Latest / Basic Folk / Milk Carton Kids Are Making a Mountain out of a Molehill, ep. 345

Transcript

Milk Carton Kids Are Making a Mountain out of a Molehill, ep. 345 · Basic Folk

0:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Hi and welcome to basic folk where we have honest conversations with folk musicians on the bluegrass situation.
0:18
[SPEAKER_03]: It's your host Cindy House.
0:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, hi, hi.
0:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you so much for checking out the show today.
0:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Very excited to have the milk carton kids on Kenneth Patton Gale and Joey Ryan.
0:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Of course, they're always such great guests.
0:31
[SPEAKER_03]: They have a fantastic new album out lost cause, lover fool.
0:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Before we get into that, let's talk about ways that you can connect with us here at Basic Folk.
0:39
[SPEAKER_03]: You can sign up for our monthly newsletter at the link in the show notes.
0:43
[SPEAKER_03]: or you can go to basicfoke.com.
0:45
[SPEAKER_03]: There is a sign up for the newsletter button there.
0:47
[SPEAKER_03]: You can also follow us on social media at basicfoke pod.
0:51
[SPEAKER_03]: We are also a listener supported podcast.
0:54
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you'd like to throw us a couple bucks, you can do so at the link in the show notes or basicfoke.com slash donate.
1:02
[SPEAKER_03]: You can also subscribe on your chosen platform, or you can sell a friend.
1:07
[SPEAKER_03]: I make a suggestion of who you can share this episode with all the way at the end of the podcast.
1:12
[SPEAKER_03]: So if you ever want to check that out, listen all the way to the end.
1:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, Kenneth Patton Gale and Joey Ryan, the Milk Carton Kids, are calling their latest album, Lost Cause Lover Fool The One.
1:23
[SPEAKER_03]: They have finally figured out how to feel and sound like themselves with a broader sonic palette.
1:29
[SPEAKER_03]: They attribute that to sharing one mic when they sing literally and sonically to each other.
1:35
[SPEAKER_03]: The songs on the album enlarge small feelings and moments and works to turn those into eternity.
1:42
[SPEAKER_03]: These are moments that usually pass to quickly to notice and the guys have spent their careers making a case for staying small, staying present and listening closely.
1:53
[SPEAKER_03]: We loved our conversation with Kenneth and Joey so much.
1:56
[SPEAKER_03]: In fact, immediately following the interview, Lizzie sent me a voice recording, expressing just that.
2:04
[SPEAKER_05]: I think that was like one of my favorite episodes we've ever done.
2:07
[SPEAKER_05]: It was so real and so cool and what great guests and what great hosts.
2:12
[SPEAKER_05]: Love you, Cindy.
2:14
[SPEAKER_05]: You're the windman, you're my wings!
2:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Awesome.
2:17
[SPEAKER_03]: That totally pumped me up.
2:18
[SPEAKER_03]: We learned that Joey is a nepo folk baby as his mother Debbie was in a folk duo in college.
2:25
[SPEAKER_03]: We dig into what death as well as the banjo are up to on their new album, we explore what it means to be labeled weanies versus gentle or the titans of yearning.
2:37
[SPEAKER_03]: We also hear from the guys about how they do not actually feel pressured to be funny, they just are.
2:44
[SPEAKER_03]: We'll take a listen to a song from the new album.
2:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Here is a clip of blue water and then we'll get to our conversation with the milk carton kids on basic folk.
3:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I walked down the riverside, dreamedy lonely in my mind, sunshining is still high,
3:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to hold you in my arms Sing me sleeping on my chest Blue's the color of the sky That's the time of the day
4:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Water, smile a little bit this guy.
4:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.
4:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Singing the readers high.
4:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Trying to know the fire I am by.
4:28
[SPEAKER_05]: Kenneth Batongill, Joey Ryan, also known as Milk Carton Kids.
4:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Welcome back to Basic Folk.
4:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thanks for having us.
4:37
[SPEAKER_01]: It's great to be back.
4:39
[SPEAKER_05]: I am Lizzie, no, here with my co-host and legal adult Cindy has.
4:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Hello.
4:49
[SPEAKER_04]: We are both having a week here, so we're so thrilled to be talking with you guys.
4:56
[SPEAKER_02]: So don't disappoint.
4:58
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the nature of the quite a week?
5:02
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, what do you mean by that, Cindy?
5:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, I don't know.
5:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Just like house repairs and child care.
5:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And yes, one of these weeks.
5:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Right, yes.
5:13
[SPEAKER_05]: Break up.
5:14
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like a base.
5:15
[SPEAKER_05]: I'll pop up that offline.
5:16
[SPEAKER_02]: A basic life week.
5:18
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
5:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I just got home from tour with the old 97s.
5:22
[SPEAKER_05]: And so as a result, I'm experiencing that ego death.
5:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
5:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you get sick when that happens?
5:30
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, like my whole body hurts.
5:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
5:33
[SPEAKER_05]: When you have ego death, mm-hmm.
5:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Wow.
5:37
[SPEAKER_05]: We've talked about that on the pod.
5:39
[SPEAKER_05]: I think back in 2019.
5:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I could go.
5:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I could go.
5:42
[SPEAKER_01]: We used to just call it post tour depression, but I think ego death is a better descriptor for what that feeling is like.
5:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Although I think if I were in just off of tour with old 97s, I might feel a little sense of relief because I have hair jealousy from with rep milling.
6:00
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
6:01
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh yeah.
6:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm around.
6:05
[SPEAKER_05]: His hair, you have to actually respect and honor as a separate character in the band because otherwise, how could one guy be blessed with so much, you know?
6:18
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, back to basic folk.
6:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's jump in.
6:21
[SPEAKER_05]: This is a question for both of you.
6:23
[SPEAKER_05]: Growing up, what did the term folk music mean to you?
6:28
[SPEAKER_05]: And how has that changed?
6:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Now that you have a whole catalog of your own music.
6:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, my folk was like the PBS definition of folk music.
6:39
[SPEAKER_02]: You know that one.
6:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Public works folk.
6:44
[SPEAKER_02]: not even that academic and cool like like do you guys remember blowing in the wind well we've have a package on a CD for you here in 45 different iterations all your favorite versions of blowing in the wind.
6:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Music only listed in 45 disc box set form.
7:04
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
7:06
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think maybe the
7:11
[SPEAKER_02]: The first time I remember that definition, changing or expanding was, uh, well, the great folk institution of Los Angeles that persists to this day, which is McCabe's guitar shop where they've been holding concerts since probably the early 70s, and love McCabe's.
7:30
[SPEAKER_02]: all time great venues.
7:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I went to see a Christmas concert there in oh six.
7:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh five.
7:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And that was the first time I think I saw the folkies up close.
