Latest / The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine / Jonathan Jones: Waking Ashland

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Jonathan Jones: Waking Ashland · The BlackSheep Podcast: Presented by HM Magazine

• 0:06
  Something's very wrong here. Your car is frozen over something very strange lost all
• 0:17
  to sire. The coprove started in the guess you all right? Today?
• 0:30
  We've got Jonathan Jones with us, and uh, Jonathan, at this point
• 0:34
  in your music career, I don't know if you feel like you are most
• 0:37
  known for a particular band or maybe your solo stuff or whatnot, but uh,
• 0:41
  I remember you initially being in Waking Nashlan, and then I followed your
• 0:45
  music career since then. But uh, I first was introduced to your music
• 0:49
  through Waken n Ashland. So obviously we'll want to talk about that and all
• 0:52
  the other parts of your music career. But uh, yeah, how are
• 0:55
  you doing today? Let let's let's first off start out with that. I'm
• 0:58
  really good. How you guys doing well? We're doing We're living the dream,
• 1:02
  as every Midwestern dad says when they are asked how they're doing. Another
• 1:07
  weather, Actually, I think tomorrow is supposed to be seventy degrees here in
• 1:11
  Minnesota. Where what's it supposed to be in South Dakota? Culin today was
• 1:15
  a record high. We hit seventy one. Seventy one yeah, so yeah,
• 1:19
  what is its real? Guys? Yeah, we want to share that.
• 1:23
  Hear me at Jonathan seventy five. Are you are you concerned about the
• 1:30
  impending flooding that they keep talking about? I am. I got lucky.
• 1:34
  The last flood actually three miles from my house, the seventy eight major highway
• 1:40
  flooded, and so that was kind of kind of gnarly, but a little
• 1:45
  concerned. Yeah, it seems like it's going in the direction of born more
• 1:49
  rain, you know, yeah, flooding. I mean we're not We're like
• 1:53
  not ready for it. The way it's so cal is kind of made you
• 1:57
  know, right, Is your home like high enough where you're a little bit
• 2:00
  higher in elevation where you don't have to worry so much as those who are
• 2:05
  obviously lower in elevation. Yeah, thankfully. So we're on a on a
• 2:08
  hill. M M. I don't have to deal with that, thank God
• 2:12
  stuff. But I took a walk today. I worked on What did I
• 2:17
  work on this morning? A song called punk rock Blues for a local local
• 2:21
  artist, Johnny Rocker. Nice. Are you are you producing now? Is
• 2:24
  that kind of like part of your your stuff that you do? Yeah?
• 2:28
  Yeah, Like after well, I guess we can we can circle back and
• 2:31
  go wherever. But after the band years kind of ended, that was like
• 2:36
  the next logical place was was mixing. I kind of fell in love of
• 2:40
  mixing through working on some licensing stuff with Dan Koch that we did. Oh
• 2:46
  it's beautiful, beautiful, yea, lovely. So you've just been kind of
• 2:50
  doing producing stuff since since all themes. Yeah, since the band years.
• 2:54
  I mean that's when it started, because you know, I was in a
• 2:57
  studio from a young age at like fifteen, I think is one of my
• 3:00
  first record from inside Out. There's an old band called inside Out. Is
• 3:07
  that on Spotify by any chance? No? It it can't be. Oh
• 3:13
  but people like it like it like legally can't be or you like, are
• 3:16
  to embarrassingly Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a song called Superhero on it
• 3:22
  and like I don't know, like one in a million's on it, like
• 3:27
  weird fourteen year old thoughts. Oh, I love that. I love that
• 3:30
  all about that. Yeah, I am too. That needs to be out
• 3:37
  in the world. I'm sorry, it does need to someone Someone rip that
• 3:39
  to YouTube, please, somebody. Somebody's out there has to have it,
• 3:44
  like on a CD or people have it. Oh yea, yeah, yeah,
• 3:47
  it's out there. And then and then uh, Formula three. While
• 3:52
  we're talking about old bands, there was prior to Waking Ashland, there was
• 3:55
  Formula three sixteen. Yeah, that Formula three sixteen. Yeah, yeah,
• 4:01
  I had to get the verse in there. Yeah, I love I love
• 4:04
  how all those bands from that area had a number in the name. So
• 4:09
  yeah, because we had because of blank. Yeah exactly. I mean,
• 4:13
  that's that's exactly what it was, right, especially a California band, like
• 4:15
  every California band had to have some sort of number in it. Yeah.
• 4:21
  Yeah, I missed out on the the So remember that the phase Oh yeah,
• 4:27
  oh yeah, the Strokes. Yeah yeah, Colin and Ice Fair band
• 4:31
  is called the Chariot. They were on you know, Solid State. So
• 4:34
  yeah, just all the Actually, I still think there's like, you know,
• 4:40
  a lot of those band names didn't really I don't think they aged well
• 4:45
  aged well. That's that's what I'm looking forward. They didn't really age well.
• 4:46
  I do think a lot of those the name ones do age pretty well.
• 4:50
  Mm hmmm. They can are a little more timeless generally. That's just
• 4:56
  because of the Beatles though. Mmm. Yeah, that's it's it's not fair
• 5:00
  the Beatles got first crack at all. The good stuff and with thus too,
• 5:06
  they wrote all the good songs and then they the that's right. You
• 5:11
  know. The funny thing is Formula three sixteen is not even the worst band
• 5:14
  name in your out of all the bands that you've had. I think Jonathan
• 5:16
  Jones might be the worst band name I've ever heard. I agree, I
• 5:20
  agree. It gets a little stale and white. Well, that's something that
• 5:25
  Mason and I talk about all the time, is like we we we get
• 5:28
  really tired of when artists just use their own names. Yeah. Yeah,
• 5:32
  I think I do it out of laziness. Yeah, well that makes total
• 5:35
  sense, but you've also created a career beforehand, so it makes a little
• 5:39
  more sense for someone like yourself. Yeah, but there's been It's funny you
• 5:44
  were talking about this, because there's been times where I wish I had more
• 5:46
  of a moniker, but I was never able to settle on one. So
• 5:50
  I released, like I've released an album when was it like last summer?
• 5:58
  Yeah, and a solo album, and it just was under my name.
• 6:00
  Because that's how that's how it is. Yeah, Because how do you decide
• 6:04
  on a moniker, right, I mean, it's got to be it's got
• 6:08
  to be really good if you're going to do it. Yeah, Like,
• 6:11
  I mean the guy that I worked for this morning, his monica was Johnny
• 6:14
  Rocker. That's pretty cool. That's a great that's a good one. Yeah.
• 6:17
  Yeah, yeah, he took it though, So I mean, I
• 6:19
  can't take that do like Jones Rocker or something brilliant Jonesy Rocker. So well,
• 6:29
  let's talk about just yeah, how did you get into music in general?
• 6:32
  You know, we don't have to go all that in on inside out
• 6:34
  because clearly there's some trauma that you're still working through on that, but but
• 6:41
  just generally, how did you get into music? Did you start playing piano
• 6:44
  and playing guitar when you were like were you one of those kids that were
• 6:47
  just like that's what I want to do early on? Or yeah, I'm
• 6:49
  just curious what what inspired you to inspired you to start playing music? To
• 6:54
  begin with, I tried guitar when I was five and got I couldn't do
• 7:00
  it, like my mind can't understand the strings. And my mom family one
• 7:04
  night crying in my bed and she's like, why why are you crying?
• 7:09
  And I was just so upset because I didn't want to do guitars. So
• 7:12
  then she's like, well, let's trike piano, and so that kind of
• 7:15
  started it all. And that clicked Twinkle Twinkle Little Star was like happening.
• 7:19
  I was like, Okay, now we're getting somewhere. This is a song
• 7:24
  and and then it was like a classic. I was Russian. I had
• 7:27
  a Russian piano teacher, so did did kind of the classical training for like
• 7:33
  a decade and then yeah, and that that was actually it holds up well
• 7:40
  looking back, but at the time it was like because I was a you
• 7:43
  know, surfer kids, so like I'd want to be out there for the
• 7:46
  swell, but then I'd have to go to piano lesson and then practice,
• 7:50
  you know, practice sometimes when the waves are good, I'd need to practice.
• 7:55
  Yeah, so you want to be you want to be shredd Gnar,
• 7:58
  but instead you got to be learned in Tchaikovsky instead, right, yeah,
• 8:01
  yeah, yeah, But then it was kind of like what happened. It
• 8:05
  was the whole I'm way more into the band than the other guys. So
• 8:11
  then high school band takes its course, and then I studied music at cal
• 8:16
  State Northridge for a few years and that's where I met Ryan Lawyer, who
• 8:22
  I started waking Ashland with and so that was kind of Yeah, it was
• 8:26
  cool. I mean we clicked and then it was like one of those moments
• 8:31
  where you're so young you don't realize it, but it was special enough where
• 8:35
  we were writing songs like really fast and then we just left school or like
• 8:39
  I think six months later we finished out like the semester. I would say
• 8:46
  he did it right, because the first thing you got to do is if
• 8:48
  you want to be in a band, you got to find someone with piercing
• 8:52
  blue eyes and a great head of hair. And that's a virtue also on
• 8:58
  an instrument, and then you're going to be You're gonna be solid, you're
• 9:00
  gonna be golden, especially in the time of the cold plays of the World
• 9:05
  and stuff like that. Yes, yeah, that was the era for sure.
• 9:09
  No, and it's funny you say that because he liked it. Was
• 9:13
  kind of like a first moment where he really liked it. I can play
• 9:16
  the piano, you know, because he was really good at guitar, but
• 9:18
  he at that point he didn't play any keyboards, and so it clicked.
• 9:22
  But yeah, it was funny because he was in the jean jacket kind of
• 9:26
  indie kid. He was from he's from Boston that that back there, so
• 9:31
  it was like West coast, East coast comes together and it was cool.
