Episode 750 - Margo Price
Marc:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuckineers?
Marc:What the fucksters?
Marc:What's happening?
Marc:I'm Mark Maron.
Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.
Marc:Thank you for listening.
Marc:I'm a little strung out.
Marc:I'm a little tired.
Marc:I'm a little jacked up on coffee and nicotine lozenges right now.
Marc:We've been shooting the new show, the Glow Show.
Marc:The gorgeous ladies of wrestling.
Marc:And the flashbacks continue.
Marc:Emotions within me keep percolating to the surface.
Marc:Again, I don't know what's going on, but I'll have to look at it as a plus.
Marc:A plus.
Marc:Like, I have to play a bit of an asshole.
Marc:And when I'm a bit of an asshole and I'm a bit of a bully on the show...
Marc:I feel the emotions that are counter to that going on inside of me right after I do it.
Marc:Right after I do a mean thing, I feel sad.
Marc:I feel almost teary.
Marc:And I have to go apologize to the actress.
Marc:It was yesterday.
Marc:I apologize to Alison Brie.
Marc:I guess I guess she's you know, she's in character.
Marc:I'm in character.
Marc:But right after I get out of the character, I got to go check in, make sure everything's OK, because that's who I am.
Marc:I'm apparently a male menopausal 53 year old man.
Marc:I'm OK with it.
Marc:I can only assume that it's a good thing.
Marc:Today on the show, Margot Price, the amazing, I'm going to say country music artist, though she is not a mainstream country music artist.
Marc:Her solo record is on Third Man Records, Midwest Farmer's Daughter.
Marc:She had a couple of records I just got with her other band,
Marc:Called Buffalo Clover was the name of her other band that I learned about during the conversation you will hear momentarily.
Marc:And those records are fucking great.
Marc:I just, I love her voice.
Marc:I love her songwriting.
Marc:I don't know...
Marc:I don't I don't love all country music, obviously, but I like a lot of it.
Marc:And I didn't come.
Marc:It's not something I kind of grew up with.
Marc:I mean, I grew up in New Mexico.
Marc:It was certainly around.
Marc:There were definitely cowboys around.
Marc:There was definitely country music around the state fair.
Marc:I remember growing up and every year it would be country music people.
Marc:Roy Clark, Buck Owens, Waylon, Willie, Chris, George, Dottie.
Marc:I believe that they all were there.
Marc:at some point at the Albuquerque State Fair, but it wasn't really my bag.
Marc:Though I do have some cowboy in me, and I think some of you know that.
Marc:I have a strange, eclectic background.
Marc:Listener emails, Kamasi subject line.
Marc:Dear Mark, thank you for having Kamasi Washington on your show.
Marc:I listened to your show, which led me to listen to the epic, which led me to Google his tour dates, which led me to sitting in the third row at a show last night.
Marc:Loved it.
Marc:I loved it.
Marc:Thank you, Stephanie.
Marc:You're welcome, Stephanie.
Marc:My menstrual cycle and Mark, hey, want to hear something funny?
Marc:I can tell when I'm about to start my period sometimes when I listen to your show.
Marc:It's when you say Boomer lives at the end.
Marc:If I get sad and sometimes even tear up, then I know it's coming soon and it's pissed.
Marc:Too much?
Marc:Oh, well, you are my spirit animal, Lindsay M. You're welcome.
Marc:I'm glad I can help you know when your period is coming.
Marc:That's a service I didn't know I provided for anybody, but I appreciate knowing that.
Marc:So, country music.
Marc:Margot Price.
Marc:I don't know, man.
Marc:It's just something about her voice, something about the production and the playing.
Marc:When I put that record on from Third Man, that first one, her solo record, Midwest Farmer's Daughter, I
Marc:It's just one of those things where you put a record on and you're like, this is the real shit.
Marc:And I've listened to it so many times.
Marc:And it was one of those, it was one of these guests that I have here sometimes where I'm just like in awe and happy that we're talking.
Marc:And I kept thinking about what I was going to talk to her, how I was, how, how do you start a conversation?
Marc:And then I started thinking about when I was very young and
Marc:When my family moved from Alaska to Albuquerque, I lived in the basement with my brother.
Marc:It was a basement of a house in Albuquerque.
Marc:It was like 1972, probably 1973.
Marc:My mom put shack carpeting in there, painted the cabinets.
Marc:There was wood paneling.
Marc:They let me have some pretty devious posters, really, for a 10-year-old.
Marc:I had the black light sexual positions poster.
Marc:I don't know why they let me have it.
Marc:They were not great parents, but they were permissive, so that was cool.
Marc:I had Easy Rider.
Marc:I had Dennis Hopper on the chopper, flipping the bird.
Marc:I had that.
Marc:What else did I have down there?
Marc:Yeah, and it was years later, and there were two rooms down there.
Marc:There was another room that had linoleum floor that we didn't use much.
Marc:It didn't really happen.
Marc:I used to fuck around with my chemistry set in that room, but...
Marc:A couple years after we were living there, my mother's cousin Jay found there was all these drugs up in the lights that the people who'd lived there before had stashed up there.
Marc:I didn't know about drugs, and I didn't know about sexual positions.
Marc:And I didn't really understand Easy Rider, but I was 10, and that was what was sinking in.
Marc:I mean, this was 1972.
Marc:This was what pop culture was sending the messages to my brain with.
Marc:I mean, the first records I bought, a mountain record.
Marc:I had Jethro Tull's Aqualung.
Marc:I had the Beatles album.
Marc:second album.
Marc:But most importantly, there was this box of cassettes.
Marc:My parents had this old Iowa cassette player that had detachable speakers, and I inherited it somehow, and it was downstairs.
Marc:And they had a box of cassettes, and in that box of cassettes was Bobby Gentry's Ode to Billy Joe and Johnny Cash's
Marc:Live at San Quentin, and that was the Bobby Gentry record, was definitely the Ode to Billy Joe record.
Marc:So I had these two cassettes, and I remember playing compulsively A Boy Named Sue, Folsom City Blues, and Ode to Billy Joe.
Marc:And that, I believe, was my first real connection with country music.
Marc:And those were those were pretty good ones for a nine year old who just had a box of cassettes because there were other there was Jerry Vale's greatest hits in there.
Marc:I didn't get involved with that.
Marc:Maybe I listened to God Didn't Make Little Green Apples and It Don't Rain in Indianapolis in the summertime.
Marc:I believe that was on there.
Marc:I thought it was catchy.
Marc:Also in that box was Cosmos Factory.
Marc:So Bobby Gentry, Ode to Billy Joe, Johnny Cash Live at San Quentin, and Credence Clearwater's Cosmos Factory, which had Up Around the Bend, which has one of the most searing, beautiful guitar pieces.
Marc:Like that.
Marc:Those three records.
Marc:So that's at the core.
Marc:of uh of who i am and my understanding of country music and so i decided that bobby gentry and i've got a few bobby gentry albums now on vinyl i for some reason wanted to talk to margo price about bobby gentry and that turned out not to be a bad idea also i remember watching the end of uh
Marc:The Porter Wagner show before Walt Disney, before Disney on Sunday nights, I believe, Porter Wagner show.
Marc:I remember watching Hee Haw.
Marc:I remember and not that these are like make any difference, but I'm just trying to figure out when it started to integrate into my brain.
Marc:Obviously, a lot of the music I like now is country and country related, but it was around, you know.
Marc:My father, when he had a secret life, used to go Western dancing, we found out later, at the caravan in Albuquerque.
Marc:It was a big, yeah.
Marc:I remember the square dancing thing.
Marc:That was happening.
Marc:But I guess I should talk a little bit more about when I had a horse.
Marc:It wasn't my horse.
Marc:It was assigned to me.
Marc:And I went to several camps when I was a kid.
Marc:It wasn't so much that my parents wanted me to do exciting things.
Marc:Maybe they did, but I think they wanted me out of the house.
Marc:And over the course...
Marc:of my childhood i went to a tennis camp i went on a teen tour which is a sort of strange jewish expedition of uh mostly teenagers from the five towns in long island and i somehow ended up amongst them um barren teen tours and
Marc:So, yeah, I went on a team tour.
Marc:I went to a tennis camp, and I eventually went to a music and arts camp, which was the best camp for me.
Marc:But the first camp I went to was Brush Ranch in Pecos, New Mexico, where we had to have our own Stetson hat, and we had to show up with fishing rods, and we had to be willing to shoot guns, and we had to have jeans, certain Levi's.
Marc:We needed Levi's.
Marc:Had to put your name in everything.
Marc:But I think the most telling thing was the cowboy hat.
Marc:We needed cowboy boots.
Marc:gill this weird cowboy that was in charge of the horses um he taught us how to fold our hat so it pointed down the top and bent down and it looked cool it looked cool we had to bend up those fucking stetsons uh learned how to some people were asking me because i passively said i know how to tie flies part of the fly fishing was part of the brush ranch experience i did some uh
Marc:We learned how to tie flies.
Marc:You had your little your little vice and you had your little hook and then you had your little feathers and stuff.
Marc:And we tied some flies.
Marc:They were clunky.
Marc:But, you know, fish doesn't fucking know, really.
Marc:But I learned how it's done and it was interesting and exciting.
Marc:It was not something I pursued for a life.
Marc:Learned how to shoot shotguns and also load shotgun shells.
Marc:I think I owe an apology to this dorky, annoying douchebag from Texas named Jeff, who me and a couple other of the guys, when we were loading shotgun shells, put a double load of powder and a very little shot into one of Jeff's shells.
Marc:Just see him get knocked on his ass by a shotgun.
Marc:He was OK.
Marc:It was funny, but I feel bad about it now.
Marc:And this might be part of the reason that I'm crying occasionally.
Marc:So sorry, Jeff.
Marc:I hope you're OK.
Marc:It was very funny, though.
Marc:So, yeah, in a pinch, if you gave me the machine, I could load a shotgun shell.
Marc:I believe you put the powder in and then the wad and then the shot and then you seal that fucker.
Marc:So we shot some skeet, shot some 22s, didn't shoot any animals, felt a couple of vaginas up there at night.
Marc:And then she went on to be with some other dude who was a friend of mine at camp.
Marc:That was not good.
Marc:Heartbreaking.
Marc:But the cowboy element, so yeah, I had the hat.
Marc:Anyway, has nothing to do with country music.
Marc:I just wanted to share my bona fides of having some country past.
Marc:And I wore the boots for a long time, though they shifted from cowboy boots to rock and roll boots, man.
Marc:So...
Marc:As a grown man, I've grown to appreciate country music.
Marc:It was always around.
Marc:And now I like it even more.