7:44
[SPEAKER_02]: And by the way, I had seen Bob Dylan at the pentagious in the 90s and other things, but none of that counted compared to the
8:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe around the same era, internet radio served up like a live version of John Pryne, hello, and there.
8:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And when I heard that like broadcast through an MP3 player from like public radio in Michigan or something, that also kind of tilted the world's access for me.
8:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think started maybe what I understand to be the definition of folk music now,
8:31
[SPEAKER_02]: and for us, because it's a evolving thing that is subject to participation at all times.
8:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Joe, what's folk to you?
8:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Joey doesn't know it.
8:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Also, by the way, I meant to clarify that he's my legal dependent.
8:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I know you recognize Cindy as a autonomous adult.
8:58
[SPEAKER_02]: This is my legal dependence, Joey Ryan.
9:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I never thought about folk music until we started playing it, it wasn't like genre consideration, I suppose.
9:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I think I think that the bands, the CDs that got played the most in my house growing up were Bob Dylan blood on the tracks, and a lot of cries we still is national young.
9:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And so,
9:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, I think of those as basically folk artists, but at the time, I probably would have lumped them in with classic rock, like we had a classic rock or two radio station here in L.A. and that's what they would have played to.
10:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
10:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, you know, but like, like, my, my dad taught me to play, um, um, What's the rising sun?
10:21
[SPEAKER_01]: The rising sun on the guitar, you know, as like, in order is a vehicle for teaching me the guitar chords, like the basic guitar chords, and like, I didn't know that was a folk song.
10:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and, you know, also like,
10:37
[SPEAKER_01]: which I didn't know was a folk song until later.
10:43
[SPEAKER_05]: Harsely's heat.
10:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Rosemary and also time.
10:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a kind of like one of the more culinary folk songs, if you think about it.
10:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Joe.
10:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Joey's also spent his entire career barring the lead, which like it took an embarrassing amount of years for me to learn this and then somehow it never took hold and I think it should be the thing we lead everything with but I know, but think about how long it took for me to realize that this was important.
11:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I still don't think it's gotten through to you, but Joey's beloved mother Debbie Ryan in her college was in a folk duo.
11:24
[SPEAKER_02]: Like Joey is neppo baby folk do it.
11:27
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh my god, I knew there was something about you.
11:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
11:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I do give neppo baby don't I?
11:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's like she was in a folk do it because she went to Berkeley in the 70s and literally every person picked up and acoustic guitar and sang harmony with their friends.
11:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it's...
11:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't mean to downplay it because I think it is significant, but she will downplay it and be like, no, like me and my friend, like played Peter Paul and Mary covers at the coffee shop, like on telegraph Avenue, like they didn't have a name, they didn't have like a name for a folk dude, they weren't like, you know, that was just like their hobby, that was like, and which I think might have been common, but no, it is true at like,
12:12
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the guitar I learned on was my mother's guitar that she played in coffee shops in Berkeley in the 70s a little like a classical nylon string guitar that my dad taught me also the rising sun on so they're, you know, they were basically hippies that became you're died in the wall I suppose that's a good that that is that a folk song I'm always creating.
12:42
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I have to say that's very powerful to hear because in my Bay Area College student folk duo, I was covering you all.
12:51
[SPEAKER_05]: And here we are today.
12:52
[SPEAKER_05]: That's so cute.
12:53
[SPEAKER_05]: We played Albee in New York.
12:56
[SPEAKER_01]: No, Mark.
12:57
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it was so informative to me early on on like what a, you know, folk duo could be like.
13:03
[SPEAKER_05]: So thank you very much.
13:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Unbelievable.
13:06
[SPEAKER_01]: That really, that fucks me up when people say things like that.
13:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, actually.
13:12
[SPEAKER_05]: I saw you on my 24th birthday when you were on that co- headlining tour with Sarah Jaros, and you needed the whole set together.
13:19
[SPEAKER_05]: And I was like, collaboration and harmony.
13:22
[SPEAKER_05]: OK, here's how we get in.
13:25
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a main speaking of folk music.
13:26
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where on that tour is where I learned to play the bandjok, because Sarah taught me.
13:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Sarah and Mark Richard taught me the bandjok.
13:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Wow, what a great person to teach you the banjo.
13:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Incredible.
13:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's when we really became a folk band.
13:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Great.
13:40
[SPEAKER_04]: You bring in the banjo.
13:42
[SPEAKER_02]: When Joey started telling that story, it was like seven or eight years ago.
13:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And he doesn't seem to update the numbers.
13:48
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's always seven or eight.
13:49
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's an exact tour.
13:51
[SPEAKER_02]: It was so long ago now.
13:53
[SPEAKER_02]: It was 12 years ago.
13:57
[SPEAKER_05]: time is hard.
13:58
[SPEAKER_05]: We've all got one foot in the grave.
14:00
[SPEAKER_04]: Anyways, Cindy, so you guys have the reputation of being like the funny folk duo.
14:06
[SPEAKER_04]: What has that been like, like, what if you don't feel like being funny?
14:12
[SPEAKER_04]: Like, what is it like to have this expectation of comedy at all times?
14:17
[SPEAKER_04]: And do you ever feel like you're not heard or understood because you're just expected to be funny guys?
14:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I felt that constantly for 16 years, but also it has never been a burden because
14:35
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't know how to be purposefully funny.
14:37
[SPEAKER_02]: It was found out on accident to begin with and then as a part of sort of the energetic pattern.
14:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And if we ever try to engage in it actively, it falls flat.
14:48
[SPEAKER_02]: And so at some point, I had to accept that not only did everybody think that we were hilarious, but that,
14:56
[SPEAKER_02]: We don't have anything, we don't have to do anything to do that.
14:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And in fact, if we think about it, it gets in the way and complicates things.
15:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it was really easy from the beginning for me to just leave it alone, except the complement continue going on being who we are.
15:13
[SPEAKER_02]: which I didn't learn that lesson in music until much later, like until recently.
15:20
[SPEAKER_02]: And boy, it took a lot of pressure off and made the stage of much more enjoyable place made writing a much more enjoyable place being in a partnership, much more enjoyable place, just accepting yourself for who you are and knowing that it meets the audience and their expectations that they don't
15:41
[SPEAKER_02]: have any expectations but it's kind of a weird gift like you've said Cindy that we were perceived as a very specific thing like pretty early on and we were happy for it but like the years that we thought that we were like in control of that or manipulating that complete disaster.
16:02
[SPEAKER_02]: So for me personally I just sort of accept it for what it is and
16:08
[SPEAKER_02]: you know, like we do the hosting job at the Americana Awards constantly and the first year we like hired a comedy writer to help prepare the stuff and whatever and like I think, well, Joey, I have to tell you if it was good for his process.
16:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it served his process.