• 9:37
  Yeah, and that that kind of just started us down and let's see,
• 9:39
  I mean so where I could go many places with that helped focus me.
• 9:46
  Well, I do like this kind of you mentioned this really quick coling about
• 9:50
  like, yeah, it's kind of this era of there's this piano driven rock
• 9:54
  and pop music that's going on at that time, and obviously, you know
• 9:58
  I would say, yeah, maybe Coldplay kind of spearheaded that, like,
• 10:01
  oh you can do this very piano centric kind of music that really has these
• 10:05
  poppy elements that are you know, really enjoyable and catchy and earwormy and that
• 10:09
  kind of thing. Did you did you listen to any of those bands that
• 10:15
  kind of like gave you this sense of like, oh, like I've got
• 10:18
  this talent on piano and like I can create that kind of sound of my
• 10:22
  own version of it. Or was it sort of like I really like this
• 10:26
  music and I like I don't really know where I fit because like my thing
• 10:31
  that I really do well is piano. Like did you did you feel like
• 10:33
  there was like where you were at odds at all? The time where you
• 10:37
  were like, I want to do rock stuff, but like my only instrument
• 10:39
  is piano, or I'm just curious, like what that relationship was given,
• 10:43
  Like what was in the landscape of music at the time. Yeah, good
• 10:46
  question. I found myself playing the piano like a guitar at a pretty young
• 10:52
  age because I loved, you know, I loved all the guitar heavy music.
• 10:56
  Actually I didn't listen to a ton of pian I know players. It
• 11:01
  was more of like I just love like what you guys grew up on.
• 11:05
  I loved all the loud guitars, and so it was kind of like making
• 11:09
  shapes playing the piano in a way that kind of how a voicing of a
• 11:15
  guitar would work, is what it ended up kind of being for me.
• 11:18
  But I would, yeah, I would play the piano like with the aggression
• 11:22
  of how i'd want what I'd want the guitar to do in the song.
• 11:26
  And so it was cool to finally meet someone who kind of could translate like,
• 11:33
  oh, he's doing that the languages I need to do, like eighth
• 11:35
  notes on guitar. And so it was like a shorthand that Waking Ashland was
• 11:41
  able to build and it it featured the piano. But I think that's kind
• 11:45
  of what made our early stuff, you know, unique to us, was
• 11:48
  that it was the the way the piano and the guitars would blend, you
• 11:52
  know, and it was just cool. It was like a sound you'd play
• 11:58
  and they'd be like the voicings would all just kind of have this pop,
• 12:03
  kind of big pop rock sound. Yeah. One of my favorite things about
• 12:07
  that is if it just it feels like such a huge sound that it's not
• 12:11
  replicated very often anymore. But at that time it was really starting to come
• 12:15
  into its own. What Waking Ashen did really great was you guys had a
• 12:20
  little bit more distortion than what a lot of other bands were doing, at
• 12:22
  least at least for my listening ear, and so it felt even bigger on
• 12:28
  like choruses and stuff like that. I mean, it was really energetic.
• 12:33
  Yeah, Like thank you. A lot of that credit, I would say
• 12:37
  it was from Luji Ordano. He was a producer, and I think we
• 12:41
  were really fortunate to work with him because he saw like what the sound could
• 12:48
  be and he was able to expand it. And then I mean Ryan was
• 12:52
  just so good with tone. It was like quite a good match. But
• 12:56
  like all thanks to tooth and Nail for you know, being like it was
• 13:01
  a good situation because they put us like with the right people in a great
• 13:05
  you know, it's back when the budgets we were right at the tail end,
• 13:07
  so the budget was reasonable where we could be in just an outstanding sounding
• 13:15
  room. We recorded out in a Hoboken at Water Music. I hope it's
• 13:20
  still there. It might it might be, but sorry, Mason, to
• 13:26
  come full circle about the kind of the way it was hard for me,
• 13:33
  like to use the piano and in an aggressive way. I wish I could
• 13:41
  go back because now it's funny now as a producer mixer, like, I
• 13:46
  see what I was trying to do with the piano. But it was such
• 13:50
  a it was just one snapshot of it, kind of sure because I didn't
• 13:56
  even know, like you could distort pianos, but that that hadn't even my
• 14:01
  twenty one year old mind. It's interesting, like how many other bands kind
• 14:07
  of popped up around that time that also had a very like piano centric or
• 14:11
  like had a focus on the piano at least in a lot of their music.
• 14:15
  You know, Colin and I grew up with like Copeland were big fans
• 14:18
  of Copeland, Like obviously Copeland had a lot of that, especially early on.
• 14:22
  The Rocket Summer was a band that I listened to quite a bit,
• 14:24
  So that was and they were kind of in that orbit of like Christian adjacent
• 14:28
  like tooth and nail adjacent stuff. And so there's like a number of other
• 14:31
  bands like that, and then even just like from the mainstream world, like
• 14:33
  there was a lot of that, like I still think of like Vanessa's Carlton
• 14:37
  song is like still like maybe one of the most iconic songs of the last
• 14:41
  twenty five years, and again a very like piano pop song, and so
• 14:46
  there was like there, it was just like you guys came around right at
• 14:48
  this time where there was this like piano pop rock thing that was happening,
• 14:54
  and it's like interesting to like know that, like you, I didn't feel
• 14:56
  like you really had any predecessors to like base that off of, Like you
• 15:00
  just sort of were like I really like punk music, but like I'm really
• 15:03
  damn good at the piano. Let's see if we can try to make this
• 15:05
  happen, and you all kind of happen, like you all just kind of
• 15:07
  did it at the same time, and there was a ton of them that
• 15:09
  were doing it. There was really interesting, no I And to add to
• 15:16
  that, I mean something corporate was happening around that time, right, which
• 15:20
  they just announced today that they're like getting back together. Do you see that.
• 15:22
  I just saw that. Yeah, No, that's I didn't see that.
• 15:26
  That's super Yeah, they're getting back together for like a like a like
• 15:28
  a nationwide tour that and yeah, I meant, like Frank, like Jack's
• 15:33
  Mannequin is like another one of those bands where I'm like, but they came.
• 15:37
  Yeah, obviously something corporate started before you guys, but like Jack's Mannequin,
• 15:41
  like is another one of those bands where I'm like, so piano forward
• 15:43
  and like making such great rock music, really good rock music. His records
• 15:48
  I was checked. I was listening back to kind of all his discography and
• 15:52
  they hold up pretty well. They're fun, well, they sound great.
• 15:56
  Yeah. Yeah, they still have like that energy, which is awesome.
• 16:00
  Oh, you had mentioned rocket Summer. Funny quick story. This summer,
• 16:04
  my wife and I with our family, we went on a cruise to Alaska,
• 16:08
  and I remember on the first day of the cruise kind of just walking
• 16:12
  around and there was this lounge area and piano player was playing, and I
• 16:18
  kind of as I'm watching the piano player, he's singing, and then across
• 16:22
  the room, my eye catches this other guy and I'm like, that's nah,
• 16:26
  that's not that's not Bryce. And then I didn't think anything of it
• 16:30
  because I'm like that that's not Bryce, though, and then I like thought
• 16:33
  I thought about the rocket summer. And then like two days later, we're
• 16:37
  going down this narrow hallway and we we have this moment where we both look
• 16:45
  at each other and then we pass each other, but then we like both
• 16:49
  back up and are like, hey, so it was Bryce and he was
• 16:55
  to be Yeah, he happened to be on What are the chances on the
• 16:57
  Alaska Random Care? That's wild. That's one one one side thing that I
• 17:03
  always have to ask people who are piano first people, just because it seems
• 17:07
  like your brains work a little bit differently than a lot of people's. How
• 17:11
  big of a fan of Jacob Collier are you? Oh? I know,
• 17:17
  like just from Instagram and like everyone I know of him and I've seen him,
• 17:22
  but I haven't done the Deep Dive, but of everything I've seen,
• 17:26
  I'm a fan. I mean the guy's a virtuoso and I've seen where he
• 17:29
  like directs these large audiences and then he's so music. I mean, it's
• 17:34
  like everything that guy does, like music is just like spilling out of him.
• 17:41
  That's my perception of him. It's just he's good, that's cool.
• 17:45
  He's yeah, yeah, he's piano. I mean he's like I think Quincy
• 17:49
  took him under right. Yeah. Do you think he's a as well as
• 17:55
  Herbie Hancock too, So those guys have yeah. Okay, speaking of like
• 18:00
  kind of piano, here's a thought lately that's been going through my mind.
