Episode 1185 - Andrew Bird
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast welcome to it how's it going everybody okay are you okay are you maybe you're not okay you're probably not fuck i'm sorry
Marc:I'm not great.
Marc:I'm nervous and scared and lonely and crazy and aggravated and full of sorrow a lot of the time.
Marc:But I have my moments.
Marc:How about you?
Marc:How's everything with the kid?
Marc:The kid okay?
Marc:Is the other kid all right?
Marc:How's that third kid doing?
Marc:Are they going crazy?
Marc:Are they ready to get out of the house?
Marc:How about you?
Marc:Are you all right?
Marc:Don't hurt yourself.
Marc:Don't hurt anybody.
Marc:How's the cooking coming along?
Marc:Is that going pretty well?
Marc:Did you get that thing fixed?
Marc:I think you should go to the doctor.
Marc:I know it's scary, but you should go if you got to go.
Marc:It's pretty safe at a doctor's office, I believe.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, look, man, if you're not happy and it seems irreconcilable, you got to do what you got to do.
Marc:It's a bad time to do it, really.
Marc:But if you got to do it, you got to do it.
Marc:This is the time you know these kind of things.
Marc:I'm so happy you renewed your vows.
Marc:Where'd you do it?
Marc:At home?
Marc:Online?
Online?
Marc:Who did it?
Marc:Who led the ceremony?
Marc:Does that cover it?
Marc:How are you guys?
Marc:Everybody all right?
Marc:Guys, gals?
Marc:Those who identify differently.
Marc:Today on the show, I talked to Andrew Bird.
Marc:He's a musician, a singer, a songwriter.
Marc:He's kind of a musical renaissance man, a savant of sorts.
Marc:He has 16 solo albums out.
Marc:Plus, he's worked with the Squirrel Nut Zippers, the Handsome Family, his own group, Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire.
Marc:um he does scores for film and television like baskets and and lynn shelton's uh outside in her her movie before the movie i was in his new album is called uh hark and i gotta be honest with you i did not know a lot about him i didn't know his music i certainly didn't know he'd been around this long i kind of knew the squirrel nut zippers i just was not i didn't know him but the way i came to him was i knew that lynn um
Marc:the woman I was in love with and seeing when she passed away in May, who was living here at the house, she loved Andrew Byrd.
Marc:She loved him.
Marc:And she was so thrilled that he scored her film Outside In with Jay Duplass and Edie Falco, which is a great movie.
Marc:But I just knew she had this reverence for this guy.
Marc:And I'd listened to a little bit of it, but I never got sunk in.
Marc:I never really dug in.
Marc:And oddly, because I did not know how close he and Lynn were, this intro starts in a sad way because when you were there, when somebody passes away, it's sort of on you to do that first wave of informing people.
Marc:You know, you can delegate that to family members and stuff, you know, which you do.
Marc:But you do want to reach out to a few people to begin spreading the word that someone they loved or knew has passed away.
Marc:And, you know, I put together an email and sent it.
Marc:And I had access at that time to some of her email lists.
Marc:or to her friends.
Marc:And I sent out this email, and he was one of the people that received that initial dispatch the day, I guess, the morning after she passed away.
Marc:And I talked to him a bit about it.
Marc:They didn't know each other that well, but she was so thrilled that he agreed to do her movie.
Marc:And since then, I've sort of dug in a bit because I got the opportunity to talk to him.
Marc:And I wanted to talk to him about that, obviously.
Marc:But I wanted to talk to him about a lot of stuff I didn't even know about.
Marc:And as I got into it, I realized, like, this guy's a fucking wizard and a truly gifted person.
Marc:And I had no idea about him until a month or weeks before I talked to him.
Marc:And it was kind of a thrill to talk to him because I was told after the fact that
Marc:Flanagan from Largo fame, he was like, you know, did he talk?
Marc:Flanagan will do that to me sometimes because he knows all the musicians because they all come through there where they used to when we could do that.
Marc:And I didn't realize he was one of those people that might be difficult, but he talked.
Marc:So I did.
Marc:I was able to engage people
Marc:Andrew Bird in a nice, broad discussion about things.
Marc:Himself, music, stuff, Lynn.
Marc:So that's who's on the show today.
Marc:I was feeling very good for maybe a week or two.
Marc:I felt like I was coming through something.
Marc:I felt like I was integrating whatever's been happening over the last, you know, eight, seven, eight months.
Marc:since lockdown, since Lynn's death, you know, and I thought that the spiritual and psychological and emotional abacus that, you know, the beads were lining up, things were leveling off, the equations were coming out okay.
Marc:I was coming out whole.
Marc:I thought that was happening.
Marc:And I'm sure it was.
Marc:But you always hear about the waves, you know, the waves of grief, and I don't know what it was, but the other night,
Marc:I was driving out to set for a night shoot, and it was just me in the car listening to music and driving out to the set.
Marc:And I just was overwhelmed with this sadness.
Marc:And I guess I don't remember who I was talking to is that the sort of difference between sadness and sorrow and the manifestations of grief are what they are.
Marc:You know, it comes in waves.
Marc:And obviously, I'm far away from that day when I sent Andrew Bird that email and the trauma of that and the shock of that.
Marc:And I know loss is part of everyone's life after a certain point.
Marc:But how that sorrow informs you and your being from that point on or how you see life from that point on or how you see loss, all of it, it redefines you somehow.
Marc:It makes you more whole in a way that the loss actually makes you more whole as a person for having experienced it.
Marc:I don't know if that makes sense.
Marc:But then when you get right down to it, I just miss her.
Marc:And I miss everything about her.
Marc:And when your brain gets into that place, you know, you just got to let it happen.
Marc:I don't need to push those memories aside.
Marc:All of it, you know.
Marc:And I just let the sadness happen.
Marc:It's okay.
Marc:And I use it.
Marc:I'll use it.
Marc:I can live in it when I want to.
Marc:But there's no reason to turn it off.
Marc:There's no reason to turn it off.
Marc:Those are the feelings.
Marc:That is what life is.
Marc:Joy.
Marc:Sorrow.
Marc:Fear.
Marc:So, I got to act...
Marc:the other day with Steven Root and Allison Janney.
Marc:Powerhouses.
Marc:And Andrea Riceboro.
Marc:I was right there in this little triangle.
Marc:It was me, Andrea, and Allison Janney in this one very intense scene.
Marc:And Allison was full tilt, man.
Marc:And Andrea was full tilt.
Marc:And I was like, oh, my God.
Marc:I was like hanging on for dear life in the acting zone.
Marc:but it's pretty great it's pretty great scary day a lot of extras but everyone was tested and i guess we'll see but it is uh i i'm i'm excited to see this fucking movie i i don't i think i'm doing good work i think i am i'm definitely not being self-conscious i'll tell you that right now
Marc:So I was going to get Buster a cat because I was thinking about getting a kitten and I don't know.
Marc:I don't know if I really want to deal with a kitten because I think me and Buster, because it was me and the old cats and Buster for so long and he was sort of on the outside, we're still sort of bonding and he's sort of becoming a different cat and we're getting along in a different way.
Marc:And I know this sounds ridiculous, but the relationship is deepening.
Marc:And the only reason I would get a kitten that I've decided I would name Mingus is for Buster.
Marc:But I don't even know if Buster would get that kitten and just beat the shit out of it all day long.
Marc:So now do I want to deal for months with a frightened kitten until it gets big enough to hold its own with the fucking bruiser in there?
Marc:Or do I just want to ride it out for a while and keep getting to know Buster better and letting him relax?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:These are the big problems, folks.
Marc:Not getting COVID and deciding whether or not Buster needs a friend.
Marc:Luxury fucking problems, people.
Marc:So, as I said before, Andrew Bird has a lot of stuff, done a lot of stuff.
Marc:He actually has a holiday album out.
