Episode 637 - Matt Sweeney
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters what the fuckadelics what's happening it's mark maron this is wtf this is my podcast how are you today on the show is uh the amazing matt sweeney don't know who matt sweeney is
Marc:You should.
Marc:I'll explain it to you later.
Marc:All right?
Marc:Okay, but let's do this now.
Marc:A couple things.
Marc:Australia, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, October 16th, and around there.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com.
Marc:Go to my calendar, and you can get informed on when I'm going to be there.
Marc:Things are looking up.
Marc:Everything's okay.
Marc:I'm looking forward to come to Australia.
Marc:I think I'll be worth it.
Marc:I'm going to put on a good show.
Marc:I'll give you the extra added, and I'll hang out and...
Marc:press the flesh and take some pictures and hold some babies if you'd like i'm not encouraging anyone to bring babies to the show all right that was a troublesome september 19th i'll be at pod fest and my guests on the live podcast will be a los angeles radio legend jim ladd and los angeles other radio legend uh fraser smith
Marc:We're going to talk about the old days, back when podcasting was some sort of weird, futuristic idea that no one even came up with.
Marc:What?
Marc:Doing a pre-recorded radio show in your house?
Marc:Come on!
Marc:That's crazy talk.
Marc:What?
Marc:The president of the United States is going to come to your house.
Marc:No way.
Marc:You're out of your fucking mind, man.
Marc:You should be on medicine.
Marc:What else?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:John Hodgman was supposed to come on.
Marc:We were going to hang out and do something because he's got a thing going on.
Marc:And I like to help my pals.
Marc:I like Mr. Hodgman.
Marc:Hodgman and I have been through some shit.
Marc:I lost two of his fucking episodes before we finally nailed one.
Marc:I didn't lose one.
Marc:I lost one.
Marc:The other one stunk.
Marc:Not because of him.
Marc:Because of the situation.
Marc:It was a live situation.
Marc:But then we got a good one.
Marc:But he's out and about.
Marc:He's out on the road.
Marc:He's on tour with his new show, Vacationland.
Marc:Over the weekend, it kicked off.
Marc:But you can see him all over the country for the next few weeks.
Marc:Go to johnhodgman.com slash tour to see the Hodgeman.
Marc:So, Matt Sweeney.
Marc:All right, here's the deal with Matt Sweeney.
Marc:Blake Mills, Matt Sweeney's a guitar player, but he's also a guy that I think he's a guy that people like to have around.
Marc:And that's not a bad quality.
Marc:Blake Mills said, you and Matt Sweeney got to hang out.
Marc:I'm like, who's Matt Sweeney?
Marc:So I start looking into Matt Sweeney.
Marc:He does this thing for on YouTube.
Marc:for Vice, I believe, called Guitar Moves.
Marc:And it's just him sitting with a guitar player, him trying to learn shit from the guitar player.
Marc:I can appreciate that.
Marc:Matt seems like a pretty good guitar player, but I still don't know who he is.
Marc:Then I find out Matt's in this band called Chavez.
Marc:I don't fucking know anything about Chavez because I'm not late to the party.
Marc:I just missed the fucking party completely.
Marc:But fortunately now, the party's ongoing.
Marc:There's no more missing the party.
Marc:So I get Chavez's greatest hits, which is like a double CD.
Marc:I listen to that sort of over and over again in Florida.
Marc:It's kind of punk rock, kind of art rock, kind of math rock, whatever you want to call it.
Marc:It's a thing.
Marc:So then I'm like, so now I'm in the Matt Sweeney situation.
Marc:I understand Matt Sweeney.
Marc:And then I remember I got this fucking record from Drag City by Matt Sweeney.
Marc:And Bonnie Prince Billy, Will Oldham.
Marc:I got a lot of Will Oldham records.
Marc:I can only take so many at a time.
Marc:I listen to them slowly.
Marc:But the Matt Sweeney Will Oldham record, Super Wolf, is a fucking great record.
Marc:It's one of those records.
Marc:I didn't really know who Matt Sweeney was.
Marc:I knew a little bit about Will Oldham and Bonnie Prince Billy.
Marc:But Super Wolf, I put it on without knowing anything.
Marc:And I'm like, what is this magical piece of fucking wax?
Marc:God damn it.
Marc:What is this?
Marc:The Superwolf album is fucking monumental.
Marc:It's one of the best records I fucking have.
Marc:I love that goddamn record.
Marc:And that's a Matt Sweeney, Will Oldham joint, that thing.
Marc:So now I'm a little more hip to Matt Sweeney.
Marc:And then I finally meet him.
Marc:And man, like we hung out in New York.
Marc:He went with me.
Marc:We went to an app shop.
Marc:We played some guitar.
Marc:He showed me some Burnside licks.
Marc:And then we hung out.
Marc:He's part owner of a fucking veggie burger down there in the East Village called Superiority Burger.
Marc:But he's one of those dudes, you know, you know, those dudes you meet in your life where you're like that.
Marc:I wonder what that dude's up to.
Marc:Let's call him up and see what's going on with him.
Marc:He's that guy.
Marc:I've never been that guy.
Marc:No one has ever said, man, maybe we should call Maren and have him come.
Marc:That never happened unless it was out of sympathy.
Marc:But Sweeney seems like one of those cats where it's sort of like, yeah, I kind of want to hang around with that guy.
Marc:He seems cool.
Marc:He may not cop to that.
Marc:But I think that's sort of who he is.
Marc:But he's got some fucking stories, man, because he was sort of around it.
Marc:He's kind of like...
Marc:I don't know how you describe it, but shit just happens to him and they're pretty important somehow.
Marc:And he makes great music.
Marc:And then I find out from him that he's involved with the Endless Boogie record, that he's involved with him and Blake are buddies.
Marc:He played...
Marc:It's crazy.
Marc:You just have to listen to it.
Marc:And then he just told me that he's part of this other thing that, of course, maybe you Pitchfork readers know about this shit, but I don't fucking know about shit.
Marc:I don't know about anything.
Marc:But this Soldiers of Fortune record, which is like some super group of alt people, Kid Millions, Barry London, Jesper Eklo, Brad Trow, Mike Bones.
Marc:I didn't know any of those people until this morning.
Ha, ha, ha.
Marc:But anyways, I'm happy Matt and I are friends.
Marc:He sends me music to listen to, and we chit-chat about shit, about guitars and things.
Marc:He's a good cat, and this was a fun talk.
Marc:Before I bring you Matt Sweeney, the music on today's show is some of my guitar noodling that's been mixed with full instrumentation by this dude, DJ Copley.
Marc:He's on Twitter.
Marc:as webpuppy45 if you want to check out his stuff.
Marc:Matt Sweeney, now, now!
Marc:I've had this.
Marc:This is like the $90 chocolate.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Where the fuck do they make this?
Guest:They make it in Brooklyn.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I'm friends with the guys and I asked them because they would give this shit to me for free and I got addicted to it.
Guest:So I was eating like two a day.
Guest:I was like working on a record.
Guest:Like I was hooked.
Guest:That's how they get you.
Marc:You're friends.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like here's the thing about you, Matt Sweeney.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Who the fuck aren't you friends with?
Marc:Huh?
Marc:I mean, I like you.
Marc:You got a chocolate connection.
Marc:You know Johnny Cash.
Marc:I'm old.
Marc:Sam Dillon taught you how to play guitar.
Marc:Not even a Dillon that plays guitar.
Guest:He's the best guitar player, Dillon.
Marc:Sam Dillon.
Guest:He's incredible.
Guest:How'd you know that guy?
Guest:He went to Hampshire College.
Marc:You went to Hampshire?
Guest:No, I went to Northwestern, but my three best friends from New Jersey all went to Hampshire College, all kind of separately.
Guest:You grew up in New Jersey?
Guest:Uh-huh, in Maplewood in South Orange.
Guest:My dad taught at Seton Hall University.
Marc:What did he teach?
Marc:He was Chaucer.
Marc:He's all Chaucer?
Marc:Just Canterbury Tales all day long?
Guest:I mean, that and classics.
Guest:Medieval English was his specialty, and he taught there for 50 years, and by the end, he just got to do an honors class where he would take them around the world.
Guest:Yeah, and he would have a month-long trip that he would take a class to and stuff.
Guest:So he grew up in academia.
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And your mom, was she a teacher?
Guest:My mom met my dad when she was teaching at Seton Hall, but then she became a lawyer and then became a judge.
Guest:Your mom's a judge?
Guest:Federal judge.
Guest:To this day?
Guest:To this day.
Guest:And your dad's an academic, a scholar.
Guest:He's no longer with us, but he, yeah, he was, well, he was an academic, but he never published.
Guest:He was a Jesuit, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And in 1957, he left, which was Vatican II.
Guest:Does anybody know about Vatican II?
Marc:Sure.
