Episode 739 - Joseph Arthur / Peter Bebergal
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fuckadelics what the fucking avians what's happening i'm mark maron this is my show wtf welcome to it how are you
Marc:Today on the show, Joseph Arthur, the musician, songwriter, and painter, and artist, and of all things.
Marc:I don't know where I met Joseph, but I think I got a record of his from somewhere.
Marc:He did this tribute record to Lou Reed that I really liked.
Marc:And then I listened to some of his other music, and I was like, this is interesting.
Marc:And somehow we were in touch with each other on Twitter or something.
Marc:I didn't really know who he was, but he was a fan of this show, and I became a fan of his music.
Marc:And it was a great, great conversation.
Marc:I just like the guy.
Marc:And I like his work and he does his own thing.
Marc:And he's been out there a long time.
Marc:And it was a surprise.
Marc:Also on the show today, Peter Bibergall.
Marc:He wrote a book called Season of the Witch, How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll.
Marc:And I just kept looking at the book.
Marc:I got a lot of books.
Marc:I kept seeing it sitting over there.
Marc:So, you know, that's all.
Marc:I'm going to do a little one with him and then Joe Arthur.
Marc:So it's kind of a nice Monday, Labor Day show.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:So you relax.
Marc:You relax, you people.
Marc:Look, I talked to you the other day about this opportunity I got to be on this television show on Netflix called Glow, a starring role.
Marc:And I'm excited about it.
Marc:There's no reason I shouldn't be excited about it.
Marc:But there's some part of me that underplays a lot of things.
Marc:And also, it wasn't easy for me to cancel shows.
Marc:I don't like to cancel shows.
Marc:It bothers me.
Marc:I don't like to be disappointed.
Marc:Why would I think anyone else would like to be disappointed?
Marc:I don't expect that you'll be horrendously angry at me.
Marc:I did reschedule all the shows, but there was part of me.
Marc:This is an interesting thing.
Marc:I'm trying to explore this because I want to stay honest around this shit so I can share it with you.
Marc:Just about what I'm going through and maybe somebody can relate to it.
Marc:Like, for instance, I did not feel good canceling shows.
Marc:I made sure we did not cancel any of them outright and we rescheduled them.
Marc:I'm sorry if the time frame didn't work for some of you.
Marc:And I also understand, again, that I would be disappointed as well.
Marc:But it was not an easy decision.
Marc:I knew I had to take the role because that's a once in a lifetime thing.
Marc:And as far as I know, I only got one lifetime and I'm very excited about it.
Marc:But I do know that I had to make a decision that would disappoint some people.
Marc:But it was it wasn't easy.
Marc:It wasn't easy.
Marc:It was easy to the degree that I knew what I had to do.
Marc:But that doesn't make it easy sitting inside of me.
Marc:A couple people were disappointed.
Marc:I saw that on Twitter.
Marc:Understand that.
Marc:Then there were these two people who sent emails through the site.
Marc:One was crazy.
Marc:Just like, fuck you.
Marc:I'm done with you.
Marc:I was looking forward to seeing you.
Marc:Now you're just, I thought you were better.
Marc:And now you're just a narcissistic ass.
Marc:You always were.
Marc:And I'm done with you.
Marc:I'm erasing you from my mind and life and blah, blah.
Marc:Just like, just an attack.
Marc:Now, clearly, those were some deeper issues at play.
Marc:But it did hit that one part of me.
Marc:That part of me that's sort of like, see, I upset somebody.
Marc:Even though in my mind, no one should be that upset.
Marc:I can live without her if that's her decision.
Marc:To be like, fuck you, I'm done.
Marc:Okay, okay.
Marc:There's nothing I can do about it.
Marc:It's hard for me to hold that boundary, to have that detachment.
Marc:Even with this kind of shit.
Marc:Maybe I'm too sensitive.
Marc:I guess I shouldn't be...
Marc:That's sensitive, but the point being, then there was another email from home.
Marc:These are the only two, really the only two emails about this.
Marc:And this other woman, she just went on and on about how much she admired me, how great it was, and how much she's been loyal to me as a fan and very impressed with me.
Marc:And then at the end, because I made this decision
Marc:to take a lead role in a television show that was something I really wanted to do and could change my life, and it was an exciting opportunity once in a lifetime.
Marc:Because I did that, now whatever feelings she has about me, which leading up to this were very grand and nice and supportive, will be permanently tainted like a drop of Clorox in good coffee, she said.
Marc:Again, those are her issues.
Marc:I don't have to.
Marc:But my point is it triggered the part of me that felt bad for canceling.
Marc:And then I was like, oh, God damn them.
Marc:Why would they be like this?
Marc:And then I realized it's deeper than that.
Marc:No matter what your decision, you kind of want...
Marc:Your parents would go like, it's okay, baby.
Marc:It's a good decision.
Marc:You're doing the right thing.
Marc:It's okay.
Marc:Good for you.
Marc:And even when you make a shitty decision, you want people to go like, yeah, that was terrible.
Marc:And I would be mad, but I'm not.
Marc:You just want this weird, unconditional support and love.
Marc:And that's just not the way life works.
Marc:But I realize that myself, that I fight with that.
Marc:That's just something you got to accept.
Marc:Sometimes you got to make these decisions.
Marc:And God knows there was no one's life hanging in the balance.
Marc:But some people are going to be disappointed.
Marc:They didn't need to be abusive.
Marc:You know, and I'm sort of an easy mark sometimes.
Marc:And it's weird to have a personality that is sort of as seemingly aggressive as mine and somewhat defined in that way that, you know, I would be I don't know if it's people pleasing, but I certainly am pretty diplomatic and I'd rather there not be trouble if that's possible.
Marc:Could there not be trouble?
Yeah.
Marc:And look, again, I'm sorry I had to reschedule, but I had to reschedule.
Marc:It's just life is like that sometimes.
Marc:And I know as many of you who have been with me a long time and are my fans who are excited about my success, I think there's a few people out there that are excited about it but somehow feel abandoned.
Marc:I'm not going anywhere.
Marc:And there's still some part of me inside that is definitely not succeeding.
Marc:Does that make you feel better?
Marc:See how diplomatic I am?
Marc:There's something inside of me that will never be successful.
Marc:Does that help?
Marc:Does that help?
Marc:So here's how Peter Bibergall got on the show, kind of.
Marc:He sent me his book.
Marc:I think we were in touch on email, and he thought I'd really like the book.
Marc:It was called Season of the Witch, How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll.
Marc:And I liked the cover.
Marc:I had it in hardback sitting around, and I had it in paperback sitting around.
Marc:And then finally I took a look at it, and it was sort of a memoir slash kind of book.
Marc:basic investigation into the mystical, uh, kind of witchy elements of rock and roll.
Marc:But it was also a lot about, about Peter himself.
Marc:And I liked the guy and then he happened to be coming to LA.
Marc:So I said, all right, let's do it.
Marc:Come over.
Marc:So this is, uh, this is me and Peter have a little chat about his book, uh, season of the witch, how the occult saved rock and roll.
Yeah.
Marc:You sent me your book.
Marc:I think you sent it in paper, or hardback, then paperback.
Marc:I did send it twice.
Marc:And you were like, this is a book for you.
Marc:And I kept looking at the book, and then I read some of the book.
Marc:Season of the Witch, How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll, and your persistence, which is a key element.
Marc:to ritual.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Repetition.
Marc:The repetitive nature of your requests to be on my show worked magic, Peter.
Marc:How did that happen?
Marc:How did it happen?
Marc:You just kept bothering me.
Marc:I kept seeing the book.
Marc:I believed you that it would be something I'm interested in because I go back with the mystical thinking.
Marc:I didn't realize at the time when you sent it to me that you're somewhat of an academic and your approach is thorough.
Marc:It's not some weird scattershot personal history.
Marc:I tried.
Marc:Yeah, get up closer to the mic.
Guest:It's very easy to turn that kind of stuff into either completely skeptical to the point of dismissing everything or believing there's an occult conspiracy behind the whole record.
Marc:Well, I think that the way you approached it, which I think is reasonable, is that the bottom line is that ritual magic has always existed.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It has existed in any time there have been humans in groups and communities, some form of ritual magic or some sort of transference on to gods, to entities, to objects in order to try to find some magical consistency in life has always existed.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:And sometimes it's just enough because it inspires musicians to want to do something interesting with their music.
Guest:Most of the time, a lot of what we thought was happening was what the media or the fans imposed on it.
Guest:And the bands love that, you know, ate it up.
Marc:Yeah, because it's an image thing.
Marc:But I like how you start the book by really, you know, seeking out the source points of rock and roll, which is blues, which goes back to Africa.
Marc:And there's a several there's a there's nice bit of writing about the the history of those religions that.
Marc:Came up through Africa on into New Orleans and then how the religions that became Christianized still maintained some of the mythology and talisman and even rhythmic elements of old music.
Marc:And that was really there was a mystical element to the foundation of rock and roll.
Guest:But even that, especially with the early slave spirituals, is they had to do it in secret because they knew that the slave owners didn't want those elements, which they saw as barbaric, as satanic, to be part of that Christian worship.
Guest:So even though the slaves accepted the Christian salvation story because it meant liberation from their awful plight, they still had to incorporate these old...
Guest:It was just it was a part of their DNA.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So then that becomes what I think is pop music's first rebellious moment.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's a spiritual rebellion.
Guest:It's saying, OK, we get your Christianity, but we still have to worship our own way.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And that comes up through, you know, the the the first rock and roll recordings and also what was considered black music at the time.
Marc:And there was something that there was an element of black culture that was mystifying and magical and somewhat evil to white culture.
Marc:It still is in some areas.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But the music was coming up mostly through black performers.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:There's actually – there's also a really interesting moment.
Guest:I couldn't find the actual source, but there was an early Pentecostal minister at the beginning of the Pentecostal movement who wanted – who felt that his –
Guest:congregation just didn't have any energy in their prayer it was very staid and white you know yeah and he said come on we can't let the devil keep all this good rhythm yeah he was talking about yeah the black church right right so they brought in the gospel you know that the yelling and the speaking in tongues and and all that so that's what shifted that that's what shifted that and that was the church that elvis was brought up in the assembly church of god yeah so he's criticized later by his own church
Guest:And he says, but I learned it from you.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So let's talk about the evolution of this, because you're approaching the occult presence in rock and roll, which will some of it has a foundation.
