Latest / Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast / PODCAST: Episode: 918 - Buick Audra and Jerry Roe (Friendship Commanders) Talk About Their New Album "Bear”

Transcript

PODCAST: Episode: 918 - Buick Audra and Jerry Roe (Friendship Commanders) Talk About Their New Album "Bear” · Ghost Cult Magazine Podcast

• 0:00
  There is an A personal name embroidered on the front of the
• 0:02
  jacket, which when I first got it, I looked up several times
• 0:05
  online just to see who it perhaps had belonged to, and I
• 0:08
  never found him. And then when we were about to
• 0:12
  release our second album that we made with Steve Albini called
• 0:14
  Bill, I looked it up again and I added Obituary just on a lark to
• 0:19
  the search. And it came right up.
• 0:20
  And I found him, and he had died in his 40s, and he seemed like
• 0:24
  actually a cool, interesting person.
• 0:26
  He had gone to this weird school out in the burbs here.
• 0:29
  And it is his junior high jacket.
• 0:31
  And I wear it with pride. So the name has nothing to do
• 0:35
  with the words that people think we're applying to who we are or
• 0:38
  what the music is. But it does have a sort of
• 0:40
  gravity. And our project does generate a
• 0:43
  lot of music about human dynamics and also grief.
• 0:45
  And so I feel like the name sort of became a good fit, even
• 0:50
  though we started out just naming it after my jacket.
• 1:00
  Hey everybody, this is Don from Ghost Cult Magazine.
• 1:02
  Thank you so much for tuning in tonight.
• 1:03
  I am talking to the incredible Friendship Commanders and I've
• 1:08
  got Jerry and I've got Buick here on the phone.
• 1:11
  So on this on the phone, yeah, I'm 52 on the screen.
• 1:16
  So guys, how are y'all doing this evening?
• 1:18
  Oh great, grateful to be here. Doing well, doing well.
• 1:21
  You know, it's, you know, we're in South Carolina.
• 1:24
  So it's a little, it's cold. You know, it's a little, you
• 1:26
  know, for us Southerners, this is freezing.
• 1:28
  Dude same here, it's it's been cold as hell for the last week
• 1:32
  or so in Nashville. Really cold.
• 1:34
  It's going to get down to 28° on Monday.
• 1:36
  Thank you. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:38
  I'm like, you know, if it could just be fall all year round, I
• 1:41
  would be happy. Are y'all like us too where you
• 1:43
  get the cold but not a lot of snow?
• 1:45
  We get like barely any snowfall in Nashville, just bitter cold.
• 1:49
  No, yeah, we don't even get it. And if we do get it, it's it
• 1:52
  melts before it really hits the ground.
• 1:54
  But last year we had 4 inches of snow.
• 1:57
  That's a lot, Duck. And I mean, we didn't know what
• 2:00
  to do. We were.
• 2:00
  Like, yeah, you guys were sledding in the yard.
• 2:03
  Are you kidding? We were staying inside with the
• 2:05
  cocoa and the heater on. Right, all the streets were
• 2:08
  closed. Exactly like the one snow plow
• 2:11
  in the city was being used somewhere else, you know?
• 2:14
  I used to live in Boston and you can get 2 feet of snowfall and
• 2:17
  you're going out like people are still living their lives.
• 2:21
  You know, but they don't. It's a different kind of snow
• 2:24
  though. Like up there it's like snow,
• 2:26
  snow here it's like snow with like 3 inches of ice under.
• 2:29
  It I know it's terrible and. Then you get the Northerners and
• 2:32
  go, I can drive in this and you're like, no, you can't, you
• 2:35
  know? I know, I know.
• 2:38
  All right, So I have to say happy holidays to you guys.
• 2:41
  And what did you guys ask for Santa this year?
• 2:44
  Oh my God, let's see I'm I'm really hoping for some peace and
• 2:48
  downtime. It's been a really full but
• 2:50
  great year. So I'm looking for and I also
• 2:53
  strangely wanted Zippo lighter. I forgot, but that's something
• 2:56
  I'm like working for. I don't even smoke, but I love
• 2:59
  Zippo lighters. I think they're so cool when I
• 3:01
  come chair. Oh, that is a hard question to
• 3:06
  to answer Kind of the same. Some really good like rest and
• 3:09
  reflection time maybe to like create with something just for a
• 3:13
  short period of time that isn't anything we've worked on all
• 3:16
  year. But also I'd really, really like
• 3:20
  a Sonar SQ2 drum kit. So that's pretty exciting.
• 3:25
  Now you're now you're thinking a little more, Now you're thinking
• 3:28
  a little more like me here, you know?
• 3:31
  I'm like, I would like a Zippo lighter.
• 3:32
  I'm such a pyromania. I don't know, Zippos are cool,
• 3:36
  but that that's in our drum sounds pretty bad ass to be
• 3:39
  honest, you know? Well so of course, like I'm sure
• 3:44
  like anybody else, and I have, I did do some homework.
• 3:46
  I watched some interviews, I read some interviews with you
• 3:48
  guys and my first thought was like oh great friendship
• 3:51
  commanders. OK, so here's the deal.
• 3:53
  I want you to give me 3 different versions of the band
• 3:56
  name that you have heard from other people that have butchered
• 4:00
  it completely. Oh freedom command commandments
• 4:04
  I think was freedom makes it in there a lot.
• 4:06
  So even if the second word stays the same we get freedom
• 4:09
  commanders or freedom commandments.
• 4:12
  It's always friendship commander singular.
• 4:15
  I mean that happened like 2 weeks ago.
• 4:17
  Yeah, and I think our first gig was Friendship Commando.
• 4:20
  It was friendship Commando. Really.
• 4:22
  Yeah. They messed it up on our very
• 4:24
  first ever bill. That's.