Marc:And it's a holiday album in a very Andrew Bird kind of way.
Marc:It's called Hark.
Marc:You can get it at AndrewBird.net and digital media platforms.
Marc:And this is me talking to...
Guest:Andrew Bird Nice to meet you, Andrew.
Guest:Good to meet you, Mark.
Guest:Sorry we couldn't do this in person.
Guest:I was looking forward to that.
Marc:I know.
Marc:Did you freak out or did I freak out?
Marc:Who freaked out?
Marc:What happened?
Guest:I think I freaked out.
Guest:I was just feeling the doom.
Guest:I was feeling it closing in from all sides.
Marc:I feel that every day.
Marc:But oddly, I felt it before COVID, so I was ahead of the curve on that.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You just felt like you didn't want to go out anywhere.
Yeah.
Marc:I understood it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I just thought like, oh, if we're both in the same room together and one of us has it, the chances are the other one would walk out with it too.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:I just got tested today.
Marc:I'm going to be getting tested every other day now.
Marc:Because I'm going to do a job.
Guest:Do you get tested?
Guest:How crazy are you about it?
Guest:I mean, when I was doing Fargo, I was getting tested every two days.
Guest:Now I'm like once a week or once every two weeks.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:You were in the last season of Fargo?
Marc:Mm-hmm.
Marc:I haven't been on a set yet.
Guest:It was one of the first ones because it got shut down in March and then we came back in September.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:And it was one of the first ones to go back and...
Guest:Yeah, there were like 500 people trying to finish, like on staff, like trying to finish the show because they're doing multiple episodes at the same time and then health and safety people.
Guest:Did you feel safe?
Guest:I mean, you know, it was the first one.
Guest:So, you know, a lot of the actors were pulling their masks down, trying not to mess up their makeup.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And people were improvising.
Guest:Like, within hours, people figured out to put the face shield upside down.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Something like this.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that way it can just come, the COVID can just come in over the top.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Marc:I'm about to do a small movie and they've convinced me that being on their set is safer than me going to the supermarket.
Guest:You know, honestly, I feel comfortable hanging around with people that are being tested every day on set.
Guest:It seems safer than other people.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And when I go out, man, I put an N95 on, plastic shield.
Marc:I'm fucking ready.
Marc:I'm full on PPE.
Marc:But I go out.
Marc:I'd go crazy if I didn't go shopping shit.
Guest:I know.
Guest:We kind of moved out into the country to assume crash position just before the election.
Guest:So we've been out in Ojai, and I came in for this.
Guest:Of course, I didn't need to because we're doing it this way.
Guest:So we've just been out in the middle of nowhere.
Marc:Wait, so you mean in the middle of nowhere, not Ojai, somewhere other than Ojai?
Guest:Well, just a remote part of Ojai.
Guest:So where are you now?
Guest:I'm in LA.
Guest:I just came in to do, I've got to finish a soundtrack and do this.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:So this is your LA, that's your LA house?
Guest:Yeah, this is my living room.
Marc:That's nice.
Marc:Yeah, it was weird because, you know, I didn't really know your stuff before Lynn turned me on to you.
Marc:And when Lynn died, you know, I didn't know how close you guys were, you know, and I was going through because you got one of those emails.
Marc:You know, like when I when I sent out that first round of contacts when it happened, because I didn't know how close you guys were.
Marc:But I knew that, you know, she talked to you and she had your email.
Marc:So I just picked all these people that either I knew that were close to her or I might have been close to her.
Marc:So so I don't know how that made you feel to get that first email.
Marc:I don't know how close you were to her.
Guest:Well, I didn't know how close you were to her until this happened.
Guest:I mean, I remember having lunch with her in Seattle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she was talking about working with you a lot.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And then I heard she was moving to L.A., but I didn't really put it all together.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, yeah, we hadn't been that public for, we weren't that public for that long.
Marc:We weren't really together in the world publicly for that long.
Guest:I mean, I did not spend that many hours of my life with Lynn, but she made a huge impression on me.
Guest:And I just watched Sword of Truth yesterday.
Marc:Sword of Trust, yeah.
Guest:Sword of Trust.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And that was intense seeing her.
Marc:I know.
Guest:and you, and then you did the score to that, and now we've both done Lynn Shelton scores.
Marc:Well, yours was, I'm sure, a lot more engaged in the process of actual scoring.
Marc:We just used a bunch of bits and pieces of my music that I put at the end of the podcast.
Marc:I kind of do these little guitar interludes of all different kinds, and she thought it fit the tone of the piece.
Guest:Well, I did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But when we did Outside In, she sat next to me for every note that I played.
Guest:Because she's such a fan.
Guest:Well, you'd think you usually wouldn't, as in scoring a movie, want the director to be sitting next to you for every note you played.
Guest:But I really enjoyed it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I thought it was great because she would make immediate comment, you know, say yay or nay or like that's good or, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We were done in three days.
Marc:She loves musicians, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And she's so happy that you did it.
Marc:You did it in three days?
Guest:Something like that.
Guest:Like three intense days in my studio.
Marc:It's a great score.
Marc:It's a great little movie, that movie.
Marc:It is.
Marc:It's a real sweet, interesting movie.
Yeah.
Marc:But what is the process of scoring?
Marc:I don't know if I've ever talked to anybody about it.
Marc:Because I know how I approach an interview.
Marc:Like talking to you, I have to make certain assumptions by listening to your music or looking at your face.
Marc:Or thinking about the words you say.
Marc:And then I kind of build a person in my head that isn't you, but it's based on my idea of you.
Marc:And then I kind of chip away at that, you know, when I meet somebody.
Marc:So I imagine that scoring something you have to there's a similar process where you have to take in the tone and kind of assess what you think is going on and feel it.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah, but ultimately it's not your child, and that's my tricky relationship with scoring.
Guest:I'm used to total autonomy creatively.
Guest:I'm used to waiting for things to just appear out of nowhere.
Marc:Isn't that weird how that happens?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Things appearing out of nowhere.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they just kind of accumulate and the one, the ideas that are most, that keep coming back because of some sort of sensory trigger.
Guest:You know, like every time I, for a while, every time I would get into a taxi in New York City, I would hear the same melody.
Guest:It's like that terrible air freshener would trigger the same melody.
Yeah.
Guest:Really?
Guest:And I just like, well, this keeps coming back.
Guest:I got to write some lyrics for this.
Guest:But with a score, you're just like, you're like, you know, much different than the costume designer or the, you know what I mean?
Guest:I guess so.
Marc:I guess in terms of supporting the collaborative effort, but it's a very different job than costume design.
Marc:I get what you're saying in terms of the job and your place in the collaborative environment, but still, what do you do?
Marc:Do you have to watch the whole movie and see how it makes you feel?
Marc:Or are there practical elements like suspense building?
Marc:I mean, did you have to read a book on it?
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:No, I wanted to do it really badly when I was in college, because I was studying music, and I played all these different... I was just so restless in going from one style to the next, and I thought I'd be good at... And I was kind of into the cinematic dramatization of what you see around you.
Guest:And I thought this is a perfect profession for me.
Guest:And then instead I got a conversion van and started going around the country playing dive bars.
Guest:And that became more romantic than scoring movies.
Marc:When you were doing the old timey music?
Guest:uh that yeah that was in the the bowl of fire days um i went through multiple dodge conversion vans um yeah and just hit the pavement for years and it was that was a big adventure you know that was that kind of took all the and then creating an album i thought in terms of a movie as well or a novel or something like right creating an arc and a thread through things
Marc:You did that with your own work.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, trying to find... Well, when you're writing, it's just you accumulate 12 songs over, say, two years, and these characters keep popping up or these ideas keep... Interesting, right.
Guest:And then you seek through the artwork or through more consciously to tie it all together like a novel or a film.
Marc:Right, right, yeah.
