Latest / Basic Folk / Jacob Sharp after Mipso: Parenthood, Co-writing, and Still a Teamplayer, ep. 355

Transcript

Jacob Sharp after Mipso: Parenthood, Co-writing, and Still a Teamplayer, ep. 355 · Basic Folk

0:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Hi and welcome to Basic Folk where we have honest conversations with folk musicians on the bluegrass situation.
0:18
[SPEAKER_02]: It's your host Cindy House.
0:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Very thrilled to have Jacob Sharpe from the band MIPSO on the show today.
0:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Before we get into that, there's a couple of ways that we can stay in touch.
0:29
[SPEAKER_02]: You can sign up for the Basic Folk newsletter.
0:31
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0:34
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0:44
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0:53
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0:56
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1:00
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, how's it going?
1:02
[SPEAKER_02]: I am in my little outbuilding.
1:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Underneath my recording blanket, I still have not gotten this place set up yet.
1:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And we have a mouse problem in here and it's...
1:13
[SPEAKER_02]: It smells like my family's rustic western mask cabin that also had a mice infestation.
1:21
[SPEAKER_02]: But I am feeling pretty hopeful about it.
1:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I talked to my friend Lindsay today about different things that I can do to make it less nice and here for those.
1:33
[SPEAKER_02]: little guys feeling pretty hopeful about that just ordered some curtains and rugs and there's like five boxes around me with a desk that I need my wife to set up for me.
1:45
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's what's going on.
1:46
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what's happening here in Maine and hopefully everything is going
1:51
[SPEAKER_02]: all right for you, and if it's not, that's also totally fine.
1:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Just glad that you're here today.
1:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
1:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Founding member of the beloved North Carolina Bluegrass-ish band Mipso, Jacob Sharp, has always loved a team.
2:05
[SPEAKER_02]: He attributes this to being a middle child, which is the basis for his debut solo album, Middle Kid.
2:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Born and raised in the foot hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains,
2:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Jacob was not only loving being on a team, but radiated towards musical collaboration on guitar and mandolin.
2:24
[SPEAKER_02]: He studied at UNC Chapel Hill where he met his bandmates and formed Mipso in 2012.
2:29
[SPEAKER_02]: He ended up moving to Brooklyn after school where he fell into a musical community with folks like Courtney Hartman, the brother brothers and Sarah Geros.
2:39
[SPEAKER_02]: From there, he and his wife moved to Los Angeles
2:45
[SPEAKER_02]: They eventually made their way back east and now reside once again in North Carolina, along with their young daughter named after Jacob's mother, who died when he was 21 years old, just weeks before Mipso's first concert.
2:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Jacob is such an interesting and gentle person to be in conversation with in ways that make you want to know his whole story, which is vast.
3:07
[SPEAKER_02]: He speaks about his early life as well as the loss of his mother and what that feels like in tandem with becoming a parent himself.
3:16
[SPEAKER_02]: He is actively sharing music and surrounding his young daughter with music and we talk about what that looks like and how she's responded.
3:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Jacob is also very passionate about wine and shares where that came from and how it intersects with music.
3:31
[SPEAKER_02]: We also discussed the possible future or non-future of MIPSO, who announced an indefinite hiatus on May 7, 2025, and wrapped up their final shows on October 8, and 9, 25.
3:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm thrilled Jacob released his solo album.
3:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I have loved all of the solo songs that he's dropped so far and the new record does not disappoint.
3:53
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll take a listen to a song from Jacob's new solo album.
3:58
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll check out, don't know, and then get to our conversation with the wonderful Jacob Sharp on Basic Folk.
4:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Sound it out now, tell me how you feel When dead broken dreams All become real, it's all real for me So real right now Roll it right out, then that automobile Managed hip, and straight to the wheel It's all real for you So real right now
4:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't know what you got till it's gone Got me at a good, oh, oh Just that I could get back on that phone again with you Don't know what you got till it's gone Don't know when you're not Don't know, so hold on to me now
5:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Jacob Sharp, welcome to Basic Folk.
5:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
5:22
[SPEAKER_02]: What a pleasure.
5:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm excited to talk to you.
5:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, of course.
5:26
[SPEAKER_02]: OK, let's talk about your hometown.
5:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
5:29
[SPEAKER_02]: You are from Morganton, a small town in the mountains of North Carolina.
5:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I looked up pictures and it looks very lovely.
5:37
[SPEAKER_02]: You can see huge mountains in the background, which you're just like whatever that's my life.
5:40
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not a big deal, but beautiful.
5:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Truly a tiny town where the mountains began.
5:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
5:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a good spot to grow up.
5:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It put it made me learn the definition for Pete Montgomery.
5:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Tell me a little bit more about what your hometown was like and where music was for you growing up.
6:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, my hometown then was really different than it is now.
6:06
[SPEAKER_01]: At that time, it felt
6:08
[SPEAKER_01]: in a classic Southern kind of app-latching way, very small and very specific.
6:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, a lot of music initially was in church settings and was choirs in like youth groups.
6:20
[SPEAKER_01]: That was where people gathered to play.
6:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And the other spot was this thing I kind of heard about, but my family didn't have immediate access to, which was jamming of the bluegrass and old-time variety.
6:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I first got a mandolin, I really just played it like a guitar
6:37
[SPEAKER_01]: find a path towards on the early internet.
6:40
[SPEAKER_01]: But I kept hearing about these people who got together and knew the same tunes and would sit in a room and play it and I asked enough questions and started getting invited to those rooms too.
6:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Where did you get your first mandolin?
6:53
[SPEAKER_02]: That was your first instrument?
6:55
[SPEAKER_01]: My first instrument, I guess I played piano first and then I played guitar for a brief stint, but my older brother was really talented at basically everything.
7:05
[SPEAKER_01]: It took my guitar and got better than that, better than it.
