Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Brandon Flowers

Transcript

Brandon Flowers · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. When were you in Japan most recently?
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: March, I think. Jeremy, would I go in March? I
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: think so. It's like my kids' spring break. They get
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: this big break, and that is where they.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Want to go. Like all the time or every time?
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: We've gone twice, and it's like, for whatever reason, they just,
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: it's wild, you know? It's so different.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: And they just love that, I think. The problem is
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: we did the almost, we almost mirrored the trip identically,
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: like the restaurants and, and the spots, you know? And
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: I'm just like, we got to switch it up a little,
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: but they're just like, no, this was this cause it
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: was good. That was good.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: That's always a problem with life is you find something
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: you want to, do you like, and it's like, do
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: you stick, do you, you know, like, do you go
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: to order the same thing at the restaurant or switch
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: it up?
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: You need that variety, that spice.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Cause it could ruin Japan next year. You know? Congratulations
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: on the album, man. It's a really amazing, it's a
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: great record. Oh, thanks. Yeah. When it got sent over,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: they're like, you should give a listen to Brandon Flowers'
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: country album. It might seem strange, but we think you'll
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: like it. And I was like, actually, you know what?
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: It doesn't seem that strange to me when I put
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: it on. I was like, oh, he's doing it. He's
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: doing it for real.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we went for it.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you really did.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: We went to the heart of it. We went to
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Nashville and did it. That was the appropriate place to
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: do it.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: How did that transpire? Did you know to go there
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: or what?
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: I didn't. I feel embarrassed about it. I got to
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: give credit to the producers. It was, you know, Rado
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: and Sean Everett. And they just were all, as we
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: were writing the songs and making demos, it was like,
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: we got to go to Nashville. And I sort of,
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: I wasn't kicking against it, but I was just like,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: this studio's good. They were in Provo.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: In Provo, Utah.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: And, you know, Burbank's fine by me, whatever.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: But we ended up just booking some time at the
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: iconic RCA, and it was definitely the right move.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: How did they sell you.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: On it, ultimately? It was just, they were talking about
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: the musicianship and the people that were there that they
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: were going to assemble, and I was like, all right,
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: I'm going to just go with it.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Were you aware of it as a, I mean, obviously
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: everyone's aware of Nashville as a musical place, but were
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: you aware of, the sort of studio legacy of Nashville.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Not until, again, I don't know if I should, I'm
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: embarrassed to say it. No, I didn't know exactly, you know,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: what transpired just in this room that we were recording
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: in and in the room next door. So many magical.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: What was in those rooms?
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: It's RCA that you recorded, right?
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, everything. I mean, Roy Orbison, Dolly Parton,
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Waylon Jennings, everything, everything. chris christopherson every you know it's
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: just um really incredible that's just the surface yeah.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Are you a person who believes that rooms hold a certain.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: It has to yeah i mean there's there is a
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: you walk in and you can feel you know you
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: can you can feel it there's this there's it's kind
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: of tangible sometimes and there's just something we're in the
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: big room in rca and it's just It's just one
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: of the great live rooms in the world. And there's
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: been so many great bands in there. And it's so
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: many great recordings.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Did you help in picking out the players?
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: No, again, I'm embarrassed. No, I did no hand in it. Well,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: I did have some. We had Griff and Taylor from Dawes. Great.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: So I knew I always wanted them to be a
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: part of it.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Had you known them for a while? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: So we've been friends. And it was like, so Griff
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: was on drums for most of the songs. And then
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: Taylor was on guitar, and then we had some other,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: and then obviously seven other people. Yeah.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: What was it like? I mean, you have a couple
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: of solo records, but I imagine even those were people
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: you were more familiar with. And then, of course, you
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: have The Killers, your band, you've been playing with a
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: long time. So how odd is it to play with
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: people you don't necessarily have a rapport with?
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: At first, it felt a little intimidating because of the...
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: caliber of musicians that these guys are. And I started
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: to understand what I was getting myself into. Um, but
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: luckily I was sort of in the middle of touring
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: when it happened. So I was sort of in good
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: singing form and we went and recorded it like you're
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: supposed to record, like, you know, a band playing the
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: songs live. Um, I haven't done that in 20 years. Yeah.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: You know, we all played and it wasn't one guy
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: at a time in front of the computer. Um, it
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: was everybody playing and, and yeah, we haven't done, I
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: haven't done that since Sam's town. And so, We did it,
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: and they loved that. That was something that they have
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: also sort of grown away from. It's just changed.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Even in Nashville?
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, even in Nashville. So it was great. They loved
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: that I was singing with them. I think they're accustomed
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: to people kind of coming in and doing vocals later.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: And so they instantly, there was a bond, I think,
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: right away when they saw that I was going to
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: go and sing these songs, and we were all going
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: to sweat it out together. and instantly you know it
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: yeah we sort of connected there.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Did you sing in the room with them or did.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: You yeah i was in the room yeah in the
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: room really great and it's so much i had a
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: i had a great you know partitions you know the
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: drummer's over here so i can't really see him but
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: i can see the steel player and he was sort
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: of my gauge for how things were going his name
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: is bruce he's just like iconic steel player you know
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: but he's also he wears a lot um on his
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: face so i was like i knew how everything was
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: going by bruce's scowl or smile or And he's emotional.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: We get emotional about the emotional songs. And, and it was,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: it was, it was actually a real comfort being next
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: to Bruce.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: So he was your gauge, not only to like maybe
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: how the take was going, but also how the song
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: was resonating.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: And that was, that was interesting to see. Cause he really,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: seeing his emotions was, was a part that stood out
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: to me. It was like, okay, that made me feel,
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: you know, like maybe I, I, I'm not such an outlier.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Maybe I could, you know, I got a shot here.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: Do you need, like, I'm wondering, it's funny. I mean,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: I'm similar. I think a lot of people are like,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: just sometimes if you're in a room and you're uncomfortable,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: you pick a person and they just, for whatever reason,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: end up becoming like your source of, your rock for that, whatever,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: however long you're in that room. Is that something you
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: feel you need live as well? Or that you, or
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: do you, is that a whole different?
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: No, I think, well, if it depends on what world
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: we're in, if we're in the killer's world, I do
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: think I, get a lot of um security having venucci
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: there on drums behind me and the you know he
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: just has a a way of playing and an intensity
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: and uh reliability that i'm accustomed to and and and
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: that it makes me feel like i'm where i'm supposed
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: to be.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah has that been true like the entire run with
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: the Or has it changed?
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Since we started? I think it's grown over time, you know?
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Because in the early days, you're playing bars and you're
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: getting to know each other. We didn't grow up together,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: you know? The band sort of came together piece by
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: piece and then just sort of catapulted into the stratosphere.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: And so it wasn't that thing. We don't have that thing.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Just be honest about it. You know, we weren't like
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: childhood friends. We had to grow to like each other or...
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: As time went on.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Well, now you have 20-something years. Yeah. As good as
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: probably growing up together at this point, right?
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: But back to Thrasher. Why did you depart from recording
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: live for almost 20 years?
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: I think it's just, it's not laziness. It's just easy.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Makes me think it may be a little lazy.
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: Well, it's just easier.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: We went and made the third record, and it was
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: a little bit, The Killers made the third record. So
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: after Sam's Time, we'd record live. the third record was
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: more pop leaning, um, and more the producer that we chose,
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Stuart Price, who's an amazing producer. This, he's just works
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: with logic and, you know, logic versus produce on it.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: So he's a logic guy and he came from the
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: dance world. Um, and he's an amazing DJ and record producer.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: And so he had just made like that Madonna's, uh,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: confessions record was, was a massive record and he'd done
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: a great, um, a really great remix of Mr. Brightside
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: that had done really well, the Jacques Lacan remix. I
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: remember that. And so we're like, let's check this guy out.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: And so we went in and did a record with him.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: And that was where it started, for better or for worse.
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: But it was just, that's how he recorded. And I
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: was like, oh, this is kind of fast. And just
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: kind of on the fly and taking turns. And we just,
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: I don't know, we drifted away. I think a lot
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: of people have done that.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Prior to that, what slowed you down? Was there any particular...