• 18:04
  I've been playing a lot more piano lately, I think partly because I'm looking
• 18:10
  to kind of dabble back in the live circuit, like a few weeks out
• 18:14
  of the year, you know, nothing too much, just more to keep
• 18:15
  up with friends and stuff. But when I was younger in writing songs,
• 18:22
  I would just play, and I was like almost afraid to listen to other
• 18:27
  people for fear I think of like not stacking up properly, and so I
• 18:34
  would like hear the songs, but I wouldn't want to hear it too much,
• 18:37
  almost like it would influence me badly. So that's like a totally it
• 18:41
  doesn't hold up. But that's backwards. So what I lately, like maybe
• 18:45
  a couple of years ago, I started playing the records and it was like
• 18:48
  this crazy moment where I was like, oh, like twenty years ago,
• 18:52
  I should have played the records because it's been like it's really it's like the
• 18:57
  new It's really fun to play the records. Like it's like everyone's done it
• 19:03
  forever, but I'm like was late to that game. And that's had on
• 19:08
  my playing now, like and producing, mixing and everything. The biggest impact
• 19:12
  is just you know, when I was younger, I'd have the headphones on
• 19:18
  listening to all the bands, and now it's cool I'm an old, older
• 19:22
  dude now that I can put the headphones on and play to anything, and
• 19:26
  that's like the richness of that. It's like a deeper level of interacting with
• 19:30
  these records that I've grown up with and I'm finally you know, learn learning
• 19:36
  them. And that's it's been cool as a piano player because you know,
• 19:41
  it's right. I don't know if you guys heard like when people talk,
• 19:42
  like with the piano, it's all laid out right there, so you can
• 19:47
  kind of use your imagination and if you hear a cello part, I mean
• 19:52
  you can kind of see where it would be. And so I've been trying
• 19:55
  to lean into that more and more. Do you ever find yourself playing any
• 20:00
  waking nash and stuff? I mean it's interesting, like at this point,
• 20:04
  it's almost twenty years since you release like your Guys' first full length, and
• 20:10
  there'll be a number of years. There are still a few more years before
• 20:14
  it's the twenty years for the Well, but yeah, I mean it's spent
• 20:18
  some time. Do you feel like a sense of nostalgia for it where maybe
• 20:22
  you feel like disconnected from it enough at this point where you're like, this
• 20:25
  is kind of fun to mess around with, Like this stuff that I ended
• 20:29
  up making twenty or almost twenty years ago. Yeah, it's kind of gone
• 20:33
  full circles. So like there was a period where I wanted nothing to do
• 20:40
  with any of that, and I tried to run from that, and that
• 20:42
  actually turned out to be kind of unhealthy. You know, you can't run
• 20:48
  from kind of who you are, and I didn't really want to avoid those
• 20:53
  years. And then now as I've been playing the songs again, or I
• 20:57
  played the songs all the last twenty years, and it's like, it's funny
• 21:02
  how there's seasons where there's been times where I'll go down a dark pathway in
• 21:07
  my head of like, wow, I am I really playing this? I
• 21:11
  am for you right now again. But then I've been able to arrive at
• 21:18
  a place where it's almost every time I play it, I'm able to find
• 21:22
  a new angle and it's a new performance and the just the subtleties and then
• 21:29
  trying to even the perfectionist of me trying to sing it, like, well,
• 21:32
  how many notes can I get right like hit in this live performance?
• 21:36
  You know? Can I get that falsetto? Can I do something else with
• 21:40
  that false? So so there's like I kind of look at it more now
• 21:41
  as like just an endless, lifelong conversation with songs. I wrote a long
• 21:48
  time ago that I got lucky enough because of like what you were saying,
• 21:52
  Mason about the the It just happened to be when that composure broke. It
• 21:57
  just happened to be a time and culture where people were just like super into
• 22:00
  pianos. Because I remember at the height of that, like people just love
• 22:07
  the piano. It was like this, even though I'd been around but our
• 22:10
  kind of age range and younger. It was like they were just discovering what
• 22:14
  the piano could be, and we all were and so it was like this
• 22:17
  fascination with piano and rock, and we happened just to get lucky and kind
• 22:22
  of be there. But Sorr, I'm everywhere. But basically it's like I
• 22:26
  do actually like I've come full circle and the songs mean a lot to me.
• 22:30
  They mean, it's funny how some of them mean completely different things in
• 22:37
  my journey and some of them I'm able to actually see a little deeper of
• 22:41
  what I was trying to say, and it can like it's an interesting thought
• 22:47
  process that happens. They're like, yeah, they're total weird older children.
• 22:52
  Now. Some of them aged okay, some of them didn't age very well.
• 22:57
  Colin and I are the two older child and that have not aged okay.
• 23:00
  By the way, that that's true at least your parents speaking of things
• 23:03
  that like didn't age super well. I mean, you guys like started your
• 23:08
  your your big push on my Space. So I think that that's like a
• 23:15
  really interesting moment in time. Uh, do you want to kind of tell
• 23:18
  us about how like MySpace and peer volume is stuff like that kind of blew
• 23:22
  you guys up, because I think for a band that only had a couple
• 23:26
  of records out, I mean, you guys, you guys hit big.
• 23:29
  I mean you guys still have a lot of lessens on on all the streaming
• 23:32
  platforms and stuff like that. Yeah, the no, you nailed it.
• 23:36
  Those were the two, MySpace and peer Volume. Peer Volume was actually first
• 23:41
  because that was all the rage. That's why we dropped out of school.
• 23:47
  And it was like my first taste. I remember it clearly because it was
• 23:51
  like we had this song we put up on our first EP that was Counting
• 23:55
  the Stars. It was like this very just immature, fun song and and
• 24:00
  it just like people loved it and there was like a do dooo doo song
• 24:03
  of politics of life. It was like this first ep of Waking Ashley EP.
• 24:08
  And it was the first time for me that I'd seen, you know,
• 24:14
  through the internet, people just like from all over the country and world
• 24:18
  like responding to this. I'm like, WHOA like it just it felt I'd
• 24:22
  never experienced anything like it, and so that like was very that was like
• 24:29
  a grassroots inspiring for me, and it became like a pathway I saw that
• 24:34
  as just the job. It was like the mindset every day, this is
• 24:38
  what I've been I tell this to younger hearts that I work with now.
• 24:41
  But like the goal was, I you wake up, and how can I
• 24:45
  get more listeners? How can I go hustle my music to anyone? And
• 24:49
  how can I respond to any sort of person that cares like they need to
• 24:53
  be recognized and thanked or like you know, or like appreciated. And so
• 24:59
  that came like that was pure volume. And then when we discovered my Space.
• 25:03
  When I discovered that MySpace, you know, the like people could write
• 25:08
  messages in the inbox, that was even like pure Volume on steroids, and
• 25:14
  we were just that whole top eight thing. It was funny because that really
• 25:18
  mental a lot and we I feel it's kind of slid or like not slimy,
• 25:25
  but it's like the culture was to really maneuver yourself into someone's top eight.
• 25:30
  And so, yeah, I haven't thought of my Space for pere volume
• 25:34
  so long, but there was such a culture along with it. I don't
• 25:37
  think if those platforms weren't there, no way the band doesn't get signed or
• 25:44
  anything. Because we were able to hop on our first Warp tour back in
• 25:48
  two thousand and four because of pure volume. Pure volume gave what we would
• 25:56
  be. I remember being in like Indiana or like Indianapoli and and people just
• 26:03
  being really excited to see Waking Ashland. And this was like huge for me,
• 26:07
  Like I mean, I couldn't because it's like the thought of just people
• 26:11
  from random places. It made me so happy. I guess I'm just trying
• 26:19
  to show the age of like it felt like I feel a little bit out
• 26:23
  of touch now with like the culture of social media. I find myself not
• 26:30
  or like if I was doing a band now, like a real band,
• 26:33
  Like I don't know, maybe i'd go to you. Maybe I'd go to
• 26:38
  you guys. I'd be like, can can you guys help me do a
• 26:41
  band? No, we cannot. I wish you're doing You're you say,
• 26:47
  like, I have a really cool podcast though, So it's like I lit
• 26:51
  it well. I listened a little bit before I got on to I checked
• 26:55
  out too. I caught a little bit of to Mars. I plan on
• 26:59
  listening to it all. But he it was cool because I ran. I
• 27:02
  knew Damar back from back in the day. I remember I remember playing Phoenix
• 27:10
  with him and it was the first time where where they would get off stage,
• 27:17
  and it was the first time I heard Hey there, Delilah, and
• 27:19
  like it was this energy where this was two thousand and four, I think,
• 27:23
  or five, yeah, five, maybe no, two thousand and five.
• 27:26
  And so the band would leave and then Tom would like the crowd,
• 27:30
  the energy of these girls in front would just like swell, and then he
• 27:36
  would start playing. He would start playing, and I'm getting like goosebumps now
• 27:40
  talking about it, and I should have known, but I didn't even make
• 27:42
  the connection, Like but it was already huge then, like that song,
• 27:48
  and so it was just funny. I had like really big nostalgia listening to
• 27:53
  Jamar talk like I just had a whole bunch of memories like that come back.
• 28:00
  But then like that interview is so funny because he was just like he
• 28:02
  feels like so nonchalant about it, Like, yeah, I guess this song's
• 28:04
  like got almost a billion view or a billion plays on Spotify. I was
• 28:07
  like, is what it is? I was a part of my life.
• 28:11
  I guess, yeah, this is a big deal, dude. That's how
• 28:15
  he's always like, that's he's cool. Yeah, yeah, you can definitely
• 28:19
  tell. Well, so I'd love to hear just kind of the the end
• 28:25
  of Waking and Ashley, I want to kind of put a little bit of
• 28:26
  a a you know, flip the page to the next thing. So,
• 28:30
  but but before we do that, I'd love to, yeah, just hear
• 28:33
  uh, just kind of the end, you know, because it felt like
• 28:34
  it was so abrupt, you know, you guys released the Well and then
• 28:37
  it was like a few months later he announced the breakup. And so did
• 28:41
  you feel like even going into the Well that like the writing was on the
• 28:42
  wall, like that there was going to be a new chapter for you all.
• 28:47
  I'm just curious about, like what was that breakup because I don't know
• 28:49
  like how much there is out publicly now about like what happened exactly. I'd
• 28:55
  i'd love to hear just a little bit more about that and also tell us
• 28:56
  how it was all Dan Cooke's fault. Please, Yeah, Dan, it
• 29:00
  was definitely dance involved. Not I'm just judging too involved, but let's see,
• 29:07
  Okay. So yeah, I mean it's it's a sad story. I
• 29:08
  mean it's sad. It's basically like, you know, we were such road
• 29:15
  warriors, like I think I counted and at our peak, we were playing
• 29:19
  like two hundred, I think two hundred and fifty shows, So we were
• 29:25
  just all, you know, we were and that was for like three years.
