Episode 748 - Hutch Harris/A Pashman Interlude

Episode 748 • Released October 5, 2016 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Guest:Lock the gates!

00:00:09Marc:All right, let's do this.

00:00:10Marc:How are you?

00:00:11Marc:What the fuckers?

00:00:11Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:00:12Marc:What the fucking ears?

00:00:14Marc:What the fucksters?

00:00:15Marc:What's happening?

00:00:16Marc:I'm Mark Maron.

00:00:16Marc:This is WTF, my podcast.

00:00:19Marc:Welcome to it.

00:00:20Marc:How's everyone doing?

00:00:22Marc:What day is it?

00:00:22Marc:Thursday?

00:00:23Marc:That's what day this comes out.

00:00:24Marc:How's that going for you?

00:00:26Marc:How's the Thursday going?

00:00:27Marc:Today on the show, Hutch Harris from the band The Thermals.

00:00:32Marc:Talking about an obsession.

00:00:34Marc:Not with Hutch Harris necessarily, but I'll explain in a second.

00:00:39Marc:I did want to mention that I told you last week about the movie I did with Chris D'Elia and Eric Andre and a bunch of other comics.

00:00:45Marc:It's called Flock of Dudes, and it's now playing in theaters.

00:00:49Marc:It's on iTunes, and now you can also rent it on demand.

00:00:52Marc:Go to flockofdudesmovie.com to watch the trailer and for links.

00:00:58Marc:I think I was funny in it.

00:00:59Marc:I'll get around to watching it.

00:01:00Marc:I haven't watched that Mike and Dave need wedding dates or Mike and Steve or whatever.

00:01:05Marc:It's weird.

00:01:06Marc:I've not watched a couple of movies that I've been in.

00:01:09Marc:I should do that.

00:01:10Marc:I should make that time as opposed to watching every episode of The Sopranos again.

00:01:17Marc:Rock and roll.

00:01:20Marc:Obsession.

00:01:21Marc:Records.

00:01:23Marc:Yes.

00:01:24Marc:The records are still coming.

00:01:26Marc:I listen to the records you send me.

00:01:28Marc:I can't promote all the records you send me.

00:01:30Marc:If that's what you're expecting, if you're thinking Maren's going to love this record, maybe Maren will.

00:01:35Marc:I don't know.

00:01:36Marc:If I don't, I'm not going to tell you that, but I'm also... I get a lot of records.

00:01:41Marc:And I give them all a shake.

00:01:43Marc:I give them all a spin.

00:01:45Marc:I will tell you that.

00:01:47Marc:I have been listening to some good records, but that's sort of what I want to talk about is the obsessive quality of things, the obsession.

00:01:55Marc:Also, go to wtfpod.com slash tour.

00:01:58Marc:Carnegie Hall, there's literally maybe like 200 tickets left.

00:02:03Marc:And I'm just being straight with you.

00:02:06Marc:So if you're holding out on that, that's how many are left.

00:02:08Marc:Literally 200 tickets.

00:02:10Marc:The Vic in Chicago.

00:02:12Marc:I'm going to be in Nashville.

00:02:13Marc:There's a lot of tour.

00:02:14Marc:I'm not going to plug each one individually right now, but go to wtfpod.com slash tour.

00:02:21Marc:Buster, the kitten, some people are pestering me for an update.

00:02:25Marc:Buster is doing well.

00:02:27Marc:He's a crazy, stinky kitten.

00:02:30Marc:Like he's one of those kittens that gets out of nowhere possessed with demonic intent.

00:02:37Marc:Like just out of nowhere, he'll just start ripping your hand apart, ripping some furniture apart, running 100 miles an hour, clawing the back of your neck as he runs over your head.

00:02:46Marc:That's what that cat is.

00:02:48Marc:He's a black demon.

00:02:51Marc:He's also very farty.

00:02:53Marc:So I have a demonic farty ass cat that annoys me.

00:02:58Marc:But I love him because he does relax occasionally.

00:03:01Marc:When you have one of those kind of cats, you're just sort of like, oh, my God, what's he going to fucking do?

00:03:06Marc:Don't do it.

00:03:06Marc:Oh, shit.

00:03:07Marc:He broke my God damn it.

00:03:08Marc:Why did you fucking?

00:03:09Marc:Hey, don't rip that.

00:03:10Marc:Oh, shit.

00:03:12Marc:He's running so fast.

00:03:14Marc:And then he tried to wear them out with the fucking, uh, laser pointer, the fake mice.

00:03:20Marc:Hopefully that they'll, they'll just relax.

00:03:22Marc:He's terrorizing monkey, the old man, but monkey, neither one of my cats really ever knew how to play.

00:03:28Marc:And, um,

00:03:30Marc:And they're kind of learning at this weird old age of 14, 15.

00:03:33Marc:These cats are learning how to play.

00:03:35Marc:I don't know why they didn't.

00:03:36Marc:They were wild when I got them.

00:03:38Marc:They just didn't have any capacity for it.

00:03:41Marc:So it's kind of interesting to see an old thing learn how to play in his old age.

00:03:46Marc:Sort of like me.

00:03:48Marc:Right?

00:03:50Marc:Deaf Black Cat has been gone for two days.

00:03:52Marc:But sometimes he does this.

00:03:53Marc:I think he has to go on a brief hiatus to meet with his mystical advisors on the other plane to give them an update on how I'm doing.

00:04:01Marc:Because Deaf Black Cat is a mythological beast that has entered my life.

00:04:08Marc:And I fear the day that he disappears forever.

00:04:12Marc:But he usually comes back.

00:04:14Marc:And we'll see.

00:04:16Marc:I'll let you know.

00:04:18Marc:Hutch Harris today from the thermals.

00:04:20Marc:Now, the deal with the thermals is I saw them at South by Southwest.

00:04:27Marc:I don't even know how many years ago, but it was one of those situations where like I register things, you know, like I don't go to a lot of live music and I'm not usually at festivals.

00:04:37Marc:And

00:04:38Marc:I remember I had the same thing with the Hold Steady at South by Southwest.

00:04:41Marc:I think it was the same show.

00:04:43Marc:I think it was the thermals opening for the Hold Steady.

00:04:46Marc:And I see so little live music.

00:04:49Marc:And when I watched the thermals, I was like, oh, my God, these guys are the greatest band.

00:04:53Marc:They're the best band I've seen in years.

00:04:55Marc:And I believe that, and I still think they're a great band.

00:04:58Marc:But at that moment, it wasn't so much like, why haven't I heard of them?

00:05:01Marc:It was just the experience of seeing something new and being fucking excited about it.

00:05:05Marc:I'd listened to the whole study, but I didn't know the thermals, and there was Hutch and a woman and another guy.

00:05:12Marc:They seemed interesting.

00:05:13Marc:They definitely had their own sound.

00:05:15Marc:I like the way they play guitar.

00:05:16Marc:I like the way they sang.

00:05:17Marc:I like the way they looked on stage.

00:05:19Marc:And I was just I was all in.

00:05:21Marc:I was like, this is a great band.

00:05:23Marc:Then I started to pursue like every record the thermals ever did, including EPs and including like Kathy and Hutch records before the thermals are alongside of it.

00:05:32Marc:I'll talk to him about that.

00:05:33Marc:And like, what is what are they about?

00:05:35Marc:And I became this complete fanboy for a few months.

00:05:38Marc:And I was I was talking.

00:05:39Marc:I was emailing with them and I thought they were so cool.

00:05:42Marc:And I thought they were cooler than me.

00:05:44Marc:And I thought about having them on the show.

00:05:46Marc:Then I thought I wasn't cool enough.

00:05:47Marc:And I'm 50 at this point.

00:05:51Marc:When all this is happening.

00:05:52Marc:But that's my reaction.

00:05:54Marc:I go to one live show and my mind is blown.

00:05:56Marc:And it's fucking all over.

00:05:58Marc:I've done that with so many bands.

00:06:01Marc:And it's harder with jazz people.

00:06:03Marc:But new bands and things I've never heard of.

00:06:07Marc:I'll go all in and start buying records.

00:06:09Marc:I just ordered a record.

00:06:11Marc:I was at a restaurant and I heard a song.

00:06:15Marc:And on the sound system, I was like, who is this?

00:06:18Marc:And they said it's Zomes.

00:06:19Marc:I think it's how you pronounce it.

00:06:20Marc:Zomes.

00:06:21Marc:It was sort of ambient, kind of droney, repetitious.

00:06:25Marc:But for some reason, it was moving me.

00:06:28Marc:It was reaching in and squeezing my sad little cynical heart.

00:06:32Marc:And I'm like, Zomes.

00:06:34Marc:I got to get some Zomes.

00:06:35Marc:So I ordered a Zomes record.

00:06:37Marc:I'll probably order all the Zomes records.

00:06:39Marc:That's just the way it works with me.

00:06:41Marc:especially after I see a live band.

00:06:42Marc:But I want to talk to, I want to share this clip with you.

00:06:46Marc:My friend Dan Pashman from The Sporkful came over a little while ago, and we talked a bit about seeing bands live and what we get out of it.

00:06:53Marc:This didn't make it into the conversation we aired the last time, so this is like an outtake of that talk we had, but it fits in with the show today.

00:07:01Marc:So I figured I should share it with you and that you should hear it because it's about seeing live music and how that makes us feel.

00:07:08Marc:So this is me and Dan Pashman.

00:07:10Guest:So I saw Bruce Springsteen recently.

00:07:18Guest:Really?

00:07:19Guest:Yeah.

00:07:20Guest:I was thinking about you before I went to see Bruce because I was thinking about your bit about going to see The Stones and being worried like, what if he can't do it anymore?

00:07:28Marc:What if it's not like when I was 14?

00:07:29Marc:Right.

00:07:30Marc:When did you first see Bruce Springsteen?

00:07:31Guest:First time I was eight years old, born in the USA tour.

00:07:34Marc:With who, your parents?

00:07:35Guest:With my parents, Giant Stadium, 1985.

00:07:38Marc:Linda Pashman?

00:07:39Guest:Yep, and Lewis, they were there.

00:07:41Guest:Good memory.

00:07:41Marc:Yeah.

00:07:42Marc:How is Bruce Springsteen evolving?

00:07:44Marc:Is there still the authenticity that Bruce is loved and known for?

00:07:47Marc:Is there still the working man's ethic of a Bruce Springsteen show where you're elevated and you feel like, you know, that these are guys doing a job and it's bringing us along for three fucking hours, four hours,

00:08:00Marc:Look at those guys.

00:08:01Marc:They're like union guys up there with the guitars.

00:08:05Guest:I mean, he still puts on a damn good show.

00:08:07Marc:What was your fear?

00:08:08Guest:My fear was, like you said, he hasn't been touring for a while.

00:08:11Guest:I heard he had to have rotator cuff surgery.

00:08:13Guest:He's 66 or 67 years old.

00:08:17Marc:You were concerned about the surgeries?

00:08:19Guest:You were concerned about his- Just the idea of him needing to have surgery upset me.

00:08:23Marc:Superman Bruce.

00:08:24Guest:Right.

00:08:25Guest:You think of him as being invincible.

00:08:26Marc:Sure.

00:08:26Guest:That's right.

00:08:27Guest:Yeah.

00:08:29Guest:And especially Saving With the Stones, rock and roll is such an expression of youth.

00:08:34Guest:Yeah.

00:08:34Guest:Like, the idea of an old person trying to rock out is so sad.

00:08:38Guest:Like, it's so pathetic.

00:08:39Marc:Oh, so the idea of it is.

00:08:40Marc:But did you have the same experience I did?

00:08:43Marc:Is that, like, there was a lot of concerns.

00:08:45Marc:Right.

00:08:45Marc:And you don't want them to just become a greatest hits machine either, though you like hearing those songs.

00:08:50Marc:And you might not have heard them live in a while.

00:08:51Marc:But there's something about...

00:08:53Marc:professionals doing what they do best, that if they can still, especially someone like Bruce and even The Stones, they're not gonna use backtracks.

00:09:01Marc:It's all gonna be live music.

00:09:02Guest:He doesn't even wear an earpiece.

00:09:05Guest:He uses the monitors up on stage.

00:09:06Guest:I mean, that's old school.

00:09:07Marc:And the fact that when I saw The Stones, it took him two songs to sort of get on the same page.

00:09:12Marc:Right.

00:09:12Marc:For Keith to realize that he was amplified.

00:09:16Marc:It didn't quite click between him and Ronnie until the third song, and then once that happened, you almost respected him for that.

00:09:25Marc:It's fucking rock and roll.

00:09:26Marc:It's going to be a little messy at first, and it's a little messy.

00:09:29Marc:But that's the Stones.

00:09:30Marc:But I was so impressed at the professionalism and how good they sounded playing straight through.

00:09:37Marc:And Mick was in good form.

00:09:40Marc:It was a little disconcerting to see him dancing because he is old.