• 4:26
  Amazing. I know.
• 4:28
  Which is a pretty good alternate version of the name to be honest
• 4:31
  with you. I know.
• 4:33
  It totally, it totally is Like, you know, it takes on a whole
• 4:36
  name. I mean, you know, Commander
• 4:37
  Commando, one puts you in charge, the other one puts you
• 4:40
  on the ground. You know, it's like.
• 4:42
  Yeah, I fear that when freedom makes it into the name, it
• 4:45
  starts to change the tonality of what we're about a little bit.
• 4:50
  Who are those guys? Yeah, let's, let's not go into
• 4:54
  that, bring the whole other side in, you know what I mean?
• 4:57
  Like, trust me, you know, it's like.
• 5:01
  The Freedom folks would be opening for trapped, I think, at
• 5:03
  the Harley-Davidson dealership. OK, so at least I know now that
• 5:08
  we are all definitely on the right side of history here, so
• 5:11
  this is good to know. Well, so I hate asking this
• 5:16
  question, but because of the name I have to ask it because
• 5:19
  there's a story here. Has to be what is the friendship
• 5:22
  commanders thing? Like what brought this in?
• 5:24
  Friendship Commanders is a set of words that is stitched on the
• 5:27
  back of my winter jacket, which is a vintage varsity jacket that
• 5:31
  I found at an antique market here in Nashville for 40 bucks a
• 5:34
  million years ago. And I've worn it ever since.
• 5:36
  And it was, it was just like a random cool, weird find.
• 5:41
  And I've had it since before we started the band.
• 5:43
  And when we started the band, we thought it would be a side
• 5:46
  project that we would just like do some demos, play some shows
• 5:49
  around town kind of thing where we were both busy with other
• 5:52
  projects. And we needed a name.
• 5:54
  And I offered up those two words because they were on the back of
• 5:56
  my jacket. And and of course, you know, the
• 5:59
  first show they did call us Friendship Commando even though
• 6:02
  we said Friendship Commanders and all that, but the name
• 6:05
  stuck. And I actually made a post about
• 6:07
  this like 2 days ago because we never tell this story.
• 6:10
  But there is a personal name embroidered on the front of the
• 6:12
  jacket, which when I first got it, I looked up several times
• 6:16
  online just to see who it perhaps had belonged to, and I
• 6:19
  never found him. And then when we were about to
• 6:22
  release our second album that we made with Steve Albini called
• 6:25
  Bill, I looked it up again and I added Obituary just on a lark to
• 6:29
  the search. And it came right up.
• 6:30
  And I found him, and he had died in his 40s, and he seemed like
• 6:35
  actually a cool, interesting person.
• 6:37
  He had gone to this weird school out in the burbs here.
• 6:39
  And it is his junior high jacket.
• 6:42
  And I wear it with pride. So the name has nothing to do
• 6:45
  with the words that people think we're applying to who we are or
• 6:49
  what the music is. But it does have a sort of
• 6:51
  gravity. And our project does generate a
• 6:53
  lot of music about human dynamics and also grief.
• 6:56
  And so I feel like the name sort of became a good fit, even
• 7:01
  though we started out just naming it after my jacket.
• 7:04
  See, I think what I love about that is because there is a sense
• 7:07
  of ambiguity to it, you know, like, but at the same time,
• 7:11
  there's a story and sometimes there's a there'll be a name
• 7:15
  where I'm like, I don't want to ask that question, but I was
• 7:17
  like, I had to ask it for this because it was one of those
• 7:20
  things where like, yeah. And and what I love about that
• 7:23
  is that totally elevates now, like where the music and where
• 7:27
  the concept of the lyrical side of you guys is coming from.
• 7:31
  So what a cool marriage that was to have something random such as
• 7:35
  like, you know, a $40 thrift jacket and all of a sudden it
• 7:38
  kind of works along with the concept of what you guys are
• 7:42
  about artistically. Totally.
• 7:43
  And people see me in it all the time and they think I had it
• 7:46
  made and I'm like, no, it's the other way around.
• 7:48
  This jacket is what we named the band after.
• 7:51
  I didn't have it made because I'm in friendship Commanders.
• 7:56
  I mean, so when the when the name kind of came up between the
• 8:00
  two was there like you know Jerry, was there any
• 8:02
  reservations at about it from your side?
• 8:05
  So that's an interesting topic because the band was started
• 8:10
  somewhat, for lack of a better term, in passing.
• 8:13
  Like, you know, we, yeah, we wanted to play some of Buick
• 8:16
  songs just more aggressively than we would have otherwise and
• 8:18
  had no intentions of taking it past that.
• 8:21
  And then it just became what it is.
• 8:23
  Had we decided to start a band or a specific kind of band, I
• 8:27
  don't know if we would have stuck with the name or even
• 8:29
  thought of it, you know? But I'm grateful that it
• 8:33
  happened the way it did because the name has just, in a
• 8:35
  roundabout way, become so meaningful.
• 8:37
  And it's also just interesting. And there are no other bands
• 8:41
  than the in our scene that I could think of like that.
• 8:43
  They all have very like. Self serious names.
• 8:45
  Yeah, or they're very comically tough.
• 8:48
  Yeah, so. Definitely stands out and people
• 8:51
  make fun of it and I'm like, yeah, but you don't forget it.
• 8:54
  No, but you know what, what I love about it, it's it's almost
• 8:58
  like this play on it's this play on irony, right?
• 9:02
  And so I had made a little note of this to share with you guys.
• 9:05
  Is that because I like in from 89 to like 94?
• 9:08
  I was in a metal band in Atlanta and we were called Rachel's
• 9:11
  Dead, which was named after a song.
