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WEHM All Access - Sag Harbor American Music Festival - August Gladstone · WEHM All Access

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to WEHM All Access now all about the Stag Harbor Music Festival.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: As we uh get into this great event that happens every year at the end of September out of Stag Harbor, four days of free music.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: And if you go to their website, you can get all the details for the full schedule, StagHarbormusic.org.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Harry.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is a chance to get to know some of the artists that are performing at this year's festival.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: And as we dive in, let's start with August Gladstone.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I love the fact that you describe yourself as a writer, poet, troubadour.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I think you've been a clown, a screenwriter, a folk revivalist, and really one of the East End's uh really interesting artists.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and your debut record came out earlier this year, The Golden West.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you've got a poetry book coming from Broadway to Netflix is the joke.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: August, uh, welcome.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the WHML Access.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: How are you?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm great.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's an honor to be here.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh the station that I've listened to my entire life growing up.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm thrilled to actually uh have my place going now.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is very cool.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: As we get ready for your performance, now I want to mention we want to start by saying that you're performing Sunday, September 27th at Kids Squid in Stag Harbor at 2 30 p.m.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: And like I said, stagharpermusic.org.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I kind of want to start at the beginning because uh you have a great origin story.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: You were on Broadway at only six years old.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: How does this happen?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_01: I know your family obviously is tied into it all, but uh, what was that like as as a child hitting the stage so young?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh years of therapy have helped me reckon with it.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, my parents, if you don't know them, uh Josh Gladstone and Kate Newth, um, local thespians, and I grew up in such a theatrical household where my mom was running the Neopolitical Cowgirls dance theater company, uh, my dad was the artistic director at Guild Hall for 20 years, and now he's the executive and creative director at LTV Studios.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and they met in drama school, they came up as actors together.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, really, my entire life has been just sort of drenched in performance art.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: What was your first uh yeah, what was your first, I guess, Broadway show?
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, my first show ever was uh The Cherry Orchard when I was when I was three years old.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um I remember I was I was backstage with my mom, um, and she was also in the show as in Guild Hall, and I was there, I was barely speaking at the point, but I was already asking her for more lines.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And uh really from there, it just was something that I loved.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was what my parents did, it was what I wanted to do, and I was so focused to on it as a kid that um I was able to start getting some auditions in New York City, got some agents, and was just sort of running the gamut, and ultimately was in uh the coast of utopia at Lincoln Center Theater when I was six.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um I played Kolya, who was a deaf Russian child, died in a shipwreck.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: I had uh I had a pension back in the day for really playing kids who died or got sick or were real very dramatic roles, yeah.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Very dramatic roles.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was not a cute kid.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was a very I was a very upsetting, threatening, melancholic kid, and I think that's translated into who I am as an adult.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: Do you remember the moment when you realized that this is what you wanted to do and and to perform?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: How young were you?
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's never been anything else.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's it's always been this.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's my purpose, really, is what it feels like.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's taken a number of different avenues throughout my life, and I only hope that it keeps expanding and keeps evolving.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um But yeah, it's what I've been wanting to do for forever, just through play and storytelling and imagination when I was a baby, when I was a toddler, just always having action figures out, always, you know, asking my parents to tell me a story.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's always been based in imagination for me.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you really have um embarked on a lot of different um, I guess, projects and different things along the way.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: Poetry, music, uh screenwriting, even clowning.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: We'll talk about that a little bit later on.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um but when did you realize you weren't gonna do just one thing?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh because it it's interesting, were you just kind of that type of personality, I'd imagine.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't see why you would do just one thing.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think life is for the living.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I live by the motto that all things can be done, and they won't necessarily be done well, but they might be done well.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to give everything a try.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: If it's interesting to me, if it's evocative, if it's what I'm being pulled to spiritually, I want to pursue that.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I sort of credit my upbringing for that because you know I live in Los Angeles now.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: I've worked for several years in Hollywood at a high level, and so much of the conception around artistry right now is that you gotta make a living off of it, you gotta find some way to make money off of it.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that's the case at all.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because, like I said, seeing my parents just being working artists for my entire life were able to, you know, they not famous, not rich, but were able to give me a life where I was happy growing up that allowed me to embark on my own journey.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's the kind of life I want to live.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I just want to explore.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: I want to I want to follow whatever whatever passions take me.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: What uh let's I guess we'll start with the music.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you've got kind of that 60s folk revival sound a little bit.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh where does that come from?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'd imagine your parents.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: So what did you grow up listening to?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I kind of found it on my own, honestly.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um my my dad's a big prog rock fan, 70s prog rock.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um my mom is is really into 80s music, so I guess I was just sort of trying to figure out my own lane.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as a kid, my favorite song was Peace Frog by the Doors.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I was I was liking Peace Frog as from when I was two years old on.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I that was probably started it for me.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um I had a pretty conventional music taste when I was coming up, and I was in high school.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was listening to a lot of rap, a lot of pop stuff, uh, because I hadn't really figured out my taste yet.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then college rolls around, I start experimenting with substances, I started experimenting with new people, and all of a sudden, whoa, your world gets expanded and you and you start listening to new stuff.