00:09:44Marc:But you do have concerns for them as people because as they get older, they become people.

00:09:48Marc:Right.

00:09:49Marc:When you're a kid, you're like, the fucking Stones.

00:09:51Marc:They're like superheroes.

00:09:52Marc:But now as everybody gets older, you're sort of like, I hope they still got it.

00:09:57Guest:Right.

00:09:57Guest:Right, right.

00:09:58Guest:No, totally.

00:09:58Guest:Yeah.

00:09:59Guest:Bruce, I mean, look, he went out and he's got a little catwalk out into the crowd.

00:10:04Guest:He's out there singing and then he falls onto the crowd and he crowd surfed back to the stage.

00:10:10Guest:He was out in the crowd at one point.

00:10:11Marc:Were you concerned at that point for his rotator cuff?

00:10:13Yeah.

00:10:13Marc:Were you like, oh, God, do they know he had surgery?

00:10:15Guest:Well, you know, last time I saw him crowd surf, he sort of jumped into the crowd.

00:10:18Guest:This time he sort of gingerly sat down on the crowd.

00:10:20Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:10:22Marc:You got me.

00:10:22Guest:You got me.

00:10:23Guest:Yeah, like, and even the crowd was moving him kind of slowly.

00:10:26Marc:Yeah, because they're all 50, too.

00:10:28Guest:Right, right, exactly.

00:10:29Marc:60 years old.

00:10:30Guest:It was cool.

00:10:30Guest:His mom was in the audience.

00:10:32Guest:She's 90, and she's dancing, and he went out into the crowd and was dancing with her in the crowd, which was like a pretty awesome moment.

00:10:37Marc:Oh, that's sweet.

00:10:38Marc:Did everyone cry?

00:10:39Guest:Cheer, cry.

00:10:40Marc:I cried when they played Moonlight Mile for no reason.

00:10:43Marc:No reason.

00:10:44Marc:So you come away from the Bruce Springsteen album feeling elated and happy and a little concerned for Bruce and a realization of your own mortality and perhaps Bruce's.

00:10:53Guest:Yeah, but also it made me think of you because it made me think of your bit about the Stones, but it also made me think when you were talking on the show recently about seeing Jeff Tweedy perform in Jeff Ulrich's Living Room.

00:11:05Guest:Yeah.

00:11:06Guest:And about how he's just a guy who knows how to do the job.

00:11:09Guest:And I can tell that this is something that you've been...

00:11:12Guest:Like thinking about a lot, like just like respect for craft.

00:11:15Guest:Yeah.

00:11:15Guest:Like someone who has put in that years to just get good at the fucking job.

00:11:18Guest:Right.

00:11:19Guest:And you're that, you're like that person too.

00:11:20Guest:And like when I saw you on tour last, last summer or fall, whenever it was, like it struck me like the level of like just command that you had on the stage.

00:11:29Guest:Right.

00:11:29Guest:You were in your element, like even though you've been doing it for a long time, when I saw you five, 10 years ago, like there was still a level of like, you know, of anxiety that was gone.

00:11:38Marc:Right.

00:11:39Marc:More recently.

00:11:39Marc:Right.

00:11:40Marc:No, I agree.

00:11:40Guest:You had that command.

00:11:42Guest:And what I was curious to ask you about is like, one of the things that I see in the newer music that someone like Bruce writes now, like he used to spend years working on an album, 10 months just to write the song Born to Run.

00:11:57Guest:Like, he was such a perfectionist.

00:11:58Guest:And as he gets older, he gets more confident that he knows what the fuck he's doing.

00:12:03Guest:But then, and then you hit a certain prime, which for him is probably like Born in the USA, Tunnel of Love.

00:12:09Marc:Yeah, time's up.

00:12:11Marc:Great talking to you.

00:12:14Guest:You hit that prime, but then you get to a point where you get overconfident.

00:12:18Marc:Right.

00:12:18Guest:And he starts putting out songs like Queen of the Supermarket, which is one of the worst songs ever released.

00:12:23Marc:Yeah.

00:12:24Marc:Well, here's what you do.

00:12:25Marc:This is my general advice.

00:12:26Guest:Are you ever worried that that could happen to you?

00:12:29Marc:Well, comics are different a bit as long as you're generating new material.

00:12:33Marc:I mean, you're always going to be a victim of, well, it wasn't as good as his last hour.

00:12:37Marc:And that happens with guys that are, I think, a little bigger than me.

00:12:41Marc:There's something that happens culturally where whether it's genuine or not, when somebody is tremendously successful, like I think with music, when there's a string of hits,

00:12:52Marc:That really, if you think about the people that you love musically, many of them defined your entire adolescence.

00:12:59Marc:Like there's a group of songs that defined you probably through college where you could put it on and be like, you know, like, you know, baby, we were born to run or whatever Phil Collins song that you like.

00:13:10Marc:And.

00:13:11Marc:But the thing is, are you ever going to be that kid again?

00:13:15Marc:Are you ever going to have those emotions connected to a piece of music that guy did?

00:13:18Marc:Is he ever going to be able to do that for you again?

00:13:21Marc:Probably not.

00:13:22Marc:But also, is he going to age out of what he was great at?

00:13:27Marc:Maybe, because I've talked to a lot of these guys, like Huey Lewis and...

00:13:30Marc:Thomas Dolby come to mind, Marshall Crenshaw, who believe they're still doing great work, if not the best work they ever did.

00:13:36Marc:But they don't have the cultural relevance they used to or the hit-making capacity that they once did or the youth of the audience they once did.

00:13:43Marc:But they still kind of plow on.

00:13:45Marc:With somebody like Bruce, what I know about the Stones, like, I'm not going to listen to a new Stones song.

00:13:49Marc:What are you, nuts?

00:13:50Guest:You're talking about it from the audience perspective.

00:13:51Guest:I'm talking about it from, like...

00:13:53Guest:20 years ago, Bruce would never have released the song Queen of the Supermarket because he would have known or someone would have told him this is a shitty song.

00:14:01Guest:Don't release it.

00:14:02Guest:And it would have ended up in the dustbin.

00:14:04Guest:Yeah.

00:14:04Marc:And you don't think Bruce has written any shitty songs back then?

00:14:08Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:14:09Guest:Look, I think most albums have some shitty songs, but I think that like I think the albums in his real prime, the bad songs are every song is pretty good and the great songs are great.

00:14:22Guest:There are a lot of songs on his more recent albums that would never have made it onto those earlier albums.

00:14:29Guest:And what I'm curious about is he gave this great keynote speech at South by Southwest a few years ago, sort of like his advice to young musicians.

00:14:38Guest:And he basically said, and I feel like this is for anyone in creative field.

00:14:41Guest:It works for comics too.

00:14:42Guest:You need to find the sweet spot between believing that you rock and believing that you suck.

00:14:49Marc:I don't know if that's true.

00:14:50Marc:I think that genuinely, generally, artists are probably doing the best they can at that moment in their life.

00:14:58Marc:And I think that more so what probably happens is, and I think you're speaking to this, is that they end up appearing like they're hacking on themselves.

00:15:09Marc:Like they're going to sort of go back to the tropes that they know.

00:15:12Marc:And try to to to sort of, you know, bring them back to life somehow.

00:15:17Marc:Like I imagine Queen of the Supermarket is some sort of working class anthem about a woman who he saw at the supermarket trying to feed her kids.

00:15:24Guest:And, you know, he noticed this would be my blue collar song for this album.

00:15:28Guest:That's right.

00:15:28Marc:So he's hacking himself.

00:15:30Marc:Right.

00:15:30Marc:Where is, you know, is he still a spokesman for that?

00:15:32Marc:Was he ever really did he capture it poetically, you know, very succinctly for a lot of people and mean it at another time?

00:15:39Marc:Yes.

00:15:40Marc:Does he mean it now?

00:15:41Marc:Yes.

00:15:42Marc:Does it does it seem like a retread?

00:15:44Marc:I think that you're more likely to get into retread zone than you are to like.

00:15:48Marc:I don't think he's.

00:15:49Marc:He might be lacking the creativity and the passion he once had for his subject matter.

00:15:53Marc:But I think that the danger is that they have a formula.

00:15:58Marc:And like, is someone gonna tell them that, you know, hey, dude, it's a formula song.

00:16:02Marc:A lot of times that's all they get from record companies.

00:16:04Marc:Like make another one of those.

00:16:05Guest:Right, but how for you as someone who has like hit a stride in your career and reached this level of confidence and command of your craft, how do you guard against overconfidence?

00:16:18Marc:Well, that's a good question.

00:16:20Marc:I don't know.

00:16:22Marc:I don't think that Bruce would, even if you talk to him about it, if he said, I think you're getting a little cocky.

00:16:27Marc:I mean, he's been not necessarily cocky, but part of his whole thing about who he is is an exuberance and an endurance and a sort of humble persistence.

00:16:42Marc:I think he's always been pretty confident.

00:16:45Yeah.

00:16:45Marc:You know what I mean?

00:16:46Guest:I don't know.

00:16:47Guest:I mean, he spent three years working on the album Born to Run, and the only reason why the album was ever finished was because the record label booked him on a tour and pulled the bus up to the studio and pulled him out of the studio and took him on the road.

00:17:00Marc:But that's an element of being hungry versus not being hungry.

00:17:03Marc:The one thing I've said recently, and I think this speaks to that, is when you spend your whole life just trying to get somewhere, trying to do something...

00:17:13Marc:And then all of a sudden you're afforded the opportunity to do it.

00:17:17Marc:You know, you do it.

00:17:18Marc:And then like, you know, do you get complacent?

00:17:20Marc:Yes.

00:17:21Marc:Like I would think that complacent is probably the word.

00:17:24Marc:I don't think I have a hard time believing that Bruce is too confident.

00:17:28Marc:He might be complacent in his skill set.

00:17:32Marc:And not be as hungry or things are not as urgent or perhaps, you know, as you get older, you know, your concerns become a little more selfish and less, you know, broadly empathetic.

00:17:43Marc:And sometimes that feels like posturing.

00:17:45Marc:You know, does Bruce Springsteen really care about the queen of the supermarket?

00:17:48Marc:I don't know.

00:17:50Marc:Right.

00:17:50Marc:but uh but for me you know my concern is like yeah i mean i i feel better at my craft but i still am up against creating new stuff and you know and and i said this just the other day is like i don't want to i want to make sure that i'm growing creatively and personally and and that means publicly with with what i'm with what i'm putting out there and my fear is that yeah i'll repeat my tone not my jokes

00:18:14Marc:So, you know, who's to say, you know, what you're locked into and how you're going to grow as an artist.

00:18:19Marc:But I think that, you know, you give Bruce Springsteen a pass because he has been fairly courageous in doing new things in his career.

00:18:26Marc:It takes a real unique soul to not hack on himself.

00:18:30Marc:And Bruce did it for a long time.

00:18:32Marc:Like, you know, he went out there.

00:18:34Marc:And I think, you know, like anybody else, like I often question, like, why is he even touring?

00:18:37Marc:He's got to have enough money unless he really fucked up somehow.

00:18:40Marc:But the truth of the matter is, you want to see if you can still do it, if you still got it.

00:18:43Guest:Totally.

00:18:44Guest:Well, Ted Koppel asked him that once in an interview.

00:18:46Guest:Like, why are you even doing this?

00:18:47Marc:What else is he going to do?

00:18:49Guest:It's funny.

00:18:50Guest:He said, well, it's because I'm, what does my son say?

00:18:53Guest:An attention whore.

00:18:55Marc:Oh, there you go.

00:18:56Guest:Yeah.

00:18:56Marc:Well, that's honest.

00:18:56Marc:And I think that's the bottom line with all of it.

00:18:58Marc:Or like, you know, I can't stay at home anymore.

00:19:01Marc:She's driving me crazy.

00:19:03Marc:I really think a lot of these guys are like, I got to go, baby.

00:19:05Marc:Right.

00:19:06Marc:It's going to be six weeks.

00:19:07Marc:Right.

00:19:07Marc:I know.

00:19:07Marc:I'm sad.

00:19:08Marc:I got to go.

00:19:08Marc:Trucks outside.

00:19:14Marc:That was me and Dan Pashman from the Sporkful Podcast at WNYC.

00:19:18Marc:He's doing a special series right now on race, culture, and food called Who Is This Restaurant For?

00:19:25Marc:It's provocative stuff.

00:19:26Marc:You should check it out.

00:19:27Marc:Get the Sporkful today wherever you get your podcasts.

00:19:31Marc:All right?

00:19:33Marc:Can you do that?

00:19:35Marc:So now...

00:19:38Marc:I'm going to talk to Hutch Harris, who I completely had a different idea of.

00:19:43Marc:When I was on my thermal bender, I just thought, I decided he was this way cool, kind of dark, brooding, intense guy that was completely focused on the music and

00:20:04Marc:And certainly wouldn't want to chit chat with the likes of me.