• 9:14
  It was named after a slick toxic song who was like a sleaze band
• 9:18
  from Canada. But, and we just thought it was
• 9:20
  a cool name. And our singer's girlfriend's
• 9:23
  name was Rachel, and we didn't like her.
• 9:24
  But anyway, that's another story.
• 9:25
  But we we had a friend who worked at an Olan Mills photo
• 9:31
  studio. Do you remember those?
• 9:32
  Like, yeah, you know, I'm talking about that.
• 9:34
  Like what? You know, they dress you up and
• 9:36
  everything. And he was just like, dude,
• 9:38
  come, let me sneak you guys in and take promo pictures because
• 9:41
  we got to just have some fun with it.
• 9:43
  And so, you know, everybody's always like in the cemetery or
• 9:45
  in the the woods and everything. He had pictures of us like with
• 9:48
  the background and like holding stuffed animals and stuff.
• 9:52
  And we were this like punk metal band.
• 9:54
  And I was just like, I loved the whole take on irony with that.
• 9:57
  And I thought about that when I heard the name, I was like,
• 10:00
  especially when I saw the name first, heard the music second, I
• 10:03
  was like, there's something there.
• 10:04
  Yep. But it works.
• 10:06
  Nice. Thank you.
• 10:07
  Thanks for asking. Well, so one of the things I
• 10:09
  also wanted to bring up was that you guys were recently signed to
• 10:12
  Magnetic Eye Records. Now, I talked to a lot of bands
• 10:16
  and even being a musician myself, like I feel like the
• 10:19
  concept of signing to a label is kind of a toss up, right?
• 10:23
  It's like some people say I'll never sign to a label because
• 10:27
  it's that they take too much or whatever.
• 10:28
  And then some people say, well, I signed, I'd sign to a label
• 10:31
  because it helps move my move my message, move my work forward in
• 10:36
  a way that I can't do. Where do you guys lie on that
• 10:39
  spectrum? Well, you know, I we had done it
• 10:42
  ourselves for a long time and we're ready to not by the time
• 10:47
  this this record is coming along for multiple reasons.
• 10:49
  We just did not want to deal with the physical media side of
• 10:53
  things anymore and wanted to open up distribution,
• 10:55
  potentially get international distribution and, you know,
• 10:59
  wanted to, you know, give it a label that would sort of plant
• 11:02
  us in the sea that we wanted to be in it.
• 11:04
  It does lend credibility to what you're doing no matter what, uh,
• 11:07
  unless you're getting ripped off or you're signing with full on,
• 11:10
  you know, you know slackers, it's better than doing it
• 11:13
  yourself at the end of the day. That has definitely been the
• 11:15
  case with this label and you know, we have international
• 11:18
  distribution and they have a footprint in Germany and Europe
• 11:20
  and that's really helping with our tour coming up over there
• 11:22
  next year. So I.
• 11:24
  Recommended say 2. We had friends that were already
• 11:27
  on Magnetic Eye that we had toured with and knew pretty
• 11:29
  well, so it wasn't a complete unknown like what was being
• 11:33
  offered to us. And so we did run it past people
• 11:36
  we know and like and trust and and and toss it around.
• 11:41
  Yeah, they were really enthusiastic about this record.
• 11:43
  We made this record without a label there.
• 11:45
  We did it on our own and then they signed us on the strength
• 11:48
  of this record. See that's that that seems to be
• 11:51
  the way I see a lot of people doing that these days too, is to
• 11:54
  go in with some sort of a solid project that you can be really
• 11:58
  proud of and say this is what we're capable of doing on our
• 12:01
  own. So if we had you behind this, we
• 12:03
  could do something even better. And I.
• 12:05
  Think. I don't even think that.
• 12:06
  I mean, I think this is the music we make and we were like
• 12:08
  this is the record that exists. You either sign this or you
• 12:11
  don't, you know what I mean? We didn't re record it.
• 12:13
  This is the record that came out.
• 12:15
  Which is so great because I guess there's also a time in
• 12:17
  life too where where you don't have to have that kind of you
• 12:20
  don't have to bend, you know, where you have to, Oh, I'll
• 12:22
  we'll do whatever. I mean, I mean, what is that
• 12:25
  about you guys that you just felt like like exactly what you
• 12:27
  said that you were like, take it or leave it.
• 12:29
  This Is Us. Believing in the work and
• 12:32
  knowing that we have an audience right now, like even without a
• 12:35
  label. And also just like that,
• 12:37
  pandering. Making music that panders either
• 12:40
  to a label or to an audience that you hope to gain, I think
• 12:43
  sounds like pandering. Whether you're trying to stick
• 12:46
  within genre lines or scene lines or whatever.
• 12:49
  I just think it sounds disingenuous.
• 12:52
  And to me, I can tell the difference between an album
• 12:55
  where people felt the shit out of it and like really believed
• 12:59
  what they were making and put the craft thin versus being
• 13:02
  like, I really want to be a down the middle Stoner project.
• 13:05
  And so this is the record I feel like I have to make to do that.
• 13:08
  We don't do the ladder, like at all.
• 13:10
  So when you were when you're working on the material, I'm
• 13:14
  assuming it's it's a collaborative effort, especially
• 13:17
  being you know that you guys are a team you.
• 13:19
  Arrange everything. I'm the songwriter.
• 13:23
  Yeah, that's what I was wondering because I knew, I
• 13:25
  think I knew you were the songwriter because I've also
• 13:28
  heard about you doing some solo stuff, which I wanted to touch
• 13:30
  on that a little bit too. But.
• 13:32
  And what I meant by from the collaborative effort is that,
• 13:34
  you know, even when there's a songwriter, you know, there's 2
• 13:37
  routes that you can go. You can come go the route that's
• 13:40
  like here, you play this, you play this, you play this.
• 13:42
  Or you can come to the point where you're like, OK, I have
• 13:45
  this song, like let's make this work together.