Marc:I had Sturgill Simpson on this show.
Marc:And now I believe this is... If there is...
Marc:Somebody equally as important in modern country music as Sturgill seems to be, if not even a little more important on some level to me, only because I'm enamored and amazed by her singing and songwriting.
Marc:It's Margot Price.
Marc:You can get Margot's debut album, Midwest Farmer's Daughter.
Marc:It's on Third Man Records.
Marc:She does play a song at the end.
Marc:She's amazing.
Marc:I'm going to talk to her right now.
Marc:Me and Margo Price.
Marc:That's how you record your ideas when you're at home?
Marc:You just get the tape rolling?
Guest:Well, we used to, but we haven't redone a studio.
Guest:I mean, we just sold everything we had.
Guest:We had like a nice console and microphones.
Guest:When was this?
Guest:This was like maybe two years ago.
Guest:You and your husband?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What's his name?
Guest:My old man, Jeremy Ivey.
Marc:And he's in the band.
Guest:Well, he was.
Guest:Oh my God, you're kicking your husband out of the band?
Guest:He dislocated his finger right before SNL, which was a bummer.
Guest:So who stepped in?
Guest:This guy named Kevin Black.
Guest:He played with Sturgill Simpson for a while.
Marc:I talked to Sturgill Simpson.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, that was a good one.
Guest:Yeah, I know Stu.
Guest:Stu?
Marc:Is that what you call him?
Marc:Stu.
Marc:I like you.
Guest:Hey, thanks.
Guest:I like you, too.
Guest:I don't like many people.
Guest:Is that true?
Marc:It is.
Marc:I don't know how I got the record.
Marc:It might have come in a package, and I had it for a while, and I didn't fully take it in.
Marc:And then I put it on again a little while ago, and it was like, holy shit, she's time traveling.
Yeah.
Marc:She's a time traveling wizard.
Marc:Born in the wrong age, I think.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I guess, but I mean, there's a purity to it that that type of music should transcend time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Hopefully, you know, good music is.
Marc:And there's sadness.
Marc:You have the built in sadness.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:The eternal sadness.
Marc:You tap into the eternal.
Marc:See, not everyone has it, though.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's a lot of fakers.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:A lot of phony, sad people.
Marc:The whiny, emo.
Marc:Something.
Marc:There's just people that use the old styles but don't have the eternal pain.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And there's a lot of people out there that do the throwback traditional stuff, but they're also scared of throwing a phaser in there or whatever.
Guest:You can't just do the old-timey music and expect people to think, wow, this is great.
Guest:Because you're just regurgitating shit that's already been done.
Guest:Right.
Marc:You can't use it as a gimmick.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Marc:And I felt that.
Marc:And I felt that with Sturgill, too, to a degree.
Marc:That there was a respect for the sound, for the structure of those type of songs, but also for the production of what was, I think most people think, real country.
Guest:Yeah, and being able to take a risk, you know.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Really not be afraid.
Marc:What do you see the risk as being?
Marc:To do that?
Marc:To produce like that?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, the opening track on the album, Hands of Time.
Guest:That's sad.
Guest:Yeah, it's a sad one.
Guest:Gets me every time.
Marc:It's one of those, that gets me every time song.
Guest:Yeah, I don't play that every night either because sometimes audiences are just not.
Marc:Really?
Marc:You know.
Marc:What are they, kids?
Marc:Are you looking at kids usually?
Yeah.
Guest:No, I mean, it just has to be the right vibe if people are too drunk or something.
Marc:Oh, you don't want to be... Yeah, it's like, I don't want to sing that if it's a really loud... So you need to get to a place in your own heart and in that moment to sing that.
Marc:Right, yeah.
Marc:And you don't want to be interrupted by someone going...
Guest:Ow!
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I love you!
Marc:You know, it's like... Well, that's good to hear that you can't autopilot through... You can't do it.
Guest:Some nights you feel it and some nights you don't.
Guest:But with that song and the production, when I was writing it, I actually wrote it on piano, but...
Guest:My husband was playing bass on the record, and my drummer, Dylan Napier, Dylan put what he calls a Wu-Tang drum beat on the beginning of that.
Guest:First, I was kind of unsure of it, and then the more I listened to it, I realized that it kind of took the song somewhere else, and it wasn't just, you know, like, folky.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah, I don't know if I... Now I'm going to have to listen to you for the Wu-Tang...
Marc:boom boom boom oh right right yeah it's got a little funky groove in there but that's happening like I mean that's like you know like I keep thinking when I was a kid I had like these this box of cassettes that I inherited from my parents and one of them was Bobby Gentry yes ode to Billy Joe yes
Guest:So good.
Marc:That album.
Marc:So good.
Marc:And that song has a funk element to it.
Guest:Yeah, she's got so much good stuff.
Guest:Lordy made a woman out of me.
Guest:I mean, she just did it differently.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:She was a little groovier.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And the Mississippi song, Mississippi Delta.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So good.
Guest:So brilliant.
Marc:Yeah, and I think having seen that movie when I was a little kid and what they did to...
Marc:that song and that did you ever see the movie no brutal it's uh it's what's the kid's name bobby uh oh what what's that it's just based off the whole song it's a little bit there's i uh well i don't think so okay well no it is but i don't know that all of it's in there because there's billy joe mccallister in the movie gets sort of like you know gang raped by a
Marc:whoa that's heavy that's not in the song this this guy played by i'm forgetting his name but it's like you kind of never know why she you know why he right well they just speculated i guess yeah or or maybe they they wrote the movie and decided now i got to know the guy's name
Guest:What I love about that song, too, is in the verses, she's just talking about, like, sitting around the dinner table, you know, chewing the food, and it's so mundane.
Guest:It captures, like, the mundane moments of being around the family table, and I feel like Bob Dylan took inspiration from that song.
Guest:He did this really bizarre tune called Clothesline Hanging Saga.
Guest:It was during basement tapes.
Guest:It was the same thing.
Guest:It's just talking about his mother being outside and some guy passing by, and they talk politics, and then, you know...
Marc:And you think he was listening?
Guest:Yeah, I feel like that was inspired by that song.
Marc:Well, he's definitely a sponge.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's one of his best attributes, I think, or his worst.
Marc:It's probably the best and the worst.
Guest:Amateurs borrow professional steel.
Marc:Dylan just becomes.
Marc:Yeah, he just becomes.
Marc:He absorbs and manifests.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:so but that song but you know i'm glad that we talked about bobby because like i i guess i sent something about like and i didn't think it would come through that song but i there is a funk kind of element to her yeah yeah i mean definitely she produced a lot of her own shit too like she put out a lot of her own records that's her picking the guitar too on there she was you know good did you ever is she around you know it was just her birthday um
Marc:She's 72, June 27th.
Guest:If you're out there, Bobby, I love you.
Marc:Isn't that interesting, though, that a very prominent sort of artist and no one really knows?
Marc:Because usually with country people, they keep going forever.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:You can't kill us.
Yeah.
Marc:We don't kill ourselves.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:A mixture of both.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But, yeah, I wonder where she lives.
Guest:I should try to reach out to her.
Marc:Like, there's part of, like, I don't know that I listened to country when I was a kid except for that Bobby Gentry record.
Marc:And, oh, and another one of those cassettes was Johnny Cash Live at San Quentin.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So I had those two when I was, like, really young just because they were in a box of cassettes.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:But in Albuquerque, like, because we had rodeo and we had the State Fair and it was always country acts coming through.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So it was always there in the background, but it was not.
Marc:But you were like, I don't.
Marc:Well, no, it was just my parents weren't into it.
Marc:And when I was a kid, I'm 52.
Marc:So what I was listening, I listen to Skinnerd.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Like when I was in junior high, it's like Skinnerd's good.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It is just what I grew up with.
Marc:Classic townie, you know, rock.
Guest:Oddly enough, I grew up listening to a lot of rap.
Marc:I mean.
Marc:Well, how old are you?
Marc:You're 20, like 20 years younger than me.
Marc:What are you, 30 something?
33.
33.
Marc:33 so yeah so you're that was popular music when you were like in junior high and shit yeah and that was your thing i mean dr dre snoop dog good stuff but where'd you grow up what's let's get into the anatomy of that heartbreaking song because when like even my girlfriend was like this really happened to her and i'm like yeah i think it all happened yeah
Guest:Couldn't make it up if I tried.
Guest:I grew up in a tiny little town, like 3,600 people.
Guest:And it was just three and a half hours west of Chicago.
Guest:So it was on the Mississippi bordering.
Guest:In Illinois.
Guest:Yeah, Illinois.
Guest:It was right by Iowa, but we were on the Illinois side.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my folks lived outside of the town.
Guest:They lived north of the town.
Guest:It was called Aledo.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But we lived just about a mile from this other town that was called Hamlet.
Guest:And the sign is still there.
Guest:It says, Hamlet, population 34.
Guest:Really?
Marc:Did you take a picture of it?
Guest:Not a lot of culture.
Guest:I do have a photo of it somewhere.
Marc:That seems like you should use it somewhere.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And there's no town there anymore?
Guest:No.
Guest:It's still a town, but it's just a church and some houses.
Marc:Oh, so there was no, like, three-store main street?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, my town had one stoplight, Alito did, and they had a Hardee's and Walmart.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:And then Walmart happened.
Guest:That was a huge deal.
Marc:And that was kind of when... Probably employed half the town.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:It did.
Guest:Well, and they needed it, too, because that was when the farming crisis happened.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And, you know, my family, my grandfather, and all his brothers, and all their sons, they all lost the farm, and it was kind of right around the time that Walmart came in, and all, you know.
Marc:Oh, the shift.
Guest:Yeah, the crooked bankers, and.
Marc:But what happened, what'd they farm?
Guest:They farmed mostly corn and soybeans and cattle, a little bit of cattle.
Marc:So you grew up with that for generations.
Marc:Like that was your family.
Guest:That was the, yeah.
Marc:And where'd they all come from originally?
Marc:What's the roots?
Marc:Do you know?
Guest:I mean, like Irish or just, I'm a mutt of a lot of different things.
Guest:But yeah, I mean, my grandmother still lives in the town.
Guest:My folks still live in the town.
Marc:In Aledo?
Guest:In Aledo.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:I think they're gonna put up a sign for me when you join.
Marc:Maybe a street.
Guest:Yeah, who knows?
Marc:Are they happy for you?
Guest:Yeah, they're happy for me.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Were they always?
Guest:You know, my mom was always hopeful.
Guest:She's always real hopeful.
Guest:Kept a positive attitude.
Guest:God bless her.
Marc:But like what's going on in a town like 3,000 some odd.