00:20:09Marc:That's what I decided a few years ago when I got on a thermals bender.

00:20:13Marc:But then I find I'm totally wrong.

00:20:16Marc:He's a sweet guy, smart, great songwriter, musician, and completely pleasant.

00:20:22Marc:We had a nice conversation and he sings at the end.

00:20:25Marc:So hang out for that.

00:20:27Marc:This is me and Hutch Harris of the Thermals.

00:20:34Marc:so when did i like i'm trying to figure out like it's been years like i got the feeling that when i saw you at south by it was just this coincidental thing maybe you were opening for the hold steady right yeah so that i think that would have been 2007

00:20:53Marc:so 2007 I'm just wandering around I see you and Kathy uh-huh and yeah and it's just you and Kathy and a drummer right right so that would have been yeah Lauren was our drummer at that point what does Kathy play Kathy plays bass right so so I see you guys and I'm like holy shit these guys are really fucking good they sound interesting unique and then and then like I was compelled by the music and then the whole steady came on they were pretty good but oh yeah they

00:21:17Guest:They were great.

00:21:17Marc:Yeah.

00:21:18Marc:But you guys made an impression.

00:21:20Marc:So then I'm like, who the fuck are those guys?

00:21:21Marc:And I had to look up your name.

00:21:23Marc:And then I had to come home and then go buy all the records.

00:21:26Marc:And then I think I reached out to you, and I think you were probably like, who's this guy?

00:21:30Guest:Oh, no, no.

00:21:31Guest:I knew.

00:21:31Guest:I mean, I've been a fan for a long time.

00:21:34Marc:That's my weird, dumb, insecure fantasy.

00:21:38Guest:No, yeah.

00:21:38Guest:No, it's the opposite.

00:21:39Guest:I'm bothering this guy.

00:21:40Guest:Oh, no.

00:21:40Guest:Not at all.

00:21:41Guest:Not at all.

00:21:41Marc:Yeah.

00:21:42Marc:And then we never sort of got it together.

00:21:44Marc:But you've been doing this a while.

00:21:47Guest:Right.

00:21:48Guest:So this is like 14 years or so of the band.

00:21:50Marc:But I feel like you looked more like your hair was wilder back then, I think.

00:21:54Guest:Sure, yeah.

00:21:55Guest:Well, it's almost 10 years ago, yeah.

00:21:57Marc:Yeah, is it right?

00:21:58Guest:Yeah.

00:21:59Marc:It is.

00:21:59Marc:It's almost 10 years ago that I saw you.

00:22:02Guest:Yeah.

00:22:03Guest:When you were like kids.

00:22:04Guest:I know.

00:22:05Guest:Yeah.

00:22:05Guest:Kathy and I are 40 now.

00:22:07Guest:Yeah.

00:22:07Guest:So that was like you were 30.

00:22:09Marc:You were already sort of like, is this going to work?

00:22:10Guest:I know it was already.

00:22:11Guest:Yeah.

00:22:12Guest:Yeah.

00:22:13Guest:We the first record, you know, we got signed and we were like 26.

00:22:15Guest:So, yeah, it was like almost it was just about to be too late.

00:22:19Marc:Where'd you grow up?

00:22:20Guest:I grew up in the Bay Area.

00:22:22Guest:Like what was it?

00:22:22Guest:Kathy and I are both from like San Jose.

00:22:24Guest:Are you guys married?

00:22:26Guest:No, we dated like 16 years ago or something.

00:22:29Marc:And you don't date?

00:22:30Guest:No, no.

00:22:30Guest:How long did you date?

00:22:31Guest:We dated from like 98 to 2000 or 2001.

00:22:34Marc:Really?

00:22:35Guest:Yeah.

00:22:35Guest:So it's been a long time.

00:22:36Marc:You've been working together since then?

00:22:38Guest:Yeah, we've just been like best friends since then.

00:22:40Marc:You never sort of like, yeah, let's just.

00:22:42Guest:Yeah.

00:22:43Guest:Yeah.

00:22:43Guest:We gave it like another try, like 2005 or so.

00:22:46Guest:And I was like, no, no, that was the last time we tried to get back together.

00:22:50Marc:And you can still work together.

00:22:51Guest:Yeah.

00:22:52Guest:Yeah, definitely.

00:22:53Marc:Wow.

00:22:53Marc:Yeah.

00:22:54Marc:All right.

00:22:54Marc:So what part of the Bay Area?

00:22:56Guest:San Jose, my dad worked for Adobe, so we lived in Cupertino.

00:23:01Guest:First wave tech kid?

00:23:03Guest:Right, yeah.

00:23:03Guest:Okay, so my parents were from the East Coast, and I was born in New York, and then when I was eight, we moved to San Jose so my dad could work.

00:23:12Guest:My dad worked at a bunch of different startups before Adobe.

00:23:16Guest:But yeah, so we lived in Campbell, San Jose, Cupertino.

00:23:19Marc:But that was the first tech boom.

00:23:21Guest:Yeah, we moved to South Bay in 1982 or three.

00:23:25Marc:Oh my God.

00:23:26Guest:Yeah.

00:23:26Marc:So that was when all the big shot nerds, the super nerds, were doing the big work.

00:23:32Guest:Yeah.

00:23:33Marc:So your dad got in the ground floor.

00:23:34Guest:Yeah, definitely.

00:23:35Guest:Well, yeah, he worked for a bunch of startups.

00:23:39Guest:What was his job?

00:23:40Guest:He would debug programs.

00:23:42Marc:Oh, security guy.

00:23:43Guest:Yeah.

00:23:44Marc:Or kind of.

00:23:44Marc:No, he would.

00:23:46Marc:You have no idea.

00:23:47Guest:That's as much as I can tell you about.

00:23:49Guest:Yeah.

00:23:49Marc:Is he still around?

00:23:50Guest:Yeah.

00:23:50Guest:Yeah, he is.

00:23:51Guest:And he's up there?

00:23:52Guest:Yeah.

00:23:52Guest:They're in San Jose still.

00:23:54Guest:Yeah.

00:23:54Marc:Retired or working?

00:23:55Guest:They're retired.

00:23:56Guest:My dad's a musician, so he does a lot of music stuff.

00:23:58Guest:He's a piano player.

00:24:00Guest:But yeah, he's been retired for a while.

00:24:02Marc:Because he had a piece of Adobe?

00:24:04Guest:uh yeah yeah that did it yeah yeah exactly yeah and he got out a while ago because this was you know you know obviously like adobe's huge now but yeah he like got with them like in their maybe like second or third year oh and he got vested and he did some debugging and took care of him for life right i love people that stop working especially at an early age i love people that like that they're like i got enough i'm gonna do what i want

00:24:29Guest:Well, he just wanted to, like, he started teaching.

00:24:32Guest:He's someone who, like, I think this is the third time he's retired.

00:24:35Guest:Like, he keeps retiring and then he'll go back.

00:24:37Guest:Like, he went and, like, taught music at school and then, like, quit that.

00:24:40Guest:But, yeah.

00:24:41Guest:So, like, he's always doing something.

00:24:43Marc:So you grew up with music.

00:24:45Marc:How many siblings do you got?

00:24:46Guest:Yeah, a lot.

00:24:46Guest:Just one.

00:24:46Guest:I have a sister who's in San Francisco.

00:24:48Guest:She a musician?

00:24:49Guest:She's not at all.

00:24:50Guest:She's a teacher.

00:24:51Guest:Really?

00:24:51Guest:A teacher?

00:24:51Guest:Yeah.

00:24:52Guest:Teachers?

00:24:53Marc:Yeah.

00:24:53Marc:And your dad taught.

00:24:54Guest:Right.

00:24:54Marc:And your mom?

00:24:55Guest:Mom's a nurse.

00:24:56Marc:Oh, my God.

00:24:56Guest:Retired as well.

00:24:57Guest:Just retired.

00:24:58Guest:Yeah.

00:24:58Marc:Good, decent people doing nice things, helping the children and the sick.

00:25:03Marc:They are important.

00:25:04Guest:They're the most important things.

00:25:06Guest:Yeah, definitely.

00:25:07Marc:I talked to a lot of people whose parents were teachers.

00:25:11Marc:It's very interesting.

00:25:12Marc:A lot of creative people.

00:25:13Marc:I guess that if it's

00:25:15Marc:I guess that kind of environment is supportive.

00:25:18Marc:I mean, like you really think about people who have the willingness to commit a life to a creative pursuit.

00:25:23Marc:It's hard for parents to really get behind that.

00:25:25Marc:But I guess if parents are like, well, you know, the kid should do what he wants and if this makes him happy and this is his path, we got to let him do it.

00:25:32Marc:Right.

00:25:33Marc:Because the normal reaction is like, you're not going to make any money and it's going to be hard.

00:25:37Guest:yeah yeah and my mom was always trying to get me to go back to school or to try to do something else but then eventually when the band got to like a certain point where they were doing we were doing okay i mean my parents were always supportive but then they got really supportive and then they stopped telling me you know maybe you should when you could show them a record it's funny though right there's that leap from like look i made a thing to the to the next phase which is like where do they play that thing yeah yeah i don't where can i hear that thing that you made yeah

00:26:05Guest:Once it was on Sub Pop, once it was like a label that was like real.

00:26:09Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:26:10Guest:Once it was stuff like that that you could point to, they knew it was real.

00:26:13Guest:I'm on the same label as them.

00:26:15Guest:Right.

00:26:16Guest:Yeah.

00:26:16Guest:Once it's something they had heard of.

00:26:18Marc:Yeah.

00:26:19Marc:That's a big jump.

00:26:20Guest:Yeah.

00:26:21Marc:But then they still go like, but are you making the money?

00:26:24Guest:Yeah.

00:26:24Marc:Yeah.

00:26:24Marc:But OK, so you're growing up.

00:26:26Marc:Your dad's a piano player.

00:26:27Marc:Like what kind?

00:26:27Marc:Like classical jazz?

00:26:29Guest:He did.

00:26:30Guest:Yeah, it's like he did like big band stuff and show tunes like he did off Broadway stuff in New York.

00:26:36Marc:Oh, so he was a real musician.

00:26:38Guest:Right.

00:26:38Guest:Yeah.

00:26:39Guest:He was professional.

00:26:40Guest:He was in like the Air Force Band.

00:26:42Guest:And then, yeah, maybe like most of the 70s, he was in New York doing off Broadway stuff.

00:26:47Marc:Oh, really?

00:26:48Marc:So like weird experimental theater stuff?

00:26:50Guest:I don't know if it was too experimental.

00:26:51Guest:It was just smaller stuff.

00:26:53Marc:But like burlesque shows or variety shows or like, you know, torch song shows?

00:26:57Guest:Or like musicals.

00:26:58Guest:Oh, okay.

00:26:59Guest:And then he would go, like during the day, like singers would come to our apartment and they would rehearse with my dad and then he would accompany them to their auditions.

00:27:11Guest:So that was another thing.

00:27:13Marc:Yeah.

00:27:13Marc:That was how he made some bread.

00:27:15Marc:Right.

00:27:15Marc:Is that like, you know, let's work out the song and I'll be your accompanist.

00:27:18Guest:Yeah.

00:27:18Marc:And then they go to the audition and the woman will go, my name is so-and-so and accompany me is what's your name?

00:27:24Guest:Jeremy, Jeremy Harris.

00:27:25Marc:Jeremy Harris is going to be accompanying me.

00:27:27Guest:Right.

00:27:27Marc:And then he put the music on and then he'd look at her and do that.

00:27:33Marc:Exactly.

00:27:34Guest:Yeah.

00:27:34Marc:And then she'd nervously sing her song and maybe get the gig.

00:27:38Marc:And they'd say, yeah, I'm sorry.

00:27:40Marc:Do they say it right then?

00:27:41Marc:I wonder.

00:27:41Guest:No, no.

00:27:42Guest:What do they say?

00:27:43Guest:We'll call you.

00:27:44Guest:And your parents stayed together still?

00:27:45Guest:Yeah, my parents are still together.

00:27:47Marc:All that accompanying actresses and no problems.

00:27:50Guest:Good for him.

00:27:50Guest:Right.

00:27:51Guest:40-something years.

00:27:53Guest:Good job, Dad.

00:27:54Marc:So it sounds like that's a well-adjusted family.

00:27:59Marc:You seem like a well-adjusted guy.

00:28:01Marc:You don't seem all fucked up.

00:28:02Marc:When I saw you, I thought you were like, well, this guy seems to be angry about something.

00:28:07Marc:But maybe that was just the nature of the music.

00:28:09Guest:Yeah.

00:28:10Guest:I mean, don't we all get angry?

00:28:13Guest:Maybe I was angry that day.

00:28:14Marc:That day was a bad day.

00:28:15Marc:Well, South by is such a fucking mess.