16:28
[SPEAKER_02]: For me, it was like doing a bunch of work that wasn't relevant before it happened because
16:34
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not like our cute little one-liners, we're going to make the show happen to me the show happens when you find the energetic fit with the audience and there's nothing you can do to prepare for that and so I found like the more that you just sort of submit to the experience, oh, what this was my point is that
17:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody would say that and then whether or not it would go good or bad every time you meet somebody they go Oh, you're so funny and I'm like, I think it doesn't matter what we do at all.
17:11
[SPEAKER_04]: Hmm.
17:12
[SPEAKER_02]: So I've just stopped caring.
17:13
[SPEAKER_04]: Is that what it's like to be a man?
17:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Good call Yeah, Cindy.
17:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, wait.
17:20
[SPEAKER_05]: I think it's very relatable like if you if you if enough people tell you you look so cute At a certain point just say you know what I'm cute
17:28
[SPEAKER_05]: Nothing to earn it.
17:29
[SPEAKER_05]: Don't got to continue chasing it.
17:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Let's just live in the abundance of that.
17:34
[SPEAKER_05]: Great.
17:34
[SPEAKER_01]: The other way that I can, I relate completely to what you said, Kenneth, and the other way to think about it would be like, if people tell you, like, you have a good voice.
17:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, or if you end, if you believe and know that you have a good voice, and that's one of the things that gives you the confidence to be a singer and do it as your career.
17:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you're not going to go up on stage every night and be a shit.
18:03
[SPEAKER_01]: What if I have a bad voice?
18:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
18:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, you can sing the notes, you know?
18:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess if you have laryngeitis or something, and you can sing like some nights your voice feels really good and like, yeah, I can do whatever I want with my voice night and some nights it doesn't feel as good, but like, within range you're still going to be able to put on a good show.
18:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a similar thing, and I will also say that
18:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I've always felt like with the comedy part of our show, it feels totally, it's very reassuring to always have the rip cord there of just playing a song.
18:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, totally.
18:41
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't, it's not a trash promise, yeah.
18:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I like, we could go up and just do a show where we just play our songs, and it would be fine.
18:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, like, kind of said, at some point,
18:56
[SPEAKER_01]: the process of being in front of an audience, we're gonna find that that energy and whatever that, that you know, it's such a common experience, it's such a funny convention.
19:06
[SPEAKER_01]: There's so many, funny conventions to putting on a concert that like,
19:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody's experiencing income and such an artificial human experience if you think about it Where everybody sat down facing one direction and all the lights are off except the one that's on you and they have to be quiet And you got a microphone and it's like it's actually very artificial So just being in touch with that in the moment and and
19:33
[SPEAKER_01]: subverting it, I think a little bit, as a starting point for having a perspective on that show, I think is where we're coming from, and as long as we're in touch with that, we're going to be able to make everybody feel at ease, which I think is the source of the laughter.
19:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going.
19:52
[SPEAKER_05]: That sounds like a very feminist relationship with your audience.
19:56
[SPEAKER_05]: I like to hear that.
19:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But also sometimes we fucking bomb, and it's not
20:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It's gotten very rare, but it happened recently, like once on the last tour and it's a bad feeling because, you know, at some point you are up there trying to be funny and it's not like finishing a song where people feel they have to applaud.
20:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if you tell a joke that doesn't work, they just nothing happens and you're like, okay, I guess we'll do a song.
20:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And if it happens like four or five times in a row, you're like,
20:28
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, maybe tomorrow, maybe tomorrow.
20:31
[SPEAKER_05]: After the drawing board.
20:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
20:39
[SPEAKER_05]: That leads me to my next question, which is that the two of you are always chasing tension and never aiming for the resolution.
20:48
[SPEAKER_05]: in your music, maybe not never, but you find your way in winding ways.
20:52
[SPEAKER_05]: And this also happens to be part of your dynamic interpersonally.
20:55
[SPEAKER_05]: So when you find yourself disagreeing, how long do you linger?
20:59
[SPEAKER_05]: Do you guys have processes for working out tension?
21:03
[SPEAKER_05]: On comfortable moments, like what do you learn in those tense moments?
21:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
21:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it has language for 15 years 16.
21:12
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the count, Joey?
21:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
21:14
[SPEAKER_02]: What is the number?
21:15
[SPEAKER_01]: We met in December of 2009 and we played together as an unnamed duo for a year and then in 2011
21:30
[SPEAKER_01]: We announced, we put out our first album and announced our band in the beginning of 2011.
21:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So, fifth year log, 16 in fifth year.
21:40
[SPEAKER_04]: This would be your 17th year of friendship coming this December.
21:45
[SPEAKER_01]: That's true.
21:45
[SPEAKER_01]: We had been friends that entire time.
21:47
[SPEAKER_01]: This would be our 17th year of friendship.
21:51
[SPEAKER_04]: See you!
21:52
[SPEAKER_04]: Look at this tension.
21:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, that was actually going to be to the point of my answer.
21:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I would think that among the most important things I've learned in my marriage is...
22:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Which one?
22:07
[SPEAKER_02]: My full-time marriage.
22:11
[SPEAKER_01]: You legal marriage?
22:12
[SPEAKER_02]: My at home marriage.
22:13
[SPEAKER_02]: My air at my marriage, yes, my marriage in the eyes of the government.
22:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Your government marriage?
22:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Government and God.
22:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Dension.
22:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I would think that the most important thing that I've learned or clocked in that marriage is to always strive for good vibes, but never take anything for granted.
22:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Because both people are constantly changing and the world is such a crazy and heavy place and even though you're in lockstep The thing that's happening inside and outside of person like sometimes you just don't have access to it and so
22:54
[SPEAKER_02]: But constantly you're going to look to your side and there will be a whole ass new person there that really resembles the one you've spent so much time with, but there's like a new thing to contend with and sometimes you are that change.
23:13
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that Joey and I, so then, in my band, there's periods where there's a lot more away time, and it wasn't quite like that at the beginning, but there's a lot more away time.
23:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think there's something, and Cindy, this might also be very colored by being boys or being young or something, but that a lot of that time, I think that Joey and I,
23:41
[SPEAKER_02]: wouldn't not take for granted, but it would sort of be assumed that when we got back together to do our thing, that we were dependable on the same for the same stuff, and I think that like it never was hit over my head quite the way it is at home that Joey's constantly changing, and I'm constantly changing, and there's like it is important that there are
24:10
[SPEAKER_02]: that they're like, update software updates being installed, or else, you know, like, or else, it's really going to bite you.
24:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that like the Razer's edge hair of tension, I think is where
24:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Joey and I trade information and that's I think how we learn each other and how we perform together and how that like in some ways that's a lot of the energy source maybe so that's like tension as curiosity yeah you guys are you guys as heads constantly fold with filled with like quotes and you can't remember where they came from and you feel dumb for not being able to
24:58
[SPEAKER_01]: play drizzed information that you built your identity around?