Marc:That's as many people that were in my high school.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And I didn't come from a big town, but that's like a real small town.
Marc:So y'all kind of knew each other.
Marc:Y'all went to all the grades together.
Marc:Y'all watched each other get fucked up on drugs and die and go to jail.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Maybe get out.
Guest:Yep, suicides and just, I mean, boredom does terrible things to people because there just wasn't any culture.
Guest:There was like a little movie theater in town, but they only showed one movie and it would run for like two weeks.
Marc:Like a mainstream movie?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, like, I don't even, I don't even know.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I saw there, I saw Mr. Holland's opus there, and that's an odd memory.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:Little Richard Dreyfuss.
Marc:That might have had a profound impact.
Guest:I mean, yeah, that was kind of the only thing you could do.
Guest:But then otherwise, you just would drive around on the back roads and drink beer.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And smoke pot.
Marc:Yeah, and park.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then someone would play the music through their car speakers.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Exactly.
Guest:We'd cruise the loop in the main town and then the cops would pull you over and say you'd made too many loops.
Marc:And you knew the cop?
Guest:You knew the cop.
Guest:I mean, people sat at home listening to their police scanner.
Guest:So everyone knew someone was getting in trouble.
Guest:It would be in the paper.
Guest:So-and-so was arrested with two grams of marijuana and some paraphernalia.
Guest:it was always and everyone knew who it was yeah yeah then you'd be yeah labeled the uh pothead the outcast yeah were you an outcast um i would go kind of back and forth you dated some outcasts yeah i sure did a vandal i dated a vandal for six years when you were in high school when i was in high school yeah um he was a sweet guy
Guest:Sweet Vandal?
Guest:Sweet Vandal.
Marc:Where's that song?
Guest:That's a good one.
Guest:I've got to get out of my notebook here.
Marc:Sweet Vandal.
Marc:But how much of a Vandal could you be?
Marc:How far was the next town?
Marc:I mean, you had to rob people you knew.
Guest:Yeah, you had to really be careful.
Guest:I remember there was a party that was thrown outside of my parents' house, and it didn't get busted, but there were photos of the party, and people had beers in their hands, and they all got taken to court and charged with the photos, saying, well, you had a beer in your hand, and you're 16, so you're getting an underage drinking ticket.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:So this was, but your parents weren't home or it was somewhere?
Guest:Well, I didn't get to go.
Guest:My mom kept a pretty short leash on me, which she could.
Marc:Oh, so it was near your parents' house?
Guest:It was right near my folks' house.
Guest:All my friends got busted.
Guest:Another time there was a party.
Guest:From the picture?
Guest:From the picture.
Guest:How'd they get the picture?
Guest:That's not, that's not.
Guest:How did they get the picture?
Guest:That can't be legal.
Guest:No, but how did they get it?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I mean, there was, you know, blackmail, shit like that would happen.
Guest:It was just a corrupt little town in ways, you know.
Marc:So wait, so some cop's kid took a picture?
Guest:And then, yeah, it got,
Marc:And the town needed money that bad that they had to find a bunch of 16 year olds for drinking beer?
Guest:I mean, it's the kind of town where, you know, there was a couple people high up and they were giving tax breaks to their relatives to start businesses.
Guest:And then all of a sudden, everybody wondered where the money went.
Guest:And of course, they found out.
Marc:It all funneled through the relatives?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:They embezzled it?
Guest:The same guy that was doing that for his relatives, he was the crooked banker who kind of... Took the farm?
Guest:Fucked things over for the farm.
Guest:So, you know, hopefully he will get his... His karma will come back to him.
Marc:So when you were in high school, you didn't get into so much trouble that it destroyed your life then.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:I waited until I got to college because, like I said, my parents kept a pretty tight leash.
Guest:And then, you know, I think with a lot of Americans, you all of a sudden have this newfound freedom and then you start binge drinking.
Marc:So you're a boozer?
Guest:Making a lot of bad decisions, yeah.
Marc:When did you start playing, though?
Marc:What were your sort of things when you were in high school, aside from driving around drinking beer, smoking weed with vandals?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Listening to rap music.
Guest:Listening to my rap music.
Guest:I picked up a guitar, I think, when I was 12, and I'd played piano prior, but I didn't like my piano teacher, so none of that really stuck.
Marc:But you still write on piano sometimes?
Guest:Yeah, I do.
Guest:I do.
Guest:I wrote Hands of Time on piano.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:But, yeah, I would cruise around in the car and have my guitar with me, and I was one of the only ones.
Guest:What were you singing?
Marc:Come on.
Marc:Go ahead.
Guest:To save myself, I will preface that I love Tom Petty and the Statler Brothers.
Guest:But I did like Jewel a lot when she first came out.
Guest:And I liked her album, Pieces of You, because it was just really different and everything else.
Marc:You don't have to feel bad for that.
Guest:Yeah, no.
Guest:Jewel was great.
Guest:That first album was amazing.
Marc:She was earnest.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:She spoke her heart.
Marc:She did.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:She had a broken nose.
Guest:She didn't care about getting fixed.
Guest:I feel you, Jewel.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you were exactly her market.
Marc:Just sad, isolated teenage girls in the middle of nowhere.
Guest:Yep, yep.
Marc:Emotionally and geographically.
Guest:Probably reached me like two, three years later after it reached the rest of the world.
Guest:Like everything in the Midwest, fashion.
Marc:But wasn't she like from Alaska?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Like up there.
Guest:Hell of a yodeler too.
Marc:I remember, like, I liked her.
Marc:I think that, I think she had the unfortunate fate of people getting tired of her for some reason.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Some people just, I don't know what it is culturally where people just sort of like, blah.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, yeah, she maybe didn't change with the times.
Marc:Maybe.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I was a little disappointed in her book of poems, but that's... It's hard, man.
Guest:Poems are hard to sell.
Guest:Poems are hard to sell, yeah.
Guest:I'm thinking about putting out a book of poems myself.
Marc:Are you?
Guest:Maybe I better wait on that.
Marc:Make sure they're good.
Marc:After the third record, do that.
Marc:Do you write poems?
Guest:I do, yeah.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:I wrote a really sad six-page poem the other day.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I'll share it with you when we're done here.
Marc:Really?
Guest:It's just about the decline of humanity, and it's really uplifting.
Marc:Is it free verse or rhymed?
Guest:Yeah, it's mostly just free verse.
Marc:Just went for it?
Marc:Yeah, just word vomit.
Marc:Well, how do you, like, what differentiates, well, obviously, structurally, a song is different than a poem, but do you start without it necessarily being a song?
Marc:When you write?
Guest:Sometimes I do.
Guest:Sometimes I'll just be writing, and then if it's a good enough poem, I'll turn it into a song.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But other times it's just, there's nothing that can be done with it, and it's just gonna be a bunch of crap on a page.
Marc:But it feels better.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Once it's out of you, it's out of you.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It's such a purging thing to write.
Marc:Yeah, I scribble shit all the time.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:When I'm writing comedy ideas, it's never a joke.
Marc:It's always an idea.
Marc:It's always on a post-it.
Guest:Yep.
Marc:It's always while I'm driving.
Guest:How do you keep track of all that stuff?
Marc:It's not good.
Marc:I'm not good.
Marc:No, because no matter how many times I transcribe it, my writing still sucks.
Marc:So I can't even trust my own interpretation of me.
Marc:What it was?
Guest:Like doctor's handwriting?
Marc:Yeah, it becomes very challenging.
Marc:Sometimes I'll type it up.
Marc:But there's something about, you know, I've sat down and done it.
Marc:you know, transcribe stuff and, and written stuff out.
Marc:And then like, I lose interest in it.
Marc:Like, I know it's there, but like once it's written down and fully, I'm like, but I, I'm not writing songs.
Marc:I'd like to write a song.
Marc:Do you ever do really?
Marc:How do we just do it?
Guest:Well, we'll, we'll take some stuff after we get down at the end here.
Marc:What was the Vandal song?
Marc:sweet vandal sweet vandal yeah that's good i hope it becomes i'd like to be part of that all right i'll give you i'll give you 10 right i don't want any money i just want i just want to slash maron in the credits mark maron suggested the title i like that during our conversation well what kind well what was that guy up to at the vandal
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:He went on this terror of the town one night where he just destroyed a bunch of shit.
Guest:I can't remember if he was like egging cars and he like ripped down somebody's basketball court.
Marc:Wow, this is the saddest outlaw song.
Marc:I mean, it's like the most immature outlaw.
Guest:He smashed like 200 pumpkins from the guy who like makes pumpkins and sells them during Halloween.
Guest:And I like knew about it and then the cops were questioning me.
Guest:Did your boyfriend smash the pumpkins out of it?
Marc:duncan's pumpkins come on it's already rhyming it's good we got we got material he's not going to really become some sort of outlaw tragic hero with the crimes that you've well there were probably more bad things he did i think it's sort of a funny take on like a song about like an outlaw but it's really all these childish things yeah to write like a classic kind of outlaw ballad but it's just about a guy who eggs some shit and smash some pumpkins
Guest:Yeah, not really that bad of a guy.
Marc:And he didn't end up in jail.
Marc:He just ended up like an insurance salesman or something.
Guest:He totally is just two kids now, nice house, just regular guy.
Marc:That would be the funniest outlaw ballad in the world.
Marc:Like, what happened to that guy?
Guest:He actually straightened out much quicker than I did.
Guest:You know, I had to take the long way around.
Marc:Oh, so that's good.
Marc:You didn't end up with a real outlaw.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:You could have, I guess.
Marc:Maybe there just wasn't any around.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, there's slim pickings, you know, and you got 77 people in your graduating class.
Marc:And you knew all of them.
Guest:You knew all of them.
Marc:Everyone knew and everyone lost their virginity.
Guest:Business.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Definitely.
Marc:And when they didn't and someone said they did, all that gossip.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:So when you write songs, do you ever, like, because I've been listening to, like, I just recently transitioned to
Marc:into actually listening to songs, words.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like I was always like a riff guy, melody guy.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:And choruses somewhat, you know.
Guest:Don't bore us, get to the chorus.
Marc:Whose advice is that?
Guest:Maybe Tom Petty's.
Guest:It came off that Tom Petty documentary.
Guest:It's really hard to find someone that doesn't like Tom Petty.
Marc:But some people don't quite give him the credit that he deserves.
Marc:Everyone likes him, but then if you really like, he wrote so many fucking songs.
Guest:He did.
Guest:And you know them all.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they're great.
Guest:They're so memorable, but just not contrived.
Guest:I remember the first time I heard Last Dance with Mary Jane, I was so young, I didn't know what it meant, but I just thought it was the coolest fucking song I'd ever heard.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And it was just, it was a nice escape from the town.