Guest:i mean i'll pretend like i do i remember it being something the catholic church changed all the rules and they kind of got lax and they got rid of the latin mass and they got rid of everything that my dad was interested in like all the kind of incense and uh kind of uh all the witchcraft yeah pretty much like the because the jesuits are into the the uh the what's the word you know uh not magic with a k but uh spiritual and and the swinging the smoking orbs
Guest:So he bails, and he's 27, and he moves to Bleeker and McDougal in 1957.
Guest:Oh, gets his mind blown.
Guest:A virgin Jesuit moves to jazz land.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And he got a tenured position at Seton Hall at a really young age, and so he never cared about publishing.
Guest:He just...
Guest:Wrote it out.
Guest:Wrote it out, and he was a bagpiper.
Guest:He was really into music, and he played in like 10 different bands.
Guest:The bagpipes?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Did he play on ACDC's first album?
Guest:No, because I don't really think those are bagpipes.
Guest:You don't?
Guest:Have you studied it?
Guest:The way that it starts in that song, it sounds like a synthesizer to me.
Guest:Long way to the top if you want to rock and roll.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Matt Sweeney here on this show.
Marc:has said that it's a synthesizer.
Guest:I think.
Guest:It's okay.
Marc:I just want you to come down one side or the other.
Marc:Bagpipe or synthesizer?
Guest:I think that on the record it's a synthesizer, but I know that Bon Scott used to play the bagpipe live, and apparently it was really difficult, and it was a huge chore for him, and it was like a property.
Marc:Really a huge chore for a dwarf alcoholic to play the bagpipes?
Marc:It was a little rough.
Marc:It winded the little man.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:uh yeah but uh yeah so i got i grew up around music and stuff but that but that's very sophisticated uh you know highbrow upbringing it was cool they weren't into rock and roll which was really nice like but what was your first instrument was it did you learn to play it really yeah clarinet player well you know like because back when they when you had to play an instrument in schools yeah you know sure i i think my dad kind of chose it for me
Marc:Yeah, I think my brother played clarinet briefly.
Marc:You gotta wet your reed.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:And then blow a few tunes out.
Marc:Did you have any proclivity to it?
Guest:I couldn't read music well, but I could memorize anything.
Guest:So I kind of got far just bullshitting.
Guest:So I sat...
Guest:you know like in first chair whatever that means sure i could play but i really didn't know what i was reading i would just like hear it once and then just kind of figure it out really so you had that and you could play the clarinet yeah yeah you got brothers and sisters i got an older brother who lives in la who makes uh he he plays music as well he does music for kitchen nightmares yeah well i don't know them you know kitchen no i don't tv show do you oh no really a gordon ramsay show
Marc:Gordon Ramsay, he's the guy going like... When Gordon Ramsay loses his shit and yells at people to get it together and storms out into the street, your brother's music comes in.
Marc:You can watch that and go, that's my bro.
Marc:Yes, he does all those cues and all that stuff.
Marc:God bless him for helping out.
Marc:So, all right, so you're in New Jersey.
Marc:So that means you're close to Hoboken.
Marc:You're close to New York.
Marc:That's correct.
Marc:You have access.
Marc:How old are you?
Marc:Now I'm 45.
Marc:All right, so you're a little younger than me, but we're old guys, kind of.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But you were, you know, you were, you're old enough to have been young enough to sort of get into the end of the punk rock shit here.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Yeah, I was really lucky because, so, you know, I was in high school from like 80, you know, in the mid 80s when everything sucked.
Guest:Everything I thought was terrible, but there's really healthy.
Guest:Hey, I was,
Guest:I was there in the late 70s.
Guest:That was better, a little bit, but it's kind of shitty, too.
Guest:But what I mean by that is that there's an underground.
Guest:Like, there was such a need.
Guest:Like, what was mainstream was so terrible that there was this need for an underground, and there was tons of great music.
Guest:So, like, I got into hardcore music kind of via skateboarding.
Marc:Well, that's sort of when that happened, because I remember when I was in high school from, like, 77 to 81,
Marc:like disco we saw it die but punk didn't integrate until later so we got new wave right was what the mainstream music became and then then mainstream rock was like i was in high school when the first van halen album came out the first right and the first dire straits album came out and uh and foreigner was around there was a lot of hot blooded i think that was early on i love that shit actually
Guest:do you i really love foreigner i think it's just it's music i liked when i was like a little kid i i heard it at the amusement park and i remember sure man but feels like the first time oh yeah so you're in high school and you're processing the skate shit yeah yeah and i see a picture of his band it's a bunch of guys and it says the sun city girls and it just kind of and i think i saw a picture of the butthole surfers and that was it i was like i have to know what this this stuff is and then
Guest:The butthole server does require that of you.
Guest:It's like, what is that?
Guest:Yeah, and this is like 83 or 84, and you're like- How old are you?
Guest:At that point, I'm 13.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:You're enchanted.
Guest:Completely.
Guest:And I'd already gotten into music, and I really loved Rush and Led Zeppelin and stuff like that.
Guest:And I was already playing music, but-
Guest:when I heard that stuff it just blew my mind and I really got into that stuff so then by the end of high school I had a band and we got to like we got to open up for Sonic Youth you know when I was like- Which band was that?
Guest:We were called Skunk.
Guest:That was like famous though like aren't you isn't that relatively well known?
Guest:We're goofy we're well we were good I mean I cringe when I when I hear it although the guitar stuff is really cool but we were we didn't know what we were doing we were really really young right and and
Guest:It was very Minneapolis sounding, very like... Husker Du?
Guest:That and Replacements and Soul Asylum, who were actually... They were so... Well, that sounds lame, actually.
Guest:What?
Guest:I don't want to say they were actually great, but in the 80s, they were so incredible, that band in particular.
Guest:I remember because I grew up in this arena rock, got into punk rock, and then I saw Soul Asylum open up for Husker Du, and they kind of sounded like Aerosmith or something like that, but they were so tight and violent.
Guest:A little neutered.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Violent?
Guest:No, they were...
Guest:bad really they were so good and ask anybody who was there they will swear that soul sound for like the for like in like 1986 was the best like kind of post-punk band going no i know that but then there's a whole sort of like well what the fuck happened i don't know it seemed like a cultural turn more than a turn of them as a band yeah i mean and it was it was weird but actually and it was also when you're in high school you love a band and then you don't like a band anymore yeah they make one lame movie like oh my god
Guest:Fuck them.
Guest:But how much older is your brother?
Guest:My brother's two years older.
Guest:He was more straight, kind of like he had Jersey Shore type buddies and stuff like that.
Guest:So he was playing... Springsteen?
Guest:That kind of stuff.
Guest:And his band was like, yeah, they would play high school dances.
Marc:Oh, he had a band?
Guest:Yeah, he was an incredible drummer.
Guest:He was like the Rush guy.
Guest:He worked a couple of summers, got the giant Neil Peart Rush set.
Marc:Did he get a gong?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He had a gong?
Marc:Yeah, the whole fucking thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He smoked.
Guest:He was like the drummer in town.
Marc:Did he play alone at home with earphones on?
Marc:A little bit.
Guest:He always had kids to play with him.
Guest:We had the rock house.
Guest:My dad was like, we didn't have a lot of money, but he was like, if you want to play sports or do music, I'll foot the bill.
Guest:And then...
Guest:My parents divorced in high school and my dad kind of was sort of depressed and the house, I was just completely unsupervised and completely.
Guest:And it's amazing.
Guest:And luckily I wasn't into drugs or anything like that.
Guest:I was just into music.
Guest:And so my house was this free zone.
Guest:What, your dad was just what, in the room?
Guest:He was kind of like, he was puttering in the basement and then, you know, hanging out with his bagpiper buddies.
Guest:And he just was kind of like, he kind of checked out.
Guest:He was sad.
Marc:Wandering about and occasionally would play bagpipes with some other men.
Guest:Yeah, pretty much.
Guest:But it was a really great scene.
Guest:So I got to play tons and tons and tons of music and kind of figure stuff out.
Guest:And I got to hate on my brother's friends who were kind of technical kind of rock jocks.
Guest:But then at the same time, because I was kind of good at memorizing stuff, I would act like I hated them and watch them play and then figure out a metallic.
Marc:You still do that.
Marc:You make short pieces where you do that.
Guest:yeah i mean yeah kind of guitar moves right yeah yeah it's you're going like oh fuck i'm playing with this guy that's some of those some of those like the gibbons one was insane well it was it was kind of weird and sad to see billy get sort of loopy like he got his face all got all red from the wine it's this one moment he turns you see him he goes done deal
Guest:But he's, I mean, that was, well, you were asking them how I know a lot of people.
Guest:And other than the fact that I started young, playing in bands, you know, and making records at a pretty young age, so I got to meet a lot of people that way.
Marc:Let's talk about Skunk, though.
Guest:Skunk is amazing.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:But, like, you were, what, 14, 15?
Guest:Yeah, when I started playing with those dudes, yeah.