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: As a group, the dynamic in your group, was it
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: not being able to sort of iterate quickly enough?
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it wasn't a problem. It was just, it
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: is more convenient to do it that way. But you
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: lose something also, I think. What you avoid is a
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: band sitting in a room and fighting over parts. You know,
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: and that can be a blessing for a band. Maybe
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: it kept us... From breaking up over a fight, you know,
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: over a bridge in a middle eight in a song
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: or something like that, you know. So you avoid that
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: uncomfortable situation. But you also maybe miss out on magical moments.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: And so there is something to maybe mourn the loss of.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: But I'm going back to it now. I think the
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: next Killers record we will, you know, I've learned a
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: lot from making this record in Nashville.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: I think we'll definitely implement that back into the next
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Killers record.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: That re-inspired you. Yeah.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. To play, we should record live. That's who
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: we are, yeah.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: It is different, though. I mean, I guess, you know,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: those Nashville sessions, though, I mean, they're so efficient. So
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: I think you always... also probably avoid the sitting around.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Well, that was the thing I keep coming back to.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: I would watch these guys make these decisions. It sounds
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: like I'm being funny, but they would make a decision
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: on the fly that a band today is going to
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: break up over a fight about this kind of a decision.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: And they are, that is, they cut that shit out. Like,
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: it is just like, we know what, you know, it's,
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: you do, you just move on. You make the decision,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: you move on. Everybody makes the note, play the song.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: It's just, there's just, it was amazing to watch.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Do they tell you they're going to do it or
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: is it just, we all.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: Agree, but it's just like, it's, there's so much behind it.
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: It's just like, this is why this is, you know, this, no,
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: you know, somebody will make their, say their piece. And
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: if they have, these are guys that have been doing
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: this for 60 years, some of them. And it's just like,
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: they know why that this is going to work.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: Speaking of, you know, these guys, some of these guys
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: playing 60 years on, um, the second track, One of Us. Yeah. Your,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: your harmonica player, Charlie, who is like, he's been around
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: a long time, played on like Highway 61 and Blonde
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: on Blonde, Dylan's records.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: He played on, he played on The Boxer.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: He did?
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Simon and Garfunkel. He played on Pretty Woman.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Played on Leonard Cohen stuff. Just, he's played on everything. And, Yeah, incredible.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: He owns one of us. It's like Charlie featuring Brandon,
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: that song. ¶ ¶ ¶ They slapped a decal of
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: your face ¶ ¶ An 18-wheeler smiling like you would ¶ ¶
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: If we were over to your place on Thanksgiving.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: ¶ ¶ In the neighborhood ¶ ¶.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: You were from the true north, strong and free ¶ ¶
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: But we never raised a fuss ¶ You were always
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: one of us.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: You were always one of us.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: Oh, there ain't a thing to discuss. Miss you like
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: the rain, miss the bus.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Roll sign, read it.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: Someplace, bluebird sing. And that about just sums it up.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: Life ain't but a dream, it's a bitter cup. Nothing
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: stays the same, it'll make you cry.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: It'll make you cuss. You were always one of us.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: His harmonic plane is like so wistful and kind of
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: has a joy to it. And then there's like a verve.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: It's almost how you sing it too. It took me
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: a handful of listens to realize it's not necessarily a
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: happy song.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a little bit of a sad song. It's
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: about my brother-in-law. He passed away a couple of years back.
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: But it's one of those things where there's family that
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: you're born into and then there's family that you find.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: And he was in that category for me. And sometimes
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: those are just as powerful or more powerful than other people.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes much more.
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: And so I just loved him. My sister's quite a
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: bit older than me, 17 years my senior. So when
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: they were married, I was a kid. So he was
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: like my brother. And so I just wanted to honor
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: him with the song. And there's this amazing thing that
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: can happen that I find within this genre, within the
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: genre where sadness and playfulness... can kind of walk hand
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: in hand. And people like John Prine are masters of that.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: I always come back to that. But so that was
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: kind of, I was definitely able to play with that
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: on this song.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, even from your own catalog, I would say
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: that there's instances of that, you know, where, I mean,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: on Killer's records, there's certain songs that, I mean, maybe
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: the first hundred listens, I had no clue that the
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: song was a little darker or a little, you know,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: there was something under the surface. Yeah. Yeah.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: It's, it's, I think I have a knack for that.
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: I don't know why. I think just whenever you start
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: to tell stories, you can't help but go there sometimes.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: At least I can't. To go to sort of some
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: of the darker.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. I have a tendency or just
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: maybe it's emotional or sadder things.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: Do you find yourself drawn also in terms of the
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: things you like to sadder or darker?
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Those emotional responses. I'm an emotional guy. I used to
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: think that that was maybe a weakness. And now I'm
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: 45 and I see it as a strength. And so
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: I think that I've always been like that. I've always
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: been touched by music or movies or moments or whatever
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: it is. And when I know maybe other people wouldn't
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: have been so... moved by it or or care about
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: it but but whatever it's just my my law in life.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: It's a superpower to be affected deeply by.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah and to be able to sometimes be a part
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: of it and have that translate into the work is
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: not it's really amazing.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah about when did you realize it wasn't like
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: a character defect.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: Oh, just like recently with a therapist.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Do you stand for therapy, by the way? Yes. Yeah. Oh, hell.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Hell yes.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: I'm going to try that myself. That's amazing. I mean,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: you would think just given the success, the sheer amount
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: of success that you've had, that that might have occurred sooner,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: you know?
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, understanding that?
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. That was a gift.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: Well, you want, yeah, no, I think you want to be,
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: you know, there's this masculinity and there's this, uh, you know,
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: you want to be strong and, but you, you know,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: but those things can also, you know, totally coexist. And,
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: but it's just, it's just something that has come with
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: time for me.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I feel like maybe on Miss America, there might be
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: some themes you're playing with there too, of, of masculinity,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: especially in more rural America where, You know, I would
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: say there's probably even more opportunity to dabble in what
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: feels more stereotypically masculine, you know, whether it's riding pickup
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: trucks or hunting or, you know.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And there's not, and I don't, because, you know,
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: the big, the big phrase is toxic masculinity. And I
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: always feel like I want to say this and I'm
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: going to say it. They're talking about toxic masculinity is
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: different than masculinity. You know, sometimes they don't differentiate it.
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: Being masculine is fine, but being dangerous or being hurtful and,
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: you know, and attributing it to you being a man
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: is not fine.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: So it's like, anyway, so that's my two cents. Obviously
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: that makes sense, but sometimes people don't seem like they
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: can differentiate those two things.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Well, I think certain ways of thinking become fashionable and
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: certain phrases become shortcuts to like a, A thing, and
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: it's like, I definitely, I concede your point. I think
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: it's super, I think it's really true. I think that
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: sort of verbiage, toxic masculinity has somehow shortcutted to just
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: being masculinity at large. And it's like, how is that?
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: It's funny. It's not, it's certainly not true. And you're
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: raising sons. So, you know, I'm sure that's also something
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: you have to think deeply about. Yeah.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: You know. Three boys.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: Was that present in your upbringing? Like, was that a common...
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: Like were those conversations you commonly had at home?
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: No, not, not so much. My dad, my dad is
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: a very, he's born in the forties and he, you know, was,
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: he dropped out of high school in the ninth grade
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: and sort of had a, a really different upbringing than
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: I would have had. Um, he grew up, you know,
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: just went to work right away and, um, had pretty,
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: pretty rough upbringing. And, um, his dad was tough. And
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: so it was, um, there was a weird, a strange
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: tug of war because he also, he converted to, to
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: my church when we, when he, when I was about six.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: And so there was.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Cause your mom, cause your mother.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: No, he did. He was hit, you know, she had
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: been LDS the entire time, which was kind of interesting.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: So it was, I think she had been just kind
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: of waiting and, and it was so after, you know,
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: however many years of marriage that was 20, whatever years
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: of marriage he converted, um, And it was a heartfelt conversion.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: And he just changed. And it was an interesting thing
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: to be a part of. So there was that side
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: of him where I grew up with this dad and
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: it was like the pork chop. He looked like some
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: of these... I'd say he embodied some of these guys
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: that I keep referencing for this country record. He looked
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: like those guys. He looked like he could be playing
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: with Merle Haggard or something like that. Yeah, and so...