Guest:So that became the film...
Guest:For me.
Marc:But when you approach a movie, do you sit down and watch it?
Marc:I watch it.
Marc:With no sound, no music?
Guest:That's the tricky thing.
Guest:A lot of times the directors want to give you temp music, which is the bane of most composers' existence.
Marc:Like songs or little things that somebody noodled on a piano?
Guest:No, it's usually taken from other people's scores or other songs.
Guest:And then you're, you're like, well, if I don't listen to this, I won't know what the director wants.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know that, that if you just kind of, they get attached to these temp, temp scores.
Guest:And I'm like, to the point where you're like, you just, why did you hire Andrew Byrd to do your score?
Guest:If you want this, this is what you want.
Marc:If you, if you want Vangelis, why did you hire me?
Guest:A lot of times it's someone else kind of doing you, my, my thing, you know, and so it's this weird loop and it can drive you.
Guest:It's just, you know, you, you develop a, what I call a healthy, bad attitude about, about your work.
Marc:So you see, though, not unlike people who do commercial work, you see the soundtrack area of your work to be just sort of a job that makes a few bucks.
Guest:Exercising an ability I have or a certain craft.
Marc:You're not looking to be Randy Newman.
Yeah.
Guest:Nope.
Guest:No.
Guest:I mean, I would find what he does, if someone wanted me to do the Randy Newman thing, I'd find that way more engaging than just doing an instrumental score.
Guest:Like having to write a song for a movie, that's interesting.
Guest:And I like the challenge of having to write lyrics that somehow fit with the film but don't comment on it too much.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That would challenge me a lot.
Guest:But just simply doing the instrumental music is not using what I have enough.
Marc:Well, what about the whistling gig?
Marc:That seemed like a pretty good gig.
Marc:The Whistling Caruso.
Marc:I was listening to all your records, and my friend Kit, she says, oh, he did the whistling thing in the Muppet movie.
Marc:I'm like, what?
Marc:Yeah, the Whistling Caruso.
Marc:And then she showed it to me.
Marc:And she was like, I thought that was on a keyboard, but that's him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it was manipulated a little bit to be extra virtuosic, but not very much.
Guest:I mean, that was fun.
Guest:I enjoyed that because I was talking to the director, James Bowman, and he was...
Guest:trying to nail the exact right comedic tone, which was a self-serious, overly self-serious, like overly virtuosic.
Guest:And he sent me like a YouTube clip of like a guy in tails, you know, tux, like in front of an orchestra, poised, you know, doing this sort of classical Mozart thing.
Guest:whistling and completely serious, but yet doing this thing that people do when they're doing the dishes.
Marc:Why do you think of you, though?
Marc:How'd you get known as the whistling guy?
Guest:I do it constantly.
Guest:I've been doing it constantly since I was six years old.
Marc:Like, if I'm not sleeping... You were doing it before we started.
Marc:Before we started what?
Marc:You were just walking around your house whistling.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:uh exactly it's the most uh casual like unconscious way of making music and therefore that's sometimes that's almost always where the good stuff comes from from you whistling yeah because it's not i'm not holding an instrument there's no right physical physical memory i'm not on office hours i'm not like now i'm composing right right and that's when you write the good stuff
Marc:Huh.
Marc:But how did they know to ask you to whistle?
Marc:Do you do it on a lot of the records?
Marc:Maybe I didn't listen to the later records.
Marc:Is there records where it's all whistling?
Guest:I started doing it on swimming on my third, fourth album.
Guest:It didn't occur to me to do something so easy.
Guest:The last Bowl of Fire record?
Marc:the last bowl of fire swimming hour i did it for the first time because my hands were busy you know it was just to carry the melody but that that sort of fit the style there was that sort of weird crossover it was almost there's some kind of like old timey style that you were playing with it seems and it seems like some of that kind of uh uh that era of americana music would have had some yodels and whistles and stuff
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But I think, you know, usually it would be like, okay, this is where the violin's going to play something.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Play the lead melody.
Guest:And then sometimes the violin has too much baggage sometimes.
Guest:It's like, it can be overly romantic.
Guest:Centuries.
Guest:Yeah, centuries of associations, yeah.
Guest:And the whistle just kind of is a placeholder, and then I'm like, wow, that's...
Guest:That cuts right through.
Marc:And it's uniquely human, too.
Marc:It's so identifiably human.
Guest:Most people can kind of eke out a whistle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it does reveal whether you've got a tin ear right away.
Marc:What's that mean?
Marc:Out of tune?
Guest:Out of tune, yeah.
Guest:Since there's no frets or keys, I can hear someone whistling.
Guest:I'm like, oh, they have no sense of pitch whatsoever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm going to go tell that guy at the bus stop.
Guest:Hey, pal, you're ruining that song.
Guest:But then when I went solo after Bowl of Fire, I also was trying to hold the attention of an audience in a crowded bar.
Guest:I was out there just traveling around by myself, setting up my gear, and I would always start the set by filling my lungs and holding a note until people stopped talking.
Guest:It would grab their attention, whereas just another band setting up out of a four band night is just not gonna get people to stop talking.
Marc:Right, so you just whistle until they shut up?
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Do you know how to do that loud whistle with your fingers?
Marc:Good.
Guest:I've only got one.
Guest:There's many techniques and I've only got one.
Guest:And mine's just kind of a full operatic whistle, you know.
Marc:So that was the challenge of doing the whistling Caruso was to make itself important to accentuate the funny.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And I did a lot of back and forth with him, and I was happy to because I totally understood what he was – I appreciated what he was trying to do.
Marc:It must have been fun.
Guest:Yeah, I was, like, really psyched to try it again, you know, whereas usually when a director wants you to do it over again, you're like, oh, Jesus.
Marc:But I was like, no, we got to get – you know, I was – So they just reached out to you not because you were known for whistling but because you were –
Guest:No, I think they heard it on the albums and knew that I did it.
Guest:I was working on an album at the time.
Guest:I think it was Break It Yourself.
Guest:It was maybe eight or nine years ago.
Guest:We actually met, sort of met at the Bell House.
Guest:Remember, Eugene Merman was doing- Yeah, yeah, man.
Guest:Were we on the same show, Eugene?
Marc:We were on the same... I played before you with my friend Tift.
Marc:Was I an asshole?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:What did I do?
Guest:You came on... Okay, this is like the first show I was doing with my friend Tift.
Guest:I'm so glad we're doing this.
Guest:We're doing kind of more... Out in the open.
Guest:We're going back to doing like country, old-timey stuff.
Marc:Was it a woman, Tift?
Guest:Tift Merritt, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, okay.
Guest:So we're doing these harmonies, and it was... Yeah, it was...
Guest:You were just, you came on stage after we went off stage and you said, oh, Jesus, got to follow this like depressing Appalachian bullshit or something like that.
Guest:I was like.
Marc:Well, I'm sure it was just, it is nothing personal.
Guest:Oh, it was endearing.
Marc:But yeah, it was completely me trying to do my version of whistling to get them to change their attention.
Guest:Exactly.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because you're kind of a wizard with the instruments.
Marc:I mean, is that something that revealed itself early on?
Marc:Like, are you a prodigy?
Guest:I was brought up in an atmosphere of prodigies.
Guest:I grew up in Chicago on the North Shore, and I studied violin from an early age.
Guest:And there were...
Guest:You know, they groom prodigies from age four.
Marc:What does that mean?
Marc:But your parents were musical people?
Guest:No, not at all.
Guest:My mom's an artist and she wanted her kids to play classical music.
Marc:She's a painter?
Guest:She's a print artist, yeah, painter and print artist.
Guest:All of us, my siblings play, but it stuck with me more than the others.
Guest:How many are there?
Guest:There's four of us total.
Guest:So I played from age four and she took me twice a week.
