Kansas City was another area that people were starving in the 90s for music.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we were churning up to major cities sometimes, and you know, we'd have maybe a hundred kids there, but we'd show up to Omaha and have three, four, five hundred kids.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: So Omaha is is a tenth of the size of you know, insert city, but that many kids were showing up because there wasn't anything to do.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: So kind of taking it back to less than Jake's home base, what is it about Gainesville that still feels like home base creatively and personally?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it it really hasn't changed.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's there's I guess the locals there.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't live in Gainesville anymore.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: I spend a lot of time there still, and I I know what's going on, you know, with Gainesville.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: But to me, that the city hasn't changed.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's been new buildings erected, and maybe the face of it looks a little different, but you know, it's a it's a university town.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Without the university there, which is the lifeblood of the city, you know, every four months there's a new batch of 17, 18, 19-year-old kids coming in to attend university, new artists, new musicians, and um that is always churning and always keeping it a a vibrant scene.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and you hit that nail on the head perfectly.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_02: My daughters, actually, I got three daughters that all have started college, but one of them just she started singing in bands right before she went off, and she just went to a college at Northwest Missouri State in Maryville, Missouri.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I told her, I'm like, if you want to start a band, the best place to do it is a college town.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: Just because of how much influence she's gonna have on the access to musicians.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there was something to do every night that was music related.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: There was, they called it back in the day, it was called the student ghetto.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's where all the students lived across from University Avenue.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's all these old Victorian houses that were chopped up into bedrooms, and you know, they they legally had four people or three people on the lease, but there was like 12 or 13 people crashing there, you know, those places.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And there'd be b backyard parties there, house parties.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was just there was always something going on, and and that was integral, especially for us starting out as a band, because there was always a new group and a new opportunity to play in front of people.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: And you guys are in the UK until March 7th, and you're on a run of dates there.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: One of the things I've always enjoyed about your band is less than Jake shows feel like organized chaos in the best way possible.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: Is that chemistry intentional or is it just 30 plus years of instinct between you and Roger?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh, that was bore out of Florida.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we we got lumped in because of the Scott Punk thing for years.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Every time I got interviewed, you know, so tell us about the Southern California Sea.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's like we're not from SoCal.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: We're from the, you know, we're from White Trash, California, which is called Florida.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit cheaper, it's more humid, it's a little shittier.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Can I say that on your on your show?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: No, absolutely.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Please do.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: So and we lived in North Florida, okay, which is a little bit more hillbilly, a redneck, if you want to call it.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we were in the middle of this transition period in 1992 of the glitz and pop and and misogyny and everything.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And now we're in the 90s grunge thing, but we weren't bad either.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: We were a scop punk band in North Florida.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: So the bars we were playing, if you like the bartender and like, you know, two guys shooting fool in the back, and like, okay, so our whole mantra was we're gonna have fun, and everybody in this building is gonna know who we are when we leave, whether they like us or not.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of what we how we cut our teeth, and uh there was no script to it.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: How could there be a script?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, one night you'd be at a VFW hall with 300 kids, all skompunk kids, you know, three, four, five bands deep on the bill, and it was crazy.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the next night you'd be in some dive bar that you were told, oh yeah, there's gonna be three bands playing, two bands don't show up, but you know, you go on, there's four people there.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and and our career's still kind of like that in an odd way.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: I I've given this example before.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: We and this is true, uh honest story.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: It we played uh 60,000 person main stage Europe, European festival.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Place going nuts, jumping, great show.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: The very next day we drive four hours across the border to Italy, and we're playing a punk club to 600 people.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the place is going off, and we're playing with the same intensity and the same stupidity as we were to 60,000 people the the day before.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we we we try to have fun for ourselves and hopes that that translates to the audience, and it seems like that's still working.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah, and I think that's also a testament to your longevity as well, is that sense of consistency, whether it be in front of 60,000 people or 600 people, like you're giving those people the same exact show, and not every band psychologically can overcome something like that.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, man, we just played to 60,000.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's only 600 people there here.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's like 600 people is still a lot of damn people.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, a gig's a gig.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you might think, well, how do you build a career out of that?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, you you take the paycheck from the festival, and now you're doing a club show, and that's gonna pay for the bus and pay for gas, and you know, you're gonna make some money on merch, and then you get to the next big city or the next big festival.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just kind of how it works.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Brian Baker said it best.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: He's a guitar player for Bad Religion.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, we're on a really good triple A team in the major leagues, you know.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we're we're we're not staying at Ritz Carlton's, you know, we're we're staying at holiday inns.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's not Motel Sixes, you know.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're carving out a great living.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: People know who we are, you know.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a couple trading cards, you know.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: We're not in the arenas, we're not in the stadiums, we're not in the big leagues, but we're we're we have a pretty damn good triple A career.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, hell yes.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: So with Losing Streak kind of coming out at the big bang of third wave ska, like, was that a how did you feel about that timing of everything?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: Was that just the right album at the right time?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to say we knew, but Vinny, our drummer, our first drummer who I started the band with, I mean, him and I and and and Roger, when we met Roger, we all knew this was bubbling up.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Vinny from the late 80s, me from about 90 when I heard Devil's Night Out by my Mighty Mighty Boston.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: So Fishbone, Skank and Pickle, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Sublime.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there we were listening to all these bands in Immersed in, and it was like there was too many people coming to shows.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: It was only a matter before the, you know, uh all commercial really means is when you when you go commercial and you get known, is that enough people know who the hell you are.