00:28:17Guest:oh south by i know i i complain about it we've probably done it like four or five times but i do think it's good i do feel like young bands should have to go do it because the way like how it prepares you yeah to do you know because you make bands get up no sound check no nothing you gotta throw your gear on the stage in like five or ten minutes right and and play and you know it's like a million degrees and everyone's wasted and yeah so but i do think it's good i you know when i see like young bands doing i feel like yeah you should this it's good for you

00:28:46Marc:Well, the thing that was interesting about that day for me was that, you know, I like Craig and I like The Hold Steady.

00:28:53Marc:And they're sort of specific in my mind, but they're specifically kind of of a tradition of kind of American story.

00:29:02Marc:Yeah.

00:29:02Marc:You know, and but like.

00:29:05Marc:But I think he's very thoughtful and a very deep guy in a lot of ways.

00:29:09Marc:Craig is.

00:29:09Guest:Yeah, I love his lyrics.

00:29:10Marc:Yeah.

00:29:11Marc:And I was just surprised, and I guess it's not unusual, because Nirvana wrote a song about it, that the audience was primarily male, seemingly very bro-ish in their behavior.

00:29:23Marc:Yeah.

00:29:24Marc:And when you guys came on, you did well with them.

00:29:27Marc:They're definitely rock people.

00:29:29Marc:But it struck me that both of you guys have a sensitivity and I would say not an aversion to that type of dude, but are at odds with them on some level.

00:29:40Guest:For sure.

00:29:40Guest:And we had done, like, a couple.

00:29:42Guest:The whole study was one of those bands where, like, their first tour, they opened for us.

00:29:46Guest:And then, like, a year and a half later, we were opening for them.

00:29:49Guest:No.

00:29:49Guest:Because they took off.

00:29:50Guest:They started doing really well.

00:29:51Marc:But they were, like, old guys.

00:29:53Guest:Yeah, right.

00:29:53Guest:They had already gone through.

00:29:54Guest:You know, he did Lift or Puller for years.

00:29:56Guest:And, like, yeah.

00:29:57Guest:I mean, that was okay with us because we like them.

00:30:00Guest:Yeah.

00:30:00Guest:Like, as people very much and like their band.

00:30:03Guest:But, yeah, we...

00:30:04Guest:Their audience, it looked like a sports game.

00:30:08Guest:Yeah, right.

00:30:11Marc:Because they had that one big, the one big song was very much of like, yeah, songs.

00:30:18Guest:A lot of the songs.

00:30:19Guest:Yeah.

00:30:19Guest:I remember we played like a show on St.

00:30:22Guest:Patrick's Day opening for them in Columbus.

00:30:24Guest:Ohio?

00:30:25Guest:Yeah.

00:30:26Guest:Wow.

00:30:26Guest:And it looked like a frat party.

00:30:28Marc:Right.

00:30:29Marc:So did that cause you any trouble?

00:30:32Guest:No, but there's just a lot.

00:30:34Guest:You can't choose your audience.

00:30:37Guest:You can if you're specific enough.

00:30:40Guest:If you alienate, you purposely alienate the ones you don't want.

00:30:42Guest:It won't be a big audience.

00:30:44Guest:Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:30:45Guest:If you want a really small audience.

00:30:47Marc:You get exactly the people you want.

00:30:49Guest:I mean, there's a lot of audiences that you don't.

00:30:52Guest:I mean, that was like that goes back to Nirvana.

00:30:54Guest:He, you know, Kurt Cobain hated a lot of his audience because he just saw them as the jocks that picked on him in high school.

00:31:01Marc:Yeah.

00:31:02Marc:Well, I but that's the weird thing about music in general.

00:31:05Marc:And, you know, sort of coming back around to what we're talking about a little bit in.

00:31:08Marc:in the, uh, in the living room is that, you know, if you're, are they really hearing you, you know, like, are they processing, you know, your feelings about politics or religion or about, you know, uh, the dark poetry of, of, of any of your music, or are they just sort of like rocking out and is it, it doesn't matter on some level.

00:31:30Guest:Well, it should be okay if they're just rocking out.

00:31:32Guest:It's not.

00:31:32Guest:I mean, I don't think there's like an obligation for the fan to have to understand.

00:31:38Marc:They're not tested after the show.

00:31:41Guest:No, no.

00:31:41Guest:If you want them.

00:31:42Guest:I mean, if you really need them to get every lyric, maybe turn the lyrics up.

00:31:47Guest:Yeah.

00:31:47Guest:I would think that's more on the musician.

00:31:51Guest:Yeah.

00:31:51Marc:Well, I'm a little weird like that anyways, because I don't like I'm not a huge lyric guy.

00:31:57Guest:Me too.

00:31:57Guest:I am with my own.

00:31:58Guest:Right.

00:31:59Guest:When I'm writing.

00:31:59Guest:Right.

00:32:00Guest:But sometimes I'll think like, oh, man, I'll like list like some of my favorite songs.

00:32:04Guest:And then I don't really know what they're I don't know what they're singing.

00:32:06Guest:What are you?

00:32:07Guest:I think I go back to Nirvana or bands like The Pixies, where a lot of songs... I love that song.

00:32:14Guest:I have no idea.

00:32:15Guest:Or The Cure, even.

00:32:17Guest:There's a lot of bands where I just don't know... What they're talking about?

00:32:20Guest:Yeah, and that's okay.

00:32:21Guest:A lot of it's about a feeling.

00:32:23Marc:Sure.

00:32:23Marc:I guess I just hear the vocals as another instrument.

00:32:29Marc:I'm not trying to really relish...

00:32:33Marc:The poetry of the thing.

00:32:34Guest:Right, right.

00:32:35Guest:No, I think that's a good way to put it.

00:32:36Marc:And I feel like I'm doing a disservice though.

00:32:39Marc:Like even today when I was listening to the new record, to your new record, I put it on and I'm like, man, I should just see what he's saying.

00:32:48Marc:I'm about to talk to Hutch and I should see what he's saying.

00:32:54Marc:So what's the song on there?

00:32:56Marc:Code, No Code?

00:32:57Guest:Oh, Into the Code.

00:32:58Marc:Into the Code.

00:32:59Marc:Right.

00:32:59Marc:To me, I read that and I'm like, oh, I get this.

00:33:01Marc:This is about everything becoming digital.

00:33:03Guest:cool that's that's close enough right or that's enough i mean how many even if like you read all the lyrics to a lot of songs that you they don't spell it out for you i mean that's why of course that's why they're that's why they're poetry that's why it's a song yeah and that's like a luxury of writing poets uh poems or lyrics is because it doesn't have to make no just you know vague as you want it sound cool the vaguer the better sometimes yeah

00:33:27Marc:Yeah, I mean, if you look at some of Nirvana's stuff, it's just sort of like, what?

00:33:32Guest:The voice of his generation.

00:33:34Guest:And you're like, what are any of these songs about?

00:33:37Guest:But then it's just like the feeling.

00:33:38Guest:You know, like I love Fugazi, and I know they're singing about important stuff, but a lot of times I don't know what.

00:33:43Guest:But that sounds very important.

00:33:45Marc:Yeah.

00:33:46Marc:And they mean business.

00:33:47Marc:Right.

00:33:48Marc:They're approaching this seriously.

00:33:50Marc:Right.

00:33:50Marc:And I'm also, like, such a, like, I'm not a dumb old guy necessarily, but I really don't know what I was doing musically for a couple of decades.

00:33:57Marc:So, you know, everything's new to me.

00:33:59Marc:Like, I swear to God, like, I might have known one Fugazi song, and this was, like, two years ago.

00:34:06Marc:And then, like, I started, I bought the reissues of the vinyl.

00:34:09Marc:And it's like, wow, they're an amazing band.

00:34:10Marc:They did a lot of stuff, but I didn't know nothing about it.

00:34:13Guest:But isn't that so exciting?

00:34:15Guest:Yeah.

00:34:15Guest:Because then, like, yeah, I would think it would be way worse to think, well, I've heard it all.

00:34:19Marc:But I do that with a lot of stuff.

00:34:20Marc:Now, so you're growing up in Cupertino.

00:34:25Marc:Yeah.

00:34:26Marc:And then, what, do you end up in San Francisco?

00:34:28Marc:Where do you start the music?

00:34:29Marc:Like, what did you do?

00:34:30Marc:Did you go to college?

00:34:31Guest:I didn't go to college.

00:34:33Marc:Oh, so that must have freaked your parents out.

00:34:34Guest:Yeah, that was the worst possible thing.

00:34:37Guest:Because my dad had gone to Columbia and was like, yeah, and it was very...

00:34:41Guest:what was he an engineer or what yeah yeah um yeah yeah so my parents were not happy about that yeah um i just started playing in bands and just started touring so when i was probably like 18 or 19 when did you start playing guitar uh when i was 15. oh really that's kind of late no uh i don't know what i don't know i i guess i was given one at 11 and i reluctantly played

00:35:05Guest:I was like, my dad tried to teach me piano when I was a kid.

00:35:09Guest:Hated it.

00:35:09Guest:And then got me a saxophone.

00:35:11Guest:It was the 80s.

00:35:12Guest:Impractical.

00:35:13Guest:Yeah.

00:35:14Guest:And then so then finally guitar at 15.

00:35:17Guest:What kind?

00:35:18Guest:An Epiphone.

00:35:19Guest:Yeah?

00:35:19Guest:Yeah.

00:35:20Marc:Epiphone acoustic.

00:35:21Marc:Yeah.

00:35:21Marc:No, no, it was an electric.

00:35:22Marc:A little electric?

00:35:23Marc:Like a copy or a Gibson Epiphone?

00:35:25Guest:No, it was just really cheap.

00:35:27Guest:Yeah.

00:35:29Guest:And then Nevermind, Nirvana came out the next year.

00:35:33Guest:So that was perfect for me because I was into stuff like Guns N' Roses and Led Zeppelin and stuff.

00:35:38Guest:Stuff that was much harder.

00:35:39Guest:Weren't we all?

00:35:39Guest:Right.

00:35:41Guest:But it's not easy to play.

00:35:43Guest:Do you still have that?

00:35:44Guest:But then Nirvana came out and then that was like really, you know, everyone I knew was playing that whole record.

00:35:49Guest:And you could hear the guitar right up front.

00:35:50Guest:Right.

00:35:50Guest:And it was just chords.

00:35:51Guest:It wasn't fancy.

00:35:52Marc:The leads were just sort of broken up.

00:35:54Marc:It wasn't noodling.

00:35:56Marc:It wasn't overproduced.

00:35:57Marc:Right.

00:35:58Marc:You could just hear like, I can hear him playing.

00:36:00Marc:I should be able to play that.

00:36:01Guest:Yeah, I mean, that's whole my generation of guitar players, I feel like, is all that record.

00:36:06Guest:Oh, I could do that, you know?

00:36:08Marc:Yeah.

00:36:09Marc:Yeah, the sort of noodling nerds, the people that could do Eruption by Van Halen, that was the last generation.

00:36:18Guest:Yeah, and then it wasn't cool at all.

00:36:20Guest:Just playing well wasn't cool anymore after that for a while.

00:36:24Marc:Isn't that weird?

00:36:24Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:36:25Marc:There was a time where guitar geeks would sit there and just watch a guy noodle.

00:36:29Marc:They're still out there.

00:36:30Marc:Yeah.

00:36:30Marc:But then it became a tone thing and just a loud thing.

00:36:36Marc:I don't know.

00:36:37Marc:Simplicity, I guess.

00:36:38Marc:I guess that came after punk rock sort of did that.

00:36:42Marc:But you ever listen to old punk rock?

00:36:44Marc:Like not...

00:36:46Marc:Not punk rock, the generation after the Sex Pistols, where punk rock just became a sort of umbrella phrase for anything different.

00:36:53Guest:Right.

00:36:53Marc:But if you listen to the Sex Pistols, it's not that menacing.

00:36:56Marc:And actually not even that fast.

00:36:59Guest:No.

00:36:59Guest:Well, it's like the same way if you go back to those early Alice Cooper records.

00:37:02Guest:Yeah.

00:37:03Guest:Those were so scary at the time.

00:37:05Guest:And they're really cool, though.

00:37:07Guest:But yeah, that Sex Pistols record, it doesn't sound... It's just like, it's pretty basic.

00:37:10Guest:It's cool.

00:37:11Guest:It doesn't sound super tough.

00:37:11Guest:Yeah.

00:37:12Guest:Yeah.

00:37:12Guest:I mean, it's like a rock and roll record.

00:37:14Guest:Exactly.

00:37:14Marc:I don't know when the drumming started to happen.

00:37:21Marc:You know what I mean?

00:37:21Marc:At some point, punk rock began to be defined by these monster drummers.

00:37:26Guest:Right.

00:37:26Guest:Well, everything gets more muscly.

00:37:28Guest:Black Flag.

00:37:31Guest:You go from Eruption, Van Halen, to people like Joe Satriani, and all these guitar players that are just taking it too far.

00:37:36Marc:I'm falling asleep hearing their names.

