Episode 583 - Dan Zanes / Christopher Mansfield
Marc:All right, let's do this.
Marc:How are you?
Marc:What the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fucking ears?
Marc:What the fuck Gnostics?
Marc:What the fuck theists?
Marc:What the fuckadelics?
Marc:I am Mark Maron.
Marc:This is WTF.
Marc:Thank you for joining me.
Marc:Thank you for listening today on the show.
Marc:Dan Zanes is here.
Marc:Dan Zanes was in one of my favorite bands back in the day called the Del Fuegos out of Boston when I was in college.
Marc:They just made their break.
Marc:Their first album was fucking awesome.
Marc:Their second album was awesome.
Marc:Then something happened as as happens with bands.
Marc:But there was a big controversy around them.
Marc:But now he's like the guy.
Marc:He's like the world music, family music dude.
Marc:He's the world family music dude.
Marc:I don't know how to explain it.
Marc:He'll explain it.
Marc:But I had no idea that he was so popular.
Marc:A couple of years ago, I realized it was him that he had really transitioned into sort of a kind of global oriented folk music geared at children and even wider geared to families with children.
Marc:But it's a pretty beautiful story.
Marc:Considering he was in his major rock band that never quite cut it, but they were good, man.
Marc:I mean, I've still got most of the Del Fuego's albums and I still listen to him.
Marc:So it was a real thrill to me to talk to Dan and to hear his story about how he got to where he is, which is a preeminent family, children, music guy.
Marc:But it didn't start that way.
Marc:It started out with rock and roll and started out in Boston, Massachusetts.
Marc:And it was back in, I guess it would be the 80s.
Marc:Early, what, early 80s, early to mid 80s.
Marc:But I remember them and they were a great band and it was a great conversation.
Marc:Also on the show, I'm going to talk to Chris Mansfield of Fences.
Marc:Their album, Lesser Oceans, comes out tomorrow.
Marc:Mansfield is the guy who wore a handmade, homemade Boomer Lives t-shirt on The Tonight Show.
Marc:He's been a huge fan of my show.
Marc:And I got into his shit and then we talked for a bit.
Marc:And I'll share some of that conversation with you.
Marc:you know, heading into his new record.
Marc:But what about it?
Marc:What about people who listen to this show and why they listen to this show?
Marc:Look, I'm having a bit of a battle, an ongoing battle with nostalgia.
Marc:I think as you get older, one of the bigger wars is the battle against being consumed by nostalgia.
Marc:And I know I talk a lot about getting older and sort of handling both success and disappointment, both personal and professional.
Marc:And look, I am no perfect grown-up, that's for sure.
Marc:I'm far from it.
Marc:Like, I got into it yesterday on Twitter.
Marc:I just blew up at a guy who was supposed to play a part on my show, Marin.
Marc:He had already done the part in two other episodes, and...
Marc:And then out of nowhere, even though we booked him, he bailed on it because of things that he said were out of his control.
Marc:And I got mad and I posted it on Twitter.
Marc:But then we worked it out on Twitter.
Marc:And that's the way it goes.
Marc:We kind of worked it out.
Marc:He still bailed.
Marc:But it is what it is.
Marc:It's show business, right?
Marc:And maybe I shouldn't use Twitter as my personal dumping ground.
Marc:pow look out shit my pants just coffee.coop that's classic ad format from from me mark maron one of my oldest and most uh uh and and and uh and advertiser that i'm still uh inconsistently uh uh but uh always loyal to uh just coffee.coop they have the wtf blend there you can get i get a little on the back end of that but
Marc:Good stuff.
Marc:You can get that at WTF pod dot com.
Marc:But but I felt bad.
Marc:And I tell you, man, it's very rare that I get on Twitter for an hour and I don't feel filthy for a few minutes for some reason.
Marc:But that's just the nature of it.
Marc:Everything's public.
Marc:It's amazing how with technology, how efficiently and quickly and thoroughly we can put our mistakes out into the world.
Marc:So.
Marc:The bottom line is I'm trying to keep you in the loop of what's happening with me.
Marc:There's been some fear expressed that I'm going to become successful and complacent or perhaps pleasant.
Marc:But again, do not know who or why or how this show comes across to people who listens to what.
Marc:But I did that thing before Rob McElhaney.
Marc:And I just talked and I get very insecure about these talks because, you know, I don't know if they're funny.
Marc:I don't know if they're they're relevant.
Marc:I don't know if they mean anything to anybody.
Marc:And I a lot of times leave the garage thinking like, what the fuck was it?
Marc:What was that?
Marc:But after last Thursday's intro, there was this posted on the comment board today's intro.
Marc:This is by Richard.
Marc:Today's intro conversation to Rob McElhaney's interview about growing up was one of your best.
Marc:I find myself emotionally engaged with you about the heartbreak of being a grown-up.
Marc:At 42 years old, six years into a corporate job as an oil industry analyst, I've been coming to terms with the reality that things have not turned out as I'd hoped or expected.
Marc:Before joining the corporate workforce, I lived about 12 to 15 years as a visual artist creating undecipherable oil paintings in Houston, Texas.
Marc:I have a large body of work and have had many art exhibitions locally and internationally.
Marc:I've sold several hundred paintings, but I never made enough selling paintings to make a living.
Marc:I never quite got enough traction with the galleries.
Marc:I haven't given up, but I've had to set aside my artist lifestyle for an eight to five gig doing research and writing industry news and reports in order to maintain the business facade.
Marc:I've convinced myself that I'm an undercover liberal environmentalist investigating the offshore oil industry.
Marc:In truth, I'm very good at my corporate job and I keep getting promotions and more money.
Marc:I question whether or not I still have that idealistic artist inside me.
Marc:My family is thrilled that I've quote unquote grown up and have a real job.
Marc:Your podcast is a beacon of hope to the frustrated artist in me.
Marc:I love your interviews with creative people who continue to live the dream.
Marc:I struggle with the heartbreak of growing up on a daily basis.
Marc:Thank you, Richard.
Marc:Now, it's not nothing.
Marc:I know some people out there.
Marc:I know some people are like, that guy is a whiner.
Marc:You know, I know you guys who think that.
Marc:I know you women who think that.
Marc:You know, just shut up and man up or shut up.
Marc:buck up and shut up and, you know, quit whining.
Marc:This is life.
Marc:You know, but life doesn't have to, you don't have to put that wall up.
Marc:You don't have to be like, you know, fuck you, quit it.
Marc:Part of life is, you know, fully experiencing the pain and not just shutting it out and dumping the anger of shutting it out onto everyone around you and claiming that is a philosophically righteous position.
Marc:I also got this email that was very touching along the same lines of how this show resonates with people.
Marc:Mark, first off, I love the show and your brand of comedy.
Marc:This is from Casey.
Marc:In general, and in a way, I suppose due to your extreme openness, I love you.
Marc:Let's not let that sentence hang there too long so it doesn't get weird.
Marc:The reason I'm writing you
Marc:is to say that besides the fact that it takes a little over two hours of time a week out of my shit job, I'm thankful for the show because of the effect it's having on me and my stepfather.
Marc:He's been in my life since I was two, so I don't really see him as a quote-unquote stepfather, but rather just my dad.
Marc:However, the fact that we share no genes means for us that we've never seen eye-to-eye on shit, which is the norm by this time.
Marc:I'm 27 now.
Marc:Our brains simply don't work the same.
Marc:Recently, though, my dad discovered WTF independent of me.
Marc:And it has been something that he and I have bonded over in a way we've never bonded over anything.
Marc:Our conversations almost exclusively begin with, quote, did you hear that new Marin yet?
Marc:Unquote.
Marc:It's been really nice to laugh with my dad.
Marc:I sincerely believe that there is nothing that can bring two people together like sharing a laugh.
Marc:And you're giving that to us.
Marc:Real quick in my life, I have dropped out of high school, got my girlfriend pregnant at 17 and generally been a fuck up, but also got a good job regardless of my education.
Marc:Married that girl from 10 years, still in love.
Marc:Had three more kids.
Marc:That's four.
Marc:I know.
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:Bought a house and generally made good.
Marc:I put my dad through the ringer, but earned his respect by being a man.
Marc:Now through you, I'm making friends with him.
Marc:so much so that I'm traveling with him from Daytona Beach to our former home state of Louisiana to see you in New Orleans, and I'm actually excited to be alone spending time with my dad.
Marc:That's a gift from you to us, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate it.
Marc:I know you've had dad problems, and I've identified with a lot of them, which makes it sort of ironic that you are kind of the bow on the package of reconciliation that I'm having with my dad.
Marc:Thanks again.
Marc:Can't wait to see you.
Marc:Don't fuck it up, man.
Marc:Casey.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:He also wrote, P.S.
Marc:I've always dreamed of trying my hand at comedy.
Marc:I've been consistently hitting two to three open mics per week for the last three months, but because of you, I refuse to call myself or be called a comedian.
Marc:I'll earn that title just like you'd want.
Marc:Well, Casey, that's fucking touching, man.
Marc:And be sure when you're in New Orleans to say hi to me.
Marc:You and your dad, come up.
Marc:Say hi to me.
Marc:So those are the kind of emails that make me more grateful than earning a living, more grateful than anything else is the fact that this show seems to provide something soothing to those of us who are troubled in a certain way.