• 13:48
  How does that flow between you guys?
• 13:49
  Which one do you guys do? And then how does that process
• 13:52
  move forward? Well, you know, Buick writes the
• 13:55
  song very quickly and I'll let her talk about that process if
• 13:58
  she wants. But she will just go with her
• 14:01
  guitar and play the song down. And usually the first time that
• 14:04
  she's playing, I'll join in before, you know, ever really
• 14:07
  knowing it just kind of like trying stuff out and just kind
• 14:10
  of evolves from there. Every now and again, she'll give
• 14:13
  me a suggestion or I'll I'll give her a suggestion and then
• 14:17
  we'll kind of arrange things together, which is bring this
• 14:20
  right down to like, we should do the course twice or we should do
• 14:23
  the bridge twice as much. That's about as far as that
• 14:25
  really goes. Oh, should I add something?
• 14:28
  I was like just listening intently.
• 14:32
  Awkward silence. I definitely write alone.
• 14:35
  I don't write in the room with other people.
• 14:37
  But Jerry and I are collaborative partners in the
• 14:40
  sense that we bring the songs to the Sonic reality that you're
• 14:43
  hearing on the records, for sure.
• 14:44
  And you know, some of this record was written like in bits
• 14:48
  and pieces. Like there were a couple songs
• 14:50
  that, like, I had the music for a while before I had the vocals
• 14:53
  or whatever. But I tend to, as Jerry said, I
• 14:55
  tend to write complete songs, music and vocals together and
• 14:59
  then bring them to him in the space.
• 15:02
  And, you know, we try to just do everything really organically
• 15:04
  and, and play what feels good instead of like trying to get to
• 15:08
  like intellectual about making parts of this, that or the other
• 15:12
  thing, like whatever the song actually wants to feel like, we
• 15:15
  tend to bring it to that place, you know, to like level 11.
• 15:19
  And then we're like, we did it, you know.
• 15:21
  But yeah, I mean, and everything is pre arranged and and pre
• 15:27
  produced by the time we record with Kurt Blue up in Salem.
• 15:30
  I've heard people say that they assume that Kurt contributes to
• 15:32
  the writing process. Absolutely false.
• 15:35
  Kurtz never once suggested any sort of writerly thing on any of
• 15:39
  the stuff he's there to record. And then, you know, when we get
• 15:43
  into like Sonic stuff in the in the room, you know, he Co
• 15:47
  produces and in and in like sort of overdubs, you know, guitar
• 15:51
  overdubs and and textural things like that.
• 15:53
  But now the songs are what they are.
• 15:54
  When we go to the studio, we're we're ready.
• 15:57
  We're we take that part really seriously.
• 15:59
  So one of the things I'm super fat because I'm a songwriter
• 16:02
  myself. And so one of the things I love
• 16:03
  to do is I love to talk to about, you know, the songwriting
• 16:06
  process with people. And one of the other things I'm
• 16:09
  also fascinated with this because I have been in bands
• 16:11
  before, is I like to hear from people like Jerry about how do
• 16:14
  you deal with people like us who are songwriters because we can
• 16:17
  be kind of a, we can be kind of a heavy mess sometimes.
• 16:20
  Like, I mean, obviously it works for you guys and it balances out
• 16:24
  really well. I've been lucky it did the same
• 16:25
  for me. But does Jerry ever feel Jerry?
• 16:29
  Do you ever feel like like, if I have an idea, can I bring it in?
• 16:32
  Or are you just like, let's let Buick do this because she's
• 16:35
  obviously the master? It was a decision I made based
• 16:38
  on the the what you just said. We did Co write 2 songs once
• 16:43
  before in our Garfield EP and it was a really good insight into
• 16:46
  the places we both come from and how they can't work together.
• 16:50
  But I tend to be more technical fun time, kind of like almost
• 16:55
  funny and ironic a little bit. And Buick has a larger, you
• 17:00
  know, scope, like a big worldview.
• 17:02
  And usually batches of songs she writes have kind of a three
• 17:05
  liner concept. And I was like, this isn't
• 17:08
  better with me involved. And I think a lot about all my
• 17:11
  favorite bands tended to, well, there might be a song or two on
• 17:15
  the record written by other guys there.
• 17:16
  There's always a primary songwriter.
• 17:18
  And I just was like, let's just do this.
• 17:20
  It's it's better this way. And I have been right.
• 17:24
  It was. I mean correct.
• 17:25
  I would be totally open to anything Jerry wrote.
• 17:27
  He doesn't bring stuff in. And that's not a me thing.
• 17:31
  That's a, that's a Jerry thing. Like, I think there tends to be
• 17:35
  a, a thought that like a songwriter is like dominant or
• 17:37
  whatever. I couldn't care less.
• 17:39
  I write whether Jerry's interested in the songs or not
• 17:42
  or not. I'm writing music, you know, I,
• 17:45
  I, I write whenever the song comes.
• 17:48
  I don't like get up and do the artist's way every day and
• 17:50
  generate. Oh my God and I tried that and
• 17:54
  that shit does not work I the. Worst music in the world is
• 17:58
  made. Seriously, it's like, I was
• 18:00
  like, I tried that one and I was like, why does everything look
• 18:03
  like it was written in a monastery?
• 18:05
  I am not this like I am not. This killed in music com.
• 18:09
  I'm not this deep in meditation here, this is terrible.
• 18:12
  Yeah, I know. It's not the gym, you know it's
• 18:18
  not. The I'm just glad to know that
• 18:19
  that wasn't me because I had friends of mine who swore by it.
• 18:22
  They're like, you have to try it.
• 18:23
  I was like, OK, fine, I'll try. I was like, I can't do this.