Guest:And there were these like teachers that would kind of look for the next prodigy and classical, you know, and they would take a four year old.
Guest:And by the time they were six, they'd be seven be playing Tchaikovsky.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:Violin Concerto.
Marc:One of those freaks.
Guest:That's the thing, yeah.
Guest:They would have nervous breakdown by the time they were 10.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So this was like an international search.
Marc:These guys would come poking around looking for the wizards.
Guest:There's probably a similar scene in Manhattan or Boston of like, I don't know.
Guest:There were usually a couple that would take over the kid's life and...
Guest:And they wanted to do that with me.
Guest:And my mom said, no, that's like too, too intense.
Guest:Thank God.
Guest:Yeah, no.
Guest:So it was all kind of, it was all fun.
Guest:You know, it was, I didn't hate it.
Guest:And I can't say I begged to be taken to violin lessons either.
Guest:It was just kind of a thing I did.
Marc:But you had a knack for it.
Guest:I was reasonably good at it.
Guest:I was not a model student, but I had a good tone.
Guest:And they kept saying, oh, you're very musical.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Whereas these prodigies are very technical.
Guest:And to a six- or seven-year-old, those are abstract words.
Guest:I didn't know what that meant, like musical versus virtuosic or technical.
Marc:What do you make of that, though, man?
Marc:Because these kids that can do this stuff...
Marc:Where the hell does that come from?
Marc:I mean, these four-year-olds, it's just kind of a knack for it.
Marc:It's like, what is it, just their brains wired a certain way?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I think you take any four-year-old, almost any four-year-old, and you can turn them into a prodigy.
Guest:It's like a circus sideshow.
Guest:It's like their universe is so small that if you fill it all with one thing, they'll master it.
Guest:And then they put them up there in front of an orchestra and they're like, look, it's magic.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's the one thing the kid can do and it's all he'll ever do.
Marc:He'll never live up to this.
Guest:Pretty much.
Guest:Pretty much.
Guest:I mean, I got so into violin at certain points in my life that I became boring in other ways.
Guest:It's kind of like a jock or like an athlete.
Guest:Right.
Guest:In order to be like a gold medalist, you become a little bit very atrophied in other ways.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, I mean, but I mean, unfortunately for a jock, those other ways are what they're living for.
Marc:Like, you know, when you get, you know, like if you're a violin jock, I don't know how many cheerleaders are going to be hanging around.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I see your point.
Marc:There's a few, I'm sure.
Marc:But do you have kids?
Guest:Yeah, I have one nine-year-old boy.
Guest:Is he musical?
Guest:He is, but we don't push him.
Guest:He plays guitar, and he's really into...
Guest:Bowie, Lou Reed, and John Cale.
Guest:Wow!
Guest:How'd that happen?
Guest:You know, people are going to think that, like, I've led him there.
Guest:And who are we kidding?
Guest:He lives in our house, so he's going to hear what?
Marc:Right.
Guest:What we listen to.
Guest:But it's going the other way around where he influences me because he wants to play DJ around the house.
Guest:And I don't tend to play music very much on the stereo.
Guest:And he's playing it nonstop.
Guest:So he was...
Guest:When the pandemic hit, he was playing John Cale nonstop.
Marc:The old stuff?
Guest:The old Paris 1919 and then a lot of, and Transformer, Lou Reed's Transformer and, you know, and Pale Blue Eyes, you know, like.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He would put these playlists together that were just the best of the best of that stuff.
Guest:And it started influencing me.
Guest:It still is.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:So it's going the other way.
Guest:It's funny.
Marc:Your mother, is your dad a musician or no?
Marc:No.
Marc:Not in the arts?
Marc:No.
Guest:No, he's a numbers guy.
Marc:Numbers guy.
Marc:So your mom gets you off of the Prodigy track, but you're good at the violin.
Marc:But you're playing classical mostly before you go to college?
Guest:Yeah, I didn't know...
Guest:really at first how to uh find anything else i mean i was i went through high school right hanging hanging with the the goth art damaged kids you know right you know they're they're playing a bunch of 4ad stuff and this mortal coil and all this stuff in the in in the car you know
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I, I, I didn't care for that stuff.
Guest:And I was playing Dvorak violin concerto and that was my punk rock music.
Marc:That was your goth, the real stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Mozart.
Guest:I mean, I would like listen to Mozart's Requiem and like light candles in my bedroom and
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was the same thing as listening to The Cure or whatever.
Marc:But yeah, I get it.
Marc:And it's like it's so interesting because that music is so much more sophisticated and elaborate and rich.
Marc:Like, you know, it's so surprising to me that it's always been this kind of niche thing because it's so hard for most people to appreciate.
Marc:But it's like much more interesting music than almost anything else, really.
Marc:I don't know anything about it, but I know that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it is and it isn't.
Guest:I listen to Mozart now and I find it kind of simple, simplistic.
Marc:Because you understand the structure?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I just like rougher music these days.
Guest:But when you're a teenager, it was hyper dramatic.
Marc:Well, what was the first kind of contemporary hole that you fell into that changed the way you looked at violin?
Guest:Some things happened simultaneously, but like early jazz, you know, I was 18, 17, 18, and I...
Guest:I discovered Stefan Gappelli, who played with Django Reinhardt.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And I got into that hot club jazz stuff.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I was also into different folk music.
Guest:Irish music was... I'd be playing in orchestras during the week for...
Guest:school I was at you know music school at Northwestern and then on Sundays I'd go play sessions and drink Guinness and sit in a circle and people would share tunes right and uh like yeah Gaelic folk stuff yeah which is the same thing as old-timey it's just the European version of old-timey
Marc:It's got a little different rhythm, right?
Guest:Yeah, but it was... In classical music, it's all these long phrases.
Guest:I mean, sometimes you play fast, rhythmic stuff, but it's not syncopated.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And in Irish music...
Guest:you have to be your own drummer with your bow and play the backbeat.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:You know, same thing with old time.
Guest:Because it's dance music, basically.
Guest:That's the function of it.
Guest:Yeah, I had to kind of rewire my brain to figure out how to be my own drummer and play my own backbeat.
Guest:And then I joined a rock band when I was 19 called Charlie Nobody in college.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they were like a ska punk band when I joined.
Guest:And then I brought this kind of Irish element to it.
Marc:How'd that work out?
Guest:You know, it's one of those college bands that was kind of kitchen sink.
Guest:You don't know what not to do.
Marc:I like the idea of it.
Marc:This is a hybrid ska and river dance.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The covers we do were... We did Come On Eileen.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And Rio by Duran Duran.
Guest:We were two covers.
Marc:So those were the defining... And everything in between.
Guest:And a couple of meters tunes.
Guest:It was just all over the place.
Marc:But it got you up there doing that.
Guest:And they were like... I was in bars before I was of age and there were girls dancing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was pretty...
Guest:pretty sold on that lifestyle.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:The violin pays off.
Marc:So from there, so you grew up in Chicago the whole time, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Northwestern.
Marc:So what was the primary focus of the study with the music?
Marc:I mean, you play, what do you play?
Marc:Guitar, violin, other things?
Guest:Mostly those two.
Guest:I write songs more on guitar these days.
Guest:There's a reason why that's a go-to for songwriters.
Guest:It's not pressed up against my vocal cords.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I love guitars.
Guest:I find them sexier than violins.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I think that's established.
Guest:Yeah, I think it is.
Yeah.
Marc:You're not going to turn that around.
Guest:And I'm pretty ham-fisted on guitar.
Guest:I just taught myself how to play.
Guest:I can't even play bar chords.
Guest:I just kind of feel my way around on it.
Marc:And that's mostly it.
Marc:When you were studying, was the focus, like at Northwestern, was it mostly classical?
Marc:I mean, when you broke out into the jazz or the...
Marc:What did you call it?
Marc:Hot jazz, hot club, hot what?