Marc:Men and women alike, children as well.
Marc:I have some very sensitive and very intelligent 13 to 14 year old fans.
Marc:Okay, about the tour, let me get into this quickly because there's been shows added.
Marc:The Trocadero in Philadelphia, that's a two-show night.
Marc:That's Friday, April 10th.
Marc:There's been a show added at the Wilbur in Boston on April 11th.
Marc:I don't know how that second show... That second show might be close to selling out.
Marc:On April 19th in Toronto at Bluma Appel, there's been a second show added.
Marc:So those tickets are available.
Marc:There's been a second show added in Seattle at the Neptune on May 8th.
Marc:And there's been a second show added at the Orange Peel in Asheville, North Carolina on May 14th.
Marc:So those of you who got shut out of tickets...
Marc:you can get them now.
Marc:All right?
Marc:So let me share with you now some time that I spent with Chris Mansfield of the band Fences.
Marc:He was a guy that pursued me pretty heavily on Twitter and otherwise.
Marc:He's a huge fan of the show.
Marc:So we finally got him in here.
Marc:He does very sort of heartfelt music.
Marc:He works with Macklemore sometimes.
Marc:And the new record, the new Fences album, Lesser Oceans, comes out tomorrow, March 10th.
Marc:So you can get that wherever you get music.
Marc:So let's...
Marc:Here's me and Chris Mansfield.
Marc:so let's let's talk about our history we uh you've been trying to get on the show for about what three years yes three years you first started coming at me i didn't know who you were and then we had a problem we had some tension we had a fight yeah we had a fight on dm right yeah and i i wasn't sure i felt i was like i guess it's better than nothing but and then there was a period where you were only following me on twitter yeah yeah trying to make a point yeah
Marc:And then you wore the homemade Boomer Live shirt on The Tonight Show.
Marc:I did.
Marc:Were you with Macklemore that night?
Marc:I was.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I appreciate that.
Marc:It worked.
Marc:But it took a long time.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:well i just it was it made me it was all making me feel uncomfortable i wasn't sure what you're why you were so compelled what what was it that you wanted to talk to me about what did you feel that you needed to do this show so badly for um it's funny um i had no idea who you were for you know my entire life yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's not like i was that's the common story right where the hell have you been
Guest:I don't know who you are.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Guest:Where's this guy?
Guest:Where I was either, but I think there was a really poignant time living in Brooklyn with a girlfriend, like a relationship that was deteriorating.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:you know making a record and every night my way to kind of isolate was to put your podcast on oh and to sort of decompress from writing and all the stress of that so it was like so i was like a friend in the night
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
Guest:And it was, you know, I kind of felt like, what is the sort of blanket over that entire period now that I've fucking made it to television?
Guest:Like, who can I give a hat tip to?
Guest:And it happened to you.
Marc:It was a very clever hat tip because it was like only members of the club know that one.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:You know, it's funny is my dad called me really excited and he's like, yeah, a bunch of people are hitting me up and they're so excited.
Guest:You're paying respects to Boomer.
Guest:And apparently Boomer is like a guy that my dad's friend knew who died of cancer.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:And my dad didn't have the heart to say, no, it's just a cat.
Guest:uh-huh so let the people think what they will yeah so we didn't say nothing you got a lot of tattoos those must have taken some time right you don't care about the tattoos i mean i do i like them but i view them in a different way than probably most people how do you view the tattoos on your face i see them as just sort of
Guest:Maybe like a beautiful thing, like things that I like, you know, just like I think they're pretty.
Guest:What was the choice?
Marc:Why did you get the ones you got?
Guest:Well, the thing is, is that, you know, I mean, the one above the left eye is Pitsula, which is an L.A.
Guest:Smith song, which means like a precious thing in Yiddish, which is my favorite song.
Guest:Coyote under here.
Guest:My mother has tons of coyotes on her property.
Guest:and they're just like these kind of like sad beautiful animals that i like uh-huh you know um you relate i do when i see them i'm like i get it we got some around here that was a dog i thought i just heard that it was pretty perfect
Guest:yeah i hope it was a coyote what's up above your right eye uh this no uh this this says lesser that was for the record uh-huh yeah just it's a new one yeah yeah yeah so how long did it take you to write this record
Marc:Six years?
Marc:No.
Marc:Let me ask you something, though.
Marc:What happened with the first record?
Marc:Was it supposed to be... Did you feel okay with it?
Guest:I did, I did.
Guest:The first record was, to really just break it down, to fit it into the time frame, is...
Guest:I dropped out of Berklee.
Guest:I was playing basement shows.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, doing, you know, acoustic guitar, singing.
Guest:And I'm starting to write kind of all these songs and stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was recording songs just on, you know, GarageBand and whatever.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And just sort of had about 30 songs or something.
Guest:Had them up on MySpace.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then Sarah found them and was like, you should make a record.
Guest:but to me at the time it was like after Berklee I met Jenna my girlfriend and moved to New York I worked at CBGB's for a while which was cool towards the end I guess huh yeah
Guest:you know just kind of i didn't have any uh illusions of being like a you know a famous musician i was just like okay i'm just you know dating this girl living in boston moved to new york and just working and doing whatever and you know and i had these songs and i would play a couple shows sometimes you know but it wasn't a big deal like yeah i'll play in this
Guest:coffee shop or I'll put it in this basement and whatever, but I just, uh, put them out and then, and then Sarah found them.
Guest:But to me, it's like, um, from being a kid, uh, trying to, you know, I want to be a, uh, you know, a jazz musician or I want to be a, uh, a folk singer or whatever.
Guest:It's like, I was just trying to find, uh,
Guest:I think when I really look at it, I was trying to find a way to just, like, deal with everything.
Guest:And then just kind of finding it, like, simple, being like, okay, a two-minute song of me just, you know, finger-picking an A minor to a C to a G, and then here we go, and it feels good, and maybe other people want to listen to it.
Guest:You know, that's really it.
Guest:It was pretty simple.
Guest:I mean, my entire, it seems kind of like it was an accident.
Guest:Not that I didn't want to be a musician.
Marc:But did it do well, the record?
Guest:I think it sold like 15,000 copies.
Guest:Not real well, but we played Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo and some things like that.
Guest:We didn't do any television or anything, but it was a modest indie album.
Marc:Yeah, and Macklemore helps you out on this new one a little bit.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:How do you know that guy?
Guest:After Berkeley, I moved to New York with my girlfriend, moved to Seattle, went back.
Guest:Because of my head, I'm like, let's go to Seattle.
Guest:Let's try to settle there and do something.
Guest:And at that point, I'd been singing songs and writing songs.
Guest:I mean, people move when they're young.
Guest:Let's try to find our place.
Marc:Fuck yeah, man.
Marc:I moved around all the time.
Marc:I went to LA, New York.
Guest:yeah san francisco i went all over chasing it yeah yeah like boston who knows what you're even looking for you just like no it's just like not where you were like gotta go yeah yeah so we went there and um and then yeah he he was there and he was certainly not who he is now and he's still just a guy but he was not he's a sober guy though now right yeah yeah he is he's sober
Guest:I go back and forth.
Guest:It's sort of a thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, yeah, I do.
Guest:What's your thing?
Guest:Booze?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I do the meetings and I've been to rehab and, you know, it's tough.
Guest:But...
Guest:I do my best, but my goal is to be sober.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I'll tell you that.
Guest:So you met him when he was just a guy?
Guest:Just a guy, yeah.
Guest:Was he singing, though?
Guest:Was he rapping?
Guest:Yeah, he was rapping.
Guest:He was doing it, and he's like, yeah, come see me.
Guest:I'm playing at this place.
Guest:350 people sold out, and now he's far different than that.
Guest:He's a pop singer.
Guest:Phenomenon.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Self-made man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Helped you out.
Guest:Yeah, he did.
Guest:But I have no trouble with that because I think the song Other Side, 2010 that came out, that song was basically about not drinking or using drugs.
Guest:That was a thing that we did.
Guest:I did that for him first.
Guest:That was when my record had already come out, and he didn't have a huge push.
Guest:He was just sort of doing his thing.
Guest:So he did that, and I went out and did my thing, came back, and he'd send me stuff from the heist, that record that blew up and changed the world.
Guest:He sent me Thrift Shop, and I'm like, this is cool.
Guest:This is funny.
Guest:This is a funny song.
Guest:It could do well.
Guest:You guys are buds just buds.
Guest:Yeah, it's not even a it's not even a thing, but I'm getting My band onto a major label, you know where we I started talking with a producer who his manager
Guest:uh became the president of electra and he knew that i had a relationship with macklemore and just sort of so lesser lesser oceans is the first electra record or was the first record on electra first record was independent release yeah yeah so this was the first time that we've so this is a big deal for you man
Guest:Yeah, no, it is.
Guest:It's crazy.
Marc:Yeah, it was like... You did that first record, 2008, 9, it comes out, 7 or 8, whenever.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you've waited around and did some work and played some shows.
Marc:But this is really the break here.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:This record.
Guest:Right.
Guest:This is the one.
Guest:Yeah, three... You ready?
Guest:Four TV shows and it's a major label.
Marc:Four TV shows, but that was...
Marc:Were you doing Macklemore's song or yours?
Marc:Ours.