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's when I sort of got more into rock and roll.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was listening to Tali Jimi Hendrix, a lot of Grateful Dead, Allman Brothers, stuff like that.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, really just getting rocky with it.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then once I moved to LA in 2022, uh it sort of was the doors again where I started listening to Jim Morrison's poetry album, American Prayer.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that was so inspirational to me.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um because I would I see myself as a writer, first and foremost.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um that that's the through line for every project that I'm working on is writing, it's the wordplay of it all.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, being a musician hadn't even crossed my mind at that point when I was listening to prayer.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was um but I was inspired to start writing poetry off of that.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I was sort of sucked into the world of poetry through a sort of semi-musical lens, which has then helped to shape my musical style.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: So music's kind of a recent thing over the just the past couple of years.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I uh I played my first open mic in 2024, May of 2024.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: My goodness.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: So the album came out earlier this year.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: How long were you working on the Golden West?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um six, eight months, I would say.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um I it really came about because back in April of 2025, I was casting a short film that was shooting up in Idaho.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I was working in Hollywood at the time, and I just took two weeks off of work and did a solo road trip from LA up to Idaho.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was passing through Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Montana, all the way up and back around on the coast, Oregon, Washington, all the way down, and it was so unbelievably inspiring.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Just being there with myself, I had my guitar, I had my notebooks, um, I had my lattes in a can, and I felt like a real cowboy.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I was just so taken by sort of the grandiosity of it, just the scope and the magnitude of the land.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: It felt like there were spirits all around me.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was just felt so in tune with it.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was meeting so many strange people that I never would have met coming from the Hamptons over to Los Angeles.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, that's a very specific style of life.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it just opened my eyes so much, and I was writing like a fiend on that trip and just taking all of it in.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then um, once I got back from that, about a month later, I quit my job in Hollywood because I was uh accepted into an artist's residency in Woodstock, New York, where uh I went after that for about a month, month and a half and kind of just synthesized it all.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I basically wrote a book of poetry at that residency, the poems of which I then turned into the songs for Golden West.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Who did you work with at the residency?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Because it obviously had such an impact on you.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was uh it's called the Woodstock Birdcliffe Guild.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's it was incredible.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's the oldest operating artist colony in the country.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's hosted Bob Dylan, it's hosted Joan Baez, it's hosted Van Morrison, Chevy Chase, um really just this incredible roster of artists and creatives, and it was so inspiring because like I mentioned, I was coming from Hollywood where everything has to be fast and commercialized and to the point and sensible, and it really felt so incongruous with who I wanted to be.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: But at this residency, I was I was one of the younger people there.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was me and a couple uh young filmmakers and painters, but the rest of them were were just career artists, people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, all the way up to their 80s.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And they were just people who've made a life on it, and I was exposed to sculpture and ceramics and painting and visual arts in a way that I never had before.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it was such a it was it just did so much to help me find myself and who I wanted to be, and help me marry these sort of disparate parts of myself into one cohesive person.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: How did you turn uh the poems into songs?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: Uh because it sounds like you were working on them in the but as far as the music goes, uh how how did that work for you?
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've been you know, I've been I've been playing songs for a little while, sort of taught myself guitar again in like 2023, 2024.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I knew enough to play folk music, I only need three chords.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um so really it was so much of my poetry writing process, it comes rhythmically, right?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like I very much need to catch sort of a beat and then build it out from there.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times I'll find that beat from a different song.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like a lot of my generative process is that I'll hear a song that really inspires me, take the rhythm of that song, and replace it with my own words.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then once I have that sort of shell of it, then I'll go under the hood with my own musicality and be like, okay, now how do I make this my song?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And not just my words.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, I think folk music lends itself to that because it is such a style that is based in tradition, that is based in taking on the lessons of the past and extrapolating them into what they mean for us all today and how they have meant these same things for us throughout human history.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, it was really just like okay, how do I make these couple chords that I know work with them with the music here?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and really still highlighting the words, and as I've improved as a guitar player and as a as a vocalist and everything, I've been able to get a little more experimental and a little bit more um evocative with everything.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I I like the path that I'm headed on in that way, but it definitely is still very much lyrics first.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: What is and you mentioned the lyrics and this is part of it.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: What does poetry give you though that music doesn't in a way that you kind of keep them I and maybe they're not separate, but they are a little bit different.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great question.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think it's storytelling.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's storytelling.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously you can tell a story through instrumentals, of course.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need lyrics to tell a story, but I see it as an oral tradition, right?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like the the Odyssey, all of these incredible epics of human skill of mythology were songs, were things that were recited, were these stories told and and remembered musically because it helped people literally remember them as they were going from campfire to campfire.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um so to me that is all still there.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I that is that is my gift.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm a fine guitarist, I'm a fine singer, but really what I always want to focus on and pride myself on and make sure that I'm controlling to the best of my ability is if the words are surprising, uh, is to make sure that they are new and that I'm not using any turns of phrase that you've heard before.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that is what I can really zero in on, and that to me is the is the poetic artistry of it.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um that sort of gives it a level beyond just a song.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: You've been performing on stages uh all your life.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: What's it like though to perform music on a stage?