Guest:What guitar are you playing?
Guest:I had like a Yamaha guitar, and then I got a Les Paul my freshman year in college.
Marc:Black one?
Guest:I got a black one, yeah, yeah.
Guest:I got what are they called?
Marc:Black Beauties, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, two gold humbuckers.
Marc:That's not a punk rock guitar.
Guest:No, I, you know, but the thing is by the time that we started doing a band, we'd already kind of been punk hardcore as we knew it had kind of the first wave had run their course, meaning, meaning black flag had broken up.
Guest:That's one way of putting it, you know what I mean?
Guest:And like, uh, I think you talked with, with, uh, with Kirk from me puppets about this, just like this things had moved on.
Guest:So by the time that I was playing a band, we were kind of post punk and into like arena rock and into like guitar solos and stuff like that.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like, um,
Guest:It was really goofy.
Marc:Which guys were your guys?
Guest:We covered Iron Maiden knowing that it was not cool to cover Iron Maiden.
Guest:So it was ironic.
Guest:But we loved it.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:But for the audience, you knew that it was not ironic.
Guest:Yeah, we were kind of pushing it.
Guest:A band like Red Cross at the time was one of our favorite bands.
Guest:And again, they were really retro and they would cover Kiss songs and stuff, but they were...
Guest:one of the first punk bands so you know right so it's cool there's cool yeah they can take the piss out of this by playing it perfectly yeah kind of yeah and and and again through there's a guy called andrew weiss who was ween's guy like us and ween both got recorded by this guy named andrew weiss uh who this is skunk this is skunk yeah i met ween when we were in high school are you wearing high school i you know i i i have and i've not entered the world completely oh my god but but watch the guitar moves i did i didn't watched it did
Guest:Did you watch one with Mickey from Wee?
Guest:Yeah, he's great.
Guest:He's like a wizard.
Guest:Yeah, and they were like our favorite band and we kind of came up with them.
Marc:They were kids too, right?
Guest:They were like a year younger, yeah.
Guest:And they started when they were like 13 or something like that.
Guest:I met them when they were like 15 or 16.
Guest:all through this guy andrew and trenton um new jersey in jersey yeah this is all jersey jersey weird diy stuff you know what i mean yeah post-punk yeah like city gardens we played a lot at um maxwell's we played a lot at um yeah what's the story over maxwell's you were you were like a these uh like a high school band playing at maxwell's yeah i mean yeah we were such dicks
Guest:Oh, my God, we were such assholes.
Marc:You know, I played Yolo Tango's Hanukkah Weeks.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You got to tell me the story again about how Ira had to show you how to... What was that about?
Guest:Poor Ira had to... Okay, so Steve, the owner of Maxwell's, really liked Skunk for some reason.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And he's like, you guys have to get a sound guy because we're really loud.
Guest:And he knew that we were going to go on tour.
Guest:And he goes, you have a buddy who can do your sound?
Guest:We were like, sure.
Guest:So we got my friend Paul to come to Maxwell.
Guest:He's like, yeah.
Guest:He's like, I'll have our house sound guy teach your guy how to do sound.
Guest:I'll give you guys an afternoon.
Guest:Meanwhile, like...
Guest:If I were Ira, I don't think that there's a note of Skunk's music that he would like.
Guest:We were kind of, I think, everything that he hated.
Guest:Because we were really obnoxious and, again, doing Iron Maiden songs and shit like that.
Guest:And so he has to show up, and he was just so bummed.
Guest:He was a sound guy?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:He had to show up and show our friend who didn't know anything about sound.
Guest:And so we just made noise and played awful heavy metal for three hours.
Guest:And knowing, we knew exactly how much he hated it.
Guest:I wonder if he remembers that.
Guest:All right, so you're doing Skunk.
Guest:Okay, so I'm doing... You find some success.
Guest:I mean, sort of.
Guest:I mean, like, getting to open up for... I think our first real show was opening up for Sonic Youth and Dinosaur.
Guest:That's a pretty big show.
Guest:Where was that?
Guest:In Jersey?
Guest:That was at City Gardens.
Guest:And then we played with Sonic Youth at Seabees and...
Guest:and at that time it was really for me exciting because like 86 87 all those all the bands that that we really liked just made these really great records like uh dinosaur made you're living all over me which is like this great record yeah sonic he's made sister you know like all these bands were really kind of peaking you know and i was i'm like in high school just like all i cared about was this stuff so i was really really stoked right and then
Guest:We all, the band kind of collapsed because we went to college and everybody went to different schools.
Guest:But over breaks, we kind of got a little better and we made some demos with that same guy, Andrew Weiss.
Guest:And then we got signed to Twin Tone Records, which was like the Replacements label and Solis Alums label.
Guest:And we were kind of barely a band at that point because we were all just college kids and we didn't live together.
Guest:But we kind of got it together and made a record and we kind of started to suck then.
Guest:When he got tight, things got tight.
Guest:I mean, we kind of got tight.
Guest:We were just really obnoxious and we kind of blew it.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I think so.
Marc:But those were the records?
Marc:Those were like while you were in college or just post-college?
Marc:That's when the skunk records came out, not when you were kids?
Guest:No, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:In college.
Guest:We were playing in the senior year of high school and doing these shows, and then we got the music together over the course of freshman, sophomore year of college, and then I think the first skunk record came out in 89 or something like that.
Guest:And then we, that was a really weird time.
Guest:But put it this way, like by the time that we broke up, I felt like some sort of grizzled veteran, you know?
Marc:And I was like 21.
Guest:I was like really bitter, super bitter.
Marc:Like it was everybody's fault that- But there's gotta be people out there that are like, those skunk records were the best.
Guest:You know who really likes this, and I'm fully fucking name dropping, but every time I see him, he's really sweet about it, is Jack Black really likes Skunk.
Guest:He does?
Guest:He was here the last time I was here.
Guest:He's fucking awesome.
Guest:He really likes it.
Guest:So some people, we do have a couple of fans.
Guest:The vocals are goofy, but there's a lot of ideas going on.
Guest:There's a lot to the band.
Guest:But anyway, so then I quit.
Guest:I dropped out of college.
Guest:Skunk imploded, and I just didn't know what to do with myself.
Guest:And I thought that I was just done with music.
Guest:I was really despondent.
Guest:And then...
Guest:I got a job in New York working for CMJ, which is like this college music journal, you know.
Marc:Right, that was huge.
Marc:They used to put out packages for the, for the CMJ, for the, what's that?
Marc:The thing.
Guest:The big thing.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, which was like, was basically what South by Southwest is now.
Marc:Right, they'd be at Brownies and the Mercury Lounge and everywhere, and I used to get those packages of CMJ collections of bands.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, exactly, like compilations.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So here you were a guitar player.
Guest:And you got a gig, you got a job.
Guest:I get a job, but I'm like post music.
Guest:I was just like kind of embarrassed about everything, about how Skunk went down.
Guest:I just thought that everybody hated us.
Marc:So you were hanging up your guitar?
Guest:I totally did, it was awesome.
Guest:It was like,
Guest:You were like, fuck this?
Guest:The drama.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But then I was kind of knocking around New York, and somebody heard that I was a bass player.
Guest:This guy named Dave Reed heard I was a bass player, even though I was a guitar player.
Guest:And he was like, I'm starting this band with James Lowe from Live Skull, who's a band that I really liked.
Guest:And I was like, sure, yeah, I play bass.
Guest:So then I came in at a...
Guest:I sort of came in like, okay, I'm just going to pretend I never played in a band.
Guest:I'm going to play in somebody else's band.
Guest:It's going to be a kind of music that... Bass.
Guest:Yeah, I'm going to play bass in like a really noisy kind of like... This guy played with Glenn Branca and the band sort of sounded like Helmet, but more arty and more noisy and kind of more interesting.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:and so then i started playing music again i met this guy james and around that time i also roadied for i was just fully humiliating myself i think the whole thing was like i don't play i'll be a road experiment in shame yeah you can beat the shit out of myself yeah yeah totally not only am i going to give up on my dream but i'm going to go support others yeah in the most menial way possible exactly i'm going to serve the you know the the you're like a jesuit yeah
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:This is self-punishment.
Guest:So Clay Tarver, this guy who I still do a band with, at that time had a band called Bullet La Volta.
Guest:I remember them.
Guest:Yeah, and this is around the time that before Nirvana blew up, all these bands were getting signed, and La Volta was one of these bands that was supposed to be huge.
Guest:And by the time that they definitely weren't going to be huge, they had this kind of big tour, and I roadied for them.
Guest:And I became friends with Clay.
Guest:His band broke up, and Clay moved to New York.
Guest:And we went out karaoke-ing.
Guest:And this was when there wasn't karaoke machines.
Guest:It was free karaoke machines.
Guest:There's a band on 9th Street, a place called Candy B1 that had a live Japanese band that knew like 2,000 songs.
Guest:And you would just get up in front of the band.