Guest:Hot jazz, which is kind of pre-war jazz.
Marc:That kind of like fast shuffle stuff?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like Django?
Guest:From Django, but also I've got Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:The pre-bebop stuff.
Guest:Lester Young is my all-time favorite.
Guest:And that's still a go-to for me.
Marc:He's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:I was studying violin performance.
Guest:So, yeah, it was classical.
Guest:But I would take, you know, an ethnomusicology class where I had to transcribe John Coltrane solos.
Guest:Ah, so you can do that.
Guest:Because the ethnomusicology guy was studying jazz, so that was his area of expertise.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I had to play the John Coltrane Bluetrain.
Guest:And that kind of expanded my ears.
Guest:All these things and the Irish music, they all like made my ears grow, you know, beyond where they would have with classical music.
Marc:But you never dug into the country fiddle early on?
Guest:Um, I did a little bit.
Guest:I actually got, you know, I got into the country thing or the American folk thing through, to tell you the truth, through the Ken Burns Civil War soundtrack.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Jay Unger and that Ashokan Farewell tune was like, I played so many weddings and funerals with that tune.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it's what paid my rent for the first couple of years.
Guest:Really?
Marc:So that was like a gateway drug into the darkness of Appalachia, huh?
Guest:Yeah, in a way.
Guest:That was a modern composition, but it was just kind of a beautiful kind of Anglo-Irish Appalachian tune.
Guest:And then I got into, through playing with Jimbo Mathis and the Squirrel Nut Zippers, Jimbo is a big Charlie Patton.
Marc:Bow Weevil Blues.
Guest:Yeah, he's like, he can do that stuff.
Guest:He can do that, those weird ways that Charlie Patton would sort of vamp and turn the beat around.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, that no one really does, that I've heard.
Marc:It's hard to isolate it when you listen to the records, because the records are so, you know, kind of swamped.
Marc:They're kind of like damaged.
Marc:It's hard to, it's all you can really hear is that weird rhythm.
Guest:I know.
Guest:And he knows all those little inflections that no one does in blues or anything anymore.
Guest:And he kind of rides... I just made a record with Jimbo that's coming out next year, which I'll send to you, called These 13.
Guest:But it's just a duo record.
Guest:I wanted to do like a Mississippi Sheiks kind of Charlie Patton thing with him.
Guest:And it kind of goes from...
Guest:from country blues to churchy early country music.
Guest:And we wrote a bunch of these songs together.
Guest:That sounds great.
Guest:Yeah, that was fun to kind of go back and...
Guest:finish that thought because I really got into in my early 20s that because I was living in Chicago in uptown Edgewater neighborhood and near the Green Mill and this jazz club and I was really immersed in it that during those in my 20s listening to this radio show called Blues Before Sunrise
Marc:Right.
Marc:You listen to all the, like, the old 78-style stuff.
Guest:He would play 78s from midnight till 4 in the morning of, like, you know, Dixie Hummingbirds and just all this really obscure Southern music.
Guest:And I would tape it.
Guest:I'd stay up as late as I could, and I would tape them and fall asleep and turn the tape over and keep taping it.
Marc:It's so wild to me that, like, you know, because, like, I listen to...
Marc:There's definitely a point.
Marc:I can hear that stuff in the music, in the early stuff you did, like in the first three or four records.
Marc:And I could see that it was its own thing, its own time zone, that it was a thing.
Marc:You were doing a thing.
Marc:And I don't know if there was a community around it, but I knew the style of music you were playing.
Marc:But it almost felt like that period in America where it's like everyone decided it was time to swing dance.
Marc:I was like, there's a point where the music is great, but I started wondering, and I imagine you did as well, how far am I going to go with this?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:So I was sitting there watching, sitting at a bar with, you know, where they're having sling dance lessons.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:Smoking cigars and drinking martinis.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's like, oh, the music is just just another accessory to a lifestyle trend.
Guest:Like a novelty.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I thought I was in it because I thought I was fascinated by the music and I was kind of enchanted by the era.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And but I did start to see that that it was a dead end.
Guest:First of all, why listen to me play it when you can listen to Grappelli, honestly?
Marc:I don't know that many people are going to make that jump, but just as a young and sort of creative person, to be lumped into a trend becomes sort of problematic, because then it's like a goddamn costume party, and nobody's necessarily appreciating the music other than the novelty of time travel.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Yeah, and we would show up to gigs, you know, with Bowl of Fire, and they would say, the promoter was trying to get people in the door, so he'd put out like a sign that says, swing dance lessons to Andrew Bird's Bowl of Fire.
Guest:And my tunes had so many twists and turns and stops and starts and tempo changes and everything.
Guest:People would just stop their lessons, and they'd be like, look at us like, what are you doing?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:Like, yeah, you're like, we're doing the thing that we came here to do, you fucking weirdos.
Guest:But I was still, I was in my early 20s, and I was still in a student.
Guest:I was still a student.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I understood that.
Marc:I mean, I understood that by listening to it.
Marc:But, like, what was fascinating to me in listening to, like, whatever shift you made, it's fairly dramatic.
Marc:Like, from after, you know, from swimming hour to weather systems and beyond...
Marc:You know, you reconfigure your entire approach.
Guest:I kind of look at it like I started off in New Orleans with the first couple of records, literally.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And also as far as the locus of the music.
Guest:And kind of went up through Memphis or Detroit to Chicago with Swimming Hour.
Guest:And by the time you get to the end of Swimming Hour, I'm kind of on the cusp of, I'm like playing with, you know, more modern pop whatever stuff.
Marc:things.
Marc:But that's right.
Marc:So like swimming hour, right.
Marc:So swimming hour is sort of like, it's a little all over the place.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Stylistically.
Marc:Like, yeah, there's a rock tune on there.
Marc:There's an old timey tune.
Marc:There's a blue tune, like, right?
Marc:For sure.
Guest:And, and then, uh, I got a little tired.
Guest:I thought, I thought I've got
Guest:more to say than hey isn't this old music cool right I felt that I'm going to write some original I mean I was writing original lyrics there's not much between some of the old songs I got a little better at writing lyrics over the years but still I felt like if I got your attention and I'm singing words I might at least talk about something interesting instead of like
Guest:you know, typical old timey stuff.
Guest:But I started stripping away all the things I saw is like stylistic cinematic references.
Guest:And I thought, I even challenged myself like,
Guest:How few chords can I get away with putting in this song?
Guest:How few little inflections?
Guest:Because I kind of put the band aside, playing with other people for a while.
Guest:I moved out into the country, into a barn.
Guest:And so I had to really physically isolate myself to get away from other musicians' record collections and my own.
Guest:And I, you know, spent weeks and weeks without talking to anybody.
Guest:It was a little extreme.
Guest:I don't know if I needed to go that far.
Guest:And I didn't bring any records with me.
Guest:I was just living in this barn, looping my violin all day long.
Guest:Was anybody concerned?
Guest:You know, I thought my friends were going to come visit me, but I forgot to remember that they didn't have cars, any of my friends.
Marc:So you're just stranded out there with your looper?
Guest:I was three hours away from Chicago on a farm.
Guest:My parents lived like six miles down the road.
Guest:And I just would get up and make coffee and play till the sun went down.
Marc:And that's where you found it?
Guest:Yeah, I was really looking for something.
Guest:Little things from my collective experience would bubble up in the songs, but otherwise I was trying to strip away all the distractions.
Marc:And you arrived at the base of your voice.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I can hear that.
Guest:And that's when people started calling what I do indie rock.
Guest:And that was confusing to me.
Guest:I saw someone describe it as Baroque pop.
Guest:I can see why you'd...
Guest:I can see why you might, might get that from some tunes where there's a slightly, uh, you know, orchestrated nature to it, but it's a lot.
Guest:I think of it as a lot rougher than that, especially live.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Well, what do you, what do you call it?