• 18:27
  That that that honestly asserts that we all have the exact same
• 18:30
  wiring and then creative processes must must all look the
• 18:34
  same. I feel like that's an insane
• 18:35
  assertion. Well, you know, because why?
• 18:38
  Would that be true? Yeah.
• 18:40
  And I mean, because I, I feel like that there's this kind of
• 18:43
  like contained. It's like a method to the
• 18:45
  madness of writing songs is that you almost go into this zone
• 18:51
  where like once you the song starts to come, you start to
• 18:53
  formulate. It's almost like you kind of
• 18:54
  black out a little bit and then you start writing.
• 18:57
  And then when you're done, you're playing it and you're
• 18:59
  going, how the fuck did I come up with this?
• 19:02
  You know, there's songs. I don't really remember writing
• 19:04
  Yeah, that I like just fine, but I don't I could not walk you
• 19:07
  through what exactly went down. And that's a lot too about the
• 19:11
  process, right? Yeah, yeah.
• 19:13
  To think of it as to think of it as a muscle as such a like
• 19:16
  weirdly destructive way to think about it.
• 19:18
  Because I just even as the drummer, some of the best stuff
• 19:21
  shows I've ever played was after like a month and a half break of
• 19:24
  playing just as I was in a completely open spot where I was
• 19:29
  just, you know, blank slate. Just let it all out.
• 19:31
  So. That's that's the best because
• 19:33
  like when you're yeah. And I would assume it's probably
• 19:36
  the same thing with you guys when you were going into doing
• 19:37
  shows, right? Like, after a long run of shows,
• 19:39
  you take a break. You know, you can be one of two
• 19:42
  ways. You can either be rusty or you
• 19:44
  can be completely re energized, refocused.
• 19:47
  You're rested, you know? Yeah.
• 19:50
  You haven't been crunched up in fetal position in a van, you
• 19:53
  know, like all those things, you know?
• 19:55
  So you've got that, like, fresh slate to start with.
• 19:57
  But so I did have to say one of the things that I really loved
• 20:01
  about this album, too, was just the overall sequencing.
• 20:04
  I'm a sucker for sequencing. But you guys, the cut, the idea
• 20:08
  of running songs very close back-to-back, I couldn't stop
• 20:12
  listening to it because I was afraid.
• 20:14
  Of course, my ADHD kicked in. Like all of a sudden another
• 20:17
  song came out. I was like, well, now I got to
• 20:18
  listen to this one, you know? But I realized all of a sudden I
• 20:21
  was in this kind of loop that I couldn't get out of.
• 20:23
  But I was like, that's a brilliant concept.
• 20:25
  So not only of the songs great, but if they're run together like
• 20:29
  that, it really gives. It doesn't give someone the
• 20:31
  opportunity to say, oh, OK, I'm going to stop here.
• 20:35
  I've heard choose track. Yeah, by the time, because by
• 20:38
  the time you say, by the time you go to reach for all of a
• 20:41
  sudden the next ones on. And was that a conscious move on
• 20:44
  your part for that reason? OK.
• 20:48
  For that reason, but also just because that's actually how we
• 20:51
  play live. So we don't speak between songs,
• 20:53
  we just go, so we play. The count offs are like right
• 20:57
  when I'm the feedback is ending from the last track.
• 21:00
  And so having the album feel that way felt sort of natural to
• 21:03
  the way that we perform. But also I very much love the
• 21:08
  way that hip hop and rap albums are sequenced and they do the
• 21:11
  same thing. There are no breaks between
• 21:13
  those tracks. Like the last Redman record
• 21:15
  Muddy Waters 2 is exactly like that.
• 21:18
  And I remember texting Jerry and being like we got it.
• 21:20
  Send to Brad Boatwright like these notes because you just
• 21:23
  master it like a hip hop record and it's going to like it's
• 21:25
  going to stay energized. The energy is not going to sag
• 21:28
  between songs. That's going to make it even
• 21:30
  better to listen to it on vinyl because like matter of fact, you
• 21:34
  guys shouldn't have even put track brakes just made it one
• 21:36
  long big fucking record just so the needle just goes right
• 21:39
  across the top you. Know.
• 21:41
  Thank you. I'm so glad it works for you.
• 21:43
  Thank you. It's a it's a rare thing, you
• 21:46
  know, I mean, like I, I, I can think of bands that had
• 21:50
  instances of it, but to hear almost a complete album that
• 21:53
  kind of took that presentation I thought was brilliant.
• 21:56
  And I and like I said, it made me really listen to it.
• 21:59
  And I was like, holy shit, you know, Starship Troopers are
• 22:02
  awesome. I got to like go back and listen
• 22:04
  to this, you know, but but so Buick, I've read a quote from
• 22:10
  you that I thought was actually really, it really moved me in a
• 22:13
  lot of ways. But I wanted to ask you if you
• 22:15
  could elaborate on it. And one of the things you said
• 22:18
  about the fuel behind the bear in the writing was that you were
• 22:22
  quote, kicked out of womanhood if I was ever part of it in the
• 22:25
  first place. And I mean, even just saying
• 22:28
  right now, like, you know, for someone who is like the fat,
• 22:31
  dorky kid growing up and bullied, you know, like that's a
• 22:35
  sentiment that even at 52 years old, I can read and it can make
• 22:39
  me tear because when you find people who are like you and who
• 22:43
  experience that but are using it in their voice, it's pretty
• 22:46
  magnificent. But if you care to do so, I'd
• 22:49
  like you to elaborate a little bit on that quote and how it
• 22:51
  did, how it does fuel. You as far as yeah, thank you
• 22:55
  for saying and thank you for sharing that personal relating
• 22:58
  with me. Yeah.
• 23:00
  So, you know, the the record started to build itself.