Guest:That was the...
Guest:it was live karaoke it was live karaoke but that's all karaoke really was was live was right like you get to be the singer yeah and so we and i had never met the matador guys clay was friends with the matter guys and me and clay at this point were friends and we were like we would like smoke pot and talk about music and stuff like that and um and also he was sort of humiliated and burnt out on playing music and and uh
Guest:um we karaoke and we did bridge over troubled water you too and and then and claire's like we should do a band i think we should do really that was it and the other guy who was there was chris from matador that was was the other dude that we were partying with right like that night and that's that was how this band chavez that was the birth of chavez straight up yeah
Marc:Chavez is one of these bands where I was way late.
Marc:Somebody told me about him.
Marc:And then I started seeing you on Twitter.
Marc:And then I started seeing you on records.
Marc:And I didn't know who the fuck you were.
Marc:And then everyone's like, well, he was Chavez and who everyone is.
Marc:I don't know who everyone is.
Marc:Twitter.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then we start talking to each other on Twitter.
Marc:And you know Blake Mills.
Marc:So now I got to get the Chavez records.
Marc:So I go down to Florida to visit my mother with the double album with all the Chavez stuff.
Marc:And I'm just running.
Marc:I'm jogging.
Marc:I'm listening to that shit.
Marc:I plow it into my brain.
Marc:I'm like, I got to get a handle on this guy.
Marc:But then that guy doesn't match up with the dude who's playing with Billy and Blake on Oh Well.
Marc:or doesn't match up with the Bonnie Prince Billy that... I listened to Super Wolf last night.
Marc:Oh, cool.
Marc:And then Endless Boogie, and then I start looking up your shit, and I'm like, who the fuck doesn't this guy play with?
Guest:Well, so it kind of went like this.
Guest:So with Chavez, so we started the band, and I got a day job working for a PR company.
Guest:A guy called Steve Martin.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I work with them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Steve Martin, the asshole, not the jerk, as they say.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:He had this idea.
Guest:He was an agnostic front and he was in some other cool bands.
Guest:And this is when all of our friends' bands were getting signed to major labels.
Guest:And Steve had this idea, like, let's start a PR company so we could represent our friends.
Marc:You were there at the beginning of Nasty Little Man?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So you were there, you were kind of part, this was like you not committing to music still.
Marc:Yes, yeah, totally.
Guest:It was like, again, serving.
Guest:And part of the game was like not telling anybody that I was in a band because I was, you know, I wanted to be professional.
Marc:So you're secretly doing Chavez.
Guest:Pretty much, yeah.
Marc:And doing PR for who?
Guest:We did like the Beastie Boys.
Guest:We did Dinosaur Jr.
Guest:This is like early on.
Marc:So all of them knew you as the guy at the office?
Guest:Kind of, yeah.
Guest:Like Josh from Queens didn't know that I played guitar for years.
Guest:Josh Homme?
Guest:Yeah, a lot of people that I was friends with, I just wouldn't tell them that I played because I thought it would be kind of...
Guest:But you were secretly jamming?
Guest:Yeah, and Chavez did well.
Guest:So we ended up doing pretty good, but we had this whole thing.
Guest:That band was like, we had decided that we wouldn't do anything that we did not want to do, meaning that we wouldn't play with a band that we didn't like, that we wouldn't go on tour forever if there wasn't a demand for it, that we wouldn't stay on some junkies floor, you know what I mean?
Marc:Well, tell me about the drummer.
Guest:James.
Yeah.
Marc:He's the best.
Marc:Because somebody called it math rock.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It doesn't fit.
Guest:That's just racist because James is Chinese.
Guest:I think that's why.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:I think so.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Straight up racist.
Marc:But when I think of math rock, I think of King Crimson.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I was trying to place it together.
Marc:I couldn't hear it.
Guest:it frustrated me at the time actually you know david klyler invented math rock to describe the noise band wider that i played in because that had a lot of weird parts and david klyler i swear to god he called it math rock as a diss as a joke he would he would pretend to have a calculator when he was watching us and then with which which band this band wider that was the noise band that i played in like like when i didn't know what i was doing right okay and uh
Guest:That's when you do a noise band.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they were really cool.
Guest:They're really great.
Guest:But they were complicated.
Guest:And so this guy, Dave, would pretend to have a calculator at our shows and he'd like he'd be like calculating and then he'd kind of like, you know, give give the look like, oh, yeah, you guys are good.
Guest:He was being a dick.
Guest:He was being a dick.
Guest:And then then people start straight face.
Guest:Like there's a genre called math rock, you know, which was beyond me.
Guest:And then Chavez started getting called that.
Guest:I really do think it's because.
Guest:We could play.
Guest:We had a Chinese drummer, you know?
Guest:I mean, we were just trying to do, and we still are just trying to do, like, kind of like the interesting, or the weird parts of Bloiser Cult, or, like, Cheap Trick, you know?
Guest:You know, Dream Police, the big build-up in Dream Police.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:You know, or, like, Rock's Aerosmith.
Guest:Like, it's kind of like, we want to just kind of play evil rock, just do our own tape.
Guest:You just want the build part?
Guest:Yeah, and just, like, the high drama, you know?
Guest:But without being, like,
Guest:We just, that's our thing.
Marc:So Chavez is doing that and you're doing publicity.
Guest:I'm doing publicity, I'm doing Chavez.
Guest:Where do you learn how to finger pick from Sam Dillon?
Guest:That was around that, okay, so around that time, my friend Dan, who was one of the guys who went to Hampshire College, which is how I know Sam,
Guest:dan hampshire college fucking hippie college oh man i know tell me about that's the one in amherst right yeah there's reed in hampshire reed in oregon yeah and then there's another one that closed antioch that one that one was so hippie that they just they imploded themselves everyone was majoring in leaving school yeah for real that doesn't it just straight doesn't exist anymore um
Guest:I had dropped out of college and all my friends were going to Hampshire and they were friends with Sam Dillon and they were the anti-hippie contingent and they were really into like death metal and noise and swans and all this kind of music and Sam was like not a hippie at all.
Marc:This is Jacob's older brother.
Guest:Correct.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Anyway, we got to be friends, and in the quest for extreme music, somebody found a Charlie Patton record, and that was... Old Weevil Blues.
Guest:Yeah, there's that song.
Guest:And my friend Dan Margulies, who's this genius historian guy now,
Guest:He got us into old time music.
Guest:So we started going to... He started going to these festivals, these bluegrass festivals.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:This one in Charlotte, Michigan, which is like we were the only young people there.
Guest:And so every year we would go to this festival and my friends started to learn how to play.
Guest:And Sam just like took to finger picking.
Guest:And I remember when I saw him do it, my mind was completely blown.
Guest:I was like, how the fuck do you do that?
Guest:How do you do that?
Guest:And I'd been listening to...
Guest:stuff you know i've been listening to nick drake and you know like i've been listening to finger picking stuff like and i love but he was doing like almost ragtime finger picking yeah it was just like i mean and like i also love leo kotke like that six and twelve but i just i just assumed it was impossible to do i can't do it yeah and but dude you could totally learn
Guest:I mean yeah like juggling through repetition you get it yeah I could show you like one pattern and that's what Sam showed me two patterns and everything that I do is based off of these two patterns and it took it took me like a week and I remember it's the most frustrating thing because you want to do it so bad and it is like juggling right eventually you get that third ball you get that yeah yeah and dude it opens up every it's Sam put it this way Sam goes you know why the you know like why there are old guys sitting on the porch for hours and hours drinking themselves happily to death he's like because they know how to do this one thing
Guest:and he's like he's that's all he said i was like okay you know i wonder if his dad can do it uh uh you know weirdly he can't he does it on uh he does it sparingly but he does on uh buckets of rain does that sound yeah what about on karina karina yeah that that too yeah yeah um but he doesn't do it he rarely does it it's weird um well it seems like he at some point he gave up his fingers altogether
Guest:Yeah, I mean, he doesn't play guitar anymore.
Marc:At all.
Marc:His hands hurt, right?
Guest:Is that the deal?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:You're his friend.
Marc:It's so funny to me, though.
Marc:It's not the deal when he plays.
Marc:He plays, but he's not the guy who tried to be a musician.
Guest:Yeah, he's amazing.
Guest:I'm going to have to ask if it's okay to talk about him because he's super private.
Guest:But...
Guest:Well, we're not doing anything other than saying you learned how to play guitar.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And also, I mean, I do want to give him props because he's one of the best musicians that I know.
Marc:I love knowing that.
Guest:I love knowing that the Dylan that doesn't even deal with music is the best musician.
Guest:You should have him on.
Guest:He's a criminal defense attorney.
Guest:He's a bad motherfucker.
Guest:So I was doing Chavez, but then Chavez started to slow down a little bit.
Guest:Just the finger picking thing was just like a separate thing.
Marc:But then you put down the pick and you only finger pick?