Marc:Both of yours?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Whose album is that on?
Guest:Mine.
Guest:Arrows is on Lesser Oceans and he's on it.
Guest:So we did Good Morning America.
Guest:How'd that do?
Guest:Did you get a bump from that?
Guest:um yeah well you sold a lot it's great we sold way more than than fences yeah fuck fuck yeah it's really cool well congratulations on your journey thank you man it's good talking to you you're not sad are you no i'm fine i just need to go home and unpack my boxes you just moved i just moved out i was there for one day and i go home tonight
Marc:And this, you got a new girlfriend?
Guest:Yeah, she's Abby.
Guest:She's the girl in the Arrows video.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Falling in love is good, buddy.
Marc:You can still pull it off.
Marc:How old are you?
Marc:Too old.
Marc:How old are you?
Marc:31.
Marc:Good for you, man.
Marc:I wish you the most success with this thing.
Marc:Thank you, man.
Marc:All right.
Marc:all right again fences new record lesser oceans comes out tomorrow may 10th and now back to boston folks dan zanes man dan zanes he's on tour this spring you can go to danzanes.com to find out more this is one of the only times on wtf that i can say you should bring your whole family to these shows now let's talk to dan zanes
Marc:Dan Zanes.
Marc:The funny thing is that I know you from the Del Fuego's.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:Another lifetime though, really.
Marc:I know, but it was.
Marc:I mean, I just had you in the house, and you're listening to that music, and you haven't heard that in how long?
Marc:Probably, really?
Marc:A long, long time.
Marc:You know, a decade?
Marc:A couple decades?
Marc:I mean, but you did do some other Del Fuego's records, right?
Marc:You did one in the 2000s.
Marc:No.
Guest:Well, you know, I did something with, yeah, we did something.
Guest:We got together.
Guest:We had a reunion tour for a couple of weeks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We made an EP.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Along the way, which is, you know, it was nice for all of us on a social, interpersonal level.
Guest:Right.
Guest:We're friends.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Are you?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everyone's cool?
Guest:Everyone's very cool these days.
Guest:You know, everybody, there's life after rock and roll for everybody.
Guest:And it was nice for my brother and I because, you know, he didn't write any of the songs when we were, I wouldn't let him, you know, basically.
Guest:When you were kids?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't, you know, what if he turned out to be better than me?
Marc:You just cornered the whole band.
Marc:It was all you.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, you know, it was nice.
Guest:He wrote some songs on the EP.
Guest:You know, we played in the good, you know, the best part about it was the world wasn't waiting for us.
Guest:You know, people hadn't been standing around.
Guest:I was, Dan.
Guest:Well, where were you, man?
Guest:Sorry, buddy.
Guest:Sorry, man.
Guest:Really?
Guest:No one showed up?
Guest:Yeah, a couple of people.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I guess that's why it's hard to go back.
Guest:Yeah, and you know what?
Guest:As it should be.
Guest:Because if it had been a big success, we would have been tempted to keep doing it.
Guest:And life after the Del Fuego's has been better for every one of us.
Guest:All four of us have gone on to better things.
Marc:Well, I mean, I was in Boston.
Marc:I was there through most of the 80s.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:And when I was in college...
Marc:You know, you guys were playing block parties.
Marc:I mean, when did you guys start playing?
Marc:Beginning of the 80s.
Marc:Right?
Marc:We moved to town.
Marc:So where'd you come from?
Marc:How did it all transpire?
Marc:Because I mean, that band was a good band.
Marc:There was a lot of things going on in Boston, but where'd you grow up?
Marc:I grew up in New Hampshire.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah, and I couldn't find anybody to play music with, so I went to college to try and meet some people that I could start a band with.
Guest:Where'd you go to college?
Guest:Oberlin.
Guest:that's a good school yeah i was lucky to go there man where is that place it's in ohio right yeah it was it was a nice place it was a half conservatory half liberal arts and i went there you know i really i didn't go to get an education although i would have been a nice place for it but i went to start a band and the the first day in the breakfast line i saw a guy that i i kind of remembered from high school and i went up and i talked to him from high school
Guest:Yeah, I was lucky enough to go away to school for a couple years.
Marc:Where's that?
Marc:Where'd you go then?
Guest:Andover, Phillips Academy.
Marc:Oh, Phillips Academy?
Guest:That's fancy.
Guest:Yeah, that's where George W. Bush went.
Marc:Did you go there all through high school?
Guest:No, two years.
Marc:That's fancy, man.
Marc:Yeah, hey, I've been blessed, man.
Marc:Where do you come from?
Marc:What part of the aristocracy?
Guest:No part.
Guest:That's the crazy thing.
Marc:Is it just you and your brother?
Marc:We have a sister in between us.
Marc:yeah and you grew and your your folks were from new hampshire yeah yeah new england wasps yeah man so what was the old man doing what'd he do um my old man was you know he he always wrote he always wrote he's been married five times so that was a lot of what he was doing but you know dealing with the ladies
Guest:Yeah, but he always wrote, they split up when I was around six.
Guest:Your parents.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And then he went on, which wife was that?
Marc:Two.
Marc:That was the second wife.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now you and your brother from the same mom?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Are all the kids from the same mom?
Guest:We have some half brothers and sisters on either side.
Marc:Big family.
Marc:So he was a writer?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:he yeah you know he would teach he would write he would do you know he never um he never did you know it never it never worked out for him the way right he would have liked it to right sure i think that's i think there's a kind of a family history of that you know of it not working out the way they would have liked it to yeah i think a lot of times you know a lot of us being diplomatic
Guest:The lifestyle.
Guest:Let's just say the lifestyle.
Guest:It's tough being a poet or whatever.
Guest:Was he a poet?
Guest:Poet, yeah, whatever.
Guest:But here's the thing, and he's still alive, so I try and... And I admire something about him very much, which I didn't realize until much later on in...
Guest:as an adult, I admire that no matter what his fortunes were and no matter what kind of troubles he was having on the personal side in his life, he always wrote.
Guest:He wrote every day.
Guest:He did his thing every day.
Guest:Whether people wanted to read it or publish it or anything, he always wrote.
Guest:So it's, you know, I really, that's a heavy thing.
Marc:It is heavy, man.
Marc:It's heavy when, you know, whatever your relationship is with your dad, but you go in and out with these guys.
Marc:And then, you know, you get to a certain age where you got to just, you know, look at the good things and then say like, well, there's just one part of his personality that seems to be a good thing.
Marc:And I have a little of that.
Marc:So that's good.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, you guys get along now?
Guest:Yeah, we do.
Guest:You know, we went years and years with no relationship.
Guest:And then angrily.
Guest:I think it was anger, and I had the option.
Guest:I had the opt-out feature, and so I chose to exercise the opt-out, which I did.
Guest:And I had my own lifestyle challenges.
Guest:I was in a rock and roll band.
Guest:That seemed to me the perfect job, because I thought the lifestyle was attractive.
Marc:Did he have a job job?
Marc:Did anyone work in the family?
Guest:He just was a teacher?
Guest:Yeah, he did some teaching.
Guest:That was mostly what he did.
Guest:And I can admire that.
Guest:I can admire anybody who can teach.
Guest:It's a big thing.
Guest:Well, it seems like you kind of ended up there.
Guest:In a way.
Guest:I'm coming around to it.
Guest:That's right, man.
Guest:I feel like I'm more of a teacher now doing this early childhood stuff, especially in the last couple years.
Marc:To me, it's a fascinating transition, and it couldn't have been necessarily easy to sort of figure out.
Marc:Let's see if we can get there by talking about it.
Marc:So you go to Oberlin.
Marc:When you're studying what?
Marc:I think I would have been a religion major.
Marc:Really?
Guest:I didn't know, you know.
Marc:So you don't remember, but you got an idea that might have been what you were interested in?
Guest:That looked like a good thing to me at the time.
Guest:It seemed mysterious, and it seemed like it was maybe multicultural or something.
Guest:You know, I came from the white monoculture.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So all of a sudden, I didn't know anything about the world.
Guest:Anything I knew about the world, I learned from listening to records.
Guest:So it was kind of a limited worldview that I had.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, when did you start sort of focusing on music?
Marc:Long before, like in your childhood?
Guest:Yeah, I started playing when I was eight.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I knew that was going to be it.
Guest:I had no plan B. Yeah.
Marc:I'm very familiar with that, with that disposition.
Marc:Some people would call it stupid, but we call it creative.
Marc:From the get-go, so you had a guitar with a little nylon stringer?
Guest:No, it was an airline, electric strings.
Marc:That was your first guitar?
Guest:An airline.
Marc:An airline.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What are you listening to when you're eight?
Guest:How old are you?
Marc:My age?
Marc:A little older?
Marc:I'm 52.
Marc:I'm 51.
Marc:51.
Marc:Oh, all right.
Marc:So we're in the same game.
Marc:We missed the 60s for most practical purposes.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:We had to sort of play catch-up for our entire life.
Marc:Did you ever think about which music came down at you and why?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I think being up in New Hampshire and tuning in in the very late 60s, we'd been in Canada for a little while.
Guest:So the music up in Canada was tremendous.
Guest:Ian and Sylvia, they got divorced when I was up in Canada.
Marc:Were they a folk unit?
Yeah.