• 23:03
  Keeping Score was the first song written for the record and it is
• 23:07
  the opening track. And I knew when I wrote Keeping
• 23:10
  Score that I was starting to get into some territory that would
• 23:12
  be tricky to talk about out here, about being outside of
• 23:17
  this fold that I didn't audition in, right.
• 23:20
  Like I, you know, I'm a woman whether I'm interested in it or
• 23:24
  not. And I, I wrote this song about
• 23:27
  watching grown women holy girls, which was done to me when I was
• 23:32
  a kid by both people inside of my family and outside of my
• 23:37
  family. And I see women doing it now.
• 23:39
  Women that are my age that have kids are bullying their sons,
• 23:42
  daughters, their sons, female friends.
• 23:44
  And it just started to become something that I wanted to talk
• 23:48
  about. So I wrote Keeping Score.
• 23:50
  And then after that, I wrote a song called Melt in which I talk
• 23:53
  about this sort of like weird set of social games that women
• 23:56
  play and that I've been I'm always the one that picked for
• 23:59
  dodgeball in in that set. I'm always the weirdo.
• 24:02
  I'm always the one that doesn't make the fold, that gets the
• 24:05
  weird comments that just just always, always, always.
• 24:08
  And and I started to write about it, which was a really
• 24:11
  vulnerable thing for me to do. I think it's easier to to make
• 24:14
  big loud noises about sort of believing that you're tough and
• 24:17
  cool. But it's it's definitely like
• 24:19
  more bearing to be like I don't belong.
• 24:22
  And I actually, now that I'm looking back and really serving
• 24:26
  the situation from above, I have never belonged and I've never
• 24:29
  really been allowed in. But because it's my gender and
• 24:31
  because just sort of social conditioning, I've always been
• 24:34
  trying to find a way in and trying to find a way to be of
• 24:38
  some utility. And I'm not of any utility.
• 24:41
  And I wrote a record about it. And it is probably the most
• 24:45
  vulnerable thing I've ever written, even though it sounds
• 24:48
  big and mighty at times that the Jerry will tell you.
• 24:51
  It took me out when I wrote it. I mean, I was.
• 24:54
  It was a lot to sing some of these songs.
• 24:55
  Melt. Melt can make me weep.
• 24:57
  Dead and discarded girls can make me weep.
• 24:59
  Imperfect can make me weep. It was mid heaven for me.
• 25:03
  Oh, nice. Yeah, yeah.
• 25:05
  Thank you for saying that. And I actually had a little bit
• 25:07
  say ask about, Melt said, I'm glad you brought that.
• 25:10
  So you answered my question before I even had to ask it.
• 25:13
  So but I did want to ask Jerry though, but so Jerry being part
• 25:17
  of this again, part of this pre identity with Buick and you're
• 25:21
  hearing, I mean, I can react to how I reacted to the songs
• 25:25
  because I heard him as a listener who's now a fan.
• 25:28
  Like how do you handle it like as a Co player here?
• 25:31
  Like, I mean, are you being hit as hard like that?
• 25:35
  Yes, well, you know, so close to Buick and know these stories and
• 25:40
  so that I, I, it hits me personally in that way because
• 25:42
  I, I was present for some of them even.
• 25:45
  And so I have, I've invested in that way too, as a, as a just
• 25:49
  Buick's friend and bandmate. But similarly to you, I was, you
• 25:53
  know, the dorky fat kid that was made fun of in school.
• 25:57
  And then I got kicked out of pre kindergarten because I was in a
• 26:01
  Christian School and I said God doesn't exist during Bible
• 26:03
  study. And so they just kind of set the
• 26:06
  stage for my whole life of being like a weirdo that doesn't
• 26:10
  really belong anywhere. And so I, I feel like a peanut
• 26:13
  pod with Buick as far as like my sentiment, it's different, you
• 26:16
  know, different stuff, same thing essentially.
• 26:18
  It's almost like a concept of someone saying things that you
• 26:21
  wish you could say, or that you'd want to say that, but that
• 26:24
  you don't really know how you would formulate the words or how
• 26:26
  you would actually say it. And she has she has this
• 26:29
  beautiful skill and like gift with that and.
• 26:31
  That's a powerful thing because one of the things I especially
• 26:33
  when I love what I love about music and I love, you know, I
• 26:37
  mean, I'm a Gen. X metal head from you know, I
• 26:39
  mean, I love it all, but I've always been a song guy.
• 26:43
  So like whatever the genre was, you know, if I felt like
• 26:46
  something connected with me or made me feel included or seen,
• 26:50
  you know, whether it was, I don't know, whether it was N.W.A
• 26:54
  or whether it was Winger. When I had my heart broken for
• 26:57
  the first time and I listened to Headed for a Heartbreak for a
• 26:59
  week on repeat. But there's elements of artists
• 27:03
  that connect with you. And so with that comes also a
• 27:07
  little bit of stress or sometimes or even maybe a sense
• 27:09
  of responsibility. Do you feel that because you
• 27:12
  have kind of opened this door to connect with people who may have
• 27:17
  these same things like myself, Is there a bit of stress for you
• 27:20
  to kind of carry on with that that that method?
• 27:23
  Or are you like, OK, I've done it once, I'm good, let's go here
• 27:27
  now. No, this is this is actually
• 27:30
  like the best I ever feel. I, I feel like I spent a lot of
• 27:34
  my earlier music life trying to lay down parts of myself that
• 27:39
  were too much or that I was being made to feel like we're
• 27:41
  too much. And no, now that I'm like truly
• 27:45
  living out loud, no, I feel, I feel great.
• 27:48
  And I, I do honestly feel this is so cheesy, but I feel like if
• 27:51
  something happened to me and I died next week, I told the
• 27:53
  truth, you know? And there's value in that.
• 27:55
  I didn't just like hide and try to be, try to be accepted.