Marc:There was some when it went, you know, after the blues, after early rock and roll, after Little Richard.
Marc:Where do we go?
Marc:Where does it start becoming a part of rock and roll?
Guest:Well, LSD.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So you have these bands, especially from England, that are returning to- Wait, before we do this, the Crossroads is the great mythological- That's right.
Marc:You sell your soul at the devil.
Marc:And you were able to track that, what the possibility and what that myth came from.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:So there's a couple of deities, African Yoruban deities, Legba and Ishu.
Guest:And these are not the devil, but they're a trickster.
Guest:And that's key.
Guest:They're trickster deities.
Guest:And in all the many religions, the trickster, like the fox, Hermes.
Guest:Coyote.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:These are the messengers.
Guest:These are how you talk to the gods is through these messenger spirits.
Marc:And the trickster is kind of duplicitous.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:Sometimes a joker.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Sometimes a player of pranks.
Guest:Yep, that's right.
Marc:And misleading.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it's easy to see those horns on its head, right, and transfer that to this is the devil.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So that's how that happened.
Marc:That's how the myth was Christianized in a way and then mythologized through blues music.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:So now these gods, Ishu, Legba become the devil at the crossroads.
Guest:But prior to that, this was just an essential part of the African and Yoruban mythology.
Marc:So Robert Johnson didn't sell his soul to the devil.
Marc:No.
Guest:Well, it even turns out maybe wasn't even Robert Johnson and all that that story came from.
Guest:Who was he?
Guest:It is another fellow, Tommy Johnson.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was, he had this sort of ghostly voice falsetto.
Marc:Yeah, Robert used that too.
Guest:Yeah, and so they said that he and his brother had this idea to sort of perpetuate this story.
Marc:Skip James had the falsetto too.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So you have this anything in music that felt otherworldly.
Marc:So they did it on purpose.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:So there you go.
Marc:There's your beginning.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Because it creates a mythology.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So all of rock, right, is about the creating of these mythologies.
Guest:And I feel like part of my growing up was about interacting with that mythology through album covers.
Guest:What's next?
Guest:The Beatles?
Guest:The Beatles, right?
Guest:Paul is dead.
Guest:Paul is dead.
Guest:Why has he got no shoes on?
Guest:He's got no shoes on because you don't bury somebody with their shoes on.
Guest:That's what I heard.
Guest:Then there was If...
Guest:34.
Guest:Is that what the license plate said?
Guest:He would have been 34 if he hadn't died.
Guest:Right.
Guest:What about that guy who was standing there?
Guest:Oh, The Undertaker.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh, right.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So my brother, older than me, seven years older than me, he would play Revolution 9 for me.
Guest:Oh, boy.
Guest:I was six, seven years old.
Guest:And I was terrified.
Guest:Number nine.
Guest:Number nine.
Guest:Number nine.
Guest:He played it backwards.
Guest:Turned me on, Dead Man.
Guest:Oh, I didn't know that.
Guest:I Buried Paul.
Guest:That's one of them.
Marc:But I Buried Paul is at the end of Strawberry Fields.
Marc:Oh, that's right.
Marc:In that weird musical part where if you don't speed it up, it sounds like, I'm very bored.
Marc:But if you speed it up, it's I Buried Paul.
Marc:It's Queer's Day.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Perfect.
Guest:So my brother would play this for me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was terrified of it.
Guest:But then when he wasn't home, I would play it all by myself, you know.
Guest:And then again, you add a little bit later.
Guest:Add a little Dungeons and Dragons to that.
Guest:To that one?
Guest:Well, just to the whole thing of listening to these records.
Marc:No, I get it, but those seem like rumors and myths built around the Beatles.
Marc:It wasn't necessarily the occult.
Marc:It doesn't seem like the occult bans happened a little later, right?
Guest:No, but it has to be something underneath that is something that's very, something otherworldly has to be going on.
Guest:How could Paul both be dead, but be able to be part of
Guest:right this story of his death i get it right it's kind of a like a necromancy yeah of some kind okay play right right and you and and alongside that is their interest in eastern mysticism so all of this especially at that part of the 60s was all getting mixed up into this stew right you get the weirdness of the mythology of the band's lives themselves yeah
Guest:then you have their own interest in eastern mysticism them taking lsd is is is um lucy in the sky about it or isn't it about it yeah you know tongue and there's always under their breath it's not about it well he drops the acid right right you know right so you have all this this is this stew yeah and this the counterculture is hungry for it because the war doesn't want to end right their parents church isn't giving them anything
Marc:Yeah, and all of it, it's just blowing your mind.
Marc:There's a huge cultural shift and certainly mysticism and what became New Ageism and what was previously a cult was very popular in all different ways.
Marc:There were literally magical groups and communities that were based in ritual magic.
Guest:Well, right here you have the Source family.
Guest:the processed church the processed church uh yeah the the other one the source right what was the other one children of god yep the mansons yep it always takes that dark turn ultimately you know that's the other part of it is you you fuel all this and one the same thing that's interesting about sort of the occult imagination that i like to call it and that kind of magical thinking that i know for me personally when i fueled it with stuff like acid i
Guest:everything just connects to something else.
Guest:There's no end.
Guest:There's no final message.
Guest:There's just, you have to keep digging.
Guest:And then there's another sign that points to another sign and another symbol that points to another symbol, right?
Marc:Yeah, but that's magical.
Marc:That's mystical thinking.
Marc:That's magical thinking.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:But it turns dark when you're, there's a moment in, did you ever see Imagine?
Marc:Yeah, when it turns dark is when you believe, when you actually have a moment where you believe it's all connected.
Marc:Then it becomes quite overwhelming and it's impossible not to think that you're a secret agent of some kind.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Am I the only one that knows this?
Marc:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Then you're in trouble.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because then it has been said that it's just as psychotically self-centered to believe that you're Jesus is to believe you're the devil.
Marc:There's no... Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I always thought that when I got the most psychotic that I was just sort of like, uh-oh, I've been assigned the job to reveal this.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I didn't think I was a prophet.
Marc:I didn't think I was Jesus or the devil.
Marc:I was just sort of like, I'm being privy.
Marc:I'm privy to this information.
Guest:But then the information changed almost immediately as soon as you got it.
Marc:No, because I was a sign reader.
Marc:I would see signs, but I didn't know what they represented.
Marc:Yeah, I had that.
Marc:Yeah, which is what is compelling about a lot of it, whether it's done on purpose or not.
Marc:Whether I buried Paul is there on purpose or not, it's compelling.
Marc:And it starts to create its own narrative that is not denied or not confirmed, which is a great tool of magic.
Marc:Right, exactly.
Marc:Never deny, never confirm.
Marc:So...
Marc:But the ritual space, all this stuff, mythologizing and images and rumors that become myths is one thing.
Marc:But it does seem to me that there were some artists that actually affected and utilized ritual space and magic elements in order to deliver the goods.
Yeah.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Right?
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Who are they?
Guest:So it gets a little complicated though.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because you have a place at which the music itself becomes the ritual space, which is different from saying, drawing a pentagram on your floor and trying to conjure.
Marc:Yeah, just put that on the cover.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So Zeppelin, I think, is a very interesting example because you have somebody.
Guest:First, you have Robert Plant, very interested in the mythology of, you know, ancient Britain.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Brings all that.
Guest:That's where you get the loves the Tolkien references.
Marc:To me, relatively uninteresting.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But there's more Tolkien references in Zeppelin than the devil.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You know, song per song.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Then you have Page, who is very interested in magic.
Guest:I think in a very deep way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cares about it.
Guest:Thinks that stuff like what Aleister Crowley had to say is important.
Guest:And what's manifested is where I think if magic is real, it's where it really exists.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's in that transmission between the musician and the audience.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:right so there's some there's a sacred space that's created yes and we in whatever that moment we're in the show we're listening to the music we give over to this thing and it's real right yeah that is sure that's magic that's magic music is magic in general right you know just by nature of the space it occupies you know in our minds and in the air and and you know uh
Marc:Like just even the opening riff of Satisfaction being delivered to Keith while he was half asleep.
Marc:There's something mysterious about that.
Marc:And that's pretty much a pop song.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, that doesn't really lend itself to to to occult thinking, although it was sort of calling out corporate culture in a way.
Guest:Yeah, so it becomes kind of its own – again, it's an act of – what I like to think is that, particularly as it comes to rock and roll, that rock itself becomes a weapon of spiritual rebellion, right?
Guest:And it's often a spiritual rebellion that sees itself in opposition to traditional mainstream Judeo-Christian –
Guest:From the beginning.
Guest:From the very beginning, right?
Guest:Even when the slaves were singing their version of their spirituals, it was still in opposition to the normative, mainstream, white, Christian way of worship.
Marc:So you're saying it always occupied that space.
Marc:And on some level, the best rock and roll is something that pushes up against anything mainstream, anything dogmatic, anything dug in.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And even prior to that, go all the way back to the early avant-garde classical composers.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:At every moment, you see these composers, somebody like Ravel, and they were always, as they were doing this, they were also joining Rosicrucian orders.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Right.
Guest:right because and looking also at at at non-traditional spiritual modes because they needed something that felt like it spiritually they needed something that felt like it matched what they were doing musically but also you know i think the gift of that is and the reason for it is is that you know where how do you unleash the possibilities of your imagination
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:Right.
Marc:So the tools of ritual magic, whether it be a sacred order or something more intimate, is really sort of like we're doing something certainly transgressive in a way.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Something alternative and maybe even against the law.
Marc:Dangerous.
Marc:Dangerous.
Marc:To see where that takes our minds.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Well, let's talk about the late, great David Bowie, because there's been a lot of speculation about the arc of his career and his characters and his different manifestations as being very conscious acts of ritual magic.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:What do you think?
Marc:You're now the spokesperson.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:The author of Season of the Witch, How the Occult Save Rock and Roll.
Marc:Tell me about the life of David Bowie and all his character manifestations and what they were servicing.
Guest:So I think, and this sounds like a little bit of rock and roll hyperbole, but I think that he really was the true rock magician because he... So there's an interesting thing.