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: And it was like drinking and bar fights and pool
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: halls and gambling and all that kind of stuff. You
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: would hear these kind of stories about my dad racing
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: cars and stuff. I don't recognize it because when I
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: was six, he became this other thing.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Wow. So, like, and his demeanor changed even, you would say? Yeah. Yeah.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: So, he was always, I think, a good man, but
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: he became a better man.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: That's how I look at it. Okay.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Some of the edges.
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: And maybe, yeah. And so, all my siblings are older.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: I'm the baby by quite a big margin. So, they
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: sort of had this different guy. And it wasn't like,
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: he wasn't terrible, but it was a really different thing
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: where he, I think he was more gentle and. And just,
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: it really changed the trajectory of my life and our house.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Do you think it was down to his conversion? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: His finding religion and God and all that?
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: You think so?
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's pretty wild. Yeah. You don't think it was age,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: just sort of like it was time to.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: Maybe, it could be, yeah, Cause he was about, he
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: was about, he was in his early forties when it happened. Yeah.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow. That's wild.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: It was crazy. I mean, it wasn't like he was
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: like going to prison, but you know, but it was like,
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: it went from that. It went to, you know, he
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: would bring home a homeless. One day I came home
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: from school and there was a homeless family in my house.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: He brought them and they lived in our house. Wow.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Which is a wild thing to do.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: For a while. Things like that. And all of a sudden,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: he's involved in Boy Scouts. But he's great. He's a
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: great guy.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: It's a real benefit to you that that happened. At
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: that point, were you also going to church?
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we went. And then we went. fairly consistently. And
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: then we started going even more when, when, when he
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: was on board.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Cause now he's now there's excitement. Yeah. That's pretty amazing.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: This moment is brought to you by Sierra Nevada's hazy
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: little thing. Your go-to beer for good times. The best
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: pool days aren't rushed. The only real decision all afternoon
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: is who controls the playlist. Get that part right. And
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: everything just falls into place. Just the sun, the water,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: and a hazy little thing in your hand. That's the
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: mission for part two of this year Nevada Sounds of
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: Summer series. We're building a playlist that makes having no
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: agenda feel like the best plan you've had all week.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Here's what I'll have on my rotation during my next
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: pool day. And be warned, my criteria is for the
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: most part that I want to feel like I'm in
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: the opening scene from Goldfinger, where James Brown's relaxing at
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: that Miami Beach hotel where he first encounters Goldfinger and Oddjob.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: That's the vibe I'm going for. And so the first
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: couple I'm going to pick are along those lines. First
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: of all, Nem Saudade by Eliana Pittman, a wonderful entry
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: from Brazilian popular music in the early 1970s. Has that
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: wonderful mid-range sound, which, you know, when you're bobbing, you're
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: heading out of the pool, it's really all you're going
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: for anyway, is that nice little mid-range sound. Lush orchestration,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: great songwriting, beautiful feel. And then along those same lines,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: keeping in mind that mid-range sound and this amazing bubbly
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: guitar that comes up, in La Ponce by Marino Marini.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: This is a Neapolitan song with a jazzy twist. And
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: then similar along those lines, they're a new group, but
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: they make music that feels like it could have come
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: out of the 50s, 60s, and 70s because they're song-centric,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: but also there's amazing orchestration. Pearl and the Oysters song,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Together Alone. These guys, they write concise, catchy songs, but
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: they arrange them in these incredible ways and They're one
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: of my favorite groups. I'm going to go see them
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: in Los Angeles actually later this month. And then last
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: but not least, a perennial favorite of mine. Well, it's
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: usually the Pixies, but this is a song from a
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Frank Black solo album called Oddballs, which was only sold
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: at shows for the longest time. Track five is a
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: song called At the End of the World. And in
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the credits, he says he's trying to sound like David Bowie.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: But to me, it sounds like some sort of weird
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: 80s ska song. But I absolutely love it. And it
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: makes me feel like I want to frolic by the
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: pool all day long. You know, a good pool day
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: playlist doesn't rush anything. It just keeps the pace with
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: the afternoon so you can feel good about kicking your
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: feet up until it's time to grab another cold one.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: If you've ever reached for a cheers when your favorite
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: song comes on, you're ready to embrace the haze with
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: Hazy Little Thing from Sierra, Nevada. Hazy, citrusy, smooth, juicy,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: but not sweet, hoppy, but not bitter. America's best-selling hazy
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: IPA for a reason. Hazy Little Thing. Enjoy responsibly. My
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: best friend from middle school is LDS, and so he
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: has a lot of family in Utah that's also just
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: become as good as family as well to me so
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: i've spent a lot of time out there so one
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: of the things that really struck me on on the
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: record is uh i think it's miss america as well
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: um because every time i'd go there and we'd be
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: driving past a certain place to be like oh yeah
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: footloose was filmed here oh yeah it's like really okay
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: and you know it became like the 20th time like
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: you know footloose was filmed here it's like oh okay
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: you know it's like this is like a really big
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: thing here you know listening to your record and I
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: think it was on Miss America. It's like, you know,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: it's a scene where Chris Penn and Kevin Bacon filmed.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: And I was like, oh, yes. I'm not the only
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: one that's been hearing this forever.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: It was a big deal. We moved there when I
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: was eight to this town called Payson. So it was filmed.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: You probably are driving by Lehigh.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: There we go. And it's like a school.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And so Payson and Lehigh are the two towns
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: where Footloose was filmed. And we moved to Payson. So
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: I lived on Utah Avenue in Payson, Utah. At the
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: end of Utah Avenue on this corner, there was a
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: car wash. And there's this just like idyllic scene in
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: that movie. I don't know. Fire it up if you can.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Fire it up because it's so beautiful. But the trees
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: lining the streets and they're washing this bug. And anyway,
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: it was, yeah, but that was like, that was the
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: thing when we moved there. Like Footloose was filmed. I
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: told Kevin Bacon once that I lived on that street.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Zero Fs given.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: No. Come on, really? Zero. I don't know.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: What was his response? I was like, what am I
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: going to do? I saw you. I lived on the
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: street where you filmed the scene with Chris Penn. And
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: it was just, he didn't care.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Did he know who you were?
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: I think he did, yeah.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: He's like a music guy. I feel like he.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Would really appreciate it.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: We were doing a John Lennon tribute. And everybody was
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: singing a song. I think he was hosting it. Yeah. Anyway,
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: I'm outing Kevin on that. He didn't care.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: I guess it's the things that become really meaningful to us.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: And it's like for him, he was there for two
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: weeks in 1984 or whenever that came out, you know?
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: So I guess it's no shade on him. How long
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: had that thought as a, I mean, so you've known
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: that for a long time and it's just working its
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: way into a song.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: Well, I wanted it to show there's a beauty in it.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: She's so young and naive. she's writing this letter to
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: this man that beats her, like, you know, that like
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: should go to jail.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: And she can't help, but tell him that, that they
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: filmed footloose here. So there's like this other layer to
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: it that, and that, and that would have been how
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: it was. That was the way it felt when we
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: moved there.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: Cause she was just, she would have just been, you know,
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: 22 or something like that when she left him.
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It feels like the kind of song that, um,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: I feel like some of the reason you make, make
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: it a country album didn't, necessarily surprise me is you've
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: always stood out as a really from the from the
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: very beginning like a really a really I don't know
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: the right phrase but just a really good songwriter you
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: know like undergirding everything like undergirding Hot Fuss with all
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: the great production and great you know the band is
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: great and your performance is amazing but what you realized
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: what set that apart from Everything else from... Or not
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: everything else, but much else from that era was just
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: how tight and amazing the songwriting was.