• 27:58
  I told the truth. Well, I mean, but more so for
• 28:01
  yourself than anybody, right? Because all of a sudden.
• 28:03
  For myself. I mean, because let's face it,
• 28:06
  being musicians and being sorry, it's a selfish game.
• 28:09
  We're in this for us. But at the same time, like you
• 28:12
  said this, it's this weird form of exorcism, you know, where
• 28:15
  you're just like, OK, I could keep the stuff bottled in so
• 28:18
  much, but at some point I've got to start pulling these demons
• 28:20
  out and where are they going to go for us?
• 28:23
  My experience is that art and music are actually forms of
• 28:26
  communication, and you're never the only one.
• 28:28
  I've been doing this for long enough to know that like, while
• 28:31
  women don't speak to me about this record at all, like it's
• 28:34
  very rare for women to speak to me about this record, so many
• 28:37
  other kinds of people have shared with me what this record
• 28:40
  means to them. And that is like, ego aside,
• 28:44
  that's communication and there's value in that, that like, people
• 28:47
  feel understood. People feel close to some
• 28:49
  subject or another. It doesn't really matter what
• 28:52
  the sort of bracket of belonging or not belonging is.
• 28:56
  Like in my case, it happens to be this gender thing, but people
• 28:59
  know what not belonging feels like.
• 29:00
  At least school people do. Because you know what?
• 29:05
  There's there's there's people like us who didn't peak young,
• 29:10
  but we're like in our prime now. And then there's the ones who
• 29:13
  peaked in high school. And those are the ones that go
• 29:16
  I. Don't know what we're talking
• 29:16
  about. Because those are the ones good.
• 29:18
  They go, Oh my God, those are the best days of my life.
• 29:21
  And I'm like, man, how fucking sad is that for you, that that
• 29:23
  was the best days for your life? Like living hell.
• 29:27
  My best days are right now, you know, and I'm.
• 29:29
  Laughing. Same here.
• 29:30
  Yeah. So I mean, the communication is
• 29:32
  amazing and finding new community through this sort of
• 29:36
  brand of creative expression. And I have always felt a kinship
• 29:40
  with artists that make honest work.
• 29:42
  And I just think the cycle goes on.
• 29:44
  So but no, I mean, it is really vulnerable right?
• 29:46
  When the work first starts to come out, I feel really like
• 29:49
  naked and raw. But I I don't ever regret it or
• 29:51
  feel like burdened by it or like I wouldn't have done it again.
• 29:56
  This is just like living out loud.
• 29:58
  I think that's the best like living, actually, I'm going to
• 30:01
  write that down. I'm going to steal that from
• 30:03
  you. Probably living out loud.
• 30:04
  I love that, but I. Wear a necklace every day that
• 30:06
  says living out loud. Oh, I love that.
• 30:08
  I'm telling you that's I feel like you guys are spirit animals
• 30:14
  for me right now, which I'm loving this so much.
• 30:17
  But so I only got a couple more to go.
• 30:19
  But my next question was for Jerry, who is like the multi
• 30:23
  instrumentalist. Obviously.
• 30:24
  I mean you're like a master of all you know.
• 30:26
  I mean, I'm a math, you know, I always like to say I'm not great
• 30:30
  at one thing. I'm mediocre at like many.
• 30:32
  You're fucking great at a lot of things.
• 30:34
  And so like, tell me about that. As far as being the
• 30:37
  instrumentalist, if it's just the 2 two of you guys, I mean,
• 30:40
  I'm assuming that you guys tour the band.
• 30:42
  Do you tour the the full band or?
• 30:44
  No, I play guitar on the records and live and Jerry plays drums
• 30:48
  live and that's. It oh, OK, so oh so oh, that
• 30:51
  makes it even easier then. OK.
• 30:53
  Because I was wondering like if there were situations where you
• 30:55
  had to like divvy out tasks to other musicians?
• 30:59
  No and I just honestly I just overdub bass after the fact to
• 31:03
  like fill it out so it sounds so honestly sounds like it does
• 31:06
  live. Just playing my guitar rips.
• 31:10
  The, the we play extremely loud live and you don't miss anything
• 31:15
  and, but on the record we just want the extra low end.
• 31:19
  And you know, I just, I, I also do some key stuff in after the
• 31:23
  fact, but it's just holding like 2 notes down in a sense soft
• 31:27
  sense, not to make it less than it is.
• 31:28
  It really is all it is. But yeah, I do love bass.
• 31:32
  I'm a big bass nerd. But but yeah, just on this my,
• 31:36
  in my concept really that we each do two things, bass and
• 31:39
  drums, vocals and guitar. Because I like to think of her
• 31:41
  vocals as an instrument as much as anything else.
• 31:43
  The voice is an instrument. Oh, absolutely.
• 31:46
  Mines usually out of tune a lot, but it's, you know, I mean,
• 31:50
  yeah, I've got to tune it up when I can.
• 31:52
  But so and I love that because one of the things I also wanted
• 31:55
  to ask you one more thing was about the duo thing.
• 31:56
  When you're touring, obviously it makes load in and load out
• 32:00
  very easy when it's just the two of you.
• 32:02
  But no, it's the worst. And why is that?
• 32:05
  Because I was just going to ask you that.
• 32:06
  Like how? Well, actually, because we play.
• 32:08
  Three people's worth of gear. I play through a cool bass rig
• 32:11
  and a guitar rig, and I play 3 guitars and Jerry plays drums.
• 32:15
  Yeah. Oh, that, that, that does suck.
• 32:16
  Because you don't have a sing, you don't have a singer to hold
• 32:19
  the microphone while you load everything out.
• 32:21
  And you know, you think that that that can be fine, but then
• 32:24
  you have to deal with like disco loadouts sometimes.