Guest:There's a definition of magic that Crowley says, Crowley Crowley, that says magic is the art and science of changing...
Guest:of causing change in accordance with your will.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And a little bit later, this woman, Dion Fortune, said, actually, it's causing a change in consciousness to occur in accordance with the will.
Guest:And so I see Bowie as somebody who at every turn actually was changing his consciousness through these different personas, fully inhabiting them.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:And all along the way, using the sort of mythologies of various magic.
Guest:I mean, he even went so far as to become interested in sort of the weird Nazi occult, you know, mythologies.
Guest:And he saw, you know, that as also a place where populism becomes its own kind of theater, which becomes its own kind of ritual change itself.
Guest:in the public consciousness well yeah i mean well the hitler was very aware of that exactly yeah and it enabled him to to manifest his will to you know horrible ends that's right and so a lot of people would retroactively say that and i don't know you know that was the whole raiders of the lost ark that's the whole raiders of the lost ark exactly um and so a bowie would look back on that later and be
Marc:wholly ashamed that he embraced the kind of slightly fascist yeah he and he said it was the cocaine and just not thinking it through well no he got he applied his intelligence uh to to dark matter because when you're jacked on drugs in a psychotic state and have a lot of money uh you're going to turn to the darkness
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:So think about it even as go back to any of these guys.
Guest:They were young.
Guest:A lot of them grew up poor.
Guest:Suddenly you have more money than you know what to do with.
Guest:And a lot of them died.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:With their dumb games.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:One of the things that I found out later about Bowie after he died that just made me feel so good was that later in his life he loved being sober.
Guest:He loved his sobriety.
Marc:I think he became a very sort of, he was always elegant, but he became a very sophisticated, I think, moral and polite English gentleman.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:So as you move through all this stuff, the conclusion is that rock and roll is magic and that it's magic because of almost the very nature of what magic is, which is an opposition thing.
Marc:To establish norms.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:It's also what we need it to be.
Guest:So there's a lot that we as fans and critics and media impose on it.
Guest:You know, we want to say, you know, there was somebody who wrote that Mick Jagger was the most evil man alive.
Guest:You know, that he was the devil personified.
Guest:Yeah, I remember.
Guest:But he saw himself as the trickster, not as Satan.
Guest:Right, well, he is, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, but he liked that.
Guest:I'll buy it.
Guest:He brought all that on to himself partly because he liked the attention that came as part of embracing that as, you know, let me introduce yourself.
Marc:And it's funny, Her Satanic Majesty is not a great record.
Marc:It's not a great record.
Ha ha.
Guest:Nope.
Guest:The Lantern's a pretty good song.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then you get like later as we move into, you know, what really becomes defined as satanic rock.
Marc:That's a fucking joke.
Marc:Like, it's weird because like American Satanism and Satanism in general as a...
Marc:specific ideology and practice was really a huckster job.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, you know, how Satan figures into other magical systems or the beast or Belzebub or whoever, whatever its manifestation is, was usually part of a broader system.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:So then when, you know, Anton LaVey summons this fucking ridiculous bit of business, which is, you know, yeah, just a gutting of Crowley and everything else.
Marc:And it's basically just do what you want.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's about it's a liberation.
Guest:It's a libertarian theology.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Yeah, but it's sort of like, it's half-baked in a way, right?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I think so, because, and I have to say, and I don't want to, you know... You don't want to trivialize Satanism?
Guest:Yeah, I don't want to trivialize Satanism, but, like, the Church of Satan thing, you know, the current that's doing all these things with trying to get the Baphomet statues put up and to do...
Guest:I kind of wish it was like a real Wiccan pagan group that was doing it, right?
Guest:Or even the local Hindu temple.
Guest:I wish they were the ones that were asking for a statue of Shiva.
Marc:Shiva, yeah.
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because if you ask these- Because there's context.
Guest:There's context.
Guest:They ask these guys, they say, we don't believe in anything.
Guest:We're atheists.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So why do you want a religious statue of it?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But-
Guest:They're trolls.
Guest:They're pranksters.
Guest:They're great at it.
Guest:There's no doubt.
Guest:And they're really showing, I think, fundamentalism, what at its core is problematic.
Guest:Right.
Marc:It's just a direct opposition.
Marc:It's a reaction.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:It's not a system in a way.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:It's a reaction.
Marc:Like punk rock would fall in the same way.
Marc:Punk rock, for the most part, is not magic per se, but a reaction, an aggressive reaction.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I just want to say on the record that I'm fine with magic.
Marc:I'm okay with some of the darker elements of magic that don't hurt people.
Marc:And I'm okay with the darker elements of magic that have delivered us some of the best music in the world.
Marc:I'm okay with it.
Marc:I'm on board.
Marc:I'm a member of the magical circle.
Guest:There's a story that I write about in the book.
Guest:When Zeppelin was recording three, they asked the engineer, Terry Manning.
Guest:Page went up to him and he said, I want you to take this quote, do what that will, and I want you to etch it into the inner groove.
Guest:And Manning said, I can't do that.
Guest:It's going to wreck.
Guest:And he said, I need you to do it because we have to get Crowley's message out to the world.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So Manning humored him.
Guest:He said it was a very precarious thing getting the master in a way that he could get down above it, etch it in.
Guest:He said it was maybe 20, 30 years later, Terry Manning was watching cable TV and he flipped through.
Guest:It was a 700 club.
Guest:And the minister held up the album.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The Devil in Music.
Guest:Right here, close-up camera.
Guest:There's the inner thing.
Guest:And Manning looked and he said to himself, I did that.
Yeah.
Guest:You know?
Marc:But it was only on one pressing, right?
Guest:Is it hard to find?
Guest:I think you can get it.
Guest:I think you can get it.
Marc:On an old Zeppelin 3, like on the, you know, right between the last song and the label.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:That's smooth.
Guest:And, you know, remember later, punk bands would always write little messages in there and stuff.
Guest:There's a lot of stuff written in there, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it was always fun trying to look for those.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now we got to go look at my old Zeppelin 3.
Guest:Yeah, let's do it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:See if it's there.
Marc:That would be good.
Marc:Well, so, you know, you cover a lot in the book and you thread it through a sort of memoir.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:Of your own sort of musical enlightenment.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:And how's the book doing?
Marc:Is it magic?
Guest:Pretty good.
Guest:It's like you think people buy books, but then you always want them to buy more.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The book I did before this sold 50 copies.
Guest:Which one was that?
Guest:Too Much to Dream, Psychedelic American Boyhood.
Guest:That was my memoir of my lapsed youth.
Guest:So now you tightened it up.
Guest:Tightened it up, got outside of myself.
Guest:Good, man.
Guest:Well, it was good talking to you, buddy.
Thanks very much.
Marc:That was Peter Bibergol.
Marc:Nice guy.
Marc:I like the book.
Marc:Season of the Witch, How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll.
Marc:All right, so now what?
Marc:Now let's talk to Joseph Arthur.
Marc:He's got a new record out.
Marc:The most recent one is called The Family.
Marc:I'm also a fan of some of his other records.
Marc:I also, I really liked his tribute to Lou Reed, mostly acoustic renditions of Lou Reed music.
Marc:And it was fun to meet him and hang out because we, he's just one of those guys where you're like, oh, we're kind of, we got a thing.
Marc:We got something, there's something, we know each other from another life or something.
Marc:This is me and Joseph Arthur.
Thank you.
Guest:You live in a garage in Redwood.
Guest:Yeah, well... Yeah, I mean, not officially.
Marc:It's like live workspace, yeah.
Marc:I mean... Is this a sad story, Joseph, or is it a nice garage?
Guest:It's... Well, I heard you recently call this place magical.
Guest:And you said that you, uh...
Guest:really have come to believe that it's magical.
Guest:You got to.
Guest:And I have come to believe, and I don't know, I identify with you, Mark.
Guest:I feel it.
Guest:I do, I identify.
Guest:And I also think that my garage is magical.
Guest:It's just on a different coast.
Marc:Well, the thing about spaces in general, I think, especially with music,
Marc:that you know they do take on they are part of it they are part like you know whether you can identify it or not when you listen to the music you know but that room is that room and the music's only going to sound like it sounds in that room yeah they do have that element right yeah i think i think so yeah and like a lot of times like the greatest studios are just like
Guest:Yeah, pretty underwhelming spaces.
Guest:Yeah, like muscle shoals.
Guest:They're just a room.
Guest:I usually always think of it as like it's down to sort of supernatural.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, that they're spirits or something.
Guest:Do you?
Guest:Yeah, I go that way.
Guest:I don't know if I believe it or not, but I tend to.
Marc:I have gone that way in my life, but then I have to identify the beings and what kind of spirits and why were they sent here?
Marc:What do they want from me?
Marc:Are they gonna turn on me?
Marc:If I'm gonna deal with spirits,
Marc:defined spirits, there's always a chance that they'll start fucking with you the wrong way.
Marc:That's true.
Marc:They often do.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They often do fuck with you the wrong way on purpose.
Marc:Yeah, and I... You know, see, if you believe that, I guess it lets you off the hook to a degree.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I could also just believe that there's a coziness or something.
Marc:Like, I could probably...
Marc:Like I used to be a lot more mystical in my thinking before I met somebody who was a, you know, like a guy who, like if you look at, what's the math word I want?
Marc:The odds of something happening.
Marc:Do you know, like if you really look at, if you break down a situation, like why the fuck did I just run into that guy?
Guest:right in my neighborhood yeah like if you really break down what is your circle of life right and you know what i mean yeah yeah it kind of takes a little bit of the poetry out of it i'm not or puts it in i mean my i i'm alive because of alcoholism i mean my parents met in a bar really yeah like so i you know i can't be too mad at alcohol which one was an alcoholic well uh well uh
Guest:Well, I mean, my dad's got some issues with that.
Guest:He's sober, though.
Marc:Oh, he got sober?
Marc:Like for real?
Marc:Yeah, he's sober, yeah.
Guest:Like program sober?
Guest:Yeah, he got program sober, yeah.
Guest:No kidding?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:For how long?
Guest:He's been sober a long, long time.
Guest:That's fucking good.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, a long time.
Guest:Did you grow up in it?