Guest:Yeah, pretty much.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because you don't really need a pick anyway.
Guest:I mean, if you have to do that, you just do that.
Guest:Use your nail.
Guest:Use your thumb.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But the finger picking, I really got into.
Guest:Then Chavez slowed down because of a bunch of different things.
Guest:Like our bass players started to get too many jobs working as making music videos or something like that.
Guest:Which one is the writer now?
Guest:they're clay okay so clay clay tarper he's a guitar player though right he's yeah me and the other guitar the band right and and and he's over trouble yeah and clay's kind of the leader even though like i sing and write the lyrics and stuff clay still is really the guy who like drives the band and stuff and and uh
Guest:he started getting a lot of jobs, you know, writing jobs, because he worked at MTV and he was the guy who did the cab driver promos.
Marc:So there's a guitar player for Chavez.
Marc:He wrote the, oh, the Donal Loge promos just by, because he knew Donal Loge.
Marc:How did he get the game?
Marc:Yeah, they were college roommates.
Marc:So that's how that happened.
Marc:So he's writing for him.
Marc:So then he gets wrecked.
Guest:So what's his trajectory?
Guest:Clay's trajectory is he writes a script based on the cab driver, which of course never gets made, but a lot of people see.
Guest:And he started getting, everybody loved that script.
Guest:And so I think J.J.
Guest:Abrams was the guy who started giving Clay work.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:It's so fucking wild.
Guest:Then you lose your guitar player.
Guest:Oh, yeah, so so meanwhile so he's he starts doing stuff James our drummer is this genius who like who designs I mean he's like does He did something with like the computer mainframe of Merrill Lynch to just to make to make the chain of command like a split-second quicker Yeah, you know for money things.
Guest:There's one thing that he can do and he helped design stents he for hearts for hearts He was your drummer
Guest:Yes, he wins Bessie Awards for modern dance compositions.
Guest:He's like so fucking advanced.
Guest:So he's doing his thing.
Guest:Clay's doing his thing.
Guest:And you're just a guitar guy.
Guest:Yeah, I'm just a fucking idiot.
Guest:I was like, oh, I guess I'll get good at finger picking.
Guest:It sucks.
Guest:It takes some time to play.
Guest:Are you still doing publicity?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that job was really cool because I could kind of take on as much as I could take on and come and go.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And right when Chavez was kind of done, I saw Andrew W.K.
Guest:play.
Guest:And I think I had taken Ecstasy for the first time.
Guest:And I went up to him, and this is when Andrew just played by himself to a tape.
Marc:With his white pants and his white shirt.
Guest:Yeah, and he was 18.
Guest:I was like, man, can I be your manager?
Guest:I mean, I was high as shit.
Guest:And he was like, okay.
Guest:And in short order, I got him a really huge record deal, and it was the only time I ever did anything like this.
Guest:A&R?
Guest:Yeah, or managing.
Guest:So it was his first one, the Bloody Knows one?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I made a little chunk of money because he got a record deal.
Guest:Then what happened?
Guest:Oh yeah, and then I ran into Billy Corgan, who was a big skunk fan back in the day.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yes, and he asked me if I wanted to do a project with him, and we ended up doing that for two years.
Guest:What was the name of that band?
Guest:It was called Zwan.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was really fun.
Guest:The first half of it was really, really fun.
Guest:In a year, we recorded 100 songs.
Guest:We just played lots and lots of music, and it was really, really fun.
Marc:You think he's a good guitar player?
Marc:He's a great guitar player.
Marc:Yeah, he's incredible.
Guest:But then that thing imploded because I think really he didn't really want to do what we were doing.
Guest:I think it was kind of an experiment for him.
Guest:What were you doing?
Guest:i don't really know is it on record it's on record i've never listened to the record um but some people like it i remember that the record took a really long time to make it just i think i think i wasn't the guy that that that he hoped i was and invite and maybe vice versa for me and him and stuff like that it got kind of weird i mean but he's a he's a character got kind of weird yeah okay but anyway but but but i could there's probably enough nice things so i do this thing for like two years and and then uh
Guest:Then all of a sudden, I'm in my early 30s, and that thing's done.
Guest:And all of a sudden, I was like a professional musician, you know what I mean?
Guest:Which I swore I'd never be.
Marc:Well, now you've managed.
Marc:You've done some A&R.
Marc:You've delivered a guy.
Guest:Yeah, that was like in a kind of a band.
Marc:You know how to finger pick with Sam.
Marc:You were in Chavez.
Guest:Now you just finished with Corrigan.
Guest:And then I remember I had done, and also I started playing with, oh, you know what I did?
Guest:Actually, when Chavez slowed down, I started playing with Bonnie Prince Billy.
Guest:I started playing with Will, which was a huge, huge thing.
Guest:We had a mutual friend.
Guest:Who was that?
Guest:The mutual friend?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Britt Woffer, the drummer from Slint, this band.
Marc:Slint.
Guest:Yeah, who I went to college with, actually.
Guest:So much college.
Guest:Well, that's, I guess, where it all starts.
Guest:Most bands are like upper middle class kids.
Guest:Yeah, who should be doctors.
Marc:Some of them apparently will do both, like your drummer.
Guest:yeah well he's make a stint he's amazing yeah yeah um but anyway so i started playing with will we met through through brit yeah and then then the billy corgan thing all of a sudden i'm done with the billy corgan thing and i thought i was gonna make some money yeah doing what just from publishing stuff yeah and like nothing all of a sudden i did a tour with will i was in i was in
Guest:uh tasmania at the tasmanian devil park and somehow i i was again i i was still pretty spacey about money just thought things would work out man yeah you know yeah man i was like yeah you know i was in this band you know like i'm gonna get some money yeah yeah and uh manager says it's gonna come through you know so i remember going i wanted to buy a t-shirt at the tasmanian devil park and i put in my my card in the atm and i had like negative 25 in my bank account and i was in fucking tasmania
Guest:and that was like this incredible moment.
Marc:That was the moment?
Guest:Yeah, that was the moment where I was like, whoa, I'm completely fucked, you know?
Guest:And I remember not to, like, I was embarrassed, I didn't know what to do, you know?
Guest:And I'd walk out, I was like, kind of ashen-faced, Will's like, are you okay?
Guest:I was like, yeah, are we, did we get,
Guest:getting cash on this tour you know that tone uh yeah just wondering i mean i was so fucked it was incredible you know and like and i didn't have a day job and like i just didn't know what to do and and and then will kind of sensed that i was motherfucked and yeah and and he uh
Guest:I remember he wrote me and he said, hey, I have a really big show in London that pays a lot of money.
Guest:I want to just have me and you play the show.
Guest:And then I was like, thanks.
Guest:Yeah, that's great.
Guest:And then he sent an email that said challenge.
Guest:And there were two lyrics.
Guest:And he was like, how about you make songs out of these lyrics and we'll play them at the London show.
Guest:So I was like, OK.
Guest:And I've never been asked to do that.
Guest:So I did and and that's sort of how super wolf got started was was was we played these songs and it was fucking terrifying Chris because I was just playing loud rock bands and all of a sudden just me and a singer With some song that I just made up and it's like really big crowd and and it was it was terrifying and exciting Fucking a yeah super exciting.
Marc:So that's just it's just you and him on that record.
Guest:Mm-hmm And oh and our friend Pete Townsend
Guest:Not that one.
Guest:Pete Townsend from Louisville plays drums in that.
Guest:It's a pretty record.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:So Will really helped me out when I just didn't know what to do.
Guest:And then through that Superwolf record, Rick Rubin, I guess, heard it and called me up out of the blue and just asked me to start...
Guest:what'd he say about the record he said the nicest things in the world i would i would sound like i was lying if i if i actually quoted it because i sound like a dick but he said really really nice things about it you know like i was just like like my end of the conversation was yeah yeah really whoa thanks no way this is really rick rubin dude wow fuck fuck cool really you know
Guest:And he said he wanted to see if I was available to play in records.
Guest:And so I said, fuck no.
Guest:Hell no.
Guest:No, I didn't.
Guest:I was like, yeah, of course.
Guest:And then I got a call a couple of days later.
Guest:I was like, I'm calling from Rick Rubin's office.
Guest:Is this Matt Sweeney?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Checking your availability to play in on Johnny Cash sessions.
Guest:And I was like...
Guest:I'm assuming these are overdubs because Johnny Cash had died.
Guest:And then there's like this beat on the other end.
Guest:They're like, Mr. Cash recorded two albums worth of material with the express purpose of them being finished after his death.
Guest:Are you interested?
Guest:So I said, yeah.
Guest:And then I kind of asked around a little bit about exactly what was going on.
Guest:And sure enough, he had done like 20 songs at his house when he was going.
Guest:And they had been sitting on these...