Guest:ian and sylvia yeah yeah great great canadian uh male female duo these you know people said in the early 60s when ian tyson who was the male voice in the group would walk through the crowd at a festival bob dylan would step aside you know it was a heavyweight thing oh yeah tyson was they were big gordon whitefoot gordon lightfoot was up there so you know it was good in the band the band they were still up there
Guest:no but they were you know they were ronnie hawkins in that and it was uh he was they were playing with ronnie hawkins weren't they yeah but this was you know this is the point where they did they were starting their thing you know so the late 60s early 70s so the band was i mean that was really my group you know the band that was i just i heard everything in their music and i still do it is it's all in there yeah and that was sort of their thing yeah no one quite understood how they did it but they did it
Guest:yep it seems like it you know that sound could only come from a certain collection of individuals it's like a snowflake there's only one it's bizarre right yep and so many people tried to do it and they just couldn't do it you can't make it happen it's just gonna it's gonna happen or it's not you know they weren't all canadian though right were they everybody but leave on right yeah
Marc:All right, so you're at Oberlin vaguely studying religion because you don't know anything about the world.
Marc:Were you inherently interested in religion?
Marc:Did you have a spiritual side or you just?
Marc:I think we all do.
Marc:I know, Dan.
Marc:Let's try to break it down.
Marc:Were you a godless wanderer or you just were like, I don't got to choose something?
Guest:I think it just seemed so mysterious.
Guest:It just seemed mysterious.
Guest:It was the window into the world because it seemed like... And I can dig it now.
Guest:I wanted to write.
Guest:I wanted to read.
Guest:So I went to this fancy high school, and I came out.
Guest:I never read a book by a black writer.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Marc:Did you do well at Andover?
Guest:I mean, were you...
Guest:i did okay you know my uncle my uncle ran the art gallery that was how and he you know that was i had i had some access he ran the art gallery at the school yeah they had an art gallery it's like a college oh right it's crazy yeah okay so they had a collection because it's like that old waspy infrastructure yeah people giving gifts and whatnot yeah yeah yeah i get it so um
Guest:But, you know, I came out of there and I had never read a book by a black writer.
Guest:So, you know, even going to that school, you know, my worldview is so limited.
Marc:So you must have got something from the from the music.
Marc:I mean, it must have been listening to blues or something.
Marc:I was listening to music.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, I mean, I did.
Marc:I liked oldies rock and roll.
Marc:I mean, that was really my thing.
Marc:Like oldies like Buddy Holly, Richie Valance.
Marc:Love Buddy Holly.
Marc:Love doo-wop.
Marc:Oh, so the doo-wop groups.
Marc:So you're familiar with some expressions of at least black culture from rock and roll.
Guest:Oh, yeah, definitely.
Guest:But that's not enough to get you in a conversation with another person.
Marc:Yeah, no, no, no.
Marc:What do you know about black culture?
Marc:Chuck Berry's good.
Guest:howlin the wolf could lay it down right yeah that's it then what can anybody say to that yeah that guy was good so i don't know man i'm you know religion seemed like a portal seemed like it yeah but i didn't even think about it that hard what i was really thinking about was starting a band and i did you know on the first day we started and that was with tom lloyd and he and i played together for the next 10 years
Guest:Was the band always the Del Fuego's when you were at Oberlin?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where'd you get that name?
Guest:We thought it made it sound like an R&B group, which we thought we were, funny enough.
Guest:And then we thought Tierra Del Fuego was a vacation land, which it's not.
Marc:So that was it.
Marc:That was the idea.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, and it was a nice thing because I think because I had been fortunate enough to go away to school a little bit, I wasn't as interested in hanging out with freshmen and partying.
Guest:And so a lot of the older cats would turn us on to music.
Guest:We were just hungry.
Guest:We were hungry to hear whatever anybody could play for us.
Guest:And so a lot of these older guys would play things for us just to see us flip out, which we did.
Marc:Well, that's the best thing.
Marc:I mean, I talk to musicians a lot about that, that there's got to be somebody ahead of you that says, hey, have you heard the Velvet Underground?
Marc:You're like, no.
Marc:And then the next day, you're a different person.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it really works that way.
Marc:It fucking does, man.
Marc:So you're coming at music with this guy with Lloyd.
Marc:What's his first name?
Marc:Tom.
Marc:Tom Lloyd.
Marc:And you guys are playing covers?
Guest:A lot of covers.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:Sam and Dave, tons of Chuck Berry.
Marc:So you are doing R&B.
Guest:Yeah, we're trying.
Guest:But we don't even know how to tune our instruments.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What's he play?
Guest:Bass?
Guest:Bass.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:We had a drummer, a guy from England named Nick.
Guest:So we were trying to play some ska tunes.
Guest:We were trying to play Guns of Navarone and Phoenix City and some of these older ska tunes.
Yeah.
Marc:But this is like, what year are you?
Marc:So this is like 82?
Marc:80.
Marc:80.
Marc:Okay, that's the first year of college.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And there's already shit going on.
Marc:So you're outside of the box.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, Scott, not so much.
Marc:I mean, Scott was kind of happening.
Guest:Yeah, that was coming back around.
Guest:But, you know, we did a lot of Elvis Presley tunes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So when we moved to Boston, we dropped out after a year at Oberlin.
Guest:We knew we weren't long for that environment.
Guest:It wasn't going to help us.
Guest:And so we went to Boston.
Guest:And we showed up in Boston.
Guest:And it seemed like guys from Lynn and Medford, everybody had a band, but they're all singing in English accents.
Guest:I mean, that was my impression at the time.
Guest:It was punk rock.
Guest:Yeah, who would that have been?
Marc:you know the guy that i think was really the you know the the greatest of of them all was jonathan richmond yeah he was great see i missed i missed that i missed i mean that the first modern lovers record is like i still listen to it it's it's so sweet yeah like and like and he seemed i don't know that guy do you know him i met him a bunch of times and i you know if the first time i met him was at a
Guest:At a show somewhere.
Guest:And I mean, he was already out.
Guest:I think he had moved out of town.
Guest:He was touring around.
Guest:He's made several records by the time we showed up.
Guest:But I said, man, you know, you changed my life.
Guest:And he said, oh, well, how's your life doing now?
Guest:And he seemed like he really cared.
Marc:Made me feel so good.
Marc:Well, it's interesting because like later, you know, after that Modern Lovers record,
Marc:A couple of records later, he was doing what you're doing now.
Marc:He went back to an innocence in the music.
Marc:He seemed very genuine.
Marc:Even the modern lovers, you had this kid who's being produced by John Cale.
Marc:There's darkness all around him.
Marc:And he somehow was able to find this, you know, very sweet and sensitive sound that influenced everybody.
Marc:But he was not, like, one of these dark forces.
Guest:No, man.
Guest:And he was not... You know, I never... And I think this is why I liked him, too, because, you know, it's something that I try myself.
Guest:You know, I like the idea.
Guest:He was...
Guest:He never was doing anything to be ironic, not sarcastic.
Guest:Very earnest.
Guest:Very earnest, but funny, but in control of it, too.
Guest:He was doing children's music or all-ages music and never called it that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:and coming out of punk rock you know it just it just seemed to me i and i didn't think it was children's music i just thought well here's this guy and he's singing wheels on the bus i mean he's singing wheels on the bus yeah and and he made it cool and why not yeah why wouldn't it be cool you know like so all the barrier he had none of the barriers at all he was just doing whatever was in his heart and that's it's really kind of interesting because that's like you're talking after the first modern lovers record
Marc:yep yep because if you like if you really think about that modern lovers record you know he was dealing with like he was very sweetly and in a very sensitive almost childlike way dealing with some pretty gnarly shit on that record like she cracked i'm sad but you know like that in uh like um what's the other one oh the hospital where he visits uh when uh you remember that song
Marc:Like all those songs are like this kid who's like in that scene where you got all these crazy girls around and like people who are having problems and he's just maintaining.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it sounds like, you know, people around him were just falling off the edge of the earth with drugs.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:He just was holding on to something that didn't really exist anymore, except in his heart it existed.
Guest:And that, for me, that meant it existed.
Guest:And it gave me a feeling like, ah, you know, I'm listening to oldies radio.
Guest:I'm thinking back to some other time.
Guest:But this guy actually knows that feeling.
Marc:Yeah, but it took you a while to come around to it, right?
Marc:In the purer sense.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right, so you get there.
Marc:So when you start playing...
Marc:It was a different lineup.
Marc:Were you a trio for a while?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:When you were playing in block parties?
Marc:I remember I had a 45.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What was that?
Guest:It was I Can't Sleep.
Guest:Oh, that's right.
Guest:And I always call her back.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was great, 45.
Marc:That was what made me like you guys.
Marc:Was that 45?
Marc:What was that lineup?
Guest:That was Steve Morrell was playing drums, and then Tom and I were playing guitar and bass.
Guest:So it was before you broke.
Guest:Yeah, my brother was still in high school.
Guest:He joined the band the day he graduated from high school.
Guest:My mother said, you have to finish.
Guest:You got to graduate high school.
Guest:Did you grow up playing guitars with him?
Guest:No.
Guest:He started, you know, after he moved out and went to high school, he started playing.
Marc:And what's the age difference?
Guest:Four years.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:But, you know, it just seemed like, and this was, I guess, the gift of punk rock.