7:09
[SPEAKER_01]: are better at it than me quite quickly and in a classic middle kid format I was like well guitars stupid so if he's not yet there's no way that this is worth my time and I started to look for something a little more obscure and I went to a string cheese incident concert when I was in sixth grade and saw Michael Kang play the electric mandolin and thought I've never seen anyone else do that so that's what I'll do and it about two months later I would have my first
7:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, what is a fishing bet?
7:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it can be any variety of things, but in this case, my dad is a notorious, my dad who's like, this week's guy on the planet is a notoriously bad fisherman, and we were on a family beach trip and on this peer fishing and everyone's catching fish, my dad has caught zero fish on day, and I'm telling him,
8:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I think I was 12.
8:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm making this slow pitch of this new thing that I need in my life and the help I need to acquire it.
8:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And eventually he was like, well, we're about to go and we're still talking about the mandolin versus the guitar, which I already had and I said, well, what if you, if you on this next cast catch fish, you have to buy me mandolin.
8:25
[SPEAKER_01]: He was like, okay, sure.
8:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was one of the,
8:27
[SPEAKER_01]: fishing systems where you have two hooks.
8:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, if you catch two at the same time, you have to buy me a case, too.
8:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And the only two fish that he caught that day were both caught on the next cast.
8:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god.
8:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And he bought me a mandolin.
8:38
[SPEAKER_01]: True to his word about a month later.
8:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Cash, listening to you talk about you as a little kid.
8:43
[SPEAKER_02]: You're like,
8:45
[SPEAKER_02]: you're very calculated and you just had really good foresight, like listening to you talk about like, I just asked the right questions and sat in the room, like it just says like so much about your personality.
9:02
[SPEAKER_02]: But we're like chill about it the whole time.
9:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I also had really supportive parents and really open community around me who heard the questions and said yes.
9:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it was a combination of being nurtured and also trying to we some myself into what I wanted.
9:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Nice.
9:21
[SPEAKER_02]: So like very manipulative, just kidding.
9:27
[SPEAKER_02]: So coming from the mountains of North Carolina, it might be quite obvious, but can you talk a little bit more about developing a taste and interest in folk and string band music?
9:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean,
9:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I started out just as a fan of bands and someone who left going to shows and what I loved in the era that we're talking about when I got these first instruments was this kind of unique to the moment combination of being obsessed with jamb bands like string cheese and fish and then also really liking song.
10:01
[SPEAKER_01]: What I just think of as song bands which for me at the time was like
10:09
[SPEAKER_02]: people who keep their songs under 20 minutes.
10:13
[SPEAKER_01]: These songs under 20 minutes, yes, songs of structure.
10:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And especially songs that people sing along to, that became what I became obsessed or that is what I became obsessed with.
10:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And what I liked most was kind of the intersection between the two, and then kind of slowly, like, it was probably five years into playing mandolin that I actually cared about, bluegrass and old time.
10:34
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's when I found it could create, and all sorts of other people who were making this thing I had initially heard
10:42
[SPEAKER_01]: kind of rooped form, listening to the source, film a row, et cetera, that I didn't really connect with early.
10:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It was bands like Nicole Creek, the kind of show me others this middle ground here that connects where I started being interested in and and what I think I will get interested in.
10:57
[SPEAKER_02]: When did you start writing your own music?
11:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's my question.
11:03
[SPEAKER_02]: When did you start writing your own music?
11:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I started writing my own music when I was 16 was like the first song I wrote.
11:12
[SPEAKER_01]: before that I was just playing, trying to learn songs that I loved from bands that I was going to see.
11:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was around the time that my mom was first diagnosed with cancer and it was, I think a big part of my teenage emotional processing became, wow, via song and it kind of still, I mean, when I look back at,
11:32
[SPEAKER_01]: All the songs I've written now, the most I would say like consistent theme is loss and change and music songwriting and performance both really became the mediums through which I could kind of find my own path to that mental maze.
11:51
[SPEAKER_02]: How did it feel to write your own songs?
11:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And then how do you relate to that feeling now?
11:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess you were just talking about how it felt to write your own songs.
12:00
[SPEAKER_02]: But how does that feeling feel for you now?
12:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, initially, it felt in a good way.
12:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if I would have phrased it this way then, but it felt like indulgent.
12:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It was just for me.
12:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, it was my turn, no?
12:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And now I think, when I think about songs, I think of it as starting theirs, I want most songs for me, I want their genesis to be hyper personal, but I want where they land to feel much broader and to me now, like, I think what would have been the biggest compliment was someone who knows we're saying, oh, I hear this specific moment of your life on here this song, and now the biggest compliment is when someone says,
12:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I hear the specific moment in my life in this song.
12:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yes.
12:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Are both your parents still around?
12:51
[SPEAKER_01]: My dad is still with us.
12:53
[SPEAKER_01]: My mom passed away when I was 21.
12:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I just turned 21.
12:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So it'll be 15 years this December.
13:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
13:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And actually the first, the second, MIPSO concert ever was a week after her funeral.
13:07
[SPEAKER_01]: We did kind of a...
13:09
[SPEAKER_01]: fundraiser for the Cancer Treatment Center.
13:10
[SPEAKER_01]: She had been at or what became a fundraiser.
13:14
[SPEAKER_01]: We planned it because we knew her time was limited and I had this foresight that the band was going to be a big part of my life and music was and I wanted her to see it and so we planned a show in my hometown and she passed a week before the concert was planned and we turned it into
13:37
[SPEAKER_01]: moment of success.
13:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It was this packed club in my hometown who were there not really for our music, but they're to mourn and to celebrate my mom.
13:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's what I think really gave us the bug what we saw both what it felt like to be on stage and from, of crowd.
13:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And even in odd emotional circumstances, it's an incredible feeling.
13:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And also we saw this music can be
14:05
[SPEAKER_01]: point of the MIPSO trajectory was about creating community that could gather freely.
14:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was kind of the first moment that showed us that's possible.
14:14
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a real intense music saved me story.
14:17
[SPEAKER_01]: For sure.
14:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
14:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
14:20
[SPEAKER_02]: How are you feeling about 15 years?
14:23
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I feel, I feel at peace.
14:37
[SPEAKER_01]: around her death kind of stopped around like year 10 and now it has in a good way of plateaued of this place of like indefinite importance.
14:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And on the one hand, it's trippy because you know, now my life has got, has moved several chapters beyond that chapter and I have
15:01
[SPEAKER_01]: a life partner and I have a child who never met her and that's hard to reckon with and and yet also the my daughter is named after my mom and that's because in no small part the moment that she exited my partner and entered the room it was the closest I felt to my mom in 15 and 14 and a half years it was as if she was in the room and I saw my mom and
15:27
[SPEAKER_01]: My partner and then my daughter having this almost like conversation, emotional, spiritual conversation together in this very true way.
15:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's odd because it's 15 years, which is a really long time.
15:42
[SPEAKER_01]: It's almost half my life and also I feel closer to her that I have in a long time.
15:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
15:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
15:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
15:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's talk about sports.
15:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
15:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm.
15:57
[SPEAKER_02]: One thing I read about you is that you have always loved a team.
16:02
[SPEAKER_02]: You say, even when I didn't like the sport, which makes me want to know what your relationship has been like to sports.
16:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, let me tell you a story about Jacob Sharp playing P. We football.
16:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I, every summer would try and, well, the first, there was a first, the first summer I wanted to play football.
16:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I just thought this looks like fun.
16:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at all these people running around together.
16:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And even though I had watched the sport, it came as a real shock about two weeks into the season when we started hitting each other.
16:34
[SPEAKER_01]: We moved from the, the skill drills to the hitting drills and I thought this is true violence and I don't like this and I immediately back to quit and my parents were like, you know, you made a commitment you have to stay.
16:47
[SPEAKER_01]: involved, but increasingly, they would just, they describe it as seeing me on the games, while hating every practice, but every Saturday, having a game, and they would see me move closer and closer to the cheerleading squad, and on the sideline, and realize that I was just hanging out with the people who didn't have to play, and they let me quit.
17:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet, the next year, I would back to play again and quit again, and several years in a row, I had that specific relationship
17:16
[SPEAKER_00]: But I have loved other sports.
17:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I loved basketball, both playing and watching.
17:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I love to follow basketball in particular in the drama of the character development and how you see a team like change and grow either together or apart over the course of a season.
17:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think,
17:34
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a real connection between, especially basketball teams and being in a multi-headed beast band like the one that I've joined.
17:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
17:45
[SPEAKER_02]: So the team aspect, I think translates really well into music.
17:52
[SPEAKER_02]: in collaboration.
17:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And one thing that I have been interested in is like people who love collaboration, like yourself, what have you learned about listening from your love of musical collaboration?
18:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And then if you want to take it a step further, how does that translate to outside music?
18:22
[SPEAKER_01]: the beginning of a song, that moment where you find this mutual seed in a, in a, in a correct, especially.
18:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And I, I really learned about that with my MIPSO bandmates.
18:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And we had this, these for very different voices and perspectives that we tried to find a common landing pad for in our music.
18:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes an individual song sometimes within the course of a show, but in that specific
18:52
[SPEAKER_01]: when you should raise your voice and when you shouldn't.
18:55
[SPEAKER_01]: As doctors are coming together and how sometimes you can see situations in which
19:02
[SPEAKER_01]: The thing you really need to raise the point you need to make is something that you're not going to get to for a day, a week, sometimes a year.
19:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that in that situation, musical collaboration taught me a lot about patients and being willing to kind of, not like, definitely not self-sensor, but to be willing to change ahead of having a strong opinion.
19:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would say currently that still is kind of my favorite thing in collaboration is like listening to someone else's experience well enough to be able to connect it to one of your own.
19:43
[SPEAKER_02]: You attended UNC in Chapel Hill and MIPSO formed in 2012 originally called MIPSO Trio, the John Rebending String Band.
19:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was interesting to hear about your first gig.
19:57
[SPEAKER_02]: How do you think the way the band formed and carried on has impacted the kind of musician and writer that you've become?
20:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's like, until very recently, it's all of my musical self was met.
20:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know what?
20:14
[SPEAKER_01]: That been started out.
20:18
[SPEAKER_01]: pretty specifically because we were asked to play a show, and we were asked to be a bluegrass band.
20:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we are not to be a bluegrass band, but to play a bluegrass set.
20:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the first thing we prepared for was that, and I think we kind of took that challenge as an ethos for the band and every album cycle, we tried to really honestly ask ourselves what type of band we wanted to be then, both.
20:43
[SPEAKER_01]: the structure of the band and kind of like the philosophy of how we were collaborating, but also the type of music we wanted it to feel like the textures and sounds that we wanted to incorporate.
20:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And I over the course of 14 years played 1200 concerts with that band and probably in that same 12 year period played only 10 to 15 concerts in other situations.
21:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So it is like,
21:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And so pretty recently, it is everything that I know about music, and that I know about both like being in a band and having an individual musical identity.
21:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I read that you are in Brooklyn for a while, is that true?
21:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I lived in Brooklyn.
21:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I moved from
21:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Carborough, which is the town next to Chapel Hill, which is where when Mipso, we met in college when we decided to try and do it full-time for a year and see what happened.
21:39
[SPEAKER_01]: We got a house together in Carborough just on the street.
21:43
[SPEAKER_01]: We lived in that house for two years, what we were touring really intensely and then
21:47
[SPEAKER_01]: moved into separate houses because we needed a little bit of space in.
21:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, you're like, we're not the monkeys actually.
21:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, we got pretty close.
21:54
[SPEAKER_01]: But we realized we needed a little space and then I realized I needed a little more space about a year after that and moved to Brooklyn.
22:01
[SPEAKER_01]: This is 20.
22:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Without the band.
22:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Without the band, yeah, moved, moved to my best buddies to Brooklyn in part because I had met several really
22:12
[SPEAKER_01]: transformative people on the road other musicians who were similarly making us to Brooklyn and telling me about this incredible community of acoustic musicians that were living there and playing together and it seemed to me or you hang out with in Brooklyn.
22:27
[SPEAKER_01]: While the person who really convinced me to move was Courtney Hartman.
22:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But the scene that she in large part introduced me to was the Moss Brothers, John Fathom, who's Projectus Jacksonport, Taylor Ashton, all the people in Lake Street dive.
22:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It was kind of that Sarah Geros was there in the earlier years.
22:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It was that crew who were always gathering at someone's
22:57
[SPEAKER_01]: to share kind of what each other was working on, the stories of the road, and it was this incredible community that I think at the time, the why was that I was so specifically a musician from Earth here and in so specifically musician in this one band, and I realized I liked team so much that I wasn't challenging myself to grow much beyond it, and I knew a bit of a push.
23:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, how did that change your approach to music and writing after being in Brooklyn?
23:24
[SPEAKER_02]: How long were you there for?
23:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I was there for five years.
23:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Gosh, doesn't it?
23:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I feel like I had a scene like that in Boston and it feels like I was there for 20 years.
23:35
[SPEAKER_02]: It was like three years.
23:36
[SPEAKER_02]: It feels like such a long time to have a scene like that when you think back.
23:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Totally.
23:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think that's a part because maybe for you too, that scene has become like the
23:48
[SPEAKER_01]: the grains of my social fabric and we all are not all of us, but many of us moved to Los Angeles around the same time after that and now many of us are advocates at the same time and going through new life changes and they really, those relationships in that moment of life have really carried on as the ones that have lifted and supported me ever since even as my life has changed and I've moved to new places.
24:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But I love that era.
24:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It was an incredible time to grow and to feel as a musician, and to feel maybe a bit freer to break the mold that I had found myself in.
24:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And I miss it all the time.
24:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Who do you think is going to write the book about that scene?
24:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
24:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Great question.
24:37
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't go do a good job as John Fathom.
24:39
[SPEAKER_01]: John Fathom would write an excellent book about the tales of Brooklyn and that era.
24:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, this is a public call.
24:45
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a John Fathom.
24:47
[SPEAKER_02]: We made it.
24:48
[SPEAKER_01]: We made it.
24:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
24:50
[SPEAKER_02]: So you and I met on the KAMO cruise in 2024, which was such a fun hang.
24:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And you actually hosted a wine tasting?
25:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, we were there.
25:01
[SPEAKER_01]: That's true.
25:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Which was so fun.
25:04
[SPEAKER_02]: How did you get into wine and then how does that intersect with your music life?
25:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, obviously the K-Omo crews, you did a wine tasting, but yes.
25:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Right when when Mipso formed, I took a year off of college because I wanted to learn how to make something else and I moved to New Zealand and worked on the winery for a year and became really obsessed with
25:30
[SPEAKER_01]: with wine and kind of really obsessed with food in general.
25:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the band, I came home thinking this is, that'll be my path, but the band gained some traction and this dream that I thought was impossible, being a professional musician was at my,
25:46
[SPEAKER_01]: at my feet.
25:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I know I had to take that step, but I always was trying to get a little closer back to the wine community.
25:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And in early Mips of Touring Days, I would drag my bandmates to like tasting rooms and wineries and far off places when we had an off-day, but
26:01
[SPEAKER_01]: living in Brooklyn, I started to realize that all these restaurants that I was coming to love had the same winemakers on their wine list and it was like it was a different type of wine that I had made and that I knew and it was this beverage that similar to the music I love really felt like it was telling a story and it wasn't decorating.
26:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I wanted to learn about what that was and it was the early natural wine scene in Brooklyn was kind of the common thread.
26:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there was this wine store in my corner in Crown Heights that had these wines and so I'd go in and make friends with the people and eventually they were like, what are you?
26:35
[SPEAKER_01]: do because you're gone for like a month at a time and then you're here every afternoon tasting wine and I told them about my life and they're like well we need someone who works in here if you want to learn more and so I started working in the wine store and then do.
26:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
26:49
[SPEAKER_01]: During COVID I started working there a lot more with the extra time on my hands with touring gone.
26:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I moved to California in 2021, a friend from Brooklyn asked me to help distribute the wines he was importing in California.
27:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that led to this cool cross-section of my musical and kind of food and wine community in California.
27:09
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of whom have similar backgrounds.
27:12
[SPEAKER_01]: between both chefs and Somalia's and then especially winemakers an incredible percentage of them have been involved in touring at some point.
27:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it's because you like if you're making a wine you're trying to be a steward of the scene around you over the course of a year and then to as accurately and honestly as you can like
27:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, usher that thing into a new life and give it to other people, which for a lot of musicians is how you think about a song or an album too.
27:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like paying attention, documenting, capturing this moment, and then setting it free for other people to experience.
27:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
27:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I might have to ask my doctor about this, but it is red wine season.
27:54
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
27:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Sad for me to say goodbye to the rosé.
27:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't drink white wine anymore because it really gives me a bad hangover.
28:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
28:02
[SPEAKER_02]: So I started up the red wine again and I've been like breaking out in this crazy like rash, like I'll wake up in the middle of the night and I'll be like, whoa, and it's like, one of those, I won't describe my rash.
28:17
[SPEAKER_02]: But I'm buying wine from like Trader Joe's and we like a, you know, we like a coat to own like a French wine or like a mil back.
28:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Is it the red wine that's given me this issue?
28:32
[SPEAKER_01]: It could, what does it happen with other alcohol?
28:38
[SPEAKER_02]: If I so I feel like listen, a lady as a lady in her 40s.
28:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
28:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Things are changing and I feel like I used to get like rosacea from red wine and then all sorts of wine but not from like liquor.
28:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh-huh.
28:53
[SPEAKER_02]: So this is new.
28:54
[SPEAKER_01]: It could be one of several things.