25:02
[SPEAKER_05]: I accidentally write a jewel song every few years.
25:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, like who I don't know was who said that, to the extent that life is like jazz, it's like how you run the changes.
25:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Who said that?
25:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
25:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I bet it's in my head.
25:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it a jazz guy?
25:26
[SPEAKER_05]: That sounds right.
25:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It's your, you know, it's, it's, if you're going to be in a relationship for 15 years or 20 as my government marriage is, has approached now, um, yeah, everything's going to change all the time and so there's, it's, uh, it's about how you run the changes, you're
25:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope you're giving her solos.
26:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
26:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Not partying, you're, you both.
26:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's turn it over with a section.
26:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Jelly right.
26:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Joe has just got a piano player at home, all the down the chords.
26:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's in that marriage.
26:15
[SPEAKER_01]: My other marriage is to someone who hasn't stopped soloing.
26:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Since David.
26:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Got it.
26:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Got it.
26:27
[SPEAKER_04]: In preparation for this interview, I listened to a handful of other podcast interviews and the best one was you talking with Anne Powers at Vocalized this year, which is on YouTube if anyone missed it.
26:40
[SPEAKER_04]: It's definitely worth watching.
26:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so I want to talk about
26:44
[SPEAKER_04]: your first radio promo campaign and what KEXP wrote about you?
26:50
[SPEAKER_02]: They are we news.
26:51
[SPEAKER_04]: They are we news, which I want to know who wrote that note because that feedback I feel like so that must have been like 2011, 2012, like the 2010s were like such a time, but like these days, KEXP's whole thing is like you are not alone and they have like special days of programming for like cancer survivors and like people struggling with grief,
27:14
[SPEAKER_04]: So they have a we need a day, they don't have a we need a I used to work at WIP and Pittsburgh and I really wanted to do a day of programming called sad bastards and the program director, he was like, okay, let's do it, but we have to call it sad sacks and it's like damn bad.
27:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody's gone.
27:34
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not as good.
27:35
[SPEAKER_01]: We were just a little ahead of the curve on the sad boy thing, I think.
27:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, just blown to the set.
27:45
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I just, I feel like it would have, you know, it would have been a hit.
27:48
[SPEAKER_04]: But I digress.
27:50
[SPEAKER_04]: So the point of this whole bringing this thing up is that you are gentle guys.
27:57
[SPEAKER_03]: You are doing this.
27:59
[SPEAKER_04]: How have each of you experienced gentleness and how has that changed your relationship to masculinity?
28:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Um,
28:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like I'm hogging the answers, so I'd want to let Joey go first.
28:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I just want to clarify, because it makes it even worse, that that comment from K.E.X.P, that just said they are weenies, was not even a public review, that was like in the private notes.
28:33
[SPEAKER_01]: like just oh in the little spreadsheet you get just to us directly like it wasn't for them to be a taste maker.
28:39
[SPEAKER_04]: It was to your radio promoter.
28:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that was like their own like edgy branding that was just like.
28:46
[SPEAKER_01]: personal feedback from a person we didn't want to know.
28:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Who's a criminal we were seeking.
28:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
28:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we have to be approval.
28:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
28:57
[SPEAKER_01]: We're like, hey, can you help us out where a new band, like, can you play our song?
29:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, no, and here's the reason.
29:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
29:04
[SPEAKER_05]: That's what it's like early on, honestly.
29:07
[SPEAKER_05]: People will just tell you, have you tried working on your song writing?
29:12
[SPEAKER_05]: Are you looking into vocal technique?
29:15
[SPEAKER_01]: We do get a lot of it.
29:16
[SPEAKER_01]: We do get a lot of notes on Instagram now from audio engineers who think that they could really help us take our sound to the next level.
29:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, hell yeah.
29:25
[SPEAKER_04]: I get a lot of emails about how I could take my podcast to the next level and what am I even doing on YouTube?
29:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
29:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
29:33
[SPEAKER_02]: But also guys, what are we thinking?
29:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Why are we not taking them up on their generous offers?
29:38
[SPEAKER_05]: Like literally, these people just want to help.
29:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, one thing is, but I want to do talk about the gentleness because I love that question, but, and I know this was a big joke, but like truly, I don't want to go to the next level, whatever that means.
29:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes, content.
29:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And I definitely don't want to go to whatever the next level is, as defined by whatever that person's note, like what that person's note.
30:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever they think the next level is, I definitely don't want to go there.
30:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it didn't feel good.
30:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It didn't feel good to be told that we are weenies.
30:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It felt better to hear like what Ann Powers said in which I don't think I had ever read the thing that she brought to light in that interview, which is that someone else around that time had called us titans of yearning.
30:40
[SPEAKER_01]: which that feels a little better.
30:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think like if I'm real time self reflecting,
30:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels like there's a strength inherent in gentleness, which is dismissed by the comment of calling somebody weanies and more acknowledged by the expression titans of yearning.
31:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Because yearning, yearning expresses all the vulnerability and kind of
31:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, not, not exactly, yeah, I don't want to say weakness because it isn't weakness, but that like something lacking or nostalgic or, I don't know, yearning, there's not a better word for yearning than yearning.
31:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But when he put Titans in front of it, like that makes it feel
31:38
[SPEAKER_01]: strong and respected.
31:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Like there's respect for the yearning.
31:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, I feel like the type of music that we all reference here like in earlier in this conversation that we grew up with and thought of as folk music.
31:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very vulnerable.
31:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very personal.
32:01
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very exposed.
32:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And
32:08
[SPEAKER_01]: God, I mean, what takes more strength than to stand in public in judgment of your peers and community and put yourself forward like that?
32:21
[SPEAKER_01]: What takes more strength than that?
32:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I think whatever is perceived as gentleness has never
32:32
[SPEAKER_01]: exactly felt that way to me.
32:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It always feels like the music that I'm seeing and from our community and that we're trying to do is actually super strong and like convicted and self-assured.
32:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Even if even if the song, even if the art is coming, it is about or coming from a place or coming out of experiences where you don't feel that way.
32:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the idea of taking
33:01
[SPEAKER_01]: taking those feelings, turning them into art, putting them into the world publicly and sharing them is a way of reclaiming the sort of, you know, like, like, a
33:18
[SPEAKER_01]: shattering whatever weakness there is or taking whatever that weakness is and forging it into something kind of strong.
33:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know.
33:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I did not identify with that feedback.
33:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't find it helpful because I felt it missed the mark.
33:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess another way of saying it is like we've made it.
33:39
[SPEAKER_01]: We've made a lot of
33:42
[SPEAKER_01]: we make a big deal for ourselves and also just like it's almost part of our brand at this point of talking about like sad songs like our camp is called sad songs summer camp and like the the covid thing that we did is called sad songs comedy hour and it's a little bit ironic because I actually in my in my heart and soul believe that like really there is no such thing as a sad song.