00:37:38Marc:Right.

00:37:38Guest:Right.

00:37:38Guest:It's just, like, two people that concentrate only on, like, the tech side of stuff as opposed to songs.

00:37:44Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:37:44Guest:We get it.

00:37:44Guest:You can do that.

00:37:45Guest:So then same with punk, you know, hardcore in the 80s.

00:37:47Guest:Hardcore.

00:37:48Guest:You know, in East Coast, it starts getting just about being tough.

00:37:50Guest:And then, like, I mean, a lot of that crazy drumming, I think, comes from actually SoCal because you have, like, all the bands that are on Fat Records, like, getting, yeah, all these bands, like, really tightening up.

00:38:00Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:38:01Guest:It's kind of jockey in that way.

00:38:05Guest:It is weird.

00:38:06Marc:There is an alpha element to it.

00:38:08Marc:That's true.

00:38:09Marc:I never really thought about it.

00:38:09Marc:When you really think about Rollins, when he became the front guy for Black Flag, you're sort of like, well, this guy is punk rock, but I'm nervous.

00:38:18Guest:Right.

00:38:19Guest:He's got that neck.

00:38:20Guest:I love Rollins.

00:38:21Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:38:21Marc:Yeah, he's great.

00:38:22Marc:He's a character.

00:38:23Marc:He's a very earnest motherfucker.

00:38:25Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:38:26Guest:I heard you interview him.

00:38:27Guest:Yeah, he's very serious.

00:38:29Marc:Yeah, he'll talk.

00:38:30Marc:Right.

00:38:30Marc:Yeah, you know, you've actually, you know, the trick to interviewing Rollins is getting him to stop at times.

00:38:36Guest:Thank God.

00:38:38Marc:Can I interrupt for a second?

00:38:39Marc:I know you know what you're going to say, but I just want to feel like I'm part of the conversation.

00:38:44Guest:It's just all a monologue.

00:38:46Guest:Well, he's good at that.

00:38:47Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:38:47Guest:I mean, I used to listen to his spoken word records in high school.

00:38:49Marc:I worked with him for a couple weeks.

00:38:51Marc:Me, him, and Garofalo did some dates, and initially it was like, let's just pull straws on who's going to go last.

00:38:57Marc:And I'm like, why don't we just let Henry go last?

00:38:59Guest:Right.

00:38:59Guest:You don't want to follow.

00:39:00Guest:Two hours?

00:39:01Guest:It's like a TED Talk.

00:39:02Guest:Yeah, he can't.

00:39:03Marc:Like a really long TED Talk.

00:39:05Marc:Right.

00:39:07Marc:so so when you get to where do you start playing in bands around san francisco uh yeah in san jose um but before we get there because like i listen to you guys and like you know for some reason like bands like some of the boston bands really come to mind from when i was you know uh in college wait so what what uh like for some reason like there was um there's a feeling to it that um

00:39:30Marc:was more punk rock in the sense of like uh you know like a fire hose or yeah more definitely right more experimental bands right like throwing muses for some reason for sure yeah yeah and because bands that were like i mean what is that i think of that as being like college rock because that's what they called it then like it was the first wave of independent music when it was still a relatively small i think market share for selling records but yeah it defined the type of radio

00:39:56Guest:I mean, I think of like Pavement and the Breeders.

00:39:57Guest:Right, exactly.

00:39:58Guest:Yeah, that era.

00:40:00Marc:Right, the Breeders, yeah.

00:40:01Guest:Because you're not like a punk.

00:40:02Guest:Because we were never, you know, I never had like a leather jacket with studs.

00:40:05Marc:But it was not, but it wasn't like college rock in the sense where you, you know, it seemed to me that what defined that era was,

00:40:14Marc:like was rem so there was a type of rock music that was not really punk rock or necessarily hard but not mainstream until it became mainstream right and that took a while for rem but and it was very sensitive yeah yeah when i was in college it was like um the pixies were coming on yeah throwing muses i loved because they were local and belly yeah and the breeders yeah like that there is a bunch of bands around boston i'm trying to think of some of the other ones dinosaur jr

00:40:40Marc:Sure, yeah, yeah.

00:40:42Marc:So that was harder, but I feel like that first early wave, I don't know when REM happened, but they were like the alt music, but then there was all these other bands.

00:40:50Marc:Sonic Youth was a little older, too, though.

00:40:52Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:40:53Marc:So that stuff was pouring into you.

00:40:55Guest:For sure, because that's like the last, you know, all these bands we're mentioning all played like those early Lollapalooza tours, which for me is like sophomore and junior, senior year of high school.

00:41:04Guest:Really?

00:41:05Guest:So seeing like all, seeing like Dinosaur Jr., Breeders, Sonic Youth, Hole, Smashing Pumpkins, that's all one Lollapalooza.

00:41:12Marc:Right.

00:41:12Guest:Yeah.

00:41:13Marc:Hole and Smashing Pumpkins.

00:41:14Marc:Right.

00:41:15Marc:So when do you start, what's the first band?

00:41:19Guest:So I had a band called Bunch of Losers.

00:41:21Guest:No, I had a band called Zephaniah.

00:41:22Guest:This is like when I'm 15 and 16.

00:41:24Guest:These are like bands that mostly just played like at our high school.

00:41:28Guest:Like there'd be shows like in the quad.

00:41:31Marc:And like, and who are your heroes?

00:41:32Marc:What are you playing?

00:41:33Marc:You playing originals or covers?

00:41:34Marc:Yeah.

00:41:34Marc:Did you do any covers?

00:41:36Guest:We did a ministry cover.

00:41:38Guest:Yeah.

00:41:39Guest:That song, So What?

00:41:40Guest:Then we're just... It's funny because we were like Nirvana and Pearl Jam and all the big grunge bands or the bands we're listening to right then.

00:41:47Guest:But then we're really into... There were a lot of bands...

00:41:51Guest:Funk thrash was what was huge.

00:41:53Guest:Like in San Jose and Oakland, and we'd go to shows in Oakland and Berkeley, and there was this band called Nuclear Rabbit, and no one, we would cover other local band songs.

00:42:04Guest:We played a Nuclear Rabbit song.

00:42:06Guest:Funk thrash?

00:42:07Marc:What world is that?

00:42:08Marc:Give me a big name.

00:42:09Guest:Like Primus.

00:42:10Guest:Okay, okay.

00:42:11Marc:Chili Peppers?

00:42:12Guest:Yeah, definitely Chili Peppers are in there, too.

00:42:14Guest:Yeah, we love them.

00:42:15Marc:Fishbone?

00:42:15Guest:Yeah, for sure.

00:42:16Guest:Loved Fishbone.

00:42:17Guest:We'd go see Fishbone all the time.

00:42:19Marc:That first Fishbone record was huge.

00:42:21Guest:Yeah, that's great.

00:42:21Guest:And the Truth in Soul, that's another.

00:42:23Guest:Yeah, we actually got to play this festival in France a couple years ago that Fishbone played and got to meet them.

00:42:28Guest:Oh, really?

00:42:29Guest:Yeah, I think those guys are really cool.

00:42:32Marc:He's back at it?

00:42:32Marc:I mean, like...

00:42:33Guest:It's like two.

00:42:34Guest:It's like Angelo and Norwood, I think, are the original members.

00:42:38Guest:Who was the front man?

00:42:39Guest:Angelo.

00:42:40Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:42:41Guest:There's a really good documentary about them and about him, and he's in LA living at his mom's house.

00:42:49Guest:It's fascinating, though.

00:42:51Guest:It is?

00:42:51Guest:Yeah.

00:42:51Marc:Is he okay?

00:42:52Guest:I think so.

00:42:54Marc:I guess it's okay as you can be.

00:42:55Marc:Yeah.

00:42:57Marc:Okay, so that was compelling you.

00:42:59Marc:So you were doing some of that drive.

00:43:01Marc:Did you have a good drummer?

00:43:02Yeah.

00:43:04Marc:Sure.

00:43:07Marc:Those guys, what were the, in those first two bands in high school, are any of those guys?

00:43:10Guest:It's funny, there are two drummers, they were both named Mike, Mike Stewart.

00:43:13Guest:Now, I haven't heard from him in a while.

00:43:15Guest:Mike Butler, who played a bunch of losers, he just moved to Portland.

00:43:18Guest:A lot of people I've kept, like, really close in touch with.

00:43:21Guest:And, you know, the whole Portland thing is everyone from California moves there.

00:43:24Guest:So a ton of people I grew up with live in Portland now.

00:43:26Marc:Well, I want to hear that evolution.

00:43:28Marc:So you do the high school bands.

00:43:30Marc:And when do you put together?

00:43:31Marc:When do you meet?

00:43:32Guest:Yeah, Kathy and I start playing together in like 96.

00:43:37Guest:And then we toured around for a couple years.

00:43:39Guest:And then we moved to Portland in 98.

00:43:42Guest:And so we had a band called Hala.

00:43:43Marc:So you meet and you're romantically involved.

00:43:46Guest:Not for a couple years.

00:43:48Guest:We met, we played together for a couple years, dated for a couple years, and then broke up and then just kept playing.

00:43:55Guest:Because everyone, most people I had met, most musicians I knew were so flaky, it was so hard to keep a band together.

00:44:02Guest:That's why I did the first Thermals record alone, because it was just easier to just learn how to play everything and just do it as opposed to trying to keep a band together.

00:44:10Marc:Did you move to San Francisco, though, before?

00:44:12Marc:No.

00:44:13Marc:Did you live in San Francisco at all?

00:44:15Marc:No, no, I've never lived there.

00:44:16Marc:So you were just up in Cupertino?

00:44:18Guest:Right.

00:44:19Marc:Playing music?

00:44:20Marc:When you met Kathy?

00:44:21Marc:How'd you meet Kathy in Cupertino?

00:44:23Guest:Okay, I met Kathy at Shoreline Amphitheater.

00:44:25Guest:Shoreline was where all the concerts we went to.

00:44:30Guest:I saw Tom Petty there.

00:44:31Guest:Yeah, all the big stuff.

00:44:32Guest:Tom Petty, Van Halen, Guns N' Roses.

00:44:36Marc:But we met- You saw them on that first tour?

00:44:38Marc:Like Guns N' Roses?

00:44:39Guest:It wasn't the first one.

00:44:40Guest:It was like one of the last ones before.

00:44:42Guest:it all like fell apart with all the original guys right yeah all except for the drummer oh yeah it was great it was i mean guns and roses were like one of my favorite bands like in high school uh yeah it was great but i saw tom petty on the wildflowers tour there and that was awesome oh yeah it was great so so good he's so good yeah so good

00:44:58Guest:um but you know the grateful dead would play there at least once a year or so and we would i did go to one yeah i went to one dead show there but i like we would just go to the parking lot just to get drugs and that's how i met kathy because kathy was in the parking lot and her friend was selling like ganja goo balls yeah and it was just like

00:45:17Marc:That was before edibles, like the weird sort of- Yeah, these were early edibles.

00:45:21Guest:Yeah, homemade edibles.

00:45:22Guest:Right, yeah.

00:45:23Guest:It's just like this gooey ball.

00:45:24Guest:And it was like raisins and maybe there's some chocolate.

00:45:27Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:45:28Guest:You're just like chewing up- Something healthy.

00:45:31Guest:Yeah.

00:45:31Guest:It wasn't like fun to eat, but yeah, because you fucked up.

00:45:34Guest:You know, go get like a nitrous balloon.

00:45:36Guest:You know, some guy just has a Volkswagen bus just selling balloons out of it.

00:45:40Guest:So yeah, so a lot of times, you know, you just go and hang out in the parking lot all day.

00:45:43Guest:Were you a dead fan?

00:45:44Guest:Not really.

00:45:44Guest:My sister was a big dead fan, so eventually I did.

00:45:47Guest:I went to a show with her, and that was probably just half a year or so before Jerry Garcia died, so one of the last shows there.

00:45:55Marc:They were pretty fun.

00:45:56Guest:It was interesting for me.

00:45:58Guest:I had a friend that I ran into at the show, and she was just- Like a closet deadhead?

00:46:03Marc:She didn't want to be caught there?

00:46:04Guest:No, no, no.

00:46:04Guest:She was very, very into them, and she was one of these people who's not having any fun at the show.

00:46:09Guest:She would catalog.

00:46:11Guest:She's just keeping track of every song that was-

00:46:14Guest:notes the whole show an archivist one of the many dead archivists so many so it seemed like work for her it was interesting we took mushrooms I'm not one of those people that hates the dead but I never got sucked in so you meet her in the parking lot getting ganja balls

00:46:31Guest:Ganja Goo Balls?

00:46:32Guest:Ganja Goo Balls, yeah.

00:46:33Guest:So that's how we met.

00:46:34Guest:And then she had a band.

00:46:35Guest:And she was a bass player?

00:46:36Guest:She was a drummer.