• 16:29
  unknown: Right?
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's that's really all that means, you know.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: And enough people were knowing what this style of music was.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was bound to have its moment, and it did, you know, it had its 15 minutes of fame, and like anything else, it uh I don't want to say it it fizzled out, but a lot of the bands broke up, or there was bands that changed their sound completely and started sounding emo, because that was in at the time.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And some people it was just a fad.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Scott Punk was just a fad for them.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: But to us, it was a little deeper than that.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: It was we didn't look at ourselves as just a ska punk band.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: That that's what we we loved those sounds, but you know, if you look under the hood of less than Jake, it the melodies are all full pop, Roger and I.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, I was I was actually gonna point that out as well.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_02: But there's a there's a compelling moment in Pick It Up Ska in the 90s, and I've mentioned this a million times on the podcast where the Mad Caddies guy talks about the six months in between third wave ska's big boom and the introduction of new metal, and how it was the same exact kids that kind of jump ship from one to another, and it was crazy.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: I like I was in a ska band that opened up for Slipknot right as they were signing their big deal, and it's like six months before everybody loved us.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_02: Six months later, we're open up for Slipknot, and I'm getting pelted with the same candy I was throwing out to the crowd.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: So And I remember those kids who were, you know, they had blonde, spiky hair, and then you'd see them the following weekend, they'd have uh black eyeliner on, black uh you know, dyed hair and dark clothes on, and it's like, oh, okay.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: But such is less such, you know.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, so many legacy bands cycle through breakups and reunions.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: Less and Jake never really stopped.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: What's the secret to that?
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: I think the reunion thing is just it's so phony.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean I mean, do people really think that Sum 41's not gonna come back?
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: I love those guys, you know.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: I love Cohen, I love Derek, I love I love Dave.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: They they uh I consider them friends.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: I love their band.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: I fucking love Sum 41.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they said said they're gonna break up.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, for how long?
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the band's too big.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: The band affected too many people's lives.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's see, let's see if if they stick to their word.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, yellow card was another one, you know, my chemical romance, and and I've called them all out, and they're all my friends, and I don't mean it like in a in a negative way at all.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: I I'm glad they're here.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're life's getting shorter, man.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're we we talked about those years, and when you start, you know, I think that's why a lot of them, uh I don't think I know, uh a lot of them start looking at that your mortality and start going, well, how maybe we should do this again.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's a good call out.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great call out because that was it's I don't want to say it's the silver lining, but you know, I've talked about it also another subject I've touched a lot on on my show is how people's relationship with nostalgia and mark mortality changed in this post-COVID-19 world where everybody's like, man, maybe maybe I should have like really appreciated those things that I took for granted, or maybe that experience wasn't as bad as I thought, you know?
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think that there's definitely money to be made on saying this is our final tour.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and there's also a lot of money to be made.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is our reunion tour.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: But what am I gonna do in the four years between?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: And how do I know if I'm gonna be here in four years or one of the guys in my band's gonna be here in four years, or or is gonna want to do it?
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, is my uh how dare I have an ego big enough to say, oh yeah, in four years, one of the guys in my band's not gonna want to be like, guys, I spent more than half my life on the road, I want to do something else now.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, it's like you build something, you keep the train going, and I can't see any reason to, you know, uh the only time I don't want to do this is when I'm phoning it in.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'll never phone it in.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's a that's a great assessment.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: Fantastic.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: So beyond the band, your podcast, Krista makes a podcast, dives deep into songwriting and other music topics.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: Has dissecting songs weekly changed how you write and approach your own?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I mean I can't even give you specific examples, but it's absolutely changed.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think about songs differently.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: I approach not so much approach songwriting differently, but I'm able to look at arrangements, you know, maybe more in an abstract way and maybe in a more cohesive way because of the the show.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: I can learn tips and tricks and say, you know, they they did this thing in this one song, and maybe I can apply it here.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: It uh might work in this song.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I've I've learned an incredible amount of knowledge.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: As a former band guy myself, former singer of rock bands, I know there's a different level of currency, social currency, and like fulfillment that I get from the podcasting environment that I didn't get musically, and it's not saying like one is lesser or greater than another.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: What's something you get from being a podcaster that you don't get from being a musician yourself?