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks. Yeah, I think storytelling was always there, too.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: That was what maybe... That little tilt that made us
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: different than Kings of Leon or whatever... Strokes or whatever
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: it was.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: You might not... I was very interested in that. It
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: just made sense to me to tell stories.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: And I think that's put us... in our own little
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: lane off.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: To the side yeah at a time when there were
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: clearly a lot of groups that were um like disciples
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: of like joy division right or or or you know
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: um depeche mode or any of the sort of like
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: uk post-punk kind of yeah but then but then it
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: got really like in that time too when you guys
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: came out that music got really like dancey and really
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: upbeat but then i think that's the fact that that
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: music was so upbeat and so big and so broad,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: but was sort of streamlined by this beautiful songwriting underneath it.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: He really did give it legs beyond, you know, yeah,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: probably what otherwise it would have had if we didn't
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: have that songwriting under it, you know?
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah. There was, there was always a, like a, some
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: kind of a, even a moral compass in there somewhere that, that, that,
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: that's just a part of, I think, you know, my
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: upbringing and things like that, that I couldn't help but
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: inject into there. And, Luckily, it's, I think it's, like
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: you said, I think it's given it something of its own. Yeah.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Did it feel ever, like you said, on that first album,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: and then you, well, you have the Murder Ballad.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Jenny was a friend of mine.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Jenny was a friend of mine. You have the Murder
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Ballad trilogy.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: You know, and then also on Country, you have Murder Ballads,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: you know? Yeah. So, but did it ever feel like
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: you were riding a line between morality and maybe like
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: a darker sort of....
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: That specifically, Jenny was a friend of mine, just for me,
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: I know exactly where it comes from. And it's just Morrissey.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: He has this line, I love the romance of crime.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: And he's singing about the craze in England and things
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: like that. And he would have little seeds like that.
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: And I was just a big Morrissey fan. And you
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: knew about Nick Cave's... stuff like that. It's kind of
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: those two things came together on, on songs like Jenny
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: was a friend of mine.
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: How much of, how much of that and country music
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: were you, were you drawn to?
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: The murder stuff?
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: The murder stuff. The stuff that was kind of moral storytelling,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: but through.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, yeah, not so, not so much. It was,
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: like I said, with, it was something that it was
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: like a flash in my life that where I, where,
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: where I was, cause when I was 13, I just,
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: I chose what I was going to, be. Like my,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: I was going to be this synth pop and Brit
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: pop and new wave, like that is my alley. And
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: so I didn't abandon country music, but I had, but
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: I am realizing now that I had an education from it,
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: from listening to it. I was surrounded by it in
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Utah and then by my father and the music that
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: he gave. So it wasn't– not a lot of the dark–
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: not so much of the dark stuff.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: Did you ever sing like this?
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: No. I don't– I'm only singing– I'm leaning into it
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: a little bit, but it feels like pretty natural to
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: sing like some of these songs.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: No, I'm not– not even in the sense that you're
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: leaning into the country, but just it's more– it's almost
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: more straight than like less theatrical. Yeah.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: I think the words are really important in, in the,
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: in the tradition of country music. And so that was
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: one of the things we went for with the mixes
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: and everything, Sean, because Sean is, this isn't necessarily his, um,
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: you know, his genre either. And so, but, uh, you know,
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: sometimes you can, things can be ambiguous and, but when
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: you're telling these stories, you really want it to be clear.
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: And so I think maybe that's what you're picking up on. Yeah. Yeah.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: Um, Was it, this leads me to, was Paradise, was
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: it Paradise the last song that you wrote?
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: Paradise, yeah.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Or that you recorded? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that wasn't
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: even initially, that wasn't initially going to make the album, right?
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: It wasn't written, I wrote it right, I had a
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: gap to go home before we were going to do
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: another session. And I was like, I got, I just loved,
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: I watched them. It goes back to One of Us.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: We went and played One of Us. We had done
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: a couple of tracks together. And Bobby, the piano player,
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: he's an amazing piano player, mainstay in Nashville. He played
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: with Elvis and everybody. And I still remember he played
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: him the demo of One of Us. And he just,
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: he had this pep in his step walking back to
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: the piano. And he goes, this is country. And it
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: just meant, oh, I know, like, this is what I do. Like,
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: I know what to do here. And I wanted to
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: write another song that made Bobby... that made Bobby do
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: that or something like that. It was just like, oh, okay,
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: this is what, you know, this is what, they all
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: seem to just love that more, that vibe a little
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: bit more. And I wanted to get one more lick in.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: So I wrote Paradise.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: To satisfy that sort of.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and just because I knew they would be so great.
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: It was like, they don't, there's not a question of
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: what to, you know, there's a blueprint for this kind
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: of a thing.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Were there any songs you tried that didn't,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: you feel, that in your mind didn't fit.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: No, it all worked. The strangest one is Plans, which
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: was sort of the face of the record, the lead single,
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: was a totally, was an up-tempo, completely the exact same song,
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: but a different genre. And they're just so great at
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: recording that we ran out of, you know, the clock's ticking,
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: and I'm paying for the studio. And there's like, you
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: got anything else kind of a thing. And I had
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: this song, Plans, but it was sort of like, you know,
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: Ark of a Diver, Steve Winwood? It's a weird reference, maybe.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: I think it's like 79 or 80 or something like that.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Before it's big, like, it's before the big stuff, before
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: Back in the High Life and stuff like that, but
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: it's really cool. And it was in that vein, anyway.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: And so it's a little bit more up-tempo, and I
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: sang the verses up high, and then we just tried
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: it country, exactly the same song. And it just settled
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: right into that genre, and that was an amazing thing
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: to witness.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Well, that makes me wonder, like, are there... country songs
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: and non-country songs or can any song like is there
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: a difference could you know.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah i don't know i think you could make it
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: yeah you know you could manipulate anything i guess.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Well let me ask more directly like could could mr
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: brightside be a country.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Song my buddy sent me a somebody made a version
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: you know it's not the same melodies and everything but
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: somebody has made a some ai version of it where
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: it's like a dark a dark country song i don't know.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Did it work Besides that it was AF.
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: Embarrassing. Yes, it was. There's something about the lyrics. I
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: think you could make it anything.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: That's interesting. Because it feels like the songwriting, similar to
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: the vocal delivery, the songwriting on this is so plain,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: but in a beautiful way. There's some really just talking
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: about Elvis, like that line, jet black Elvis. Oh yeah.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: The comeback, you know, jet black 68 comeback.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Black 68 comeback leather. Like that's just a, it's, it's a,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: just a description.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: It's like a wonderful description. It makes you feel something.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: You know, and it feels like there's, but there's no
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: sleight of hand in it necessarily.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: I think that came from, that's, that kind of stuff
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: comes from petty. I think I attribute that to a
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: lot to him. Just like, this is my language. How
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: can I convey what I need to say in a
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: way that anyone can get it? And he was the king,
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: the king of that. Yeah.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: When did you get into Petty?
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: He came later. I was always aware of him. But
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: it wasn't until I just had this strange renaissance. I
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: had this in my mid-20s. Everybody has their thing when
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: they're 13. And I had my thing when I was 13.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: And then I had this thing. I got to do
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: it again in my 20s. And it was amazing. I
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: fell in love with a whole new genre of music.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: It started with Bruce Springsteen. And then that led to
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: Petty and Tom Waits and Mellencamp and all of those
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: kind of people. Which I think is also a gateway
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: to this record.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like it. What was your Bruce awakening?