Marc:Yeah, he wrote a couple good country songs too.
Marc:He wrote that Mystery Man, Mystery Man on the first record, which is beautiful.
Guest:Have you watched that documentary?
Marc:No.
Guest:You gotta check it out.
Marc:It's like a day long, right?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I didn't want it to end though.
Guest:It was like 2, 3 in the morning and my husband was like, we gotta go to sleep.
Marc:No, keep watching.
Marc:But do you ever write like a chorus?
Marc:Does a chorus come to your head first?
Marc:Do you like hooks like that?
Guest:Sometimes.
Guest:Actually, I just got this custom guitar from Fender that they put my name down the neck in like a pearl halfway.
Marc:Really?
Guest:It's the coolest thing I've ever seen.
Guest:It's so heavy.
Guest:It's a Telecaster and I'm used to playing like lightweight guitar but...
Marc:It's a weighty Telecaster.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So they must have made it out of the big, the heavy wood.
Guest:It's the rosewood, yeah.
Guest:And so I've been writing licks on that.
Guest:I feel like it's changed, you know, kind of changed the way I'm- Playing some lead.
Guest:Yeah, playing some lead, trying to-
Marc:work at it you know yeah i feel like you hit a level on guitar and then you're like all right just no i've been sitting at it and i don't play professionally so like you know i've been got licks man i got licks yeah i can play yeah i do you got more licks than me i know but like but you got to do it every night like i'm always amazed when i have musicians in here and like you know we sit there and they'll play a song and they'll just nail it and i'm like what the
Marc:fuck and then you realize like oh that's their job yeah that's what they do i like hire people to play my licks and then i just no but you guys when you sit down and play a song you know you've got a lot of hours in it yeah i don't have those muscles of performing a whole night on stage or playing with other people very easy to sit in here
Guest:and yeah noodle noodle yeah that's one of my favorite favorite phrases my noodling yeah i had this uh jazz drummer who was like real meticulous guy who was in the studio with you uh no we were just on the road and we were like setting up we were actually just playing in a parking lot dockwiler beach uh-huh uh i don't know where that is it's in uh it's in los angeles oh yeah it's the first time i was ever here and we were living in a 1986 winnebago and uh here yeah yeah
Marc:Oh, boy, we got to get back to the story.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We stopped before we even went to college, and now we're at Winnebago.
Guest:Now we're at Winnebago, yeah, living like a dirty hippie.
Guest:We were in this parking lot, and because we didn't have that many great shows, and so we thought, we'll just sit up and play here for the people at the trailer park.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my bass player was like, you know, warming up a little bit, and the drummer said, if we could actually, could we keep the noodling to a minimum?
Guest:So we say that on stage a lot.
Guest:Keep the noodling.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:the control freak yeah yeah so where so you graduated high school you're playing a little guitar playing some jewel writing some poetry hanging out with pumpkin smashers you're getting out all these things no one's ever heard parents parents had you on a short leash but you found time to drive around and drink beer and listen to to rap music
Marc:Yep.
Marc:So when you go to college, do you just want to get out or do you got a plan?
Guest:I just wanted to get out.
Guest:I didn't really know what I wanted to major in.
Guest:My mom was like, you should be in communications.
Marc:Do advertising.
Marc:That vague communication.
Guest:Yeah, the vague communication thing.
Marc:What'd she do to your mom?
Guest:She's a teacher.
Guest:Well, she was a teacher.
Guest:She's retired now.
Guest:She taught third grade for years.
Marc:Oh, that's probably a pleasant experience.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They're not fucked up in third grade yet.
Guest:yeah yeah yeah the kids yeah yeah there's not a your mom another question she's she's wonderful um was she a loopy teacher she was a little loopy you know she's sleep deprived she um she always said don't be a teacher because you don't get paid enough for and she would pay me to uh grade her papers it'd be like i'll give
Guest:ten dollars if you will grade these papers wasn't she knew there wasn't a big uh risk of plagiarism or any of that with third grade yeah yeah it was just grammar could spot it yeah and uh so yeah i you know i did communications for a year and then i started playing more guitar listening to zeppelin um and then the next year i majored in uh theater and dance and uh really i
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Guest:Dance?
Guest:Dance, yeah.
Guest:I had been thrown into dance when I was like three years old.
Marc:Ballet?
Guest:Yeah, ballet, tap, jazz, gymnastics, cheerleading.
Guest:You were a cheerleader?
Guest:American Dream.
Marc:Yeah, you were a cheerleader?
Marc:Yeah, I was.
Marc:Were you the head cheerleader?
Marc:I was.
Marc:Now see, that tarnishes my image.
Guest:yeah i know it's a dirty secret but um hopefully like you get really messed up in a few minutes yeah well i got you know i got blackmailed my senior year blackmail what is this blackmailing this is the town i'm telling you like what like well we had we had taken this photo um in our sports bras like in the cheerleading uniform on the day of like our senior um senior night or whatever we were supposed to you know do like
Guest:have everybody give you flowers and say thanks for your service.
Marc:Your service as a cheerleader.
Guest:As a cheerleader.
Guest:Thanks for being objectified.
Marc:Out there on the front lines of high school sports.
Marc:We don't know where we'd be without... Our country owes you.
Guest:And it was...
Guest:And these photos got sent to the principal and they were like, you can't do the senior night.
Guest:So then there were all these ugly rumors going around that we were all having a big orgy and we were naked in the photos.
Guest:And this is the stuff that goes on in the town and people actually believed it.
Marc:Small towns love that.
Guest:Oh, you're all lesbians.
Guest:It's a photo of us in our sports bras.
Guest:um anyway so really so it got that out of hand it's so funny because our entire culture is driven by that garbage now but it used to be a small town yeah it's like one person like stole the photo out of our locker and then people started sending it around on the internet and then and then it got sent to the principal and so i left uh high school with just uh i really wanted to get out of that town because there was just so much gossip and you were a lesbian who had orgies i mean yeah i didn't even know that about myself
Guest:I go to college.
Guest:I cheered for one year on a scholarship.
Marc:Was it a scholarship for cheerleading?
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:It was a Big Ten school.
Marc:So you could move.
Marc:You could probably, like, if you needed to.
Guest:Yeah, I could do some flips and stuff.
Guest:And I started smoking a lot of pot and listening to Zeppelin and playing more guitar.
Marc:And that was erasing the cheerleading?
Guest:It was erased at all.
Guest:I tripped on, I had my first like mushroom trip and saw the whole world in a different place, you know, like listen to the White Album.
Marc:Oh my God.
Guest:And it was like, I don't want to be a, you know, a cheerleader or a dancer anymore.
Guest:Really?
Marc:And so then, yeah, then I. Revolution number nine just blasted that out of you.
Guest:Thank God it did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:that's what you got you know i think when you're when you're when you're young and you're impressionable and you know you just want to at least i i did i wanted to you know please everybody and well i i should be a dancer and i should wear red lipstick and blue eyeshadow so you're really really looking at the sort of career cheerleader possibilities
Guest:No, no, I mean, I loved working with children.
Guest:I liked to teach dance, and I did that for years.
Marc:You taught dance to kids?
Guest:Yeah, I did.
Guest:Even after I moved to Nashville, I taught dance on the side, but I used really cool music for my dance.
Guest:It would be like a three-year-old class, and I'm like,
Guest:all right, now we're going to tap dance to Sid Barrett's Effervescing Elephant.
Marc:They must like the sound of that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know that song.
Guest:Effervescing Elephant.
Marc:Oh, right, right.
Marc:So they must love that.
Guest:But yeah, it was, you know, and I would use like Tori Amos songs, but nobody, none of the moms really understood what I was doing probably because I was teaching in like Green Hills in Nashville.
Marc:what is that like uh just a very uh wealthy yeah they wanted me to do like sugar plum fairy christmas right oh that was definitely not what you're opening minds you're blowing minds yeah what's good that like you were tripping and you listened to the white album and you what your big thing was like you know there's no truth in cheerleading i mean it just felt like such a hollow right and charlie manson took a much different message out of the white out of that
Marc:That album's got a lot of range in terms of what it can do to the hallucinating mind.
Guest:It's very true.
Guest:I was just glad that I just kind of changed horses midstream there and started doing the theater and dance.
Marc:With dance, were you seeing it as... Because I'm curious about dance a lot of times because when you think about...
Marc:And I've never had this question answered.
Marc:I don't know that you can answer it that, you know, they're like, there's a pretty limited number of gigs for dancers.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So I have to assume that is something that you integrate into your general sense of creativity.
Marc:Cause like, I mean, what are you really going to do as a dancer?
Marc:I mean, you could become a, like the Rockettes or, you know, there's some TV shows and you could be a background dancer for a, a, a, a pop act.
Guest:yeah like it seems like it's a small pool well and and my sister is a dancer still she uh she does like you know aerial stuff hanging from the ceiling yeah yeah she does and she goes around on cruise ships and she's like traveled to germany and all you know so your sister's a professional dancer slash uh acrobat does she do the thing with the the rope
Guest:Yeah, the ropes and the silks and the hoops.
Marc:Silks.
Guest:She's really talented.
Marc:Just one sister?
Guest:I have two.
Guest:My other one is like a computer science whiz.
Guest:She is big up in a company and really, you know, very different than me but very successful.
Marc:Who's oldest?
Guest:I'm the oldest.
Marc:And you have a little sister who's a professional dancer and acrobat of sorts on cruise ships.
Marc:And you have one that's a computer whiz.
Marc:So your parents must have been relatively open-minded and encouraging.
Marc:It's lucky you had a teacher, a loopy teacher for a mother.
Marc:What'd your dad do after the farm?
Guest:Oh, my dad, he went to work in a prison.
Marc:For reals.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That's the song.
Marc:It's in the song.
Guest:It's in the song.
Guest:And he, yeah, very serious, very serious man.
Guest:Man of few words, but when he talks, it's always gold.
Guest:And he scared off a lot of boys for sure.
Marc:That sounds like the opening of the song as well.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Man of few words, but when he talked, it was gold.
Guest:called he's a he you know for a while he was he was prison guard and he he drove the inmates back and forth from Chicago to other prisons for a real prison like in the fugitive you know the guy who's like driving a bus or whatever with the guys in chains yeah but it was like a grown-up prison
Guest:yeah it was a serious prison that's a lot to see man yeah he he saw a lot uh he's got some great stories uh i'll have to share one or two of those with you if he doesn't get too mad at me uh but yeah he and then he worked his way up he was the lieutenant of internal affairs so he saw for the state crazy shit for the state yeah no shit yeah
Marc:That's like, yeah, that's a whole other world.