00:46:36Guest:And Kathy's actually played drums on a couple Thermals records.

00:46:40Guest:She's a great drummer.

00:46:41Guest:We, like, the first band I played in with Kathy was called Hala, and she played drums in that band.

00:46:47Marc:So that's your third band or fourth band?

00:46:49Guest:Yeah, it was probably, like, the third or fourth band.

00:46:52Marc:I think I have a Hutch and Kathy record.

00:46:54Guest:Oh, right.

00:46:54Guest:So, yeah, so that's from 2002.

00:46:56Guest:That's, like, right before we did the Thermals, we did that record.

00:46:59Marc:It was, like, just the two of yous?

00:47:01Guest:Yeah, and that was just something we kind of just pieced together.

00:47:03Guest:We both had like 8-track real machines at our houses, and so we'd do some at mine, some at hers, and then just kind of, yeah.

00:47:10Marc:Were you together then?

00:47:12Guest:We weren't, no.

00:47:13Guest:And a lot of that record is about us breaking up and like about, yeah, we'd already been broken up.

00:47:17Marc:So it starts musically, becomes romantic, and then you break up.

00:47:21Marc:Right.

00:47:21Marc:And you remain friends.

00:47:23Marc:Right.

00:47:23Marc:Yeah.

00:47:24Marc:God, I can't, like, that's amazing that there was no sort of distance in that.

00:47:28Marc:Like, if I'm friends with an ex, it's like years later, and it's more like, hey, okay.

00:47:33Guest:Yeah, I'm friends with all my exes, or most of them.

00:47:36Marc:And a lot of times- You must be a relatively nice guy.

00:47:39Marc:I'm all right.

00:47:41Yeah.

00:47:41Marc:Well, yeah, I mean, obviously they weren't like, I got to get away from it.

00:47:44Marc:No, no, no.

00:47:46Guest:And with Kathy and I, there wasn't even that much of a break between us breaking.

00:47:49Guest:Yeah, I think we broke up.

00:47:51Guest:Well, we got to practice tomorrow.

00:47:53Guest:So it was.

00:47:54Marc:Well, that's good.

00:47:54Marc:So it was built on some sort of other type of bond.

00:47:57Guest:Well, yeah, and it's just that we like working together on music, and I have never really had that with anyone else, where you're like, this person, you both understand each other and trust each other.

00:48:07Marc:Yeah, that's sweet.

00:48:09Marc:Yeah.

00:48:10Marc:So you're playing... Well, tell me about the move to Portland, because that's early on, really.

00:48:16Guest:Right.

00:48:18Marc:What drove that?

00:48:20Guest:Okay, so we... This is like...

00:48:23Guest:We were like, we got to get out of San Jose.

00:48:25Guest:There's no scene.

00:48:26Guest:It was kind of a punk scene, but it kind of died.

00:48:29Guest:And we would love to live in San Francisco, but San Francisco was already so expensive.

00:48:34Guest:We just couldn't afford to live there.

00:48:37Guest:And Kathy had gone to fashion design school in San Francisco, and we really wanted to, but...

00:48:40Guest:Yeah, just couldn't afford it.

00:48:42Guest:So we're like, let's move to the East Coast.

00:48:44Guest:So we had a friend.

00:48:44Guest:We were going to move to Philly.

00:48:46Guest:We did this tour.

00:48:47Guest:We ended up outside of Philly.

00:48:49Guest:The guy we were going to live with is terrible.

00:48:51Guest:It all fell apart.

00:48:52Guest:We ended up living in Maine, in Portland, Maine, for seven or eight months because we had really good friends there.

00:48:58Guest:The guy was terrible that you moved in with?

00:49:00Guest:Yeah, this dude that we were going to live with, we were like, this is just not going to work.

00:49:04Marc:Philly of all places.

00:49:05Marc:Right.

00:49:05Guest:Yeah.

00:49:05Guest:I like Philly.

00:49:06Guest:You know, it's a great city.

00:49:07Guest:Yeah, it's really cool.

00:49:07Marc:But I didn't know it was known for its music scene, punk scene.

00:49:10Guest:It's funny because I feel like the scene there right now is really cool.

00:49:13Guest:But yeah, I don't know what was going.

00:49:15Guest:You know, a lot of just like the psychedelic stuff was going on.

00:49:18Guest:Right.

00:49:19Guest:Anyway, not that we would have fit in with that either.

00:49:21Guest:But yeah, so we end up, we had good friends in Portland, Maine.

00:49:24Guest:We ended up just living just one kind of like stoned winter in Portland, Maine.

00:49:29Guest:And then, yeah, and then like spring of 97...

00:49:32Guest:We don't want to go back to California, but Portland, we knew people.

00:49:37Guest:Yeah.

00:49:37Guest:Portland, Oregon, we knew people that lived there.

00:49:40Guest:And Kathy and I had been there on tours or just to visit.

00:49:43Guest:And we knew that it was really cheap.

00:49:45Guest:The music scene was already kind of cool.

00:49:47Guest:Yeah.

00:49:47Guest:So it just seemed like a good idea.

00:49:49Guest:Like, who was there in the music scene?

00:49:50Guest:So that's like, Elliott Smith is still living there.

00:49:53Guest:Sleater Kinney had just kind of moved there after being split between Olympia and Portland.

00:49:59Guest:Uh-huh.

00:50:01Guest:there was you know there was just like a lot of like small punk bands and there was just like a lot of or like a few like just small like all ages like hole in the wall type venues right and just a lot of good like house shows you know we were like 21 when we moved there so there was just like

00:50:16Marc:And it hadn't blown up.

00:50:17Marc:It hadn't become what it is.

00:50:19Guest:Right.

00:50:19Guest:Not at all.

00:50:20Marc:It was kind of a beaten city in a way.

00:50:21Guest:Right.

00:50:22Guest:It was just kind of weird and dark.

00:50:25Guest:Yeah.

00:50:25Guest:Right.

00:50:26Guest:Yeah.

00:50:26Guest:It was kind of creepy.

00:50:27Guest:Yeah.

00:50:27Guest:It was cool.

00:50:28Marc:And so you did the, and at that point you moved there.

00:50:32Marc:And when do you do the first record?

00:50:34Guest:So we're there for a while before, you know, we do Hala for a couple of years.

00:50:38Guest:Kathy and I record the Hutch and Kathy record.

00:50:41Guest:And then I like in 2002, just at my house, I recorded that first thermals record without.

00:50:49Marc:How come without her?

00:50:52Guest:It was just like... At that point, it wasn't a band.

00:50:55Guest:It wasn't like anything.

00:50:56Guest:It was just kind of like this project I was doing at my house.

00:50:59Guest:Yeah.

00:50:59Guest:I would just come home from work and just write these songs.

00:51:02Guest:So it wasn't like... It was just like, I'm going to do this.

00:51:05Guest:Yeah.

00:51:06Guest:You know, just because.

00:51:07Guest:Yeah.

00:51:08Guest:Because I like to record.

00:51:08Marc:Right.

00:51:09Marc:Right.

00:51:10Marc:And, and then you play it for her and you go, we got a tour with this stuff.

00:51:13Guest:It was something where like immediate, like anyone I played it for got really excited about it.

00:51:17Guest:Cause it was just, you know, it's the recording is like lower than lo-fi, you know, it's like just a really kind of like crazy crappy recording, but it sounds cool.

00:51:28Guest:Like the energy was really cool.

00:51:29Guest:And anyone I played it for, like really liked it.

00:51:32Guest:And like when Kathy and I were on the Hutch and Kathy tour, like it was only been a couple months.

00:51:39Guest:What do you mean a tour?

00:51:40Guest:It was just the two of us like in a Corolla.

00:51:43Guest:It was like just playing just tiny shows to almost no one.

00:51:48Guest:Yeah.

00:51:48Guest:I mean, which is, which had, that's how a lot of our tours had been like up until that point.

00:51:54Guest:That's not what we knew as tour.

00:51:56Guest:We booked it ourselves.

00:51:57Marc:Right.

00:51:57Marc:But do you just accept that or is that heartbreaking in a way?

00:52:00No.

00:52:00Guest:No, you just have the feeling like things are going to get better if we just keep doing this.

00:52:06Marc:Right, because this is the way it's laid out.

00:52:08Marc:Everyone has to do this.

00:52:10Guest:Right, yeah.

00:52:11Guest:And we were still, we were like 23 or 24 when we were doing that.

00:52:15Guest:So yeah, so we didn't feel, we just felt like we're moving in the right direction.

00:52:19Marc:So how do you, like the first record is on a smaller label, your record.

00:52:27Guest:The Hutch and Kathy record, yeah.

00:52:29Guest:But more parts for millions?

00:52:30Guest:No, that's on Sub Pop.

00:52:31Marc:It is?

00:52:31Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:52:32Marc:So how does that happen?

00:52:33Guest:Okay, so we put a little band together of just friends of ours.

00:52:37Guest:Kathy and I were friends with this guy, Jordan, who was living with us, and he played drums, and then our friend Ben Barnett played guitar, and then I just sang.

00:52:49Guest:Ben Barnett introduced us to Ben Gibbard, who's from Death Cab for Cutie, and was doing the Postal Service record with Sub Pop.

00:52:57Guest:and so we gave it to you know uh gave it to ben gibbard and then ben gibbard gave it to sub pop the record that you made yourself right right and so when kathy and i were on tour just we got an email from sub pop it all happened like really quickly like so quickly that i didn't really like i thought someone was pranking us at first i thought i don't think right like actually someone from sub pop yeah yeah that wants to put out the record

00:53:21Guest:But yeah, so they were like, hey, do you want to come?

00:53:23Guest:Yeah, Kathy and I were on tour, and Thermals hadn't even practiced.

00:53:27Guest:There was no band.

00:53:27Guest:There was just that recording.

00:53:28Guest:They were like, do you want to come play in Seattle?

00:53:31Guest:And so we were like, sure, we got to give us a couple months because we're on tour, and we didn't tell them, but we were like, there's no band.

00:53:39Guest:Yeah.

00:53:39Guest:Let us just make the band that you want to sign first.

00:53:43Guest:But that was like, you know.

00:53:45Guest:And that was after so many years of sending CDs to Sub Pop, all these labels we wanted to be on and never hearing anything back.

00:53:51Guest:And then here was this thing that we had made that we had given to a couple people but hadn't sent to labels.

00:53:57Marc:But that was how it always works.

00:53:59Marc:It's an inside job.

00:54:00Marc:Right.

00:54:01Marc:They just throw the things you send on the pile.

00:54:03Marc:Yep.

00:54:04Marc:I get records all the time from people.

00:54:07Marc:And it's very odd.

00:54:08Marc:That, like, why do I, like, lock into one?

00:54:14Marc:Like, I'll usually give them all a listen.

00:54:16Marc:Uh-huh.

00:54:17Marc:But it's just so rare that you put one on and you go like, what's going on?

00:54:21Marc:There's something here.

00:54:23Guest:Yeah.

00:54:23Marc:It just happened the other day with some weird record from, I think, Maple Leaf Records.

00:54:28Marc:Uh-huh.

00:54:29Marc:I don't remember, I'll show you the record, but also that guy, Nathan from Rivulets, these people send me records and I'll put it on and maybe the other records resonate with other people, but it's such a crapshoot.

00:54:44Guest:Yeah, definitely.

00:54:44Marc:It has to be a guy looking at a box of shit

00:54:47Marc:that's come into Sub Pop and just be like, eh, maybe you'll throw... If even that, I'm going to try this.

00:54:53Guest:Yeah, yeah, you should be so lucky just to get a listen.

00:54:56Marc:Yeah, right.

00:54:57Marc:And it's not anyone's fault.

00:54:58Marc:Because I think when you have hopes and dreams and you're the guy sitting at home in your living room with your 8-track and you put this thing together, it's all about you.

00:55:07Marc:But you really don't want to think...

00:55:09Marc:that it's just going to go directly from your hands into a box of other things that look exactly like it.

00:55:16Guest:Right.

00:55:16Marc:You want to think there's some process where the guy goes, oh, this one.

00:55:20Guest:Well, yeah, but that's up to you.

00:55:21Guest:I mean, you know, the rule is supposed to be like you put the greatest, put the best song first because most people aren't going to make it past that first song.

00:55:30Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:55:31Guest:Did you do that?

00:55:31Guest:No.

00:55:32Guest:No.

00:55:34Guest:You know, and that's what a lot of bands, you send them the whole record and, oh, I'm going to put the, you know, there's the intro song and then, you know, the best song is like the fourth or fifth song.

00:55:45Guest:Right.

00:55:45Guest:But yeah, and they don't care.

00:55:46Guest:Yeah.

00:55:47Guest:And they shouldn't.

00:55:48Guest:They're drowning, you know.

00:55:51Marc:Well, I mean, like you want there to be, it's just, it's weird how these things work because they're, like, occasionally there's a story where, like, you know, a friend of mine,

00:55:59Marc:Got a lot of unsolicited stuff.