34:10
[SPEAKER_01]: because we write about sad things in the content and the themes can be sad, but the act of taking that something sad and turning it into art is the most inherently hopeful thing that a person can do.
34:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So, the song.
34:26
[SPEAKER_05]: And to assert oneself as the speaker and the singer claims a personhood that a lot of us struggle to access in other contexts, I think.
34:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, imagine somebody made a song recorded it, burned it onto a CD and sent it to you and your reaction was that they're somehow weak.
34:52
[SPEAKER_05]: Now, I heard ain't too proud to beg at an impressionable age, and I don't think there's anything cooler than that.
35:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk about some of the song, or like, or a song.
35:09
[SPEAKER_05]: And just the yearning of like, every great R&B song is like a type of masculinity that is feels green flag to me.
35:18
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's sort of what we're talking about.
35:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm.
35:22
[SPEAKER_05]: Lizzie, what is green flag?
35:24
[SPEAKER_05]: Green flag is like, I guess.
35:27
[SPEAKER_02]: This could be trouble.
35:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Non-threatening.
35:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Like thumbs up.
35:30
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, like, like, yeah.
35:32
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, green flames.
35:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, like, like, approved man.
35:34
[SPEAKER_05]: OK, great.
35:35
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, I'm sorry that I'm exposing our internal code, Cindy, but there are just a few basic, folk-approved men.
35:44
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's really expanding.
35:47
[SPEAKER_05]: But it's strict.
35:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And we're on the podcast, so does that means we're in.
35:53
[SPEAKER_04]: No, not necessarily.
35:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's like an audition.
35:57
[SPEAKER_01]: It depends on what you say about it.
35:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Yep.
35:59
[SPEAKER_04]: It's going pretty good so far.
36:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it the opposite of the audition?
36:02
[SPEAKER_05]: I have recently been designated a basic folk approved man in all the masculine that I embody, but I've been a host on the show for five years.
36:11
[SPEAKER_04]: So you've been a host for,
36:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh yeah, five years.
36:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, they do math like us.
36:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
36:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Ha ha ha ha.
36:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Podcast games can't just like us.
36:32
[SPEAKER_05]: You have a summer tradition of putting on your camp counselor hats at the Sad Song's Summer Camp.
36:38
[SPEAKER_05]: And in a way, it's a changing of your relationship with your audience, because it's more like teacher student collaborator vibes with the folks that come.
36:49
[SPEAKER_05]: So can you first talk about the geographic setting that the camp takes place in and then what you learn from that type of collaboration and interaction
37:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's in the cat skills.
37:06
[SPEAKER_02]: So geographically, it's a known quantity.
37:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Farmland out upstate New York, beautiful, pastoral, pastoral, pastoral, pastoral, pastoral, but it's not a pastoral.
37:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It kind of is pastoral.
37:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, there's like pastures.
37:27
[SPEAKER_04]: You're walking the thin line here.
37:28
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
37:29
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to remove it, yeah.
37:30
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm going to zoom.
37:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
37:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's sort of everything.
37:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I think I have a cute way to address a few of the themes that have come up, which for me the answer to the gentleness thing is that I wasn't very gentle until about eight years ago.
37:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think.
37:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And my life changed pretty drastically eight years ago, and it's made me a very gentle person.
38:06
[SPEAKER_02]: And life is really comfortable.
38:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Has always been really comfortable.
38:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And the parallels are kind of weird like,
38:19
[SPEAKER_02]: the way the milk carton kids has served my life.
38:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, is very sort of male-troped.
38:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Cindy, it's like instantly accepted.
38:29
[SPEAKER_02]: It's comfortable to be there.
38:31
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not like, they are weenies aside.
38:36
[SPEAKER_02]: We were sort of given every pass, every turn.
38:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And like I said, a lot of my not gentleness.
38:46
[SPEAKER_02]: accompanied the beginning of our career where I spent every night on stage like trying to accomplish something.
38:53
[SPEAKER_02]: There was something I was trying to do and in hindsight I realized I was miserable doing it because it was something that wasn't attainable.
39:02
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think it was sort of this goal set forth from the starting point of like a lot of privilege and
39:12
[SPEAKER_02]: the way that I was leveled in life eight years ago that has made me gentle is a direct reflection of me for the first time ever being interested in other people and being interested in what how I'm defined as it is just related to the people around me and the surroundings around me because up until then I thought that
39:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, not literally that I was the center of the universe, but that's what I was interested in.
39:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I was interested in my accomplished movements.
39:44
[SPEAKER_02]: I was interested in my ideas being heard in me, like, proving my idea of myself.
39:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And the last eight years of my life have been defined by, like, it was just told to me by my body and by the universe that, like, that's,
40:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Not only not important, but it doesn't serve you, and so a lot of my gentleness has been accompanied by the hard growing pains of me trying to listen to the world and be enriched by it and be filled up by it rather than me trying to be the source of that.
40:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's exactly what our campus, the best part of it is that
40:32
[SPEAKER_02]: like this sounds like a cliche, but we learn more from everybody that attends it than they learn from us and it's sort of a perfect little microcosm.
40:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe for that same privilege space, which is that we get to sit up in the tall chairs pretending like we have some kind of knowledge or
40:50
[SPEAKER_02]: authority or some interest and like we're both comfortable there because we've been given sort of a life of that seat and it would feel weird to not have it but no joke like we feel like everybody else when we're sitting there listening to somebody who just wrote their first song singing in front of an audience doing the magical thing we're like
41:12
[SPEAKER_02]: right there in the audience being filled up the way that I think people that come to our shows are people that listen to our records.
41:20
[SPEAKER_02]: It was a really like life-shattering, leveling thing to go participate in that camp and understand that there was more than one role to it.
41:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And it very much mirrors sort of I think what I just described about my own personal experience
41:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Mm.
41:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Wow, right on.
41:48
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay, should we wrap this up now?
41:49
[SPEAKER_04]: Just kidding.
41:51
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm gonna talk about the new album.
41:54
[SPEAKER_01]: That was great.
41:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I just learned so much about Kenneth and that was really beautiful.
42:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, are you taking the piss?
42:02
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
42:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh.
42:05
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm so grateful to be here in this moment of Y'all's friendship and journey as a band.
42:12
[SPEAKER_05]: And also, it was such a treat to get to go to sad songs on summer camp, and it's just experience, the like secret garden vibe.
42:22
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a great experience.
42:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
42:26
[SPEAKER_01]: the most most fulfilling week of the year for us, for sure.
42:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we've been looking for other ways to interact with this community that we are a part of, all of us, all four of us are a part of.
42:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think it kind of like that it's been a really, a really reinvigorating way to look at what are
42:53
[SPEAKER_01]: what this little career we've made has afforded us and allowed us to be a, you know, and that the main thing that it's afforded us is kind of we feel like we found our people.
43:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And so looking, and they're all over the world, you know, and their musicians and their,
43:12
[SPEAKER_01]: fans and their writers and their podcasters and radio hosts and stuff and like we can go all over the world and just have kind of like fast friends with a lot of different people over this over this kind of common interest in folk music and so finding different
43:34
[SPEAKER_01]: ways of relating to that community has been super rewarding.
43:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And the camp is like the main thing that we've found at his stuck.
43:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, our efforts to like start a full festival in LA is it comes from a similar impulse.
43:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And we've always like going back to the Sarah Geros to our impulse to always be in collaboration.
43:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, is like a, you know, that was maybe our first impulse was like, oh, we're a part of the community of musicians, we should collaborate with them all the time, which is true in which we love, but I think as that has, at that idea has matured, it's like, it's not just the, it's not just the, other touring musicians, for example, who are like on the bill at the same festivals, like that is a part of the community, but it's way bigger than that actually.
44:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.
44:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Should we all do a cruise together?
44:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we just got off the boat.
44:31
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to need another 10 years before we get back on it.
44:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Only 10 years left.
44:37
[SPEAKER_01]: If we could do it on land, if we could do it on land, I'll be there.
44:43
[SPEAKER_04]: So the new album, Lost Cost Lover Full, you guys have said that space is the band's secret weapon.
44:51
[SPEAKER_04]: How did you learn that space can be so powerful?
44:55
[SPEAKER_04]: And when did you first experience the power of sparsely arranged music to turn down the world's chaos?
45:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Hmm, probably from Gillian Welch and Dave Rollins.
45:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's the simple answer, Joey, and I were both...
45:11
[SPEAKER_02]: big and separate devotees of their music and their recordings, and especially in the like years right before we collaborated.
45:22
[SPEAKER_02]: That was, you know, I don't think that we would exist without them, never mind their influence, but also just the time that they existed in and when it touched us and when it taught us, we
45:34
[SPEAKER_02]: What can happen on that that front?
45:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that it's you're allowed to do do that like you can do it You can do something complete with two guitars and two voices The funny thing is for me and that in that paradigm like
45:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, this even happened last night I sat in with some friends that are showing L.A. and was again just sort of turned upside down about when you get on stage and you're there with a few people.
46:03
[SPEAKER_02]: The inertia that happens is always really unsettling to me and I never am comfortable in it and you know there's a part of all of the great music in history is about
46:19
[SPEAKER_02]: people finding the pocket with each other and people finding that kind of like rhythmic resonance.
46:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've found that every time I've ever been on stage, there's something about it that feels like a runaway fate-free train that I'm chasing after and I am not in control of.
46:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Our entire band has been, I think, me and Joey's effort to be co-conductors of that.
46:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Every time we've added a third person, all of a sudden, it's like the game of tug-of-war gets infinitely more complex, and you can't quite lock in the same way, and so in many ways, like,
47:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Join I've spent a career like learning what that is for each other and giving it to each other and like We fail half of the time the like literally half the time we come off stage and one of us looks at the other and says like what the fuck man like Why did you speed through that entire set and then the other one goes no you were like pushing the front of the beat and then I'm like no I'm a whole holding back like why aren't you following me and
47:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I think a big part of our ability, even, figure out what that is, is the space that's in our music.
47:48
[SPEAKER_02]: It might just be the way that I'm designed when there's more people, without that space, there's just a program that you have to get to get with, and it's not like you're not a part of being that, like, time-setter, it's not your pulse, it's not your essence, that's like,
48:08
[SPEAKER_02]: the main thing.
48:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And for me and Joey, that's like an actual compromise of just two things.
48:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think in a lot of ways, we need that space to be able to figure out what that is for ourselves.
48:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Cowboys.
48:37
[SPEAKER_05]: No, that's a really interesting way to look at it.
48:39
[SPEAKER_05]: It sort of sounds like you mathematically have more freedom to improvise and kind of push and pull rhythmically with as a duo and that's like a trapeze like function that keeps it really on the tracks.
48:53
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, and it's also, How many more metaphors can we have?
48:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
48:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Super well said.
48:59
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll see.
48:59
[SPEAKER_01]: That's exactly how it feels.
49:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll just, and the idea that I think there are people that do that and feel that in trio or quartet or quintet, in orchestra level, like size ensembles.
49:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's probably always the goal, but yeah, for us, that's what the duo is.
49:22
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, I want to talk about what the banjo is doing on lost cause, lover fool.
49:29
[SPEAKER_05]: I feel like she kind of speaks up right away and calls her attention.
49:33
[SPEAKER_05]: And I want to know what that character is for y'all.
49:38
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, and yeah, what your journey's been like with the banjo.
49:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, first of all, that just really,
49:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm floored by the question, and it's going to change my entire perspective on the banjo.
49:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if you meant to do it, but I will now forever think of the banjo as a character and she's a female character.
50:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't think of the banjo as gendered.
50:13
[SPEAKER_01]: or even anthropomorphicized in anyway, but for our next record and for all future performances, I shall think of her.
50:25
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the one.
50:26
[SPEAKER_05]: I love it.
50:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you've thought the iceberg joys finally in touch with his feminine side with been trying for 15 years.
50:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not.
50:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just my human side.
50:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it is a person.
50:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Banjo has no excuse.
50:42
[SPEAKER_02]: All right, baby steps, baby steps.
50:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, well, that answer will tell you in too busy, like having my entire period, I'm shifted.
51:03
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, Joey started playing the banjo in this band.
51:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And right in the banjo, no, wasn't it?
51:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And what I find it to be, Joey is quite literally with the acoustic guitar, like the bedrock of an entire body of work that we've made together, like the actual concrete in the ground, upon which nothing would exist.
51:37
[SPEAKER_02]: We're at not there.
51:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And in many ways, that's a very
51:43
[SPEAKER_02]: tight cage to be in, and I know that, well, not that he's happy to do it, but it serves a very, an important enough function for the other three of us to do what we do in our band, that has to be maintained.
52:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And to me, the banjo has always represented his ability
52:11
[SPEAKER_02]: seek something else with his hands in our band, and it's always been that, and that's the, that's the, that's the gravity that really only ever pulls me away from
52:29
[SPEAKER_02]: what i've always taken to be my role in the band and so it wasn't until joe started writing songs on the band joe did i ever like play rhythm guitar in our band because it made sense that like in order for
52:43
[SPEAKER_02]: what he was expressing to be held the right way, it wouldn't be appropriate for me to buzz around like a little fly, like I'd need to lock in and do the thing.
52:54
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's like- You're like the designated driver in the band.
52:57
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, totally.
52:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's taken on like very different forms as he evolves as a manager player as he tries to say different things with those songs that he's written.