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: Man, I mean, I've talked about it a little bit before.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: I can still see it. I was on Boulder Highway.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: boulder highway and horizon is where i'm from you know
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: in henderson it's old henderson if anybody out there is
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: watching because henderson has gotten so big now but so
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: like the og henderson and i was listening to classic
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: rock station it was like 97.1 and they played thunder
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: road and it's like yeah i know about born to
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: run i know about born in the usa you how
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: could you not you know it um if you've been
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: alive but and i knew who it was uh And
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: I was just, we had, we had, we were, we
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: were on a break from, from, we had finished touring
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: the first record, Hot Fuss. So I'm 25 or whatever, 24.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: And it was sunny and hot, you know, and it
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: just clicked, you know, like I understood it's that thing again.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: He's speaking my language. Like I, it's nothing against Morrissey
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: or anybody, but that they're not speaking my language. Yes,
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: it's English. but I don't, but it isn't mine. And
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: it was like this, something happened and I understood like
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: if I'm going to do what I'm trying to do
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: and be a creative person and represent who I am
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: and where I'm from, like it's got to be, this
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: is more me than what I've been trying to, you know,
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: than this facade.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: Interesting. It wasn't just that it was you at 13
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: and it wasn't you at 24, 25. You just didn't
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: think that they're sort of, that lexic, that, that, that
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: voir wasn't actually where you were, raised it's like more
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: of a yeah.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: It was it was like an epiphany yeah and and
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: um it was also everything had happened so fast up
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: to that point you know and then there's gonna be
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: people that see me say this and say they wish
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: you know that i would have just kept going with
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: the other thing you know um and it's you know
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: it's been a little bit of a of a i
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: don't know if it's a dilemma but it's been kind
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: of interesting to see you because you because then since
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: that point you see these things combined in the killers
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: and sometimes when they when they meet is what is
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: really a magical thing, you know, cause who would have
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: thought that someone would be, would be trying to, to
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: reconcile or try to make these things, these influences work.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Do you still have that other side of you? You
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: think the, the, the.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I do. I hear it. Oh, I see it
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: in my sons. Cause I have, I have one son
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: the other day that was, you know, like listening to
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: black celebration from Depeche mode or music for the masses
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: or something like that. It's like, there's a song on, uh, uh,
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: there's a song called, but not tonight. The last song, on,
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: I think on black celebration, man, like crazy to, to
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: hear it and remember being his age and what that
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: felt like. And I could, I could feel it, you know,
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: but I don't think, Oh, I want to do that
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: at all.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: It didn't make you want to go down that road again.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: That's fascinating.
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: I have another son who's into right now. The other
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: one is Oasis. Like everything's Oasis and we're playing pool
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: and he's just whistling, whistling little by little. Yeah. So
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: he loves it. And so I got that again a
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: little bit. Because I did have a real big love
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: affair with them when I was 18, 19. And that
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: was really nice. And the thing that I go back
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: to with them is just the songwriting. Because a lot
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: of people, a lot of stuff, a lot was talked about.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: And when our first record, it was like Duran Duran,
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: Depeche Mode, and whatever they were talking about. And New
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: Order and stuff like that. But the songwriting was, I
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: was learning from Oasis. It was like, you look at,
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: somebody told me, Mr. Brightside, they have these big prolonged pre-choruses.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: And that is just, that's Noel Gallagher's book. Like that's
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: straight from him. Like those other bands didn't do that
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: kind of stuff as much. But it sets you up
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: for these big choruses. And that's why those Oasis songs
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: are so big.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: That's fascinating. So that's the magic of at least early
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Killers is like that Brit pop song. school with the
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: dressed up as kind of these like New Order-y.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: I'd never put that together as being sort of the
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: confluence of those two things.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's amazing how it all just meshes.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: So you had the Bruce Springsteen epiphany. Yeah. And that
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: led you down, you know, I imagine like a.
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: Well, it's like, I wear, sometimes I wear, you know,
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: we're from Las Vegas and that gives us permission to,
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: you know, wear flashy things on stage. You know, I do,
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: I get away with things that other bands maybe not,
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: maybe not, maybe they couldn't. But there's this part of
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: me that's, you know, that's my dad's side or that's
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: the person that I, the way I dress when I'm
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: not on stage. And it was like, those kind of
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: things are starting to come into play. You're becoming a man,
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: you're figuring out who you are. And so, yeah, that was,
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: it was like, okay, this is more, this is reality.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: It's more authentic to me.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Since then, have you had another musical discovery?
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: No, I think it's getting more into like the nuances
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: of these. So like that, like I would, like I
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: go back to John Prine or something like that, where that's,
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: he's this sort of, he's in the periphery. of tom
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: petty in a way you know what i mean and
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: it's like you you get led there yeah and then
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: it's like these are these are you know um you
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: know the songwriter songwriters and people like that that start
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: to come into play yeah and so that that's the
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: those are the nice surprises that that have come into
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: my life along the.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: Way was was neil ever uh neil young ever.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Uh yeah he's he's he's in there okay i feel
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: like i hear a little neil on this yeah this
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: way i could hear some of that you know.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: Every once in a while um angel felt a little
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: oh yeah yeah yeah there's a yeah there's a priny
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: though in the lyrics.
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah yeah um i could see that yeah for sure
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: in the especially the some of the heavier moments yeah.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah tell me about tell me about that angel into
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: um the next track is the red uh red red
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: ground red ground i don't know if it's incidental or
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: on purpose but having the merit that slight mariachi moment
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: at the end of angel and then the big moment
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: at the top of the red yeah i mean it's
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: fun that's it's fun yeah that's great.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah i know it's um we got everything was recorded
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: in nashville but the mariachi was la you can't you
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: just can't can't fake it has to be in la
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: and so that's the only that's the only one that
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: wasn't done the only thing that wasn't done in nashville.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Did you know there was going to be a mariachi there?
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it was going to be, it's a story
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: about a Hispanic young man. Yeah. And it's a true story.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: It's a true story. And I've just, I've conceived, I've
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: changed his name. And so it just felt appropriate to
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: have the mariachi at the end.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Something you read or it's a person, you know, this
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: person I know. Wow. Yeah. I was going to ask,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: cause it is so specific, you know, like in a way.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: Um, but like, like, like beautiful. I mean, I have
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: nothing in common with that person.
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: Really. It's so that's that specific that I can tell
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: I have nothing really in common. I'm not, I don't
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: play baseball. There's no one, no one was ever scouting
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: me for anything, you know? And, um, but, uh, it's,
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: it's a really moving, it's really moving, you know?
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah. It's a, the chorus, I love what the
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: chorus does. Um, and how each, you know, it, it
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: represents each verse, but each verse is so different. And every,
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: so every time you've got this new development and the,
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: but the chorus stays this permanent to it. And I
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: love that.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. What about the red ground?
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: That's a, Red Ground, I was trying to write like
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: a Lee Hazelwood song. It ended up not like Lee
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: Hazelwood at all. But yeah, it was the fastest written song.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: It's one of those moments that you hear about that
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: just falls from heaven or falls into your lap. We
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: open with it most nights. We've only done a few shows,
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: but we open with it. And it's just such a
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: fun way to start the show. and was, was going
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: to be reserved for the other record. Cause there's two
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: records that we cut. Um, so it's really an outlier
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: in that sense, because it's more of a romantic song
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: where the rest are more narrative songs. Um, but, but
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: it just, um, it just felt good. It just felt
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: good after Angel.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Wait, wait. Yeah. So what, so the second, you
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: do have a second album and it's done.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: It's, it just needs, uh, mixed more, more mixing. Okay.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: And, uh, is it in a similar vein?
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: Is it, Same band. It's just thematically different. It's more romance-leaning.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: But not like sappy romance. It's more like, what's it
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: going to take for this to last? What does it
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: take for people to make it and stay together kind
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: of a thing? It's like a hard-earned thing and not
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: so much a sappy love album.
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: It's a grown-up take on.
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, you've been in a long-term... that what like
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: in your view as some you know i'm also.
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: Married trying to make it what is it yeah in
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: your view well i i always go back to my
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: parents because i i hate from my perspective i always
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: whenever it's difficult to give advice but it's like i
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: don't i i'm so lucky i'm so successful in my
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: life with money and things like that i don't i
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: don't have i'm not fighting with my wife over bills
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: yeah so whenever i see like a super or a
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: movie star or something like that like giving, you know,
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: marriage advice or something, I always like recoil a little bit.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: So I can just tell you from my parents, who
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: were not super famous people or rich at all, they were,
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: you know, poor people. It was just, you know, it
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: was the love and letting little things go and foundation,
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: you know, they both had this shared faith and this
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: shared belief in what the job was and they kept
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: the family close and they prioritized the family. My dad
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: wasn't like, it was, you know, very much around the
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: family as I grew up. That's a big part. You
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: know that from your LDS experience. And that's also just
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: part of my upbringing.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's huge. Like there's a big, I mean, the
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: fact that, I mean, there's these big families and everyone knows,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: I would forget everybody.