Guest:God, if you could think of something and tell me, you'd save me a lot of trouble.
Marc:Oh, so you got nothing.
Ah,
Guest:people's eyes glaze over when I try to explain it.
Marc:Well, I mean, but it's sort of like, it's like there's bands, like there's something like as you, it seems that as you evolved, like I think it's interesting that you had stripped it all the way down because, you know, what you kind of end up with when you build up from that
Marc:is, you know, I think a way of organizing.
Marc:Like there's some elements of what you do later on that reminds me a little of Philip Glass even, you know, and how, you know, the beat and the rhythm is organized.
Marc:You know, it's certainly that kind of world of like, you know, some, you know, the American music of David Byrne as well, you know, post Talking Heads, before the Brazilian stuff.
Marc:Like, I mean, I don't know what you would call that either.
Marc:So I think you're in good company.
Guest:Yeah, I got, you know, with the looping kind of pushed it in that minimalist direction.
Guest:And then the pizzicato, I would find these three against two sort of polyrhythmic patterns just from improvising.
Guest:And that was the cool thing is that once you get rid of the band for a minute,
Guest:And the bass, drums, and guitar all kind of creating something together.
Guest:And it's just me creating my own bass lines that don't make any sense according to what's been done before.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it makes sense to me at the moment.
Guest:I think that might be where you're getting the Steve Reich and the...
Guest:or Philip Glass in the West, West African core of music is another big influence.
Guest:I love music that doesn't conform to the eight bar phrase.
Marc:Right.
Guest:They'll turn the, turn the beat around like Charlie Patton.
Guest:It just doesn't care or never, you know, um, was indoctrinated fully into the whole, uh, basically the eight bar phrase, which is right.
Marc:There's no turnaround.
Um,
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You can just John Lee Hooker it.
Marc:Just stay on the one thing until you, you know, just stay on the E until you feel an A and don't feel pressured to stay in the A for very long if you don't want.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I love that stuff.
Guest:That's what Jimbo does so well that...
Guest:Even the 12-bar blues, why is that such a thing?
Guest:It's like the really cool stuff doesn't conform to anything you'd call a 12-bar blues.
Guest:Sometimes it's just like a hymn, but it's just, yeah, like you said, it doesn't go to the four chord.
Marc:It's all from that gospel stuff.
Marc:I was talking to Bootsy Collins the other day.
Marc:It's just like, you can just stay on the one chord.
Marc:You can stay there all day long if you want.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But but it seems like you kind of landed on some something that's uniquely yours, which is no easy trick, you know.
Guest:Yeah, it did take some extreme measures to get there.
Marc:Sounds like it.
Marc:But it doesn't sound like you had to destroy yourself.
Marc:They weren't Dionysian, unless you're not telling me something.
Marc:They were more sort of isolating and repetitive and kind of immersion.
Marc:But you didn't have to go out and get all fucked up, did you?
Guest:no no but but you know extreme states of mind do tend to get you somewhere yeah whether it's extreme fatigue or emotional stress even yeah uh or just what i did was a deprivation chamber for for a couple years um and
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, lately it's just kind of I did have something to prove after I came out of that phase of like to get away from all that association of the.
Marc:that swing whatever lifestyle it took a couple years to like wash my hands of that so which album do you think you it was the first you record the mysterious production of eggs uh no the swimming hour i mean uh not the swimming hour the uh weather system weather well that was like but that's where you feel really feel like like this is what i've been doing this is what i this is what i yielded from my from my submersion
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That was just before.
Guest:I tried to make mysterious production of eggs out of the farm, but I hadn't shed the city yet.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, and I tried to make it and it, it was a disaster and I scrapped the whole thing and I went and made weather systems instead.
Guest:And no one understood what I was doing.
Guest:My, the guy engineer I was working with was like, this doesn't seem like you or something.
Guest:He was just confused.
Guest:And, uh, I, I stuck with it and then, and I had to do that mostly by myself.
Guest:Well, you, did you think you were losing your mind?
Guest:I did when I couldn't make Mysterious Production of Eggs successfully.
Guest:It took me three tries to get that album.
Marc:Now, only you know what's going to make that right, and you made another record.
Marc:So what was it that was hanging you up?
Marc:Could you see the obstacle, or were you concerned that maybe I'm making this obstacle up and my brain is falling into itself?
Guest:You know, weather systems was this more ambient thing where I was just exploring textures and patterns and stuff, and it really had no pressure to it.
Guest:There was no expectation.
Guest:I put it out.
Guest:I didn't even put it out on the label.
Guest:I just kind of self-released it.
Guest:And Mysterious Production was way more ambitious.
Guest:It's all about childhood, and it's almost a concept record.
Marc:Okay, so you had an arc.
Guest:Yeah, I had like a real, something I was trying to impart, but I didn't know, didn't have the skills yet to do it.
Guest:I get it, yeah.
Guest:And it never works.
Guest:I made Weather System.
Guest:Trying to make it like...
Guest:With the band, like my old city life didn't work.
Guest:And then I said, I'll try to make it like weather systems, and that didn't work.
Guest:And then I finally went to L.A.
Guest:to work with this engineer, David Boucher, and then that finally worked.
Marc:Just need the right collaboration and a little time.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, and a little bit of, like, coming out to L.A., it was...
Guest:I was like, oh, I guess people come out here to get paid because they're good at their jobs and they work from 10 to 6 or somewhat normal hours.
Guest:And you have to pay them a lot, more than I'm used to paying in Chicago.
Guest:But they're good.
Guest:You get way more shit done.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:I was like, okay, I get it.
Guest:I get it why people come out here.
Guest:But I was very suspicious of L.A.
Marc:otherwise.
Marc:Well, you thought it was all polished idiots who didn't understand art?
Guest:No, I thought there wasn't enough suffering here.
Guest:I was hung up on the idea that I was still—this is a long time ago.
Guest:I thought that suffering was essential to—
Guest:adversity like chicago you know it's like we we do the we make art to get through the winter and to from keep from going insane or just fighting off seasonal depression right and you see see what you come out with it in in the spring right when the flowers come you see what your flowers look like
Guest:And I came out to LA, I was like, these plants aren't indigenous, you know?
Marc:No one's indigenous here.
Marc:What's everybody wearing shorts for?
Marc:Yeah, I get it.
Marc:There's plenty of suffering out here.
Marc:I think you probably learned.
Guest:No, I...
Guest:Sometimes you have to manufacture it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's a whole different type of suffering.
Marc:It's not seasonal.
Marc:It's just like the sunshine around here.
Marc:The suffering is year-round out here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But then, okay, but so then you're kind of on... So you take, as the album's progressed, do you still... I mean, outside of the Christmas record or whatever else you're doing, do you still see them all as...
Marc:Because like, you know, you said something earlier about, you know, you kind of take into mind the music and the lyrics and the artwork, like all of that.
Marc:Do you still approach all records like that as singular pieces in and of themselves outside of the songs necessarily?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Now it's just like in this cycle of there's the songs that just accumulate over the course of like two years and all the stuff that I'm concerned about during that time.
Guest:And I just wait for them to come.
Guest:I don't force anything usually.
Marc:How does it happen?
Marc:What comes first, the melody?
Guest:Yeah, the melody almost always comes first.
Guest:Really?
Guest:If the lyrics come first, it's a different kind of tune.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Why, because you got to, why is that?
Guest:Well, okay, so I got, the usual way it happens is it's a melody, and I think this melody is so good, it keeps coming back without having to record it or remind myself.
Guest:It just keeps coming back, and so I know I've got to do something with this.
Guest:And I know in order to do the melody justice, the human voice is what needs to carry it.
Guest:So now I need words.
Guest:And then you're just kind of running the numbers.
Guest:This is what I do when I have insomnia at night.
Guest:I'm just...