Guest:I did grow up in it.
Guest:Damn, we're going there quick.
Guest:We were talking about mystical ghosts and stuff, and now we're like in my family.
Guest:You are a sensei.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wait a minute.
Marc:Well, the new record, like, I know it's not about your family per se, but, you know, there's a few of your albums that are narratively driven.
Marc:So you are a storyteller.
Guest:Oh, thank you.
Guest:Thank you for saying that.
Guest:But I was getting the reason I'm alive because alcoholism was the alcoholism of my mother's, at the time, roommate.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:who was like prodding her once removed who were yeah like this was years and years obviously years and years ago before i was born but like so yeah she made my mom take her to the bar and that's where my mom and dad met they wouldn't have met outside of that my mom's my mom's from west virginia yeah and my dad's from akron ohio i'm from akron ohio akron devices uh you know shout out to them i know they're all they're all there you know them
Guest:Yeah, well, yeah.
Marc:Well, you're a pedal guy.
Guest:A pedal guy?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, sometimes.
Guest:You'll layer the sounds.
Guest:That's true, yeah.
Guest:You got brothers and sisters?
Guest:I got a sister, older sister.
Guest:What'd she do?
Guest:Two and a half years older.
Guest:um she is a painter she and she's uh raises uh two kids painter huh yeah how old are you you mind me asking i don't mind i'm 44. okay i'm 52 yeah 44 44 so you're growing up in akron uh-huh in the 70s in the 70s well yes late 70s right yeah so what kind of like when did you start doing the music
Guest:Well, my sister, I guess there was a piano that suddenly appeared.
Guest:She's older?
Guest:She's older.
Guest:So then she was interested in piano lessons.
Guest:And then so I kind of like just got swept up into that.
Guest:And I hated that.
Guest:But then, you know, it's funny because I got into Jaco Pistorius.
Guest:I got into bass and I got into Jaco Pistorius.
Guest:And you did that interview.
Guest:With Flea and Robert Juhu.
Guest:Which was great.
Guest:Did you watch that documentary?
Guest:Sure I did, yeah.
Guest:It was wonderful.
Guest:Did you like it?
Guest:Well, I'm a huge Jaco Pistorius nutjob.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:Are you really?
Guest:Yeah, I ripped all the frets out of my Fender Precision Bass.
Guest:I wanted to be a jazz fusion bass player.
Guest:I was in this band called Frankie Star and Chill Factor when I was in high school.
Guest:And it was a fusion band?
Guest:It was a blues band, and we opened up for Stevie Ray Vaughan a couple times.
Guest:Really?
Guest:We played like five nights a week.
Guest:And you were playing bass?
Guest:And I was playing bass.
Guest:So you were like boom, boom, boom, boom.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And funk stuff too.
Guest:And we were good.
Guest:I'd make a lot of money.
Guest:I probably made more money then than now.
Guest:Playing in a blues band.
Guest:Playing bars.
Guest:Yeah, playing bars.
Guest:I could have kept doing it.
Guest:How old were you?
Guest:This was like 11th and 12th grade in high school.
Guest:So I'm like 17.
Guest:So you're playing out.
Guest:I was playing five nights a week.
Guest:Knock guitar though.
Guest:Knock guitar, bass.
Guest:Yeah, all bass.
Guest:And I didn't sing until I was like 21.
Guest:I didn't even... I was going to be a jazzer, you know?
Marc:That's weird.
Marc:It is weird.
Marc:But did you study jazz?
Marc:It's not completely weird.
Marc:It kind of makes sense.
Marc:Because I can't wrap my brain around fusion and enjoying it.
Marc:Like, I can...
Guest:That makes a lot of sense.
Guest:I can see Jocko as a great bass player.
Guest:I understand that.
Guest:And I feel that way too, to a degree.
Guest:Yeah, that's why I do what I do.
Guest:I like songs and hooks and repetition.
Guest:The blues and stuff.
Guest:Yeah, and I like the blues.
Marc:Fusion, there's something cheesy about keyboards sometimes that I can't quite get past, even if it's fucking Chick Corea.
Marc:Or even if it's that dude, that crazy alpha dude in Weather Report that made Jocko's life so bad.
Marc:I know.
Guest:Joe Zawin.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Joe Zawinfall.
Guest:Is that his name?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was an interesting- Yeah, he seemed like a real terror that guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I know he's a great player, but there's just something about- I mean, like, look- You know how us artists are.
Guest:We have egos and freak out and insecurities.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:We're a disaster.
Marc:We're disasters.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:most of the good ones are but like i can listen to miles like when he shifted that i was gonna say a good window into like enjoying fusion yeah if you ask me is uh bitches brew yeah i can listen to that i mean that's like yeah that's like mystical going back to ghosts in garages that's like mystical music no i think so too i mean i like i the one i listen to a lot for some reason are is the jack johnson record
Marc:which is really kind of stripped down, man.
Marc:I don't really know that one that well.
Marc:Yeah, I guess it was done as a soundtrack for a movie about Jack Johnson.
Marc:And I actually have... Someone turned me on to the full studio session, so I have all that shit.
Marc:But I have...
Marc:But I have the record, and it's really lean.
Marc:Apparently, he told John McLaughlin to pretend like he didn't know how to play guitar.
Marc:That's amazing.
Marc:I love stuff like that.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Anytime there's just that opening, be creative, be free, and also be free to be as...
Guest:bad as you want to be.
Guest:If you give yourself permission to not be great, that's a big... I mean, and that's huge in what you do, just going out and... Sure.
Guest:Yeah, you got to take the risk.
Guest:Prepared material.
Guest:What if you go up there and... What if you do?
Marc:What if you fail?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In that context, you try not to fail in front of too many people.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But if you're working on shit, you got to work on shit.
Guest:Do you ever fail when you go up there and you walk with a loss?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Or do you redeem it and then walk away and know that something failed?
Marc:It's more embarrassing than a loss.
Marc:I know when things don't hit, and depending on where I'm doing it, I can usually counter that by acknowledging it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's what I always do.
Guest:I always acknowledge the awkwardness.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then that's like, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it's better.
Marc:It's better.
Marc:But like in the big world of professionalism, it does imply a certain inconsistency in your ability to do the job.
Marc:I guess so.
Marc:People could look at it that way.
Marc:Yeah, I like that Joe Arthur, but he fucks up a lot of songs and he kind of talks about it a little bit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, but it's all right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But I think that is true about creativity, that you have to not be afraid to fail.
Marc:Like with guitar, it took me a long time to realize, the only reason I never really committed to it in a real way is I don't like learning songs.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I sort of just like, I think I'm a pretty good player, but I never thought I compared to real players.
Marc:But in the last few years, I sort of just realized, what the fuck does that even mean?
Marc:And who does?
Marc:Yeah, but what does that mean?
Marc:In rock and roll, really.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I mean, there's some bad players.
Marc:Arguably some of the best players that we know are not that great.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You're talking about technical level.
Marc:But that's what I compare myself to.
Marc:It's like, I don't know my scales.
Marc:I don't know how to noodle.
Marc:I can't just listen to songs and know them.
Marc:And I don't like learning songs.
Guest:Well, I don't like learning songs either, which is why.
Marc:Well, you write songs.
Guest:That's why I started writing songs.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, there was like the people in, like there was that talented kid in everybody's high school who could just hear a song and play the thing on piano.
Guest:Like I remember the guy.
Marc:Like get out even like, you know.
Marc:Like Mike Garcia could play Van Halen's Eruption.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I'm like, fuck it.
Guest:There's that guy in every high school, and I was not him.
Guest:And what would invariably happen, I'd start trying to figure something out, and then I would just start drifting away with this new progression and then start singing something or do something or make something up out of it.
Guest:I used to just compose, but...
Guest:I wonder why, like, the thing with comedians and musicians, like, how so many really good comedians are, like, really good musicians.
Guest:Are they really good?
Guest:This is the question.
Guest:Because, like, some of them are, yeah.
Guest:Like, I mean, they could be putting out records.
Guest:I mean, like, you know, like, when you think of, like, oh, the Flight of the Conchords, they made those, like... Oh, yeah, they're good.
Guest:...that kind of thing, and then Mighty Bush or whatever and stuff like that.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then Jimmy Fallon is... Yeah, he can play pretty good.
Guest:He's talented, but...
Guest:I always think the only difference is, for some reason, comedians can't do it without irony.
Guest:That's the thing.
Marc:Well, if you're a comic and you have musical talent, it really becomes this sort of like, how do you integrate it into your act without being stupid?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Or hacky.
Guest:But why can't a comedian then be also a serious musician where this is not ironic and not funny?
Guest:I don't think they can't.
Marc:Is there any case of that?
Marc:Well, we might respect music too much.
Guest:Well, I think you do that a little bit.
Guest:I mean, I think you're sort of doing that.
Marc:If I played, I really want to play with other people.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But I don't want to make a big deal of it.
Marc:I don't want to have a goal in mind.
Marc:I would just like to collaborate on that level because I don't really know how.
Marc:And every time I've done it...
Marc:just on nights where Brendan Small has some dudes.
Marc:You should do it.
Marc:I like it.
Marc:Yeah, because it's just something you have to integrate in my life.
Marc:You find the guys, you make a schedule, you get a space, and go fuck off for a while.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I play on the podcast because I just like the sound of it in my head, and I like fucking with this stuff, and I like mic and the amp, and I don't put any real effort into it, and a lot of times I'm just making it up as I go along.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I don't know why.
Marc:It's a nice way to conclude things.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I like it.
Guest:I mean, I've been listening to the podcast since before you did that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I like it.
Guest:Oh, thanks.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But let's get back to you in Ohio.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So you're playing in a blues band.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You want to be Jocko.
Marc:You rip the frets out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You want to do Fusion.
Marc:I want to do Fusion, yeah.
Guest:Or I wanted to, yeah, I don't know.
Guest:Yeah, Stanley Clark and Jocko were kind of my heroes.
Guest:Oh, yeah, I remember Stanley Clark's band.
Guest:Well, you know what I liked about the Jocko documentary was that it just, it sort of, because I just loved him as a kid.
Guest:And then, you know, you get new heroes and you come up and you do other things and stuff like that.
Guest:But it just reminded me of that sort of part of just...