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: I get to say something, and whatever comes out of my mouth, if there's three thousand people listening at that very moment on my podcast, they're all gonna hear, Hey, this is Chris, and I have a new book coming out.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas I throw that up on Instagram.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Or Facebook, it gets throttled and 23 people see it.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm able to express myself in a way that gets heard by those that truly want to hear me, not that those are just scrolling by and they and maybe are giving me a sympathy follow.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: That's a such a great point because that is, I I have lamented this whole thing myself multitude of times.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, who was it?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: It was, I think it was Tom Green of all people.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_02: A week ago, he put up this post on Instagram and he says, unless I'm talking about social pe socio-political divide, the Epstein files, or anything else controversial, nobody engages with my my content.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: And he goes, That is the most frustrating part of social media right now in this current moment that we're in.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and you know, Instagram and and uh Facebook and they want you to pay for ads.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: I've tried, I've taken$500 and thrown it on my podcast.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't notice anything happen.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, and I've no you just raised your hand and I've noticed I I've not noticed I've known a number of people that have done the same thing.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we're we're all kind of in the same the same position there, same boat.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that to get fulfillment from the podcast.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: But that's truly something that when you feel you have a voice of and and my voice is songwriting, and I talk about uh you know ads for Wake and Bake on my show, and say if I have a book or if the band's touring here, I do, you know, uh, you know, pod-centric podcasts that revolve around the recent tour that we're doing in the in the UK.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um so it's great for all that because like I said, if there's X amount of people listening at that time, they want to be listening and they want to hear, and uh those are the the the true fans that uh that spread the word.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And um I I get a lot of other fulfillment out of it.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: I enjoy researching, I enjoy applying the what I thought was useless knowledge all these years, applying it to songwriting and to I mean, I've tripped out some of these guys with with facts of songs and things like that.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, how do you know this?
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and it's it's complete nerds, it's no different than the guy that collects sports cards or who's into Star Wars or collecting Pez.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's to me it's the same thing.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: I collect musical memories.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: So 35 years in, more visible than ever, what excites you about the next chapter?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_02: Is it new music, different collaborations, or just keeping the party alive?
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, we don't have to we don't have to think any harder than we already do.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is that you know we have built something for 34 years, and we we could sit back and rest on our laurels.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: We have this catalog, we don't have to write new music, but what gets us i inspired is is is writing new music, coming up with new stage sets, coming up with new set lists, coming up with new merchandise items, keeping the the fans engaged, having shows like Wake and Bake.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's what's exciting.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have to be anything but ourselves, we don't have any label pressure behind us.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, we don't have enough good songs for this record, hey, we should work with this producer, we're doing everything ourselves, and you know, I can't think of a you know, I never thought we'd start out a punk rock band and enter into major label world and and play that whole game, and now we're back kind of to where we started, still doing things our way, and I can't think of a better effect.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: Chris, my favorite closing question that I ask everybody is a little bit of a curveball, but I wanna from your experience, your purview, what's your advice for making the world a better place tomorrow than what it is today through everything that you've gone through?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's one word, it's love.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: You go out and you see somebody.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: I've said this forever.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't really met too many defective people, meaning that something's wrong with them, you know.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a saying, you know, you know, you don't know what someone else's struggle is.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I try to my best to treat people with kindness.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: I try my have my children treat people with kindness, not to judge a book by its cover.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: And human beings are more alike than we are different, I can tell you that.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I say the same exact thing.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: When I started my show five years ago, that was my purpose, my goal.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: I have had two rules that I typically don't dive into.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_02: I don't dive into politics, I don't dive into religion.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think you are an individual, so is everybody else, and if we could just put forth the best of everybody, you know, that's that's what will really change the world long term, for sure.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, and I I I don't have the answers.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I I would have told you that I was a staunch atheist when I was 22 years old.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: Am I a a flag-flying member of the church and God now?
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: No, but man, I I have a lot of questions that I didn't have as a twenty as a 22-year-old.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that again is based on your mortality.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: My dad's gone now.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: My dad's been gone for three years, but I don't feel like he's gone.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: I still feel like he's here with me.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've never really felt that emotion before.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how to put that into words.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, what I'm trying to say, and to sum up what I was with this whole thing, is that I don't know anything.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man, I love it.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_02: Ladies and gentlemen, make sure you are following Krista Makes, Less Than Jake, and Krista Makes a podcast on Instagram, social media profiles.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: Dude, I have really enjoyed this chat.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: We gotta do this again in the future.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_02: I did as well, Mike.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: Man, Chris, thank you so much for doing the show.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: The world is a much better place with you and it, my friend.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate it.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: And likewise, once again, I'd like to thank my friend Krista makes for joining me on the podcast today.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_02: Make sure if you are in the Gainesville area or surrounding areas, or if you just want to travel, you check out the Wake and Bake Festival.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_02: Check out Chris's podcast.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: Chris to Makes a podcast of all of your favorite podcasting platforms.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_02: Go listen to Less and Fake.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: Your day will be better because of it.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_02: Make sure you give him a follow, less than Chris T on Instagram, Chris to Makes the Podcast on Instagram.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: While you're being generous with the follows, make sure you're following Cot on the Mike on all social media platforms.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_02: Please, please, please subscribe to my YouTube channel and share some of your most favorite episodes with friends to help the show grow.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: You can also visit me www.cotonthemic.com.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_02: I will be updating that shortly.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: Instead of email, cotonheight at gmail.com.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: Till next time.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.