• 29:27
  We pretty pretty close, maybe two hundred to fifty a lot of shows,
• 29:32
  and so it was just or for me, I can only speak from
• 29:36
  my perspective, of course, but for me, it was I just didn't
• 29:41
  quite know yet who I was, and I was kind of like it was
• 29:45
  confusing because we were doing pretty well as a band, and I think I
• 29:48
  definitely let some of that go to my head being a front man, and
• 29:55
  it just kind of the weariness of the road wars out and I think I
• 29:59
  was I was so focused on wanting to make it whatever that means, that
• 30:04
  I was very tunnel vision to that goal at all costs, and forgetting that,
• 30:08
  you know, we're all human and it's like we need to take care
• 30:11
  of each other and have like, you know, treat people like they're not.
• 30:15
  Like there's more to people than music, right, And that's been that's
• 30:21
  all. That's all I get, really passionate about music, and that's that's
• 30:23
  always been hard for me to I forget that, and then you know,
• 30:29
  to remember as I've gotten older a lot, a lot better. But that
• 30:33
  was the main reason in it. I think I'm trying to I'm forgetting a
• 30:37
  key part. Let's see. So we oh and it was okay. So
• 30:42
  that was kind of the emotional aspect of it. And then the nuts and
• 30:45
  bolts were that our sound Ryan and I are kind of going divergent ways and
• 30:52
  it was hard to communicate. We weren't communicating about kind of the band we
• 30:57
  wanted to be, and the Wells actually one of my favorites, or like
• 31:02
  there's I really liked that record, but we didn't. We made like the
• 31:06
  record label choice. We should have stayed on In my opinion, we should
• 31:08
  have stayed on tooth and nail. They offered us a stupid good deal that
• 31:12
  we turned down. But that was that was also because you know, the
• 31:19
  the idea of you know, being I was Christian. Ryan was not Christian
• 31:25
  or like an organized religion Christian kind of thing. He wasn't. I don't
• 31:30
  think you consider himself Christian, but you know it was I see now from
• 31:34
  his vantage point, people coming up to him wanting to talk about the Lord
• 31:38
  Jesus Christ, and it's like, yeah, maybe like or it's just a
• 31:44
  weird. That's that's private no matter what. Like you know, if someone's
• 31:47
  just coming up to me and was asking me all this stuff, it would
• 31:49
  be a little weird that, you know, I grew up Methodists a little
• 31:52
  more on the liberal side of it, of the spectrum. But that's what
• 31:56
  broke us up, was the like it finally to us because it was like
• 32:01
  the gray area of are we a Christian band? Are we not a Christian
• 32:05
  ban? And we were not a Christian ban. I was writing songs very
• 32:09
  inspired by my faith in that time of life, but I didn't want to
• 32:15
  be a Christian band. So but then it was like it was told that
• 32:19
  it was okay that we weren't like Christian band. Was this whole like you
• 32:22
  know, I mean, I know you guys have heard this story a million
• 32:24
  times, like aspects of it, but we fell right into that whole era
• 32:30
  and we weren't as some other bands were able to navigate it a little better.
• 32:35
  We you know, it just caught up with us and so you know,
• 32:38
  yeah, that was the breakup. But I do shoulder a lot of
• 32:42
  it. I just wasn't ready like we you know, it was just so
• 32:45
  hard to I just wasn't there quite yet. Knowing now it's like, you
• 32:51
  know, when you're making records, those kind of records, special records,
• 32:54
  you need to it is a family, and it's like you you can't take
• 33:01
  you got to listen to people. You just got to be open to any
• 33:05
  idea, like any idea even you know, just try it. Try its
• 33:07
  cool, talk about it like that's the fun, the journey of that.
• 33:10
  But I wasn't able to do that, and so it was inevitable. But
• 33:15
  do you guys know what, sorry, go for it, going along with
• 33:21
  what you had said there that you felt like like some of it was starting
• 33:24
  to go to your head a little bit. And I think this is something
• 33:27
  that is often alluded to, but it's never talked about in any detail at
• 33:30
  all. And it seemed like you're you're relatively open about it because you you
• 33:35
  seem like you're comfortable with who you are now. Can you can you kind
• 33:38
  of tell us what that mindset was, like, what what brain space you
• 33:42
  were in that made you get to that point and create kind of a tough
• 33:47
  atmosphere for the band. It's like the consistency, it's hard. That's a
• 33:52
  hard one. I'm going to do the best I can to kind of dive
• 33:54
  deep with that, but it's like what would it what? For me,
• 34:00
  it was like it went to my head because it was like just a lot
• 34:06
  of constant communications. So I feel like a lot of people wanting just for
• 34:13
  you to respond to them, or they were really happy. It was just
• 34:16
  like it was not too easy. But it's like people. It was just
• 34:20
  this crazy thing of like, oh here and here people are, and they
• 34:23
  they're here for this music that we wrote and to see us and to hang
• 34:30
  and a lot of that's true. But then I think it was okay,
• 34:31
  here we go. It was like it was easy to start building a narrative
• 34:36
  that that maybe wasn't the complete picture of what was happening. And then for
• 34:43
  me, I think obviously the women aspect, like you know, just like
• 34:50
  the flirtatiousness with being able to like, you know, have the confidence to
• 34:54
  talk to women. But it's like only though in that moment of time,
• 35:00
  because anywhere else in life you'd get you know, the rules are back to
• 35:06
  how life is. But you know, that was like a new thing,
• 35:08
  and so I just think, yeah, like I didn't know how to handle
• 35:12
  it at twenty three. Oh and it was weird okay, and the other
• 35:16
  weird thing or at this I don't know what, like I was at that
• 35:21
  point. I didn't do any drinking or any any sort of substances I was.
• 35:24
  I was clean, So it was like just weird, just like very
• 35:30
  focused on trying to get on the biggest tour and be a big band and
• 35:36
  that's what I bought into. So that's that's what went to my head and
• 35:39
  I started kind of believing that, and I you know, so that aspect
• 35:45
  of it was why I had to well then after if we're going in chronological
• 35:51
  order, after waking Ashland, we shot the Moon, I like hadn't fully
• 35:54
  Let's just like sum up, we shot the Moon as like some of the
• 35:58
  best years of my life, but I hadn't gotten out the touring in me.
• 36:02
  So I just needed to go make like three more years of laps around
• 36:07
  the country and parts of the world. But it was a diminishing of returns
• 36:12
  in the terms of response, and so that you know, we shot the
• 36:15
  Moon kind of represented that whole era to me and so I really had to
• 36:22
  you know, take a step back, and you know, the one thing
• 36:25
  for me, I thought it would be easier to reconnect with life, like
• 36:32
  I got married you know, and you know, I thought I was going
• 36:37
  to be able to move forward to the next chapter, in which I did
• 36:40
  in many respects, but the years of the two thousand and four to twenty
• 36:46
  eleven era, you know that that was like always very deep in me,
• 36:54
  and I you know, I ended up having I just buried it, and
• 36:58
  so eventually I had actually do therapy and talk talk out those years. And
• 37:05
  I recommend that to actually people anyone who for any walk of life that you
• 37:12
  know you think you've moved forward, but if it's kind of lurking, it
• 37:15
  better to talk about it and see what's lurking then to just kind of move
• 37:21
  forward. Is what I've found, especially with art and just you know,
• 37:24
  such abrupt lifestyles. Okay, there were lots of people now it's so you
• 37:30
  know, as an aging artist, I always call it the aging artists.
• 37:34
  Especially when you were younger and had kind of a lot of attention around you,
• 37:38
  it's like it messes with your head or it's like you need to definitely
• 37:44
  talk to someone about that. And so I was able. That's why therapists
• 37:49
  that you recommend to talk about that. Other than Dan Coch, I didn't
• 37:53
  even until now make that connection. I know Dan Coke said he was open
• 37:58
  for for other know, some post line Instagram like open for out of state
• 38:02
  clients. Wow, not really really really trying to roll in the dough again.
• 38:10
  I think it's just desperate. Sure, what needs to get back together?
• 38:17
  Oh my god, they do like they do for real. They were
• 38:22
  one of my you know, we're I'm really close with them, but they
• 38:25
  were actually one of my favorite bands grown like when Pure Volume happened. They
• 38:30
  were we were always competing with him and Daphney loves Derby to try to be
• 38:36
  on the top list, only to find later that Daphne Loves Derby were rigging
• 38:42
  some sort of like rigging computers together and their colleges or high school's computer lab
• 38:47
  playing. That's brilliant. It's super brilliant. I'm I'm just sad I didn't
• 38:54
  think of that. Yeah, man, I know Jay, I know Jason.
• 39:00
  I still know Jason call Jason's Jason's Red. We should just listen to
• 39:05
  our podcast, like have him on repeat. Yeah they're like sleeping or something.
• 39:08
  Yeah. Yeah, Like I know Spotify like does something where if it's
• 39:13
  like just constantly unrepeat, it just like stops like giving you revenue for it
• 39:16
  or whatever. But I wonder if, like I doubt Apple podcast does that.
• 39:21
  I doubt it too. Yeah, we got to make it happen.
• 39:22
  There we go. So just listen to the BlackSheep podcast while you're sleeping,
• 39:27
  because you probably aren't listening anyway. So that's the worst plug ever. No,
• 39:34
  I'm gonna I'm gonna be listening. It was fun just in my stamp.
• 39:40
  I'm like, oh, I'm I'm a fan now. Oh cool.
• 39:45
  It brings me right back. It's like the I mean, I see why
• 39:47
  I'm on your guys podcast. It was funny. Julie this morning, I
• 39:51
  was telling her about it and she was like, it's like, that seems
• 39:53
  very niche, and I'm like, it is. It's a very niche,
• 39:58
  nich thing you're doing. That's very cool. Our downloads are also very niche.
• 40:04
  No, it's a you know, it's a marathon and it's not a
• 40:07
  sprint. You know. That's right, that's how we're viewing it. I
• 40:10
  think if you do it, if you do anything for ten years, you'll
• 40:13
  be successful. Yeah. I mean, I'm good for like fifty listeners.