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when I was four, My sister started having babies.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: So by the time I was probably 13, there were
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: 17 or 18 nieces and nephews. And so it was
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: just like, it was kind of a madhouse.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: That's wild, man. Yeah. Does it feel strange to be
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: in such a different position than your parents were at
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: your age? Does it feel a bit disorienting?
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it can be a little bit. There wasn't really
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: a blueprint for me. And you're just kind of trying to,
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: figure out how, you know, how, how it all plays out.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: There's just not a, yeah, I don't know. It's a,
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: it's a kind of a tough one. Yeah.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: Cause there's no, it's a miracle what's happened to me.
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: You know, I've been saying it on stage, you know,
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: it's part, it's part of the end of the show.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: It's a miracle. Um, I, my family wasn't artistic. They weren't,
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: you know, there were nobody, I always say that was
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: something that other people did. Um, When I was five,
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: my great-grandma moved in with us, and she lived with
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: us for a year until she passed away when she
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: was 93. And she had a piano, and that got
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: dropped off. When they dropped her off at our house,
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: they dropped off her piano, and that's it. I would
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: have never played an instrument.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: It wouldn't have even.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Been a question. How quickly were you drawn to the
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: piano once it was.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: I started getting piano lessons when I was six. And
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: it's off and on until I was 12. But that
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: was enough for me to do what I'm able to
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: do now. I know the shapes of chords. And that
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: was kind of all I needed.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: Do you play guitar as well? No. No. So you
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: write primarily on piano?
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: And do you play on your records often?
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: Synths?
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: These days?
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, like, yeah. On this, on Thrasher, no. But there
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: might be a couple of melodies that I had pre,
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: you know, that were already sort of set in stone
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: before we went there that we would have showed the guys.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: Like the head on Paradise. I call it the head.
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: I don't even know what, you know, the head on Paradise?
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Yes. You flexing your music target.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, the only reason I know that, well, no,
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: Vinucci went to music college, whatever he did. And so
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: I only learned that from him. So I know the
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: head on Paradise. I wrote that at home, and then
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: we just showed it to Lauer.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so how did you have demos of these? How
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: did you show this? In what form did you bring
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: the songs to Nashville to show the band?
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: Some of them were pretty well demoed. Okay.
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: They weren't, they weren't, they didn't sound necessarily, definitely not
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: as good as they sound now, but they were, you know,
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: they were, the structure was there and the song was there.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: It's cool because sometimes I hear demos for songs and
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: I'm like, man, the demo sounds better because it has
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: a sparseness and just has a stark, it just it
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: feels like but this album does not sound at all
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: overproduced i mean so it's i i um i'm i'm
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: grateful that there wasn't like it feels like.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: Every time you know every time we make a record
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: i think i'm gonna go i'm gonna go sing it
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: 10 times after and we're gonna make a comp and
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: then i went and did that for this record and
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: every time we went back to me singing live and
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: used the live stuff. It's just, there was a spontaneity
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: and just a, there was a real spirit just playing
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: with the guys.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. How many songs are on the next thing?
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: 10, 10 or 11.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: 10 or 11?
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: Okay. So you had about 20 some songs?
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: I think we did 23. There might be a couple
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: that just may never surface.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: Never, never surface. And are these albums of a piece?
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: When is the second album?
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: Oh, I think the next one will come out next, uh,
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: in 2027. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Probably in the summer, around
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: the summertime. Yeah.
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: What, um, you know, I was, I'm going to ask
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: about the title where it came from. I think that
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: might also be why I was so in the Neil,
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: Neil Young lines. Yeah.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: He has a song called Thrasher.
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. From Russ Never Sleeps. That's, you know, phenomenal. Yeah.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: No, it goes back to the, the, the more about
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: the masculinity question, actually.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah.
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: Um, I was, when we first moved to, To Payson,
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: where Footloose was filmed.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: Forever will be known as.
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: Jewel was born there also.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Jewel? Jewel? Yeah. I thought she was from Alaska.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: She was born in Payson.
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: Wow. Okay.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: Anyway. I'll tell another one. I'm just going to say it.
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: I'm going to tell another one. I met her once.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: I told her.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: Did you tell her?
• 51:07
  Speaker 2: I told her I grew up in Payson. I lived
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: in Payson. Did not care. She said, thanks for sharing.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: What?
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: I was like, what a weird answer. See, you guys
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: are getting my guard down on the couch.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: I shouldn't be sitting down. But what a weird answer, Jewel.
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: All right. Sorry. I would never answer. I don't know.
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: Show some. I don't know. It's kind of interesting.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, how many people in your line of work
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: have any connection to bass in Utah? Maybe Salt Lake.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: You know, you could see. Yeah.
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: It is, yeah. I'm in the right.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: You are. I'm telling you firmly. How do you interact
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: with fans?
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: I try to do my best. I had some unsavory experiences.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: I had some great experiences with people I idolized. I
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: also had some weird ones.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: What were the good ones?
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: Good ones. I always go back to this. Danny Elfman.
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: who I know is a little bit on the fringe
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: right now. Older, yeah. But he was having a birthday.
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: I was a busboy at Spago.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: Was there Spago in Vegas?
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, in Caesars Palace. And I was 18. And I
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: loved Oingo Boingo. Man. It was sort of like the
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: closest thing I got to punk. You know what I mean?
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: They had a real punk ethos, I think, in that band.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: But then had the keyboards to sort of mitigate that. Yeah,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: and brass.
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: And it was so good. They have a song called
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: Private Life that's just like... You could wake me up
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: at three in the morning out of dead sleep and
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: I could sing the lyrics of Private Life. Anyway.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: Love it.
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: He's having dinner with his wife and his friends. And my...
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: We're told not to, obviously not to harass anyone, but especially,
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: you know, celebrities and famous people and all that, that
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: come into the restaurant. He's not in my section. I'm
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: out front, like, you know, where the Gucci and, you know,
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: whatever is out here. And I'm out here and he's
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: back in the dining room, but I know he's back there.
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: And so I break protocol. I can't help it. And
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: I go up to the table and I'm like, you
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: just say the thing. I'm a big fan or whatever.
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: I don't know what you're hoping for. But he was fine.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: I think he shook my hand. So as soon as
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: I walk out, I see we had this manager named Trinny.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: And it's a strange name, Trinny. I guess that's why
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: I remember it.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: Like Trinny Lopez.
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: Trinny.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: That's the only other Trinny I can think of.
• 53:44
  Speaker 2: And Trinny is pissed that I just did what I did.
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: He saw what I did. But the interesting thing about Trinny,
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: this is crazy. He met his wife at an Oingo
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: Boingo concert.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Wait, what? After the... Like, before.
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: This is true.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: Before. No, before.
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: So he gets it. Like, if anybody gets it, Trini
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: gets it.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: Sorry. In all of Las Vegas, like, how many people even...
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean?
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: Trini gets it.
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: Trini got it, but he still got.
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: He didn't fire me, but I got in trouble. And Elfman...
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: I always call him the Elfman, which is a thing
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: from my brother. But anyways, the Elfman sees this happen.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: He kind of knows I'm in trouble. It's not... It
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: wasn't common, but I worked the night shift. Then I
• 54:27
  Speaker 2: worked the day shift. So the next morning, I'm opening.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: And I'm, you know, like, whatever. I'm, like, cleaning spots
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: off of glasses and rolling up silverware and all that.