Guest:Yeah, I don't think that's like somewhere you want to go every day by choice, you know?
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:Most people don't.
Marc:They're made to go there.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I was made to go there once and just wondered how he did it.
Guest:To prison?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:My prison song's all real in my... Oh, really?
Guest:What?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Weekender's my prison song and I wrote it while I was in, well, jail.
Guest:I went to the Davidson County Jail.
Guest:But I was in there with...
Guest:All of the real criminals.
Marc:When did that happen?
Guest:That was maybe three years ago.
Marc:Because you got fucked up?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Got fucked up.
Guest:Made bad choices.
Guest:for a day or was it a bad night that got you into prison it was a bad night but it was like a just a lot of depression that led up to that and was at the end of it that was definitely the turning point i thought the prison better get it together right now or i'm gonna lose a lot of things that really matter well let's let's go back
Guest:Yeah, yeah, where were we at?
Marc:No, no, no, no, no, it's not a problem.
Marc:I'm just like, I like talking to you.
Marc:So you decide not to dance because you took some mushrooms and listened to the White Album, where you decide not to be a cheerleader, but you go full on into more expressive.
Guest:Right, like modern dance.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And you can do all that stuff?
Guest:Yeah, I haven't done it in a while.
Guest:I mean, being a musician kind of makes you, like, lazy and you get that musician bod.
Marc:Your fingers work really well, but, like, your arms... And your music doesn't necessarily call for, you know, the headpiece.
Guest:Right.
Marc:I'm not doing the... You're not doing mainstream country.
Guest:Yeah, I haven't went Chris Gaines yet or whatever.
Yeah.
Marc:It's only a matter of time, man.
Guest:You know, it happens to everybody.
Guest:People keep saying, stay grounded, Margo.
Marc:Yeah, you hit that one groove that sells, they're going to be like, we got some ideas for you, girl.
Marc:Yes, we do.
Guest:Line dancing.
Marc:All of it.
Marc:You're going to bring it all back.
Marc:It's your destiny.
Marc:I won't tell.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So, all right, so you start doing that.
Marc:And what else changes?
Marc:When does the imbibing start to... Wait, now you say you're depressive?
Guest:Yeah, I've got a lot of depression.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oddly enough.
Marc:When did that start showing up?
Guest:I think I've kind of always been a little manic.
Marc:Oh, manic, yeah.
Guest:You talk a lot about like eating disorders and like the pressure of that.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:That was definitely there with the- Cheerleading?
Guest:Yeah, and even that second year of college right before I dropped out, I was-
Guest:In the dance department and really diving into ballet, like, you know, 10 hour days.
Guest:And they would have the scales set in there.
Guest:So you would weigh like 10, 15 pounds heavier than you actually did.
Guest:And they would tell you if you were looking fat.
Guest:What college?
Guest:It was Northern Illinois University.
Guest:And I did have some good teachers there, too.
Guest:But, yeah, all that just started to rub me the wrong way.
Guest:And I was just playing more and more.
Guest:And then I took a trip to Nashville on my spring break.
Guest:And I just thought, screw it.
Guest:I'm leaving the Midwest.
Marc:You're out.
Guest:I'm done.
Guest:Who's coming with me?
Guest:Where are my ladies at?
Marc:Yep.
Marc:Or bad guys.
Guest:Yeah, where's those bad guys?
Marc:They came later, the bad guys?
Guest:Yeah, then I moved to Nashville, started singing in the bars.
Marc:By yourself?
Marc:Jewel style?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, getting the stool and you sign up for the songwriter round and everybody does one song.
Marc:And you were writing songs?
Guest:I was writing songs, yeah.
Marc:All the way through or just that last year of college?
Guest:I'd been writing songs probably even as young as seven or eight, but finally making full compositions and everything where they were more coherent at that point.
Guest:So, yeah, I really got bit by the bug and moved there.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:you know, just floundered for years.
Guest:Doing that.
Guest:Yeah, just kind of doing that.
Guest:Then I got louder and louder.
Guest:I started getting into the kinks a lot.
Marc:Great, which records?
Guest:Oh man, Lola vs. Power Man, Muswell Hillbillies.
Guest:Muswell Hillbillies.
Marc:Village Green Preservation Society.
Guest:So good.
Guest:And I loved their topical approach.
Guest:Kind of funny?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So we decided to start this band, my husband and I. The same husband?
Marc:He was just my boyfriend at the time.
Marc:Same one?
Guest:Yeah, same guy.
Guest:I've been with him for 13 years.
Guest:on and off but uh at that time we are our love came out of wanting to write only political songs that were like kinks inspired yeah but that's a really hard sell in the south it was you know when the the you know the iraq war was going on i was going to like protests oh yeah in dc and writing songs called like bloodshed and uh architects of war
Guest:Clearing out lots of rooms because nobody wants to hear that shit.
Guest:Especially not in Nashville.
Marc:At that time.
Guest:Yeah, not at that time.
Guest:That was not what was hot.
Marc:I guess it's not really that hot.
Marc:I mean, if you're going to do a political song, it better be in the American direction.
Guest:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Let her leave it.
Marc:Yeah, this was a questionable direction.
Marc:Yeah, these were critical.
Guest:These ideas were out there.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Damn hippies.
Marc:Yep, yep.
Marc:The bad ones.
Marc:Socialists.
Marc:Oh, yeah, that word.
Marc:Communists.
Marc:Oh, horrible.
Guest:Terrible things.
Marc:But, like, what was, I mean, I have to assume at that time, if that's, like, 13 years ago, I mean, it's not that, it's not like it was 1975 or something, but, like, I mean, Nashville had to have
Marc:There were definitely other rock bands and stuff going on.
Guest:Yeah, that was really what drew me there.
Guest:It had a good kind of punk scene.
Guest:But I always felt like I was not punk enough for the punks.
Guest:Couldn't rock and roll as hard as... I put down the guitar, was singing with the mic, trying to be James Brown or Jim Morrison.
Marc:What'd you do to your hair?
Marc:Well, you had the moves.
Guest:Were you dancing?
Guest:Yeah, I'd crawl around on the floor, do a back bend with the mic and scream at people and jump around.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But you always had a singing voice.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I still sang.
Guest:I mean, I loved Janis Joplin in that way.
Marc:So Janis was an inspiration.
Guest:Yeah, she was an inspiration.
Guest:I got louder and louder.
Guest:There's this Gillian Welch song.
Guest:It's called I Want to Sing That Rock and Roll.
Guest:She's just talking about how everybody's... She's singing so loud, but everybody's drowning her out.
Guest:So she wants to sing rock and roll music.
Guest:And I thought, yeah, that's what I need to get more people to listen to me.
Guest:I just need to get a big-ass band and...
Guest:And so it grew.
Guest:At first, it was just like four-piece kind of punk band.
Guest:And then I started getting really into soul music, added like a horn section.
Marc:That's Buffalo Clover?
Guest:Buffalo Clover, yeah.
Marc:I listened to that record.
Guest:Yeah, there's some moments on there.
Marc:It's a good record because you're a good singer.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:I appreciate that.
Marc:And it sounded good to me.
Marc:I like the horns and stuff.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I mean, you were ahead of the curve.
Marc:Sturgill just did that for this third record, and everyone thinks he's a genius.
Guest:Right, I did that.
Guest:I did that like how many years ago now?
Guest:Nobody heard it.
Guest:And even Brittany Howard sang on that one.
Guest:Yeah, I thought that was going to be the shot.
Guest:I had a publicist who just totally dropped the ball on that, and she didn't send it out to anybody.
Marc:Who put it out?
Guest:What label?
Guest:I put it out on my own, so that probably is also why.
Guest:I mean, it just didn't have much reach at all.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:But the thing I liked about it was it made sense.
Marc:It wasn't like, you know, it was like, wow, that's you before you became you.
Marc:It was really honoring whatever you became.
Guest:Yeah, and everybody at that time, I was like, I'm making a soul rock and roll record.
Guest:But when I put it out, in the small amount of charts that it got put on, everybody said, alternative country.
Marc:Well, that's something you guys got to fight with.
Marc:I don't understand how it holds anymore.
Guest:We always just got, when we would play shows, folks would say, you sound like Dolly Parton backed by the Rolling Stones.
Guest:And I'd take that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I just kind of felt maybe that something that I was doing wasn't exactly working.
Guest:So then I went back and started playing my acoustic again.
Marc:But the weird thing is, so you were mad it wasn't country or it wasn't rock?
Yeah.
Guest:I just was mad that I was trying to make a soul record with not any acoustic instruments on it and people were calling it country.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Because, I mean, what country was and still kind of is at that time maybe is more like that.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Well, I don't know.
Marc:Like that old country thing.
Guest:It was still rooted, you know?
Guest:It's like CCR or something.
Guest:It's...
Guest:yes sure happy medium between well i mean country is rock i mean you know it's always been part of rock like grand parsons he had a great quote it was uh in all great country music there's a little bit rock and roll or the other way around sure yeah i mean yeah i mean it's kind of yeah they're in blues and country you know three chords same progression but that's all that's rock
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Marc:But the all country thing, that label, whenever it originally started happening, it's been a while.
Marc:That fight has been a long, weird fight.
Marc:I mean, even when Steve Earle was doing relatively mainstream.
Marc:I love Steve Earle.
Marc:Yeah, but those first couple albums, it's just fucking straight up country rock.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:And then that label started to sort of come, that alt-country thing.
Marc:And even Townes Van Zandt, I don't know, gets- Love Townes Van Zandt.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:But they don't get put in the canon of country artists.
Guest:It's like folk.
Guest:And now what you have everybody labeling this more rooted country stuff is Americana.
Right.
Marc:But that must just be a stronghold to that fucking paradigm of that machine, of that Nashville machine.
Marc:That must be... Right.
Guest:They want to say, well, now we need to develop a different genre for country because we can't put these people doing this kind of country and these people doing this other kind of country in the same boat.
Marc:And I've been doing these... But why is that?
Marc:It's because that audience...
Marc:is fundamentally like second or third generation away from their parents' music, which is more like what you guys are playing.
Marc:And now it's just this weird stadium rock version of... With the earpiece and the white teeth.
Marc:And some of those guys do real country.
Marc:I mean, there's no doubt about it, but the production is such, and I guess the machine is such, that they're not going to let you go back in time.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:That they need to make records that cost millions of dollars to make.
Marc:Just to feed the thing.
Marc:God knows why.
Marc:Who the hell fucking knows?
Marc:I don't know.
Guest:Well, it's been so weird.
Guest:I've been doing a couple of radio tours, and I go meet these program directors, and they're all perplexed by me.