53:10
[SPEAKER_02]: The funny thing is that the,
53:12
[SPEAKER_02]: her speaking up immediately on the album is actually me playing the banjo, but I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't Joe's banjo and it wasn't like a thing that he brought to the table and of voice that we feel comfortable with and we feel like represents us.
53:31
[SPEAKER_02]: But so to me that voice really represents like one of Joe's main
53:39
[SPEAKER_02]: contributions to our band and one of the places that holds the most capacity for evolution and growth and for, you know, leading us towards somewhere that we didn't know as a place we were going and we'll figure out if it's where we want to be or not.
54:08
[SPEAKER_01]: The banjo is a strong woman, and nobody would ever call the banjo a whiny.
54:15
[SPEAKER_05]: So true.
54:16
[SPEAKER_05]: The banjo has aura.
54:21
[SPEAKER_05]: You all have mentioned that this album was the one where you finally figured out how to feel and sound like yourselves, while also still having a broad sonic palette in the recordings.
54:39
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, when you can do that and singing literally and sonically to each other, can you describe what happens when you sing to each other on one mic?
54:47
[SPEAKER_05]: And how do you know when you're sounding like yourself?
54:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm.
54:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Does that mean for me, if you want to go ahead?
54:58
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I don't know.
55:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Here you go.
55:03
[SPEAKER_01]: The thing of how, for me, what it sounds like, when we're sounding like ourselves vocally, sonically, is when it can, when we can lose track ourselves of who's singing what?
55:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And that level of disappearing
55:26
[SPEAKER_01]: individually into whatever our collective hole is is like the kind of like a high that I'm always chasing in the moment and I suspect is something of the appeal of whatever the magic trick is that we feel like we're doing for like a spell that we're trying to cast on the listener is like a little bit of the confusion or joe Henry calls it a seduction
55:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Not about us, but in general, like the bit of mystery that music can create, it feels like a seduction which is kind of the feeling that he's always after.
56:13
[SPEAKER_01]: To me, there's a particular resonance that happens with our voices sometimes if we're doing it the way we mean to do it that is totally mysterious and I find that I can sometimes even forget what I'm seeing like in real like in the moment in real time, you know, I would have to like go in the other room separately and be like, what is my part there?
56:38
[SPEAKER_01]: What am I actually doing?
56:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that a lettuce?
56:48
[SPEAKER_05]: I heard someone describe it as when you can just feel like something's really, really in tune and vibrating exactly right.
56:55
[SPEAKER_01]: For Zaman?
56:57
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
56:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Whoah.
57:00
[SPEAKER_05]: But then again, what do I know?
57:02
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm not going to Google.
57:03
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't Google.
57:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I know.
57:07
[SPEAKER_05]: Why would I as a woman access Google?
57:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Are you allowed to be allowed women to Google?
57:14
[SPEAKER_05]: Not in Tennessee, baby.
57:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Ah, yeah, right.
57:21
[SPEAKER_05]: Sorry, that was very profound.
57:23
[SPEAKER_05]: This seems like a good time to talk about death.
57:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Always a dark joke.
57:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Or just the song.
57:35
[SPEAKER_05]: a little bit, their death is another character I wanted to ask about in your catalog because they they pop up and I think especially as soon as mine didn't smile in your story.
57:48
[SPEAKER_01]: This is fantastic don't you think and Joseph she death is day all puppies are she who knows
58:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm pretty sure death is a woman, and I don't mean that projoratively, well, no, no, no, I mean, nothing's more powerful.
58:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Totally, and hot take like, um, despite the, um, despite our anatomical handicap, isn't it time to just accept that, uh, like, everything's a woman?
58:27
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
58:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Isn't, aren't we there yet?
58:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
58:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, like I mean, finally, finally, I'm happy to make sure that's how you get on the list of basic full fruit men.
58:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm just, I'm happy that anybody deserves the respect to be called whatever they need to be called like all good, but
58:53
[SPEAKER_02]: the complexity and all-encompassing nature of the feminine energy like includes in it and devours in it, everything that the male encompasses and everything else.
59:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, you know, that's the big one.
59:08
[SPEAKER_05]: I think science bears that out.
59:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think you're right.
59:12
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, we were going to ask how you all are relating to the inevitability of death and is that something that
59:18
[SPEAKER_05]: was present for you in this album about appreciating small, fleeting moments.
59:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say that you nailed it exactly on the head.
59:31
[SPEAKER_02]: That is the causation of it, in fact, for me anyway.
59:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I think Joey would probably resonate with that, as well.
59:42
[SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, that's exactly.
59:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, if our album was in a scape room, you just solved it.
59:51
[UNKNOWN]: Wow.
59:52
[SPEAKER_05]: What did I win?
59:53
[SPEAKER_02]: You just can't let out of our calendar.
59:56
[SPEAKER_01]: calendar.
59:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You get loud and loud and loud and loud and loud and loud.
59:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Let out of the escape room, and now you're in the parking lot of the strip mall.
1:00:03
[SPEAKER_02]: That is, if we figure out anything here, escape rooms need better prices.
1:00:07
[SPEAKER_02]: That's all I'm saying.
1:00:09
[SPEAKER_05]: I've never been to one.
1:00:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, there's so much.
1:00:12
[SPEAKER_02]: I just went for my birthday.
1:00:15
[SPEAKER_02]: That's just right.
1:00:15
[SPEAKER_02]: You're an air-hease.
1:00:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:00:18
[SPEAKER_04]: You don't have time to get into that.
1:00:19
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm throwing the escape room as relaxer.
1:00:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I relax.
1:00:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:00:27
[SPEAKER_01]: We need that energy in order to escape.
1:00:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I think for me, it's a little bit abstract.
1:00:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's, I think there's a lot of ways to die, like besides actually, besides our physical death.
1:00:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of...
1:00:54
[SPEAKER_01]: a lot of, you know, we talk about the end of the world a lot and we, you know, there's a lot of ways that the world can end and I think I like to think about the fact that like the world does, the world as we know it ends a lot, it does end.
1:01:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Like when we talk about the apocalypse, we don't mean like,
1:01:20
[SPEAKER_01]: human extinction, sometimes we do, but like the world can end long before that, and you can die in a meaningful sense many times in a life, you know, we become different people and who we were before in a real sense is, you know, as a memory, which is, which is, I think what we are when we die.
1:01:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And so death, I think a lot of times, for me, as a songwriter, death is metaphorical.
1:01:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know that I think maybe I'm trying, we're all trying, maybe, or I'm trying to avoid my fear of death by achieving some kind of acceptance of the fact that it's, you know,
1:02:17
[SPEAKER_01]: that it's actually happening all the time.
1:02:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not making a lot of sense, but.
1:02:22
[SPEAKER_01]: No, you're making a lot of sense.
1:02:24
[SPEAKER_05]: No, that was heavy.
1:02:25
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm picking up a true land down.