• 40:15
  So there you go, There we go, There we go. You're gonna
• 40:19
  be You're gonna you're gonna be eighty percent of our listenership. Then to close
• 40:27
  the chapter on Waking Ashland before we talk a little bit more about kind of
• 40:30
  current music and everything. Uh, when can we get the well on Spotify?
• 40:35
  And also Telescopes? Telescopes was one of my favorite like EPs ever,
• 40:38
  especially when I was growing up. And other than like I think like some
• 40:42
  spotty YouTube videos, there's like really no way to listen to either one of
• 40:46
  those. Yeah, how do you I need we need to do that.
• 40:51
  I know we could probably just rip a CD and put it up now,
• 40:54
  right. I think it went through something Well you're asking me, yeah,
• 40:58
  rights, do you own the rights to live now? Or what? What's
• 41:00
  the what's the deal there? I haven't even checked in on that in like
• 41:04
  a decade. It was immortal, but then they went under and there's all
• 41:09
  these publishing deals because it was up for a while. But then it would
• 41:15
  always I think it we'd get in trouble or something. But I can't see
• 41:19
  that anyone would really care if we just if I just put it, uh,
• 41:22
  like yeah, I think that. I think that's what Dan did with
• 41:25
  with We're sure we did with their first EP. No, but they had
• 41:30
  the rights to that. I'm not sure. I for just throw it up
• 41:32
  there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll work on that, Mason.
• 41:38
  Yeah, because I've been like waiting, I'm like, I'd love to listen
• 41:40
  to the well, especially Telescopes. I'm telling you. Telescopes was so freaking
• 41:45
  good and and I feel like nobody like gives enough to its especially as an
• 41:51
  EP. Appreciate that flowers on the wall that was I like Resita Jams under
• 41:58
  the gun, that little rock jam. Okay, here's some little fun waking
• 42:04
  Ashland trivia. Nate Harold played on that EP, and then he and Ryan
• 42:15
  ended up filling well filling in then for fun. Oh wow. Yeah that
• 42:22
  was a lot of people don't know that story, but it was crazy for
• 42:28
  me to see. It was really cool, like they got like went on
• 42:32
  to do some crazy stuff. So you're like one degree of separation, it's
• 42:37
  one degree. Yeah, that's insane. Yeah. So you still have a
• 42:42
  better voice than than Jack Antonov. Oh no, I can't, no,
• 42:46
  you do. It's it's an easy It's an easy one for me. Okay,
• 42:54
  it was it was it mute math Oh also another like, isn't it
• 43:00
  mute? Math that like Fun opened for them for a little while and then
• 43:05
  like they blew up and it was like all of a sudden they had to
• 43:07
  become the headliner. What was it, mute Math? Fun was opening for
• 43:09
  Mutemth and then Mutemth got you know, passed up by by Fun. Yeah,
• 43:15
  that was fun when and it was like a quick it was a quick
• 43:19
  thing too. Well. I remember when Fun, I mean when May played
• 43:24
  with the why did I forget their name? Not me without you the band?
• 43:31
  We would just mentioned, oh, mute Math, Mutemath. I remember
• 43:36
  May opening for mute Math or no Mutemth opening for May and then yeah,
• 43:42
  yeah, wait, I remember a buddy actually, my friend Matt and Neil
• 43:45
  called me and he was like he's like, what's this mute Math. He's
• 43:50
  like, he of mine was this bologne? And then that that that started
• 43:53
  being the common thing. People were just like, what who are these people
• 43:59
  there? He's al up, there's they're really good. Well, when you
• 44:01
  have someone like Darren King drumming for you, yeah, also hard not to
• 44:06
  hold up shameless shameless plug here for our own podcast that is still to this
• 44:12
  day one of my outtime favorite episodes we've ever done. Yeah, absolutely insane.
• 44:15
  So if you get a chance to go back and listen to that one,
• 44:17
  because that one's nuts, I'm gonna start there. I got their uh,
• 44:22
  their self titled EP or a self titled album on vinyl a couple months
• 44:27
  ago, and they felt like they had released it on vinyl like I don't
• 44:31
  know, like twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen or something. And and then Paul
• 44:36
  found like a box of like a few hundred of them in his house or
• 44:39
  something and was like, well, I'm just gonna like release these too,
• 44:43
  I guess. And so there had already been a ton out and so like
• 44:47
  he announced, Hey, we're gonna announce it or whatever, it's gonna go
• 44:51
  on sale. I was like one of the first people like ready to like
• 44:54
  jump on it, because you know, it's like a pretty limited amount.
• 44:58
  And so I get or like I go through the website, and the website
• 45:01
  like breaks and I had like I had my credit card information, I had
• 45:06
  clicked submit or whatever, like everything was in and I clicked like submit where
• 45:08
  you like, if you click that, you can't go back. I clicked
• 45:12
  that, and it just gave you like this like just spinning forever and ever.
• 45:15
  And then yeah, exactly, And so that happens, and I like
• 45:20
  look through the Instagram comments because that's where it was posted, and everybody else
• 45:23
  is getting the same thing. I'm like, oh my god, the website
• 45:25
  break broke down, like there was so much traffic, and so I'm thinking
• 45:30
  I didn't get this album. And by that point, it said that it
• 45:34
  had sold out, like when you like clicked refreshwater, it clicks, it
• 45:37
  said sold out, and then like an hour so I'm like looking like,
• 45:39
  oh shit, like, is there like even a chance for me to get
• 45:44
  like a used one or whatever the used ones are, like the the unsealed
• 45:47
  used ones, we're going for five hundred dollars online. Yeah, So I
• 45:52
  was like and then an hour later I got an email that said, like
• 45:55
  my order had been confirmed. So I was like, oh shit, I
• 45:59
  got And so who knows like with like there being like like there's some that
• 46:04
  were added to the market, like how much it brings down the price or
• 46:07
  whatever for them, but like, I bet, I bet it's still like
• 46:08
  not that much. Like I bet it's still like probably like a three hundred
• 46:13
  plus dollar album more likely that you have that I have. It's probably my
• 46:20
  most expensive one. Sitting on my shelf right now. I don't have a
• 46:22
  huge vinyl collection, but it's probably you would never you would never sell that.
• 46:25
  No, but it's nice to know it's like the most valuable one I've
• 46:29
  got on my shelf right now. Yeah, like you could buy you know,
• 46:32
  if you wanted to sell it. You know, you could buy like
• 46:35
  another microphone, if you want your mic sounds good. Sure, I'd be
• 46:40
  willing to bet Mason will sell it. He'll have some sort of legal challenges.
• 46:50
  You'll like put the blame on me for putting the well online and somebody
• 46:52
  is gonna like be on your ass about that, and you're gonna be like,
• 46:55
  well, this amazing guy told me, And I'm gonna have to sell
• 46:58
  my freaking mute math vinyl because the pay dividends. And here's the audio evidence
• 47:04
  Blackshoot podcast. Here's a question for you, like or maybe this is a
• 47:07
  good little put a bow on what the Waking Ashland era? Where did you
• 47:13
  see? Where did you guys see us going? You know we kind of
• 47:17
  oh I was when you were talking, so like obviously like hindsight twenty twenty,
• 47:24
  but I do think you guys were like kind of in this like prime.
• 47:28
  So obviously like the probably like what two thousand and two, two thousand
• 47:31
  and three to like maybe two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight,
• 47:35
  or like those like piano pop rock kind of years where a lot of that
• 47:39
  music was really big and then that sort of obviously faded, But that would
• 47:44
  have been around the time where you guys were probably gonna finish up like Well,
• 47:46
  Like had you done like a whole tour cycle with Well and everything,
• 47:51
  probably would have been around the time that that sound was starting to like fade
• 47:53
  out a little bit. But then right after that brought two thousand and nine,
• 47:58
  a lot of that indie pop stuff started coming out, like you know,
• 48:00
  uh, Phoenix, and then obviously a lot of like the indie folk
• 48:04
  stuff started coming out and you and obviously you explored that a little bit and
• 48:07
  some of your solo stuff around like like Community Group, and so I think
• 48:12
  had you like gone in that trajectory of maybe exploring a little bit of that
• 48:15
  indie pop indie folk stuff even under like the name of Waking Ashland, I
• 48:21
  think that could have like really still like kept you guys with have that attention
• 48:25
  still. And yeah, I think you guys were like still set up really
• 48:30
  well where you're like, you're good enough songwriter, where you could have made
• 48:32
  that kind of music and maybe moved a little away from the piano stuff,
• 48:36
  but still have it be a part of of who you all are and still
• 48:39
  make that a unique feature. But like maybe not as prevalent, but yeah,
• 48:43
  go into that indie pop kind of stuff and the indie folks stuff.
• 48:47
  I think it Like you guys could have still done it really really well under
• 48:51
  the name Waking Ashland. But anyway, that like in Site twenty twenty,
• 48:54
  but like that's where I could have seen you guys go, especially if you
• 48:58
  were kind of paying attention to like what's what people care about and like what
• 49:00
  can we offer? Yeah, how can we grow with our Yeah? What
• 49:06
  what? What do you think? Colin? Yeah? I would say what
• 49:09
  either what Mason said or you go like full pop. I don't want to
• 49:15
  say sell out, but like maybe even sell out and then you know,
• 49:19
  sooner or later played the super Bowl with Rihanna, Right, that's all true
• 49:24
  reality? Yeah, Yeah, that would have been cool. I like that.
• 49:29
  No Coldplay did oh okay? Crazy? The the direction I remember like
• 49:37
  I wanted to go more pop punk direction, like getting that coming full circle
• 49:43
  like a style almost right, Yeah, Like I remember, like you know,
• 49:49
  loved acceptance, like like thought just kind of how they were where they
• 49:53
  were kind of going. I felt that that angle would That's where I remember
• 49:59
  kind of leaving off for wanting to go or even just more more punk.