Guest:Well, I like this, but I don't know how we're going to play this next to... What?
Guest:These country stations?
Guest:A bro country guy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Nameless country guy.
Marc:Well, that's because they think it's going to feel like you're going back in time.
Marc:Like it's really one of those issues of like, you know, I think maybe country is one of those weird things that's judged differently in that the stuff that really had integrity, you know, everyone will claim to be
Marc:you know, inspired by, but they think that the form of producing it, you know, like a country record used to be produced is somehow dated.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:That must be it.
Guest:But I mean, even when I remember hearing the white stripes for the first time and it was like grungy, gritty rock and roll.
Guest:And it was very different compared to the like bubble gum.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, like boy band stuff.
Guest:But no, but, but like you said, it wasn't like judged like, Oh, well this is,
Marc:you know well i guess it's throwback rock well i think that's because like there was never any kind of broadcast infrastructure that was equivalent to college radio for country music like you would be played on college radio because it's a big tent or open but there was always this alternative market for rock but there really wasn't one for country i mean country was always country
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think so many people have just written off country music.
Guest:Well, I'm not going to listen to country radio because I don't like it.
Guest:And I'm one of those people.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then I'm going into these, you know, a lot of these stations and they're just looking at me like, who the fuck?
Guest:What are you?
Marc:These are country stations.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's weird to me that that's the response.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, they can't identify it.
Guest:I'm sure like some of them are playing me, but.
Marc:But like, what is Sturgill doing?
Marc:Are they playing him?
Yeah.
Guest:Not as much as they should.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:You know, not as much as they should.
Marc:They just don't like you guys coming around the side.
Guest:Yeah, it's sleepy.
Guest:Then everybody else, I think, is going to probably try to say, oh, I'm going to make something genuine and rooted.
Marc:Yeah, that's what's going to happen.
Guest:Yeah, I've been seeing some of that.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And little waves, like this one kind of mainstream girl.
Guest:I'm not going to say her name.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I just saw this thing she put up, and she said the word honest.
Guest:I wanted to make something honest.
Guest:She said it five times.
Marc:It's either that or authentic.
Marc:Authentic.
Marc:authentic yeah those are the ones yeah real deal so all right so you're playing with buffalo clover you're making your soul record when's it when's the crazy shit start crazy shit starts um get pregnant uh i'm married at this time but get pregnant kind of by accident um now what was the story like in the song you said you took up with a married man was he married when he met him
Guest:He was married when I met him.
Guest:His ex-wife was totally crazy.
Guest:She was on drugs and got pregnant with somebody else's kid and then wouldn't sign the divorce papers when he said this is over.
Guest:So when I met him, he had been separated for a year.
Guest:That's kind of the only thing on the album that doesn't come off completely factual because I didn't...
Marc:Well, no, I mean, what are you going to say in the middle of the song?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, like, you know, for the sake of the lyric, were you going to go into it like, well, he wasn't really... Technically separated.
Guest:It doesn't come off in a verse.
Marc:I got involved with a married man.
Guest:So we settled down, but I was ready to go to Europe and tour really heavily with Low Down Time.
Guest:So the one before Test Your Love, the Buffalo Clover record.
Guest:And then I find out that I'm pregnant and... Your husband's on the band, though.
Guest:He was, yeah.
Marc:He was playing electric guitar.
Marc:Okay, okay.
Marc:So you both find out you're pregnant.
Guest:Yeah, we both find out we're pregnant.
Guest:And, you know, we're happy.
Guest:But I think at that point I had thought, I'm just going to have dogs and just be a musician.
Guest:Because he had told me that he couldn't have kids.
Guest:So we're together for seven years, not getting pregnant.
Guest:And then all of a sudden, boom, pregnant with twins.
Guest:And...
Guest:So it was just a really trying pregnancy.
Guest:And I found out about 17, 18 weeks that one of my sons had a heart defect.
Guest:He had hypoplastic left heart syndrome and he had half a heart.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:And so they told me that, and I was at Vanderbilt, a really great hospital in Tennessee.
Guest:They were second best on doing this particular surgery that he needed.
Guest:90% chance he was gonna survive, but he would probably have only lived to be 30 or 40.
Guest:And so that was a really heavy pill to swallow.
Marc:Before he's even out of you?
Guest:Before he was even born.
Guest:So my depression starts then.
Guest:And I'm already, like I said, kind of a manic, depressive person anyway.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I have them and doctor does the surgery and fucked it up and we lost him.
Guest:And then started the downward spiral.
Guest:But here I have a perfectly healthy baby at home.
Guest:And every...
Guest:you know, every day was, it was happy, but it was, there was just always a sadness there.
Guest:I mean, we had two, we had two cribs, two car seats, two of everything.
Guest:So yeah, that got, um, really heavy and, but you know, I was still being a good mother, but you know, I would, I would go out and, uh,
Guest:And if I drank in a bad mood, it was just over.
Marc:Well, there's a normal sort of postpartum depression that happens.
Marc:But compounded by the absence of.
Marc:Yeah, it was just terrible.
Guest:And it just affected me so much.
Guest:So.
Marc:So you're an angry drunk?
Guest:Yeah, I would get sad and then I was actually, I was so depressed that I was thinking of checking myself into a place and I kept saying it out loud and it was like nobody was really aware of how bad I was.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And like, I mean, thinking like suicidal thoughts.
Guest:Right, right, right.
Guest:So one night I went over to a friend's.
Guest:She was a mother and a musician, and she also was a wine dealer.
Guest:We get all loaded on really expensive wine, and I'm playing drums and having fun.
Guest:I'd started out kind of crying, but the drunker I got, the more I forgot about things.
Guest:And then the night starts getting really late, and I thought, I better get home.
Guest:My husband's going to kick my ass.
Guest:I really need to go.
Guest:Call a cab.
Guest:It was before Uber and Lyft and all this.
Guest:Cab doesn't come.
Guest:Some time goes by, like, drink some water, eat some crackers and cheese.
Marc:Sure, sober up.
Guest:Think I'm good to go.
Guest:And only a mile from my house, but I was driving.
Guest:Very large Ford Explorer.
Marc:Oh, so you sobered up because the cab didn't come.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:You're gonna drive.
Guest:Gonna drive, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:Definitely was sober enough to drive.
Marc:George Jones it.
Guest:I wish I had a lawnmower.
Guest:I would have got a lot less trouble.
Guest:But I hit a telephone pole in front of two cops.
Marc:In front of them?
Guest:In front of two cops.
Marc:Good timing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was so close to my house.
Marc:That's the worst.
Guest:And then I was thinking, like, I'm going to jail.
Guest:Maybe I can outrun the fuckers.
Guest:So I start speeding away, thinking I'll just pull in someone's driveway.
Guest:Because they were parked.
Guest:I was going pretty fast.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And you were shit-faced.
Guest:And I was shit-faced and I was not thinking clearly.
Guest:Clearly, yeah.
Guest:And so, yeah, finally pull over because there's two cop cars and one's like side of me and one's behind me.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:They kind of push you?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They're making you pull over.
Guest:Pouring down rain.
Guest:They make me walk the line.
Guest:Of course, I fail horribly.
Guest:They take me to jail.
Guest:And...
Guest:I was charged with like public property damage, fleeing the scene of an accident, a whole list of things.
Guest:And went to court, ended up getting reckless endangerment, which is a misdemeanor and does not look very good.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:When you look at the definition, it's like you went out trying to hurt other people.
Guest:And I was only trying to hurt myself.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Now your husband's got to put up with this shit.
Marc:He's home with the kid.
Guest:He gets a call in the middle of the night.
Guest:He thinks I'm dead, the way that the cops called.
Guest:I end up going to court.
Guest:My lawyer's like, all right, you're going to have to go do a weekend, but it's a white-collar prison.
Guest:The people are going to be so nice.
Guest:It's not going to be bad.
Guest:Well, he lied to me because it was terrible.
Guest:He couldn't even bring in a book.
Marc:Prison was bad, imagine.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Who would have thought?
Guest:And the girl that was my roommate, she was all messed up on pills.
Guest:She slept all day.
Guest:She had beat her boyfriend up high on crack cocaine.
Guest:And she had me actually mail a letter to him because he wasn't answering her phone calls.
Guest:His name was Cash.
Guest:So after that, I just really did not want to go.
Marc:She sent you out with a letter?
Marc:Sent me out with a letter.
Marc:When you left.
Marc:Oh, you're getting out here.
Marc:She was like, call me.
Guest:Just gave me your phone number.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:But it was so eye-opening to see all the women in there and all the things they'd been through.
Guest:And I actually really want to go do a tour of a woman's prison.
Guest:Speaking of the Johnny Cash live in San Quentin.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But after I got out, I sobered up for a long time and got my shit together and started writing more.
Guest:And then that was being a better mom, being a better mom.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Better wife.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Trying at least.
Marc:You must have married a real hero.
Guest:He's put up with a lot more than you'll ever know.
Marc:And you guys are good?
Guest:Yeah, we're good.
Guest:He was playing bass for quite a while and then things got incredibly busy and I was on the road so much.
Guest:We don't have a bus.
Guest:We're still touring in like a sprinter.
Guest:So I can't, it's not an option really to bring my son along.
Marc:How old is he now?
Guest:He's six.
Marc:Oh.
Guest:Yeah, he's starting kindergarten this year.
Guest:I'm going to be there for his first day of kindergarten, so that's good.
Marc:Well, that's good.
Guest:Yeah, he's great.
Marc:And what do you do?
Marc:You just leveled off and pulled it in, or you got real sober?
Guest:Leveled off.
Guest:Yeah, I got sober for a while.
Guest:Now I drink sometimes, but I never drink if I'm in a bad mood.
Marc:Okay, and you don't feel compelled?
Marc:You don't drink alcoholically necessarily?
Guest:Yeah, I don't.
Guest:I mean, I go on, and I'm working so much, I lose my voice if I'm drinking.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Marc:Do you smoke?
Guest:When I drink.
Guest:So, yeah, I'll go long amounts of time.
Guest:I just smoke pot and find myself.
Marc:All right, but you're level and you're showing up for work.
Guest:I am, yeah, things have really... And you're showing up for the family business.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So where's the Winnebago part?
Guest:Well, Winnebago... After you get out of prison.
Guest:This was before, yeah.
Marc:Oh, damn.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was another dream, the L.A.
Guest:dream?
Guest:That was the whole other dream.
Guest:For a while, I acted as my own manager.
Guest:I created a man that, because people responded much better in e-mails...