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: What's the difference is uh between that and poetry, reading other things?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, how have you grown as a as a performer, a musical performer?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's a ton of fun.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when I first started out, I was just I was just doing coffee shops and I was very, you know, early Bob Dillony in in terms of just being like a a guy in a sweater, being kind of meek.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um and like here's a song I wrote about getting my heart broken.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and that was a great place to start.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's where everybody has to start.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but from there I've just grown more confident and I've I've sort of embraced my theatrical roots and taken it into more of a showman's direction.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like my shows are not, you know, you go to a lot of concerts, you go to a lot of shows, and it will just be like, all right, here's this song, and then they'll play the next song and they'll just keep playing the songs too.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what my shows are about.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: My shows are rack and tour shows more than concerts, right?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're more about their storytelling, they're more about the interplay with the crowd, they're more about the banter.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because again, that is that's where I come from, is being able to embody a full character up on stage and be a full storyteller rather than just play music that is technically perfect.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: I want I want there to be mess ups in my music.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: I want there to be problems, I want us to all be experiencing it together.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I think just having that sort of confidence to fail has been really important from where I've been.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a certain song from the record that you have grown to really love, and and that's kind of what one of your favorites from it?
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I all the songs mean something wonderfully different to me.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'd say my favorite right now is I got this full band that I play with called the Maniac Orchestra uh in LA.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we do very folk rocky stuff, very sort of psych rock, folk rock stuff that takes the more traditional folk stuff that I'm singing solo and turns it up to just a really cool, jammy level.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um and the title track of my album, The Golden West, is is on the album, it's this six-minute sort of epic poem with this desert instrumentation, sort of like Riders on the Storm, sort of like Sergio Leone, sort of like Johnny Cash, a little bit.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and when we play that live, we extend it into like a 12-minute jam.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's just really, really cool.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I got these amazing musicians who are playing with me.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: My keys player is just in total shredder, my guitar player is ripping just unbelievable solos, and it becomes so fun because I get to stand up there as a showman and a frontman and come in and really it just adds so much energy to the lyrical delivery.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and it makes the story feel like more than just a poem, more than just a song, but a truly immersive, almost cinematic experience.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you're coming back home uh for the Sag Harbor Music Festival Sunday, September 27th, 230 at Kid Squid in Sag Harbor, and uh so many great things that you're involved with.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh not just music, but I wanted to touch on your produced screenwriter as well.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: You have a comedy pilot, the Law Brothers.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: I do, yeah.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um that was uh came out in 2024.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that was uh you know, it it was just an amazing opportunity to get to make that.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um it was a script that I was working on for a while.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um because in LA there's a million different lawyers, terrible, terrible um ambulance chasing lawyers, and they have these ridiculous, hilarious billboards up everywhere.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I was so really inspired by these these these sharks that I wrote sort of an absurdist comedy pilot about um just these ridiculous zany lawyers who will who will skirt the bounds of legality to try to get their clients off.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um and we pulled together a great production team, um, really incredible actors.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um I I was lucky enough to get the star in it as well, obviously, because I'm an egotist.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um But it was it was so fun, and you know, it was it was done on a shoestring budget, but we were able to do it, and just think I'm incredibly proud of how it turned out and being able to sort of balance that alongside all the other projects, the poetry books, the uh the musical stuff.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm just really proud of the sort of repertoire that I've been building out.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: You were I was reading a part of the Netflix is a joke, um, and uh you've done you've done stand-up as well.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm actually not much of a stand-up.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: I was curious to see because it did how how does this all come together?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're I feel like you're willing to try everything.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Oh absolutely, yeah.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: I uh I'm an experimental young man.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um that uh that Netflix is a drill credit.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I was clowning, actually.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, I was with uh this clown troop called Stamp Town, which is this oh my god, it's incredible.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't heard of them, you gotta check them out.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's completely changed the way I view comedy.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um hold on, let's go back.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Have you always been interested in clowns?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: Or like where does this come from?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Out of curiosity.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, performing, but where did you kind of learn because it is an it can be it's an art form.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, modern modern clown is not just um they get a bad wig.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it's not it's not like a kid's party clown.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Modern clown is much more comedy performance art, it's much more about like character work, embodying one specific character.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the really cool things about clowns is that sort of like I was touching on with allowing music to be kind of warty and imperfect, that's what clowning is all about.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's supposed to break down the barriers between performer and audience.