Guest:trying to crack the code of the melody the shape of the melody with words and I just sort of point point the melody at a subject that I'm thinking about oh interesting yeah I just kind of aim it at it and like see if they can eventually fit and try not to let the words compromise the melody too much
Guest:I'm right in the thick of that as we speak.
Guest:Because I take the words out and the melody sings.
Guest:And I put the words in and it kind of cramps the melody's thigh a little bit.
Marc:Drags it down.
Guest:Words are dragging your melody down.
Guest:But I love words too.
Guest:And sometimes there's...
Guest:I can have a motif, uh, some kind of, uh, thing that's something gets under my skin, a melody.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sometimes a word gets under my skin or a phrase.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm working on this song right now about, uh, molt, like human molting, you know, like how animals molt, they shed their skin or their feathers or their fur.
Guest:Like, I feel like every season I kind of emotionally, physically molt in a way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Uh, like I go into this hibernating, weird, like low grade fever and it happens.
Guest:So it's such regularity.
Guest:I'm like starting to think like, maybe I'm molting, you know?
Guest:So.
Marc:But I mean, when you molt, do you, do you, uh, emerge a chrysalis or just you again?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, it, it's really unpleasant.
Guest:It's really unpleasant for two weeks.
Guest:And then I come out like a newborn foal.
Guest:Huh?
Guest:I'm full of energy and clarity, but I have to go through this very unpleasant, really physical, physiological experience.
Marc:But you've never pathologized it?
Marc:You've never thought you were ill in some way?
Guest:No, I mean, everyone around me thinks I'm depressed, but I'm like, I swear to God, I've got some... I'm just molting.
Marc:Do you tell them that?
Marc:I'm just molting.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's what I tell my wife, and she just rolls her eyes.
Guest:Here we go with the molting again.
Guest:So anyway, I'm writing a song where I've got a melody, and I remember, I don't know where I heard this, but it was like,
Guest:I think it was like a New Yorker comic or something where there's a baby in a, in a crib and in an ICU or whatever, not ICU, but you know, the prenatal thing and, and the baby says, OMG, I just got born.
Guest:And I, I like that.
Guest:I just got born.
Guest:I was like, okay, that, let me work that in there somehow.
Guest:Uh huh.
Guest:Cause that's a little more, uh, compared to like saying molting and sheathing and, and, uh, exoskeleton, like trying to work that into a song.
Marc:I just got born as funny too.
Marc:It's got a little jokey.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Anyway, so that, that's like a pretty early phases of that.
Guest:That song won't be ready for another two years, but.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:So, but, and you just accept that this is going to be in the, this is going to be in the hopper for two years.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and they're like, you know, I can only maintain because I, like I said, I work on these when I can't sleep.
Guest:So I pull out a file in my head or when I'm waiting for a plane or whatever, some idle time, you pull out this file and you like hammer at it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I have a pretty good playback system in my head so I can demo things in my head.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:That I'm working on.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And these songs become like my companions for.
Marc:Interesting.
Yeah.
Guest:for that period of time, for that two or three years until I get it down.
Marc:And how is it different when you start with words?
Guest:They tend to be more rhythmic.
Marc:Oh, because the melody's not first, so you have a little more freedom, a little more leeway with yourself.
Guest:Yeah, like Sisyphus peered into the mist, a stone's throw from the precipice paused.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, that was not melody-driven.
Guest:Exactly, right.
Guest:Or Sauvé was like, and they tend to be a little more, you know, they're not too far, though maybe culturally far away from, but they're not too far away from the process of a rapper, honestly.
Guest:Right, right, right, right.
Guest:You know, I think you're just, you're looking for good rhythm and rhyme.
Marc:And you don't know, they just come like the melodies, just sort of out of nowhere, a few things come together.
Guest:Yeah, a few things come together.
Guest:I kind of just recede into myself and get that thousand-yard stare, and I'm kind of in here just sort of running numbers, running codes, doing crosswords.
Guest:Sometimes it's not as...
Guest:It's creative, but it's not, you know what I mean?
Guest:It's like.
Marc:Well, yeah, right, right.
Marc:I imagine that if you're a melody guy, that's a little more enchanting in some way where words are kind of like, yeah, you just, they're like math problems.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And melodies, I just, I simply cannot tell you where they're coming from.
Marc:Right, and that's the amazing thing.
Marc:I like that even when I'm improvising comedy where ideas are... That moment where your brain needs to get the laugh but you don't know how it's going to come and something comes out of you and you're like, wow, that was exciting.
Marc:Where did that come from?
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:I feel an affinity with comedians, honestly.
Guest:I feel like when I get up on stage...
Guest:I shrug my shoulders.
Guest:I don't know, folks.
Guest:This is just what's... Let's see what happens.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And I like... Well, I'm impressed by comedians, you know, a profession where you're living by your wits.
Guest:I think that seems noble to me.
Marc:Yeah, me too.
Guest:And it's scary.
Guest:It is.
Guest:Getting ready to do this interview, I realize I get to play a song.
Guest:That's my security blanket.
Guest:But otherwise, I'm being judged on my personality right now.
Marc:Yeah, I think you're doing very well.
Guest:That's scary.
Marc:I think... No, I'm serious.
Marc:No, I'm serious.
Marc:Like, it's weird.
Marc:I mean, you're being judged on a person.
Marc:I didn't know you, though, you know, and I had thought certain things, but it is different, you know, when you have... I've always thought that music is magic in a way, where, like, if you're just doing jokes, I mean, you can do them a few times, but they're going to wear out.
Marc:Whereas, like, you got music, not only can you hide behind it or whatever you think you're doing, or it gives you an assist...
Marc:But, you know, a song can stay with somebody forever and actually change as time goes on.
Marc:Whereas a joke, but it's just like you did it, though.
Marc:It's interesting that I didn't really think about it like that because you remembered that joke.
Marc:Like sometimes a joke is exactly what you need.
Marc:And sometimes they're old jokes and sometimes they're good points of reference.
Marc:But they're not the same as a song, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I mean, whether you've done them a million times to the audience, you're living by the seat of your pants.
Marc:Yeah, I try never to do a joke a million times, God forbid.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That'd be like a nightmare.
Marc:That's like the worst dream ever.
Marc:You'd be stuck in a joke.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, you just feel like, I feel like when I'm playing night after night shows and I say the same, a similar banter to what I did the night before, I feel like such a fraud.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:Imagine doing it for a living, dude.
Marc:I know.
Marc:So how do you choose this, like, you know, on the new record, on the Hark record?
Marc:I mean, some of them are your songs, some of them are songs you like, correct?
Guest:Yeah, I just, you know, they were all at arm's reach.
Guest:They were all, sometimes with an album you just put a bunch of stuff in a room and see if they get along.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I started off just thinking I'm going to do a Vince Guaraldi cover album, put together a great bunch of jazz musicians and just play Vince Guaraldi tunes.
Guest:And then I got a little greedy and I wanted to write some originals.
Guest:And you see them as holiday music?
Guest:Oh, the ones that I wrote?
Guest:Yeah, I thought...
Guest:Well, that's kind of what gets a songwriter up in the morning is thinking, oh, this morning I could write the song that gets everybody singing the same tune, you know, like, and what better place to do that than, like, what if you could get a song into the holiday canon?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But so I thought, you know, try to reinvigorate the tired canon of holiday music.
Guest:with some choice covers that I think deserve entry.
Guest:I set the bar pretty low.
Guest:You just have to either mention Christmas or Snow or something.
Guest:And that's good.
Guest:As long as it's a good piece of music, then let's do it.
Guest:But when I wrote the originals, like Alabaster...
Guest:I tried to write, the first couple of originals I tried to write were too dark.
Guest:You know, you ask yourself when you're writing something, it's like, does the world... The dark Christmas songs?
Guest:Yeah, does the world really need this?