Guest:to be invented a dude hi this is margo i want to book a show hello this is john sirota i'm writing on behalf of buffalo clover so we had this guy that was he he booked uh tour across the united states from started in illinois went to nashville and we went to north carolina and played all the way across the u.s in a winnebago in a winnebago yeah and i booked it all as a man and a fictitious man with your husband
Guest:Yep, my husband, he was playing electric guitar.
Guest:I was playing acoustic.
Guest:And the band is in the... Drummer and bass player.
Marc:The jazz drummer.
Guest:Jazz drummer, yep.
Marc:In the Winnebago.
Guest:Yep, in the Winnebago, living the dream.
Guest:And yeah, that was a whole experience...
Guest:unto itself but after after we played our last show um see we played in los angeles and then we went up to like hermosa beach or something and then uh right when we played the last show the winnebago it was a 1986 winnebago quit going into third gear so we drove all the way up the pacific coast highway going 35 miles an hour with people just yeah and
Guest:Trip on mushrooms again in the Redwood Forest for like a week.
Guest:Oh, that's nice.
Guest:Get all booby-eyed and feeling crazy.
Guest:And then I thought that it was just destiny, right?
Guest:Things weren't really taking off in Nashville.
Guest:Winnebago breaks down on the West Coast.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Let's stay out here.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:We'll live here.
Marc:This is where it stopped.
Guest:Playing psychedelic music anyway.
Guest:But my husband, he really wanted to go back to Tennessee.
Guest:And his parents also really wanted us to go back.
Guest:So...
Guest:We sold the Winnebago to these hippies that we met.
Guest:Have you ever heard of the Rainbow Children?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Stay away from them.
Marc:There's a documentary on them, I think.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I need to check that out.
Marc:They're a cult.
Guest:Yeah, it's a very strange little... We found them... I mean, we were just staying at trailer parks.
Guest:The whole tour, we didn't have to get any hotels or anything.
Guest:You just pull up in the trailer park next to...
Guest:oh you know wherever yeah bob and helen or whatever and uh we we pulled into this one it was like this guy told us in the town where we could do free camping yeah it was all the rainbow children and they were kind of terrifying that you know they wanted to trade like their grateful dead t-shirt for weed or you know right toilet paper or whatever you had on you hippie barter yeah
Marc:It smelled so bad.
Guest:So the Winnebago is not going so well.
Guest:So we sell it to these rainbow kids for like $300.
Guest:And they were telling us that they would give us more money.
Guest:later when we mailed them the title because I hadn't even got the title yet because we only had it for a month and we drove it into the ground and so go back home the U-Haul maybe like a month later my dad gets a call from the Reno Police Department and he they said that my Winnebago was abandoned on the side of the road and I never saw it again.
Marc:That was it?
Marc:That was it.
Marc:What did he say?
Marc:Goodbye Winnie Cooper.
Oh yeah.
Marc:That was the end of that story.
Marc:That was it.
Marc:Well, you could have ended up in the Rainbow Children.
Guest:I mean, things really went the way they should have.
Guest:I'm so glad we didn't stay there.
Guest:You could have been still there.
Marc:Well, that's good.
Marc:Well, that's interesting that, you know, his parents were like, just come back.
Marc:Just come back.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You guys need to quit this music thing.
Guest:Oh, they were like that?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Get a normal life.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:But I mean, they've helped support us.
Guest:We're losers.
Guest:Every now and then you got to get some help financially.
Guest:And we burned all our money up on this Winnebago and this tour that really got us nowhere.
Marc:Did you open for anybody?
Marc:Are you just doing clubs on your own?
Guest:No, I was just doing like, yeah.
Marc:And there was no real record.
Marc:No one knew you.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:We made a documentary of the whole trip.
Marc:Where's that?
Guest:In a little camcorder.
Guest:It's called Maybe We'll Make It.
Guest:And it was like the, you know, maybe we'll make it.
Marc:Sure, sure.
Guest:There are a lot of metaphors there, but we did not make it then.
Marc:So then you just kind of dug in in Nashville and that's how you got, you know, to the place you're at now?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I'm glad that I stuck with it.
Guest:The only reason that I wanted to go back was like,
Guest:in my mind i didn't want to let that city kick my ass i wanted to conquer it when i first moved there i wrote down all the venues i wanted to play on a sheet of paper and i slowly checked them off you know start with the dive bar spring water okay we're done yeah the end uh exit in five spot third lindsley go down the list and um that so i'm glad i went back
Marc:When you'd streamlined the band and made it more of a country outfit, were you picking up a following?
Marc:Was that starting to happen in town?
Guest:Yeah, things were going well for a while.
Guest:I played this small club called The Basement, and this guy from Rolling Stone was there and just absolutely floored by the performance.
Guest:This was probably about three years ago, right around the time that the jail stuff was happening.
Guest:I hadn't written the jail song yet.
Guest:Hadn't written hands of time, but had like hurting on the bottle and like all the, you know, since he put me down those tunes guy from Rolling Stone comes up and says, where's your record?
Guest:I want to review it.
Guest:Where the hell did you come from?
Guest:And I said, I don't have a record.
Guest:Hang on really quickly.
Guest:And then I wrote this insane letter, sent it out to all these producers and labels.
Guest:I'm about to make the best country record you've ever heard.
Guest:Give me money.
Marc:Put your name on that one.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Margot Price?
Guest:Nobody wrote me back.
Marc:You just blew it out there?
Guest:I just threw it out there.
Guest:Like, you know, maybe someone would help.
Guest:After you talked to the Rolling Stone guy.
Marc:Yeah, because I thought, and I would tell people.
Marc:He's on to something.
Guest:Yeah, I'm like, Rolling Stone did this feature on me.
Guest:They shared my little video I did, and we got a good thing.
Guest:There's a good buzz going, but nobody would bite on it.
Guest:So about a year goes by, and my husband just up and decides to sell the car.
Guest:He's like, we're making this record, and that's the end of it.
Guest:and I tried to talk him out of it I said don't sell the car he went down he sold the car it was a little mini Cooper and it had been kind of gifted to us from his grandmother and I didn't really feel right about driving it around anyway because I didn't earn it and so sold the car
Marc:How are you getting around Nashville?
Guest:Well, we had another car.
Guest:We still have one car.
Guest:We just share it now.
Guest:And Nashville's not a very friendly city if you don't have a car.
Guest:You can't take the bus.
Guest:There's no subway.
Guest:There's not even bike lanes.
Guest:So we fight over the car.
Guest:But we go into Sun Studio and make a record in three days.
Marc:What, you just paid the cost of the studio?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Who'd you bring in?
Marc:Who produced it?
Marc:You guys?
Guest:Well, my friend Alex Munoz, he's from Spain, and he kept saying, I want to come along and produce this record.
Guest:And I said, ma'am, we just don't have the budget.
Guest:We're just very small budget.
Guest:And he told my husband on the side, he said, I'm going to come do it.
Guest:I'll do it for free.
Guest:You guys can worry about paying me later.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I said, Alex, you might not ever get paid.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But he came along anyway.
Guest:I paid all my musicians, all the dudes in my band.
Guest:And we recorded live to Radar, which is like this weird analog thing.
Guest:And it happened real fast.
Guest:And I was so happy with the way it came out.
Marc:This record's all live?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:No shit.
Guest:I went back and redid some of the vocals, but all the playing is all live.
Marc:It must be.
Marc:Because there is something really whole sounding to it.
Guest:And This Town Gets Around, that's a live vocal.
Guest:It really has that kind of Johnny Cash slap back.
Guest:Everything's in the same room.
Guest:So...
Guest:get done with it I'm so happy with how it came out so you self produced that thing yeah yeah and Alex Munoz and Matt Ross Spang they both kind of help and engineer and produce it for very little were you friends with like Cobb and Sturgill and all those cats at that time
Guest:I had known Sturgill, but had never met Dave.
Guest:And I don't think he had any interest in really working with me.
Guest:He had a lot of things going on at the time.
Marc:So there wasn't really a unified kind of little new country community down there.
Guest:No, I mean, I think everybody wants to think East Nashville is so, everybody loves each other and everyone's collaborating.
Guest:And there is a lot of that, but there's also a very competitive, business-minded, get out of my fucking way or I'll step on your head to get to the top.
Marc:So now you've got this analog tape.
Guest:Yeah, got it.
Guest:And I'm floored.
Guest:I think it turned out great.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I start sending it to big labels, small labels, Americana labels.
Marc:Yourself?
Guest:Indie labels, yeah.
Marc:But like Bloodshot and like who?
Guest:Totally.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Merge.
Guest:New West.
Guest:Even was talking to Sony a little bit.
Guest:They had me come in, play for them.
Guest:But nobody was biting.
Guest:And the one person that was biting, they wanted me to take off the fiddle and change the bass and make it more a soul record.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:so i i was getting they still heard that in there somehow yeah yeah they they wanted you know because i think it was in you know recorded in memphis that they thought we could just totally flip this and make it all soul or something um i had i mean so many rejections that it's interesting that they heard that in in in this record because like that you did make a soul record and it was in you yeah but i don't hear it in the record necessarily yeah the pedal steel and i mean yeah yeah it um
Marc:But they were like, there's a soul record in here.
Guest:Yeah, this one label.
Guest:And they offered me more money than I'd ever seen at the time, and I thought about it, but then I just couldn't change it.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, good.
Guest:So there was a lot of rejections.
Guest:I think I'm actually going to get my rejection letters framed.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I think that'll be a good look on my wall, you know, all the no's and the... Mount them together, like a large piece.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then finally, third man comes along and...
Marc:Jack specifically or his guy?
Guest:I heard, you know, Jack likes what you're doing.
Guest:He wants to hear the record.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:So I meet the other two third men, Ben Swank, Ben Blackwell.
Guest:They come out to show and they love it.
Guest:They love the record.
Marc:Can't see how he wouldn't.
Guest:Yeah, they didn't want to change anything, and it was insane.
Guest:And so for a few months, you know, we were kind of just talking and figuring things out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I remember my pedal steel player, once we knew that it was going to happen, that they were actually going to sign us.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And not just like put out a single or something, like the whole record.
Guest:My pedal steel player, he said...
Guest:Gonna be a lot of toilets flushing in Nashville the day they find out.
Guest:You're signing the third man.
Guest:And it's always nice now when I see some of these folks, hey, how you doing?
Guest:Good to see you.
Guest:And it turned out way better than had I signed with anybody else.
Marc:Right, because he's an artist's producer and label.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It still feels like a dream.
Guest:I don't know how things have gone so well.
Marc:What are you talking about?
Guest:Waiting for them to go wrong.
Marc:It sounds like you paid some dues.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Well, you know all about that too.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, it's not like it.
Guest:I'm kind of looking behind my back.
Marc:No, I know.