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's supposed to be authentic and raw and hilarious in its uncomfortability.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's supposed to keep you guessing, it's supposed to keep you on the edge of your seat.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like the first Stamp Town show that I went to, I heard about them because I used to work in talent management, and the MC of it, Zach Zucker, uh was one of my boss's clients.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I got to go to the shows.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the first show that I went to, um, there was just a dude walking around butt naked with this member in a bear trap and trying to do a five-minute comedy set.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like walking up to our table covered in blood.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I was like, I didn't know you could do something like this.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is shocking and incredible and uncomfortable and hilarious.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: And like, rather than just being a stand-up comedian where you're you know rattling off a bunch of funny jokes on stage, this is weird, man.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: I've never seen this before.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is unique, it's not just funny, it it's it's so much more than that.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's bold, it's brave.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I was really lucky to then be able to uh ultimately get looped in with Stamp 10 as a performer, and uh, did a number of shows with them, including their Netflix show, um taking on a number of different clown characters.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's it's really just weird and fun and freeing.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: There really isn't a project that you're not willing to at least try and get involved in, which is really cool.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: Cool to see.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: Out of curiosity, you obviously were raised on the East End, and as you come home, uh what's your favorite part of kind of the East End arts ecosystem, so to speak?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because there's there's a lot of different performers out there, and it's but it's also very different than the rest of the world.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, I'm I'm much more exposed to the East End art scene from a theater angle.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Growing up in it, you know, I feel that's a second home to me, is the entire theater scene of the East End.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um I've really only become a musician since I've been away from home.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I've played a couple shows back east.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: I played the Masonic music series in Sag Harbor in December, I played the Longhouse Reserve last year, I think.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I've done a number of shows out there, and I think, you know, honestly, it's a similar thing, but one of my favorite things about it, it's a similar thing to really what I was taken by with the music scene in the American West, where so much of the artistry is inspired by the naturalism around them.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: So many of the singers and songwriters and performers out east are as in tune with the natural beauty of the place as you can be, and it really feeds into their art.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that sort of clicked for me when I was in Butte, Montana, and I went to this gallery, and it was, you know, I was just I was only there for like two days, and I was just wandering around the street and I walked down this gallery, and they had a uh a show of both high school students and local artists.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: What does butte mean to you?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: What does Montana mean to you?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it was these really beautifully kind of spiritually rich pieces where all of these people were able to interpret the land in their own way.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think so so much of the same thing can be said out east.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it's not it's not the Great Plains, it's not the buffaloes, but it is it's the waves.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's the sunlight hitting down on the bay.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's all these amazing things that I honestly took for granted when I was living at home.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until I was able to leave that I was able to really understand the majesty of it.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: What's uh what's next for you?
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: What other are there other projects or things you want to try?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: Or how how do you gonna want to grow um your music um and maybe writing and more screenplays along the way?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: What do you what are you looking to get involved with next?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh there's a couple projects that I have uh kicking around right now.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm recording a single on August 30th with the label, which I'm excited to put out there.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then uh I have another EP that I'm gonna put out after that.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm also working on um the EP is gonna be some more Western Americana style stuff, and then after that, I have uh another full-length album that I'm hoping to start recording uh end of this year, early next year, which is Faustian, um, and more of a demonic concept album, um, much more about you know theatricality and and the highs and lows of selling your soul.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I also have uh a screenplay that uh we're getting shopping around a little bit.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: We've got a producer on it.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's an adaptation of the uh epic poem called Wildcat Dreams and the Death Light, which is an amazing book, really another just groundbreaking work of art, and uh and I'm so lucky to be able to collaborate with the original poet Reagan Sova on trying to bring it to the screen.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um so those are really the and then I got this this poetry book, the lyrics of the Golden West, my album are being published as a as a standalone collection by Finishing Line Press out of Kentucky.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that should be coming out uh early 2027, and that's gonna have the lyrics from the album as well as a few other poems and and more prosaic uh short stories.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, congratulations.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh August Gladstone, coming to Kid Squid.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's 2 30 p.m.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: Sunday, September 27th, part of the Stag Harbor Music Festival, and get more info on all the different projects at AugustGladstone.com.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: August, thank you so much for your time.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's nice to meet you, and can't wait to see you uh perform this time around at the Stag Harbor Music Festival.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, Harry.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's an honor to be here.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate you taking the time.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Great to get to know you.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh W E H M All Access, the Stag Harbor Music Festival with August Gladstone.