Guest:on these recordings kind of dreading having to do it but it was agreed like this right it was like his will you know right like uh his last wish yeah and and i was the and because rick liked that this record that i made with will i was the new guy and everybody else was like the guys who had played and all it was basically it was it was my heartbreakers yeah yeah you know and so i've i've and i've never done any fucking studio stuff you know like that so it was insane you know like like so i show up you know and uh with your guitar
Guest:You know what?
Guest:I didn't bring a guitar because I was like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do.
Guest:I didn't even own an acoustic guitar.
Guest:And I figured they're going to have a lot of guitars.
Guest:It's like Rick Rubin.
Guest:And also I kind of figured, well, I can't bring anything to the session.
Guest:I can't, you know what I mean?
Guest:Like I figured that I just have to improv, which ended up kind of really working out well because I didn't have to carry anything.
Guest:So it was really nice.
Guest:Did they have guitars?
Guest:Yeah, there's like fucking tons.
Guest:It's like, of course, it's like, you know.
Guest:like can i use this guitar yeah sure you know um like like good ones yeah dude yeah it's like 100 guitars it's gross um and uh and it was i remember going into rick rubin's house where where he this was in hollywood where he used to do a lot of recordings and and and i went in through the basement
Guest:And I heard this laughing from the room.
Guest:I just found my way and I took like a weird door.
Guest:I took like a side door entrance and I didn't want to meet anybody.
Guest:I just wanted to.
Guest:The Houdini house?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:On Laurel Canyon?
Guest:That's not.
Guest:No, not the other one.
Guest:Oh, his actual house.
Guest:The 1331 Miller Drive, which I think he's gotten rid of.
Guest:But not the Houdini house.
Guest:This other house, which also was a similarly fabulous haunted Hollywood mansion.
Right.
Guest:And I remember going in through the basement and not telling anybody I had arrived and hearing this laughing.
Guest:They're hearing this like, oh, my God.
Guest:Like this kind of hillbilly laughter.
Guest:And I walk in and there's this guy sitting there looking at a computer screen that I can't see what's on the screen.
Guest:And he's like, who are you?
Guest:This scary guy.
Guest:And I was like, I'm Matt Swinney.
Guest:He's like, oh, you're the new guy.
Guest:I was like, yeah, I guess I am.
Guest:He's like, well, I hope you're ready to make the best goddamn record of your life.
Guest:And I was like, yeah.
Guest:He's like, well, I'm Fergie.
Guest:I've worked with Johnny Cash for 30 years, and I am so tired of doing this.
Guest:This is killing me.
Guest:Because he's like, bro, this is sad shit.
Guest:I hope you're ready to get into this.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I mean, he was really like, he just like, and that was another big moment for me.
Guest:I was like, wow, I have to make a record for this guy.
Guest:Because this is the guy who is seeing through his kind of mentor's thing.
Guest:And he was the only guy from Johnny Cash's world, I think, that Rick brought along.
Guest:Oh, and then he was laughing at the computer screen because he had a picture of Jimmy Martin, who's this hillbilly singer, in front of like a thousand dead squirrels.
Guest:yeah he's like looking at like like hillbilly porn or whatever like and and then and then all these other guys come in it's like i couldn't believe it was it was the most surreal thing like it's the heartbreakers oh really like they show up you know ben mont and all of them yeah yeah i'm freaking out you know and then and then never met him before you just like i am mad yeah i was just like this idiot like and i never that they have no idea they don't know who the fuck i am i've never heard shabby yes i had a weird yeah yeah
Guest:they don't know will them shop as fuck no they don't know any of that stuff so and so i'm just this guy you know and and uh and then it was just johnny cash's voice to a click track and we just sit there and figure out the the songs and we ended up recording just the melody no guitar
Guest:there they would you know it'd be like we'd know it'd be in the key of c and they they had isolated the tracks and he would just have his friends play when he was recording he'd just have his friends play just like a guide track right now and and uh so then those guy tracks were quite clean and so we would just come raw voice it must have been haunting it was fucking cool and we just did it all live and we and we ended up doing it was incredibly fun you know what i mean and and
Guest:First time you've ever been in a studio.
Marc:On that level, yeah.
Marc:Basically with the heartbreakers.
Guest:Playing to the disembodied voice of Johnny Cash.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:It was really strange.
Guest:Were these original songs or covers?
Guest:Both.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A lot of covers and some originals.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah, and it was cool.
Guest:And then it worked so well that then Rick would let me stay late and me and Ferg would kind of mess around with that song, Ain't No Grave and God's Gonna Cut You Down were two that we kind of got to really mess with.
Guest:I kind of turned it into a minor key song even though it was a major key song and stuff.
Guest:Rick was so fucking nice that he let me... It was just you and Rick and Ferg.
Guest:Yeah, and then Rick would leave and be like, yeah, if you want to try something, go ahead.
Guest:on those tracks is it only you and Johnny no no I mean it's Smokey and Mike and stuff like that but Mike Campbell Smokey Hormel who plays on tons of Rick's stuff and Smokey made it all these guys were so nice to me that's the other thing is like Smokey and Ben Mont were so friendly to me and they could have been total jerks if they wanted to and Rick had the best advice I was like so can I just play whatever I want he goes yeah do whatever you want we could always hit a race
Guest:you know and i was like oh right i guess i can just do that but i end up being able to like i'm featured on on five and six like i could there's a lot there's um there's a lot of a lot of you hearts a lot of little me on there on the on the uh cash five yeah five and six yeah posthumous ones yeah and they're hard to listen to because the boy he's dying you know what i mean like like they're the the vocals are
Guest:tough i mean i'm i'm proud of those records i i don't think that they're for everybody right i mean but but uh ferg loves him and ferg who's johnny cash's guy he loved him that's what i you know and uh so then i then i just started working for rick a lot and so i get to meet all these and i live in new york and i get to go out to la and you know play with like cat stevens but what was it who else did you play with neil diamond too
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Did you do those sessions?
Guest:That's how I got my acoustic, actually, is Neil Diamond gave me this insane acoustic guitar.
Guest:And I always had this dream.
Guest:I was like, I can't afford a Martin.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But I was like, maybe someday some rich guy will give me a Martin.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:How else would it happen?
Guest:And then after I was friends with Neil, I went by one time.
Guest:Me and Smokey went by his studio because we both happened to be in town.
Guest:He's like, yeah, come by the studio.
Guest:And his son was getting rid of all these guitars.
Guest:He's like, yeah, look at this one.
Guest:And he's this beautiful beat up.
Marc:In L.A.?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He like right next to Cedar Sinai.
Guest:It's Sam Cook's old studio.
Guest:It's the it's the Liberty Records studio.
Guest:He's been in there since the early 70s.
Guest:And it's fucking awesome.
Guest:It's like frozen in time.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Like 1978, like amazing.
Guest:So you go over there after you record with Neil, so he knows you?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Again, so the Rick things, it just became this thing where it was like, I couldn't believe that it was happening.
Guest:Any session, I just couldn't believe I was there.
Guest:Which ones did you do?
Guest:As far as crazy legends that I couldn't believe, like Neil Diamond, Cat Stevens.
Marc:Rick recorded Cat Stevens?
Guest:Yeah, the last one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He ended up... He did the raw tracks with Rick, and then he ended up finishing it in different studios and stuff.
Guest:But Neil Diamond in particular, I'm crazy about his music.
Marc:Really?
Guest:I love Neil Diamond.
Guest:Always have.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Always.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Because that's a pretty sparse record, right?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:The record that we did, I was like...
Guest:There's like 10 minute long, really sparse, weird songs.
Guest:It was so much fun.
Guest:It was really, really cool.
Guest:So you get to know Neil.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's a pal.
Guest:He's so... Dude, he sometimes like texts me and shit.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:It's fucking... I was recording with a rapper recently and I was like, I just got a text from Neil Diamond.
Guest:I could tell the rapper was just like kind of bummed.
Guest:Oh, right?
Guest:I was just kind of like, you know, I just won.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:if rap is about being like cool what rapper uh it was lp who's who's great he's a really good friend i love working with him and he does a thing called run the jewels now which is great i really recommend it it's kind of blowing up you and blake mills are buddies yeah actually yeah i brought blake in i actually introduced blake to rick because which was again classic kind of career suicide because that guy is a wizard yeah you know it's like i do pencil sketches and he's like a sculptor right you know guitar wise it's
Guest:Rick didn't know him either so what does Rick just sit up in the mountain I mean he gets he knows guys and then he has guys that he trusts and stuff and so like in this case this was a kid rock record and Rick was like yeah do you know anybody else who would be good for a guitar you know I was like well this guy Blake you know that was Blake's first Rick session
Guest:And then all of a sudden I stopped getting Rick Sessions and then Blake was there.
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, actually a couple of times, but that's fine because I live in New York.
Guest:And you know what's neat is actually Blake, he's the best guitar player in the world, but he doesn't step on, I never felt like.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:Like what's the Amadeus situation?
Guest:Salieri.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:There was a moment though, I do remember, I was like, is this going to be this?