Guest:It was so much less about technical ability and just more about, he's the right guy.
Guest:He'll grow into it.
Guest:And I still feel like that's a valid way to do it.
Guest:Didn't he have a nickname?
Guest:Ork Boy.
Marc:Ork Boy.
Marc:That was, yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:I remember.
Guest:Yeah, no, it was.
Guest:But that 45 was good for us, you know, and I think it captured some, you know, something about us.
Guest:And Robert Plant did an interview for MTV and they asked him who he liked and he said, oh, the Del Fuego's are my favorite U.S.
Guest:band.
Marc:Really?
Marc:After the 45?
Marc:That's a great moment.
Guest:I heard about this after we made our first record.
Guest:And I don't know how I did it, but I tracked him down.
Guest:And someone set it up so that I could call him in his hotel room and talk to him.
Guest:And I thought he was thinking about our record, our LP.
Guest:He said, no, man, I never heard it.
Guest:He didn't even care.
Guest:But he heard the 45?
Guest:He had it on his jukebox at home.
Marc:The 45?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They just dropped your name.
Guest:It was so nice.
Marc:I did that with Buffalo Tom once.
Marc:like buffalo tom i remember when i like i oh i remember what it was i turned john stewart on to buffalo tom like i think out in their second album or whatever and then i saw in uh and he never heard before and then i saw him interviewed in a in rolling stone they said what's your favorite new band like buffalo tom like i did that i did that i gave him that record nice
Marc:Did you know Janowitz?
Marc:You know those guys?
Guest:No.
Guest:They were after you.
Guest:Yeah, it was after my time.
Guest:I moved out in 84, 85.
Guest:I got married and moved to New York.
Guest:So I was still playing with the guys, but I was disconnected from the scene.
Marc:Let's go through it because you guys were...
Marc:It was sort of a big deal to Del Fuego's.
Marc:I mean, you know, there was a lot of push.
Marc:I mean, there was a lot of heat and whatnot.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you guys are making the rounds, and how does it unfold?
Marc:Who are your contemporaries when you guys are playing and when you're putting your catalog together, like before that first record?
Marc:Is it Scruffy and those guys?
Marc:Wasn't that your time?
Guest:Yeah, those guys were going by then, and man...
Guest:until tuesday already broke it didn't they yeah i remember running into him he made because she had a group called young snakes so really good it was like sharp kind of angular pop music almost like wire or something like that oh yeah and we used to open for them and and um she had a guitar player and he would tune our instruments for us because you know we he just knew that it would be a much better evening if he helped us out a guy named doug i think yeah
Guest:And I remember running into Amy and she said, yeah, I'm starting a new group.
Guest:We're going to be, we're making pop music.
Guest:You know, she was very cool about it.
Guest:And I just thought, wow, that's, you know, that's amazing that you would not only decide to do that, but then you're, you're so free about admitting it, you know, because to me, I would never, you know, I would never say that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like we're gunning for the big time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she did it.
Guest:And I just, I was so admired that, you know, she was so clear.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And you guys are just, you're doing your rock and roll music.
Marc:But you were fortunate in that, like your sound, I know that against sort of like post-punk and all that stuff, but there was a movement, because you guys are definitely Roots music.
Marc:I mean, even the thing we just listened to, that first record, Nervous and Shake, I mean, that harkens back to that oldie sing too.
Marc:I mean, it's just straight up.
Marc:There's a little of a rockabilly thing in there, but you were doing something else, man.
Marc:But it was definitely sourced in that.
Guest:Yeah, we weren't interested in breaking new ground.
Guest:We were happy to be an American band, and the label that we liked was out here, Slash Records.
Guest:And so all we did was make tapes and send them to Slash.
Guest:We didn't even send them to other labels.
Guest:We had no idea what we were doing.
Guest:You know, we just thought, you keep writing, you make tapes, and you send them out.
Guest:And you don't sit around and think, is this a good kick drum sound?
Guest:You just make your music and you send it out.
Guest:And they kept saying no, and then we'd send them another one, and they'd say no.
Guest:How many songs on there?
Guest:Just one or two or... I don't know, three or four, whatever we could afford to record.
Marc:Cassettes?
Marc:Where were you recording?
Marc:You'd go into a studio and do it, though?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And so I think what happened was one day...
Guest:so and we're opening up for their band so you know dave alvin would go back to slash and you know we'd open for the blasters and dave alvin would go back and he'd say you know these guys in boston are good you know you might want to think about them or um we opened a lot for x oh did you yeah los lobos screen on red that was the scene right that was the root scene right yeah slash was great you know it was a great label x was great the dream syndicate man those first couple albums are great yeah yeah you open for those guys
Guest:Yep, all of them.
Guest:We'd open it for every... They'd all come, they'd play in the rat.
Guest:We'd open it for them.
Guest:It was just a thing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And we just thought, well, these are our people.
Guest:These are our contemporaries.
Guest:We should be on that label.
Guest:And they kept saying no.
Guest:And then I think what happened was T-Bone Burnett was up in the office one day.
Guest:This is the story I heard.
Guest:T-Bone Burnett was up there and he picked up one of our tapes and put it in the tape player.
Guest:And he said, oh, these guys are good.
Guest:Why don't you sign them?
Guest:And they said, oh, yeah, really?
Guest:He said, yeah.
Guest:So they said, okay, we'll sign them.
Marc:Did you ever get to confirm it with T-Bone?
Marc:I never met him.
Marc:He's like the cataloger.
Marc:He's like the curator of American roots music at this point.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right?
Marc:He does a nice job.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:What's that?
Marc:What was it?
Marc:Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?
Marc:That soundtrack?
Marc:That was good.
Marc:That was mind-blowing, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, for whatever we know in our mind, that catalog of music that everyone knows, there's thousands of other things out there in America that just never made the cut.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So, you know, you got to go track that shit down, man.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:You know, and the thing, too, I mean, I spend a lot of time every day now just trying to think about what it means to be white in America.
Marc:It seemed to be a thing that you're thinking about.
Guest:it's a big thing I'm thinking.
Guest:I'm trying to figure it out.
Guest:And it's almost like thinking about it, talking about it, reading about it, in conversation, you know, with white people and people of color, you know, it's like I feel freedom for the first time because I feel like I can see the world as it is for the first time.
Guest:And so when I look back, which is essentially, it's a country built for dudes like us.
Guest:It's built for white people, white men in particular, but, you know, really made for the white person.
Guest:And I think about...
Guest:You know, I had a record by the Crew Cuts.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Shaboom.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they had Earth Angel on there.
Guest:I mean, this was black music.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it was redone by these white guys.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I didn't know any different.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so a lot of the music that I was listening to was black music, but it had been appropriated and was being sold to the world.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This stuff, it really made it, when I look back now, there was a subtle message underneath all that that I was absorbing and didn't even know.
Guest:So it's almost like I'm reexamining my whole relationship with rock music because of that.
Guest:So when you say the music that we don't hear, get down to what a lot of that really is.
Guest:I love Elvis, and I'll always love Elvis, but really.
Guest:Yeah, sure, man.
Guest:Elvis was, you know, on the back.
Marc:There's a different hound dog.
Marc:Yeah, there sure is.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, they were very aware of that shit, too.
Marc:I mean, the record companies were very aware of it.
Marc:I mean, you know, who documented it kind of interestingly well was in that John Waters movie.
Marc:Where, you know, there was just definitely, there were just two cultures.
Marc:There was, you know, there was the real black music and then the filter that they fed to white people through white people on the TV.
Marc:Like, you know, I mean, I think that Pat Boone covered Tutti Frutti.
Marc:I mean, there was a time where I've heard, I've heard, I think it might be in that documentary that Chuck Berry won, that Keith Richards thing, where...
Marc:where you know they all you know that keith was working with chuck to do that concert and they were talking to uh to all of them and they were like they there were there were these other acts that would do their music because they were too you know too it was too much yeah too much black too much energy too much freedom in a weird way
Marc:yeah yeah there's some some crazy gatekeeping that goes on and the cultural gatekeeping is intense yeah i just got a box set from a label in cleveland that i never knew about bode recording company cleveland ohio so they put out this six record set i never heard any of it and it's amazing because it was all like a lot of it was in house and they were initially a gospel label but everything that was happening out in the world was coming through there and they just record after record i'm like how did i never know about this why would i
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How the fuck was I going to know about that?
Marc:Wow.
Guest:These things, every day, it's clear to me in some other way just how... Because I feel like if white people don't talk about how we're affected by racism...
Guest:we're not, we're never going to get fully motivated to do anything to change it.
Guest:But when you, you know, when I think about the price that we pay, you know, the price that I pay, you know, when there's that, you know, when the gatekeeping is so intense and, um, the isolation, you know, the isolation that we're living in.
Guest:So we're not going to hear about, we're not going to be exposed to so much stuff.
Guest:And I know like, you know, for example, coming down from New Hampshire and being in Boston, I remember somebody played me grandmaster flash and the wheels of steel and,
Guest:And I'm listening to this 12-inch, and I'm going, man, I never heard anything like this.
Guest:This is crazy.
Guest:And we're living on the edge of Roxbury.
Guest:We're living in the South End at the time, where the gentrification is just starting up.