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: And I see Danny Elfman walking. He's just walking in
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: the mall, which I'm just kind of excited. Again, there
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: he is. And he walks up. And walks straight to
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: the hostess desk and leaves a piece of paper and
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: then just walks off. And I run over to the
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: hostess desk like, what is he saying? What is he doing?
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: And it was a note to me. And just like so,
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: you know, went out of his way to write me
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: a note and bring it back the next day.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: And it's like, that's a great experience.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: That is phenomenal. Yeah.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: That was really nice.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: Have you had a chance to?
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I've talked to him about it. Later on, we
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: were able to work with Tim Burton, which has been
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: a really amazing thing. And so they have that great
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: history together. Anyway, yeah.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: That was a good one. Give us another bad one.
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: Give us another bad one.
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: The bad is... I mean, the same restaurant is a Morrissey.
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: Morrissey Interaction wasn't the greatest. But that's just what you expect.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Morrissey has Spago?
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: That's to be expected.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: But Morrissey has Spago.
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: Spago, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: I think it was... And if I'm right, because you
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: know he can't– he's in the news now for canceling gigs,
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: but he's been canceling gigs forever. So it's just par
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: for the course. So I think I saw him– I
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: was meant to see him four times growing up, and
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: he canceled two of them, which is like that's about right.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: Half and half.
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: And my kids now want to see him, and we
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: were going to go see him, and he's canceled both
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: times that we were supposed to go see him.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: That's not the bad part, though, right?
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: No, no, it was just like I was, but this,
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: I tell you, I'm partly to blame for it because
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: I was a little bit over the top. Because I
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: was like, he has an effect on people, you know.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: It's that, it's the.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's just, and so I was like a disciple, man.
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: And he came to eat. And I think he was
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: coming to eat the day after he canceled the gig
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: that I was supposed to go to. I'm pretty sure
• 56:35
  Speaker 2: it was the same, the same trip. Anyway, so he
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: didn't look too sick to sing. He was going out
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: and he was getting a mushroom pizza. And it's fine.
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: And he just wasn't having it. He's used to that.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: He's used to it. To people just falling over themselves.
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: Was it just complete ignoring?
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was nothing.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: Nothing. Yeah. How excited would you be for a Smiths reunion,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: a proper Smiths?
• 57:04
  Speaker 2: Now it's just different. Now it's just... Well, it's impossible now, too.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: I heard they got close, man.
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they say that. And they say that Johnny Marr
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: was the one that turned it down. And it's like
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: out of righteous indignation. And it's like, good on him. Yeah,
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: that's true. That's a bold move.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: That's true. I love Johnny Marr.
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: We love him, yeah. We've got to tour with him
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: a little bit and got to know him a little bit,
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: and he's just great.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: Have you played with him?
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we did a whole tour playing with him across
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: North America.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: Have you done a studio session with him?
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: No, but we did This Charming Man. What's crazy, we
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: did This Charming Man with him at Glastonbury. What's amazing
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: about that is we'd never... met before the before backstage
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: yeah and we just ran through the song backstage and
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: then went out and played to 100 000 people and
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: did and did it and it was like so great
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: such a fun night such a fun moment um and
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: then he ended up coming around with us and um
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: and we would do fun we would do songs that
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: he hasn't played in you know 40 years and um
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: and some that he had never played live that i
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: didn't realize i'd forgotten that they broke up before they
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: toured the last record yeah so we're doing, if you're
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: doing a song on strange ways, here we come. He's
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: never played that live with, with, with the singer. And
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: so we chose stop me. If you think you've heard
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: this one before, and I didn't realize I'm, this is
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: the first time, you know, that he's doing it with a,
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: with a band and a singer. And that was, that
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: was a while to, to realize that after we did
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: cool stuff, like what she said and some deep cuts
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: that I love.
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: What was he so articulate about music too? What was
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: his read on, on, on you guys?
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: Um, He's, you know, he was really, really positive about us.
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: He seems to like us enough.
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, yeah.
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: He would watch the shows. There was a special moment. Well,
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: there's two special moments. So he would watch every night,
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: which has no business. He doesn't need to do this.
• 59:03
  Speaker 2: And he would watch from the side. And there's a
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: moment at the end of Runaways where I'm just, I'm
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: ripping this little Tom Petty thing. And he called me
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: out on it. And it's just a little, it's just
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: more of like a, tip of the hat to him.
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: It's not like for stealing anything bad. And I would,
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: and I, every time I did it after he told me,
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: I would look over at him and he would, you know,
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: like give me a little look. And then the other
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: thing is there's this moment on caution. This is a
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: song of ours is a single from imploding the mirage,
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: which sort of went under the radar. It was during
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: COVID and everything was just blah, blah. But this song,
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: it's got something. Everybody go check out Caution from Imploding
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: the Mirage. But we would play it and there's this
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: beautiful moment. It's a synth line after the chorus. It's
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: the head. And he told me, he said this beautiful
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: thing to me once. And he said, when you play that,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: It's one of the beautiful things about live music. It's like,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: I like to think of it like when that's happening,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: you know, in the whole world, like that for those
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: 15 seconds, it's the best, you know, it's the most
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: beautiful thing that's happening in the world. And when you
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: play that melody at the end, after the chorus is across,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, after the chorus of Caution. And it was
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: just like, what a thing to say, you know, what
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: a great thing to hear from Johnny Marr.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's enough to make you look, you know.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: It is a pretty part, but I don't, you know.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: That's beautiful, man, to get that kind of an endorsement.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can't help but like walk a little bit taller.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. Speaking of songs that I feel like never,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: and I think people like the song, I think people
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: like the album, but the first song.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: Crossfire.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: No, the first song from your first solo album. Oh,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: what is it? Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: Is that the first song?
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: First song. And, you know, never got, like, at the
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: time it didn't get in that sense, obviously, either. Never got, like,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: single treatment. No, yeah. But it's such a, I don't know,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: it's just like, it's so clearly like a phenomenal song.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: Oh, thanks. Yeah, we haven't been playing that. We need
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: to break that thing out, maybe. It's sort of like
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: coming from a, it's like an Elvis impersonator, like, down
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: on his luck kind of a story.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: That's what you think of it?
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: That's right. Do you ever embody a character when you're singing?
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I try. I mean, I try to inhabit them.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: You know, if it's a narrative and it's a specific person,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: I try to a little bit, yeah. On the new record,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: there's a song called Paradise about an aging valet, Parker.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: And so I try to, you know, because that was
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: my plan. What do you mean that was your plan?
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: That was.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: my, that was what I wanted to do in Bay,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: you know, being in Vegas. And my, my cousin was
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: your life's plan. Yeah.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: My uncles and my cousins and, and you know, my
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: dad even was a bellman at treasure Island. And, um,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: and right now this one stems from my cousin, Bobby.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: He's a, he works at the Luxor. So I'm sort
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: of trying to step into his shoes a little bit.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: Wow. Did you, does he know this?
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I went, I okayed it with him.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: Does he appreciate the song?
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: It's great. It's that song has some, really kind of
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: poignant couplets.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah the second verse gets starts to get a little sad.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah vegas when you were growing up i feel
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: like kind of went through had a i mean maybe
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: when you're through i don't know for the 80s the
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: 90s for vegas felt like from the outside a bit
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: of a a renaissance.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah uh no 80s and 90s was a big deal
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 2: yeah um well in the 80s we got the It
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: started to go family friendly. Okay.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: That was in the 80s when that started?
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: 80s, yeah. It started in the late 80s and you
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: got the volcano. You started getting these attractions. The Mirage
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: had the volcano.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: And it was like, man, I mean, if somebody came
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: to town, we were going to the Mirage to see
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: the volcano. Like that's what we were doing 100%. And
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: so that kind of stuff started happening. And then there
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: was like a theme park at the MGM.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: And, and that, that, and that started going into the
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: nineties and, and then it was really family, you know,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: it was really in the nineties. It was like a
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: really family.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 2: And it's crazy how big dance culture became in the
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: early two thousands and switched, you know, started switching into
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: the two, in the two thousands, but it was a great,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: it was great. I think that feel like that was
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: the golden. I mean, obviously there was like the rat pack,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: the rat pack vibe, but there was something special about
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: that late eighties. There was a sweet spot, man.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: That's gone.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: And probably what makes that such a sweet spot, too,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: is because some of the people from that initial era
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: were still there.