Guest:Did I just completely fuck myself?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You know, you got to tour with Cat Stevens.
Marc:How the fuck?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So what's great about the Rick things is that sometimes I'll hit it off with the artist and then I'll just kind of do stuff outside of the Rick world.
Guest:Just, you know, just play shows and do some stuff.
Guest:So, I mean, again, it was like the biggest golden pile of shit that I stepped in with.
Guest:Well, I don't want to call Rick a golden pile of shit.
Guest:wasn't lucky just the lucky thing was that he heard the record yeah i mean that's the weird thing about it happened had integrity to it it's like who's that guy yeah it was cool and also we didn't do any press for that record the the super wolf record that's the record i heard you on yeah that i've it's been fucking 10 years it's so crazy that's 10 years old yeah
Marc:Was it you and Blake and Billy Gibbons who did Oh Well?
Guest:Yeah, that was a thing where I... Rick had got... Oh, yeah, that's another obvious one, Billy Gibbons, as far as the Rick thing goes.
Guest:When we were working on the cast stuff... Did he do a CG Top Record?
Guest:Yeah, he did the last one.
Guest:He did?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, that's right.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:It is good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Did you hear Billy play fucking the Ballad of Billy the Kid on... It's fucking awesome.
Marc:Why doesn't he do a whole record?
Marc:I know.
Guest:Well, okay, so, dude, so that's...
Guest:It's been an obsession of mine.
Marc:But now let me just preface this by saying, so you heard Billy play that thing on my podcast?
Guest:Yes, it's incredible.
Guest:So I was talking to Rick about Billy Gibbons.
Guest:He's like, well, I'm friends with him, but I never really checked out CZ Top hardcore.
Guest:I was like, really?
Guest:And he's like, yeah.
Guest:And I was like, dude, the best band ever.
Guest:like the first five records yes they are the greatest things ever yeah yes and and uh i mean i can't i can't i'm obsessed and so rick started talking to billy about making a record right and then i sent rick an email saying you know if you're talking to billy about making a record i think you should talk to him about peter green because i as far as i can tell that could be a good dialogue opener you know what i mean like as far as
Marc:That should be the dialogue opener with every guitar player.
Guest:I know, it's true.
Guest:And Peter Green, for listeners, is the... Well, they know.
Guest:My listeners know.
Marc:I never shut up about Peter Green.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:The original Fleetwood Mac guitar player.
Guest:The original Fleetwood Mac guy, the best... The Wizard of Blues.
Marc:The best blues player.
Guest:Yeah, and somehow it doesn't sound like a white guy trying to be
Guest:I don't know what it is.
Guest:It's transcendent.
Guest:It's just transcendent.
Marc:It is, right?
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:So Gibbon sees that email that I wrote to Rick, and he's like, Bill, he wants to meet you.
Guest:He wants to write with you.
Guest:And it was the greatest phone call I've ever gotten.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So...
Guest:I got instructions from Rick, yeah, meet up with him and play music that he likes, get him back into music, because it seems like he sort of hasn't been that inspired, you know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:So this was, like, my job, you know?
Guest:To fucking hang out with Billy Gibbons and, like, listen to the Boston Tea Party, Fleetwood Mac, you know, bootlegs.
Guest:Is that what you played with him?
Guest:Well, we were just, like, Jesper from Endless Boogie, who's a friend of mine who's, like, a music, you know...
Guest:He's like a crazy record collector, right?
Guest:Yeah, well, Paul Major and Jesper.
Guest:Yeah, two of the guys in the band are like... In Endless Boogie.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:They're out in the island, right?
Guest:No, actually, I called the record Long Island just because I thought it would be cool.
Guest:But no, they're all around here.
Guest:But Jesper is a great...
Guest:I made this crazy mixtape with my friend who like, who has like the libraries of music and stuff.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he's an endless boogie.
Guest:He's an endless boogie.
Guest:And we made like five CDs called vibe action for, for Billy Gibbons of just like inspirational, ripping them from vinyl, vinyl, you know, like,
Guest:everything yeah and and uh and that was sort of like hey billy you know i'm this guy mad who wrote the thing you're trying to reprime the gibbons pump and dude he took to it it was like it's just like yeah dude check out this you know and and we'd listen to music and then play a bit and like and we did this for a week and it was it was the greatest i mean i remember like that at the end of the first day gibbons was like well this just couldn't have gone any better and i was like i can't
Guest:and then what were some of the other songs you're playing i mean what was i playing i mean like he knew the peter green shit yeah he knew the peter green but he hadn't listened to it for a while but he's right you know he's like this is the that was it that was his guy yeah yeah and then a lot of african rock like there's a good compilation called africa rocks a band called witch called amina's rich i know which i just got they just reissued their vinyl yeah yeah that's great yeah yeah um
Guest:So, you know, just like kind of stuff that I knew that Gibbons would like, but maybe hadn't heard because that's what's cool about rock music.
Guest:It is infinite, the amount of stuff that, you know, that you haven't heard.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:And you just sat with him and you'd get the guitars out and you'd follow him?
Guest:We are just kind of make shit up.
Guest:Yeah, and and I It should be noted none of these songs ever got used and but we had this incredible hang then I went back to do it again and the vibe was completely different and and Gibbons didn't seem to be into it anymore and then I and then they started working on the record and I was like shit did I just like
Guest:with billy gibbons somehow you know and then then he met blake and then blake was like gibbons wants to do something with me and you like let's just do it you know yeah and then then there was the full circle back to the to doing the single yeah and doing a fleetwood mac thing and i mean i was hoping that that would be the beginning of something where we could just i think he's afraid
Guest:Yeah, he's so complicated.
Guest:He's so brilliant, that guy.
Marc:But it's just interesting, because that Rick Rubin's Easy Top record, it's in the tradition of those original Rick Rubin records, where it's like, we're going to make his Easy Top record the way it used to be.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:And so it's good.
Marc:It's OK, and his riffs are good.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But it's weird, because these guys get older.
Marc:And you so want them to honor their depth.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And I think a lot of them are just nervous to do it.
Guest:There's that.
Guest:And also, you forget.
Guest:I've learned this from talking to these older guys.
Guest:Like, I asked Gibbons about those 70s records.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:We'd just be sweating in a room having to hang out with each other and just working and working.
Guest:I was like...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But those memories probably aren't that great.
Guest:I guess so.
Marc:That was something to be transcended.
Marc:I always hear about like Skinnered working in a warehouse there.
Marc:that was so hot and it was hot on purpose.
Marc:And when Al Cooper found them, they were just these sweaty guys that had been pounding these songs so hard.
Marc:They knew them in their sleep.
Marc:Yeah, and so you're like, you know what, guys, why don't you get back to that?
Guest:They're like, because I don't want to.
Guest:I fucking hated doing that shit.
Guest:I mean, that's one thing I found.
Guest:And also a lot of people's great work was they were kind of miserable in their personal lives.
Guest:Then they become fucking millionaires.
Guest:They live under a rock of wealth and fame.
Marc:And they've got a sound.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I really think...
Guest:I swear I have noticed this, that like guys who are hugely successful, they're not interested in people who aren't hugely successful.
Guest:They're not interested in the records that they made that didn't sell.
Guest:It's just, I think it's just something about money and power that makes people not interested in going for something that doesn't equal money, I swear.
Marc:But after a certain point, like, I mean, they already made their money.
Marc:I mean, it's not like that ZZ Top Record didn't make money.
Marc:I know, but they still think that.
Guest:that way i know they still think they're gonna get through the next zz top record yeah yeah it's over i know i know and and also it's like as far as i know most of the things that end up really popping are things that you just made because you think was were fucking awesome right you know and then and then and then people pick up on it but but i've just seen this with with some bigger like acts who are just used to
Marc:how things go like yeah we need a hit that that whole mentality you know but it's weird because it's so got like leave on helm knew better than others you know before he died and he was recording those i think he recorded on vanguard yeah yeah i mean it's it's for the people that want to find that yeah i mean you got to stop thinking about hits i know you know and it's like even the rolling stones will write make new songs or a new record but like when i talked to keith richards for 10 minutes
Marc:You know, I said to him, why don't you guys make a blues record?
Marc:He's like, well, it's been kicking around for a while.
Marc:It's like, we'll just do it.
Marc:Because if you listen to Love You Live, the Elmo combo side.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's like, where's that fucking record with that outfit?
Guest:That they can make in five fucking seconds.
Marc:In a second.
Guest:I know, but it's, again, I'm sure.
Marc:Did you ever see that thing where Ronnie and Keith played with Dylan on the Sun City record?
Marc:No.
Marc:Like, yeah.
Marc:It was weird, because I remember seeing it at the concert when they recorded... Like early 80s shit.
Marc:Well, yeah, it was thrown together.
Marc:It was Bob Dylan in the middle of Keith and I think Ronnie, and they all had guitars, and it was pretty great.