29:00
[SPEAKER_01]: But lots of stuff starts to change in our 30s and 40s, and how it would metabolize stuff.
29:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And also, wine's have changed a lot as far as what all's in them beyond just grape juice.
29:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And it could be that what you're having a reaction to is not necessarily the permit to grape juice that you're drinking.
29:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I am allergic to tetricycle and do you think that's in the wine?
29:21
[SPEAKER_01]: About death, Trader Jazz.
29:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
29:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Listen, thank you, I'll pay my copay on the way out.
29:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Easy.
29:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Easy.
29:35
[SPEAKER_02]: So you mentioned you moved to California in 2021.
29:39
[SPEAKER_02]: You have since moved back to North Carolina where you and your wife have welcomed your first baby.
29:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you, and I recall this being like a wacky time for you not in like a whimsical way.
29:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you catch us up on why you went out to California and what brought you back?
29:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we moved to California on the tail end of COVID because my partner Kate, we weren't yet married at the time, was having a career change and was going back to school and the school that she wanted to go to was in Los Angeles and I thought it would be the screen adventure of the band.
30:17
[SPEAKER_01]: was changing, we were kind of after that first year of COVID realizing we wanted to tour differently and with less frequency.
30:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it felt more possible to be a full coast away from my bandmates.
30:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And also like I mentioned earlier, a lot of my
30:34
[SPEAKER_01]: musical friends from Brooklyn were moving to California so it felt like this place that was both not unlike the prior move for me really different and would force some growth but also had a soft landing pad and we move thinking we'll be there for the length of the program and then we'll move back to these ghosts probably in New York maybe North Carolina and be closer to family
30:53
[SPEAKER_01]: But every year we would say, feels like another two or three years and after four years of saying the same thing, we started to pay attention to the fact that maybe we didn't want to leave after all.
31:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was because we had this incredible community and this synergistic moment of, but Kate's world in my world, really broadening and feeling and figurated on like professional and creative and social levels
31:22
[SPEAKER_01]: L.A. is such a tough place.
31:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Like New York, I think it's so easy to move to.
31:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard to live in, but it's easy to move to.
31:27
[SPEAKER_01]: You meet people, stuff happens quick.
31:30
[SPEAKER_01]: L.A. people are so comfy in their nice yards and with the great weather and driving their cars all around that it can be harder to form something.
31:38
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you're in the right little village of L.A. it's just this magical little small town vibe and we found two of those first and not Washington.
31:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And then in Autadena, by the mountains.
31:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, Autadena was this perfect mixture for a kid who'd grown up in a small Appalachian mountain town at the foot of the mountains.
32:02
[SPEAKER_01]: But then love cities and everything they offer food and culture and diversity.
32:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of found it both.
32:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It was this little town at the base of the San Gabriel.
32:10
[SPEAKER_01]: It was that also was 20 minutes from downtown LA and all of the joys that that brings.
32:19
[SPEAKER_01]: In June, early January right after New Year of 2025, we were kind of accepting we were going to be there forever that we found our spot and that would be where we, you know, hopefully had a kid and kind of continue to create.
32:32
[SPEAKER_01]: um, the roots that would become a really rich life.
32:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And on January 7th, I just got in home actually from a day of wine work, um, and was cooking in the kitchen and, um, there's a fire on the other side of town that had been kind of on the news all day.
32:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And suddenly, I got a call from Kate, um, this is, and she was kind of frantic.
32:53
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like, I'm rushing home.
32:54
[SPEAKER_01]: The fire's really close.
32:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And that looked at the window and saw, uh,
32:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Not very far away, a really massive wildfire that had just kicked off in Eden Canyon, not too far from us, and that started a really wild ride that ended almost a year later with us moving to North Carolina.
33:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
33:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
33:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so how has round two of North Carolina been like for you?
33:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's...
33:24
[SPEAKER_01]: this real gift when you have a moment of losing a home to have another one to go to.
33:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've always felt at home in North Carolina, especially in the triangle of North Carolina, because of my musical connections and because of going to school here, there's a lot of synergy and the type of things I look for in a community that I found in Brooklyn and California that I also find here.
33:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet,
33:50
[SPEAKER_01]: we didn't move here because we wanted to.
33:54
[SPEAKER_01]: We did make a choice, but we were forced.
33:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's interesting to come to terms, I think with that, and I feel really grateful to have a place that I see it as this big gift, especially now that our baby is here, and she's closer to her grandparents.
34:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It's an uncle, that's an amazing gift.
34:16
[SPEAKER_01]: That's easy to feel confident in.
34:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And also, I, every day, mourn the other life that I find.
34:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I feel that.
34:28
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I've never lived through a wildfire, but...
34:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel that.
34:32
[SPEAKER_01]: There's lots of versions of change like that, and I think at some point most of us have one of them, and many of them.
34:41
[SPEAKER_00]: At least one.
34:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, many of us have multiple, and it's like for me where we're at is like you don't get everything you want in life at the same time, and in all three of the chapters that we've already talked about in my life, I got so much and so much of what I wanted
35:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Right now I'm getting something that I didn't know that I wanted it to like a year ago, which was like the feeling of my dad coming to hang out with my daughter every 10 or 15 days.
35:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm leaning into that being something that I couldn't have found anywhere else.
35:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel that too, man.
35:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, gosh.
35:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, we got to keep going with this interview.
35:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Otherwise, we could just keep talking about all these really interesting topics.
35:29
[SPEAKER_02]: So as a new parent, it can be hard to keep hold of your identity.
35:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you're all consumed with taking care of the baby.
35:38
[SPEAKER_02]: So what has that experience been like for you?
35:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're right.
35:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really, it's kind of trippy.
35:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And part because like I don't want much else than just to be a really good and present dad and partner, but also I want for Marina to see the other sides of me too and one of the main sides of me is the version of me that right songs and shares them with people and a big part I think of like,
36:10
[SPEAKER_01]: of why I'm putting at the album is because of her, you know, this album wasn't written because I wanted to like have a solo career.
36:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I wrote it initially just because I wanted to have a calling card for my co-writing.
36:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And then a lot of stuff changed, and the first change was like, MIPSO desires and future shifting.
36:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And I realized I needed to have, and I didn't, I'm just a client into the elsewhere.
36:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But after the fires, we were in such a big financial loss and we were so unmoored that it felt impossible to give the time that you need to properly release a record.
36:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But when we found out Marino was coming, I realized,
36:49
[SPEAKER_01]: that one of the great gifts I could give to myself and also to her would be in her earlyest memories to know what it felt like to hear music in the air and to see friends gathering around music.
36:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was great because not only like a lot of other things, having a kid just really shifts and like consolidate your perspective and my perspective around the release became really in a good way, really small.
37:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I just wanted to make music with people that I really care about and places I care about
37:18
[SPEAKER_01]: to be able to drive home after the show and be here with my family and so it allowed me to remove some of the pressure that I think I would have otherwise felt to do it really to now come in a way that would have.
37:34
[SPEAKER_01]: like honored the scale and professionalism and somewhere's the commercial nature of what MIPSO had become.
37:41
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I would have really felt like that's what I needed to do.
37:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's how you had to release basic.
37:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And now I don't feel that at all.
37:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like you can play foreshows and be a musician and then you don't have to have an online store and you can just
37:54
[SPEAKER_01]: make merch because it makes you laugh and if it's a saying it's okay.
37:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because the main point is just that every day you have a relationship with this thing that gives you meaning and that the people around you are aware of that.
38:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Beautiful.
38:07
[SPEAKER_02]: So how does Marina respond to music?
38:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it changes by the week right now.
38:15
[SPEAKER_01]: She's really into, I would say what she's most into as the pump organ.
38:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I often sit and sit her in my lap and play the pump organ, and she finds that really fascinating to be a part of.
38:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Is she a laugh yet?
38:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah.
38:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, she's laughing at the pump organ.
38:30
[SPEAKER_01]: She laughs more at the mandolin, which I get.
38:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a odd little thing compared to the other things she's saying, but she laughs at the mandolin quite a lot.
38:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe I play it more wimpsically, and she really loves, I have one of the main like sounds that I've been using on stages at this old like Sears plywood factory guitar that I have a rubber band around.
38:52
[SPEAKER_01]: The strings that sounds kind of like the rubber bridge guitars and she really loves that plunky thing.
38:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Cute.
39:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
39:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, she's also really into Jack Johnson.
39:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, that makes sense.
39:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
39:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I should play some for francy.
39:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, crazy.
39:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, go ahead.
39:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Prancy really loves, um, she really loves that image and he happy song.
39:16
[SPEAKER_01]: That's like, that song is a lifesaver.
39:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it is a lifesaver.
39:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And then that Barry Lewis Polsar,
39:24
[SPEAKER_02]: guy who he had a his big song was in the June do you know soundtrack?
39:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
39:31
[SPEAKER_02]: He's like if I was if I were going wild and free.
39:33
[SPEAKER_02]: She loves that one.
39:35
[SPEAKER_02]: But also she's like really we made her this playlist of like just like regular adult song like grown ups songs that I thought she would like and she's really into that like.
39:48
[SPEAKER_02]: like glorious stuff on will come on and she'll go oh oh or like Kevin more be song oh love that it's never the same one and then if you ask her you say francy what are the Beatles say she goes ah she's a twist and shout incredible and it's so cool to watch them do what some be be like captivated by something to try and figure out what it is
40:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I feel like we we really received a great gift with the timing of our child and then it coincided with Laura Marlin putting out an album or a coffee songs.
40:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, nice.
40:27
[SPEAKER_01]: One of my favorite singers of all time and that has just been on heavy repeat around here.
40:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my gosh, I haven't listened to that.
40:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I got to check it out.
40:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so good.
40:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And also the way in which she has changed her online persona.
40:40
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
40:56
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, middle kid, you recorded the album in 2024.
41:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It is finally out.
41:01
[SPEAKER_02]: This episode will be released at the end of October, and it came out at the beginning of October.
41:07
[SPEAKER_02]: You are a middle kid.
41:09
[SPEAKER_02]: To you, what does it mean to be a middle kid?
41:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And how does it relate to this record?
41:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I had a really positive experience as a middle kid.
41:18
[SPEAKER_01]: There were definitely some moments where I was the more stereotypically, like down and out feeling forgotten kid, but in general,
41:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I had the other side, which was feeling really connected to the sibling on either side of you.
41:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And a part of why I made the album, Middle Kid, was that what I found, especially in the early co-writing sessions that formed kind of the foundation for the record, was that
41:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, these converse, like for me, co-writing is typically with my friends and starts out with just like a, a hang, like what we're doing, talking about life and what's been on our mind, what's happening lately and as finding that we were all experiencing different versions of the same thing and mainly it was, it was like, it was changed and it was lost and, um,
42:03
[SPEAKER_01]: and we were really relating to each other's version of it, which reminds me of being a middle kid and hearing something that you're older, sibling says that you're younger, sibling doesn't really relate to, and then also hearing something that you're younger, siblings says that you're older, sibling doesn't, and feeling really lucky that you get to understand both.
42:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the record I hoped would feature songs that other people would find themselves into.
42:34
[SPEAKER_02]: The centerpiece of the album is collaboration and celebrating your musical communities.
42:41
[SPEAKER_02]: So since this is your solo debut album and listening to you talk about all the different musical communities you've been a part of and such a such a such a nice person.
42:52
[SPEAKER_02]: It must have been hard to figure out how to approach 15 years or 15 years or more of collaboration on one album.
43:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It was hard, but also I feel lucky that I put some limitations on it.
43:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I wanted it to be with some of my close.
43:16
[SPEAKER_01]: For the studio session specifically, I wanted it to be with.
43:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Mainly my closest friends who I hadn't been able to make music with in that way, which was Henry, one of my favorite fiddlers and songwriters, and also someone I'm really close to, but who I'd almost literally never played music with, even though that's the majority of our lives, and also John Fedon, who we've referenced several times, who's one of my favorite, why love that out there.
43:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, he's my author.
43:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I love Jack's import, and I love his songs, but how I first fell in love what John's music was via his drumming and how it was that he's so wonderfully behind the kit supported songs.
43:55
[SPEAKER_01]: So I really saw them as like the centerpiece once me and Ben Davis, the producer decided that we wanted to jump in and
44:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet I had to bring in Joseph too because he, like when Joseph and I met we were 17 and the first thing we did was play music together and that has been the
44:16
[SPEAKER_01]: kind of the foundation of our friendship and also Joe has been in large part the foundation of my musical collaboration sense and I really wanted him involved too.
44:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So they made it.
44:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Those three made it really easy to feel like I had this bed that was going to be comfy and a good place to kind of rise from and then it just was this really joyful and spoiled thing of getting to pick these incredible people to add some furses around.
44:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Awesome.
44:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Shout out to Hannah Reed, who also just had a baby.
44:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
44:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure if Hannah's talking about her kid.
44:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a publicly but the incredible now.
44:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
44:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, she posted.
44:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, great.
44:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
44:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
44:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
44:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually have a text waiting in my phone of a voice message from her.
45:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, I'm excited to listen to it.
45:04
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the other thing about being a parent.
45:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I've never been so slow to open and respond to text messages.
45:11
[SPEAKER_01]: For sure.
45:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I know the feeling while you have a present waiting for you then.
45:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I know voice voice messages from Panda Read are legendary.
45:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to count how many
45:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you're going to need a calculator.
45:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
45:28
[SPEAKER_02]: How did you want this record to differ from MIPSO?
45:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And regardless, where do you hear MIPSO's influence, aside from like Joseph literally being on the album?
45:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I don't know that I really thought about it needing to be different from MIPSO specifically.
45:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that it would because
45:51
[SPEAKER_01]: MIPSO can only happen when the four of us are putting ourselves together.
45:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And so in removing multiple layers, even if I was trying to get close to MIPSO, I would only be able to get so far.
46:04
[SPEAKER_01]: So I didn't really feel like I had to worry about that too much.
46:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think also, it changed from the writing, like when I started writing this music was 20,
46:17
[SPEAKER_01]: 22, really, 23, and how I felt I would say with about my identity as a member of Mipsoan and about what was going on within their personal workings of Mipso were really different compared to now.
46:29
[SPEAKER_01]: But as the record progressed, I think I'm more and more with the realization that Mipso was fading away, wanted to find ways to still highlight.
46:37
[SPEAKER_01]: that part of myself.
46:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And so now I'm really proud for the moments of the record that I do hear MIPSO in, which for me is some of the rhythmic bed, some of the like maybe more like popular hooks.
46:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I really think of that as being a MIPSO thing to put that in folk music.
46:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And then also to have fiddle be such a dynamic part of the melodic nature.
47:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are things that I do think I pulled specifically from what I learned from Mipso and when I share the songs on stage, I just haven't only done one so far, it was really easy to know that I wanted to share some Mipso songs alongside this too because it felt like the full and honest depiction of who I am.
47:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
47:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Is Mipso gonna play again?
47:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Great question.
47:27
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't have any intention too, but also
47:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we would all say, and maybe different ways, it's hard to imagine not.
47:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
47:40
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
47:41
[SPEAKER_02]: But it leads to my seat.
47:42
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it was a real farewell in that since the first time we played me together, we always knew when the next show was.
47:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And over the course of 13 to 14 years, our fans built up that same relationship that we had, which was this expectation that it will come again.
48:00
[SPEAKER_01]: We all know what it feels like for your favorite band to fade away and to not get to experience it one more time.
48:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we knew, there's no more of these for a really long time.
48:11
[SPEAKER_01]: For an indefinite amount of time, and maybe never, it felt honest to tell people that and to give them the moment that we had had privately to say goodbye.
48:19
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, I thought we would wrap up the interview talking about your producer and it sounds like he was
48:30
[SPEAKER_02]: and then we will do the lightning round.
48:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
48:34
[SPEAKER_02]: OK, so Benjamin Lizar Davis, Ben Davis, was your producer.
48:40
[SPEAKER_02]: And you said, of him, I found my coach and my most trusted collaborator.
48:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you said, thank you for convincing me to make this record.
48:50
[SPEAKER_02]: What was it like to get to that point in your collaboration and friendship?
48:56
[SPEAKER_02]: with Ben, and then how did working together like this change your friendship?
49:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Great questions.
49:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Ben, there just is no one else like Ben Davis.
49:09
[SPEAKER_02]: 8th at the truth.
49:10
[SPEAKER_01]: He is one of a kind and someone who I admired for a long time, mainly because of the music of Colonel Magic, which is how I first got to know him, a band that is as free and as singular as they come.
49:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And we knew each other in Brooklyn, but not well and we'll be moved to LA.
49:29
[SPEAKER_01]: We started to interact more and especially we started to co-write more.
49:35
[SPEAKER_01]: The Co-writing initially was for other projects, not for myself, but we've really found a unique combination.
49:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say it was pretty specifically.
49:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It was like me, some of the lyrics and melodies from my side and from Ben, the
49:53
[SPEAKER_01]: More like the sonic blast that that bin can be as well as this the structure and Almost like acrobatic nature that he brings to silence and we both just loved making songs together and after writing a number of them been Kind of again and again would be like we should make this one like this should be a single this should be Something that we share and then eventually his pitch more fully formed into this should be an album and
50:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I needed that, I'd spent here's convincing myself not to make a solar record and part because of what we've talked about.
50:30
[SPEAKER_01]: My desire to be on a team and it felt, I don't know, like indulgent or...
50:35
[SPEAKER_01]: selfish or maybe just unnecessary to invite something that was so specifically about me.
50:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But Ben showed me that a solo record can be a team thing too and he really was the coach of it helping to find the songs, having a real say and co-writers that we should bring in.
50:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And then as a producer and player, he was just this undeniable force and vision and encouraging me to
51:03
[SPEAKER_01]: to maybe step out a bit further than I would have on my own.
51:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Nice.
51:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And as a friend, I would say many of the same things.
51:11
[SPEAKER_01]: We just became more and more willing to challenge each other.
51:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And also to share our...
51:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the struggles and joys we were experiencing, been how to kid a couple years before me and I got to see in him how it is, you can be a really devoted father who like puts music in front of and the joy of music and making with other people in front of your kid and also been not too far from me not to Dina and similarly lost everything in the fire and had to navigate refinding yourself as you build a home again and that was a big part of
51:49
[SPEAKER_01]: the final stage of this record.
51:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we got the master back the day, the night of the fire.
51:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
51:56
[SPEAKER_01]: The first time I listened to most of the final tracks was literally, while driving through, charred out Octadina for the first time, and seeing my neighborhood gone.
52:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, it's interesting because that thing, I think for both Ben and I, like, the songs and what I thought they were about and who I thought they were for really shifted and in their final form.
52:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Now I see a couple of the songs that these were songs that I was writing for my future self and they're the bombs that have helped me process what happened and to move on.
52:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
52:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope we get another solo record because I think you've got a lot to say and I look forward to hearing it.
52:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you, Sandy.
52:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for listening.
52:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course, I'm so pleased that you released a solar record because you're releasing these like songs, like just little by little.
52:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And I would find myself listening to those songs like the most throughout the year.
53:00
[SPEAKER_02]: So I was so happy that this record is finally out into the world.
53:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks, Cindy.
53:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, let's do the lightning round.
53:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
53:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Here we go.
53:10
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
53:11
[SPEAKER_02]: This episode is coming out on October 29th.
53:15
[SPEAKER_01]: How many?
53:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Right, spooky.
53:19
[SPEAKER_02]: How many more days until Rosé season?
53:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always Rosé season.
53:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Ah, is it?
53:25
[SPEAKER_01]: For me, there's dark rosé, there's light rosé, there's all sorts of food, rosé is always in, in my house.
53:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, we'll have to talk further.
53:34
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the ideal length of a mandolin solo?
53:41
[SPEAKER_01]: For me, about 15 seconds.
53:46
[SPEAKER_02]: What if you're at a string cheese incident show?
53:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's going to stretch out a bit.
53:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, 15 minutes.
53:55
[SPEAKER_02]: What kind of jeans are you wearing these days?
53:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Levi's 501 1993 cut.
54:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Very specific.
54:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that.
54:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm having a really hard time with the, like, what have it called, like, the smoke stack.
54:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Smoke barrel, the barrel.
54:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
54:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Cut.
54:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
54:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Not for you.
54:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, no, I put them on, and I'm like, what do you think of these jeans, and everyone's like, those are cool, and I'm like, I feel like...
54:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like a clown wearing these jeans.
54:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I thought you look great.
54:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'll send a pick.
54:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And then you and Kate can can weigh in.
54:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Happily, I actually left online shop.
54:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So we can definitely go on a little adventure here.
54:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, great.
54:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Listen, can you come visit me?
54:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Can you guys come visit me in Maine?
54:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And we can go shopping and then have some rosé.
54:47
[SPEAKER_01]: With pleasure.
54:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Great.
54:48
[SPEAKER_01]: We need a summer main trip.
54:50
[SPEAKER_02]: That would be great, or the dead of winter would be great.
54:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Could also work.
54:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I might choose summer, but.
54:55
[UNKNOWN]: Ha ha ha.
54:57
[SPEAKER_02]: During the heat dome.
54:58
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
54:59
[SPEAKER_02]: We've got a couple more.
55:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
55:01
[SPEAKER_02]: As a new dad, what is one item you cannot live without, other than the happy song?
55:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Mom.
55:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Mom, yeah.
55:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, good.
55:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
55:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, this is the last one.
55:15
[SPEAKER_02]: What is one song you wished you had written?
55:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, maybe, uh, pressure to party by Julia Jacqueline.
55:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
55:31
[SPEAKER_02]: That's a deep cut for me.
55:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll go check it out.
55:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So many, so many songs.
55:36
[SPEAKER_01]: But that one is the first one to come soon.
55:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I like that.
55:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I like when I don't know the song because I'm usually like in my head.
55:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like, it should be a John Bryan song because it's like 85% of the time it is.
55:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there are a lot of good ones to choose there.
55:49
[SPEAKER_01]: There's so many songs that I envy.
55:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
55:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a truth.
55:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
55:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, this has been wonderful.
55:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for taking the time.
55:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for having me, Cindy.
55:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm such a fan of the podcast.
56:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So I appreciate how it is that you listen to music and lift people's voices.
56:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for being with me.
56:07
[SPEAKER_02]: What a sweet thing to say.
56:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
56:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome.
56:17
[SPEAKER_02]: This episode was produced by CJ Nungesser, Dietrich Strauss Composes or Music.
56:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Basic folk is a production of the Bluegrass situation.
56:26
[SPEAKER_02]: You can find all of our episodes there.
56:28
[SPEAKER_02]: You can search for basic folk on the Series XM app.
56:32
[SPEAKER_02]: You can find us on folgally.com or folgallysmobile app.
56:36
[SPEAKER_02]: You can go to our website basicfolk.com.
56:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Or you can listen wherever you get your shows.
56:41
[SPEAKER_02]: If you enjoyed this episode, either send it to Taylor Goldsmith from Doz or Chris Eely of the Punch Brothers, because they have a lot in common with Jacob Sharp and should probably be buddies if they're not already, which maybe they are.
56:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyways, yeah, so do whatever you can to send it to those guys.
56:58
[SPEAKER_02]: And we'll talk to you next time.
57:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for listening all the way to the end.
57:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Mmm, bye!