Guest:music for the sake of it or just art like just yeah art not not thinking about it in terms of a of a commodity but thinking just being an artist just right how much of a gift that actually right is and you know into the heartbreaking way he sort of lost it you know did you think that way always i mean did you think were you thinking that way as a young person that this that this is a gift or or that it's not a commodity necessarily
Guest:i never really thought money uh until like i got into my 40s i've like i'm late i'm a late comer to think to being financially concerned not not because i haven't needed to be yeah i've never been rich or anything but just uh yeah i don't i mean i think something happens when you click into the 40s and you're yeah and you don't know if you're gonna have enough money yeah you're like to ride it out yeah well i mean like
Guest:How do I ride it out?
Guest:You went through that.
Guest:So I identify with that too.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then this whole thing kind of like blossomed for you in a big way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I think it's interesting that our career paths are similar in that we keep trying.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, that's what I figure.
Guest:And as long as you're not bitter, that's the main thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:is just not being bitter, you know?
Guest:And the way I'm... A lot of times people come up to me and be like, you should be so much bigger than you are.
Guest:I don't understand it.
Guest:And I used to, yeah, get into that and then feel bad.
Guest:And now I'm just like, you know what?
Guest:There is no should in pop culture.
Guest:Pop culture is this cold thing that doesn't care.
Guest:And it doesn't have anything personally against you.
Guest:Yeah, the cream doesn't rise to the top.
Guest:Usually the curdled part is...
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:It helps to not be bitter, you know?
Guest:Yeah, well, is that something you had to work on?
Guest:Of course.
Guest:I mean, every day.
Guest:I'm bitter as hell right now.
Guest:I want to jump over the table and start, like, fighting.
Guest:What?
Guest:What did I do?
Guest:No, I don't.
Guest:What did I do?
Guest:I'm just kidding.
Guest:I got lucky.
Guest:I'm on your team, you know?
Marc:But, okay, so you're doing, when do you start sort of defining your sound?
Marc:Because one thing is that you do have definite sound.
Marc:I didn't really know who you were until I think you reached out to me maybe personally.
Marc:But I got that, like what I remember really listening to was the Lou Reed tribute album.
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:And like it came from somewhere.
Marc:I guess somebody sent it to me because you wanted them to.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But, like, I was a big Lou Reed fan, and I really appreciated the earnest approach to sort of honoring those songs.
Marc:And I didn't really know who you were, but then I'm like, well, he must be a guy.
Guest:You tweeted.
Guest:That's why I reached out, because I was, like, a fan already.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, but I didn't, you know.
Guest:And I didn't think you, and you tweeted, and I was like, holy shit.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Well, because I was like, you know, I listened to a lot of records that come through.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I get a lot of records.
Marc:And some things grab you and some things don't.
Marc:So listening to the Lou thing, because how do you do those songs?
Marc:And you did them sort of differently than your records.
Marc:I mean, they were stripped down.
Marc:They're almost all acoustic versions, basically.
Guest:Yeah, it's a trip.
Guest:I start a lot of records wanting to make something really stripped down.
Guest:And that record in particular was not even my idea.
Guest:It was a guy named Bill Bentley, who's a...
Guest:a really great guy, A&R guy at Vanguard at the time, and it was his idea for me to do that, and I just... Yeah, I realized it would be kind of a weird thing to do, and I just thought, well, I'll just try something very simple, and I did this sort of Brian Eno set limitations thing, which was just like, I'm going to just do this all acoustic instruments and just use microphones, and so I did an acoustic bass, acoustic piano, acoustic guitar.
Guest:I just made it all acoustic and kept it really simple, and it just worked out...
Guest:it just sounded how it sounded and they liked it.
Marc:Well, what's interesting about it is that, you know, when you do a song that is so sort of elevated, I think you did Satellite of Love on there, right?
Marc:Uh-huh.
Marc:That was one of my favorite Lou Reed songs.
Marc:And, you know, and you take it down to that.
Marc:You take it down to the basics and just the poetry of Lou.
Marc:Like, you know, it's interesting that it sort of becomes...
Marc:a different song, but yet the words are enough to sort of keep it high, keep it elevated.
Marc:And I think you must have had a lot of respect for that guy.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:A tremendous amount.
Guest:Did you have a relationship with him?
Guest:I knew him, yeah.
Guest:Well, because I got signed to Peter Gabriel's label.
Guest:I went from Akron.
Guest:I moved to Atlanta randomly.
Marc:So we're talking about late 90s.
Marc:Late 90s, yeah.
Marc:And you're in Akron.
Guest:Are you playing out as your own thing?
Guest:By the time late 90s happened, I was in New York.
Guest:So I left Akron in 90.
Guest:I graduated high school in 90.
Guest:I went to the same high school as the Black Keys as well.
Guest:Did you know those guys?
Guest:And Chrissy Hine.
Guest:No, they're younger.
Guest:They're younger?
Guest:Chrissy's older.
Guest:Chrissy's older, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, it's definitely like a rush belt rock and roll town.
Marc:Yeah, there's something about it.
Guest:And that secret society comes from there too.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:Oh, yeah, that's right.
Guest:The one that shall remain nameless.
Guest:Dr. Bob and Bill.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:You can go to the headquarters.
Guest:The thing.
Guest:I went to the headquarters.
Guest:I mean, somebody I know went to the headquarters.
Guest:The pilgrimage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, yeah.
Guest:I grew up near the headquarters.
Marc:Oh, that's great.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:American geniuses, those two.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:so okay so you go to New York what's the plan?
Marc:then I went to Atlanta and then I like wait when did you go to Atlanta at before New York?
Marc:after high school okay why Atlanta?
Guest:because there was a band going and it was four days after I graduated high school and I wasn't gonna go to college and I just was like okay let's go oh and I left your band
Guest:Well, yeah, it was a band I was in.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:Not the blues band.
Guest:They were called Ten Zen Men.
Guest:Ten Zen Men?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what kind of music was that?
Guest:We played like funk rock.
Guest:I did a lot of slapping and popping on the bass.
Guest:So you're still a bass player.
Guest:So you would have loved it.
Guest:In other words, it's the kind of music you would have listened to all the time.
Guest:I like those chili peppers.
Guest:No, yeah.
Guest:But please calm down on the slapping and popping.
Guest:I like the chili peppers too.
Guest:I do too.
Guest:You're slapping and popping and you get in the car.
Guest:So I go to Atlanta and then I'm working all kinds of jobs.
Guest:My last job's at Clark Music, which is a guitar shop.
Guest:I sold guitars.
Guest:We sold Fender guitars and
Guest:little music store yeah little music yeah i'm constantly on you know it nope oh anyway it turned into a pawn shop and then i don't know yeah and then i um yeah something hit me when i was around 21 where i was like you know if i don't play like crazy busy bass lines all the time i could maybe just like think about melody and uh lyrics yeah and so i started just playing more acoustic guitar and i made a a demo like of that stuff and and gave it to a friend in that um mysterious program yeah so we're
Guest:I remain nameless, I guess.
Guest:Are you in it?
Guest:I mean, I think so.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:You know, I don't know.
Guest:I have a funny relationship with it.
Guest:But you don't drink.
Guest:I'm not drinking now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Market's rough.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, I quit drinking again.
Marc:Okay, good.
Marc:Or, yeah.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I got the issues.
Marc:If you say you quit drinking again, you need to quit drinking.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That's one way.
Guest:You know, if anyone says, I got to quit, you got to quit.
Guest:Or the other one I like is, if you ever wonder, do you have a drinking problem?
Guest:You do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:exactly that's it right but uh so then yeah and then that demo tape randomly got to uh peter gabriel just you on acoustic well it was uh no it was a little like a couple a little bit of jape on there jape yeah what's that i need like that word jape uh oh it's like if we were joking i'd say quit japing me oh okay so
Guest:so some jape like it's an old word yeah for uh i want to bring it back yeah is that what it is maybe i think you could yeah you could it could be that what are you referring to exactly when i'm saying jape i mean like fake drums and you know okay all right yeah right but you like that shit oh yeah oh i do like that shit yeah we disagree on the cheesiness of synthesizers
Guest:I like your aesthetic, but I also like a cheesy synthesizer thrown in to like offset that.
Marc:I love that.
Marc:I've got some, like I've heard synthesizers that I like.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:But like at that time when they were sort of new.
Marc:Right.
Guest:No, I get you.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:When, you know, when, you know, people are soloing on them.
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:If they're a texture.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Fine.
Marc:So, all right, so your acoustically japed demo gets to Peter Gabriel, who at this time, what is it, 96, 95?
Guest:Yeah, this is like, yeah, 94, probably.
Guest:94, 95, yeah.
Marc:So Peter's a pretty big deal.
Marc:He's a big deal, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Unique sound.
Marc:No one sounds like Peter Gabriel.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Like he's got his thing.
Guest:Well, it was such an interesting, weird world for me to like kind of go into because like here I go for this weird fusion thing.
Guest:Like I was like, you know, like I was already off.
Guest:Like I meet people now, they're like, oh yeah, when I was 14, I started listening to Bob Dylan and the Beatles and all this and learning how to write those songs.
Guest:I'm like, man, I went about it the whole wrong way.
Guest:But Peter ended up bringing Lou Reed to my audition for a real... So you send this demo in and then all of a sudden you go to New York for the audition?
Marc:Kind of.
Guest:Yeah, my best friend Jeremy was living there.
Guest:And so I was kind of starting to head into New York.
Guest:I've been a New Yorker now for like over 20 years.
Guest:So yeah, and then so...
Guest:I went there, and then, yeah, Peter brought loot.
Guest:It was this little club called The Fez.
Marc:I know.
Marc:The Fez was downstairs at the time.
Marc:You probably played it.
Marc:Yeah, time.
Marc:It wasn't that little.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It was a couple hundred.
Marc:Yeah, a couple hundred.
Marc:And it was nice.
Marc:It was in a basement.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was a nice stage situation.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, the state guys.
Marc:You could feel the train.
Marc:You could hear the train.
Marc:Yeah, that's right.
Marc:They started Stella there.
Marc:You know, Michael, Ian Black, David Wayne, and Michael Showalter started their show Stella at Fez.