Marc:And then there was another song on that record called Silver and Gold that I think Keith played on.
Marc:That record, the Sun City record, is kind of interesting.
Marc:There's some weird players on there, but...
Marc:But I just don't like it's like you guys have already done it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You're done with that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You won.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So now honor your roots.
Guest:I would be great.
Guest:It's this.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't get it either.
Guest:But I just came to understand that it has something to do with these guys not wanting to lose money, not wanting to appear unsuccessful.
Marc:I think it's a fear.
Guest:It's all fear.
Marc:It's absolutely fear for sure.
Guest:for sure you know what i mean i don't know if there's anything we can do like that like i i just hold on to that little i have it on my desktop the gibbons thing yeah i was so excited because i was listening to that to that interview just enjoying it and then then when you did that i was like no oh my god oh my god and it's so fucking good so good so good it's and i don't want to appear disrespectful talking about the fucking millionaires blah blah blah but
Guest:I do think it's true.
Guest:It's like they get used to success.
Marc:I think it's more being entrenched in what they think they're supposed to do.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because it's very hard.
Marc:Even when you listen to Tom Petty, it's like this is a guy with the greatest American songwriters in the world.
Marc:And then you're expected to keep churning out this thing.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And they've all gone through it.
Marc:And I think that's still in their head.
Marc:They think that's the thing they churn out.
Marc:And I don't know that Billy would necessarily even see that big of a difference between 70s Easy Top and what they evolved into.
Marc:I think he knows that the syncopated drum beat was not a good thing.
Marc:And his answer to that is that we were trying to get chicks to dance to it, which is fine.
Marc:But I don't think he sees any difference between any of that.
Guest:I think he would just want.
Guest:Yeah, I don't talk about it.
Guest:We would have like kind of long kind of circular conversations about it.
Guest:And then it really did occur to me.
Guest:I was like, I'm just some fucking like like I'm going to I think to them, like I'm a guy like me is like an obscurest.
Guest:who's into things that are cool and eventually the guys are like, you know what, just because you're just this guy who thinks that things are cool and you just, you know, like if it's obscure, it's good.
Guest:You know what, I'm not like that.
Marc:That's what the successful guy says.
Guest:I'm Billy Gibbons, I'm the big guy.
Guest:And to be fair, Gibbons really does love a lot of, you know, and also he loves a lot of weird shit for sure.
Marc:Sweetheart.
Marc:Oh yeah, he was weird shit, you know, like that.
Marc:That story he told in the podcast about, like, hanging out with Hendrix and Hendrix dragging the stereo down the hall.
Marc:To hear, like, Jeff Beck.
Marc:Yeah, to sit there and go, like, what the fuck is Jeff Beck doing?
Guest:It's so awesome.
Guest:I mean, dude, what about Gibbons talking about Alex Chilton?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, Big Star and fucking ZZ Top were making records at the same studio at the same time, which just blows my mind.
Guest:That's crazy, man.
Guest:Yeah, I remember Gibbons... Actually, this is interesting.
Guest:He goes, Alex Chilton.
Guest:Now, he was interesting.
Guest:He was a guy who...
Guest:who really could have been very successful, but he chose to be a homeless.
Guest:I was like, wow.
Marc:So I think that you forget in the way that music is fragmented and the way that you came up in music that these guys came from the time where we're like, we're going to make a billion dollars.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, I think that's probably right.
Guest:And they fucking did.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, yeah.
Guest:So guys like that, I mean, I would love it.
Guest:I think that Billy's absolutely got it in them, for sure.
Guest:I mean, he's a god.
Guest:He is.
Guest:He's just so great.
Marc:So tell me about this Endless Boogie thing.
Marc:That was another one of those records where I got out of nowhere.
Marc:What label is that on?
Marc:That's on a little label called No Quarter, which is a really small but really good label.
Marc:Somebody sent me that record.
Marc:And, like, you know, I'm going through records.
Marc:And it's weird with me because I get, like, a lot of records.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I'll throw them all on for one play.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And occasionally, like, you know, throw something on and I'm just go about my business.
Marc:And I'll walk back in the room like, the fuck is this?
Marc:That was like, that was that record.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Endless Boogie was one of my.
Marc:It was the dark.
Marc:It was the weird sort of mountain.
Guest:Long Island.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And that's a painting from Norway from like 1908.
Guest:And it looks exactly like Paul Major.
Guest:It looks like the guy who's in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's freaky.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:endless buggy was a band that uh was started as like a fun bunch of record collectors playing music in a rehearsal space that was my rehearsal space and eventually and they started playing shows out after years of playing just they're old guys right yeah paul's like 60 what's his name again paul major that's that's his christian name paul major
Marc:And he's like, he's sort of notorious, right?
Guest:Yeah, he kind of defined, he kind of invented a record market of what people call real people music or private press records, like records that major labels didn't make that people actually made themselves.
Guest:Yeah, a lot of those are being reissued now.
Guest:Yeah, Paul kind of invented people finding that shit.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah, he's so cool and so sweet.
Guest:Like the Dark album?
Guest:Do you know that?
Guest:Yeah, Paul found that record.
Marc:Because you can't find the real one.
Marc:The real one's worth something like $5,000.
Marc:right so like like there's i'm getting a lot of those reasons because you know do you know you know you must you know daniel cook do you know daniel cook daniel cook yeah yeah yeah well he's he's got his joint now is out in la it's right around the corner oh fucking dude say hi to daniel he's fucking awesome great guy yeah that's amazing but he gets all these re-releases of those records yeah and i get them through him you're stoked that's yeah yeah you have your dealer yeah exactly
Guest:So Paul and Jesper from Boogie were those guys for me who were just like always turning me on to Steph.
Guest:And they had this band, and they were my favorite band forever.
Guest:Like I had seen... I remember I saw Crazy Horse and Endless Boogie on the same night, and I swear to God, there was... It was... I could not pick...
Guest:one from the other as far as like what was godlike guitar really perfect yeah yeah yeah paul can really do it yeah and then then i just started playing when they started making records i started playing with them and kind of sort of co-producing the records and stuff so i kind of ended up being the third guitar player in endless boogie and that's so that's the thing that i do whenever i can i make records with them whenever i can
Marc:Well, I guess my question to you then as a guitar player and as somebody who I appreciate your guitar playing because you're not a stand-up out front showboat.
Marc:No, I like to sing in.
Marc:And it seems like you've learned from insecurity and sort of evolving through... Self-hatred and...
Marc:well there's that but there's also the reality of like showing up to do those cash records and realizing that you can't be a showboat yeah and you're up against some real shit and you've got to be sort of honest about how you play right that you found the honesty of how you play my grandmother was influential because she was really into a company a company is yeah uh
Guest:She worked for David O. Selznick, like the Gone with the Wind producer.
Guest:She was really into movies.
Guest:And she would always talk about the piano player, like about how beautiful this piano playing is against this vocal and how the music's almost invisible and stuff.
Guest:And I remember that was kind of stuck in my head.
Guest:I had that in mind when all of a sudden I was with these great singers.
Guest:I was like, okay, don't play when they're singing.
Guest:This is what you do.
Marc:Not time for lead licks.
Guest:Yeah, and then play something off of what, when they're not singing, play something simple that's sort of like what they sang.
Guest:That's my fucking, that's what I do.
Guest:You know, I mean, like, and that's kind of what most, I think, people would...
Guest:do and you also i never thought about that right like i never thought about that like as as simple as that right and and that's that's what i learned kind of i really i started picking up on that from playing with with will oldham and stuff you know he he taught me a lot about how to play with a singer you know what i mean right so that's kind of what i do and also it's like it's a queen sound
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Even if the guitar is dirty, you know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, yeah, because again, I'm such a Luddite and a spaz that I can't deal with pedals.
Guest:And I don't think my hearing is particularly, I'm not like, I'm not great at mixing.
Guest:I'm not like a really, I'm not a, I'm not a tone freak.
Guest:And, but I think if you play with your fingers, you just, you kind of will get a good sound.
Guest:And like, I, I,
Guest:I wish we had some good cars here so you could show me that thing.
Guest:I almost brought one.
Guest:Well, you're going to be a tad.
Guest:We'll just come.
Marc:Yeah, you could come to a comedy show.
Marc:Dude, I'd love to.
Marc:I'd totally love to.
Marc:Well, you got to go eat with your mom.
Marc:Yes, I do.
Marc:All right, man.
Marc:Good talk.
Marc:Great.
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:Matt Sweeney.
Marc:Check him out, man.
Marc:Check out that Superwolf record and everything else.
Marc:You know, go have a superiority burger.
Marc:Do what you gotta do.
Marc:Go hang out with Matt.
Marc:He's fun to hang out with.
Marc:Oh, justcoffee.coop.
Marc:You get the WTF blend.
Marc:I get a little on the back end.
Marc:God, where's that fucking guitar, man?
Marc:Boomer lives!
Marc:Fender champ forever.