Guest:When's the evil thing going to bite me again and I'll slip back into the hole of loserdom?
Marc:No, well, the good thing about evil things biting you when you're a country singer is that's your next record.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:They didn't bite me.
Guest:Now it's like the internet trolls, you know, I gotta... The worst.
Guest:But it like feeds the fire.
Guest:You get trolls?
Guest:Get some trolls, and it's always... It's never talking about my music.
Guest:It's never, oh, you suck, I hate your voice, you can't write a song.
Guest:It's always...
Guest:she's too, she's not pretty enough or, you know, she needs a nose job with women.
Guest:It's always, it's always a comment on the looks.
Guest:I don't understand.
Guest:She's wearing too much makeup.
Guest:She's not wearing enough makeup.
Guest:She's dressed like a slut.
Guest:She's dressed like a prude.
Guest:There's,
Marc:don't read them it's fucking ridiculous on twitter or what yeah twitter's probably the worst yeah what is it so they see you on tv and that's when it happens yeah or like you know somebody one of the late night shows put up like a photo of me and it's just yeah don't fucking do that yeah i can't read the comments anymore it ruins my no it's my happiness and for people that are like sort of like you know kind of you know sensitive like myself or whatever they am sensitive
Marc:Well, also, like, you know, you want to read the good shit, but then it's just a speedball of garbage.
Guest:And it ruins it for the people writing good shit.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I don't even open my messages anymore.
Marc:Well, you can't, like, people, well, like me, I don't know you specifically, but you kind of blow through the good shit.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then when the bad shit hits, you're like, wait, what the fuck?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then it fuels you up.
Marc:And then the people writing good shit hate you for that shit.
Marc:They're like, what about we say nice things?
Marc:It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:But what about this fucking idiot?
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:I love how you spoke up for Amy Schumer, too.
Guest:That was really nice.
Marc:But those are all the same.
Marc:Those dudes are the same.
Guest:Yeah, it's the same thing.
Guest:It's like, what are you...
Marc:It's all these fucking babies with women.
Marc:It's just like, shut up.
Guest:Sitting at home and living at their parents' house.
Guest:What can I say about her?
Marc:Or even worse, not living at their parents' house and sitting at home playing video games.
Marc:It's just something that exists now.
Marc:It is, yeah.
Marc:It comes and goes.
Marc:So wait, so did you meet Jack?
Marc:I mean, do you have a relationship with him?
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:He's a nice guy.
Marc:I went down there.
Guest:So nice.
Guest:Yeah, have you done the third man tour?
Marc:I interviewed him down there years ago.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We talked about blues and stuff.
Guest:Yeah, you guys have the same speaker set up.
Marc:The Macintosh?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, when I saw his, I'm like, I gotta get it.
Marc:And then when I saw how much it was, it's a fucking nightmare.
Marc:But he's got more than I do.
Marc:And he's got, I think, a different thing.
Marc:But I ended up getting it.
Marc:So what is your deal with them?
Marc:How many records?
Guest:I got one more with them.
Guest:Are you going to let him produce it?
Guest:I don't know yet.
Guest:I've been just kind of starting the conversation about where I'm going to do it and who's going to produce and all that.
Guest:I've got 30 songs.
Guest:You do?
Guest:Maybe more.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I really want to do something big.
Guest:I hate thinking about just putting out like 10 songs or something.
Marc:Well, don't burn them all.
Guest:Yeah, I mean... Too much.
Guest:Got to save them for when the creative juice dries up, maybe, but... No, but a tight record's good, though, man.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I mean, sometimes it's like... Well, Sturgill's kind of aware of it, too, that there's nothing wrong with actually thinking in terms of a record and not thinking in terms of just putting songs on there, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I mean, I think they are good songs.
Guest:I don't want to, you know, just put shit on there.
Guest:But I feel like when you first write a song, it will never mean as much to you in five years as the moment when you wrote it.
Guest:So that's just my thought.
Guest:But I could just, you know, record them and then hold on to them for later.
Marc:I wasn't being, you do what you got to do.
Marc:I mean, either way, I'll listen to all the songs.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Well, I'm sending you two Buffalo Clover vinyls.
Marc:I'm going to make note of that.
Marc:So, well, I love this record, and I'm glad we talked.
Guest:I love you.
Guest:Like I said, we listen to you on the road, and when we get real burnt out of just listening to albums, it makes the time go by.
Marc:Everyone just listening to me talking?
Guest:Everybody listens, yeah.
Guest:Nine people in there just...
Guest:Everybody's cracking up and it's great.
Marc:Do people go like, ah, Maren, what'd you ask that for?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:What are you doing?
Guest:It was great.
Guest:The Neil Young one was amazing to listen to.
Marc:I was so nervous, dude.
Guest:Oh, I can't imagine.
Marc:Because he was hard for about 10 or 15 minutes.
Guest:Yeah, you gotta warm him up.
Guest:Neil's not an open book.
Marc:It's not even warm him up.
Marc:Right, it's not even warm him up.
Marc:It's like...
Marc:There's just some, he doesn't give a fuck.
Marc:He doesn't mean to.
Marc:And he doesn't really like to do interviews, but he wanted Pono to get out there.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he clearly did not want to talk about anything that had anything.
Guest:You wanted to ask, yeah.
Marc:Well, no, I didn't know where to start.
Marc:I'm starting with gear, and he's like, yeah, I think I got, he's dismissing.
Marc:I'm like, I got this amp, it's like yours.
Marc:He's like, yeah, I think I got one like that.
Marc:I'm like, oh, he's not going to bite on equipment.
Marc:What are we going to talk about?
Marc:Well, I think the reason people liked it was he seemed to loosen up and have a good time.
Guest:Oh, he totally did.
Guest:And I felt like he was kind of interviewing you.
Guest:Like, you know, he like flipped it around.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:The lozenges and the math on those.
Guest:I was doing a thing with KCRW and I saw outside the studio we were at, there was a sign that said reserved for shaky.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:and i found out he was there and i just i wanted to meet him so bad i'm a massive neil young freak and um i called third man hey you guys did that thing with him can you can you get me to meet him i didn't get to meet him he like left for lunch and then something happened got pissed off at somebody didn't come back for the day he said neil's not in a good mood today but i can understand that i got a lot of have you been able to meet
Marc:Because I talked to Sturgill about that, about his heroes or people he respected.
Marc:Have you been able to meet any of the people?
Marc:Who are your gals and guys?
Guest:Well, I mean, I love Bob Dylan.
Guest:Speaking of Bobbies.
Marc:Another hard guy to meet.
Guest:Yeah, I'm never going to meet him probably, but I love Bob Dylan.
Guest:I have everything he's ever done.
Guest:Of course, I love Loretta.
Guest:I'm dying to meet her.
Guest:Still haven't got to yet.
Guest:I love Dolly Parton.
Guest:I love...
Guest:Jesse Coulter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Waylon's wife.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I did the coolest person I've got to meet and actually got to sing with was I got to sing with Chris Christopherson.
Guest:You did?
Guest:And I met him twice and we've got to hang out.
Guest:And so that's been the highlight for me.
Guest:I got off stage.
Guest:I sang and Patti Smith was stuck in traffic.
Guest:She was supposed to come sing with him at Newport.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I got this text message that just said, Patti Smith stuck in traffic.
Guest:Do you want to come sing me and Bobby McGee with Chris Christopherson?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was in the middle of an interview with Rolling Stone and I just was like, I got to leave.
Guest:I ran over there and got on stage with him.
Guest:And it was the coolest thing ever.
Guest:He like leaned over in my ear and he just said, you sound beautiful on stage.
Guest:I get off.
Guest:I'm like, it's like the best natural high I'd ever had.
Guest:Oh, that's amazing.
Guest:When did that happen?
Guest:That happened at Newport, just like a week and a half.
Guest:really yeah i'll send you a little video of it and how how's he he's good he's um you know he's dealing with um lyme lyme disease he's misdiagnosed they thought that he had alzheimer's and um he got it probably from what his wife thinks is crawling around on a floor during like the floor of a forest picked up a tick during a movie oh and just never got diagnosed oh wow
Guest:So he's having a lot of memory issues.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:But he can still remember his songs and remember how to play them.
Guest:And it's like the Glen Campbell thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's just so cool to see.
Marc:He's heavy, man.
Marc:He's a heavy presence.
Guest:Oh, my gosh.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So you want to play a song?
Marc:Can you?
Marc:Sure, sure.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Hold on.
Marc:I'm going to stop this and we'll set up.
Guest:I'm going to do this song that is the B-side for a 7-inch we did at Third Man.
Guest:It's called Desperate and Depressed.
Desperate and Depressed
Guest:I'm pissed off at the number, the people that I meet, who go to shake my hand with a vibe for up their sleeve.
Guest:They freeze me out in the winter, burn me up all summer, try to take my money when I'm desperate and depressed to get up there.
Guest:i played for free and paid for the miles on my truck got alone sleep in the motel cause the worry keeps me up it almost drives me crazy thinking about my baby and how he's gonna love me if i'm desperate and depressed can't get no rest mom never told me things would be
Guest:But if I can't find the money, then I can't buy the time.
Guest:Oh, I'm stuck here making someone else's dime.
Guest:I busped in Sarasota, made 27 bucks.
Guest:I wept for Richard Manuel thinking I might have his luck.
Guest:But you've talked behind my back.
Guest:Oh, don't stab me.
Guest:Oh, please, somebody tell me how to make it stop.
Guest:This world feels like a roller coaster.
Guest:I just can't get off.
Guest:Tried rehab and probation.
Guest:Tried self-medication.
Guest:But none of that can cure you when you're desperate and depressed.
Guest:What else is left?
Guest:Dad tried to warn me that there'd be hell to pay.
Guest:But if I can't find the money, then I can't buy the life.
Guest:Oh, 10% and nothing ain't a dime.
Guest:So don't you try to sell me back what's mine.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Thank you so much.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:That sounded good.
Guest:That was fun.
Marc:Nice meeting you.
Guest:You too.
Guest:Thanks for having me.
Marc:How great is she?
Marc:Seriously.
Marc:I'm not just, you know, I don't have her up on a pedestal.
Marc:I don't have a crush on her.
Marc:I just think she's great.
Marc:I have a little crush on her.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com and check those tour dates.
Marc:Carnegie's almost done.
Marc:Almost sold out.
Marc:Might be.
Marc:I got to check.
Marc:Got Chicago coming up.
Marc:Nashville, Tallahassee.
Marc:Dates in the spring.
Marc:Connecticut, upstate New York.
Marc:Just go to the website.
Marc:Get the poster.
Marc:Do what you got to do.
Marc:Boomer lives!
you