Marc:So it was actually a comedy venue when that show was there.
Marc:But...
Marc:So, all right, so what's the outfit?
Marc:How many people are you on stage with?
Guest:I was by myself, and I was an acoustic guitar, and I was, like, being a singer-songwriter straight up.
Guest:And I was just faking.
Guest:I was like, what in the heck?
Guest:Like, what?
Guest:Yeah, I guess I can cuss on this.
Guest:I always think it's funny when people say, can I cuss?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But I just had that same instinct.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You've done some radio in your day.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you've got to watch it.
Guest:Yeah, like, what the heck?
Guest:is going on yeah yeah yeah no but and then i just i just it was like an out of body experience i just played my songs i have no idea if i was any good or not i just and then i walked right up to lou who was like i mean i at that point i was a huge like lou reed fan too and i was just like hey that's good like i like the song king of hide and seek and i was and i don't have a song called king of hide and seek but there is a lyric of that right that is a better about it yeah i was like that is a better title than what i was calling that
Guest:and then we went out to eat and we're you and peter gabriel me peter gabriel and lou holy shit and you're like 21 i was like yeah like 24 oh wow and dolly parton was sitting like in the booth next to us get the fuck out of here and they were star struck by dolly parton why more than the other way around
Guest:and then i found out sorry where was that she was originally the one he wanted to sing don't give up what kate bush thing the oh who uh dolly parton yeah wanted uh peter gabriel wanted her peter gabriel wanted dolly parton yeah yeah originally so so where were you eating that was just right uh next door there was a restaurant next door i actually don't really remember the name of it but i remember it as being like a block away and i remember walking with lou
Guest:and some guy coming up and saying something and lou just sort of you know shielding shielding you know you know acknowledging and shielding but i just remembered thinking wow because it was like my first you know like entree into like being on that side of things well yeah with a guy like lou when you've created in your lifetime an army of freaks and weirdos yeah you somehow have to protect yourself against you know what you've created
Guest:Yeah, I think he was out and about a lot.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:Even in later life.
Guest:New York guy.
Guest:He was a New York guy.
Guest:And so if somebody has a story where, oh, Lou was rude, it's like, well, what do you want?
Marc:Yeah, no, of course.
Marc:Well, you would be too.
Marc:I love Lou.
Marc:I was listening to Lou yesterday.
Marc:Yeah, I love Lou too.
Marc:Uh, but, but I liked that you had this experience with like, he was like a West side guy, the West side, like me packing district.
Marc:Right.
Marc:He lived over there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I think he's pretty visible walking his little doggy.
Marc:I think sometimes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But, uh, so, so you go to dinner with these two and went to dinner and then, yeah, then, yeah.
Guest:And Lou was telling me, talking to me about publishing and stuff like that and what not to do and don't sign this.
Guest:And what's Peter doing?
Guest:And Peter, though, was like, oh, we're actually offering more publishing deals, too.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:So this was your deal pitch.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, this was like, we want you to record.
Marc:It was crazy.
Guest:It was a lot like, you know, just kind of like, I mean, when I think about it now, it just seems crazy.
Guest:He had this studio in England called Real World Studios.
Guest:It's in Box, England, which is like 10 minutes outside of Bath.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And he had this thing called Recording Week, which was like all these musicians and producers and stuff, like Joe Strummer came.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like Brian Eno.
Guest:You met those guys?
Guest:I met those guys.
Guest:Yeah, I met Joe.
Guest:You met Eno?
Guest:Yeah, I ate dinner with Eno.
Guest:You did?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What was that like, man?
Guest:Marcus Straff's produced my first record.
Guest:Actually, Brian Eno sang on my first record.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, Brian Eno and Peter Gabriel are singing on the song called Mercedes from my first record.
Guest:I think it was told to me that it's the only song they both synced on together.
Guest:Ever?
Guest:Ever.
Guest:That's what I heard.
Guest:What the fuck is Brian Eno like, dude?
Guest:Well, I mean, you know as well as I do.
Guest:I mean...
Guest:I mean, he was a nice guy, you know, but, like, I mean, we didn't connect on a deep personal level.
Guest:He's, like, talking about Mystic.
Guest:Right, yeah.
Marc:His influence on fucking music and then coming, like, you move through, like, you know, he used to cite the Velvet Underground as his favorite band.
Guest:Well, the way he did this is something I still use, is the way he sang on my record.
Guest:And I do this all the time now, too, when people ask me to, like, guess on their things.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:i don't want to hear it i just i don't want to hear it no might like just get make sure the mic is on and recording yeah and then my first instinct is what we're going to record uh-huh and that's what he did oh really and it's great that's a great technique because you you just trick yourself into doing something pretty cool that you would never and then you don't second guess it yeah and then you can develop it of course but sometimes what you mean develop it on the board well develop develop the idea
Marc:oh yeah you're saying so you go with instinct first and then you're like we nailed something with that but let's like work it maybe it's magical and you don't need to do anything to it i just like the way he layers sound yeah and like you know and he's got like there there's and i hear that in in you but it's weird i hear i hear some of that layering but i also hear bruce springsteen in your shit sometimes yeah
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:That's cool.
Marc:Yeah, I'll take that.
Marc:There's something like earnest and like, you know, like, you know, this song means business.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And I'm telling a story.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a tough line.
Guest:The earnest versus not because it's funny because I've been like in the studio the last like three.
Guest:My garage is also the studio.
Guest:Sure.
Marc:You can call it.
Marc:I can call it.
Guest:Can I call it whatever I want?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've been in the studio.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then I just go over to my bed.
Guest:AKA the bed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, well, yeah, because it was this Trump song I'm working on.
Guest:And just that whole thing about earnestness versus not, you know, because something can be pedantic or, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But what happens?
Marc:So you get this deal.
Marc:Like, this is what's interesting to me is that, you know, you got this gig.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You got the deal on a set of acoustic songs.
Marc:And that first record is pretty layered and well-produced.
Guest:So you are now at school almost.
Guest:I was at school.
Guest:That's exactly right, man.
Guest:And it was the strangest school for me because my whole philosophy is sort of like, well, you got the first thought, best thought, and then Leonard Cohen says second thought, best thought, or at least that's been attributed to him, which I think is cool.
Guest:And Peter is this...
Guest:Peter Gabriel was making these records and taking five years, six years, and lots of people working on them.
Guest:20 different groove ideas for a song.
Guest:So just this real meticulous way of going about it, this real sort of...
Guest:You know, not that it's not coming from the gut, because Peter is, like, you know, a groove person and stuff like that.
Guest:But it is a lot up here, too.
Guest:So it was just opposite of where I was heading in my own way.
Guest:I was probably going to be, like, more just like, let's make a garage record, you know, like that.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:You know, but so then all of a sudden I was, like, in that world.
Guest:Opposite extremes.
Guest:Yeah, so I learned a lot.
Guest:No Jape.
Guest:I learned about Jape the hard way.
Marc:But, like, high-end Jape.
Guest:That's the name of my autobiography.
Guest:Jape the hard way.
Guest:Jape the hard way.
Guest:But this is like some high-end Jape, dude.
Guest:Yeah, no, it was real high-end Jape.
Guest:And it was great.
Guest:I mean, it's been a wild journey, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, but let's talk about... Because, like, when I look at the arc of, like, your career and your persistence, like, you know, it didn't work out the way it could have at the beginning.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Well, it still hasn't.
Guest:I mean...
Guest:i mean when i first found out you're gonna have me on your podcast i thought is this some part of make a wish foundation is somebody not telling me something what's going on here like am i getting the results right after this podcast well no but like you know you you were poised yeah yeah i've been it's a couple times like you get the machine grinding up well i mean the first record big city secrets i mean it's a good record but what happened
Guest:Well, that came out in France.
Guest:I was big in France.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's the name of my follow-up autobiography.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Big in France.
Guest:As opposed to Japan.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then it didn't do anything here.
Guest:And then I waited around for a while before I could get into the studio again.
Guest:It used to take years.
Guest:Was it disappointing?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, mind-blowingly disappointing.
Guest:like everything you know along the way but that's like that's how you develop into like not you know that philosophy of not being bitter or whatever like hopefully hopefully these things don't destroy you along the way hopefully they well you kept working like i did even if you were bitter it's like you know the andy warhol thing like keep making stuff and while everyone says how bad it is make more stuff
Guest:It's like, that's the attitude.
Marc:So God willing, or the mystical dwarves, or the spirits willing, if you ever do hit, people are going to be like, who the fuck is this guy?
Marc:And you're going to have 20 records there.
Guest:And if I don't, or to whatever degree I do or don't, it doesn't really matter.
Guest:I mean, other than, you know, I don't know.
Guest:That's my attitude sitting here right now on Mark Maron's podcast, though.
Guest:So I mean, it could go a lot further down from here.
Guest:But the thing is weird, right?
Marc:But you still work.
Marc:I'm sure you've been down and like, you know, it seems like there's been booze involved at different times so you can get real down.
Marc:There's been booze.
Marc:There's been ladies.
Marc:Yeah, booze and ladies.
Marc:That can really take you all the way down.
Marc:All the way down.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Those are two tickets to the bottom level.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, you know, but...
Marc:But even when, you know, after I liked the Lou album, which is just called Lou, the songs of Lou Reed.
Guest:Then you didn't know a way to get in because there's too much stuff.
Marc:Well, no, no.
Marc:I mean, I kind of like kicked me and poked around a little bit, but I did listen to Days of Surrender a few times.
Guest:Oh, cool.
Guest:That's interesting because that was the record I made after Lou and I kind of sort of had that same inspiration.
Marc:It's funny that you're... Well, that came to me in vinyl and the cover's engaging and I was sort of intrigued by you in general because there's something very unique and very ethereal about the way you produce records.
Marc:So I listened to Days of Surrender with that same kind of intent of like, there's something going on here.
Marc:This guy's doing things.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I had to listen to it a few times because it's great.
Guest:You were listening to My Magical Garage.
Guest:That's what you were listening to.
Guest:That's my Magical Garage.
Guest:It's a lot of layers, dude.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In that record.
Guest:In a good way?
Marc:Yeah, because you listen to it and then you hear your voice and then it sounds like there's a whole other thing going on alongside of it.