• 50:01
  I was really into punk. But you know, I like that we actually
• 50:07
  it holds up well that we tried to do something different. At the time,
• 50:10
  I'm like, why wouldn't actually to be fully transparent. My mind was
• 50:15
  like more of like, yeah, why can't we just do another composure like
• 50:19
  more let's just like go that more of that, and and the fact that
• 50:23
  we did kind of a to me, it was pretty one eighty the well,
• 50:28
  you know, it's cool, Like you know, I think we paid
• 50:30
  the price for it, but in terms of no one really you know,
• 50:36
  we kind of were done after that. But but it was cool. But
• 50:40
  it's fun now though there's been so much time, now I can confidently say,
• 50:45
  like I think about pop punk a lot and still toy with the idea.
• 50:51
  Like on downtime, they're like, oh, that would be really fun
• 50:52
  to do it, Like it doesn't even have to be with a waking Ashland
• 50:55
  just but just ride a body of work that's like would be cool. And
• 51:00
  I know a lot of bands I know that's been going on, but I'm
• 51:04
  like, oh, I gotta get my i gotta get my swing in on
• 51:07
  that for sure. You know, a lot of trends like kind of come
• 51:10
  back maybe every like twenty five thirty years or whatever. It's we're getting close
• 51:15
  to that trend of that piano rock, piano pop driven music being in that
• 51:22
  like twenty twenty five thirty year kind of trend or from the time that originally
• 51:27
  came up. So we're not that far away from that those years potentially coming
• 51:30
  up again. And it's interesting, we just like haven't seen it yet.
• 51:34
  Like, you know, a lot of like new metal stuff is coming back.
• 51:37
  I don't know if like I don't know how much into that you were
• 51:38
  even then, but like a lot of the metal stuff that Colin and I
• 51:42
  listened to, you're starting to see a lot of those bands like incorporate like
• 51:45
  new metal sounds. It's like, all right, well, I guess new
• 51:47
  metal's back again. And so like you you see some of these music trends
• 51:51
  kind of re emerge, and I'm like, when are we gonna get like
• 51:53
  another Vanessa Carlton or when are we gonna get that like very piano driven rock
• 52:00
  music again? And I just haven't seen it yet, but it's got to
• 52:02
  be like a thing that it's got to be coming. Yeah, someone's going
• 52:06
  to do it like really cool, you know, or their own take.
• 52:08
  That's what's always fun, Like the trends come back, and then it's just
• 52:14
  there's a slight nuance to it. Well speaking like I you know, it's
• 52:17
  funny like you said that the trends of music. Like I've been recording some
• 52:22
  I record a band like a year ago and all girl young punk band called
• 52:27
  Doll Riot, and it was so oh they're great. It was it was
• 52:32
  super fun because I'm like, wow, like I totally understand this genre and
• 52:37
  it had been so long since I had heard it. But what happened is,
• 52:40
  you know, there their parents are kind of my agent, had had
• 52:45
  kids and then they like grew up listening to like Green Day and Blank and
• 52:50
  all that stuff, and so it was like really cool to work on music
• 52:53
  that that was like second nature to me. It was the first time that
• 52:58
  had happened because I, you know, I I work on anything. I
• 53:00
  mean, I'm all whatever comes to the door, I'll work on pretty much.
• 53:06
  So that's been from opera to even well, yeah, Dan, Dan
• 53:12
  what sent me down? Even that guy Dan? No, Dan got me
• 53:15
  kind of involved in like twenty twelve. As I was finishing up community group,
• 53:20
  I saw he was kind of doing the mixing thing or already kind of
• 53:24
  on being self sustaining and doing audio, and I'm like, WHOA, I
• 53:28
  need to I need to do that. And then he was kind of helped
• 53:34
  me. You know, he really helped helped me show me the ropes of
• 53:37
  of what I needed to do to kind of learn the craft. You don't
• 53:43
  have to paint him in a good light, you know he has he has
• 53:51
  good taste in Scotch apparently, yes, he does it. Maybe the one
• 53:54
  good thing he's got going for. The thing I love about Dan every time
• 54:05
  I hang out with him, whether it's in person or virtual, is Dan
• 54:12
  knows that the only way that I'm going to show him that I like love
• 54:16
  and care about him is that I'm going to talk shit about him. So
• 54:20
  and Dan's like one of those people where he like receives that as love.
• 54:22
  You know a lot of people are like they might be like put off by
• 54:25
  that initially or whatever. Dan truly receives that as love, at least for
• 54:29
  me, And I really like that about Dan. Yeah, I understand he's
• 54:36
  he's a good ship ever too, like if he if he thinks of a
• 54:37
  good thing, he'll he'll uh, he'll come back with you and he'll he'll
• 54:43
  throw you under the bus. Yeah. He usually all the singers, and
• 54:45
  I'm not very good at responding to him. Did he tell you when you
• 54:52
  you had him on your podcast? Oh? Yeah, a number of times.
• 54:55
  Okay, check into one of those on his most recent But did he
• 55:00
  tell you ever about the China trips that we did? Would we shove out?
• 55:05
  Did that ever come out? No? But I I now that I'm
• 55:07
  like I do. Remember you guys had like some kind of like market in
• 55:12
  China. Yeah, yeah, this weird thing happened, like our version of
• 55:15
  that South African movie that came out, Remember about the guy who had the
• 55:22
  like fan base that he didn't know about. Well, like with China,
• 55:25
  the one of our our EP or no, our our full length Fear in
• 55:31
  Love just got on some sort of streaming platform blew up on the indie circuit
• 55:37
  over there. But this like uh, ten years later, so it's like,
• 55:42
  oh, like like super weird like and so like you know, you're
• 55:46
  done with that part of your life, like totally done this one. I
• 55:50
  was living up in kind of en Sacramento area when when Julie was going to
• 55:54
  veterinary school. So also out of nowhere, this we you know, we
• 55:59
  get a label from China being like, you know, we want to bring
• 56:04
  you over. There's there's an audience, can like let's do this, and
• 56:07
  so it was really fun like and Dan, this is why I'm bringing this
• 56:10
  up. Dan was a part of that trip. And Dan it was a
• 56:15
  good like Dan just tour guy Dan, Like it was just the you know,
• 56:20
  we it was a Dan show, like we just go. He knew
• 56:22
  all the like, you know, he just plays. It was funny.
• 56:27
  It was like we could have had some sort of fun reality bit that would
• 56:31
  did they think he was like Sasquatch or something? Because like so much for
• 56:37
  the average tighties person, they loved him. They loved him so much like
• 56:42
  a hit. He was a hit. But you know what's funny, there
• 56:46
  was another like similar piano rock band that also had It wasn't ten years later,
• 56:51
  but do you remember until June? Oh wow, oh do you know
• 56:55
  that being names? No, I remember making April, but not the gene
• 57:00
  one. I don't think. Okay. There was a band called until June
• 57:05
  and let me see what they were. They were like, oh, they
• 57:07
  were signed A Tooth and Nail at some point, it looks like and they
• 57:10
  were signed A Flicker. Do you remember Flicker at all? Oh? Yeah,
• 57:15
  So they had a song let me see if I can find it.
• 57:19
  They had a song that like went like became huge and like an Eastern European
• 57:24
  country like Croatia or something. I'll see if I can find it. But
• 57:30
  they had randomly had like this song just get really really big in some Eastern
• 57:35
  European country. But they were yeah, they were around like at the same
• 57:39
  time it happens. Yeah, it's so, I mean, one of the
• 57:43
  crazier things to have happened, like just really interesting and it was really fun
• 57:47
  and it was cool because it was like it was like more of a vacation
• 57:52
  kind of vibes, you know, because it's like, oh, this is
• 57:55
  this is random. Here we are playing place. It went number one Greece
• 58:00
  in June of two thousand and eight, and then number four in Norway.
• 58:05
  We not Eastern Europe. But like still like this is like a little band
• 58:08
  that was on Flicker Records. Yeah, I always wonder how those things work,
• 58:15
  like just you know, you get I guess you have the taste makers
• 58:17
  of that. They just someone thought it was cool or something. I don't
• 58:22
  get it. It's strange. That's a cool phenomenon that needs to be studied
• 58:25
  more. Well. The Again, we've been for thirty minutes trying to put
• 58:31
  a bow on Wiki n Ashland. But yeah, i'd love to hear just
• 58:34
  kind of where you're at now with with you know, just with music.
• 58:38
  Obviously you've done like quite a few like solo stuff. Obviously you're doing production
• 58:44
  stuff. But yeah, i'd love to hear just kind of where you're at
• 58:45
  now with music, Like are you writing your own stuff? Are you just
• 58:49
  producing? Like where you at? Well, let's see, it's like the
• 58:57
  mini hats. So I'm still doing it full time, which means it's a
• 59:01
  lot of I'll mix people send me their sessions. I do a lot of
• 59:07
  mixing primarily, and then the studios. So in Covid, I built a
• 59:13
  studio, you know, converted the whole downstairs in my house to a studio,
• 59:16
  And I told the acoustician who was helping me do it that I wanted
• 59:22
  to record bands. I wanted to have a space that bands could come over
• 59:25
  and make records and that I'd be doing a lot of mixing. So the
• 59:30
  studios kind of focused around that and just for you know, it's cool to
• 59:37
  and it's a lot of local stuff I find myself doing. Mostly is there's
• 59:39
  just a very vibrant San Diego music scene that keeps me busy. And then
• 59:46
  I'm you know, I've always with producing. It's something more and more I'm
• 59:52
  getting into. But producing, I've found it can be really tricky. It
• 59:58
  almost sometimes turns out to be, especially when you're playing on someone's record or
• 1:00:04
  really diving in. It can be really time intensive. So I love producing,
• 1:00:09
  but I've realized it's got to be as a producer. You got to
• 1:00:14
  see the path of where they're going. You know that that's been kind of
• 1:00:21
  lately where what I've been doing, I'm trying to think what else. Oh
• 1:00:24
  and as far as new music I've been, I've been I'm I'm trying to
• 1:00:29
  slowly it's like a muscle that that I want to exercise, but then it's
• 1:00:36
  like another day passes and you know, a songwriting For me at least,
• 1:00:39
  you really just got to do it every day, like it's it to really
• 1:00:44
  get to the good stuff. And I think that's a muscle that I hope
• 1:00:49
  I really need to get going on that. I actually I am going out
• 1:00:51
  to Nashville in a couple of weeks to do some some writing with various friends
• 1:00:57
  and different groups of circles out there. So I've heard your neighbor John Foreman
• 1:01:00
  tries to write a song every single day. Yeah, I believe it.