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you had Siegfried and Roy, and you had Wayne Newton.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: Who you've gotten to. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: Perform with Wayne. Yeah, we've done it.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: It's crazy. Yeah.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: That was another one of those things. It was just like,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: you knew where Wayne Newton lived.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: You actually knew where he lived. Oh, yeah.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, he had a huge compound in Green Valley.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 2: It's called Green Valley. It's in between... Henderson and Las Vegas.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: And it was a massive wall. My brother, I remember
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: him coming home one night and being like, him and
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: his buddies jumped up on the wall and looked over
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: the wall into Wayne's world.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: Into Wayne's world.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: And they were so excited. And there was a helicopter.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: Was Tyson living there at that time too?
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I love these little bits. It's like the
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: gym I would go to. had a speed bag, and
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: the ball, the bag was off of it, and there's
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: just a chain hanging. And Tyson had come to the
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: gym one day just to mess around and broke it.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: So forever, there's just a chain. They never replaced it.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: Those are like those little Las Vegas-centric things that I love.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: I went to a daddy day at school with my
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: kids once, and one of the other dads was David Copperfields.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: wait it's like what yeah it's like vegas is wild
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: um it was it's but yeah that was it was
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: a good time it's a good time.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: David copperville it's phenomenal just like on his phone he
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: was at your kid's school yeah his kid was.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: In the same grade as my grade as my kid
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 2: yeah kids yeah funny yeah yeah he had a straggler
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: yeah do you remember tupac nine yeah my friend sorry
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: A kid on my golf team, his dad was one
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: of the surgeons that worked on him. So it was like,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: because you know all of the whatever, the lore, is
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: he alive or any of that. But my friend was like,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: I can confirm my dad was like in the room. Yeah.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: And yeah, that was a crazy, crazy thing.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: That's wild.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: That music was so good. That was when I was
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: in high school, in my last couple years of high
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: school is when all that stuff was, it was just
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: so undeniable.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. You were into hip hop? Yeah, either.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 2: It didn't matter, East Coast or West Coast. What was
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: good was good, and it was just so good.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Did that put a pall on the city, though,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: for a bit?
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: Or not so much? Not so much. Maybe for a
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: couple of weeks. You know, it's in the headlines again.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: The guy that, were they arrested, that guy? That's old
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 2: Henderson that I was talking about. That's where you grew up?
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: I lived a street over from where that guy's house was.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: That's where I lived with my sister when the band started.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: It's crazy that they solved that. Any songs we haven't
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: talked about that you want to talk about from this?
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: I'm okay.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: What's In a Heartbeat about?
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 2: Well, most of the songs on the record are really
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 2: personal songs and about actual people. In a Heartbeat is, again,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: a little bit, is the only one that's a little different.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: It was just, I'm just doing my best Chris Christopherson
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: and just wrote a sad story. Yeah.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: He's Chris Christopherson is one of the, yeah, that was
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: one of the few on the album where I knew
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: right away. Okay. This is clearly, this is super sad.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 2: You know? Yeah.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: But, um, it's, it's a great listen.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: Oh, thanks. Yeah. The musicianship on that, the, with the outro,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: we just let them run. It goes on for about
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: a minute at the end, which I don't typically do.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: They just, it sounds so good. We were just like,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: let the guys keep playing.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: And I love, I love, I love the outro. Yeah.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: It's phenomenal, man. And who are you playing with on,
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: on the road?
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: We got guys. The bass player is Snake Blanton. He
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: was an auxiliary musician with the Killers, and when Mark's
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 2: not there, he plays bass. And then he's been with
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 2: me on all three solo endeavors. And we got a
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 2: drummer from the Howling Bells named Glenn. We got a
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: pedal steel player who's also a Nevada kid, Muskrat. His
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 2: name is Musgrat. Brady Musgrat Henry.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: Just Kristen and Musgrat.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: But yeah, there's like nine of us up there. But yeah,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 2: we got Robbie Conley, who's another Killers Auxiliary musician who
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: gets to play lead with me on this and is
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: like a phenomenal guitar player. And it's been going great.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: How does performing this feel compared to being the front
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: man of the Killers?
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a little bit more tame of an experience.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: But there's a I've been taking the time to tell
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: a little bit more stories because the rooms are smaller,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 2: and it really lends itself to that, this music. And
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: that's been really interesting. It gives you a whole new
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: insight into the songs before you play them, and you
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: might see them through a different lens.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: Do you walk? I was thinking, going back to you
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: were loathe to be sitting for this part, but this
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: album seems like it would lend itself... to sitting and
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: you could sit for me i.
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: Choose not to.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: You so you just are you stationed harry are.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: You i drew i try yeah i i do a
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 2: lot with my face if i need to but i
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 2: know i move a little bit i just it's just
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: if if there's a moment you know i got i
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 2: got a couple of moments worked out.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: Amazing And I'm realizing before we wrap up too, I
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: never let you finish the Thrasher meeting. You said it.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: Was related to.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. No, it's okay. When we first moved to Payson,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: I don't want to over exaggerate. It wasn't like I was...
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: It was like.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 2: Trauma that i carry but i was built i you
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: know i i got into a couple of fights and
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: i got i was mildly bullied and i got my
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: butt kicked one time in particular by this kid that
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: country kid that was just like i had no i
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: had no chance it was like a thing that you
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: just didn't see coming either it was like it wasn't
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: even like we didn't like square up and you know
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: he just it was sort of a sucker punch and
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: it was just like those things you know when you're
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: in the fourth grade You don't want that. That's not
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: what you're looking for. And so my dad took the
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: opportunity to try to teach me how to fight. And
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: that's sort of where, in Utah, to thrash someone is
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: to be a victor in a fight, basically. And so
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: I've always felt, back to masculinity, like I wasn't as...
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 2: masculine as maybe my dad wanted me to be or
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: as I could have been. But I've become a thrasher
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: in another sense.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: In another sense.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and so that was where the title came from.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: And on the cover, I'm swinging.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: What did he make of the theatrics of sort of
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: your front man?
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: Oh, once that happened, it was such a surprise to everybody,
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: I think, the way it all played out, that he's
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: always been really supportive and proud. But he's always been
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: waiting for me to make this record. So he's really,
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: really into this record.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: Also, before we go, what was the impetus for your
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: falling out with or your distaste for Fall Out Boy
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: and all of that? I have a similar distaste for it. Okay.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: It was weird. I think going back to that, they
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: were on the same label as us and the same
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: A & R guy, and I think we were just
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: sort of fighting for attention. Okay. And I wanted all
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: of it.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: Does.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: Does that competitive spirit remain in you?
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's how I was born. I was
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: just born this way, you know, just, uh, it's, um,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: I think it's healthy. I don't, you know, it shouldn't
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: just be reserved for sports or, you know, I think,
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: you know, it's just, it's okay to have, it's, it's
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 2: become more of a friendly thing now, but, you know, I'm,
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: I'm excited to hear something that that's great.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: Music in general has become more friendly or you've become more? Both. Yeah.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: And just both in the way that I see it,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: you know, there's room for all of us. Yeah.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: I do like some of the competitiveness, though. I do
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: miss that. I mean, that quote was like, when I
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: revisited it, I was like, that's a throwback to another
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: time when you could just say crazy shit.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, it just wasn't. They're just doing
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 2: the best they can. They're just doing the music that
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 2: they like, you know. I'm doing the music I like.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: Thanks for doing your music, man. Appreciate it. Broken Record
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: is produced and edited by Leah Rose with marketing help
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Talladay.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: love this show and others from Pushkin, consider subscribing to
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription that offers
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: bonus content and ad-free listening for $ 4. 99 a month. Look
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcast Subscriptions. And if you
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: like this show, please remember to share, rate, and review
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: us on your podcast app. Our theme music is by
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richmond.