Guest:Is this what people... Because it's a utilitarian thing, like Christmas music.
Guest:It's like you put it on to create an atmosphere.
Guest:It's not being... I noticed that.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, right.
Marc:When I was listening to it, I thought like, all right, so this is like, you know, the fire's going, family's around, right?
Marc:But you did that great John Prine song.
Marc:Isn't that a John Prine song on there?
Guest:it is yeah souvenirs yeah which i've been i've been covering that for years i didn't really think it you know but then it's like oh he's talking about like the post christmas you know crash um and it's such an evocative tune i thought that's a little bittersweet dark will dark will dark
Guest:Yeah, it's talking about memories and nostalgia and feeling kind of betrayed by your memories, I guess.
Marc:And green wine, is that an old melody?
Marc:That's green sleeves.
Marc:Green sleeves, right.
Guest:Okay, there you go.
Guest:Yeah, so I've always loved that melody, and I mashed that up with a handsome family tune about mental illness and alcoholism and Christmas.
Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, the Handsome Family subgenre, alcohol, mental illness.
Marc:Pretty much.
Guest:I like them.
Marc:I like them.
Marc:They live in my hometown.
Marc:I've interviewed them.
Guest:Oh, you're from Albuquerque?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Nice.
Marc:I grew up there.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So in the movie, you say you're from New Mexico.
Guest:That's for real.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:It's for real, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I grounded that improvisation in my own life.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And then the whole Lower East Side.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:Well, no, the Lower East Side.
Marc:I lived there for a long time.
Marc:But my parents are from Jersey, but I grew up in New Mexico.
Marc:That's where my dad settled in the early 70s.
Marc:So that's what I consider home.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So which one of these original Christmas standards are you going to play?
Okay.
Guest:First I was thinking green wine and then I thought maybe Christmas in April.
Marc:Christmas in April.
Guest:But it's up to you.
Guest:I can do either one.
Marc:What is that, a ukulele?
Guest:It's a violin.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:Yeah, since we talked about green wine, let's do green wine.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I had nothing to say on Christmas Day When you threw all your clothes in the snow
Guest:When you burnt your hair You knocked over chairs I just tried to stay out of your way When you fell asleep With blood on your teeth I just got in my car and drove away Listen to me, butterfly
Guest:You know there's only so much wine You can drink in one light But it will never be enough To save you from the bottom of your glass
Guest:.
Guest:.
Guest:.
Guest:.
Guest:.
Guest:Where the state highway starts I stop my car I get out to stare up at the stars
Guest:And as meteors died and shot across the sky I just thought about your sad shining eyes When I went back for my clothes when the sun finally rose When you were just passed out on the floor
Guest:Listen to me, butterfly You know there's only so much wine You can't drink in one life But it would never
Guest:To save you from the bottom of your glass.
Marc:Yeah, great.
Marc:I love it, man.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:Sounds great.
Marc:That's such a moving melody, and the words are great.
Marc:That's a nice dark Christmas song.
Guest:It is quite dark.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I love to, you know, I think part of some of my favorite Christmas tunes are minor key.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Tunes, and I think...
Guest:You know, part of the holiday is because it's somewhat arbitrary.
Guest:The birth of Christ, I think, actually happened in May or something like that.
Guest:Yeah, I have no idea.
Guest:It's a pagan holiday about like, you know, doing something festive to get through like a dark time.
Guest:And sometimes it's like embracing the darkness is helpful, you know.
Marc:Yeah, that seems to be the theme of our conversation.
Marc:The molting, seasonal darkness coming out after the darkness, you know, struggling with the darkness.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Look, I agree with you.
Marc:I mean, it's a very weird thing when I ask you about, you know, like that isolation and stuff.
Marc:Like, I know that most of my personality is built around knowing that, you know, it only takes me a couple of steps and I'm in a pretty deep hole, you know?
Marc:And you just kind of make your way around that.
Marc:And the more you create out of that place, the more relief you get and the more resources you get to not live in that hole.
Guest:Yeah, but I think the suffering for your art is a myth.
Marc:No, you can't do it on purpose.
Marc:I don't know whether it's a myth or what, but the romanticization of it is.
Marc:Yeah, there's plenty of fucked up artists around that have their own struggles.
Marc:And arguably, anybody who does original art and commits to that life is a certain special type of person that's willing to engage in a life of struggle.
Marc:But I don't think you can do it on purpose.
Guest:No.
Guest:No, I've found other ways to channel that, that impulse though, just, um, I, to, to kind of blunt my, myself against the world.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But it's not, not, and that's not saying my art.
Guest:If I, if I wake up and I'm happy and energetic, I, I do better work, you know?
Marc:Sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Cause you're excited.
Marc:You're not, you're not, you're not trying to climb out of a pit.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Do you do it?
Marc:Do you exercise?
Marc:Do you mountain biking or something?
Guest:How did you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I, I like, right.
Guest:I like writing and I've been doing this more since the pandemic is my way to cope with it is to do like extreme almost, you know, exercising to the point of almost nausea.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Good.
Guest:And I think it makes me, it makes me dumb enough to be able to handle the day and the world.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Cause you're, cause you're fucking exhausted.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You're just kind of, you're just, I do that too.
Marc:Where you're like at two o'clock, you're like, why am I need a nap?
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I rode up a mountain.
Guest:And it's also to get the endorphin hit that I used to get from performing too.
Guest:I think.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I've been, I've been doing these live Instagrams in the morning to engage with a live bunch of people and it's a double-edged sword, but it does give me the little jolt of being engaged that way, you know?
Guest:Yeah, it doesn't take too much to feel like you're just on the hot seat a little bit.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:To get that fix.
Marc:And also talking to people's good.
Marc:Talking to you, I can do it.
Marc:For sure.
Marc:Well, it was good talking to you, man.
Guest:It was great talking to you.
Guest:When you wrote that note about Lynn, I wanted...
Guest:It may sound disingenuine at this point, but I wanted to reach out.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, you don't know me from Adam.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If I wrote to you and said, hey, let's go for a walk or something.
Guest:Yeah, we could have.
Guest:But I had that impulse.
Guest:Well, thanks, man.
Guest:And I didn't act on it.
Marc:That's okay.
Marc:It's been a really difficult thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't even know how.
Marc:It's just so it's so like it's so normal, but so like it's not normal in that it's tragic, but it's what happens in life, you know, but it's like it's really hard to to wrap your brain around it, you know, into the absence and whatnot.
Marc:Like there's no way to kind of make it.
Marc:There's no way to normalize it, you know.
Marc:But it's as normal as being born in some ways.
Marc:You don't know how it's going to go down.
Marc:But Jesus, man, it's rough go.
Marc:Because she was a special person.
Guest:She was an uncommon person.
Guest:I noticed that the moment I met her.
Guest:Yep.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:but uh thanks for talking and yeah and uh i really enjoyed getting into your stuff more preparing for this and i like the the new uh holiday record and it was uh thanks man it was good getting to know you a little bit man
Marc:Yeah, same here.
Marc:I'll be in touch someday.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When we get out of the plague, we'll hang out.
Marc:I'll play some one chord blues with you.
Marc:I'd love that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay, man.
Marc:Take it easy, Andrew.
Guest:See you, Mark.
Marc:All right, sang a song for us.
Marc:The song he played was Green Wine from his new album, Hark.
Marc:You can get that at andrewbird.net.
Marc:Also, go to wtfpod.com slash merch.
Marc:Got the Too Close shirts, got all the other stuff.
Marc:Might be able to squeeze in a quick Christmas gift purchase.
Marc:You'll probably get there late, but you can still do it.
Marc:I'm bad with gifts.
Marc:I'm good at getting them.
Marc:All right, I'll play a little guitar.
guitar solo
Marc:Boomer lives.
Marc:The monkey.
Marc:And the fonda.
Marc:Cat angels everywhere.