• 1:01:05
  That guy. Actually, that switch to a huge inspiration, probably the reason
• 1:01:08
  why I start playing music in a band, because because I grew up in
• 1:01:13
  the same town as though. Do you, uh, do you hang out
• 1:01:15
  with Tyson Motzenburger too? I think he's in the No, I know he's
• 1:01:20
  in the same same town as you. Yeah, I don't. I don't
• 1:01:22
  see I've seen him a few times, but I haven't really hung out with
• 1:01:27
  him that much. He's a good he's a good guy. I know him
• 1:01:30
  and Dan are type. But mostly Yeah, it's it's weird trying to I
• 1:01:37
  find. The hardest part for me is is just focusing on, like what
• 1:01:42
  do I want to focus on for these next two weeks, you know,
• 1:01:44
  because the work comes a lot in waves that that's been an interesting thing.
• 1:01:50
  It is a feaster famine kind of industry or you know, so this is
• 1:01:58
  a recent thing that I might get into. It is. I've been thinking
• 1:02:01
  about adding to the belt of mastering, mixing, producer, piano tuning,
• 1:02:07
  so that can connect the final the final frontier. Is that like a fairly
• 1:02:10
  like stable job. Yeah, it'd be you know, it's funny you say
• 1:02:15
  that it, do you like, Yes, the equivalent of getting a real
• 1:02:20
  job, I guess, And it'd be kind of funny coming full circle for
• 1:02:22
  me because you know, growing up playing the piano and then now tuning it
• 1:02:28
  finally, you know, it kind of makes total sense. And I've been
• 1:02:30
  given that some serious thought. I hear it's pretty lucrative. Yeah, I
• 1:02:36
  think I think you can. Like I've paid, you know, my piano
• 1:02:39
  tuner that tuned my piano for a studio session two hundred and fifty. So
• 1:02:44
  if nothing else, I guess I could I could say I'm gonna be I'm
• 1:02:47
  gonna be doing I know around my area, there's some that like there's so
• 1:02:52
  few piano tuners because it's kind of a specialized. I know some people that
• 1:02:55
  that it takes a grand to get a piano tuned. M hm. They
• 1:03:02
  call it a grand piano. It's a grand. It's a grand for a
• 1:03:07
  grand piano. Yeah, that's that's actually their motto. It's their business model
• 1:03:09
  as well. A grand for a grand that that would be a great uh
• 1:03:14
  what like a like one a little radio jingle or whatever. I've found though
• 1:03:20
  with work, when I if I want to work, going out and actually
• 1:03:24
  playing shows. The last few projects I've done have been when I I've met
• 1:03:30
  like different artists playing the show. We'll get talking be like, oh,
• 1:03:35
  actually I have a studio, and then they'll they'll come out and work with
• 1:03:39
  me. So that may as I start kind of playing live shows again more
• 1:03:45
  frequently that I could see that being kind of and that's fun because it's a
• 1:03:50
  different vibe when someone knows. I've noticed when someone's kind of coming from from
• 1:03:57
  like oh that guy in that band, it's almost like an initial trust.
• 1:04:00
  But then more times than not, when I'm working with artists, you're always
• 1:04:04
  starting again, which can be really that that's been hard for me. Actually
• 1:04:09
  it's it's really humbling, but it's also kind of cool if you think about
• 1:04:14
  it too, But it can be challenging to try to prove yourself like and
• 1:04:20
  chasing sounds for people, for sure. That's what that's what I signed up
• 1:04:25
  for. It's a lot, you know. I love doing it. That's
• 1:04:27
  cool, man. I dig that. I dig that. Hey, it
• 1:04:30
  is time for your top five most influential artists? Are you ready for this?
• 1:04:36
  I'm ready? All right. You can start wherever you want. It
• 1:04:40
  does not have to be an order. Go ahead, all right, we'll
• 1:04:45
  say Jimmy World. Yeah, which which Jimmy World record? Is it that?
• 1:04:53
  That really does it for you? Well? That's hard, but I
• 1:04:57
  gotta If we're going nostalgia, I have to say Clarity mm hmmm good,
• 1:05:02
  Yeah, yeah, I love I love that record. That probably is the
• 1:05:06
  most common Jimmy World one that comes up, I think, right, color
• 1:05:10
  that or maybe Futures maybe yeah, yeah, which, by the way,
• 1:05:13
  twenty years old is here? Future Future? It was a hard that's a
• 1:05:16
  hard one because I love Bleed American Futures and Clarity all yeah. Equally,
• 1:05:23
  differently, let's see switch Foot Beautiful let Down for them for sure, and
• 1:05:28
  Legend of Chin actually, because that would have been the record that no one
• 1:05:30
  else ever says that. I'm so glad you said that. That's a great
• 1:05:34
  record. Concrete Girl, Great girls, Yeah, yeah, chemical a Yeah,
• 1:05:43
  which one, which one has? Which one has? Company car?
• 1:05:45
  Which which record is? That was their red one? Which is New Way
• 1:05:50
  to be Human, New Way to be Human? That's it? Yeah,
• 1:05:53
  that one I always found to be nice and tongue in cheek. It's good.
• 1:05:56
  Oh yeah, let's see okay, and then let's go for some class
• 1:06:00
  class I like Who's been? I can't think of anything more classy than Jimmy
• 1:06:06
  World and switch Foot though, so it feels like you actually get about Well.
• 1:06:14
  The funny thing is, I'm a late covered a lot, you know,
• 1:06:16
  growing up in the War. I call it the warp tour era.
• 1:06:21
  You know, my music pedigree back then started like that's what it was.
• 1:06:27
  And it's discovering older artists has been funny. I didn't listen to a lot
• 1:06:30
  of like older artists. Oh, oh okay, here we go the Black
• 1:06:36
  Keys, I gotta actually yeah for sure. I mean they're not old,
• 1:06:42
  you know, but they're they're great. Which which record? Which record of
• 1:06:45
  theirs? Is it? That isn't for you? Brothers? Oh okay,
• 1:06:49
  yeah, for sure, that makes sense. The one that's kind of made
• 1:06:51
  them pop off, right, Yeah, yeah, it's there. I guess
• 1:06:55
  commercial one, but it's is that the I think that's the one that modern
• 1:06:59
  or modest mouth, not modest mouse. They had a producer that I like,
• 1:07:04
  that did it? Yeah, no, I know it's the guy from
• 1:07:06
  something Bells. Yeah, bro, the bro, the guy bell Yeah,
• 1:07:12
  I can't remember his name all of a sudden. Yeah. Yeah, that's
• 1:07:15
  a great record. Lots of good tunes on that, really good at at
• 1:07:19
  differentiating each song, whereas their albums before kind of had a lot of sameness.
• 1:07:27
  I'm a thick freaking guy all the way along. What's uh? What
• 1:07:32
  was that? Three? That's three? I grew up really liking Guster.
• 1:07:40
  I don't know, they just into my and all, like all of the
• 1:07:43
  Guster records like just such a just a cool. I think I liked Guster
• 1:07:47
  because the first time I saw them, like open up for who was it
• 1:07:54
  semi sonic way back in the day and it was like just them with congos
• 1:07:59
  and like doing this crazy thing, but it still sounded huge, and I
• 1:08:01
  remember just being like whoa, Like, how did you guys do that?
• 1:08:04
  I think the the singer. I went up to him, like fifteen year
• 1:08:09
  old Jonathan. I was like, how did you make the acoustic guitar sound
• 1:08:13
  so big? And he's like, you know, a lot of EQ,
• 1:08:18
  which I totally later on understood kind of what he was saying. Just they
• 1:08:23
  were pumping the right frequent the low that they were doing some good EQ.
• 1:08:29
  The Joe Jackson, I don't know if you guys familiar with with him older
• 1:08:33
  arts artists shoeless Joe, newspaper Joe shoeless. It's Sunday paper Joe. Where
• 1:08:43
  I'm from, If you say shoeless Joe Jackson, everyone knows what you're talking
• 1:08:47
  about because they've all seen Field of Dreams. Oh, it's it's a it's
• 1:08:55
  a Midwest movie thing. If you're from the Midwest, you've seen that movie
• 1:08:58
  ten times at least, so she was Joe Jackson. It's like a baseball
• 1:09:01
  movie. Yeah, feel good? Yeah Yeah, I mean I like a
• 1:09:08
  good, feel good movie. I got one more, let's see I feel
• 1:09:14
  I sho just know this. It's really influenced me. There's just like only
• 1:09:19
  four. You only listen to four. I'm gonna actually say I'm gonna go
• 1:09:28
  for my fifth Max Martin. I'm gonna go for a producer. Okay,
• 1:09:32
  insert one album in particular. I mean, he's just not really like all
• 1:09:42
  this stuff. It's super pop, so I think, you know, he's
• 1:09:45
  like it goes, He's done all you know, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry,
• 1:09:49
  The Weekend, all you know, all the Yeah, his career asa
• 1:09:54
  bass like way back, so it's like it's just interesting. I like listening
• 1:09:59
  to his work and following kind of like sonic thread through it, and it's
• 1:10:04
  like the pop side of me because I've always you know, I was embarrassed
• 1:10:08
  by it, but I not not anymore. I just love pop a lot.