00:56:01Marc:And he was really just working for the manager of the cure in the BMG building in New York.

00:56:09Marc:But he was getting unsolicited stuff.

00:56:13Marc:And he'd throw it on occasionally.

00:56:14Marc:He just found this one thing.

00:56:15Marc:that you know became this huge where he just felt that it was a hit and he made this thing a hit from this demo that somebody sent and it was a one hit thing but it sort of established him as a a guy who can find music right yeah uh and you hope that that guy gets it yeah yeah but the music doesn't work like that anymore but you're still at that time

00:56:35Marc:there was still a sort of, you know, tactile music business.

00:56:39Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:56:39Guest:No, I always say that because we, you know, the first couple records we did, they were still like 8x10 glossies.

00:56:45Guest:Yeah.

00:56:45Guest:And you would actually send out a CD with a paper press release.

00:56:48Guest:And then by the third record, it's all digital.

00:56:51Guest:You know, the...

00:56:52Guest:When we got signed, the labels were still trying to figure out, like, how do we not, you know, how do we not get this leaked or get this stolen?

00:56:58Guest:And, like, Pearl Jam's label, I think it was Epic or Columbia was doing, they were sending CD, like, Discmans out.

00:57:06Guest:Locked.

00:57:06Guest:They were glued.

00:57:07Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:57:08Guest:And then we're like, well, anyone that wants to, they just run a cable to whatever.

00:57:11Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:57:12Guest:People will still be able to figure it out.

00:57:13Guest:But, yeah, but all that, like, disappeared.

00:57:16Guest:It all happened so quickly.

00:57:17Guest:Right.

00:57:17Guest:So quickly.

00:57:18Marc:But you guys, all your records are on vinyl, and you put thought into the artwork.

00:57:22Marc:Yeah.

00:57:22Marc:I always like the artwork.

00:57:23Guest:Oh, cool.

00:57:23Guest:Thanks.

00:57:23Guest:Yeah.

00:57:24Guest:I do that or I do that or we collaborate on that.

00:57:26Guest:But most of those.

00:57:27Guest:Yeah.

00:57:27Marc:Yeah.

00:57:27Marc:It's like these montage kind of like cut and think.

00:57:30Guest:Yeah.

00:57:31Guest:Yeah.

00:57:31Guest:You want them to all.

00:57:32Guest:I like when you lay out all the records together and they all kind of.

00:57:34Guest:Yeah.

00:57:35Guest:Yeah.

00:57:35Guest:It's an art show.

00:57:35Guest:Yeah.

00:57:36Guest:Yeah.

00:57:36Guest:For sure.

00:57:37Marc:This guy's got a style on the cover, too.

00:57:38Guest:Yeah.

00:57:38Guest:And you kind of want it to match the music, too.

00:57:40Guest:Like it's kind of this scrappy.

00:57:42Guest:Yeah.

00:57:42Guest:Imperfect.

00:57:43Marc:it does it definitely it does match it so alright so Gibbard gets you in and you put together the band you put a couple months together teach these people how to play the songs that you made and then what happens you play for Sub Pop we play for Sub Pop they like it a lot they want us where'd you do that

00:57:59Guest:It was a thing where, like, there was a show in the main room, and there was just, like, a little cafe attached, and we just played on the floor in the cafe.

00:58:07Guest:Uh-huh.

00:58:08Marc:For a small audience?

00:58:09Guest:Yeah, yeah, for mostly just people that worked at Sub Pop.

00:58:13Marc:Oh, wow.

00:58:13Guest:And then went in.

00:58:14Marc:That's a pressure thing.

00:58:15Guest:Yeah, right?

00:58:16Guest:Because this was, like, I mean, we're always, like, trying, you know, sending our stuff out to all these labels, but Sub Pop was, like, the one for us.

00:58:23Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:58:24Guest:For so long.

00:58:25Marc:It meant something to you.

00:58:26Guest:Right, yeah.

00:58:27Guest:Just like so many of our favorite bands.

00:58:28Guest:Like who?

00:58:29Guest:Like Nirvana?

00:58:30Guest:Well, first like the grunge ones like Nirvana and Mudhoney, but then like bands like Eric's Trip and just, you know, just kind of the weirder stuff.

00:58:37Guest:Yeah.

00:58:38Guest:Sebado.

00:58:39Guest:Yeah.

00:58:39Guest:Yeah, just like, yeah, so many different bands.

00:58:43Marc:So you're playing, so you like Sub Pop.

00:58:46Guest:Yeah, yeah, so we love Sub Pop.

00:58:47Guest:So that was ultimate.

00:58:48Guest:Like, there was no way we weren't going to sign to Sub Pop.

00:58:50Guest:Yeah, we really wanted.

00:58:51Guest:And, you know, so we went to the office the next day.

00:58:54Guest:And also, you know, they had just, the Shins record had come out.

00:58:58Guest:Sub Pop was kind of having, like, this rebirth.

00:59:01Guest:Yeah, and, you know, Jonathan Poneman, he attributed it to the Shins.

00:59:07Guest:Yeah, it's a good record.

00:59:08Guest:Oh, yeah, it's a great record.

00:59:09Marc:I just listened to one of those songs yesterday.

00:59:11Guest:Came up on my shuffle.

00:59:12Guest:Yeah.

00:59:13Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:59:13Marc:It was rock, man.

00:59:14Marc:It had a good drive to it.

00:59:15Marc:It's fun.

00:59:16Guest:Yeah, they're great.

00:59:16Guest:It's one of those bands that, like, they were, like, a little weird.

00:59:19Guest:And then I feel like a lot of bands, that kind of became, like, the new sub-pop sound.

00:59:26Guest:Yeah.

00:59:26Guest:It was these bands who were rock, but it was, like, a little soft and pretty, but different than what sub-pop had been doing up until then.

00:59:33Marc:yeah yeah they kind of reinvented themselves so you play the show and they're like okay great yeah but they didn't record they they just released the record you made right and they did want us to re-record it and we didn't want to um you know they wanted to put us back in the studio and like make it sound this is great for a living room record right

00:59:52Guest:But to me, it sounded like Eric's Tripper, Elevator to Hell.

00:59:56Guest:I was like, a lot of the records that have inspired this record are sub-pop records, and the recordings are garbage, and I want mine to be that way, too.

01:00:07Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:00:08Guest:Special, yeah.

01:00:08Guest:Garbage record.

01:00:09Guest:Yeah, I want to put out my crappy record on sub-pop.

01:00:13Marc:and they let you yeah yeah they did they were yeah i mean every label we've been on has been really good about letting us do just whatever right but that's an interesting thing to me that you know um what what happens you you know what i mean like like so you're on you're you're on sub pop your first album that you actually record with them you're produced by a big producer for them yeah yeah chris wallah

01:00:38Marc:And, you know, he's done, like, you know, all the Death Cab for Cutie records.

01:00:41Marc:And so that's a little juice, right?

01:00:45Guest:Yeah, yeah, definitely.

01:00:46Marc:They're setting you up to be received.

01:00:49Guest:Right.

01:00:49Guest:And so then, like, Death Cab just helped us out so much because Ben helped us get signed.

01:00:53Guest:And then Chris mixed that first record and produced the second one.

01:00:56Guest:And then they took us on tour.

01:00:57Guest:He remixed your record.

01:00:58Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:00:58Guest:So it didn't make it sound any better.

01:01:02Guest:The original, you know, there's only so much you can do with a four-track cassette.

01:01:07Marc:For this generation, like, yeah, he's a big producer.

01:01:10Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.

01:01:11Guest:And he's done, like, Decembris and Tegan and Sarah.

01:01:14Marc:Yeah.

01:01:14Guest:The stuff that Chris, yeah, Chris always has interesting stories.

01:01:17Guest:He said, like, Steely Dan called him up, and it wasn't even to produce a record.

01:01:21Guest:They just wanted him to, like, come out and hang.

01:01:23Guest:He just went and, like, hung out with Steely Dan.

01:01:26Guest:Sure, sure, sure.

01:01:27Marc:Give us some relevance.

01:01:28Guest:Right.

01:01:29Guest:Yeah.

01:01:29Guest:Right.

01:01:29Marc:We need a guy to make us hip for the kids.

01:01:32Marc:Right.

01:01:34Marc:Yeah.

01:01:34Marc:So he does the fucking A record.

01:01:37Guest:Right, yeah.

01:01:38Marc:And that's all you did that.

01:01:40Marc:Is that considered a full record?

01:01:43Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:01:44Guest:I mean, all our records are short.

01:01:46Guest:It's like 25 minutes or half an hour.

01:01:48Marc:That's unusual for the world we live in.

01:01:50Marc:Aren't you supposed to dump everything you've ever done into each record?

01:01:53Guest:Are you?

01:01:54Marc:I don't know.

01:01:54Guest:I mean, we're a punk band, so all the songs are really short.

01:01:58Guest:Yeah, I mean, I never complain if I'm listening to a record and it's short.

01:02:02Guest:Me neither.

01:02:03Marc:You're like, we didn't need these last four.

01:02:05Guest:Yeah, and why is the last song always like eight minutes and they jam?

01:02:09Guest:Because they could.

01:02:10Guest:Yeah.

01:02:11Marc:I mean, it's like, I guess it's more bang for the buck.

01:02:13Marc:I guess on some level, if someone looks at a CD or a digital download, they're like, there's a lot of shit on here.

01:02:17Marc:Right.

01:02:18Marc:And then they realize, like, there's a lot of shit on there.

01:02:20Guest:Yeah, you don't want someone to, like, love the first half of your record and buy, you know.

01:02:23Guest:Yeah, no, it's good to keep it tight.

01:02:25Marc:Keep them wanting more.

01:02:26Marc:Right.

01:02:26Marc:Or to wonder why he didn't do more.

01:02:28Guest:Just start the record over again if you need to keep listening.

01:02:32Marc:That's what it is.

01:02:33Marc:We made it short so you listen to it three times.

01:02:35Guest:Listen to it twice.

01:02:35Marc:You just let it go and you're like, did we hear this again?

01:02:39Marc:Did we hear this already?

01:02:40Marc:Yeah.

01:02:41Guest:You're saying that the first time you listened to it.

01:02:43Marc:Hmm.

01:02:44Marc:So you sort of define your sound, because the sound of more parts per million and moving into it, you definitely, I feel like you got bigger in the productions, fuller, and you started sounding like a band that had its own tone and its own style.

01:03:03Marc:And so you stay on Sub Pop through what?

01:03:06Guest:Body, Blood, and the Machine?

01:03:07Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:03:07Guest:So that's the third record.

01:03:08Guest:Yeah.

01:03:08Marc:And now what happens that makes you switch labels to, is it like, is Sub Pop like, I guess it didn't take off?

01:03:16Marc:Or you're like, maybe we're not doing something right?

01:03:18Guest:No, it did really well.

01:03:19Guest:And they offered us another contract for like a fourth and fifth record that I sometimes wish you would have taken.

01:03:27Marc:So The Body, The Blood, The Machine, your political angry record?

01:03:30Guest:yeah that one like did the best for us that one still does like because now it's that we have like the 10th anniversary anniversary reissues with us those like sell way better than our new record so you do have a good following yeah yeah yeah for sure um the thing was we decided like after the third record that we wanted to own all the masters for our records business

01:03:53Guest:Yeah, and so it just wasn't an option at Sub Pop to do that.

01:03:59Guest:And we knew there were a lot of other labels where that was an option.

01:04:04Marc:But that's sort of adapting to the pay model that sort of evolved as you guys evolved.

01:04:11Guest:Definitely.

01:04:12Marc:If you've got your publishing and you've got your master's,

01:04:15Marc:you know, that means you have access to make as much money as possible for as long as you're alive, really.

01:04:21Marc:Right.

01:04:22Marc:And even after you're dead, if it's really good.

01:04:23Guest:Well, that's funny you say that because that's how I started thinking about it.

01:04:26Guest:I was like, one day everyone at Sub Pop is going to be dead and I'm going to be dead too.

01:04:31Guest:And it's either going to be their kids owning my record or my kids, neither of which exist.

01:04:38Guest:Right.

01:04:38Guest:But I'm like, you know, I want my kids to own the records as opposed to someone else's kids.

01:04:43Marc:But you had the publishing...

01:04:44Guest:Right, right.

01:04:45Guest:And it's such a weird thing because now we own all our masters for the labels we've been on since Sub Pop, but then we still just keep licensing them to the label.

01:05:00Guest:So I kind of go, it's just one of those things that maybe it makes us feel good to own them, but it's not as big as I thought it was back then.

01:05:10Marc:So when you leave Sub Pop, you know, to go to... To Kill Rockstars.

01:05:15Marc:Oh, that's a big... Oh, yeah, yeah, great.

01:05:16Guest:And they had just moved to Portland from Olympia.

01:05:19Marc:Yeah.

01:05:20Guest:They're great.