1:02:27
[SPEAKER_01]: We talked about it.
1:02:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I talked about it a lot.
1:02:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And one kind of interesting, I think, and gratifying thing to me about this album was.
1:02:37
[SPEAKER_01]: when we did the dreaded exercise after the album was done of talking to each other about what we thought the album was about because we knew we were going to have to give interviews and write a bio and do this part of the campaign.
1:02:54
[SPEAKER_01]: We actually totally were on the same page about what we thought the songs were about and the album was about and everything and one of the
1:03:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we're the of like you said these like taking these small moments and expanding them and trying to
1:03:14
[SPEAKER_01]: find trying to find some eternity within the by-by-being in the moment, I guess, as the trite way of saying it, but like, you know, which is a way of escaping death.
1:03:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we're looking to transcend our time bound existences constantly, and we think we're going to do it in all kind of misguided
1:03:38
[SPEAKER_01]: and often destructive ways, but a great way we actually get in a great completely with one edit, which is that I think that's the way of achieving death, not escaping it.
1:03:55
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that will become an important clarification for everyone.
1:03:59
[SPEAKER_02]: If it is already.
1:04:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Well death is a cruel
1:04:06
[SPEAKER_05]: We have, this is, this is really one of our, our big episodes decided.
1:04:12
[SPEAKER_05]: We really, we really went there.
1:04:16
[SPEAKER_05]: And so let's go beyond.
1:04:17
[SPEAKER_05]: You both have.
1:04:17
[SPEAKER_05]: You both have.
1:04:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Can't understand what, can it's wife has written a new song, which is one of our favorite songs, which nobody's ever heard before.
1:04:26
[SPEAKER_01]: But, oh yeah, it's called Death as a Woman.
1:04:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And also, let me suggest out of Polaris.
1:04:33
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm a big fan of Verice Ola.
1:04:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.
1:04:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Out of Polaris, we are, I think, 15 minutes late to our next thing.
1:04:41
[SPEAKER_02]: So no, maybe.
1:04:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe we supposed to start now.
1:04:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, then we're five minutes.
1:04:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It's Craig Havigur, till Understood.
1:04:52
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, and I ask you to do lightning round questions and I might go.
1:04:56
[SPEAKER_05]: No, ask them all, they're so good.
1:04:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, we're going to be found in which one.
1:05:01
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay, let me explain the game.
1:05:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
1:05:04
[SPEAKER_05]: It's called which one.
1:05:06
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm going to ask a question and on three, you guys are going to say the name of the person, who answers the question.
1:05:13
[SPEAKER_05]: Here's an example.
1:05:15
[SPEAKER_05]: Who's last name is Ryan, one, two, three.
1:05:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Joey.
1:05:21
[SPEAKER_05]: So you can say your own name or the other person's name.
1:05:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So you can maybe that easy.
1:05:25
[SPEAKER_04]: You could also say you could also say both on 9th or neither.
1:05:30
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that's true.
1:05:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Joey, did you answer on three or were you late?
1:05:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Like we went one, two, three answer.
1:05:37
[SPEAKER_05]: All the tape.
1:05:37
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
1:05:38
[SPEAKER_05]: OK. One, two, three answer.
1:05:40
[SPEAKER_05]: Kind of like our clap at the very beginning.
1:05:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, it's called.
1:05:43
[SPEAKER_02]: OK.
1:05:43
[SPEAKER_05]: Hurry up, cricks waiting.
1:05:47
[SPEAKER_05]: Which one drinks more milk?
1:05:49
[SPEAKER_05]: One, two, three.
1:05:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Joey.
1:05:53
[SPEAKER_05]: Is it whole milk or is it low fat?
1:05:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Whole.
1:05:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Whole.
1:06:00
[SPEAKER_05]: Which one has a better hand shake?
1:06:03
[SPEAKER_05]: One, two, three.
1:06:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Can I say?
1:06:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Which one gives better advice?
1:06:12
[SPEAKER_05]: One, two, three.
1:06:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Can I?
1:06:18
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, Joey is declining to answer on a couple of days.
1:06:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Because he knows I'm right.
1:06:24
[SPEAKER_02]: He just couldn't give me the satisfaction.
1:06:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I know this is just basically a personality assay and I think you're getting all you need to know by my non-answering.
1:06:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I took my answer into a very serious consideration.
1:06:42
[SPEAKER_02]: I would have not said it if it weren't true.
1:06:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So do I.
1:06:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And then what about both of you?
1:06:46
[SPEAKER_01]: That wasn't meant to be snarky, by the way.
1:06:48
[SPEAKER_01]: What I mean by that is that's such a complicated question.
1:06:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It depends.
1:06:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I should have just had depends.
1:06:56
[SPEAKER_05]: Um, well, there's no time like the present, which one is more whimsical?
1:07:01
[SPEAKER_05]: One, two, three.
1:07:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Can it?
1:07:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Can it?
1:07:05
[SPEAKER_05]: Cute.
1:07:06
[SPEAKER_05]: Which one is more existential?
1:07:09
[SPEAKER_05]: One, two, three.
1:07:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Depends.
1:07:14
[SPEAKER_05]: What?
1:07:16
[SPEAKER_05]: And finally, which one always smells the best?
1:07:20
[SPEAKER_05]: One, two, three.
1:07:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know either?
1:07:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, almost got it.
1:07:28
[SPEAKER_04]: Guys, I would have to ask.
1:07:29
[SPEAKER_04]: I would just say that lightning round was mediocre.
1:07:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:07:36
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you so much for being on the podcast again.
1:07:38
[SPEAKER_05]: I think we all have a lot to think about.
1:07:41
[SPEAKER_05]: Yes.
1:07:42
[SPEAKER_05]: Thanks, guys.
1:07:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Definitely.
1:07:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you all.
1:07:45
[SPEAKER_02]: This is a very, very fun.
1:07:53
[SPEAKER_03]: This episode of Basic Folk was produced by CJ Nungessor, our music composed by Dietrich Strauss.
1:07:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Basic Folk is a production of the Bluegrass situation.
1:08:02
[SPEAKER_03]: You can find all of our episodes there.
1:08:05
[SPEAKER_03]: You can search for Basic Folk on the Series XM app.
1:08:08
[SPEAKER_03]: You can find us on folkalli.com or folkalli's mobile app.
1:08:12
[SPEAKER_03]: You can go to basicfolk.com or you can listen wherever you find your shows.
1:08:17
[SPEAKER_03]: If you enjoyed this episode, we think you should share it with a friend.
1:08:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe two friends that are a little bit too codependent and a little bit too funny for their own good.
1:08:26
[SPEAKER_03]: I think those two guys or gals, or people would enjoy this episode.
1:08:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Thanks for listening all the way to the end.
1:08:34
[SPEAKER_03]: We love you so much.
1:08:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, bye!