• 1:10:13
  I don't make pop music though anyway, it's weird. I still love
• 1:10:15
  it, but I actually find myself not drawn to making quote unquote like heavy
• 1:10:19
  produced pop, but I really like listening to it. Yeah, for sure,
• 1:10:25
  it looks like one of the things I think is really interesting, especially
• 1:10:30
  like the world that we're in is like being influenced by pop, but like
• 1:10:34
  not in a way where you're actually making pop music like I always think.
• 1:10:38
  Yeah, we even think think of like a band like under Oath right,
• 1:10:42
  like they were not making obviously, especially with their only Chasing Safety. They
• 1:10:45
  were not making pop music, but they clearly like the song structures, the
• 1:10:48
  way that they like did their screaming and everything. Everything was very obviously influenced
• 1:10:53
  by some sort of pop element. And so I love when you start hearing
• 1:10:57
  the sort of pop influence in music that is not pop at all. Mm
• 1:11:00
  hmm. Yeah that you're I mean, you're getting at the music production and
• 1:11:05
  that's it's just cool. It's cool how people can intertoal that's where like genre
• 1:11:11
  of bending starts happening. Yeah, for sure, genre bending. You gotta
• 1:11:16
  be careful. I usually do. I usually do that with gender, but
• 1:11:18
  you know, oh genre, Sorry, this fun. Well let's let's put
• 1:11:29
  a bow on that one too. Uh wi what what? Uh? What
• 1:11:33
  do you want to plug? Godithan obviously like it sounds like you're still making
• 1:11:38
  some of your own music. There's actually a few shows coming up if you're
• 1:11:41
  a West coast person. Uh yeah, what what do you want to plug?
• 1:11:45
  Okay? So for the shows we got, I got some coming up,
• 1:11:48
  playing a run with Slow Coming Days are we're doing like uh are those
• 1:11:56
  bands songs but it's under our names, but kind of like acoustic versions of
• 1:12:00
  that. So that's it's a west coast run from uh, We're doing Ocean
• 1:12:06
  Side on April twenty fourth coast to Mesa, No excuse me, Ocean sign
• 1:12:13
  on the twenty fifth coast to Mesa on the twenty sixth of April, and
• 1:12:16
  San Luis a dispo the following day, the twenty seventh of April. Awesome,
• 1:12:23
  and then Baker's Field with with oh my gosh, I'm the worst,
• 1:12:29
  a fun another fun tooth and nail Illumini Illuminat not Illuminati alumni. Barry came
• 1:12:38
  to me. I knew if I just you know, mumbled start said that,
• 1:12:43
  you just said the quiet part outline. You're a part of the Illuminati.
• 1:12:46
  Dude, we get it. I'm the worship podcasts. You can tell
• 1:12:50
  I'm doing them. I'm sure you guys can tell I'm doing them every day.
• 1:12:54
  I just been really busy on the podcast. You're doing great, man,
• 1:12:57
  you're doing great. I appreciate it. But yeah, so those shows,
• 1:13:01
  it'd be cool to come out and then if just anyone, you know,
• 1:13:05
  I love working with creative, passionate artists who you know, want to
• 1:13:13
  you know, I love chasing after you know, sounds of people and making
• 1:13:16
  Records, So that's you know, that's what I do a lot now,
• 1:13:18
  so people can reach out to me on Instagram. It's just Jonathan Jones.
• 1:13:24
  And then I do have an album, Euphoria solo album that came out last
• 1:13:29
  summer that that you know, you can find on all your streaming platforms.
• 1:13:33
  Oh yeah, and you can expect more, you know, like I'm just
• 1:13:36
  starting the next cycle. And it's fun because I had to get the last
• 1:13:42
  one out of my system. There's just like, you know, real we
• 1:13:45
  didn't really talk about Euphoria, which is fine, but it was a great
• 1:13:47
  It was the first album I'd ever done with the knowledge of mixing and producing,
• 1:13:54
  you know, that's what I've been doing over the last twelve years,
• 1:13:56
  and so it f and I think I've been waiting. There's many reason since
• 1:14:00
  I hadn't really done an official album, but it was fun because I was
• 1:14:03
  able to draw on all of those different aspects now kind of that language and
• 1:14:11
  make a record and so I knew I need to do one to like learn
• 1:14:15
  a lot, and I did. And so now starting the new cycle,
• 1:14:19
  the process, it's exciting, so people can expect, you know, a
• 1:14:23
  new record in ten years. Heck, yeah, maybe we'll call it another
• 1:14:29
  run of shows in twenty years. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, perfect,
• 1:14:33
  love it, Jonathan, anything else you'd like to plug? Well,
• 1:14:38
  I wasn't going to say anything, but since you're you're asking me, I
• 1:14:42
  was on the list for the neural link implant, like the thing. Yes,
• 1:14:55
  So it was a lottery system and it was just a joke. Julie's
• 1:15:00
  like, you should that would be funny, like maybe this will help with
• 1:15:02
  your attitude. It's you know, and my husband please elon. Yeah,
• 1:15:11
  And so you know they a couple of months ago ago, you know,
• 1:15:15
  they they called us, they sent us an email and we went down kind
• 1:15:19
  of that path. Wow, it's been uh yeah. So isn't it like
• 1:15:26
  something where you like you can think of thought and then like uh, you're
• 1:15:30
  like your phone will do a thing or it's just like like control, Like
• 1:15:32
  you could be like I want to go to pure volume dot com right now,
• 1:15:36
  and then your phone will just pull it up. Yeah, like it
• 1:15:40
  pulled up your guys link. I'm like, I'm thinking about the black Sheet
• 1:15:43
  pod nice. Is it? Is it intrusive? Though? Like like when
• 1:15:46
  like when you think of something like is it like my my brain would be
• 1:15:51
  like throwing ship in my head all the time, and it would I would
• 1:15:55
  just be like it'd be like all the tabs on my on my computers so
• 1:15:59
  many times. Yeah, it's been the learning the shorthand of it has been
• 1:16:04
  hard because yeah, just all of a sudden get overwhelmed. But being able
• 1:16:09
  to spell out words and emails just think of them has been Can you imagine
• 1:16:15
  what you're ads would be if you like start having depression with that thing?
• 1:16:24
  Yeah, I'm gonna I haven't experienced that yet, but I'll let you you
• 1:16:28
  know, please let us know as soon as you do. Yeah, Like
• 1:16:30
  right now, I'm thinking about lucky charms, and there there it is,
• 1:16:34
  lucky charms. Please magically conditions. Those are the ones, you know,
• 1:16:44
  what I think I would do, And maybe maybe this is something you could
• 1:16:47
  do too. Since you want to go into like piano tuning and stuff like
• 1:16:53
  that, you can literally just have a tuner inside your head because Neuralink will
• 1:16:57
  will like provide like the tuning system and like you know how like you have
• 1:17:00
  like the you know, you're you're like a tuner for a guitar or whatever.
• 1:17:03
  It just like has like bar that goes back and forth and you just
• 1:17:06
  have to get read on that that note or whatever or on that uh the
• 1:17:10
  key, I don't know me. Yeah, And for forward, all you'd
• 1:17:14
  have to do is just like be like, all right, I can hear
• 1:17:17
  it in my head. What's perfect tuning? I tune it up. There,
• 1:17:21
  you go, give me my two hundred dollars, see you later.
• 1:17:24
  Well, I mean, yeah, currently, it's funny they they have I
• 1:17:27
  can think of a sine wave and I hear I hear a sine wave,
• 1:17:30
  so that you know it's a pure tone that you have been tuned. You
• 1:17:33
  could you could technically do that. That's incredible. So you know I did.
• 1:17:38
  I wasn't gonna mention anything. But it's been, uh quite an adjustment.
• 1:17:44
  And there is a firmware update apparently coming up on the message boards.
• 1:17:47
  People have been kind of murmuring about that. I'm a little nervous about.
• 1:17:51
  So we'll see see how that goes. Is this the is this the part
• 1:17:56
  that you turn into uh a tesla? Yeah, I hope. So you
• 1:18:02
  become a transform you've become a ride sharing service. Yeah. Well, looking
• 1:18:12
  forward to uh, just the the new update in your life when it comes
• 1:18:15
  to neurallink, because uh, Yeah, what a what a special uh what
• 1:18:20
  a special moment in human history and you get to be a part of it.
• 1:18:24
  That's pretty he thank you. Yeah, we'll have to check back in
• 1:18:28
  in like a year. You know. Andrew Schwab from Project eighty six wrote
• 1:18:30
  a whole album basically criticizing exactly what you're doing, so exactly right. Yeah,
• 1:18:35
  it's kind of It's it's fun. Maybe you guys could write an album
• 1:18:39
  together where you're just like basically in a pissy match with each other. That'd
• 1:18:44
  be cool. I mean, I liked I listened to his band in high
• 1:18:45
  school. They made me angry, so you should listen to it now.
• 1:18:50
  He's great. He's definitely angry about Neurallink. It's true. Sounds like we
• 1:18:56
  have a lot in Kong. Well, Jonathan, thank you, thank you
• 1:19:01
  so much for chatting about Waking Ashland again. It's a band that I remember
• 1:19:05
  listening to almost twenty years ago and following in love with your music, and
• 1:19:10
  so it's just really cool to connect with you and chat more about it and
• 1:19:13
  just kind of hear a little bit more about the history and what you're up
• 1:19:15
  to now. But yeah, thanks so much for chatting more about it.
• 1:19:19
  Thank you guys. It's been a pleasure of being on the podcast. Really
• 1:19:23
  fun. I wish we would have done this ten years ago. It probably
• 1:19:26
  was saved me doing therapy so