01:05:20Marc:They do... Who are their big acts?

01:05:23Guest:So Bikini Kill, Elliot Smith.

01:05:25Guest:They did the early Decembrist records.

01:05:27Guest:Right.

01:05:27Guest:And the Gossip.

01:05:28Guest:And, you know, they do comedy records now.

01:05:30Guest:They did Cameron Esposito and Ian Carmel.

01:05:33Guest:Ian, there's a bird in here.

01:05:35Guest:Oh, cool.

01:05:36Guest:Not really.

01:05:37Guest:Does that... I just want him to find his way out.

01:05:39Guest:Has that happened before?

01:05:41Guest:No.

01:05:43Guest:Don't hurt yourself.

01:05:44Guest:That's another bird.

01:05:45Guest:Oh, boy.

01:05:46Shit.

01:05:47Guest:Wait, is he just by the window there?

01:05:49Guest:Yeah, it's never happened before.

01:05:51Guest:He's trying to get out.

01:05:52I just don't want the bird.

01:05:54Come on.

01:05:54Marc:No, no, no.

01:05:55Marc:You're not going to get out that way.

01:05:58Guest:You're not going to get out that way.

01:06:00Guest:This is awesome.

01:06:00Guest:Come on.

01:06:01Guest:Yeah, okay.

01:06:02Guest:Go, go, go.

01:06:07Marc:That gave me a rush.

01:06:09Marc:That was exciting.

01:06:10Marc:Well, you don't want them to fucking break their wing on the window.

01:06:13Marc:Right.

01:06:14Marc:Bugs do it, too.

01:06:16Marc:The birds come for the cat food now.

01:06:18Marc:And apparently, one bird shared it with the entire bird community.

01:06:22Guest:Right, yeah.

01:06:23Marc:And there's one bowl of cat food out there.

01:06:25Marc:So Kill Rockstars, Ian Carmel, Portland Zone.

01:06:30Marc:Right.

01:06:30Marc:So that makes sense.

01:06:32Marc:So now do you feel that – is there a difference, I imagine, in promotion?

01:06:38Guest:The main difference is that at Sub Pop, everyone is in-house, everything.

01:06:44Guest:They have someone doing licensing, press, everything, whereas a label like Kill Rockstars or Saddle Creek that we're on now –

01:06:54Guest:You just hire out for all that stuff.

01:06:56Guest:So in a lot of ways, it's not that different.

01:06:59Marc:It's coming out of your pocket in a way, though.

01:07:01Guest:It is.

01:07:02Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:07:04Marc:It is with, you know... You can make decisions like, I'm going to spend a lot of money on a publicist.

01:07:09Guest:Right.

01:07:09Guest:So that was a difference, like moving to Kill Rockstars and doing like, you know, you own the Masters and it's an even split.

01:07:15Guest:You split the profits.

01:07:16Guest:And yeah, so you are...

01:07:19Guest:I mean, it's kind of more work in that way.

01:07:21Guest:Yeah, because you're having to choose a publicist and choosing how much money to spend.

01:07:24Marc:And you do two records with them.

01:07:27Guest:We did two with them, yeah.

01:07:28Guest:And Chris comes back to produce... Chris did Personal Life, yeah.

01:07:31Guest:We... I don't know if you know... John Congleton, he's produced a lot of... He's produced, like, St.

01:07:38Guest:Vincent and...

01:07:40Guest:A lot of great records.

01:07:41Guest:He did what?

01:07:42Guest:He did Now We Can See.

01:07:42Guest:He did the first record for Kill Rock Stars.

01:07:44Guest:Yeah.

01:07:45Guest:Well, Brendan Canty from Fugazi, he produced The Body, The Blood, The Machine.

01:07:49Guest:That was like major for sure.

01:07:55Marc:That's a big record.

01:07:56Marc:That's your big record.

01:07:57Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:07:58Marc:And then that's where I got the other one.

01:08:01Marc:I got Desperate Ground from Agnello.

01:08:03Guest:Right, who we just saw.

01:08:04Guest:Yeah, I heard him.

01:08:05Guest:Who I interviewed him.

01:08:06Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:08:07Marc:Because someone pestered me to interview Agnota.

01:08:08Guest:Oh, really?

01:08:09Guest:Yeah.

01:08:09Marc:Yeah, he's great.

01:08:10Marc:Yeah, he's a sweet guy.

01:08:11Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.

01:08:12Guest:And he's done a lot of, yeah, I mean, he did those Hold Steady records that got them big.

01:08:16Guest:Right.

01:08:16Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:08:17Guest:He's done a ton of great records.

01:08:18Marc:Did you like the sound of that one?

01:08:19Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:08:21Guest:And he had worked on that Amps record that Kim Deal did.

01:08:24Guest:And he's done all those Dinosaur Jr.

01:08:26Guest:records.

01:08:27Guest:He was someone who I had heard about for so long.

01:08:33Guest:And I just found him on Facebook.

01:08:35Guest:He was friends with Janet Weiss from Sleater County on Facebook.

01:08:38Guest:And I asked her, I was like, hey, do you think he would produce our record?

01:08:42Guest:She's like, oh, you should just ask him.

01:08:43Guest:And I just wrote to him on Facebook.

01:08:45Guest:He's like, oh, yeah, I'd love to.

01:08:46Guest:Yeah, he was great.

01:08:47Marc:What did he bring to it?

01:08:49Marc:Like what's your, what's your collaboration with these guys?

01:08:52Guest:Do you give them just, do you trust them implicitly or do you sit there in the booth and we don't, there's never like a ton of like, you know, we demo, but there's like not a lot, you know, you just talk to someone and kind of just feel them out.

01:09:05Guest:And John, I mean, a lot of times it's just like, do you like what they've done in the past?

01:09:09Guest:And do you think they could do that for you?

01:09:11Guest:Like John, we want someone who's going to just kind of be open to whatever, um,

01:09:17Guest:We want to do.

01:09:18Guest:And the thing with John is we wanted to make a record that sounded kind of like scratchy and kind of low five, but do it in a studio and do it properly, but still have it kind of be, you know, raw.

01:09:29Guest:Right.

01:09:29Guest:Just have it kind of be messy.

01:09:30Guest:And so he was really, you know, I.

01:09:32Guest:brought that crappy microphone in four track that i recorded the first record with i wanted to bring those to the studio and just do that same setup and have like distorted vocals and have it through kind of this cheap setup but go to like an expensive machine right which is what and he was totally down with that and you did it yeah that's that's so that's what we did for that record um so now okay hold on

01:09:57Marc:Because I know, it seems to me that the last three records, I mean, they're different, but you've definitely got a signature sound now.

01:10:09Guest:Right.

01:10:10Marc:Right, and you're not trying to break away from that.

01:10:12Guest:I mean, I always liked... I, like, think of ACDC a lot.

01:10:16Guest:You know, every ACDC record sounds the same.

01:10:19Guest:Best band in the world.

01:10:20Guest:Yeah, it's all, like, if you get a good sound... You know, it's hard, because, like, if you make a record that's kind of different, people will... They don't like the new... You know, people will fault you for either staying the same or for changing.

01:10:32Marc:So you're happy that you found your sound?

01:10:34Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:10:34Guest:I feel like it's one of the most important things you can do is just, like, find something that makes you recognizable.

01:10:41Guest:Yeah.

01:10:42Guest:Yeah, and I like to be consistent too.

01:10:46Marc:So I got the new record.

01:10:48Marc:I guess you guys sent it to me.

01:10:49Marc:Somebody sent it to me.

01:10:51Marc:Right.

01:10:51Marc:What label's that now?

01:10:52Guest:It's on Saddle Creek.

01:10:53Guest:So that's been the past couple records, like this and the last.

01:10:55Marc:Desperate Ground?

01:10:56Marc:Yes.

01:10:56Marc:It was on Saddle Creek and this is on Saddle Creek.

01:10:58Marc:Why'd you leave Kill Rockstars?

01:11:00Guest:It was just a big shakeup at Kill Rockstars and most of the people we worked with had been fired or had left.

01:11:07Guest:And it just seemed, I mean, we're still on good terms with them.

01:11:10Guest:It just seemed like time to go.

01:11:12Marc:And who's Saddle Creek?

01:11:13Marc:Where are they?

01:11:13Guest:So Saddle Creek, they're in Omaha.

01:11:15Guest:So they've

01:11:16Guest:Bright Eyes.

01:11:16Guest:They do Bright Eyes, right.

01:11:18Guest:Yeah, I heard Connor in here.

01:11:19Guest:So we had just known them.

01:11:20Guest:We had known Connor and Bright Eyes and a lot of their bands for a long time.

01:11:24Guest:And we knew the guys that run the label.

01:11:28Guest:And they're good.

01:11:29Guest:You like them?

01:11:30Guest:Yeah, they're awesome.

01:11:30Guest:They're great.

01:11:31Guest:And they're out here.

01:11:32Guest:The label's based in Omaha, but Rob, who owns the label, he's based in L.A.,

01:11:37Marc:And the new record, which is good, how do you, now when you see a difference between like the last, the evolution of what's evolving, if it's not necessarily the sound, what evolves?

01:11:50Guest:I think the songwriting is evolved.

01:11:53Guest:I feel like I work, like, you know, it's been a couple of years since we made a record, so I feel like I worked hardest on, yeah, just being a better songwriter.

01:12:03Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:12:04Guest:And just, yeah, and not feeling, you know, a lot of times,

01:12:07Guest:you know, you're making a record, you're writing a bunch of songs all at once, and you kind of set a deadline, whereas this record, we just kind of wrote, I just kind of wrote for a couple years, and there was no pressure to make another record.

01:12:19Guest:At your own pace.

01:12:20Marc:Yeah, totally.

01:12:20Marc:Well, great.

01:12:22Marc:I'm glad.

01:12:23Marc:It's a good record.

01:12:23Marc:Thank you.

01:12:24Marc:I'm a fan.

01:12:25Marc:Thank you.

01:12:25Marc:Do you want to sing a song?

01:12:26Marc:Yes, I'd love to.

01:12:27Marc:You can just do that?

01:12:28Marc:Yeah.

01:12:28Marc:I'm always impressed with you guys, just sort of like, you're not like, well, I'm a little nervous.

01:12:31Marc:Sure.

01:12:32Marc:Well, I'm a little nervous.

01:12:33Marc:No, but I mean, but you sing.

01:12:34Marc:That's what you do.

01:12:35Guest:So I'll just do it.

01:12:35Guest:It's your job.

01:12:36Guest:Well, you know, you can't let being nervous stop you.

01:12:38Marc:All right.

01:12:39Marc:That's true.

01:12:40Marc:You can just, you know, hopefully it just doesn't become your thing.

01:12:43Marc:That's a nervous guy.

01:12:46Guest:Not in music.

01:12:47Guest:Oh, God.

01:12:48Guest:No.

01:13:03Guest:Far from your voice, I fall in the dark The damage is a drain, it tears me apart I know I can repair but I don't know where to start My love in a void, worlds away

01:13:27Guest:Words I needed to say.

01:13:30Guest:My heart went cold.

01:13:32Guest:This I know.

01:13:34Guest:I pushed you away.

01:13:36Guest:Oh, oh, oh.

01:13:38Guest:I let my heat unsold.

01:13:40Guest:I couldn't keep you or my heart went cold.

01:13:57Guest:The distance between us is fatal, it swallows the light I know I can resolve it, I always fall to fight My love in a void, world's away Words I needed to say Words I needed to say, I buried away

01:14:30Guest:Oh, oh, oh, I put my heat on soul I couldn't keep you warm, my heart went cold Dead in the night, dark in the day, far from the light

01:14:56Guest:I couldn't keep you warm.

01:15:08Guest:My heart went cold.

01:15:26Marc:Nice.

01:15:28Marc:Thanks, Hutch.

01:15:29Marc:Awesome.

01:15:29Marc:Thanks, Mark.

01:15:29Marc:Great time.

01:15:35Marc:Good, right?

01:15:36Marc:Go get some thermals music.

01:15:38Marc:Go get some thermals vinyl.

01:15:39Marc:Get whatever you want.

01:15:41Marc:Also, don't forget, I'll be at the Now Hear This Festival with my producer, Brendan McDonald.

01:15:46Marc:That's October 28th through 30th in Anaheim.

01:15:49Marc:We'll be doing a special WTF show on Saturday, October 29th.

01:15:53Marc:But there are more than 30 of your favorite podcasts all weekend.

01:15:56Marc:Go to NowHearThisFest.com to get tickets and see the full lineup.

01:16:01Marc:And use the offer code WTF when you buy tickets to save...

01:16:04Marc:20% off general admission.

01:16:06Marc:That's nowhearthisfest.com.

01:16:09Marc:Offer code WTF.

01:16:13Marc:All right?

01:16:14Marc:All right.

01:16:16Marc:Have a good weekend.

01:16:17Marc:Boomer lives!

01:16:31you