Marc:Do you know what I mean?
Marc:Here's the music, here's the song.
Marc:What's going over there on the right?
Marc:There's textures and shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, lots of panning and stuff like that on the stereo spectrum.
Guest:I mean, I probably could mix it better now that I've watched my mixing with Mike videos.
Guest:I mean, that's the thing.
Guest:That was pre-mixing with Mike.
Guest:That's not my intention of making you feel insecure.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:But listen, I appreciate you shot...
Guest:shouting out that yeah i don't know is there a better way to say that i appreciate you mentioning that record yeah yeah because uh yeah i don't know it's just um something i put out and you know yeah well what what now but there's not a lot of hoopla or there's you know it's hard you put it out by yourself yeah kind of yeah that's the way i mean do you have a label
Guest:I do Lonely Astronaut Records, I guess.
Guest:I think it's like this thing where every time you put out something new, the music business has changed again.
Guest:So it's like you reinvent it again every single time.
Guest:How many big labels have you been at?
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Well, through Real World, I was on Virgin, and then I went on to Universal.
Guest:Real World?
Guest:What is that?
Guest:Real World is Peter Gabriel's label.
Guest:Okay, yeah.
Guest:And you went to Virgin?
Guest:Well, I was signed to Real World, and then they put it out through Virgin.
Guest:So sometimes you get signed to these labels that are also signed to labels.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Subsidiaries.
Guest:Subsidiaries.
Marc:Now, the second record, Come to Where I'm From.
Guest:That was produced by T-Bone Burnett.
Marc:Who's a genius.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:In his own way, right?
Marc:I think so, yeah.
Marc:I liked a couple of his solo records, and certainly he's a great archivist.
Marc:Yeah, he's... The world is a better place for T-Bone.
Guest:And what did he bring to your sound?
Guest:You know, he produced me... He gave me so much confidence.
Guest:It's hard to explain.
Guest:I don't think it's any accident that he keeps having...
Guest:big success that he does because i don't know he there was something he did where he just like made me feel like what i was doing was very important and that you know and just gave me a lot of confidence and then we made that at sound city which was the you know the out here yeah the gold documentary another magic place which is a magic place yeah yeah and
Guest:just the whole thing and that was like the la record it was i was out in la for like three months staying at the oak woods i found ushers driver's license in the parking lot and i turned it in anyway so yeah and how'd that record do
Guest:well it again i think it you know that record actually sort of was kind of like can is considered my first record over here in a way and that did pretty i've got record of the year in entertainment weekly oh yeah yeah so it had a it and it was a critically well received record and it sold okay yeah but it didn't sell a lot you know and so virgin kind of lost interest after that and then that's when i went to universal it's got the groovy cover too you always got good cover thanks man i'm a i usually paint them i'm a painter
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:When did that start, the painting?
Guest:I've been painting since I was a kid.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you do all your covers?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Mostly.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Usually, yeah.
Marc:Pretty much.
Marc:And so, like, so then, all right, so it didn't pan out as well as Virgin wanted it to?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then you go to Universal.
Guest:Then I went to Universal and yeah, then that was Honey in the Moon, which went on the OC and that did okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was a song I have called Honey in the Moon.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And that was from Redemption Sun?
Guest:Redemption Sun.
Guest:How did the record do in general?
Guest:It did a little better, but still, you know, nothing that's going to, like, excite.
Marc:But are you really writing songs that, you know, are hook-laden and huge?
Marc:I mean, it seems like you were sort of a little... It wasn't even that you were... It's not even an alt sound.
Marc:It's a very unique sound that, you know... I don't know.
Marc:I mean, did you... Were you writing songs to be huge?
Guest:I mean, in my mind, I, like, write what I like, you know?
Guest:And so it's just...
Guest:I like good songs and I like hits, you know, so I'm trying to write songs that are likable.
Guest:It's not that, you know, but I'm also not like following a formula or something like that.
Guest:I come, I'm coming from my own unconsciousness.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So yeah.
Guest:So that and Peter and Peter like specifically said that to me a few times, which was don't go to them.
Guest:Let them come to you.
Marc:Well, there is a dreamlike quality to some of it, like especially on Days of Surrender, which you did in your garage.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Without the help of Mike.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Was that there is a sort of frequency to it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That feels a little dreamy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like, you know, that I mean, it vibrates on that level somehow, because I think that's what I engage with.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, you like that dreamy level.
Marc:Well, I just, like, I saw it as something unique.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, and I felt it.
Guest:That's cool.
Marc:Like, I felt like, you know, like, this guy is a real thing.
Marc:He's his own thing.
Marc:Wow, thank you so much.
Marc:That means a lot to me.
Marc:Seriously.
Marc:But then you go on, you go, like, from between Redemption Sun and The Ballad of Boogie Christ, which was some sort of mildly subverted personal story.
Marc:Which, oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:I like the way you said that.
Guest:Mildly subverted.
Guest:Personal story.
Guest:Personal story.
Marc:But I mean, you did like four records.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:Five records even.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You just keep pushing them out.
Guest:I keep making records.
Guest:I love making records.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I don't love showbiz so much.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Preaching to the choir.
Guest:Yeah, but this is nice.
Guest:But this isn't showbiz, but you know what I mean?
Marc:But throughout these records, are you still working with Keltner?
Marc:Sometimes.
Marc:Our Shadows Will Remain.
Guest:Fistful of Mercy, my band with Ben Harper and Danny Harrison, Jim played on that too.
Marc:What was the arc of learning from... After Universal, where do you go?
Guest:So, okay, that was... Who does Our Shadows Will Remain?
Guest:Okay, so Our Shadows Will Remain, yeah, it's interesting, was this label called Vector.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they're a huge management company still now.
Guest:And they got me onto this label in England called 14th Floor Records.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And 14th Floor was doing like David Gray and Damien Rice and selling like millions.
Guest:And so they were slotting me into that.
Guest:And they geared it up.
Guest:They did do a really good job with our Shadows Will Remain.
Guest:I sold out like Shepherds Bush Empire over there.
Guest:Like it was building and doing really well.
Guest:But then there was like...
Guest:something happened like the oh they were gonna go with honey in the moon they were gonna try to like repurpose an old song for a single they thought that was they were gonna try to take it to the mountaintop yeah didn't work yeah it didn't fly on radio and then all of a sudden that's it it just starts it's a fade away but when you've you see the fade away coming and then you know it's there and then it's like again
Guest:Again, there's the fadeaway, okay.
Guest:And that's when you got your own label going or your own outlet?
Guest:Yeah, I guess so.
Guest:I mean, yeah, I don't mean to be so vague about that.
Guest:I just don't know what that even means.
Guest:Yeah, maybe I don't either.
Guest:Yeah, like a label now.
Marc:But you started self-presenting.
Guest:Yeah, or just being able, like getting distribution.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I mean, even that, my own label was through Megaforce, which is a big, huge label.
Guest:So that's why I always go like, do I have my own label?
Marc:Kind of.
Marc:Well, it sounds like you've got a lot of support through musicians and some producers.
Marc:Like, are you self-producing?
Marc:Like, who produced Nuclear Daydream?
Marc:I think, yeah, I did.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you just sort of took hold of that shit.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was, yeah, because that's when the Our Shadows Will Remain fade started happening.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I had Nuclear Daydream.
Guest:When I review my history...
Guest:I look at the albums I followed up getting a little bit of vibe going and go, okay, did I let myself down?
Guest:And I really don't feel like I did.
Guest:I feel like, no, that record stands too.
Guest:It's just that I don't really follow a particular sound or style.
Guest:I think a lot of people...
Guest:To me, styles of music are kind of like the outfit you're wearing versus the outfit I'm wearing or something.
Marc:I guess, but I hear you throughout, like if I poke around.
Marc:Okay, cool.
Marc:I don't listen to something you've done if I'm flipping around from different years and go like, who's this guy?
Marc:Yeah, it holds together, I guess.
Marc:I think so, the tone of your songwriting and the way you sing and certainly some of the instrumentation.
Marc:It's not like all of a sudden you're doing a fusion record.
Marc:Right, that's next.
Guest:Getting back to fusion.
Marc:It's time.
Guest:It's just me on the cover.
Guest:It's called just japing around.
Guest:A lot of slap bass.
Guest:Back cover is just a big thing of my thumb hitting a bass string.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like, Todd, tell me about the process of making the Ballad of Boogie Cries because that sounds interesting.
Guest:yeah that that was a long that was word first i'd normally wrote songs like days of surrender for instance is music for is all melodically driven right it's all just like so i'm just making up words to fit into the melodies you know uh-huh and with boogie christ i had like words first which is why you got this story arc you know kind of yeah yeah yeah so that that that's it with that and then i mean that just took years and years to make just like
Guest:But you work on it for a while, and then you walk away and do other things, and then you work on it again.
Guest:How'd you fund it?
Guest:Oh, through Pledge Music.
Guest:And that was before Kickstarter?
Guest:That was after Kickstarter, but yeah, Pledge Music, and yeah, that really worked out pretty well for us.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, it was good.
Guest:It's a lot of work.
Guest:I mean, the thing is that it's perceived as like this...
Guest:You know, you're kind of your hands outreached, which I guess it is.
Guest:But in the end, you're really just selling your stuff.
Guest:It's like a fire sale for your store, I guess, on some level.
Marc:But you got enough bread together and you got good players on that thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You work with Garth Hudson?
Guest:Garth Hudson came.
Guest:I mean, it was going to originally just be like, yeah, just me and Garth.
Guest:On one of the big sounding organs?
Guest:Well, there's this studio called Old Soul in upstate New York, and Garth lives there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And not at the studio, but so.
Guest:And Garth would come by around like midnight.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:he works late you know yeah and just he talk about a magical being you know and just he's like kind of leans like this yeah and just starts doing things and it's just like playing a casio keyboard up here that's just got little mini keys yeah somehow like playing something and then playing a grand piano with yeah with the other hand uh-huh stuff like that yeah
Guest:That's cool to work with that guy.
Guest:Yeah, that was unbelievable.
Guest:It really was.
Guest:And he doesn't say much in between, but then he listens and he makes sure you erase things he doesn't like.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Because he doesn't want them getting out there.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Controlling that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Doesn't want no jape out there.