Guest:I have no idea what gentrification is, but we're a part of that.
Guest:We're into Brownstone, the band.
Guest:But meanwhile, so there's all this incredible hip hop being made down the street.
Guest:But, you know, I've internalized so much fear, you know, of black men, black people that the idea of going and finding it and, you know, making a connection in the black community and getting inside this music.
Guest:It was it couldn't have been further from my mind.
Marc:It was just, you know, couldn't do it.
Marc:And Boston's like really is one of the most segregated cities in the world.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Boston is a rough town.
Marc:Crazy, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:like you know if it weren't it's like look i spent a lot of time there you know i got i got some love for the city but man i there's i've never seen a city hide their black people like boston yeah no it's it's really pushed out man you know what is it like it's roxbury and then uh you know the mattapan and it's just dorchester projects you know and then there's like there's that other place where there was like way out it was crazy man
Marc:Crazy, just didn't see it.
Marc:Yeah, so I feel like when I look back... So now you're educating yourself, you're integrating.
Marc:Like you're doing some records now that are very carefully orchestrated in a world music almost way.
Guest:I think it's a natural outgrowth of having a wide group of friends, a wide group of people that I have come to know in New York.
Marc:Yeah, now.
Marc:Well, okay, so going back, so you get signed to Slash,
Marc:And they put out the first record.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you got a hit.
Guest:We had press.
Guest:We had good press.
Guest:But we didn't have anything quite like a hit yet.
Guest:But the second record we did.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But the first record was, you know what happened was the first record came out and we started getting good press and touring and all that stuff.
Marc:The first record.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then we were approached by Miller Beer.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:well this is like a good story so so first record comes out and the second record hadn't come out when you were approached by miller no no we were working on it okay and they approached i remember this this was controversial yes at the time yeah and part of it i mean well tell the story okay so we were approached by miller beer yeah we we needed money for amps this seemed good we and in our minds we thought you know we've been advertising beer for several years now
Guest:And I've been paid for it.
Guest:So it seemed like a win-win.
Guest:They wanted you to do a TV commercial.
Guest:TV commercial with Tim Newman, the guy who had done those great ZZ Top videos.
Guest:It just all seemed like they were doing it the right way.
Guest:We knew that Elvis had done donut commercials.
Guest:We knew about all the Coca-Cola commercials that Otis Redding had done.
Guest:I mean, we just thought, this is part of rock history, eventually.
Guest:So you're rationalizing it.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:But it was a struggle.
Marc:You were like, there was this sort of like, should we or shouldn't we or no?
Marc:Not so much.
Guest:You needed money for amps.
Guest:We needed money.
Guest:We had no idea what was about to happen.
Guest:And what happened was we made a commercial and it debuted during Live Aid.
Guest:So everybody is gathering together to raise money for those in need in Africa, except for this one band from Boston.
Guest:They're just selling beer in between acts.
Yeah.
Marc:So that was what did it?
Guest:That's what kicked it off.
Guest:And it turned into, you know, so the climate at the time was really about, you know, goodwill and altruistic movement.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And we're not doing any of that.
Guest:We're just selling beer because we needed our ant money, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, you know, it wasn't that, I mean, it hurt that critics started bashing us for us, because critics had always been really good to us.
Guest:So that felt bad.
Guest:But what really hurt was that other bands would start saying, I'll never do a Miller Beer commercial, you know.
Marc:they're you're a sellout where it's total sellouts at that point meanwhile you know fast forward 20 25 years now if you can get your music you're doing great they're literally like saw the miller beer commercial man nice but back then it's amazing what 20 years could do back then it's like fucking del flaco's are sellouts man didn't they shoot it at the rat too oh man the paradise
Marc:Oh, the paradise.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, you know, I mean, I gotta say, I don't, I don't look back and regret any of it because I feel like for me, if we had sold any more records, sold any more concert tickets, made any more money, I don't know if I'd be alive because I wasn't built to handle the lifestyle of it.
Marc:So,
Marc:But the second record came out after this Miller Beard fiasco, and you had, what, a minor hit?
Guest:Well, what happened was the commercial, we're finishing up the record, the commercial comes out during Live Aid, we're sitting in the studio, we're watching it for the very first time, and it says, the Del Fuego's Boston Mass, and then the commercial rolls.
Guest:And we said, hey, let's call the record Boston Mass.
Guest:It'll be a tie-in.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:That's the big idea, huh?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then the second thought was, oh, and that'll be cool for Boston.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You guys have big plans before the hammer drop.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:So, you know what?
Guest:The record sold really well.
Guest:People.
Guest:I mean, in the Midwest, it wasn't a big deal for people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What was the hit?
Guest:Um, I Still Want You and Don't Run Wild.
Guest:Don't Run Wild.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And we, you know, we tried to make a bigger sounding record and all that stuff.
Guest:Who produced that?
Guest:Mitchell Froome.
Guest:Who was he from?
Guest:He had done, um, he had just finished doing Crowded House and he had done our first record with us and, um,
Guest:His first record was our first record.
Guest:And he, you know, so he was, he had done a soundtrack for a movie called Cafe Flesh that came out on Slash.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And it was an art film that I think the financiers sort of turned into a soft core porn movie.
Guest:Right.
Guest:To try and get their money back somehow.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:All right, so you do the second record, and you do all right, but okay, so you don't got any respect in town.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But, you know, so what is that?
Marc:Where are you at at that point?
Guest:So we start going to Europe more often.
Guest:We start hanging out out here.
Guest:We start hanging out with Tom Petty more often, which is really fun.
Guest:He's the best.
Guest:We love Tom Petty.
Marc:The best.
Guest:Just love Tom Petty.
Marc:If there's anybody that, like, not like the band, but in terms of...
Marc:Being grounded in American music, that's the guy.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Nice guy, huh?
Guest:Really nice guy.
Guest:I think my brother was the more able to make that connection easy.
Guest:I don't know how it was, but...
Guest:I just remember one night my brother calls me up in the hotel room.
Guest:We're staying out here and he said, we had invited Tom Petty to the show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, just like through Maria McKee.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I love her.
Guest:That's another one.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:You talk to her still?
Guest:I haven't seen her for a long time.
Guest:I wonder how she's doing, man.
Guest:She's doing well.
Guest:Last time I saw her, but it was maybe eight or nine years ago.
Guest:Good voice.
Guest:Oh, she's great.
Guest:so we met her and we she had done something with tom petty we said hey will you invite him to our show and um i can't remember the club out here but um so he didn't show up but then my brother calls me up in the middle of the night he said guess who just called me tom petty tom petty called him in his hotel room and said sorry i couldn't make it to the show but if you guys want to come out to the house sometime that'd be cool yeah you know just what a you know it was an amazing gentlemanly thing to do so you went out there
Guest:We did, and we went out several times, and one time... I mean, for me, I had so much love for Tom Petty that I would basically just sit there and watch the other guys talk to him.
Guest:I couldn't do a thing.
Marc:So, now, what is wearing you down?
Marc:When you say you couldn't handle the lifestyle, were you getting out of control, or...?
Guest:um yeah alcohol you know for sure alcohol was a big part of it and all the other stuff yeah yeah and people were you seeing people drop um not at that point not at that it still feels like everything's cool you know we toured we opened for in excess for a couple of months just as listen like thieves came out we toured the country as their opening act and so they i mean they're australian guys living the life making it all look like it's working
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:For the four hours you saw them.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You're not waking up with them.
Marc:No.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So, but, you know, when it started taking its toll was going into the third record, we showed up and, you know, I hadn't written any songs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I just started thinking, you know, the arrogance of...
Guest:whatever we do is going to be fine man you know people love us come on yeah yeah yeah yeah what was the third record it was called stand up okay yeah it couldn't have been further from the truth you know but that's what it was called and and this is the other hip thing we thought if we made it so it had a die cut on the back so you fold it out and you could actually stand the record up on the table that'd be clever yeah but it was right when cds hit so
Guest:rough timing you've had a couple yeah between right eight and cds hitting so that record didn't sell no and it wasn't it wasn't a good record it wasn't a good record to play live who was the band then was it was it before everything got shitty no it was the same band um but but there was a lot of tension and um what was the tension about
Guest:Tension is about my brother was starting to want to write songs, and I think the tension that's the natural result of things not going the way you want them to go.
Guest:Everybody's got it.
Guest:Youthful upswing, and then all of a sudden, no matter how hard you try, I think you're starting to just dip down.
Guest:I think the critics turning on us, I mean, it affected us.
Guest:Sure, of course.
Guest:We were sensitive.
Marc:Of course we're all sensitive, yeah.
Marc:Who the fuck is that guy?
Marc:and then you can't put it into perspective it's just at that time it was important because there was a limited music press so you know but you know when it comes down to it usually it's just one asshole you know sitting at a typewriter I mean the fuck you know that's going to dictate the future of your you know year and the crazy thing was a lot of them were guys we knew and liked right I know
Marc:It's worse.
Marc:And they act like... Because they think they're doing it right.
Marc:Because they can never just blow smoke up your ass.
Marc:They've got to be like, oh, here's some good things, but not the same.
Marc:It's not the same as they used to be, and there's the bad things.
Guest:Yeah, and I can dig it on now.
Guest:It's kind of... Now there's been enough distance that it's all kind of funny.