• 32:27
  So you'll have one person trying to sell merch as long as
• 32:29
  possible, the other person's trying to load out as quickly as
• 32:32
  possible. Literally 2 people, yeah.
• 32:36
  And it gets weird too, because then you have social media stuff
• 32:39
  and label outreach to deal with. And that thankfully, like there
• 32:42
  was so much going on on this last tour that there was this
• 32:45
  coverage all over the place. And we were have, we were
• 32:47
  getting Sprint thin, which is a great problem to have, but with
• 32:50
  two people it is a lot. Yeah, it's a lot.
• 32:53
  I think if we play, if we were a bluegrass outfit and someone
• 32:55
  played violin and someone else played something else small and
• 32:58
  acoustic, we'd be having a great time.
• 32:59
  But that's not what we're doing. Yeah.
• 33:01
  I love that because that was my first, but as you were answering
• 33:05
  that, I felt stupid because I could think of it was juicy for
• 33:08
  and I was like that. Tons of shit.
• 33:10
  I was like that fucking duo had more gear than like yes I'm like
• 33:15
  there was like 2 of that by. Two humans.
• 33:19
  I have to wonder how many times they asked themselves if it was
• 33:21
  really worth it are. They.
• 33:23
  Are they done? Are we speaking about them in
• 33:25
  past tense? Are they not playing anymore?
• 33:27
  I. Don't know.
• 33:28
  I mean, I haven't seen anything from them.
• 33:30
  I haven't. Either now that you say that,
• 33:32
  but I've never heard them like officially pull it down.
• 33:36
  Yeah, at least I heard about them.
• 33:37
  Was when Sound of Metal came out.
• 33:39
  That was it. Yeah, yeah.
• 33:41
  I lived in Atlanta and I, I saw them two times in my entire
• 33:45
  life. And one time, I think it was the
• 33:47
  first time. It was the last time I've ever
• 33:49
  not wore earplugs to a show. So you know that that was the
• 33:53
  loudest band I'd ever seen next to Motörhead, which was just
• 33:56
  insane. Yeah.
• 33:58
  But well, so I guess to close things out, the album came out
• 34:01
  in October. They come out in October, right?
• 34:04
  Yeah, October 10th. And here we're in December.
• 34:08
  So you guys have already had a busy year with the album,
• 34:11
  assuming you guys are gonna have a busy year next year.
• 34:13
  So what's in store? Yeah.
• 34:15
  So when is this conversation coming out?
• 34:19
  I don't know. It's whoever is editing this.
• 34:24
  Omar, when is this coming out? But anyway, he'll edit that out
• 34:26
  too. Well, our next tour is
• 34:29
  announcing next week. We're going out for about 3
• 34:32
  weeks in February and March. We're doing like some SE and
• 34:36
  East Coast dates with some friends of ours.
• 34:38
  I mean, actually some Texas dates.
• 34:40
  Doesn't the run start in Texas? Yeah, which we love.
• 34:45
  We love Houston. We're going out with Temptress,
• 34:48
  who are people that we know from touring through Texas and who
• 34:51
  are assigned to our sister labeled Blues Funeral.
• 34:55
  They have a record coming out in January, so we're going out with
• 34:57
  them for three weeks and then we go to Europe for the first time
• 34:59
  in May, which we're super excited about.
• 35:02
  It's our first time heading that way, can't wait.
• 35:05
  That is going to be exciting. The head of Europe for the first
• 35:07
  time play some I. Know, yeah, totally.
• 35:09
  We're over there for what, close to three weeks I think.
• 35:12
  Yeah, I think it will end up being about a month solid, if
• 35:16
  not longer. And yeah, then of course, we'll
• 35:18
  have another tour in the fall. That's all getting worked on and
• 35:22
  I guess we have to start thinking about a next record at
• 35:25
  some point. Seems insane.
• 35:26
  I know it just came out then we only made it last fall, so I
• 35:30
  mean, yeah, but it's going to be a full year of playing shows and
• 35:35
  writing songs in between, I guess.
• 35:36
  Well, I'll be honest, I am super excited.
• 35:39
  Like discovering you guys via my friends was one of the best
• 35:43
  things that happened to me this year and I'm super excited.
• 35:46
  I'm so glad you guys made it. Just onto the line here from and
• 35:49
  I mean it was fantastic and I can't wait to see what 2026 has
• 35:53
  in store for, you know, for you guys and for me, you know, a
• 35:57
  brand new happy explorers fan so.
• 36:00
  Thank you. And where are you?
• 36:01
  Located, we're actually, well, we're unfortunately in Myrtle
• 36:04
  Beach right now, South Carolina because okay, we were in
• 36:08
  Atlanta. That's right.
• 36:09
  You said South Carolina, but I wasn't sure what said.
• 36:11
  We were in Atlanta, but we moved here to be close to my in laws.
• 36:14
  So, you know, because they're getting up there and we love
• 36:17
  them, they're great. So we wanted to enjoy them while
• 36:19
  we could. So the compromise was moving to,
• 36:22
  yeah, Trump land. Well, we'll let you know.
• 36:26
  I mean, we're in Trump land too. We'll let you know when we're
• 36:30
  when we're headed your way for sure.
• 36:31
  We're running around a lot. But we'd love to meet you in
• 36:33
  person. And thank you so much for the
• 36:35
  kind words about the music and for like taking time to talk to
• 36:38
  us about it. No worries.
• 36:40
  Well, thank you guys so much for taking the time to talk.
• 36:42
  It's been it's been incredible and I'll be looking forward to
• 36:45
  seeing more and people of ghost cult keep your eyes out for
• 36:50
  friendship commanders hitting the road sometime in 2026 and
• 36:53
  they will kick your ass and make you feel something.
• 36:56
  So guys, Jerry Buick, thank you so much.
• 37:00
  Thank you. Appreciate you.