Marc:Doesn't want the jape.
Guest:Man, this jape word landed for you.
Guest:This is going to... Well, you pushed it.
Guest:You sold it to me.
Guest:You're going to use jape.
Marc:So did you like, tell me about like, it was sort of like there, I read some stuff on you and it seemed like sort of a, an ironic, an ironic, but I read some stuff on you, but there was sort of touching to me that like you did, you got a Grammy nomination for a cover.
Marc:Oh God, you love it.
Guest:Like, I'm like, this guy's been working his whole life on his music.
Guest:You know what I'm glad?
Guest:I'm glad you see the humor in it.
Guest:Because that's the big, that's how you survive it.
Guest:You know, it's funny as hell.
Guest:It really is.
Guest:You know, I think, you know.
Guest:Which cover was it?
Guest:called Vacancy, yeah.
Guest:How many years in for vaca- like when you do Vacancy?
Guest:That was still early days, so that was like, you know.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, that wasn't- that wasn't quite as hysterical as it's becoming.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, it was an EP too.
Guest:Yeah, and it's an EP, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You got a little attention from the industry.
Guest:Yeah, there you go.
Guest:Do you ever do art for other people?
Guest:I've been asked a couple times.
Guest:I haven't really done it much.
Guest:But you do a lot of painting and have you sold your paintings?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I paint all the time and do art shows and stuff like that.
Guest:That really helps me keep the living going too.
Guest:Or do you just sell them online?
Guest:I used to have a gallery called Museum of Modern Arthur.
Guest:I opened up in Dumbo, Brooklyn.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Yeah, for like three years.
Guest:We had events, and it was pretty fun.
Guest:Did it work out?
Guest:It did to the degree.
Guest:I didn't get rich, but it depends on your definition of working out.
Guest:Was it a scene?
Marc:It was a little bit of a scene.
Marc:It was fun.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they just sent me today, this morning, your book of poetry, so you got that.
Marc:Yeah, I write poems and post them.
Marc:But do you write them to, not to be songs, but just to be poems?
Guest:I write a lot, so, you know, and then I just post them, and, you know, I don't know, some of them I think are, they're as cheesy as they want to be, you know.
Guest:Just putting shit out in the world, man.
Guest:Yeah, um, yeah, I don't know.
Guest:It's like, I'm driven to do it.
Marc:But this new album, Family, again, is another album that sort of explores themes throughout characters.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And it does sound a little different to me.
Marc:Right.
Marc:In that, well, I mean, the piano is very prominent.
Marc:I wrote it all on piano.
Guest:I got this Steinway Vertigram from 1912.
Guest:It was in one family.
Guest:It came from Connecticut.
Guest:And it was, I think I got it for like 1,600 bucks.
Guest:In fact, you know, that's something you could, because you don't need a huge space at all for it.
Guest:I mean, a vertigran, it's a, well, it's a upright piano.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But yeah, you can get them pretty inexpensively.
Guest:And this one is like magical.
Guest:And so I just, yeah, started writing songs on it.
Guest:Was it based on the piano?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was all based on- I said that it was with one family?
Marc:No.
Marc:Was there a root to the story?
Guest:The root to the story was I was with this girl who was on speed and her husband or her ex-husband kept calling her and was like upset about her not taking care of the kids.
Guest:And she was telling me about that, and then I was identifying with him.
Guest:And then when I went home, I started writing a song from his perspective to her.
Guest:And that's called You Wear Me Out on The Family.
Guest:And that was the seed of the whole record.
Guest:And then from there, I just decided, OK, I could write a whole album on just family dynamics.
Guest:And so I started talking to my own family about their histories and stuff.
Guest:And I started using aspects of my grandparents and just a way to explore my own sort of family history as well.
Guest:But even though it's not about my- Was it cathartic for you?
Guest:I think all creative acts are cathartic.
Guest:There is some sort of catharsis there.
Guest:I think we're given all this energy to do something with, and if I don't do something creative with mine, I do something destructive.
Guest:I'm not so results-based.
Guest:That's maybe one of the problems.
Guest:But it sounds like on some level you create to save your life.
Guest:That's why I do it.
Guest:That's why I don't have a problem with whatever the universe wants
Guest:wherever the universe wants to put me in that mix is cool with me because I, for me, it sounds cheesy, but it's really true.
Guest:The reward is in doing it.
Guest:You know, I just like doing it, you know?
Marc:And, and how much did you, did you spend a lot of time with Lou?
Uh,
Guest:Were you around when he was sick?
Guest:I did see him a lot for a time there.
Guest:Did you learn from him?
Guest:I did, yeah.
Guest:I mean...
Guest:It's hard to put into words exactly, you know, because I learned from his music so much before, you know.
Guest:But, yeah, just with him, I just, you know, just loved him as a person, you know, and tried to not...
Guest:Asked too many, you know, like questions about certain, like tried to not be a fan.
Guest:And I kind of wish in a way that I asked, I had been more of a fan or more asked more just like, like, you know, Hey, what's, you know, the Coney, the guitar sound on Coney Island, baby.
Guest:Like, you know what I mean?
Guest:Like,
Guest:But I did text him once that Coney Island Baby is the best song that anyone's ever written.
Guest:And he handled it very graciously.
Guest:Then I immediately said, oh, sorry to fan out.
Guest:He wrote something nice back.
Guest:Oh, he did?
Guest:Yeah, he wrote something very nice back.
Guest:He was a nice guy.
Guest:That's the thing.
Guest:Inside, he was a very nice guy.
Guest:And outside, but you know what I mean?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Well, I mean, like anybody else, you don't know who they are until they let you in.
Marc:And if they let you in, then you know.
Marc:And if they know that you already know, they usually let you in.
Marc:I think that's true.
Marc:And what did your folks do when you were growing up?
Guest:My dad was, well, he was building truck tires, and he worked for the government, and he put himself through law school.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:And then he became a lawyer, and he also built, like, houses.
Guest:I mean, he worked really, really hard.
Guest:Is he still around?
Guest:Still around, yeah.
Guest:And, you know, he's, like, yeah, like, sort of, I don't know what strata you would put us in.
Guest:Lower middle class, middle class, I don't know.
Guest:How does he feel about you?
Guest:Oh.
Guest:um well that's probably complicated but uh i mean like you know is he proud does he like your work does he i think so that's good i think so yeah we have a good i i feel like my family relationship is good you know i mean there's like there's you know we're a dramatic bunch i mean we you know we're crazy but usually they just want to know you're okay and
Guest:yeah i think they really care about me they really love me and i really love them and care about them too you know and your mom's all right and my mom's really good yeah yeah they're together still uh up in ohio yeah in akron they still live in the house uh oh yeah that i grew up in yeah you go back i go back i sleep in my childhood uh bedroom
Guest:But now it looks like a Pier 1 Imports instead of the cool bedroom I left it with Jimi Hendrix posters on the wall.
Guest:Where'd they put the posters, man?
Guest:Where are the posters, man?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You want to play a song?
Marc:Sure.
Marc:On my guitar?
Marc:Why not?
Marc:Is that in tune?
Guest:I miss the drunk, I miss the fiend I miss the simplicity of addiction in the scene I miss wandering aimlessly in half-dead sewers with rats for eyes Chewing on forgiveness and the will to apologize I miss the return of no return as I burn an avalanches of white snow and yellow cocaine I miss talking to brick walls while following the grain Inhuman dolls as I plagiarize myself like a dummy Stuff with counterfeit money for Cairo and black honey
Guest:I miss illusions begging to be chased Even as they disappear into me erased Until there is no one or nothing but the chase And a powdery ghost with no face or faith And the woman of my dreams Disappearing without grace I miss the zoo
Guest:I miss the zoo I miss the zoo
Guest:I miss evolving into a cloud of blue marijuana blown from the lips of hookers and pimps as they shake each other down in the alleys for the damned but mighty no one but the weak around and the beautiful unsightly I miss numb Neanderthals marching in rows of living dead from my wisdom teeth to Spain and back again in my head I miss salvation and syringes and angels of mercy and blooms of smoke numb and rain which drinks when thirsty I miss glasses full of spirits without tongues speak to me of Napoleon's wild nights
Guest:I miss staying up for days and becoming a psychic Kretzel flying tights shoot on by Zulu heading with toads to Mars a mysterious prison and one without bars at least those kind of bars I miss the zoo I miss the zoo I miss the zoo
Guest:I'm just waking in the arms of strangers like puppies just born in the pound to a dead mother with eyes sealed shut, looking for a tit to suck in other dangers.
Guest:When the night before, laughter was our only pursuit, even as knives carved up our backs and demons sat like Buddha's eating fruit, meditating on hate forever in our minds.
Guest:I miss exposing even my bones and the need that rewinds, even my burning home, even my gutted inner child.
Guest:Even my dead grandfather beneath the ground is wild Even my criminal family, even my weed whacker thoughts Whipping a thin plastic string to cut the ears off others as I sing I miss Van Gogh's revenge, I miss his nightly binge I'm the spider surrounding my bed and lifting me as if an effigy Or a dead king, a prophet of doom A Jesus for the apocalypse wearing dirt like perfume Or a mother for Satan, or a ghost for all the children of abuse
Guest:Take me into the fire, watch me burn like a goose As they sing in spider voices There goes creation, there goes the moon There goes the butterfly wanting a cocoon I miss being a bloom and a goon Waking up too soon in the afternoon I miss the zoo
Guest:I miss the zoo I miss the zoo
Marc:That was great, man.
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:You got it.
Marc:I love it, man.
Guest:Thank you so much.
Guest:Great talking to you.
Guest:You too, Mark.
Guest:I really, yeah, I'm a big fan.
Guest:I think what you do is wonderful, and thank you for doing it.
Guest:I appreciate it.
Guest:I like talking to you.
Guest:Thank you, Mark.
Marc:Nice, right?
Marc:I like when people play in here.
Marc:So I'm going to leave it at that.
Marc:I guess I won't be playing because we just had a guy play and sing, right?
Marc:WTFpod.com for all your WTFpod needs.
Marc:Posters, t-shirts, tour dates, blog, podcast.
Marc:Yeah, I'm sweating.
Marc:Boomer lives!
Marc:Boomer lives!
.
.