Guest:And like I said, I'm grateful.
Guest:I don't wish...
Guest:I don't wish anything had gone differently because I learned some huge lessons.
Guest:And I got to learn them while I was in my 20s.
Guest:But you plowed ahead.
Guest:I mean, the band broke up or didn't?
Guest:It did, yeah.
Guest:But then we made one more record with Adam Roth and Joe Donnelly taking the place of my brother and Woody Giesemann.
Marc:And that was smoking in the fields?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And Woody Giesemann went on to start an organization called Right Turn up in New England to help people in the entertainment community who needed help with drugs and alcohol.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:It was like, hey, Woody, man, where were you when we needed you, right?
Marc:You're a little late.
Marc:And everybody landed on their feet soberly and okay?
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:It's unbelievable.
Marc:What's your brother doing?
Guest:My brother got a PhD and went to work at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Guest:Landed a huge job there.
Guest:And he works for Little Steven now.
Guest:He runs Little Steven's organization called Rock and Roll Forever or something like that.
Guest:And it's to bring rock and roll education into the classroom.
Guest:So developing curriculum.
Guest:And it's incredible because there's so much you can fold into the history of rock and roll.
Marc:So what about Springsteen?
Marc:Were you a Springsteen fan?
Guest:Oh, yeah, of course.
Guest:He came and sang with us one time, which is also amazing stories about connecting with people that really meant a lot to us.
Guest:But the boss is...
Guest:you know he's great coolest right but him and petty that's fucking massive cool yeah no those guys said solid they set a good example and you know whenever we would see the way they operated off stage it was always just as you would want to believe you know they're a real gentleman and very very um
Guest:uh uh encouraging and you know encouraging to people coming up you know we always just felt like these guys they kind of cared you know they cared that we loved music the way we did and they wanted to see the best for us and it was i mean that meant a lot yeah it meant a lot
Marc:So when everything, like how bad off were you when everything fell away?
Marc:Like at that time, like after, like 1989, when you moved, like you moved to New York earlier than that, right?
Marc:Yeah, mid-80s.
Marc:I was married.
Marc:Right, so you were living the life, but you were okay, right?
Marc:I mean.
Marc:I was, you know, I thought I was okay.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I thought I was okay, but a lot of the men on my side of the family have always had their- The boozy thing?
Guest:The boozy thing.
Guest:That sounds nice.
Guest:That's a nice way to put it.
Guest:The boozy thing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:This goes back a ways.
Guest:It's a tradition.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So I was living the tradition, you know, and, um, and, and, you know, and I, and I think in that feeling like, man, this, this isn't me, you know, I'm not, I'm not that much of an idiot.
Guest:You know, why am I always acting like one?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, um, and, you know, so I, I started to feel like, you know, there's a lot of pain, just a lot, a lot of pain.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, um,
Guest:and but i couldn't you know and and this is a funny thing too man i couldn't see i couldn't see life without it and that's you know i couldn't imagine life without it so i'm holding on tight to the thing that's killing me right you know i don't want to let go the one thing that's just doing me in you know spiritually physically mentally everything um i don't want to let it go and um but uh but i did you know and uh and that's where adam helped you out
Guest:That's where Adam helped me out, you know, and then, you know, and a lot of hundreds and hundreds since then, you know.
Guest:So, you know, I thought that's, you know, I thought letting go of that would be when my life would end, but it was actually, you know, when my life began in any meaningful sense.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, so when I say I'm grateful to be alive, I'm, you know, you know.
Marc:Yeah, I do know.
Guest:I'm serious, man.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I definitely know.
Marc:Yeah, like, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And so then when did you start the new career in playing music for families and for younger people?
Marc:So you're sobered up, and I know that first year is not easy.
Marc:You're a little nutty.
Marc:A lot of things like adjusting to who you really are.
Marc:But when did that sort of evolve?
Guest:Well, I just thought, you know, I'm going to change the lifestyle here and put on my solo record.
Guest:What will it take?
Guest:Six months, you know?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But it didn't.
Guest:God had a different plan.
Guest:Dan's plan and God's plan didn't line up on that one.
Guest:A lot of ego in Dan's plan.
Guest:Dan's plan was all about Dan.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I wrote it though and I liked it yeah I authored what I considered to be a very good plan for myself yeah and then what what did God's plan dictate God's plan was for me to lay low for a while and figure out you know how to how to say hello when I'm when I'm buying a quart of milk in the store how to say hello thank you and hello and please and thank you all the stuff you know how to be you know just a person on the street and not be you know
Guest:without you know without anything attached to it just to be part of the human race right basically and turn the eyeballs out you know because i'd always you know i didn't realize how selfish i was right how much my relationship with rock music was just about you know getting getting some applause for myself yeah it was really i mean i love music and i love music making but it was a very ego feeding proposition right so um
Guest:I started, you know, my wife wanted to get pregnant, so that was a science project in itself, you know, and I was and I started listening to music.
Guest:I just I stopped listening to rock music and I started listening to bluegrass music and 40s and 50s black gospel music and Jamaican music.
Guest:And the thing that I was seeing and hearing was that these musics were all connected to some kind of community.
Guest:They weren't just isolated groups doing their thing.
Guest:They were connected to communities.
Guest:And I just thought that's what it used to be like in Boston in the beginning.
Guest:And then slowly the wall went up between us and the audience.
Guest:And if I have to do that again, make music...
Guest:I'm not going to do it.
Guest:If it's connected, if it's disconnected from the people in the room, I'm not going to do it.
Guest:What's the point?
Guest:Right.
Guest:No, I want I want to get back to that, you know, to the social piece.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And and and so that's on my mind.
Guest:And then my daughter was born, and I started thinking about the music that I grew up with, the folk music, because I wanted to make music.
Guest:I wanted to... Well, here's the thing, man.
Guest:She's coming back from the hospital, and I'm thinking... Your wife or your daughter.
Guest:My daughter and my wife were in the car, and I'm thinking, we're going to get home.
Guest:What's the first...
Guest:song anna's gonna hear and i'm and i'm thinking of what record am i gonna play for her it never crossed my mind i'm a musician i could play the song myself right i didn't you know i played a record for her what was it it was the jamaican i know it was um the melodians singing little nut tree that's a jamaican rock steady song and um really good choice there's that ego man picked a good one i hit that out of the park
Guest:She's still thanking me.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:20 years later.
Guest:She's 20?
Guest:Yeah, she turns 20 next week.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is she a musician?
Guest:She can play.
Guest:She's a film photographer, though.
Guest:Oh, cool.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So you played her that.
Guest:I played her that, and I started thinking about, you know, I went to the store.
Guest:I thought, this is going to be a shared experience that we're going to listen to music together, and we're both going to connect to it emotionally.
Guest:So it'll be the updated version of the Lead Belly records I listen to and the Pete Seeger and the Woody Guthrie.
Guest:Who'd you listen to those to?
Guest:with by yourself?
Guest:When I was a kid, I could go to the library and take records out.
Guest:And so I got into folk music.
Guest:And to me, doo-wop was folk music.
Guest:It was like the extension of Pete Seeger.
Guest:They were all connected in some way.
Guest:But Lead Belly was really my guy when I was learning to play the guitar.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He was the inspiration for just when I thought back to it.
Guest:And I thought, what was the music?
Guest:What was the sound from my early years that I really carry with me up till right now when I'm thinking about my daughter?
Guest:And it was really Lead Belly, more than the band, more than anything else, because it was one man playing in a unique style.
Guest:Heavy.
Guest:A mix of old and new songs from a variety of traditions.
Guest:Playing his own way, different every time.
Guest:It's Lead Belly.
Guest:He's the cat.
Guest:He really did a template for what I've been trying to do ever since with this all-ages music.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And it sounds like it was recorded in the kitchen.
Guest:yeah yeah so i'd picture myself standing there with lead belly you know he played 12 string yeah he's the king of the 12 string guitar yeah incredible yeah yeah yeah um so i i just thought oh man there's going to be all this you know like the updated version of the folkways record so i went into tower records and it seemed like everything was connected to a movie or tv show yeah it seemed very commercial and um
Guest:And then I found children's music that was good, but I didn't, I wasn't thinking about children's music because I wanted to connect to it emotionally too, you know?
Guest:And so what I was noticing was that my neighbors would all, you know, they would go to tower, they would pick out some stuff, they wouldn't dig it, and they'd just start playing Beatles records.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which is fine.
Guest:Beatles are great.
Guest:But you know what?
Guest:A lot of their songs are songs of romantic love, and they're not going to resonate that way for a three-year-old.
Guest:So I thought, well, maybe you can't have all ages music anymore.
Guest:But let me try and make it.
Guest:And I made a cassette tape to give out to my neighbors.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And this is where, in Brooklyn?
Guest:I hadn't quite moved to Brooklyn.
Guest:I was in the West Village of Manhattan.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And I made this cassette tape, and Sheryl Crow lived around the corner, so she sang on a song.
Guest:And Suzanne Vega just had a baby, and she was married to Mitchell Froome.
Guest:Your producer of the old days.
Guest:Yeah, so...
Guest:So we're all hanging out.
Guest:So Suzanne sang on a song, and I was meeting West Indian women in the park.
Guest:They were there as babysitters.
Guest:They were teaching me songs.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So everybody's coming in and doing different stuff, and I want to make it sound like the neighborhood.
Guest:Right.
Guest:and um so it's like the my first you know slate foray into you know like i'm like a kind of a multicultural presentation where i don't have to be the front and center piece but i can pull everybody together and let's see what kind of sound we can come up with right and uh and i wanted to sound like it's made in a house yeah and um so i made this cassette tape and i had finally made a solo record you know at that time
Guest:yeah no one cared about the solo record but everyone wanted more copies of this cassette tape so again you know dan's plan was the solo record does really well and i just go and i tour for the rest of my life and you can bankroll your little project if you want to if i want to but yeah it was just a one-off you know but i think you know god's plan was you know why don't you do why don't you do this keep up with the family so the right so the keep up with the family news so the cassette tape was popular in the neighborhood
Guest:No one cared about the solo record.
Marc:Which was the solo record?
Guest:The cool down time.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But everybody wanted more copies of this cassette tape.
Marc:So that's a lo-fi experience.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:The cassette tape.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What did you record on?
Guest:A four track?
Guest:Eight track.
Guest:Half inch eight track.
Guest:In the house?
Guest:I had a little room.
Guest:I had a little room.
Guest:And you were bringing people in to the room.
Guest:Yeah, Sheryl Crow would come in and she came in and sang Polly Wolly Doodle and Suzanne Vegas sang Eerie Canal.
Guest:So it was that kind of thing.
Marc:So a lot of songs on that record.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, so that became a record.
Guest:Yeah, I said, you know...
Guest:I realized what was happening.
Guest:And the thing for me was that I felt like, so now I'm playing music again.
Guest:I'm playing music again that people are excited about.
Guest:But it's not just grown-ups.
Guest:Kids are excited, too.
Guest:So that's expanded.
Guest:And it's not just kids.
Guest:It's everybody.
Guest:So I'm thinking...
Guest:this feels like I could actually be a useful member of society if I do this.
Guest:And I'd never really felt that before.
Guest:And I wanted that because my mind was... I was clearing up a little bit and I'm just thinking in that way.
Guest:So the idea of being part of...
Guest:maybe a better life for for anybody you know making a cent providing a soundtrack for a new family yeah what a great thing right and um so i said i'm gonna i'm gonna stop everything else i'm gonna start a label for family music i'm gonna start performing for families and this is this is my thing this is my new job i'm doing this and the rest of it i don't need any more and it was a very conscious decision um
Guest:And I've been doing it ever since.
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:It's unbelievable, man, to have a second act like this and to have it be so much better and that it, you know, that there's the collaborations I've been able to have and, and, and it's opened my eyes to a much bigger world than I ever imagined, you know,
Marc:And also it's organic.
Marc:And some of this stuff sounds like actually kind of not raw in a bad way.
Marc:But I mean, I can hear strings rattling and things buzzing.
Marc:And you know what I mean?
Marc:It's like it's like you're sitting in the room.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's got that very intimate feeling.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that that's exciting to me.
Guest:I mean, we I hope to never lose that because I would you.
Guest:It seems like that's what, you know, we always recorded it in a house.
Guest:You know, we always, except for that first one was a little room.
Guest:Then we moved to Brooklyn and I just set up the basement and that's where we made all the records.
Marc:That's a lot of records, dude.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What is it, like 12?
Marc:I think it might be even more.
Guest:And you don't mind doing traditional songs?
Guest:I love doing traditional songs.
Guest:I realize that the last thing the world needs is a record of all Dan Zane's originals.
Guest:Who cares?
Guest:I like the songs I write, but there's so many good old songs, and so many of them have been around because they're good for people to sing along with, or they have some kind of emotional core that still works in these times, or they have an element of mystery.
Marc:And a lot of times it's almost like music is sort of magical in that the kid could be identifying with just the lyrical rhyming of words or sounds, but the meaning for the parents in that moment could be completely different, could bring them back to a different place, or the poetry of the song is deeper than the kid will understand at this time, but they're registering the sounds.
Marc:as something they can dance to or sing along with.
Marc:And you have that family element, that communal element.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think, I mean, I love and greatly appreciate children's music.
Guest:And I think what we're trying to do is to make songs that you can take with you, take with you through your life that'll work for you on some level at any time.
Marc:And you're huge.
Guest:You're incredibly popular.
Guest:It turned out being in the Del Fuego was a really good thing for the children's music because at that time when I started doing this, it was kind of a weird story.
Guest:And it helped.
Guest:I got a lot of press.
Marc:Right, because you were this rock and roll guy.
Marc:And now you're born again children's music.
Guest:There was an article in the New York Times Magazine after the first CD came out, and that put me on the map.
Guest:Good story.
Guest:Changed my life.
Marc:And then you won a Grammy?
Marc:I won a Grammy, yeah.
Marc:That wasn't going to happen with the Del Frego's.
Marc:No.
Guest:it sure wasn't and a grammy's a good prize to win man it's as a musician yeah sure it is as an independent as an independent musician it helps that was on your own label yeah it's all been on my label that's astounding and in and that was a fairly that album was a very kind of um music of the world type of album and
Guest:Yeah, I mean, it's because I live in Brooklyn.
Guest:I live in the most diverse zip code in the entire country, 1-1-2-1-8.
Guest:It's incredible.
Guest:But, you know, so what happened was as I started to, you know, as I started to meet people from different backgrounds and I started to understand and listen and...
Guest:you know, I got more clear on my own background.
Guest:And so I could tell my story and I could listen to somebody else's story and, and just, you know, the, the bridges started building that way.
Guest:And I started consciously trying to break out of my own isolation, you know, and, and, and, and music is, music is a beautiful way to do that.
Guest:And so,
Guest:So as I'm looking to learn other songs from other people and because it's not a band that's going to make the record so they can tour, it's just me making a record with everybody that's around that's got something to bring to the party and to capture that party.
Guest:And that's the whole goal.
Guest:So if you have a song that you can teach me and an instrument that you want to play on it and you want to be on my record...
Guest:I'll pay you, man.
Guest:This will be great, and we'll do shows together.
Guest:It's whatever I want to do.
Guest:And then I started to get conscious about it and think about me as a kid.
Guest:And I wanted... So if you're a kid in Nebraska...
Guest:and Fox News is on in the background, and you're hearing about people climbing through the desert, and they're coming up, and they're going to take jobs, and all this scary stuff's going to happen.
Guest:Well, maybe I can make a record that has another story.
Guest:And it's a story of people getting together, singing in English and Spanish, and collaborating and celebrating and doing their thing.
Guest:So let's tell another story and have that one be...
Guest:um an option for somebody you know because the world isn't a scary place it's there's so many possibilities here oh it's a sweet story man i'm so so blessed you know the whole thing is incredible yeah man you turned it all around and you found this thing that's much bigger than you that you know connects people and your side of the street's clean i'm trying man
Marc:Well, it's great talking to you.
Marc:You want to play a song or something?
Marc:Yeah, that'd be great.
Marc:I could play with you if it's not too complicated.
Guest:Oh, please, let's do it.
Guest:That'd be fun.
Guest:Well, everybody's talking about a day up out the lake.
Guest:Let's get our bands and guitars and all the food we can take.
Guest:I'll meet you on the corner when the sun decides to break.
Guest:Come on, catch that train.
Guest:Come on, catch it.
Guest:Catch that train.
Guest:Well, I don't mind the station.
Guest:I don't mind going underground.
Guest:Kind of like the symphony of a thousand different sounds.
Guest:In another 20 minutes, we'll all be country bound.
Guest:So catch that train.
Guest:Come on, catch it.
Guest:Catch that train.
Guest:All right, take it away.
Guest:All right.
Guest:It's a topsy-turvy world we're all living in today.
Guest:Let's take a trip before the summer sun has gone astray.
Guest:When we ride, we ride together.
Guest:And so I say, catch that train.
Guest:Come on, catch it.
Guest:Catch that train.
Guest:We'll look out of the window, watch the world go flying past Every river, town, and village as they come and go so fast We'll fill the day with memories and I know they're gonna last Come on, come on, catch it, catch that dream
Guest:And we'll all be country bound.
Guest:Come on, catch it, catch that train.
Guest:All right, take us home.
Guest:Come on, catch that tree.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Nice.
Guest:Okay, buddy.
Guest:Thanks for doing it.
Guest:Oh, man, that was great fun.
Marc:What a great guy.
Marc:What a nice sound.
Marc:That song was Catch That Train from Dan's 2006 album of the same name.
Marc:I enjoyed that conversation very much.
Marc:If you got a family, Dan makes the family music for your family.
Marc:Enjoy.
Marc:What else, people?
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:Get some JustCoffee.coop.
Marc:Get the app.
Marc:Get the free app.
Marc:Upgrade to the premium app.
Marc:Enjoy yourself.
Marc:Check the calendar about the tour dates.
Marc:I'm tired, man.
Marc:I'm fucking tired.
Marc:Making posters.
Marc:Gonna be a lot of new posters after the tour available in the merch.
Marc:Still need a poster for Charleston.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:No guitar.
Marc:You got Dan playing.
Marc:He's a pro.
Marc:Enjoy your Monday.
Marc:Have a good week.
Marc:I'll talk to you Thursday.
Marc:Boomer lives.
Boomer lives.